The Superhero Cinematic Civil War Thread* - Part 61

[AndrewGilkison]

I love how everyone is so sure and certain how RDJ is going to play Doom. In spite of not seeing any footage or pages of the scripts or anything to go on.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

I love how everyone is so sure and certain how RDJ is going to play Doom. In spite of not seeing any footage or pages of the scripts or anything to go on.

Can you, in all sincerity, say with a straight face that you don't think the whole premise of this is Doom as Evil Tony? Even if it's not one to one, there is an almost nil chance that isn't the entire premise of the movie. And if it somehow isn't that is, somehow, possibly even more inane.

It is an unworkable concept.

 

[Drizzle]

I love how everyone is so sure and certain how RDJ is going to play Doom. In spite of not seeing any footage or pages of the scripts or anything to go on.

To me it doesn't matter how he plays Doom. The biggest issue for me is that Doom is being played by Downey in the first place. I'm fully aware that Downey is a capable actor but I still think the decision to have him come back and play Doom is an asinine one.

 

[Ninjablade]

I love how everyone is so sure and certain how RDJ is going to play Doom. In spite of not seeing any footage or pages of the scripts or anything to go on.

I mean it's the stunt casting of all stunt casting. They don't do this if they're not going to do the most obvious thing.

 

[Drizzle]

Can you, in all sincerity, say with a straight face that you don't think the whole premise of this is Doom as Evil Tony? Even if it's not one to one, there is an almost nil chance that isn't the entire premise of the movie. And if it somehow isn't that is, somehow, possibly even more inane.

It is an unworkable concept.

I mean it's the stunt casting of all stunt casting. They don't do this if they're not going to do the most obvious thing.

And the most baffling thing is they still could have done an alternate evil Tony without him being Doom at all. It still would have been desperate stunt casting but at least that wouldn't complicate things with him playing one of the most important Marvel villains of all time after making Tony Stark a household name for a decade. If "Alternate Evil Tony" not having anything to do with Doom was the main villain of Avengers 5 I'd still be rolling my eyes but I wouldn't feel anywhere near as let down as I was when he was announced as Doom at SDCC last July.

 

[kguillou]

I dont think anyone doubts that RDJ's not going to pull off a remarkable acting performance here, its just a matter of is he going to play that Machiavellian, pontificating, refer-to-myself-in-the third-person DOOM that we all love. Or is it going to be some new characteristic creation that they're calling Dr Doom.

Now, I'll say this, to be totally fair: The Russos, Markus and Mcfeely altered Thanos' personality from what he was in the comics and popular media and arguably, that was the right call. The Thanos in the comics was more of a cackling, sinister, psychopath whereas the Russos' Thanos was more calm, pensive and calculating. So, changing a character from the source material is not an inherently bad thing if it works for the story.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

And the most baffling thing is they still could have done an alternate evil Tony without him being Doom at all. It still would have been desperate stunt casting but at least that wouldn't complicate things with him playing one of the most important Marvel villains of all time after making Tony Stark a household name for a decade. If "Alternate Evil Tony" not having anything to do with Doom was the main villain of Avengers 5 I'd still be rolling my eyes but I wouldn't feel anywhere near as let down as I was when he was announced as Doom at SDCC last July.

No real issue at all with evil mirror universe Tony as the big bad. You could maybe even draw, actually, on some of the interesting things that have been done with Multiversal Reed Richards of varying moralities over the years for that. It'd still be gimmicky, desperate and kind of annoying but it wouldn't be one of the worst ideas ever to manifest in CBMs.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

I dont think anyone doubts that RDJ's not going to pull off a remarkable acting performance here, its just a matter of is he going to play that Machiavellian, pontificating, refer-to-myself-in-the third-person DOOM that we all love. Or is it going to be some new characteristic creation that they're calling Dr Doom.

Now, I'll say this, to be totally fair: The Russos, Markus and Mcfeely altered Thanos' personality from what he was in the comics and popular media and arguably, that was the right call. The Thanos in the comics was more of a cackling, sinister, psychopath whereas the Russos' Thanos was more calm, pensive and calculating. So, changing a character from the source material is not an inherently bad thing if it works for the story.

Not entirely true.

Wasn't there a Jim Starlin Silver Surfer comic where Thanos explained to the SS why he was so obsessed with death, where he went into a lot of the same stuff MCU Thanos talked about (that death was necessary for life to flourish).

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[SwordOfMorning]

Movie Thanos is alright - mostly due to Brolin, the role is nothing on paper imo - but I would drop him for nasty space pervert trying to bone Death in a heartbeat. Way more specific, weird and interesting.

 

[Ninjablade]

I dont think anyone doubts that RDJ's not going to pull off a remarkable acting performance here, its just a matter of is he going to play that Machiavellian, pontificating, refer-to-myself-in-the third-person DOOM that we all love. Or is it going to be some new characteristic creation that they're calling Dr Doom.

Now, I'll say this, to be totally fair: The Russos, Markus and Mcfeely altered Thanos' personality from what he was in the comics and popular media and arguably, that was the right call. The Thanos in the comics was more of a cackling, sinister, psychopath whereas the Russos' Thanos was more calm, pensive and calculating. So, changing a character from the source material is not an inherently bad thing if it works for the story.

I'm in the minority of this, but I'd argue that Thanos is the weakest part of both those movies. Infinity War flounders around trying to justify his motivations, only to give up because his whole thing is absolutely stupid. Then Endgame realizes justifying it is stupid, and just returns to the murderous psychopath who wants to kill everyone.

 

[Lily Adler]

Movie Thanos is alright - mostly due to Brolin, the role is nothing on paper imo - but I would drop him for nasty space pervert trying to bone Death in a heartbeat. Way more specific, weird and interesting.

So @Kane52630.

 

[Drizzle]

Movie Thanos is alright - mostly due to Brolin, the role is nothing on paper imo - but I would drop him for nasty space pervert trying to bone Death in a heartbeat. Way more specific, weird and interesting.

Considering this is Death in the MCU, who could blame him?

 

[Spider-Fan]

Movie Thanos is good. The logic doesn't have to really make sense, it just has to make sense within movie so we have a plot. What's more important than whether or not his plan makes sense is characters fear him and he feels threatening. It's like it doesn't make sense that an undead necromancer wants to wrestle in the WWE by an logical merits, but it doesn't matter. He acts scary, other wrestler scared. That's why Undertaker is great

 

[SwordOfMorning]

Movie Thanos is good. The logic doesn't have to really make sense, it just has to make sense within movie so we have a plot. What's more important than whether or not his plan makes sense is characters fear him and he feels threatening. It's like it doesn't make sense that an undead necromancer wants to wrestle in the WWE by an logical merits, but it doesn't matter. He acts scary, other wrestler scared. That's why Undertaker is great

Not entirely sure the standard to which we hold the writing for blockbuster filmmaking should be the high literary bar of professional wrestling.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Not entirely sure the standard to which we hold the writing for blockbuster filmmaking should be the high literary bar of professional wrestling.

It's the same idea in general storytelling. It's the old quote "you don't have to understand it, your character does." We the audience don't have to understand the mechanics of whether his plan would work, we just need to know Thanos believes this is what he has to do and that he will do whatever it takes to achieve his goal.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

It's the same idea in general storytelling. It's the old quote "you don't have to understand it, your character does." We the audience don't have to understand the mechanics of whether his plan would work, we just need to know Thanos believes this is what he has to do and that he will do whatever it takes to achieve his goal.

So, I don't entirely disagree with you. It's important to not cinema sins movie plots to death because, ultimately, plot is just sort of a railroad to achieve more important goals - like characterization, themes, etc. But those two movies get dicey for me because I think they do want you to take Thanos's plan seriously. It's not really just an excuse plot, it's important to the movies textually that the audience thinks Hey Maybe Thanos Has A Point. It winds up ringing a discordant note because of it, imo.

 

[Spider-Fan]

So, I don't entirely disagree with you. It's important to not cinema sins movie plots to death because, ultimately, plot is just sort of a railroad to achieve more important goals - like characterization, themes, etc. But those two movies get dicey for me because I think they do want you to take Thanos's plan seriously. It's not really just an excuse plot, it's important to the movies textually that the audience thinks Hey Maybe Thanos Has A Point. It winds up ringing a discordant note because of it, imo.

I dont think they want you to take his plan seriously, they want you to take the threat seriously. Cap makes an off handed comment about seeing whales in the water, but at no point does any character ask themselves to any great length "is Thanos right?" All anyone wants to do is stop him from winning, and then we see the dystopia left behind after he wins. Which I think is handled well enough.

 

[flickchick85]

Movie Thanos was lame imo. Should’ve stuck with incel weirdo Thanos. Then at least Infinity War would have had some entertaining goofiness to offset the self-serious non-stop escalating action sequence of it all.

In trying to make the character make sense (which he didn’t), they made him way more boring and generic imo.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I prefer Endgame, but Infinity War works for what it's trying to be. It's not trying to be complicated, it's just trying to serve popcorn fun and set the stage for the real story in Endgame. It does its job

 

[Kane52630]

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So @Kane52630.

 

[kguillou]

Oh man, we've officially entered the "Infinity War and Endgame weren't that great in retrospect" phase haven't we? I didnt think we'd get here so quickly.

 

[Snow Queen]

Oh man, we've officially entered the "Infinity War and Endgame weren't that great in retrospect" phase haven't we? I didnt think we'd get here so quickly.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

I'm in the minority of this, but I'd argue that Thanos is the weakest part of both those movies. Infinity War flounders around trying to justify his motivations, only to give up because his whole thing is absolutely stupid. Then Endgame realizes justifying it is stupid, and just returns to the murderous psychopath who wants to kill everyone.

"Infinity War flounders around trying to justify his motivations" Where does the movie itself try to justify Thanos actions? What am I missing?

At no point does the movie present what Thanos is trying to do as a good thing. What the **** are we even doing, man?

 

[KBX]

Oh man, we've officially entered the "Infinity War and Endgame weren't that great in retrospect" phase haven't we? I didnt think we'd get here so quickly.

Internet fandom gotta love it

 

[kguillou]

There's nothing wrong with taking a retrospective lens at things and noticing the holes that maybe we didnt notice at the time but you GOTTA admire the gargantuan task the Russos, Markus and Mcfeely pulled off by making two movies that took plot threads and arcs of more than 20 movies and threaded them together so seamlessly. For all intents and purposes those movies should have been utter disasters.

Side note: you guys ever wonder in an alternate reality where the Sony/Marvel deal never happened, what the MCU would have been like without Spider-man? Spider-man seemed to fit so perfectly within the MCU tapestry and the overall story it was telling, who would Stark have mentored, if anybody?