This is the end.....
Apr. 30th, 2019 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogThe past few nights after getting home from work, I've been watching the original Iron Man film, the one that started it all back in 2008 Sure, Marvel had been teeing up its superheroes for ages before that, in big budget films dropped across numerous studios; Ang Lee's Hulk, Sam and Tobey's Spidey shots, at least a pair of Fantastic Fours, and a mansion full of X-Men. Still- each was a standalone, to itself or at least to its titular superstar or team. About the only constant was Stan Lee, almost always working his way into a cameo. There were reboots along the way, of Spidey and of Stretchy and his team, but it took Robert Downey, Jr.- virtually unbookable when he took the role after his years of drug abuse- to find the perfect tone for what would become the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and to give it the room to grow that these larger-than-life characters all needed.
It took over a decade to bring the Stark Arc to a logical, if not permanent, conclusion. (That's sort-of a spoiler. Real ones come after the end of this paragraph.) It brought two more Iron Man features, along with a sprinkling of Caps and Thors, a reboot and then a recasting of Green Guy, and before we knew it, we had our Original Six Avengers- those four plus Natasha No Boris and Hawkeye No Trapper. They came, they conquered, they had shawarma. Next came some fun side stories- Guardians, Ant Man, Doctor Strange, and most recently, Black Panther. All of them started touching each other with more tentacles than Doc Oc- HIS superhero Spidey was excluded from the MCU until a real-life truce between Marvel (now a Disney property) and Sony, but his MCU debut brought him fully into the fold, along with everyone just mentioned and dozens who weren't (only the Four, the X-Men and Deadpool are on the sidelines for the moment, although the recent Fox-Disney merger will likely change that), in last April's penultimate telling of the tale, known as Infinity War.
That film, summarized in a sentence? Rocks fell; half of everybody died. THAT was such an unspeakable spoiler for months, but somewhere between then and this past season's addition of the MCU Captain Marvel to the team, it became a universal pop-culture joke. There was also constant crossing of the streams, between real life industry talk and cinematic story, that made the finale's denouement almost inevitable: how could half the Guardians die if a third film was due with all of them? (Throw in the fifth-wall breakage involving the firing and unfiring of their director, and it gets even more meta.) Tom Holland's Spidey was still on the docket, so how could HE be dead? (Just ask Tom Holland; he'll spoil ANYTHING if you don't stick a sock in his mouth;) So we knew the what- Thanos's snap would be unsnapped- but not the how or the how many. Would others, deceased before the snap, somehow be able to come back? Lots of lobbying was going on for Idris Elba and Tom Hiddleston to make it back from their seeming earlier demises. Most importantly, would we all live happily ever after, or would there still be need for Kleenex?
You got an extra paragraph to avoid this, so here goes: we do lose two of the Original Six, and see the aging out of a third. Perhaps it's ironic that all three survived the snap of the previous installment, but not the bitterer ending of this one. All three losses came for the cause, not out of Thanonian randomness. Cap, charged with returning the Infinity Stones to their proper places and times, comes back as his roughly 110 year old self. Nat, knowing that either she or Hawkeye needs to sacrifice themselves in order to re-retrieve the Soul Stone, makes that choice for the sake of the team that they have and the family that he has and she doesn't. Finally, as Tony began the Arc with a spontaneous decision to build The Suit in a moment of crisis, he ends his part in it by putting team before his own newfound family- channeling the impossible power of the gauntlet to put an end to Infinity War's malfeasance and, in so doing, to his own impossibly preserved life.
At least he doesn't have to sit around all day listening to Gwyenth Paltrow's weird diet tips anymore;)
All the other webbing mostly remains. Hulk has found his middle place, with Green Guy brawn and Brucey brain. Thor survived his hourlong channeling of The Dude (I'd forgotten that Jeff Bridges was IN this thing way back at the beginning;) and seems destined to join Quill, Rocket and the Shrubbery in some new adventures with cool 70s music. Hawkeye will mourn his loss, but will probably be paired with BJ and Colonel Potter in some smarmier series. Hopefully our new Caps- America 2.0 and Marvel Not Shazam- will play bigger roles in the new incarnation of the MCU. The Four, the Mutants, and the Merc with a Mouth are all fair game to come on over now. And who knows? We may be one humongomerger away from the MDCECU. Or even adding The Tick!
SPOON!
----
Some cinemas were showing the entire 59-hour series of MCU films beginning two days before last Friday's premiere. That's a double-all-nighter; I abandoned the single kind the night Eleanor gave birth. I'd guess I saw a third of the films in cinema on or close to the days of their premieres; got round to another third much later or on home video; and the rest, including all the original Iron Men, never at all. I will probably make a Thing (not Ben Grimm;) out of trying to watch them all in order now. Over months, not days.
But the gravitas of this one, and the potential for spoilers, was such that I wanted to get out there on Opening Day. Fortunately, my Friday workday was quiet enough after three straight weeks of intensity, that I got to book a 4 p.m. screening. This movie Hulksmashed all opening weekend grosses, and one reason is that Disney booked it EVERYWHERE. The local multiplexes were showing little else, but even the arts houses were showing it. Including the one remaining local palace from Buffalo's bygone era. It was restored a few years ago after a brief time out of commission, and it lit up the street on a cold spring afternoon:
I booked an online ticket barely two hours before curtain, and the cinema was maybe half full; perhaps people didn't realize they were screening it. The feature itself was almost exactly three hours long, so they kept the previews to a minimum and got the comic-book logo cranking by 4:15. Warnings had been issued: no intermission, and no lull, so bathroom-break at your own risk. I made it well into the second half before my teeth started chattering, but I picked a good moment to go: when Cap and Tony go back to 1970 Jersey, and he sees Peggy running the installation, BOOK IT. If you're just a guy peeing, you make it back before the schmoopy stops.
Another spoiler, which definitely helped: no post-credits scene(s) in this one, so I was outta there closer to 7 than 7:15. That gave me time for some extra shots of the neighborhood color, the latter coming from inside Lloyd Taco, one of Buffalo's food truck pioneers which now has some brick and mortar locations, as well:
I brought the Lloyd's home. Pepper wound up eating half of it. Clearly, nobody told HER that, like the burrito itself, Thanos's plan had been foiled;)
It took over a decade to bring the Stark Arc to a logical, if not permanent, conclusion. (That's sort-of a spoiler. Real ones come after the end of this paragraph.) It brought two more Iron Man features, along with a sprinkling of Caps and Thors, a reboot and then a recasting of Green Guy, and before we knew it, we had our Original Six Avengers- those four plus Natasha No Boris and Hawkeye No Trapper. They came, they conquered, they had shawarma. Next came some fun side stories- Guardians, Ant Man, Doctor Strange, and most recently, Black Panther. All of them started touching each other with more tentacles than Doc Oc- HIS superhero Spidey was excluded from the MCU until a real-life truce between Marvel (now a Disney property) and Sony, but his MCU debut brought him fully into the fold, along with everyone just mentioned and dozens who weren't (only the Four, the X-Men and Deadpool are on the sidelines for the moment, although the recent Fox-Disney merger will likely change that), in last April's penultimate telling of the tale, known as Infinity War.
That film, summarized in a sentence? Rocks fell; half of everybody died. THAT was such an unspeakable spoiler for months, but somewhere between then and this past season's addition of the MCU Captain Marvel to the team, it became a universal pop-culture joke. There was also constant crossing of the streams, between real life industry talk and cinematic story, that made the finale's denouement almost inevitable: how could half the Guardians die if a third film was due with all of them? (Throw in the fifth-wall breakage involving the firing and unfiring of their director, and it gets even more meta.) Tom Holland's Spidey was still on the docket, so how could HE be dead? (Just ask Tom Holland; he'll spoil ANYTHING if you don't stick a sock in his mouth;) So we knew the what- Thanos's snap would be unsnapped- but not the how or the how many. Would others, deceased before the snap, somehow be able to come back? Lots of lobbying was going on for Idris Elba and Tom Hiddleston to make it back from their seeming earlier demises. Most importantly, would we all live happily ever after, or would there still be need for Kleenex?
You got an extra paragraph to avoid this, so here goes: we do lose two of the Original Six, and see the aging out of a third. Perhaps it's ironic that all three survived the snap of the previous installment, but not the bitterer ending of this one. All three losses came for the cause, not out of Thanonian randomness. Cap, charged with returning the Infinity Stones to their proper places and times, comes back as his roughly 110 year old self. Nat, knowing that either she or Hawkeye needs to sacrifice themselves in order to re-retrieve the Soul Stone, makes that choice for the sake of the team that they have and the family that he has and she doesn't. Finally, as Tony began the Arc with a spontaneous decision to build The Suit in a moment of crisis, he ends his part in it by putting team before his own newfound family- channeling the impossible power of the gauntlet to put an end to Infinity War's malfeasance and, in so doing, to his own impossibly preserved life.
At least he doesn't have to sit around all day listening to Gwyenth Paltrow's weird diet tips anymore;)
All the other webbing mostly remains. Hulk has found his middle place, with Green Guy brawn and Brucey brain. Thor survived his hourlong channeling of The Dude (I'd forgotten that Jeff Bridges was IN this thing way back at the beginning;) and seems destined to join Quill, Rocket and the Shrubbery in some new adventures with cool 70s music. Hawkeye will mourn his loss, but will probably be paired with BJ and Colonel Potter in some smarmier series. Hopefully our new Caps- America 2.0 and Marvel Not Shazam- will play bigger roles in the new incarnation of the MCU. The Four, the Mutants, and the Merc with a Mouth are all fair game to come on over now. And who knows? We may be one humongomerger away from the MDCECU. Or even adding The Tick!
SPOON!
----
Some cinemas were showing the entire 59-hour series of MCU films beginning two days before last Friday's premiere. That's a double-all-nighter; I abandoned the single kind the night Eleanor gave birth. I'd guess I saw a third of the films in cinema on or close to the days of their premieres; got round to another third much later or on home video; and the rest, including all the original Iron Men, never at all. I will probably make a Thing (not Ben Grimm;) out of trying to watch them all in order now. Over months, not days.
But the gravitas of this one, and the potential for spoilers, was such that I wanted to get out there on Opening Day. Fortunately, my Friday workday was quiet enough after three straight weeks of intensity, that I got to book a 4 p.m. screening. This movie Hulksmashed all opening weekend grosses, and one reason is that Disney booked it EVERYWHERE. The local multiplexes were showing little else, but even the arts houses were showing it. Including the one remaining local palace from Buffalo's bygone era. It was restored a few years ago after a brief time out of commission, and it lit up the street on a cold spring afternoon:
I booked an online ticket barely two hours before curtain, and the cinema was maybe half full; perhaps people didn't realize they were screening it. The feature itself was almost exactly three hours long, so they kept the previews to a minimum and got the comic-book logo cranking by 4:15. Warnings had been issued: no intermission, and no lull, so bathroom-break at your own risk. I made it well into the second half before my teeth started chattering, but I picked a good moment to go: when Cap and Tony go back to 1970 Jersey, and he sees Peggy running the installation, BOOK IT. If you're just a guy peeing, you make it back before the schmoopy stops.
Another spoiler, which definitely helped: no post-credits scene(s) in this one, so I was outta there closer to 7 than 7:15. That gave me time for some extra shots of the neighborhood color, the latter coming from inside Lloyd Taco, one of Buffalo's food truck pioneers which now has some brick and mortar locations, as well:
I brought the Lloyd's home. Pepper wound up eating half of it. Clearly, nobody told HER that, like the burrito itself, Thanos's plan had been foiled;)