Endgame Thanos/The Mad Titan - Josh Brolin

[terry78]

Spoiler

2014 Thanos was already causing problems for Earth and others around the universe as early as like 2008. He was already too overconfident about everything and knew about all the heroes already.

 

[The_Manhunter]

Spoiler

OK, but what I'm saying is I thought they should have stuck with the Thanos who interacted with the heroes in Infinity War, simply because those interactions were so great and could have led to some really complex stuff. That's why I was kind of disappointed. We could have even still gotten warrior Thanos when he loses the Stones.

 

[Hannibal75]

Spoiler

OK, but what I'm saying is I thought they should have stuck with the Thanos who interacted with the heroes in Infinity War, simply because those interactions were so great and could have led to some really complex stuff. That's why I was kind of disappointed. We could have even still gotten warrior Thanos when he loses the Stones.

Spoiler

2018 Thanos was weak after using the Infinity Stones and didn't pose a threat anymore.

 

[The_Manhunter]

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2018 Thanos was weak after using the Infinity Stones and didn't pose a threat anymore.

Spoiler

Could have easily written it the other way though. It doesn't affect him at all in the comics IIRC

 

[samsnee]

Spoiler

Not really. This movie thankfully wasn't just Thanos' journey, part 2. They needed to get rid of him to set up the next act about dealing with loss and trying to move forward. They couldn't just immediately punch their way out of this one like they've always done. Getting rid of him like that early on also leaves the audience wondering where the movie can go from here as well.

 

[djsunyc]

spectacular character and spectacular performance.

any future big bad has alot to live up to.

 

[metaphysician]

As all good bad guys do in films.

It makes sense here, though. Thanos isn't just a villain and a megalomaniac, he's an *evangelist*. Speechifying isn't just to pad his own ego, its also a legitimate effort to convert others to his beliefs ( and probably to reinforce the beliefs in those who already follow him ).

( Of course, since he also *is* a villainous megalomaniac, it certainly doesn't *hurt* his ego, either. . . )

 

[The Guard]

Spoiler

I disagree, I think it shows that despite Thanos's "noble" intentions (from his own point of view) his madness and warped perspective prevented him from being able to see things from the point of view of all the rational people throughout the universe. He truly believed that people would see things his way and would be grateful.

And his revised goal is similarly "noble", from his perspective. He finally realizes that most people won't see things the same way he does, that the emotional toll of losing so many loved ones will override the practical benefits of a reduced population. And so his solution is to eliminate everyone, and start over from scratch.

His ultimate goal is to reduce suffering and misery. He just has a very, very warped idea of how to best achieve this goal.

My issue isn't the "nobility" of it, or the fact that he thinks he's doing the right/neccessary thing.

It's that once again, he opens his mouth to monologue and it just immediately feels like he literally didn't think his plan through at all. Which serves to weaken him as a character. It makes him seem both less intelligent and less competent. It's a smaller version of the execution issues that plagued the character in INFINITY WAR. The complexity of his motivations end up amounting to a half baked attempt to make him seem deeper and relatable.

Spoiler

And then you have ENDGAME, where Thanos, who is supposedly all about preventing suffering...has like one minor setback and immediately brags about how he's going to relish...causing sufferg?

Spoiler

Aside from the obvious inconsistency, because this inconsistency is never addressed, the use of generic supervillain elements just serve to cheapen him as a villain and make him that much more generic in the end result. And maybe that's what they were going for. That ultimately he's kind of just a whiny thug. There's a precedent for that in the comics, I suppose.

 

[shabadoo25]

Was there anything special about Thanos that differentiated him from other Titans?

If he's just a regular member of that race, considering how powerful he was without stones, couldn't they have pretty easily just conquered most of the universe?

 

[TheGuy]

Was there anything special about Thanos that differentiated him from other Titans?

If he's just a regular member of that race, considering how powerful he was without stones, couldn't they have pretty easily just conquered most of the universe?

In the comics, he is a mutant Eternal so he has augmented powers compared to his fellow race. The upcoming Eternals will answer that question.

 

[The_Manhunter]

Spoiler

Not really. This movie thankfully wasn't just Thanos' journey, part 2. They needed to get rid of him to set up the next act about dealing with loss and trying to move forward. They couldn't just immediately punch their way out of this one like they've always done. Getting rid of him like that early on also leaves the audience wondering where the movie can go from here as well.

Well, that's your opinion.

Spoiler

I strongly disagree that offing your main antagonist 20 minutes into the movie makes for good storytelling. I still had fun at the movie though.

 

[Iceman]

So his

Spoiler

sword

was pretty cool.

 

[redoptics]

Spoiler: Spoiler

Maybe now they can introduce Misstress Death, the Infinity Well when they bring Thanos back, I don't think he will be dead forever, heck get him to go after the heart of the universe or something

 

[metaphysician]

In the comics, he is a mutant Eternal so he has augmented powers compared to his fellow race. The upcoming Eternals will answer that question.

Possibly. Just because Thanos is an Eternal in the comics, doesn't mean he will be connected to them in the movies. After all, we know he's not from Earth, and his homeworld isn't anywhere near Earth. Its entirely likely ( IMO, almost certain ) that he won't have any connection.

As things stand? We have no idea what Thanos' relationship with the rest of his species was, because they were all long dead by the time we meet Thanos. All we really know is the name "Titans", and that Thanos is from them. Is Thanos a more or less typical example, and his technological resources derived from their science? Is Thanos instead empowered by means acquired after their downfall, with his tech resources accumulated from various sources? We have no idea.

One additional note comes to mind: his species were called 'Titans'. In Greek mythology, the 'Titans' were the precursors to the Gods. It is possible that there is a connection here between him and the Asgardians ( and presumably other gods if/when they are unveiled ).

 

[AndrewGilkison]

Well, that's your opinion.

Spoiler

I strongly disagree that offing your main antagonist 20 minutes into the movie makes for good storytelling. I still had fun at the movie though.

Spoiler

The problem is that the Avengers can't really go back in time and do their plan if 2018 Thanos still has all the infinity stones that give him unlimited power. He would find out what they are trying to do and stop it instantly. Even if he destroyed the stones but the Avengers didn't kill him in the first act (unlikely, Thor was chopping his head off no matter what) 2018 Thanos didn't have any army left or anyway to stop the Avengers from doing their time travel, and or give us that big massive final battle at the end.

 

[Mr.T]

Anyone else notice Brolin’s southern twang was much less noticeable in IW & EG? Did the Russo’s make it point to work that out of him?

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Anyone else notice Brolin’s southern twang was much less noticeable in IW & EG? Did the Russo’s make it point to work that out of him?

Brolin is a pros pro actor. I am sure he thought out what he was supposed to do with his character long and hard.

 

[Mr.T]

Brolin is a pros pro actor. I am sure he thought out what he was supposed to do with his character long and hard.

Well, you could hear it plain as day in the GotG when he talked to Ronan. I’m not disputing his talent, just noticed he sounds different.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Well, you could hear it plain as day in the GotG when he talked to Ronan. I’m not disputing his talent, just noticed he sounds different.

Eh... I didn't hear it in the, like what, five, six lines of dialog?

 

[samsnee]

Plus that was like 4 years ago before he really started working on the character. You could complain he was a brighter purple back then too.

 

[Consona]

I have two problems with Thanos, which are, unfortunately, rather colossal.

Spoiler

I liked the subverted expectations of killing him right at the beginning. But that was their main mistake as well since they were not able to follow that with writing anything satisfying.

Thanos here was actually a different Thanos who did not snap anything from the existence. It was a different person with no experience of fighting Avengers and other MCU characters during IW, killing Gamora, etc. That's so stupid. Tony's snap erased just another weakly written MCU villain and not the Thanos he was fighting at Titan. The whole finale is about another character? Dafuq?

Spoiler

The other huge problem is his plan. The writers and directors make fun of America's ass and time travel films and whatnot, yet there's no reflection from any of the characters on this utterly nonsensical bull****. Sorry for being that over-dramatic, but it kills otherwise great villain for me.

In IW filmmakers presented Thanos as an intelligent, thoughtful and even sensitive guy, who thinks about and meditates on things, who speaks so calmly and deliberately. They show how he mourns for those he has lost, to make him more humane; they show him explaining his motives, to make his actions feel thought-through and justified, but his goal is actually a complete bull****.

Such a congitive dissonance between the guy presented and the guy acting. And no, this is not "mad titan" Thanos, they can call him however they want, but this is not the mad titan from the comics, where his "kill half of all life" plan made perfect sense and did not feel out of character.


Here?
There's an incredibly vast ever-expanding universe, full of planets, stars, galaxies, galaxy groups and clusters.
Stones give one the power to change virtually anything.
Thanos wants to help people, wants life to thrive.
His thought-out plan is to kill half of all life to achieve that...

Human population in a hospitable environment with enough food can get back from a half of its amount to the full in somewhere between one or two generations. Some animals way faster, some not, aliens would probably be akin to humans.

So not only Thanos becomes a mass/genocidal murderer, who causes a huge amount of suffering because of killing someone's parents, partners and/or children, and let's skip the whole thing were he destroyes people with knowledge and experience in doing science and medical research, operating machinery, making tools and things, building houses, roads and hospitals, teaching, etc...

But! Thanos has done all of that so just in like 30 to 50 years, the population is back again where it was before the snap???!!!

And then he fricking destroys the stones so they can't be used again???!!!

Sorry, but what kind of an utterly idiotic plan is that? This is something he spends his whole life on, thinking about and executing that goal. An intelligent, thoughtful and sensitive guy.


From the universal point of view, with the cosmos being billions of years old, while he's destroyed two generations of people... he did basically and literally nothing to help anybody.


And then, he wants to use the stones to create a new universe. And then what? Kill half of all life again at some point? And again?

There's already a self-ever-expanding universe full of stuff and a gauntlet that can do anything. There's so many options to solve anything. And they chose probably the stupidest one ever. A universe-wide mass genocide that totally misses its goal.

Is there something I'm missing? This plan doesn't hold up whatsoever.

Some other things...

Spoiler

Thanos' power level felt so totally all over the place, there's no way you can sensibly create a feeling of any danger. Both in IW and EG.
Captain Marvel alone can survive the full barrage of and destroy the whole Thanos' space battle cruiser just by flying through it. (Everybody can go home now.) But she can't do anything to Thanos who's not even wearing any stone at that moment? In IW he has stones but Steve can resist him.
It's written so lazily without any sense of scale. It's like whoever just fights Thanos can do that. Stones or not, alone or in team, whatever...

Also is Tony another sibling of Quicksilver that he was able to get those stones out of Thanos' gauntlet in null.zeronothing seconds?

Also the final confrontation felt rushed.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Yeah, was little disappointed with Hanks here myself, he was still pretty awesome as CBM villains go, but,

Spoiler

I would have preferred seeing them fight the IW Thanos.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Avengers vs Tom Hanks would be pretty awesome though...

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

 

[The_Manhunter]

Spoiler

The problem is that the Avengers can't really go back in time and do their plan if 2018 Thanos still has all the infinity stones that give him unlimited power. He would find out what they are trying to do and stop it instantly. Even if he destroyed the stones but the Avengers didn't kill him in the first act (unlikely, Thor was chopping his head off no matter what) 2018 Thanos didn't have any army left or anyway to stop the Avengers from doing their time travel, and or give us that big massive final battle at the end.

Spoiler

They could have easily leaned into his trait from the comics of thinking he doesn't deserve to win and subtly sabotaging himself. Then when he sees the Avengers have the Stones too he could use the Stones to bring back his army for that final battle (I agree that that final battle was a must).