Endgame! · 9:38pm May 5th, 2019
MUCH SPOILERS NOT EVEN KIDDING.
I was responding to https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/855765/commence-the-endgame-review when as usual I meandered on. So I took the rest of my review here.
Short recap of what I said there-- Nebula's plotline doesn't feel like a Diabolus ex Machina to me; it fits their desperation, Tony's planning tunnel vision, and the hints of quantum computing/quantum entanglement. But the Steve thing is either a major plothole or evidence of horror.
That said!
I loved the movie. Just absolutely blown away and I never, never felt like it dragged. Even the slow, majestic sadness of the opening act was done so well, with so many intricacies that it made it nearly impossible for even my ADHD to bore me.
I thought it was amazingly tight and went tremendously fast watching; I was again impressed at how they managed to make the diverse power levels feel like everyone both deserves to be on that same field-- remember Okoye is basically wearing the Afro-Futurism version of light powered body armor and using a power weapon or vibro-spear not too divorced from their equivalents in 40K or Star Wars. Honestly, I think of her much like one of the Emperor's Royal Guard, just without the helmet because superhero movies hate helmets.
I read some spoilers ahead of time; despite that, I still felt deeply for each moment, each character, every pain and every triumph. Marvel has always been pretty good with emotional impact, but this is a frickin' masterpiece. Maybe Kevin Smith is right; maybe to have this big of a movie, you do need at least two directors. It hit almost all of its marks with perfection, and I'm not convinced-- anywhere except with Cap-- that the few areas where the marks were just short of perfect COULD have been made all the way. I was incredibly pleasantly surprised, in fact-- one of the things early watchers kept saying is "this looks dumb on paper but it works on the screen" and it's true. Speaking as someone who is both fat for genetic destiny and fat for reasons of literal trauma, I'm... not entirely unhappy with the Thor stuff.
I'm going to preface this by saying that they DID slightly miss their mark there, but they've come much closer than any other movie or TV moment. So I understand where the anger is. That said, I honestly think it's more subversive of the usual fat-hate and PTSD-mockery you see than it is participating.
My spouse, who is also overweight, pointed out that for the most part it's really no more than 'You're a bit out of shape and you literally have the shakes so maybe having you with the gauntlet isn't great," and comments about the alcohol smell than it is real fat jokes except for two sources.
One of those is Rocket, who is an ass on a scale undreamed of by any save perhaps Tony Stark's younger self. It doesn't excuse it, but it is a part of his character that he's a nasty, hurt person who lashes out and is still dealing with his trauma. And when he rants at Thor in the past, as he says, it's under immense stress. His family is *gone*, the closest is "that one cousin who was a jerk to everyone a few years back but has got their shit together" in Nebula. Thor lost his in a series, but it's not much different-- and hell, he HAS Miek, Korg, and Valkyrie. Rocket has Nebula.
Rocket's resentment of Thor's traumatic breakdown is real, and it makes sense. The 'slap out of a panic attack' is overdone in our culture, it's true. But what does the slap accomplish? Nothing. He breaks the moment that Rocket turns his back.
Instead, what does work? Compassion, compassion from his mom. She steadies him, she gives him the forgiveness for not being a perfect prince that he needs, and sends him forward. The only sour note there, the other real fat jab, is the whole 'maybe eat a salad' thing, but she doesn't know, raised by witches or not, exactly what his particular problems have been over the last decade that got him here. For all she knows, he started eating to deal with losing her, or as an indulgence/stress relief from the throne, and while it's still not a perfect-psychologist's answer, she's not Psychology Woman.
Though I guess as the Goddess of Foresight and Wisdom she's pretty close...
Anyway. That whole sequence, both the scene and the leadup, to me, is tremendously subversive of the usual "slap the crying panicked idiot" and "ha ha fat" themes we get. It fails, true, because it's still hard to see those moments. That's where the MCU as movie-budget TV show fails; they don't have time to show how much Rocket is hurting, how hard it is for him to understand people who won't turn their hurt into a drive to *do*, doesn't have time to show us more of compassion working for Thor. So I very much understand why it feels like it's mocking pain anew and can be painful for some people, especially people with full on PTSD and eating issues as a result.
I do hope that they'll see in time that, from the support group on, Marvel emphasizes that pain is a natural response to grief, and compassion, acceptance, and love are the cures. I don't know if Endgame COULD have hit the mark entirely; it's not just a time thing, it's a culture thing. They were trying to show all of the trauma, and I don't think that they could have gone with anyone else on this aspect, especially given Thor's prior alcohol obsession and his trauma congo. Has there been a single film he's been in where he hasn't taken an emotional beating? Maybe Age of Ultron.
And he stays stout for the battle. I don't trust James Gunn a lot. That's a whole 'nother rant, in short, I think that the fact that he apologized, and a real one, not a nonpology) for his prior words and had brought them up with Disney when being hired makes the firing BS, but GotG vol1 &2 have some serious weaknesses, especially with Gamora. And I understand that they're not going to keep Chris Hemsworth fat when they have the option to show him off for female/otherwise guy-appreciating gaze. Though it'd be cool if they went the bara route.
But they've got a real chance to prove that they meant their subversion by keeping the stoutness for at least part of Guardians. I'm just worried that Gunn will treat it solely as Acceptable Targets and not continue the subversive elements.
It's all a part of the catch-22 thing with movies that dare to push cultural envelopes. There are a lot of catch-22s with our society-- just look at Nat and Vormir. Like the studio people said, you can't take that away from Nat. Once they're the survivors and the soul stone's rules are established, they're the only two who can go to Vormir, and she's the close combat expert.
More, her family-- the Avengers-- has most of its survivors. She's gotten a chance to see them to this point. Clint was always far more on the outside of the Avengers than she, and then he lost his children and his wife and his sanity. She has had her life, and by it, she can save so many others.
But this still kills her, removes her, and we've just barely started to get emotional investment in the current crop of women. All the history with her, the one female member of the Original Six-- it's not gone, but it does end in many way. But if Hawkeye goes, it's theft from her. Catch-22.
I know it will come as a big shock to people, cough cough, but I'm heavily feminist. My spouse, even more so. We were both generally pleased at the way women were treated by the movie-- honestly, Carol's only underused by 5-10 minutes, max, and she has a point about the other planets out there. The writers have said that they were basically nearly done by the time Carol's movie even came out, and even BP happened too late to really build up theirs. But watching the entire force of Thanos' army, from the grunts to the guns of the carpet-bombing spaceship, turning to face her, was nearly as satisfying as the no-sell moment and the fact that Thanos could only beat her by making himself vulnerable, by delaying himself to take her out.
That said, the "all the women" thing... was a missed mark. I see what they were trying to do-- women helping women, showcasing the women, etc. And I disagree with people who think, say, Okoye didn't belong there; again, just because her uniform doesn't look like, say, a Cadian's, doesn't mean it doesn't have some hypertech involved. I think they did a good job with that again, making sure the diverse power levels and actions fit
But.
While I can believe in the chaos of the battlefield, you COULD end up with all the women together, the fact that they DID, feels... cheap.
Most of them knew each other only lightly if at all. Some people have pointed out how it makes no goddamn sense that the Wasp is there, for example, and that's completely true. She should be busy! For that matter, she should be at the other end of their charge!
I don't remember it well enough, but my spouse said that it didn't feel like anyone except Carol really DID anything after that women-helping-women moment. Like the whole scene was done after the fact and tacked on, and then they just vanished yet again
I'm choosing to take it as a promise from Marvel that they know that they SHOULD have gotten Captain Marvel out before Wonder Woman, that they SHOULD be giving more women a chance to shine, and they'll try harder. Marvel has earned a lot of credit with me, from having female SHIELD agents in the background and foreground, through Wanda's rise, and the incredibly powerful abuse/gaslighting and triumph over that narrative which was Captain Marvel. So they COULD burn me here... but I'm hoping they won't.
That honestly is where the weakness does lie. It did take them 11 years to get a female lead movie, and we're only getting a Black Widow movie after they kill her off. Prequels, sure, but it does reduce the future impact. Growth is naturally truncated, and narrative impact becomes harder to make. Similarly, they're really in danger of going the stalker/RomCom in Space route with Quill and Gamora'14. Of making her, basically, an interchangeable replacement for her future self. A way to get the Gamora fans back without truly acknowledging the differences.
But they might not. They showed us tragedy and pain and consequence. The Endor Holocaust is real, man. If they continue with that in Far From Home, I'll be more confident.
*slowclap*
5054064
I do tend to babble. -.-;; One of the things I respect most about the MCU is that they keep the HELL away from babbling. Technobabble, plot exposition, etc-- they carve it waaaay down.
5054144
Yep.