Tag: infinity war criticism

How did Marvel fuck up IW? That movie was gold and highly entertaining, had me on the edge of my seat the entire time… The ending wasn’t pleasant off course, but honestly, it was brilliant cinema!

iamanartichoke:

thatvermilionflycatcher:

maneth985:

mastreworld:

scintillatingshortgirl19:

lokiloveforever:

nikkoliferous:

iamanartichoke:

1. 90% of the movie was ruined by Loki’s death scene in the very beginning. I have talked multiple times about how stupid and full of plot holes that scene was, anyway, not to mention how pointless Loki’s death was in general. I’d link, but it’s 1am and I’m lazy, so you can take my word for it. 

2. Speaking of Loki’s death, though, the Russos have gone back and forth on the reason for Loki’s death – first they say it’s sacrifice for Thor, then they say it’s his punishment for disobedience, then they say it’s the conclusion of his arc, to accept himself as Thor’s brother before he dies a hero, etc. They can’t seem to figure out why Loki really died, except that they didn’t know what to do with him and killing him is convenient. 

3. Thanos’s motivation is stupid as fuck. For one thing, wiping out half of the population isn’t the logical solution to the problem. He could have used the Infinity Gauntlet to create more resources, or go back in time to before Titan died, or done any number of things that didn’t involve murdering half of the universe. He came to that particular solution because he likes murder and death and torment and torture (just look at what he did to Gamora and Nebula, whom he claimed as his children). The narrative ignores this and tries to paint Thanos as this sympathetic villain who “maybe has a point,” which is not only illogical but also kind of gross. Not to mention, the Russos said that the Snap got rid of half of the plants and animals, as well as people, anyway – meaning there is now exactly the same proportion of people to resources and Thanos accomplished absolutely nothing. 

4. The movie is full of plot holes. Just to name a few: in Thor Ragnarok, Dr. Strange says he keeps a “watch list” of potential threats to Earth; in IW, he has no idea who Thanos is. Thanos tells Gamora that, by killing half of her planet, the remaining half of her people are now thriving, but the first GotG told us that Gamora was the last remaining member of her race. Where was the Hulk when Asgard was being slaughtered, and where did Loki disappear to for five whole minutes before he reappeared and died? 

5. The narrative implies that Thanos truly loves Gamora, and that he was right to sacrifice her because it allowed him to get the Soul Stone and continue on his mission. Gamora says, “This isn’t love,” but the fact that Thanos does get the stone after killing her is the narrative saying that yes, this is love, the only way Thanos knows how but love, nonetheless. Which is … really not okay, but other people have gone into much better meta and analysis on this than I can at the moment. 

6. The entire Wanda and Vision relationship was poorly developed and dragged out far too long. In a movie about all of the superheroes coming together and the culmination of all of the characters at their disposal, they chose to focus a good portion of the plot on a couple that was, I’m sorry, boring. I didn’t care if Vision died because their relationship wasn’t fleshed out or built up at all. We’re just supposed to accept it as true love and feel bad for them. 

7. The ending would have had much more impact if they weren’t so obviously going to bring back all of those characters, anyway. Like, they are literally filming Spiderman 2 right now – of course Peter Parker will be back. Of course Dr. Strange, T’Challa, Bucky, etc, will be back. They made such a big deal about the “stakes being so high” in this movie, but all the stakes led us to was a gratuitously tragic ending that everyone knows will be undone, anyway, so the only deaths that will stick will be Loki’s, Gamora’s, and Vision’s – aka, the only characters not killed by the Snap, and two out of three of those characters were killed by their abusers and somehow that’s okay. 

8. I will grant you, the cinematography was good and the music was nice. Also, there were some funny parts, mostly thanks to the Guardians still being in character because James Gunn was able to have a hand in portraying them. 

But, yeah. Marvel fucked it up. The last ten years of movies could have culminated in the most epic of epic villains, if the Russos hadn’t gotten sidetracked by wanting to replicate Loki’s popularity (and Kilmonger’s, later) by making Thanos sympathetic, if they hadn’t ditched the “courting Death” motivation, if they hadn’t gotten rid of Joss Whedon, if they hadn’t tried to literally replicate Steve’s plotline with Thor (Steve lost everything and that worked out okay, so let’s have Thor lose everything, too!), or if they had hired some writers who knew what the fuck they were doing. Marvel fucked up Infinity War, and this is the hill I’ll die on, I’m not changing my mind. 

You can always tell which viewers on Tumblr judge movies based on “Did it look cool? Was it witty?” and which viewers judge movies on “And did it make any fucking sense?” I really wish the average moviegoer had higher standards is what I’m saying, I guess.

And I want to address something because it’s a silly argument I’ve heard from some people in defense of bad fantasy/sci-fi in general: suspension of disbelief is for things like ‘this character is bulletproof’ or ‘this character can shoot lasers out of their eyes’. Shit like that. It’s not for justifying nonsensical character motivations or completely ignoring established canon. If that’s your argument–that superhero movies don’t have to make sense because they’re superhero movies–you’re just being lazy. At least find a better excuse for not caring.

ALL OF THIS!!!

Thanos was alot scarier when his motives were to court Death. Marvel spent all that time building him up as incredibly dark, ominous, and decidedly unsympathetic, and then all of a sudden try to turn him into this “psychopath with a heart of gold” crap? He may torture and murder, but he cares! So they can sell Thanos t-shirts and child-sized guantlets. And sending the message that yes, you can hurt, mutilate, and torture someone and still call that love. It’s sick.

I think they got really careless as to how to end Loki’s “arc”, because the last we heard, Loki was threatened with a fate worse than pain itself, but the confrontation between Thanos and Loki made it seem like they barely had any kind of prior association. Like they just slapped something together to wrap up Loki’s story and get him out of the way before the movie even officially starts. They have him say all these things that’s supposed to make us believe that he’s come “full circle” to the point where he has no story of his own left, and all that’s left for him to do is sacrifice himself for Thor, like a good little plot device, motivating Thor and his Manpain.

And sorry, but the ending was nothing like the beginning. The Avengers dissolved to dust. It’s not like we got an extremely brutal, extremely violent, up-close shot of their excruciating dying process. And people can be pretty much assured of their return. It’s not like Marvel went out of their way to tell us otherwise, like saying “no resurrections this time” or anything.

I remember back when I was young and innocent (aka, before April 2018) and expected this movie to be so amazing. I mean, there was a small part of me every once in a while that would say, don’t get your hopes up too much, they could fuck it up. But then I thought, nah, it’s Marvel, they won’t mess this one up, it’s too important of a film!

And here we are. 

Same here. I thought; this is what it all comes down to after ten years. It’s bound to be epic!

And… it wasn’t.

For me the movie was epic and entertaining, just the beginning was fucked up for reasons already stated and the ending was just….left me feeling nothing. We know they’ll return so maybe that doesn’t make it so shocking? Dunno.

I believe that the main problem with IW is plot because the Russos suck at plot. They are great at action, somewhat good at pacing, good at characterization when they like the character, very bad at it when they don’t care, and AWFUL at plot. CACW is the glaring example of this. Does anyone remember Zemo’s motivations and plan? The Russos just decide which cool scenes they want to happen and then force coincidences and make characters do OOC or just plainly stupid things to make that happen.

Because AoU is a generally disliked movie, nobody seems to notice how different AoU!Vision is from CACW!Vision. CACW is a plot device, because the Russos didn’t care about him in the least.

Something similar happened with Thor and the Asgardians. They couldn’t care less for them, so they just pushed them out of the way. They killed Loki because he was the one who knew Thanos’ plan the best and therefore he could be useful in dealing with him, which would have produced a different outcome. The whole Nidavellir plot was a waste of time designed to keep Thor out of the fight for the length of time needed, and to split the Guardians. Thor didn’t need an axe and didn’t need an eye. One-eyed Thor is one of the little serious symbols Taika put in Ragnarok, because in a way Thor is the new allfather. But I digress.

The whole “kill Vision”/”don’t kill Vision” thing is another distraction. It was known since Thor The Dark World that the Infinity Stones are indestructible (Wanda shouldn’t be able to destroy one of them, it is not possible, but it isn’t politically correct to point out that and risk being called a misogynist). Killing or not killing Vision shouldn’t be relevant because the gem itself couldn’t be destroyed but PLOT REASONS.

We cannot have Tony call Steve, so Ebony Maw must show up EXACTLY when Tony is about to press the button.

We need a battle in Wakanda, because it would be really epic, so we make up something about Strange seeing possible futures and giving up the time stone for mysterious reasons (and risking several wrong outcomes) because “it was the only way” (That’s CHEAP).

When you watch a movie and every emotional or bad thing that happens comes to be because of plot conveniences, you feel cheated. And that makes of a movie a bad movie.

Reblogging for @thatvermilionflycatcher‘s A+ addition. 

Sorry to keep harping on this, but the Russos weren’t the ones who *wrote* CACW and IW; they just *directed* them. The writers who are responsible for all those egregious plot holes and mischaracterizations designed to lead to a pointlessly ~edgy~ but ultimately stakes-free foreordained conclusion are Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. They also wrote most of Thor: The Dark World; they were responsible for the decision to fridge Frigga to bring her sons together, and they intended to kill Loki permanently before Feige decided to bring him back because a) test audiences thought it was a trick and b) Loki was really popular at the time.

Otherwise, @thatvermilionflycatcher is entirely correct. Thanks for making note of how CACW trashed Vision’s characterization. Whedon wrote him as an otherworldly, slightly uncanny inhuman intelligence; Markus & McFeely wrote “I am a robot meep meep moop.”

iamanartichoke:

sabbykatt3:

i-need-a-hero-i-need-a-loki:

Russo brothers with Loki in infinity war:

Shame and opprobrium where it’s due: the people who wrote the screenplay for Infinity War are Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. I blame them more than the Russo brothers for the bullshit that was IW … though of course the Russos executed Markus & McFeely’s shitty vision in predictably shitty fashion.

The Purpose of Loki’s Death

yume-no-fantasy:

The Purpose of Loki’s Death

Tom has mentioned during the ACE comic con panel that he has known about the scene for two years.

This was what Thanos said in this test footage: “I got the information that I need, and now I have to break your neck. It’s just the way it is.”

For reference, here’s some stuff from the Avengers: Infinity War director’s audio commentary during the opening scene:

McFeely: We’re starting the script in December, say January of 2016. There’s no Ragnarok script. They’re in in various stages of development, and so the first scene of this movie changed a bunch. And until we figured out that they were gonna end on a trip off of a destroyed Asgard, we didn’t know where Thanos would find Loki.

Markus: We did know we wanted Thanos to come to Loki. And we would find him in any… We have drafts of him in any number of places.

McFeely: It establishes a vengeance story for Thor by taking out his brother and arguably, his best friend.

Joe Russo: Part of what we wanted to do out of the gate was to unsettle you as you’re watching the film. You’re sitting in the theatre thinking, “Most characters in the Marvel Universe have been safe for a decade.” And we wanted to knock you off-kilter and make the audience understand that the stakes were going to be significant and the cost was going to be very high in the movie.

Markus: And in that regard, this scene does away with a lot of things from the ongoing MCU. That was… The first MacGuffin from the first Captain America movie just got crushed and stuck into a glove.

Anthony: Bye bye, Tesseract.

Markus: And shortly, the villain from the first Avengers movie…

McFeely: Right. Arguably the best villain in the MCU…

Markus: …will achieve a similar end.

Anthony: Aside from establishing… introducing Thanos as our lead and POV in the movie, this scene also heavily kicks off Thor’s arc in the film.

Anthony: The one thing that’s wonderful, one thing we all really responded to about Thor is where he’s left at the end of Ragnarok with the destruction of Asgard… And there’s something fascinating about exporing these people as you strip away who they are and their built-out identities, and find out what’s left. I think we’re going through a very similar process with Thor in this film, especially with this scene, we’re sort of completing the experience that Ragnarok brought to Thor in the sense that we’re taking away the rest of everything away from him.

McFeely: And remember, he (Thanos) had a relationship with Loki even if it was off-screen where he entrusted him with a duty in Avengers 1 and Loki failed, so...

Joe: He’s making him pay.

McFeely: Yeah. Thanos has a long memory.

Anthony: Yep. Fair enough.

Part of an interview with the IW screenwriters:

Stephen McFeely: Hemsworth came to set, and went, “You guys really need to understand that we are doing something different with Ragnarok.” And we knew they were changing it some, but it was so early in the process, so we flew [Ragnarok screenwriter] Eric Pearson and [director] Taika Waititi in and we had long conversations with them. There are at least a couple of jokes in there Taika himself said in passing that we thought were gold. They showed us a few scenes, so we knew that Thor was being re-toned. And we needed to embrace that.

Christopher Markus: But it was also the realization that even in the “funny” one [Ragnarok], his father and his sister die, and that he’s almost becoming comically unlucky at this point, and to follow that to its natural conclusions.

So in summary, Loki’s death scene was decided since two years ago and he mainly died for the following purposes:

  1. Set the tone for the movie by showing Thanos’ cruelty
  2. For shock value
  3. Give place to the new “best” MCU villain Thanos
  4. Fuel Thor’s motivation for revenge, to further Thor’s storyline and character development from where he left off in Ragnarok 

Evidently, none of the above reasons has anything to do with Loki’s arc and character development.

In terms of narrative, it was mentioned in the IW commentary that here Thanos was actually punishing Loki for failing to fulfill his duty in the first Avengers film, but IMO that’s just a load of crap. Thanos was already going to leave the ship; it was Loki who suddenly popped up with his butter knife. Also, what Loki was promised in Avengers was this: “You will long for something as sweet as pain.”

But how could death be worse than pain for Loki, when he had already let himself die twice before? (Just in case anyone wishes to protest that he faked his own death in Ragnarok, please read this first)

In TDW he even said this: “If I am for the axe, then for mercy’s sake, just swing it.”

Loki isn’t afraid and does not cower in the face of death, unlike what had been portrayed of his character in Ragnarok, which was just OOC af. Though I’m glad they rectified this part of his character in IW, the way he died was just too needlessly brutal and meaningless, and also stupid. If the writers truly meant for Thanos to punish Loki in the worst possible way like what was foreshadowed in A1, to be honest it would make more sense to kill Thor instead (just saying). But as it is, the directors and writers were just making excuses and don’t actually care.

I assert that this is a direct result of Thor: Ragnarok. Those who don’t follow the Ragnarok discussions may think this is ridiculous, but really, it’s not. This was what I wrote on 20 Apr, before IW was released:

“…when you consider the fact that Thanos arrived right after he said that, and just minutes after he had told Loki ‘Maybe you’re not so bad after all’. It only proved Thor*’s opinion about Loki right–because of course Thor* can never be wrong–that Loki was just never-ending trouble. 

And what I’m worried about is that this will be taken into Infinity War and Loki will be made the scapegoat again.I don’t want Thor* to blame him again and make him feel like the only way he’ll be worthy of his brother’s love and forgiveness is to sacrifice himself to make up for his mistake of taking the Tesseract.”

I couldn’t believe this ended up being exactly what happened in IW, and I hated it so much. While the rest of the audience was laughing, my blood ran cold the moment Thor told Loki “you really are the worst brother”.

By now I think we can all agree that what Loki said—“I hereby pledge to you my undying fidelity”—was meant for Thor. If anyone’s not convinced, here:

‘Undying Fidelity’ was the title of the soundtrack that was playing from the instant Loki started saying ‘I, Loki, Prince of Asgard…’ to the moment Thor collapsed over his body.

Loki was crying when he said that. Assuming those were Loki’s tears (in character), then it was almost as if Loki had been prepared to die, as though his futile attempt at killing Thanos was deliberate. Why?!?!?! Just because Thor changed his mind about saying “maybe you’re not so bad after all” and told him he was the “worst brother”, so he wanted to prove his fidelity using his life??? It was foolish and OOC, is what I think. 

But then again, if we consider his character and their relationship in Ragnarok, it might not be that out of character after all… As a case in point, I’ve seen someone say this: 

If Loki couldn’t even trick Thor in Ragnarok, what makes you think he can outsmart Thanos?

In Ragnarok, his character was twisted and reduced to comic relief, his sacrifice and redemption in TDW was made to seem like a sham and a joke. A previously complex, multifaceted character was simplified into a misbehaving and terrible brother who would betray his only remaining family for the sake of money(?!). When the God of Mischief was asked whether he had a better idea than “get help”, he answered “no” as though it was supposed to be obvious. The graceful, regal, composed and witty prince of Asgard was played for a fool throughout most of the film. His brother criticized him in a way that made it sound like he had always been incorrigible, even though that’s definitely not true if you watched the previous films. Only when he compromised and became “good” on Thor*’s terms after listening to Thor*’s bullshit of a speech was he deemed redeemable.

In short, Ragnarok “put him in his place”, downplayed his powers, stripped him of his purpose, wits, importance and independence as a character, never gave him the equality and respect he wanted. 

The IW writers said this:

“…the first scene of this movie changed a bunch. And until we figured out that they were gonna end on a trip off of a destroyed Asgard, we didn’t know where Thanos would find Loki.”

“We did know we wanted Thanos to come to Loki. And we would find him in any… We have drafts of him in any number of places.”

But with how Ragnarok ended up, it became entirely too convenient. It made him too easy to kill off—they could simply make him sacrifice himself for his brother again, since his sacrifice in TDW was retconned into a faked death anyway. 

There wasn’t a need to think of an intricate plot for a character who no longer seemed important—they only needed to put the final nail in the coffin. Since it would serve all their purposes anyway, why not?

Loki was crying when he said that. Assuming those were Loki’s tears (in character), then it was almost as if Loki had been prepared to die, as though his futile attempt at killing Thanos was deliberate. Why?!?!?! Just because Thor changed his mind about saying “maybe you’re not so bad after all” and told him he was the “worst brother”, so he wanted to prove his fidelity using his life???

That suggestion about why Loki apparently deliberately sacrifices himself (to no useful purpose, btw – he knew he couldn’t actually hurt Thanos, and his death did nothing to help Thor’s situation) matches up exactly with @illwynd‘s analysis in this post: that what Ragnarok did to Thor and Loki’s relationship made Loki’s self-immolation the only place left for them to go.

Telling someone who has known trauma around identity and belonging “who you are is as a person is inadequate and I will disown you unless you change to suit my standards” is… 

… What Loki needed was to be able to trust in Thor’s love for him: that it wasn’t just circumstantial. That he, as a person, mattered to Thor, and that Thor would be able to re-accept him after his transgressions and would continue to value him. … 

But the above scene from Ragnarok, Thor’s ultimatum, would utterly shatter Loki’s trust in all of those things. …

And to me it is fitting, under those circumstances, that Loki would go and get himself killed kinda-sorta on purpose at the first opportunity as well. I mean, last time he was in a similar situation of having been rejected by those he cared about, he threw himself into an abyss. And this time he even got to continue to try to prove himself to Thor while doing it, just like one might feel compelled to do after such an ultimatum.

And the thing is… even if Ragnarok hadn’t done away with Loki’s cleverness and planning ability, it might not be completely OOC for Loki to basically commit suicide in order to prove to Thor that he was good now. After all, Thor* told him that his identity as “the god of mischief” wasn’t valuable; he needed to become someone different, someone straightforwardly heroic. Loki couldn’t trust Thor to trust him, so if he had made a serious effort to do what I think he should have done (and what I think he would have done if Joss Whedon had still been writing…) – namely, insinuate himself into Thanos’s team to “make amends” for his previous failure – he would have feared, rightly, that Thor just thought he was turning wickedly self-interested again, changing his colors to suit whichever way the wind was blowing. Ragnarok would have actually needed to reestablish their mutual trust in order for that gambit to work (as I touched on in this post). As it is… well, as illwynd pointed out, we saw Loki’s response to rejection in Thor 1, when his planning abilities were perfectly intact. (And as usual, anyone who  says that was not a suicide attempt, just an attempt to escape punishment, can piss up a rope).

incredifishface:

philosopherking1887:

@foundlingmother replied to your post

“Ugh, I really don’t like it when people reblog stuff about Loki’s…”

Yeah, Thor 100% has the capacity to understand Loki’s grievances, he just didn’t get a chance to because he wasn’t even in Ragnarok, Thor* was. Heimdall might not be a saint, but I think it’s wrong to assume he saw Loki with Thanos. It seems unlikely he would have mentioned none of that. As for Loki pulling a double-cross… while I get the appeal of this, it seems like such an unrealistic culmination of Loki’s arc even ignoring Ragnarok.

I’m not sure I think it would have been Whedon’s angle.

I mean, I know that Thanos behaves kind of stupid in GotG, but I feel like having him accept Loki as his ally with all that happens… would have undermined him as a villain.

Right… I wasn’t completely on board with all of @juliabohemian‘s analysis on my other post. She and I seem to fundamentally disagree about Thor’s moral character and disposition toward Loki as shown in previous films: I think the character called “Thor” in Ragnarok is a radical departure from Thor as we’ve seen him in previous movies, which is why I refer to him as Thor*; she, and many other non-Thorki-shipping Loki fans, think that Ragnarok amplifies Thor’s previous tendencies toward self-absorption and insensitivity, but is not completely discontinuous with the character. I don’t see us coming to full agreement on that issue anytime soon, and that’s fine.

As to the issue of the double-cross being “an unrealistic culmination of Loki’s arc”… I actually disagree with you there. If you just mean it would have been unrealistic for Thanos to accept Loki as his ally, I do see where you’re coming from there, but there are ways around it. The idea of having Thanos take Thor as a hostage is one way. That way Thanos wouldn’t have to trust Loki; he would just have to trust Loki’s unwillingness to allow harm to come to Thor, which given what Thanos knows about him he absolutely would and should. I think that would appeal to Thanos for a couple of reasons:

(1) Good old-fashioned sadism. Whedon’s Thanos clearly wasn’t into any of that pseudo-benevolent Malthusian bullshit; the reference to “courting death” in the Avengers tag scene indicated that Whedon was picturing a Thanos obsessed with Lady Death like he is in the comics. No attempt would have been made to make that Thanos sympathetic. That Thanos is a creepy fucker who would have gotten a kick out of torturing Thor physically (just a little) and torturing Loki psychologically with the knowledge that a step out of line would mean pain and/or permanent damage to Thor. Ooh, maybe he would have cut off a finger or a toe when Loki made a decision to undermine Thanos that he was just barely able to pass off as an incompetent fuck-up. And Loki would have known that… and wouldn’t have hesitated to trade his own pain, but when it’s Thor’s it’s so much worse. (Should I be worried about myself, coming up with this shit?)

(2) It would mean that Loki wasn’t a completely wasted investment. If Thanos were a good economist (which clearly he isn’t…), he wouldn’t buy into the sunk costs fallacy, and he’d be perfectly happy cutting his losses and cutting Loki loose… but I think he’s into narrative neatness (OK, this is just “Abyss” Thanos now, never mind what Whedon would have done) and he would like the idea of making Loki useful after all. Plus, there must have been a reason he thought it was a good idea to trust Loki with the Tesseract retrieval mission – and the Mind Stone! – in the first place; he must think he’s good at some stuff.

If by “unrealistic culmination of Loki’s arc,” you mean it wouldn’t be a realistic place for Loki’s character progression to go, then I definitely disagree. Part of what was so objectionable about Thor*’s treatment of Loki in Ragnarok was that he was effectively demanding that Loki become a different person as a condition of maintaining a relationship with Thor* (classic sign of an abusive relationship, btw). Of course, that demand was also based on the faulty premise, assumed by Ragnarok but by none of the previous films, that Loki’s basic nature or “essence” was the “god of mischief” who betrays people out of hedonistic self-interest or just because he thinks it’s fun. I mean, it’s not unreasonable for Thor to demand that Loki stop betraying him, but when you’re working on the assumption that that’s what Loki has been doing their whole lives, instead of just for the past 6 really shitty years out of 1000+, and that it’s just in his nature to do that, then you’ve really gotta wonder why Thor put up with it for as long as he did… and also you don’t give an abusive “change fundamentally or I’m leaving” ultimatum; you just fucking leave.

One of the best parts of TDW, which totally got me the first time I watched it, was when Loki makes a show of betraying Thor to trick Malekith into drawing the Aether from Jane. That was absolutely brilliant because it was Thor and Loki, together, taking advantage of some of Loki’s most distinctive features – illusion magic, acting ability, and a reputation for treachery – to achieve a good aim they shared. Having Loki pull a long con on Thanos would be that gambit writ large. And ideally, this time – in order for it to represent a progression from the incident in TDW rather than just a replay – Thor would not be on on the plan… but he would indicate, perhaps while conversing in a dungeon with one of Thanos’s other unfortunate prisoners, that he believes Loki is still on his side and is planning to double-cross Thanos in the end. He doesn’t know; he harbors some doubts; but he believes. That would represent character growth for both Thor and Loki: Thor is forced to trust Loki for a long period of uncertainty; and Loki is, on some level, trusting Thor to trust him. That, too, would be a source of anguish for Loki – wondering whether Thor thinks that Loki has betrayed him again, more grievously than ever – but he hopes, and maybe even believes (William James will-to-believe style, because it helps), that Thor believes Loki is doing the right thing, in his indirect, strategic way.

@fuckyeahrichardiii, @illwynd, @incredifishface, @seidrade, I’m bringing y’all in on my harebrained IW do-over ideas because I’m curious to know what you think. (I’m never writing this as a fic, because I’m not that good at plot details, but just the outline.)

i appreciate it, but I think I’ll pass. I can’t engage this level of mind power into fixing a movie I wouldn’t even have made. I simply don’t want to give Thanos a second of my mental time. He’s a stupid character with stupid motivations and he bores me. I would have preferred ye olde “rule the universe hur hur hur” kind of villain 145977577647 times, and failing that, the Thanos in love with Hela / Death was a good route to go to.  

So all the artistic and narrative decisions started from a point which for me was already irreparably stupid and boring. they killed Loki in the first 5 minutes, and that’s when they lost me and never got me back. 

If I was to conjecture ways to improve this film, it would be with an entirely different villain, with different motivations, and so my contribution as to what part Thor and Loki played in that imaginary story that never was is moot. 

i’m bitter and miserable and you’ll find me in the universe next door raving about the Transformers. Now THAT is a plot.

I completely agree with you about the version of Thanos we saw in Infinity War, as written by those dimwitted hacks-turned-freshman boys in philosophy seminar Markus & McFeely and made “sympathetic” by the equally sophomoric Russos. I’m only interested in reimagining the movie with the Thanos who was in love with Death/Hela, largely because in the fic I’ve been writing about what happened to Loki between Thor and The Avengers, that was the motivation I was assuming (and actually wrote in, long before we got the ridiculous movie version of Thanos). And also because I’m fantasizing about the version of IW that Joss Whedon would have written if he hadn’t gotten fed up with Marvel’s meddling in AOU. I really don’t think he would have killed Loki in the first 5 minutes, because he was the one who established the connection with Thanos in the first place and would have wanted to give it a satisfying payoff, and aside from that all the evidence suggests that he was genuinely impressed with the work Hiddleston and Branagh put into building Loki’s character and was invested in continuing to give him depth and interest.

I’m also vaguely assuming in this imagining that we got the version of Ragnarok that we deserved, though I’m also not completely clear on what that would have looked like. Thor and Loki would have had a real fucking conversation, for one thing. I think it was written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. Hela actually had half of her face missing (Guillermo loves that shit), and she and Loki bonded over being seen by the world and themselves as monsters. Maybe she was Loki’s mother, not Thor’s sister. And she definitely didn’t die at the end, because she needs to show up as Thanos’s would-be love interest in IW.

@foundlingmother replied to your post

“Ugh, I really don’t like it when people reblog stuff about Loki’s…”

Yeah, Thor 100% has the capacity to understand Loki’s grievances, he just didn’t get a chance to because he wasn’t even in Ragnarok, Thor* was. Heimdall might not be a saint, but I think it’s wrong to assume he saw Loki with Thanos. It seems unlikely he would have mentioned none of that. As for Loki pulling a double-cross… while I get the appeal of this, it seems like such an unrealistic culmination of Loki’s arc even ignoring Ragnarok.

I’m not sure I think it would have been Whedon’s angle.

I mean, I know that Thanos behaves kind of stupid in GotG, but I feel like having him accept Loki as his ally with all that happens… would have undermined him as a villain.

Right… I wasn’t completely on board with all of @juliabohemian‘s analysis on my other post. She and I seem to fundamentally disagree about Thor’s moral character and disposition toward Loki as shown in previous films: I think the character called “Thor” in Ragnarok is a radical departure from Thor as we’ve seen him in previous movies, which is why I refer to him as Thor*; she, and many other non-Thorki-shipping Loki fans, think that Ragnarok amplifies Thor’s previous tendencies toward self-absorption and insensitivity, but is not completely discontinuous with the character. I don’t see us coming to full agreement on that issue anytime soon, and that’s fine.

As to the issue of the double-cross being “an unrealistic culmination of Loki’s arc”… I actually disagree with you there. If you just mean it would have been unrealistic for Thanos to accept Loki as his ally, I do see where you’re coming from there, but there are ways around it. The idea of having Thanos take Thor as a hostage is one way. That way Thanos wouldn’t have to trust Loki; he would just have to trust Loki’s unwillingness to allow harm to come to Thor, which given what Thanos knows about him he absolutely would and should. I think that would appeal to Thanos for a couple of reasons:

(1) Good old-fashioned sadism. Whedon’s Thanos clearly wasn’t into any of that pseudo-benevolent Malthusian bullshit; the reference to “courting death” in the Avengers tag scene indicated that Whedon was picturing a Thanos obsessed with Lady Death like he is in the comics. No attempt would have been made to make that Thanos sympathetic. That Thanos is a creepy fucker who would have gotten a kick out of torturing Thor physically (just a little) and torturing Loki psychologically with the knowledge that a step out of line would mean pain and/or permanent damage to Thor. Ooh, maybe he would have cut off a finger or a toe when Loki made a decision to undermine Thanos that he was just barely able to pass off as an incompetent fuck-up. And Loki would have known that… and wouldn’t have hesitated to trade his own pain, but when it’s Thor’s it’s so much worse. (Should I be worried about myself, coming up with this shit?)

(2) It would mean that Loki wasn’t a completely wasted investment. If Thanos were a good economist (which clearly he isn’t…), he wouldn’t buy into the sunk costs fallacy, and he’d be perfectly happy cutting his losses and cutting Loki loose… but I think he’s into narrative neatness (OK, this is just “Abyss” Thanos now, never mind what Whedon would have done) and he would like the idea of making Loki useful after all. Plus, there must have been a reason he thought it was a good idea to trust Loki with the Tesseract retrieval mission – and the Mind Stone! – in the first place; he must think he’s good at some stuff.

If by “unrealistic culmination of Loki’s arc,” you mean it wouldn’t be a realistic place for Loki’s character progression to go, then I definitely disagree. Part of what was so objectionable about Thor*’s treatment of Loki in Ragnarok was that he was effectively demanding that Loki become a different person as a condition of maintaining a relationship with Thor* (classic sign of an abusive relationship, btw). Of course, that demand was also based on the faulty premise, assumed by Ragnarok but by none of the previous films, that Loki’s basic nature or “essence” was the “god of mischief” who betrays people out of hedonistic self-interest or just because he thinks it’s fun. I mean, it’s not unreasonable for Thor to demand that Loki stop betraying him, but when you’re working on the assumption that that’s what Loki has been doing their whole lives, instead of just for the past 6 really shitty years out of 1000+, and that it’s just in his nature to do that, then you’ve really gotta wonder why Thor put up with it for as long as he did… and also you don’t give an abusive “change fundamentally or I’m leaving” ultimatum; you just fucking leave.

One of the best parts of TDW, which totally got me the first time I watched it, was when Loki makes a show of betraying Thor to trick Malekith into drawing the Aether from Jane. That was absolutely brilliant because it was Thor and Loki, together, taking advantage of some of Loki’s most distinctive features – illusion magic, acting ability, and a reputation for treachery – to achieve a good aim they shared. Having Loki pull a long con on Thanos would be that gambit writ large. And ideally, this time – in order for it to represent a progression from the incident in TDW rather than just a replay – Thor would not be on on the plan… but he would indicate, perhaps while conversing in a dungeon with one of Thanos’s other unfortunate prisoners, that he believes Loki is still on his side and is planning to double-cross Thanos in the end. He doesn’t know; he harbors some doubts; but he believes. That would represent character growth for both Thor and Loki: Thor is forced to trust Loki for a long period of uncertainty; and Loki is, on some level, trusting Thor to trust him. That, too, would be a source of anguish for Loki – wondering whether Thor thinks that Loki has betrayed him again, more grievously than ever – but he hopes, and maybe even believes (William James will-to-believe style, because it helps), that Thor believes Loki is doing the right thing, in his indirect, strategic way.

@fuckyeahrichardiii, @illwynd, @incredifishface, @seidrade, I’m bringing y’all in on my harebrained IW do-over ideas because I’m curious to know what you think. (I’m never writing this as a fic, because I’m not that good at plot details, but just the outline.)

How Ragnarok Took Everything From Loki and Its Consequences

lucianalight:

I wanted to write this post since I
watched TR but I wasn’t calm enough for it until now. Even writing so little
about how TR unfairly treated Loki’s character and disrespected him and his
fans in my TR reviews made me angry enough to start shouting in my head and
rendered me unable to write it the way I wanted. Then IW happened and it was
the cause for another wave of rage in me. So it took me a long time.

We always talk about how TR
disrespected Loki and took away a lot of his canon characterizations and
motives and his arc from him. I noticed we never explained it in details and it
caused a lot of misunderstandings about why we hate TR and what we mean. So
this is a detailed explanation of how TR took everything from Loki.

Keep reading

Again, great analysis, and I just have to highlight the conclusion:

“By dismissing Loki’s pain, the narrative paints Loki as someone who is always in the wrong and Thor as blameless in everything. It leads to Thor dismissing Loki’s pain and it leads to disguising Thor and Loki’s imbalanced relationship (Thor as superior and Loki as inferior the way they started in the first Thor movie) as reconciliation and healing.

“You know what all of this led to right? A Loki robbed of his sacrifice, bravery, intelligence and planning skills, his magic and power had no place in IW. He was useless in the authors’ minds. He was healed after all! What else could Loki do except failing at tricking Thanos when he could be outsmarted by Thor and Dr. Strange. What else could Loki do except attacking Thanos with a tiny dagger when that was all the weapons he was left with? At least they gave him his bravery back so his stupid attack makes some sense. In their minds the only way his story could end, and he could completely be redeemed was a true sacrifice (which was pointless since Thanos could still kill Thor) in which he actually dies with no resurrection. This is how they took away Loki from us, by taking away everything from his character first and then when he had nothing left they killed him.”

This is why I’m still so pissed about Loki’s death in IW. Not just because he died – not just because it was unnecessarily brutal and graphic – but because it made him into a plot device rather than a character; because it passed the judgment that he had outlived his interest and usefulness and could only serve as a functionary in someone else’s story. It wasted the potential for a payoff of the connection to Thanos established in The Avengers; it showed that the creators (writers, producers, and directors) did not care enough about Loki’s character to give us that payoff or even tell us what the hell happened with Loki and Thanos. But Loki’s treatment in Ragnarok should have shown us that it was inevitable. Of course Markus & McFeely couldn’t know how thoroughly Taika Waititi was planning to ridicule and emasculate Loki, but if they saw the basic script, they might have had some idea of how his power, intelligence, and complexity were going to be minimized, and how the narrative was going to tie a neat little bow on his “redemption” and “reconciliation” with Thor. And of course these movies have no time for recovery from trauma, except maybe if your name is Tony Stark (and he has RDJ going to bat for him).

I was glad that Loki turned out not to be dead at the end of TDW because I thought he was going to have more time to develop his relationship with Thor and achieve genuine reconciliation, that we might find out what happened with Thanos, that Thor might finally ask what happened, that they might confront the prejudice against Frost Giants that led both of them to kill so many in Thor 1. But now I agree with @lucianalight: I would rather that he had died being noble and clever (turning on the grenade while impaled!!) than live to have everything that made him a magnificent character negated and shat on.

A Different Story

lucianalight:

I think you know me by now. This is a long post.

*Major Spoilers for Avengers Infinity War and AoA*

Keep reading

I can’t believe I hadn’t read and reblogged this before… so much of it is so perfect, I kind of want to highlight the whole thing, but I’ll keep myself to a few paragraphs:

“Why do we care so much? Because we see ourselves in Loki. We, who felt different, were different, and were alone because of it. We, who knew how it felt to be ridiculed, rejected, vilified and despite all our efforts, never accepted, never loved for who we are. We, who hide all our hurt and pain under a mask but at some point we just couldn’t take it anymore and exploded. So we identified with Loki. …

“To a number of fans and audience, especially male audience with beliefs from a toxic masculinity culture this seemed threatening that a queer coded and/or feminine coded villain gets more female fans than heavily masculine coded heroes. They hated him. And they started to belittle his fans, by implying that Loki was only popular because of Tom or because he is pretty! That Loki’s fans are a bunch of fools that only lust after him for his looks. It seems they deliberately don’t want to understand. Still, it doesn’t really matter, right? Marvel won’t force the ideas of toxic masculinity on us, right? Wrong!

“Ragnarok happened.

“Ragnarok happened and it stepped on everything that was Loki. His characterization, his arc, his powers, his goals, his fans. Ragnarok ridiculed Loki in every possible way. It insulted us, made fun of us, told us that we were a bunch of fools for caring for Loki because he is just a stupid troublemaker. Ragnarok was a disaster of toxic masculinity.

“We saw it. We saw everything that was wrong with Ragnarok and pointed it out. But what were [I amend to: ARE] we called? Stans, apologists, haters, antis. …

“He didn’t deserve to die as a plot device to give Thor sth to avenge. We didn’t deserve this. We deserved to see the god of mischief in all his trickster glory. ‘No resurrection this time’ was directed to us, not Thor. They were telling us that you can rage and try to fight, but at the end, you are nothing, you will be broken like a ragdoll so the real hero can be heroic. The story is not about you, it was never about you. You are just a tragedy, you don’t deserve happiness, you can only be redeemed by sacrificing yourself. …

“The fate of Gamora and Nebula is also angers me.  One gets killed in a disguise of love and the other gets tortured. The two characters that deserved to avenge themselves more than anyone, to get a chance for a proper fight, was used as plot devices. It’s disgusting! Gamora, Nebula and Loki, all feminine coded and/or queer coded characters were crushed by their masculine coded abuser. Toxic masculinity.”

Ragnarok and Infinity War were the triumph of toxic masculinity. For the people who will no doubt reply, “But Ragnarok was so great for queer representation!”… many people, some of whom are queer (I’m bi myself), strongly disagree. At the same time that Loki was more overtly coded as gay, he was made to look ridiculous, shallow, and incompetent. The other gay-coded character, the Grandmaster, was also depicted as ridiculous, and morally repugnant besides. This is not revolutionary; this is perfectly standard villainous queer-coding (thanks again, @fuckyeahrichardiii). The implied relationship between Loki and the Grandmaster cannot be anything other than predatory and opportunistic, which further reinforces negative stereotypes. Valkyrie’s bisexuality was not made explicit, unless you count the flashback scene with her presumed lover dying for her, which, again, is not revolutionary in any way (tragic dead lesbians, yay!).

Contrary to what a lot of Tumblr seems to think, white men do not have a monopoly on toxic masculinity. I’ve been seeing people make a point of adding “white” when talking about men who feel entitled to women’s bodies and attention – probably with the (admirable) aim to counter the *equally false* notion that non-white cultures are uniformly more misogynistic than white culture. Toxic masculinity manifests differently in different cultures, but the basic phenomenon crosses lines of race. We cannot assume that Ragnarok must be exempt from it because Taika Waititi is not white (or wears pineapple rompers); and a careful consideration of its characterization and tone – as well as the decision to replace Jane Foster, a woman whose strength is her intellect, with a woman who is “more Thor’s equal” because she can beat people up (adding Valkyrie would have been a much better decision, but we can’t have more than two central female characters, can we?) – yields the diagnosis that it drips with toxic masculinity.

toomanylokifeels:

philosopherking1887:

Unpopular opinion: the movie with the best characterization of a mature Thor is Avengers: Age of Ultron.

The opinions on quality of Thor’s maturity and growth across films will always be subjective, I believe, but Thor in Age of Ultron is underrated in this regard. I think it’s the first movie where we see Thor not necessarily in the process of becoming more mature, but being mature. It’s the first film where Thor isn’t just actively trying to overcome the mistakes of his youth, trying to find his own way in the universe, and/or fighting with sentimental emotions to do what’s right. 

I don’t think this opinion is unpopular simply because many people think that it is completely not true, but rather because this film is unpopular. It’s easy not to pay attention to Thor’s characterization when it’s not a fan favorite for a lot of people. From what I can remember, parts of the fandom were fizzling out and the excitement of the first Avengers film was wearing off. However, what I also remember was the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Thor despite it all. 

I believe that was in part because Thor was the mature one. Thor was the wise one. Thor was the patient one. Thor was willing to face many unknowns in order to make the right decisions. Thor embodied qualities that people wished were present amongst all the other heroes. Of course, this was all made possible by Thor’s growth over the previous films. Thor was relatively sheltered from consequence for a long time as a prince, but was forced to mature.  

Thor was more somber in Age of Ultron, due to the loss of his mother and his brother. While this could have made him self-destruct and I would not blame him for it, he chose to turn his mourning into something productive. He was shaken by the visions he was given, and chose to go out to find answers despite how frightening those answers may be. Furthermore, while his anger often gets the best of him, he only lost control on Tony Stark.

Why? …because he actually understood the gravity of Stark’s choices. Thor wasn’t having a tantrum. He wasn’t aggravated because he was prevented from doing something he wanted or needed to do. He wasn’t being impatient. He was angry because no one seems to be taking the situation as seriously as they should and if they are they’re wallowing in despair, while Thor has been working tirelessly to find solutions to a situation that could have been prevented. 

Thor was the mature one in that film, because he had to be. To me, that doesn’t mean that Thor needs to maintain a serious outlook and attitude across the films moving forward. Thor continues to make difficult decisions despite the amount of pain and loss it brings him, and he’s been able to do so with a serious attitude and with a sunny optimistic disposition as well. Age of Ultron Thor embodies maturity in a lot of ways, though, in a manner that stands out.

It’s just unfortunate that the movie does not equally stand out. 

Unpopular opinion #2: AOU is underrated, largely because people have the knee-jerk impulse to demonstrate their moral purity by hating on Joss Whedon for everything he does – not just his characterization of women, which does have some issues, but also his storytelling and characterization abilities more broadly. Plot-wise, AOU is no messier than Civil War; in terms of character arcs and philosophical depth, it’s in a different league entirely.

Unpopular opinion #3: Ragnarok does not show a mature Thor but “with a sunny optimistic disposition” instead of a serious one; it does not depict Thor at all. Infinity War attempts to get back to mature Thor, but is hampered by the need for some kind of continuity with Ragnarok (which showed no such consideration for its predecessors) and the fact that character was taking a backseat to a contrived plot throughout IW.

Unpopular opinion #1b: Thor in AOU is exactly what “funny Thor” should look like. His sense of humor is subtle and deadpan; he occasionally veers into the undignified, but never comes off as a buffoon.

twh-news:

Tom Hiddleston’s advice to Thanos

TH [starting at 3:20]: “Somebody said to me, and I genuinely can’t remember where I’ve read this, that every villain is a hero in his own mind. And I think that if you can allow the audience to see that perspective, that there is some kind of flawed but comprehensible logic in the villain’s motivation, that the audience can go, ‘Oh, you know what, he has a point’… and I actually felt like that with Killmonger, with Michael B. Jordan’s performance in Black Panther. You could go, ‘I kind of see his point of view,’ and I think it’s important for the audience, even though they can perhaps see that this is a… it’s going to get you nowhere, like revenge, often it gets you nothing, it’s a fool’s errand, it’s a cul-de-sac, it’s an evacuation of your own anger into the external world, but at least audiences can see that… they can go, ‘Well, I understand why that character is upset or angry.’ So I suppose it’s about access… trying to allow the audience to see that even if the motivations are not perfect, that somehow you can see the point of view. I wonder about Thanos. It’s interesting, it’s a really powerful character, and there’s something nihilistic about his motivation. He just wants to bring death. He wants to destroy half the universe. ‘Why?’ is the question I would ask. And I am sure they have answered it.”

They answered it all right… but it’s a fucking terrible answer. It’s the answer of a freshman boy in a philosophy seminar who read Ayn Rand and talks about it loudly at every opportunity.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)