#just felt like taika was writing his self insert into the story and it was BAD

[allpromarlo]

i think its time for marvel to put taika waititi thor down. the world is ready for something new

[spectraspecs-writes]

Thoughts on Endgame - Spoiler Free (bc I haven’t seen it yet)

Long post but worth the read, imo. 

When I was waiting for the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary, I spent my time, naturally, writing the episode on my own, in my head. Granted, it was full of self-inserts, but they were self-inserts rich in character and motivations. There wasn’t any big alien baddie, but the Doctor had to deal with a big spatial conundrum. I think I went with something like a wormhole that put disparate people and civilizations together on Earth, and the Doctor had to work with Torchwood and UNIT to solve it (as well as my own self-insert group, shut up, it was cool.)

And then November 23rd, 2013, came. And I was excited. Because I, after all, was simply a fan, not a professional writer by any means, just a devoted fan who enjoyed writing and speculating.

I was disappointed. 

Whoop-dee-doo, the Daleks are back, so what else is new? Even as a devoted fan, there’s really nothing new to do with the Daleks under the sun, in my opinion. They’ve been rebooted so many times, same with the Cybermen, that there’s just... nothing new to add to them. There are better aliens. And for the Big Bad, Moffat decided to go with... the Zygons??? Who hadn’t shown up since, I think, the Fifth Doctor? I don’t remember exactly, but since they hadn’t shown up in a while, clearly no one really missed them. And that’s who Moffat went with for his Big Bad? And then, as was brought to my attention by another fan, the Doctor destroyed Gallifrey for good reason. They had become horrible people as a result of the Time War. But Moffat decided to... disregard that and bring them back? What? Did he literally not watch The End of Time Part 2 and learn why that was a bad idea? I was simply disappointed. I enjoyed it, yes, but I had built up this ideal episode in my head, and I didn’t get it. And now, six years later, I realize and understand that I was expecting too much of Moffat. God forbid we acknowledge that Torchwood and Captain Jack existed outside of a single line and his vortex manipulator. 

Fast forward to now. I liked Avengers: Infinity War. I see the problems that others had with it after the fact (I’m not typically the person who does in-depth analysis of my entertainment, but I enjoy seeing others do it and taking it in), and I myself had problems with Vision and Scarlet Witch being shipped together, because I didn’t feel anything about it. I never felt any pull toward Vision. Not once. Scarlet Witch has always been cool, but she always seemed more a friend to Vision, because they had the Mind Stone in common, and I liked them better as friends than as relationship partners. And I’ve read people’s analysis of Taika’s Thor versus the Russo’s Thor, and I agree that the former is better than the latter.

Because I like spoilers, when someone I follow on here announced that they’d seen it, I asked them to spoil me. Please - I like walking into movies knowing what to expect. I had a list of the dead from Infinity War the day after it came out. It didn’t ruin my viewing experience. As Data says in the Season Two episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, knowing the facts of the moment is no replacement for the flavor of the moment. Knowing Spider Man died and knowing “Mr. Stark I don’t feel so good” didn’t mean I wasn’t broken up when I saw the scene. I actually felt a tear when Bucky said “Steve...” as he faded to dust (which is a big reaction for me). I knew Bucky died. But the fact of the moment and the flavor are two different things. So when I walk into the movie this Tuesday/Wednesday, I’ll know what happens, but I won’t know the flavor of the moment.

I had a dream last night about Endgame, that took some of the facts of the moment that I got from the spoilers, and made it’s own movie. It didn’t focus on the Avengers the whole time, naturally, and looked more at the new world order. Things cost more, because there was a lower supply of goods compared to the demand. In order to meet that demand, the manufacturing of goods cut a lot more corners and utilized non-traditional ingredients (eg., meats weren’t just your basic pig, cow, chicken, etc., but I didn’t get a whole lot of details beyond that.) People were desperate. There was a lot of crime and chaos. Five years passed from the time of the Snap to the setting of the dream. There were people who, this was all they knew of the world. A lot of the focus, that wasn’t on the Avengers (mostly Tony, Cap, Thor, Banner, Clint), was on a single mother of two daughters. One daughter was a teenager, who had some emotional issues (naturally - she knew the world pre-Snap), and a seven or eight year old, who only knew the world post-Snap, and so didn’t have the same issues. And she loved to dance. They had their own plot, which was pretty rich in details and character and motivation, but you know what? Two things - you don’t know these characters, and I don’t remember the whole dream. So let’s move on to what the Avengers did.

Tony was depressed. He had lost Pepper in the Snap (don’t remember if he really did in Infinity War), and was preoccupied on a daughter that he didn’t have, so he was building an AI to fulfill that loss, but it wasn’t working out. This AI couldn’t communicate beyond a flashing light. He didn’t have F.R.I.D.A.Y. inside the suit anymore, but a voice with an Indian accent (Simad or something like that was the name, not sure but it started with an S.) He didn’t have anything to do with Stark Industries, or even the Iron Man suit anymore, but was just holed up, an engineer, making things. Trying to replace that which he’d lost. Meanwhile, the city was run by a woman whose first name was Ichbin (yes, just like the German “I am”, don’t remember her last name, but I remember thinking in the dream that it was a pretty name). Ichbin was not a nice woman, but she was very determined, a bit of a dictatorial leader, certainly, but most people weren’t too bad off, they just disagreed with her methods. Thor was working for her, he was also sad, but he was trying to work through some issues. If you’ve seen Legend of Korra, season four, it was kind of the same as how Bolin was working for that Earth Kingdom general whose name escapes me. Thor was still trying to be a good man, but there was only so much he could do in his job. Anyway, something happened (this dream ended four hours ago, so I don’t remember everything), and Tony tried to come in and fix it, finding some motivation and wanting to help his friends, with his glowing AI daughter and the AI Simad (or smth) trying to help him. And he loses at first, but then, knocked to the ground, bleeding, trying to push himself up, says, “you know... i just remembered... You’ve got the wrong letters on the sign.” 

...huh?

I know, it sounds like your average dream thing, but apparently Ichbin was living and working in Stark Tower/Avengers Tower whatever, and had changed the letters on the sign. And this revelation was significant because it told you that Tony wasn’t hiding anymore, he was remembering who he was, what he was. He was Tony Stark. And he could help people. So he defeated her, but I didn’t see the battle. What I saw was him, up in the tower, knocking down the letters that Ichbin had set out, and replacing them with his name. And rebranding Stark Tower and Tony Stark as not the the place where the unkind leader lived, but as a place you could go where you could feel safe, to try to recover from the Snap and make your life better. To help people. 

Was the Snap fixed? No, and by the end of the dream, no one had even hinted at Thanos. But we did actually see something that said “we can fix this. we can be better. just because this is life now doesn’t mean we have to just sit and mope. we can be better.” And it didn’t emphasize the physical battles, but the emotional battles. Stuff like that is what I see fans coming up with. Just like I came up with the ideal Doctor Who 50th Anniversary episode.

The real Endgame, I can almost guarantee you, is not going to have as much emotional impact. I realize they have to do the battles, because it’s an action movie, but characters are not just the physical action. Their emotions make the story. And I don’t like that the big movies have moved away from that. I want to see what makes these characters tick on an emotional level. Agents of SHIELD is good for that, but you can do it in a movie, too. 

I’m already in the fandom, I’m going to go see the movie. But I’m just tired of not seeing the humanity in these people. These people are larger than life, but where is their life? Where is their soul? Because all I see is muscle and bone and scars. Give me something happy. Give me some notion of feelings beyond the battles. Because I’m tired.