(no subject)
May. 2nd, 2018 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretInfinity War
I dunno? I laughed at the banter. I wasn't bored. The special effects were good, the fights were entertaining, the plot moved. But was it good? No. It was a comic book crossover turned into a movie. One of the big ones, like, well, one of the Infinity Gauntlet miniseries. It had fits of continuity it was unable to sustain, it had fits of in-character storytelling that quickly got undermined by tonal mismatch, and more damning than any of these faults, it didn't actually say anything thematically that made sense.
The film was constructing thematically on a strange, halfhearted, and confused damnation of individual heroism. At multiple points in the film, the heroes were presented with a choice between innocents being hurt and risking their own lives; As heroes, they obviously always chose their risking own life. Duh. But at various points in the film, the heroes were presented with a choice between innocents being hurt and risking the life of someone they particularly cared about. This was the moral dilemma the movie rocked on, confronted repeatedly by both heroes and the villain, the choice agonized on at length.
-Gamora asks Starlord to kill her rather than let her fall into the hands of Thanos, who will use private knowledge of hers to advance his murderous agenda. He at first resists, but ultimately presses the trigger (only to fail, because Thanos outwits and overpowers him.)
-Vision asks Steve and Wanda to kill him rather than let the Mind Stone fall into the hands of Thanos. They resist, seeking a plan that will allow them to save his life, but ultimately when threatened with failure, Wanda destroys the Mind Stone and kills Vision (only to fail, because Thanos outwits and overpowers her.)
-Red Skull tells Thanos that he must kill Gamora to attain his goal. He doesn't resist, but sadly kills his adopted daughter.
There are several other cases in the film that meet this rubric but less precisely. Tony's decision to arm and use Peter. Steve and T'Challa's decision to risk Wakanda to save the world. Something something about Thor and Loki I don't give a shit about.
There are a few things to note. First, that there seems to be an implicit utilitarian condemnation of the heroes here- the only argument against the utilitarian thesis in the film is Steve's "We don't trade lives". But otherwise the film seems to take as given that Thanos is so world-destroyingly bad that our heroes should be willing to kill the people they love if it will stop or even slow down Thanos. Which according to many ethical theories is not so self-evident!
But second, every time the heroes try to sacrifice someone and they get up the will to do it, they fail spectacularly. I'm not sure how to understand this! Thanos specifically uses the word 'will' as his distinguishment between himself and his opponents. There's a point in one of the later Harry Potter books where a bad guy tells the heroes that they can't effectively use one of the Unforgiveable Curses because you need to really mean it- Is the movie making some metaphysical argument about heroes, that the reason they're unable to sacrifice their loved ones in spite of making the commitment to doing it is because superheroes, by their nature, don't have the *will* to make this sort of sacrifice, unlike Thanos? Is this a criticism of superheroes or an encomium? Surely we're not supposed to admire Thanos for this *will*!?!
It's hard to say what the movie thinks because it's only Part 1. This movie's ethical thesis seems to pause mid-argument at the end of the film.
I dunno? I laughed at the banter. I wasn't bored. The special effects were good, the fights were entertaining, the plot moved. But was it good? No. It was a comic book crossover turned into a movie. One of the big ones, like, well, one of the Infinity Gauntlet miniseries. It had fits of continuity it was unable to sustain, it had fits of in-character storytelling that quickly got undermined by tonal mismatch, and more damning than any of these faults, it didn't actually say anything thematically that made sense.
The film was constructing thematically on a strange, halfhearted, and confused damnation of individual heroism. At multiple points in the film, the heroes were presented with a choice between innocents being hurt and risking their own lives; As heroes, they obviously always chose their risking own life. Duh. But at various points in the film, the heroes were presented with a choice between innocents being hurt and risking the life of someone they particularly cared about. This was the moral dilemma the movie rocked on, confronted repeatedly by both heroes and the villain, the choice agonized on at length.
-Gamora asks Starlord to kill her rather than let her fall into the hands of Thanos, who will use private knowledge of hers to advance his murderous agenda. He at first resists, but ultimately presses the trigger (only to fail, because Thanos outwits and overpowers him.)
-Vision asks Steve and Wanda to kill him rather than let the Mind Stone fall into the hands of Thanos. They resist, seeking a plan that will allow them to save his life, but ultimately when threatened with failure, Wanda destroys the Mind Stone and kills Vision (only to fail, because Thanos outwits and overpowers her.)
-Red Skull tells Thanos that he must kill Gamora to attain his goal. He doesn't resist, but sadly kills his adopted daughter.
There are several other cases in the film that meet this rubric but less precisely. Tony's decision to arm and use Peter. Steve and T'Challa's decision to risk Wakanda to save the world. Something something about Thor and Loki I don't give a shit about.
There are a few things to note. First, that there seems to be an implicit utilitarian condemnation of the heroes here- the only argument against the utilitarian thesis in the film is Steve's "We don't trade lives". But otherwise the film seems to take as given that Thanos is so world-destroyingly bad that our heroes should be willing to kill the people they love if it will stop or even slow down Thanos. Which according to many ethical theories is not so self-evident!
But second, every time the heroes try to sacrifice someone and they get up the will to do it, they fail spectacularly. I'm not sure how to understand this! Thanos specifically uses the word 'will' as his distinguishment between himself and his opponents. There's a point in one of the later Harry Potter books where a bad guy tells the heroes that they can't effectively use one of the Unforgiveable Curses because you need to really mean it- Is the movie making some metaphysical argument about heroes, that the reason they're unable to sacrifice their loved ones in spite of making the commitment to doing it is because superheroes, by their nature, don't have the *will* to make this sort of sacrifice, unlike Thanos? Is this a criticism of superheroes or an encomium? Surely we're not supposed to admire Thanos for this *will*!?!
It's hard to say what the movie thinks because it's only Part 1. This movie's ethical thesis seems to pause mid-argument at the end of the film.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-02 06:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-02 07:28 pm (UTC)And the idea of achieving a Malthusian balance by randomly killing half the universe's population is dumb and nonsensical and sociopathic and not at all sympathetic, though I think it is kind of structurally interesting that Thanos therefore represents a villain who is interested in power, but not for its own sake or for the sake of personal gain. There definitely is a reason for which heroes ended up at Titan and which fought the final battle in Wakanda- Tony Stark, Stephen Strange, and even Peter Parker are characters whose basic storylines are about the pursuit of personal power and its costs, while Steve and Natasha and T'Challa and so on are more about negotiating their place within a system and a community.
here from network
Date: 2018-05-02 10:58 pm (UTC)I don't think it works as a movie, a story complete in itself, like Iron Man or Winter Soldier or any of the better MCU entries. And it is a cliffhanger, no matter how many interviews the writers and directors are giving saying they think it's a finished story and the next one isn't a sequel.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-02 11:01 pm (UTC)Yeah, and it's an actual abusive viewpoint -- I love you, so I can do anything I want to you, and it doesn't matter and your view of things doesn't matter. I'm never going to find that sympathetic, ever. Maybe in the next movie Nebula kills Thanos and brings back Gamora, but I doubt that'll happen.
And I don't know how much of it is the baked-in misogyny in them (the writers and directors). Winter Soldier is still the platonic ideal, for me, and I cannot figure out how they achieved that when everything since has been so weirdly different.
This baffles me, SO MUCH. I was expecting Civil War to be so different from what it was and when I saw it, I was like, "shit, we're in trouble for the bing wind-up."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-02 11:02 pm (UTC)Re: here from network
Date: 2018-05-02 11:56 pm (UTC)Yeah, this is so strange. We pretty much have to see some sort of reversal in A4, but even with a reversal, what does that make IW mean? Total gibberish. What's striking is that with the exception of Thanos, none of those many vs. one moral event horizons ever gives us any kind of aftermath. Gamora is taken away by Thanos so we never see Starlord grapple with the fact that he tried to kill his girlfriend because the movie's too busy. Then Wanda crumbles before she can grapple with having killed Vision for nothing. Why even bother presenting these morally compromising situations if you're immediately going to wipe away their consequences?
(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-03 12:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-03 06:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
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