#i’m sorry that a movie about a genocide made you sad. go watch a marvel movie idk what u expected!!

[thewingedwolf]

the pushback against the zone of interest as “holokitsch” feels a lot like the pushback against son of saul, wherein a lot of people just don’t like holocaust movies that refuse to give you a cathartic, happy ending and instead force you to confront the actual horror that happened through some clearly well thought out camera styling & cinematography. which is like, the complete oppose of “kitschy” and it’s why i think the argument is stupid as fuck.

[sleepynegress]

Now that I’ve let it marinate, here are my THOROUGH thoughts on Black Panther...

Cut because extensive spoilers...

First, it was a great film.  Great in terms of being a big budget “blockbuster” fun movie and great in weight. Budget and weight are areas previous black superhero entries have lacked and why this one resonates so much now.

Now, I’m gonna break down the contents that stood out to me... 

We open with a beautifully done and narratively resonant breakdown of the history of Wakanda.  Basically, the civilizational advantage of inherited wealth (<- coming back to this), via space metal, times multi-trillions.  They watch the world fight, violate, and destroy --ESPECIALLY to people on the same continent on which they exist-- and choose, smartly, to remain hidden.... Or who knows??  Maybe they would have defeated the guns of old and stopped the colonizers before they did real damage... Which is a what if?... 

...That Killmonger symbolizes.  He is the dream deferred, the one that exploded. He is the gaping wound of the enslaved that Wakanda did not even try to save. He is post-African black pain/rage at that scattered people that reaches for a home that was snatched from them generations ago...  The ones taken from home without choice, with potential squandered by lesser people. Which is why he is the most sympathetic villain I’ve ever seen. Grounding him in Oakland, even to the point where even his vision took him back to that project (with the ancestral sky of Wakanda outside his window, honestly I cried).  #killmongerwasntwrong

As for the Wakandan feminine... This movie was honestly, the most thoughtful mainstream rendering of black womanhood in the hands of a black man, I have seen on screen... I argue Daughters of the Dust is still the tops for me, but this mainstream big budget comicbook film(!)  reminded me of it with certain elements...

Nakia is the “we knew and we told you but men stay not listening”, black woman from the future, ahead of even T’Challa until the movie’s plot resolves and catches up to her vision.  Killmonger wasn’t wrong, but Nakia was right. The hashtag should be #NakiaWasRight. As usual, black women know and tell with a precision first, but rarely get the credit. Killmonger wasn’t wrong but toxic masculinity, courtesy of Western values and abandonment, corrupted his vision for himself and black and other oppressed peoples.

Okoye is the strength of black womanhood, -not the gross stereotypical SBW garbage that too many white people think is a compliment, but is really their trite way of saying “Pain must not affect them the same way!”  No, she is disciplined, capable, beautiful, and beloved.  As an aside, I just know Alek Wek screamed when she threw her wig in that one scene. That act reminded me so much of Wek doing similar at that runway show (which was iconic!) and pretty much made the same statement (that wig was totally raggedy and ugly on purpose).

Shuri is black potential unhindered and allowed to thrive. All because the expectations and opportunity in Wakanda are limitless... She is as important a cultural touchstone in terms of influencing young black girls to take up STEM fields as the film Hidden Figures is. She is black girl joy and magic rolled into one.  Mischievous, loving, sweet, kind, curious.  Letitia’s performance was brilliant because she played the girlhood we are so often denied so well, it was undeniable even by the usual suspects who would... That said, I can see people treating her too preciously in a direction could also go the way of dehumanization.  She’s not a mascot, child, baby, or spirit animal. She’s an intelligent teenager, a genius.  She’s not your token prop for proving how much you can adore “one special” black female character. I can already see the overly-precious and precocious cameos in white slash fic where she drops off a “tech thing”, is hugged, has her hair ruffled amiably, sasses cutely, and then disappears... WHITE PEOPLE, DON’T DO THIS.

Queen Ramonda, the female elders tending to blossoms, the elderly woman at council all represented a kind of feminine energy that is something we black folks (of course) had first, but is universal... The women who know the rituals, the medicines, the crafts, traditions, passed down among them.  Just about every culture on Earth has this... A gathering of cooperative women who heal and guard traditions

T’Challa The Black Panther represents healthy/regal uncorrupted masculinity.  Again, courtesy of the privileges of being Wakandian royalty, just like his sister.  Steady, protective of his family, responsible,  confident, and vulnerable. Heavy in burden, but projecting lightness and ease of wisdom to all alongside his tread, Shuri’s invention of sneakers was perfectly perfect for him.  

M’Baku could have gone wrong easily, with his size and comic origins (“Man-Ape”) but no, he was strong in both mind and body, and most importantly human, (this is where white filmmakers would have ruined him and made him a lovable lout).  A vegetarian who challenged, lost, teased, and made wise choices for his people.. A people that represented that proud underclass, even on the boundaries of supposedly enlightened Wakanda.

The TECH...  OMG...The tech, the beads, the transportation, the organic design and flow and interconnectedness of it.  The flying ships shaped like lifeforms already designed for flight.  The energy bolts, shock absorbers and redistributors...  If I remember my physics, energy expelled does not disappear. It HAS to be expended in some way. Shuri’s inventions all had that in common, effectively harvesting and using energy. 

Now, I’m getting back to that inherited wealth, that I feel is one of the biggest messages taken away from this film:  There is no such thing as benevolent privilege.  ...Even if that .00000001% status literally dropped out of the sky, (which we know, did not happen that way for the actual privileged among us).  Wakandians never exploited people, never actively subjugated, nor committed genocide and yet, their hands were still red... They were the passive bystanders, who knew what wrong was, but did nothing. This was T’Chaka leaving his nephew in that project, Erik glimpsing that ship fly away...

And yet, that kind if purposeful greedy, manic, snatched-away at the cost of stomping on “the other” kind of privilege WAS ALSO represented in this film via Claue.  ...His racist taunts, his jealousy, his repugnant personality.  He was the embodiment of the evil of whiteness. Brilliant performance by Serkis on that.

Freeman was an exposition machine for entry into the (white) Marvel world.  He had to guided and instructed to obvious places (a nod to what black actors typical endure in white narratives). I found it fascinating reading one fan lament that the importance of Captain America’s shield was taken away because it wasn’t just his, wasn’t rare, but Wakandians had a bounty all this time.  It was no longer this white hero’s “special thing”.   They were sad about that, but not that it had been stolen and sold on the black market to become his shield in the first place.  ...Freeman’s character represented white fans awaking to their own casual racism and disregard of the black other. In this case, it helped these advanced people hide.  Sometimes, you don’t disabuse people of their low expectations.

As for random bits? Loved the thoughtful costuming and set design. NEVER has a black film set in “fantasy/scifi” had the money and work and black perspective this film has.  LORDT Jordan got a juicy ASS! (I’m sorry, but I’m human yall), M’Baku is tall-thicc-hotness personified, Bassett is an immortal goddess, Lupita is a dainty doll made of empathy, The Dora Miljae is the power of black cooperative womanhood... Also shout-out to the elderly member of council with the Namibian influenced hairstyle.

The ancestral plane, yall... Note that it was twilight when T’Challa first visited, but brightly lit during his second visit.

“Bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who jumped from ships.”  T’Challa taking Erik up to see the Wakandian sunset...

 “...Hey auntie.”  also, Jordan brilliantly played Erik as full of posturing as a mask for deep-seeded pain... Just jeez.  

BATTLE RHINOS!!! where Nakia ended up after that car was destroyed, Okoye paddle-sailing on the damn road with a spear, Just THE WOMEN being the MVP’s in every way in this damn movie. Listen, I loved Wonder Woman? but it did not do cooperative womanhood nearly as well...NOT EVEN CLOSE... I’m probably gonna add more to this post... I’m still dazzled and gobsmacked a day later.

THAT SAID, my only quibbles are that you CAN TELL that this movie’s original cut was 6 hours long (editing felt a bit off at places) and the way fight scenes were filmed, weren’t filmed-and-cut as well as Winter Soldier.  

But that’s it.  These are my scattered thoughts.

ONE MORE THOUGHT!!! Could be that Killmonger did the Wakandians favor burning all those flowers, IF Thanos is going to Wakanda for the reason I think he is, in Infinity Wars... That might make it harder for him to locate.

Gotta link this, because totally neglected  W’Kabi. I should add that I’ve only seen it once. But I hope to see it again.

[lightandwinged]

So I saw The Movie. Spoilers--good, bad (or neutral), and ugly--below. Spoiler-free: not as good as the first Avengers, but better by far than AoU. 

The Good

This film made me even more furious with Joss Whedon, solely because it proves that the problems in AoU were of his own making, namely his inability to handle too many characters and therefore incompetence when it comes to a film of this type. The Russo brothers took a very smart approach to this, in that they knew they couldn’t take the time to give all of the good guys the characterization they’d have gotten in a film with a smaller cast, so they basically made Thanos the main character, which is really what should’ve happened with Ultron but inexplicably did not happen. 

And man, what a joy Thanos is as a character. So many superhero villains are so kind of... one dimensional, tbh. Or not one dimensional, but rather, they seem to have an understanding that what they’re doing is evil or, if they don’t have that understanding, a lack of real conviction. They’re nascent Sith, in a sense, running on either the sheer joy of being cruel or on a heightened desire for vengeance. They can be a lot of fun, don’t get me wrong, but they seem, for lack of a better word, like cartoon villains. 

They’re fun, like I said, and the world is full of people who are just... evil for the sake of being evil (as we’ve found out in the last ~2+ years more than a lot of us realized, I think), but they get tired when they’re the villain of everything. Chaotic Evil, in other words, gets less compelling when it’s all you see. It becomes the same person with a different mask, 9/10 times, which I’m sure contributes a lot to superhero movie fatigue. 

Thanos, though, I enjoyed because he was 100% convinced that what he was doing was for the good of the universe. Ultron was trying to go there, I think, but Whedon handled it with about as much delicacy as a bull in a china shop (Ultron is mostly redeemed by his being played by James Spader, who is a delight at all times, but that also ends up being his downfall because you get the feeling that he’s winking at the audience the entire time... “I’m saying this with conviction, but here’s a quip to show that I know I’m evil.”). Thanos actually felt real. He felt like he believed everything he was saying, like he truly thought he was doing the universe a mercy, that he was the good guy. 

And that doesn’t redeem him by any means (incoming people screeching about how I’m downplaying genocide or stanning because dude’s evil, y’all), but it makes him infinitely more compelling, and GOD, that is refreshing. It’s the same way that Killmonger was refreshing because, even though you don’t agree with it, you see his point. I mean, who among us that’s worked retail hasn’t wanted to snap our fingers and make half of humanity vanish? It’s been more than a decade since my last retail position, and I still have those days.

On a different level, it’s that garbage that gets pushed by freshman level philosophy students who are like “people should stop having babies” because that, not a mismanagement of resources by the wealthy and powerful, is why there’s scarcity. It’s rubbish, absolute rubbish (and it doesn’t work because science tells us that the universe, that all of existence, is infinite... and fuck, the movie’s science tells us that as well--Bananabread Cabletelevision had his little moment of hunting for spoilers and only got through about 1.4 million of the unending possibilities that exist BUT I DIGRESS), but at first blush, you ask yourself, “Wait, does he have a point?” No, he does not.

A rundown of other Goods:

Look, Thor in lightning form is the sexiest creature in existence. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules. 

Also I appreciated him getting another smushface. And then the immediately following Battle of the Chrises (all I’m saying is that if there’s not a threeway Chris standoff in Part Deux, I’ll be very sad. Also, someone please cast Chris Pine in Captain Marvel, he needs to spend the rest of eternity watching powerful women heroes in awe).

The people who were allowed gave fantastic performances. RDJ will be sorely missed as Iron Man (because if y’all think he’s living past the next film, I’m sorry for your loss), and of the good guys, I felt like he came the closest to being the main character here. Which has been true of the other Avengers films as well, so that’s nice to see. Ultimately, these first three phases of the MCU were Tony Stark’s story, and that finale will be really... well, painful. 

Other great performances: Tom Holland (darling baby child, I wept for you), Mark Ruffalo (good at constipation), Bagels Cucumbers (that hurts to admit, he’s the Worst, but damn if he isn’t a good actor), Zoe Saldana (you’d better come back), Chris Hemsworth (as always), Paul Bettany (NOOO), and Elizabeth Olsen (poor darling). 

The humor was nicely balanced, not fourth-wall breaking like you get in the Whedon Avengerses, but logical. It was kind of like exhaling: inhale the action and serious stakes, exhale the humor. It allowed breathing room in all the intensity, so that was great.

Also how can I have missed Wakanda that much if it’s only been like... not even two months since I saw Black Panther?

Look, if the next movie involves just one scene--just one!--of Okoye, Nat, and Wanda fighting together, my ticket will have been worth its price.

Related, Proxima Midnight is (a) literally the coolest name for anyone ever, and (b) my wife now.

The Neutral-Bad

Or, really, more the expected. 

In any ensemble movie, you’re going to have a lot of characters whose purpose is just to step on scene, state their name and allegiance, and then fade into the background. This ended up being the case with pretty much all of Team Cap, and it was to their detriment. They had their shining moments (”Earth just lost her greatest defender” made me ship things like FedEx), but as opposed to the group above, they didn’t really have a lot to do? Or even really much in the way of reactions? They just sort of... came and saw and fought and that was it. 

It felt a lot like nobody knew what to do with those characters, which is fair enough, but it also felt like they were wasted, and they shouldn’t have been. If I had to guess, I’d guess that the writers had to pick and choose which good guys they wanted to focus on and which new Avengers and old Avengers would get the attention. Tony because these films have been basically a huge Iron Man series. Thor because I think? the plot requires him to be Important, as per comic books. But as much as I adore Thor, I wish there had been a focus on Steve more. With Tony, you’ve got the plot of “oh my god Thanos, the thing I’ve been afraid of since 2008″ but maybe Steve could’ve had more of a reluctant plot, like he’s been heroing all this time but all he’s gotten for it is locked up and exiled and shit? I don’t know, point is that if Captain America is going to be so prominent in the MCU logo, he should get a bigger slice of the plot pie.

Also I’m annoyed with Gamora’s passing, though I wouldn’t call it a complete fridging because it wasn’t just for mangst. It was just mostly for mangst. Either way, though, I think that’s the death (besides the end ones) that bothered me the most. It didn’t feel unnecessary and was probably the most shocking, when you look at it objectively (more on that in a second), but... I don’t know, it bothered me, but I can’t 100% put my finger on why/how. I do appreciate, though, that it gave Gamora a decent arc in the film. 

Anyway, to the deaths. The presumable permadeaths (Heimdall, Loki, and Gamora) were, for the most part, unsurprising. The Thor trilogy is over, so Heimdall and Loki end up being kind of extra weight, the former because he doesn’t have a lot to do that’s not in a role filled by another character, and the latter because the only other way he could’ve worked in this film was as an eleventh hour heroic sacrifice, and that feels almost too woobie-ish, like beyond Zuko levels of woobie. 

The Great Dust Rapture at the end was also fairly unsurprising, mostly because there’s no way a good chunk of those characters aren’t coming back. At least two have sequels literally named after them coming out sometime in the next couple of years; as I also pointed out to Kyle, “Look, Gamora may be dead forever, but if the rest of the Guardians remain dust, GotG3 will just be The Adventures of Rocket Raccoon Being Very Sad.” The non-dusted bunch are the OG Avengers, plus or minus a few friends; the stakes for the next film are, therefore, a LOT higher, since all the OG Avengers have finished their trilogies and, should they survive, will probably only ever show up again in cameos. We know T’Challa and Peter Parker and the Guardians of the Galaxy and probably Dr. Strange and everyone still have Things To Do. 

But the OG Avengers do not, and they couldn’t really kill off the main characters of the franchise with one film to go, so...

(also, calling it now: the next film is going to be The Avengers: Rebirth. I will put money on it)

The Ugly

But HNNGH. Okay.

I 100% understand the choices they made with the dustinatings, but like... there’s no suspense whatsoever. If Marvel didn’t release their film titles 6000 years in advance, maybe the stakes would’ve been stakier, but as it stands, it’s like... come on people. 

You know what would’ve worked way better and made for stakier stakes? Don’t kill off the main characters from franchises that still have sequels coming out. Kill off sidekicks. T’Challa doesn’t die, but maybe M’baku or Okoye does. Spare at least three of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Leave Peter Parker’s fate uncertain (though his death scene was literally the only one that made me tear up because TOM HOLLAND IS JUST THAT GOOD, DARLING FROG-IN-MOUTH BOY). Bucky, Sam, Nick Fury, Maria Hill--they can remain dusted. But if you want to keep the stakes for the second film while actually letting us believe that there won’t be any resurrections this time, maybe don’t kill people who we know will be back in various MCU films at future dates. 

It’s like I keep thinking when I watch trailers for Solo or literally any prequel anything: the problem with 99% of prequels is that we know who lives and who doesn’t, so giving us trailer shots of Chewbacca in danger, for example, is like trying to play peek-a-boo with an adult. We have object permanence, it’s not surprising when you pull your hands away and your face is still there. It’s not surprising that Chewbacca isn’t going to get his face bashed away by a rock. It’s not surprising that somehow, in Avengers Four: You Asked For More, all the dusted people with eponymous films coming up will be back. 

Another big plot hole: why didn’t Dr. Strange go and do his future vision the second a giant green man fell into his living room? Bruce, as Bruce, tells him “Thanos is coming for the macguffins” and then he goes and spends the next 5 minutes going through possibilities and then figures out the very easy way to solve the thing. 

That easy way? Just have Wanda destroy the time stone. Now we’re not panicking about taking out Vision’s brain as fast as we can (point: that scene was unrealistic, Shuri would’ve actually had it done in about 13 seconds flat) and Thanos has lost and maybe he goes around killing people manually but at least he can’t rewind time if things don’t go his way. 

The movie didn’t do this, obviously, but it’s one of those things where it’s like “if your audience can figure out a better way of doing things before the credits even fucking roll, maybe revise your script.”

(if Carrie Fisher had been alive to script doctor this shit, we wouldn’t have this problem, universe)

Other big frustration: does every Avengers film really need Thor to go on an epic quest away from everyone else for half the film? Don’t get me wrong, it was pretty cool to see him jumpstart a sun and see Peter Dinklage being huge (all I’m saying is that if Disney ever acquires the rights to the X-Men, things are going to get very confusing) and see a new Mjolnir-like-object, but oh. my. god. Every time those scenes were happening, I felt like it was a bathroom break. Like legit, that fucking ax had better cleave Thanos in half in the next movie because otherwise, that was so much wasted time that could’ve been devoted to literally anything else. 

Final Miscellaneous Thoughts

Maybe this means that GotG3 will be about Peter Quill actually growing up and dealing with his issues. I hope it does. 

Also, Nebula/Tony Stark road trip back to earth? I’m all about it. 

Wonder Woman would’ve ended this all in about 30 seconds flat, which is why Captain Marvel can’t show up until the next film. 

The next film is literally going to be at least 90 minutes of Thanos refusing to interact with anyone trying to kill him because he’s on vacation and fuck you. 

Literally why does anyone still live in NYC in the MCU? The first movie would’ve been enough to convince me to move to a cornfield in Nebraska and just stay there for eternity. 

“Thanos will return.” Along with literally everyone else SERIOUSLY THIS IS NOT SUSPENSEFUL MARVEL AAAAAAUGH.

[beyondthedreamline]

what she says: I'm fine

what she means: So it’s interesting how the fact Loki probably had to have sex with Jeff Goldblum to keep himself alive and safe was both never made textual AND used as the butt of a joke (lol pun intended), because it doesn’t matter if Loki was sort of willing and it doesn’t matter if he’s sort of evil either - how can you give consent when you fall headfirst on a planet dominated by a psychotic pervert and why is sexual violence such a fun thing when it’s about men and this is James Bond all over again and how they inserted that ‘Maybe I got fucked before, you don’t know’ line during a high tension moment leading up to torture and possibly rape because that’s what’s fashionable now, gay subtext, amirite, which I’ve got nothing against but funnily enough it never seems to lead anywhere and hey, coming back to 'Thor: Ragnarok', isn’t it neat how the sexually ambiguous, feminine-coded brother ended up as a courtesan-slash-sex slave and the painfully straight übermensch brother got sent to the arena to fight and die and yay for novel and groundbreaking storytelling, right, because this is new, how women are sold into sex and/or need to pretend to be willing sexual partners to madmen so they have a shot at escaping violence and death while men are made to fight and somehow their kind of enslavement is recognized as terrible and tragic and something they're no part of, but women, eh, who can be sure about them, and my God, Loki couldn’t have been more stereotypically gay if they’d tried, I mean, Fashion-Conscious Drama Queen Initiates A Reign of Self-Obsessed Musical Theatre and how is that okay on top of Valkyrie, a canon bisexual woman, being coded as Thor’s love interest and also - #thor ragnarok #marvel #loki laufeyson #abuse for ts #rape for ts #negativity #imo this is the other problem with representation #we get one non white director #and we want to like him #we want to think he can do no wrong #but this movie #my god #it read like fanfiction #and not in a good way #also it was probably #the most misogynistic thor movie to date #just compare it with the first thor #where women were allowed to be women #also themselves #bc one thing i don't need #is women to get drunk and belch on screen #i mean sure #sometimes women do that #but this sudden idea #that feminist movies #need to have women act like (fictional) men do #well i hate it #sorry for ranting #but i do #i'd take a thousand jane forsters @awed-frog Okay, I reblogged the original post by @awed-frog but the text came out so strangely that it’s irritating the hell out of me, so I’m making a new post in the hope Tumblr doesn’t glitch it up too. This perspective on ‘Ragnarok’ is so interesting I have to respond to it, because I had completely the opposite reaction to everything! I loved the structure and pacing and the endless supply of in-jokes (the Douglas Adams reference most of all). This is a story with distinctly Antipodean humour, which you may or may not get – I sometimes struggle with the American humour in Marvel movies, different cultures tell their jokes different ways. The emotional beats were quiet and strong, trusting in the audience to understand their significance without overstatement: Thor going through funeral rites as best he can while imprisoned, Loki’s visible distress at the idea of Thor leaving him behind. There was also finally some solid textual support for Loki being more than a villain – which, given all the things he’s done to Earth, Asgard and Thor specifically, is no mean feat. I mean, at the point when you have a character who has faked his own death TWICE while trying to commit genocide BOTH TIMES, you have to lean hard into the inherent morbid comedy of the thing to keep it all from spiralling into cartoonish ridiculousness. I like Loki, largely because Tom Hiddleston has great facial expressions that can sell inconsistent characterisation, but seriously, it takes the actual apocalypse for him to step up and be useful. ‘Ragnarok’ reminds us that while Loki loves to play the victim and the martyr, he rarely is one. Usually, he’s the opposite. Trickery and charm are his great skills and as Thor pointed out, Sakaar was the perfect environment for him to thrive. We see him chat up girls, watch fights with the Grandmaster and act as a kind of pet bounty hunter, all of which he would hardly need much coercion to do. You can definitely read sexual subtext into their interactions, but I saw no implication of Loki being any more sexually threatened by the Grandmaster than Valkyrie was – that is to say, not at all. This is the guy who was willing to shove his brother straight back into the arena if it meant getting a step up in his new life, why would he feel uncomfortable sleeping his way to the top? I love the detail of him turning his 'death' into a play because he's literally the actor, the liar, the manipulator of events. In the end, Loki is a conman, and a very talented one. I’m sad that Jane won’t be returning to the Thor franchise, because I loved her character from the start and I truly enjoyed her dynamic with Thor. Also, DARCY. I will sorely miss Darcy Lewis. The truth is, I can’t think of a really satisfactory way for their departures to be handled on-screen, because I did not want them to depart at all. I feel like it should be pointed out, though, that ‘Thor: the Dark World’ was essentially Jane and Thor’s second date, and Jane was already running low on patience with his trans-Bifrost lifestyle. He’s kind and adorable and undeniably high-maintenance. If Jane had to have an exit, I’d prefer it like this, a low-key and everyday break-up rather than some big melodramatic event for Thor to brood over and Jane to be eventually talked out of. Also, just because I love Jane doesn’t mean I can’t love Valkyrie, and vice versa. It’s not a competition, however much Marvel tried to make it one. I’m a bit uncomfortable with your tag comment about the first Thor movie, describing it as the one ‘where women were allowed to be women’, because women are all kinds of things. I think I understand what you mean, there is rather an excess of traditionally masculine misbehaviour in mainstream media, but sometimes women are angry and disillusioned and drink way too much in order to cope, and that’s a story worth telling too. Honestly, I was on board with Valkyrie’s character from the minute she fell off her spaceship. She’s not a ‘better than the boys’ stereotype, she’s an embittered alcoholic warrior who gets dragged into friendship with Thor against her better judgement, and while that friendship might eventually shift into something romantic, it wasn’t shoehorned into her arc, for which I am intensely grateful. Ragnarok is, in so many ways, a movie with its foundations in the anger of the dispossessed. There are plenty of articles written on the subject by people better qualified than me. All I can say is that, as an Australian, I live in the messy aftermath of colonialism, with the awareness that my nation as I know it was founded on a violent invasion and that its impact is still being felt today. The line ‘where do you think all of this gold came from?’ was so flawless it kind of knocked my breath away. Hela tore apart Odin’s legacy and the narrative backed her right to do so the whole time. The only way to defeat her was to acknowledge that her claim was rightful and her story was true. That’s unbelievably powerful. Emotional resonance is a weird thing. So much of what we love in a story is entirely in the eye of the beholder, and perhaps it also depends on what other narratives are around us at the time – I, for instance, am personally tired of grimdark superheroism that’s all about how we can’t trust each other. What I need right now is Thor’s relentless optimism in the face of disaster, the man who makes friends wherever he goes, the god-prince who loses everything but rescues what really matters out of the ashes. Ragnarok isn’t a perfect movie, but it’s the best I’ve seen in a very long time and talking about it has made me want to watch it all over again.

[hgfstreamchats]

Avengers: Infinity War

How's every little thing, night human? Alright, alright Have you seen this already, or should I avoid spoilers for it? (I haven't seen the one that just came out) I haven't. Aha, gotcha. I'm seeped deeply enough in your pop culture that I know how it plays out, however. *nodnods* Loki looking all awkward there. "we KIND OF just had an apocalypse there" As one does. Hello! Took a minute for my keyboard to key in there, but wow Excellent! I know this guy probably came first, but he's SO much like a bad ripoff of that guy from Ben 10 ikr? GO LOKI! I mean, it was a good try.

A knife, though? A knife of all things? Thanos is INCREDIBLY dumb. It could have worked. It wouldn't have been much of a movie if he did, but I was rooting for Thor to kick his ass Yeah. there was a crowd-wide scream in the theater I was in when Loki died There was a lot of yelling that night actually I admit I'll be mad if he really is dead this time. Well whether he is or not, there is that tv show coming And there's always reboots. true, true And other universes I mean, there is no reason why they can't bring in Lady Death at some point And Deadpool. Even though they won't have her be Thanos' flame But she usually isn't against trading souls Then they can have Deadpool cockblock Thanos. I mean. I would watch a whole movie on that premise A wacky romantic comedy! just... cockblocking Thanos, who is definitely that ugly fratboy that Lady Death has no interest in everyone wants to cockblock Thanos. It'd be the feel-good hit of the summer. I mean. I would watch a whole movie on that premise A wacky romantic comedy! just... cockblocking Thanos, who is definitely that ugly fratboy that Lady Death has no interest in everyone wants to cockblock Thanos. It'd be the feel-good hit of the summer. "Why do you think I would want to deal with more dead people, it's like... a logistical nightmare" Besides, she can take the long view. Everyone dies eventually. "This person wasn't supposed to die for another 80 years, you've destroyed the balance" ...Multiple times, in some cases. *cough*Optimus*cough* OP would cockblock Thanos Ha! lol Side note, I just think it says some unflattering things about a villain when all their minions are THAT toadying and talk about 'em in that weirdly... worshipful? way. All culty and all. Agreed Greetings. Hello! Good evening, both of you! My mistake, one of you! I am pleased to not miss seeing the poor decisions of good meaning individuals. More realistic :< all Marvel characters do is make poor decisions. constantly Good people don't always make smart decisions just because they are kind 'Good' people notoriously make bad decisions, because it makes them feel better. Cough cough, Autobots. dangerous faces > Yeah, and 'bad' people notoriously make bad decisions because they have some stupid personal grudge they want to satisfy. Cough Megatron cough. And I make both kinds of bad decision, so does that make me a neutral person? I just think it means "emotionally satisfying" is completely orthogonal to "achieves your goals" True ... boy this was hard enough to watch the first time Of course Rocket knows about it AND NOW: shenanigans why an omnicidal madman gets ready to kill untold infinities Is it truly omnicidal, if he only wishes to kill 'half'? Semi-omnicidal? Oh he has "reasons", they're just too stupid for words I wonder what he did with species that were on the last of their kind? Actually I kind of want to know why he's in charge of an army in the first place. Does seem like a cause that shouldn't have so much of a following But, he only JUST started collecting the infinity stones. Before that it seems like his power WAS his army. He did have one a while ago, but Loki lost it Without all that he's just... some guy? Relatively big and tough, I guess, but who cares? I think he is supposed to be strong without the stones There isn't that much proof of it though If it's just physically strong, then--again, who cares? boring We do not have enough history to say for certain what resources he started out with. Maybe he adopted all of them We know he adopted at least two children, maybe he just... collects them or something And we do not know how long he has been collecting followers. One can amass an army from nothing, if they have enough time and drive. I guess; it just seems kind of bizarre. I'm rolling my eyes so hard right now. She has forgotten about her mother very quickly. It's not *that* nice of a knife. Trauma can make you forget things to survive That was kind of how I interpreted it, yeah. Repress and deny. I would not trust this man to pick up a parcel on time, let alone kill in a vital situation. Even easier for such a young child Oh, I like him. Out of curiosity, how many of us have seen Endgame? Not me. I have not. I've heard it's three hours long and I'm going to wait for, ahem, something I can watch at home and pause in the middle. It's not because I want to talk spoilers or anything, just curious It is very long I feel like they need to bring back intermissions if they're going to do that. Get the biggest popcorn/drink/whatever available . . . That is not stealth. Drax doesn't really "do" stealth "why" GEE I DUNNO subterfuge: a literally alien concept He's so full of shit. People cry out of relief, too. Or any strong emotion. He's such an aft That is a fun toy, though. So sad He can bend reality. There is no tension. Still sad because you know what is going to happen It's obnoxious to watch him pretending there is so he can play out his little ~dramas~ You have no idea what he might do to her now, and that is the truly sad part At least in the comics he deluded himself into putting on limits so he could be sexier for death. This is just dull. *high five* I feel like they were trying to make him more relatable, but... somehow the power of sexy is more understandable They were trying to make him more relatable? Sorry, who wants to relate to THAT? I think so, I mean, they tried to make a lot of the characters more relatable Would not destroying a stone that is one of the pillars of the universe have consequences? You'd think, right? But I don't remember that being brought up at any point Well, the soul stone is inactive so... maybe, maybe not It keeps just being "oh no we can't DESTROY it, we could use it!" But inactive might not be the same as destroyed, right? I think they are more a force for changing the laws of the universe than actually controlling it At least, in the comics it seems more that way At least, in the comics it seems more that way whoops okay I'm ducking out for the torture scene Good choice That is one way to solve the problem. That was it, right All done? Done. good, good "oh we're using made up names" Did Strange lose his teleportation ring? He could just leave, if he chooses. Heh. Maybe it only works short range? Maybe it only works on earth That sounds like a lie. And yet GOTG says that she is the last survivor of her race That's not how planets or anything works. Does he not have several stones that bypass these finite laws of the universe? He could create. He could just double all the resources Or teleport things to the places they are needed, his justification is a lie, he's just an asshole euuuurgh, the other torture scene brb Sloppy. what a loving father It's fine to sacrifice her own life to save all, but she cannot sacrifice her sister to the same end. Back So he killed much more than half of them? And crippled this one, just be be even more of a prick. This is the guy who thinks mass murder is the solution to every problem. Mass murder is the solution to several problems, but certainly not all of them. They almost accidentally murdered their allies I'd argue that at this point Thanos has "when all you have is a hammer"-ed himself into mass murder as a solution Exactly. "Oh, there's a famine? TIME TO KILL EVERYONE!" No one can be hungry if they are dead. Again though, there are at least two planets where it lead to one survivor Ha. better than none This seems like something he could have done earlier. Then they are bad at their jobs. Only one win scenario... Before their options narrowed so badly. Maybe the "one" is to make them feel desperate Give me the Ring, Frodo~ He may also be lying about the fourteen million. Maybe desperation is part of what leads to the success of multiple lines Convenient that he brought a sacrifice. I am so angry about this This seems like a great moment to shove him into the abyss. He may be too heavy for her to push. And, right? Is this supposed to make us feel sorry for him? Because it's failing. It makes me feel even more sorry for her Why does anyone like this character? Because he is entitled, and thinks he is a genius, when he is only selfish, and stupid. PRO TIP: Don't try to make us feel sorry for someone for whom genocide is a first step No idea, then again, I don't know anyone who does I don't think I've seen one positive word about him. Even, like, as a character Oh it's the sad music Poor Gamora. The comic book version is fun... being a large ham who literally wants to woo death and got cockblocked by Deadpool The nicest thing I can think to say is... well... at least he isn't trying to bone death in this a literal skeleton I prefer that idea but... at least it isn't into nec-romance Ha, nice. . . . I call shenanigans on this physics. maybe physics work differently here I think physics definitely works differently here. All this to protect one guy. Tactics also seems to work differently. One guy who was willing to sacrifice himself. Where is the air support? Surely they can muster more than two men? Humans can't fly naturally They can pilot machines. Nice. Wakanda should be full of flying machines. But, also, was that the bifrost? Can he... use that now? true I thought that was Heimdall's thing I'm sorry to be nitpicking, it just occurred to me And you'd think so, right? The axe allows him to use the bifrost. They said the hammer could use the power of the bifrost Ohhhh Oh, shut up! Unfortunately he is insane, regardless of what happened. I wish the filmmakers could get their hands off Thanos's dick for like two seconds. nobody's gonna be fuckin' grateful you murdered half of everyone you know His tiny, tiny one. I do like Starlord. ...Mostly. He is very resilliant, even without the magic. I feel like cutting his hand off would have been more expedient than trying to pull the gauntlet off, too. But then the movie would be over. Who cares! Cutting his head off would solve even more problems. Very true. Indeed. Hand first, then head. My god he's an idiot This was NOT the time Oh, you stupid, stupid fragger. Argh, I know, right? If he could have waited TWO MINUTES Bad decisions all around. He could have had ACTUAL revenge They could have started with those. Maybe they, uh....... take time to warm up? She had one job. And yes, saving her friends is important and all, but still. Okay, not that I don't like pithy comments, but it seems like they could have made better use of their surprise round Like that! Hopefully he is not storing any important organs there. I HOPE this is part of his plan. After his big talk earlier about how he wouldn't give up the stone to save them. It would have to be. Stark's presence must be part of the final win condition. Endgame: final phase of chess when you sacrifice important pieces for victory That alone says it is part of the plan Okay, fair. I hadn't considered this before, but maybe part of their attraction for each other is because they are connected by the stones Unicron's sake, why is he still talking? nobody caaaaaaaaaaaaares nobody likes you shut up forever He likes fellating his own ego. *GRUMBLE* I do wonder if this means it wouldn't have helped to have just. Started with that instead of trying to protect Vision Because he's the last person in the universe who he respects to have a say *enough to have a say This is why it is important to kill first, gloat after. Yep. No matter how tempting it is to do otherwise... Prioritize. awwww, he's SAD. Nobody cares! Cry more tears, you big disgusting grape. It shouldn't be allowed for characters to mourn over people they intentionally and willingly murdered Also, his 'instant' snap takes forever. It takes long enough for people to know they're dying. Like for Scarlet Witch it makes sense, because she actually did have to kill the willing Vision, Gamora fought for her life and he didn't have to do it Notice how none of his "equally likely to die" soldiers are shown dying? Very fair and impartial. He deserved that. He deserved to live, and lose them all for his failures. aw, noooo. :< I bawled at this part in the movies Good point. Good thing Stark handles his trauma well. And Thanos gets his sunrise that he does not deserve. With music that says we're supposed to get all sappy over it. While the rest of the galaxy fights over half the animals and resources left. Keep in mind he halved all living resources, so unless you can eat rocks... yeah, there isn't actually more resources now What a crock of drainage. Alright, light note to end on, because we need one. It's going to be more than half of everyone dying too. Wait The post credit scene There's aftercredits stuff And because I have zero interest in listening to Thanos's sad man music. Oh, yes! Small spoiler, don't wait for the post credit scene in endgame, there isn't one Oh, huh. Breaking the tradition, huh? Now the biggest question, is does the gauntlet count mechanical life forms as 'alive' enough to erase? I don't want people disappointed like I was His comment about ~sparing half of humanity~ made it sound like he was deliberately choosing who would live and die, at least on a species level. Hm, we don't see any erased by the click, but that doesn't mean that they aren't So I guess it would depend on whatever terrible opinions Thanos himself has. She called him Nick I had to explain that symbol to so many people after the movie ...okay, I'd shop here I need this shop same Okay, maybe not. A feel good way to end the evening. This is a movie that needed to end with mercy gas. Yes. Good night, everyone! Thank you for coming! I do not want to be carried home by a big strong man who will watch my movies for me. It makes it sound like you want Thanos to fart at the end Speak for yourself. And thank you for streaming! Night all Goodnight! Goodnight And as far as I'm concerned, he did. One long, continous one, from his first scene to his last. On that note, good night. They edited it out in post. But we know.