Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

[Pariah Dog]

Vision and Jarvis turned out good, so I'd say Tony has a good track record.

Jarvis (Just A Rather Very Intelligent System not an AI) I don't think was sapient and Vision was a hail Mary play to stop the AI that Tony did create (Ultron) from making himself a super body and wiping out humanity.

[hyzmarca]

There's a reason why Thanos looks like a purple hulked out freak. Because he's supposed to be the inhuman villain that can only be stopped by violence and killing.

It's highly unlikely that Thanos will be stopped by violence, because Thanos is literally omnipotent. They tried violence and it didn't fucking work. There's not much left in their arsenal but emotional appeals and well-reasoned arguments. And the movie goes out of its way to humanize Thanos. Nah, the real reason he's a huge purple monster is that Darkseid was cooler than Metron.

[Chamomile]

Jarvis wasn't originally designed to be an AI, but by the beginning of Age of Ultron Tony had turned him into one by accident.

[Kaelik]

You absolutely could have a Well Intentioned Extremist villain that isn't stupid.

I mean, you could literally paint EVERY SINGLE REVOLUTION as that, even though we all agree that Tsars and Kings and aristocracies are actually problems that need solving and often can't be solved without violent revolution.

The problem with Thanos is he's trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist because he's too stupid to see the problem that does exist accurately.

If you look at the real world, we can absolutely give everyone in the world food, but we don't, because even though we have the ability, we have a system of inequality that devotes resources to whatever rich and powerful people want, and that means lots of poor people starve, both relative poor in america, and globally poor people in countries that don't have enough food while the US is blowing millions of dollars of resources on competing billionaire space races.

The same problem is present in Marvel, there might perhaps be single planets with specific overpopulation for resources, but there are also space utopias with infinite energy devices and matter fabrication that don't even run on infinity stones. There is no reason to kill half the people on some barren planet when one infinite energy device and some matter fabricators could turn it into a paradise.

Nor even if you were committed to the arbitrary dumb as shit 'we must have inequality, and only murder can be used as a solution' is there any reason for Thanos to go kill off half the people on some high tech utopia with a fertility problem, of which there are probably several.

It's just dumb failure to understand the problem on top of dumb failure tot understand the problem all the way down.

I guess we could do that.

But if Thanos does turn the universe into a paradise to everybody, does he still counts as a villain?

And wouldn't that make captain murica and his cronies actually the villains by trying to violently stop Thanos from making the universe a paradise to everybody?

1) Yes, because he had literal omnipotence, he could have done it without genociding anyone much less half the universe.

2) He won't create a paradise, because that's my entire fucking point, he's not addressing the actual problem. If you kill half the people in the world, you don't solve inequality, because the people you killed all their wealth goes to other rich people who control the means of production, and all the poor people are still poor, and still starving.

Likewise, in the MCU, killing half the people who live on the infinite energy matter replicator planet and half the people who live on barren primitive planet doesn't actually make barren primitive planet a paradise, because it's still barren and primitive, so they just have half the people and farm half the land and half as many people still starve, probably while half as many rich people still lord it over them in feudalism.

Meanwhile genociding half the infinite power matter fabricator planet doesn't magically make them give out their extra infinite power and matter fabricators to other people, they ALREADY WEREN'T DOING THAT.

[Stahlseele]

There's a reason why Thanos looks like a purple hulked out freak. Because he's supposed to be the inhuman villain that can only be stopped by violence and killing.

It's highly unlikely that Thanos will be stopped by violence, because Thanos is literally omnipotent. They tried violence and it didn't fucking work. There's not much left in their arsenal but emotional appeals and well-reasoned arguments. And the movie goes out of its way to humanize Thanos. Nah, the real reason he's a huge purple monster is that Darkseid was cooler than Metron.

Thanos has three very distinct scars on his face.
Three parallel running very distinct scars.
Think about it. Who do we know who leaves that kind of mark?
Yes, the worlds angriest cannuck could have killed Thanos.

[maglag]

You absolutely could have a Well Intentioned Extremist villain that isn't stupid.

I mean, you could literally paint EVERY SINGLE REVOLUTION as that, even though we all agree that Tsars and Kings and aristocracies are actually problems that need solving and often can't be solved without violent revolution.

The problem with Thanos is he's trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist because he's too stupid to see the problem that does exist accurately.

If you look at the real world, we can absolutely give everyone in the world food, but we don't, because even though we have the ability, we have a system of inequality that devotes resources to whatever rich and powerful people want, and that means lots of poor people starve, both relative poor in america, and globally poor people in countries that don't have enough food while the US is blowing millions of dollars of resources on competing billionaire space races.

The same problem is present in Marvel, there might perhaps be single planets with specific overpopulation for resources, but there are also space utopias with infinite energy devices and matter fabrication that don't even run on infinity stones. There is no reason to kill half the people on some barren planet when one infinite energy device and some matter fabricators could turn it into a paradise.

Nor even if you were committed to the arbitrary dumb as shit 'we must have inequality, and only murder can be used as a solution' is there any reason for Thanos to go kill off half the people on some high tech utopia with a fertility problem, of which there are probably several.

It's just dumb failure to understand the problem on top of dumb failure tot understand the problem all the way down.

I guess we could do that.

But if Thanos does turn the universe into a paradise to everybody, does he still counts as a villain?

And wouldn't that make captain murica and his cronies actually the villains by trying to violently stop Thanos from making the universe a paradise to everybody?

1) Yes, because he had literal omnipotence, he could have done it without genociding anyone much less half the universe.

2) He won't create a paradise, because that's my entire fucking point, he's not addressing the actual problem. If you kill half the people in the world, you don't solve inequality, because the people you killed all their wealth goes to other rich people who control the means of production, and all the poor people are still poor, and still starving.

Likewise, in the MCU, killing half the people who live on the infinite energy matter replicator planet and half the people who live on barren primitive planet doesn't actually make barren primitive planet a paradise, because it's still barren and primitive, so they just have half the people and farm half the land and half as many people still starve, probably while half as many rich people still lord it over them in feudalism.

Meanwhile genociding half the infinite power matter fabricator planet doesn't magically make them give out their extra infinite power and matter fabricators to other people, they ALREADY WEREN'T DOING THAT.

It seems I didn't express myself properly.

What I meant is if Thanos does as you suggested and after getting the infinity Gauntlet just gives infinite power/generators to those who lack it and doesn't genocide anybody else.

Would Thanos still count as a villain if he does the above with his omnipotence instead of snuffing half of everybody?

Would captain murica and cronies still be justified in trying to violently stop the dude who would give infinite power/generators to those who didn't have them yet, and didn't actually want to genocide half of everybody?

Because at the end of the day Thanos is still supposed to be the villain, so his plan needs to be bad at start and end for the murderhobos and rich playboys to be justified in trying to stop him at all costs.

There's a reason why Thanos looks like a purple hulked out freak. Because he's supposed to be the inhuman villain that can only be stopped by violence and killing.

It's highly unlikely that Thanos will be stopped by violence, because Thanos is literally omnipotent. They tried violence and it didn't fucking work. There's not much left in their arsenal but emotional appeals and well-reasoned arguments. And the movie goes out of its way to humanize Thanos. Nah, the real reason he's a huge purple monster is that Darkseid was cooler than Metron.

Thanos has three very distinct scars on his face.
Three parallel running very distinct scars.
Think about it. Who do we know who leaves that kind of mark?
Yes, the worlds angriest cannuck could have killed Thanos.

Well, being brutally kunning failed, so now they'll need to be kunningly brutal. In the original comic after Thanos kills half the universe, the remaining heros set up an elaborate multi-wave attack to eventually catch Thanos off-guard so they can pull off the gauntlet.

Then it works because subconsciously Thanos wants to fail. I guess that's why they tried to humanize him. Because deep inside Thanos just wants to be a farmer (yes that's what he does at the end of the Infinity gauntlet arc, just settles in a planet in the middle of nowhere toiling the land with a hoe and for the first time feels fully satisfied), but everybody around expected great things from the freakish purple giant, so Thanos has spent his life pursuing power to meet said expectations, that he personally never wanted. Or something like that.

[Stahlseele]

He was a shy introverted pacifist growing up . .

[MGuy]

You absolutely could have a Well Intentioned Extremist villain that isn't stupid.

Hell, Zemo from Civil War was a more sympathetic character and his only goal was to shit on the friendship between Tony and Steve.

Actually speaking of Killmonger, fuck Wakanda and its presence in Infinity War. They are insufferably smug elitists. I don't see you building sapient AIs, Shuri, so maybe shut your smug mouth.

Yeah because look what the fuck happened when Tony thought it was a good idea.

Vision and Jarvis turned out good, so I'd say Tony has a good track record.

Longes missing how massively bad Ultron was aside I'm more curious as to how only Shuri's smugness gets him when Tony is made of smug. Most of the male cast is to one degree or another.

[DSMatticus]

Maglag, yes, props to you for figuring out that villains need to be villainous. I do not know why you think this means they need to be stupid. I really think you're not quite getting the complaint here.

Murdering half of all the things to impress a girl would be villainous, and not particularly compelling as far as storytelling goes, but it wouldn't be stupid if you thought the girl were into that sort of thing.

Murdering half of all the things to solve a problem that murdering half of all the things won't actually solve while the weapon you're using to murder half of all the things actually could solve the problem without killing anyone at all is villainous and stupid, and it might be compelling as far as storytelling goes if it weren't so stupid, but it is so it isn't.

Infinity War's Thanos is supposed to be "radical of necessary evil," except the evil blatantly isn't necessary or even effective. That makes him a stupid villain, and when people complain about stupid villains they are generally complaining about the "stupid" part and not the "villain" part. The complaint isn't that Infinity War should end with Thanos performing Unlimited Kitten Works and creating a universe with lots of kittens and no suffering and the Avengers apologizing for being such a hassle. The complaint is that Thanos doesn't have a better motivation for killing half of all the things. And in this case, better includes "lulz get trolled."

[Kaelik]

Longes missing how massively bad Ultron was aside I'm more curious as to how only Shuri's smugness gets him when Tony is made of smug. Most of the male cast is to one degree or another.

He likes Tony because poor people starve to death in NYC, but no poor people starve to death in Wakanda, and then Wakanda started sharing wealth, and the idea of wealth distribution is the real crime that he can't countenance.

Also what DSM said, Re: Thanos

[Surgo]

I saw Infinity War and wow it sucked. I don't even care about most of the issues brought up here about the movie so much as I do about the godawful chickification of Gamora. She had her hands pretty firmly grasped on the idiot ball the entire time, and it was extremely frustrating to watch.

Coming off of Thor Ragnarok and Black Panther, what a fucking letdown.

[Stahlseele]

Ayup . . i just watched it myself . .
And i guess i am getting old, but it was too loud optically for my liking x.x
And the sound-management was all over the place as well <.<
Also, the 3D? Fucking atrocious! The little bits that i actually noticed to be in three dee . . were WAY overdone . .
And the mass combat scene was . . terribad as well . . way too hektic and way too many mooks on both sides with not enough main characters actually doing stuff for the most part.
Sadly, another case where a good chunk of the money that went into the effects should have gone into the writing and casting and stuff ._.

[Pariah Dog]

Yeah most of the high points are some of the banter and dialogue as the different groups end up meeting each other (Thor on the Guardian's ship, Quill and Tony's battle of the egos)

Rocket wanting to steal Bucky's arm

)

Maybe part 2 will be better.

[Stahlseele]

Maybe . . the rabbit was the sole survivor of that franchise at least.

[Pariah Dog]

Well given theres a GoG 3 in the works, and just like the comic arc this loosely bases on, part 2 probably ends with them getting the IG back from Grimace and ctrl Z-ing his mass murder.

[erik]

Sadly, another case where a good chunk of the money that went into the effects should have gone into the writing and casting and stuff ._.

Yeah... because they needed more big heroes in the cast.

To that end, I'm pretty sure part 2 will involve Cosmo the Space Dog, Adam Warlock, Howard the Duck, Captain Marvel and throw in Nova too (played by John C Reily). There is no amount of new characters that is too many to introduce and maintain relevance in a single movie.

Gamora could have been better written, and *anyone* could have at least lampshaded Thanos' plan by saying, hey your plan is not only vile and evil, it is stupid with zero chance of success. Or even said that to Gamora when she explained Thanos' motivation/plan and she'd be like, I know, but he's insane. And he only watches Fox News.

[Pariah Dog]

The way they kill off characters and given that Thanos starts the movie with the Power stone its a safe bet that Nova is dead along with most of that planet.

[erik]

Or Nova's the last man standing.

That said, I'm not sure I'm even semi-serious about my list, despite all of them being referenced and/or plausible. Recently I also learned that Nathan Fillion was almost cast as Wonder Man in GotG2.

[Shrapnel]

So I got a question... Where (in the comics) did Thanos' four heralds come from? Y'know, Proxima Midnight and Cull Obsidian and those were the only two whose names I know. Where are they from?

And as an aside... I really hope we get Terraxia the Terrible ripping off Iron Man's head in Avengers 4.

[angelfromanotherpin]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Order_(comics)

Most of them don't seem to have any particular backstory.

[Prak]

In general, his heralds are more of an in-spirit adaptation. I think Cull Obsidian was a group rather than a person.

[Shrapnel]

Ah, so that's their story. Apparently Black Dwarf was renamed as Cull Obsidian, presumably to avoid any possible racist connotations?

[Stahlseele]

That was the one thing about the movie i liked:
The Dorf. Bigger than anybody else they had shown in the Marvel Movie Universe.

[rasmuswagner]

I saw Infinity War and wow it sucked. I don't even care about most of the issues brought up here about the movie so much as I do about the godawful chickification of Gamora. She had her hands pretty firmly grasped on the idiot ball the entire time, and it was extremely frustrating to watch.

Coming off of Thor Ragnarok and Black Panther, what a fucking letdown.

Three movies of being talked up like the toughest chick in all of space, and yet she gets passed around with all the agency of an inanimate carbon rod.

Also, Star-Lord fucking up the entire plan *twice* in the movie.

[Stahlseele]

And Wanda Yes too.
Basically, without those 2, the Infinity War would have been mostly over by Minute 90-120 instead of it being a 180 minutes times two . .
Also Dr."My oath is more important than the universe!"-Strange.
As farf as i know, neither Thanos on his own nor the Infinity Gauntlet with all stones gives the ability to Plane-Shift. Something which the Eye of Agamotto does on its own because magic is the great rules breaker in the Marvel universe. So he could just have gone away to a Dimension where Thanos is not a thing that exists, called it a holiday for a month or two and then returned when the others had wiped the floor with big viole(n)t . . .
Addendum:
And even if the other stones combined had given Thanos the ability to Plane-Shift to other dimensions: The Marvel Universe is specifically the Multi-Verse with each leg of the time-trouser creating a new one each and every second anybody makes a decision.
Good luck finding the right dimension to look for the stone in by then . .