The Big Picture - Emergency ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Breakdown I The Big Picture (Ep. 62)

Episode Date: April 27, 2018

The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey and David Shoemaker take an exhaustive trip through the galaxy to break down the plot twists, character deaths, and paths forward for the Marvel Cinematic Universe after ...the action-packed, plot-heavy ‘Avengers: Infinity War.’ SPOILER ALERT: The second half of this episode contains serious spoilers for the movie. Be warned! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by The Dave Chang Show, brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. That's right, we have a new podcast with the great Chef Dave Chang. He has just opened a restaurant in Los Angeles called Major Domo that is wonderful. The first episode of this podcast is Dynamite. It's Dave and Bill Simmons talking a bit about some of the anxieties, frustrations, and excitement that goes into opening a restaurant. So please check out that podcast.
Starting point is 00:00:21 That's The Dave Chang Show on The Ringer Podcast Network. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Not just that the MCU movies, obviously separate from the X-Men franchise, have been better than everything that came before, but also that they, I don't know if Marvel got lucky or what, but these were the right characters to make successful movies in the 21st century with. I'm Sean Fennessy, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show with some of the smartest grown adults who love comic book movies. I'm joined today by one such adult. His name is David Shoemaker. He is the art director,
Starting point is 00:01:08 a writer, and the host of three different podcasts on the Ringer Podcast Network. They'd include The Masked Man Show, The Press Box, and Westworld Recapables. David Shoemaker, we're here on an emergency podcast to talk about Avengers Infinity War. Thank you for joining me. I just woke up in the podcast studio, so I don't know how much of an emergency this is for me, but I'm glad to be here. It was a hell of a movie. Hell of a movie. It was a two hour and 40 minute film that we have just emerged from on a Thursday night. And I want to let's get some immediate reactions coming out of this movie, which is quite long and full of many characters and many storylines. Did you like it? I did. I liked it a lot. I mean, I think it was very, very long.
Starting point is 00:01:52 This is the first movie that I can remember where my butt was hurting before it was over from just sitting in a chair. Yes. It is a tactile experience. Yeah. It was, I mean, it was exhausting. And I think we'll get into the details later. I'm not quite sure if it was emotionally exhausting, which I think would have been a little bit more, a little bit. If I had said that, I'd be praising it a little bit more.
Starting point is 00:02:13 But it started in the middle of a scene, in the middle of things. In media res, they call it. Yeah, I was going to say that, but I knew I was going to butcher it. And did not let up for a second for the entire, I mean, for the next two hour, two and a half plus hours. Yeah, it's hard to know whether you can actually say I enjoyed something like this because there's so much processing that goes on. Yeah. So let's set it up a little bit for people. So we're going to talk specifically about the plot of this movie. There's been a lot of conversation about some of the characters that die.
Starting point is 00:02:44 But we'll talk a little bit in more vague terms at the top of the conversation. And then maybe 20 minutes in, we'll throw up a warning sign. It'll be a spoiler zone. And then you may not want to listen anymore if you haven't seen it, but go see the movie
Starting point is 00:02:54 and then you can come back and listen to the back half. David, what really happens? Like, where are we in the Marvel universe when this movie picks up? We are at some period fairly shortly after Thor Ragnarok. At least, you know, so close as the space-time continuum allows.
Starting point is 00:03:12 Thanos is in search of the Infinity Stones to stick into his Infinity Gauntlet so that he can have unlimited cosmic power and can sort of wreak his population control concepts on the entire universe as opposed to one planet at a time.
Starting point is 00:03:28 Is that fair? Is that more or less the... I think you nailed it. I think you nailed it. There's only one group of people that can go about defeating the mad titan, the madman of titan, and that's the Avengers. So every single damn Avengers in this movie. And Guardians of the Galaxy.
Starting point is 00:03:44 And the Guardians of the Galaxy who are honorary. Yeah, And some sort of tertiary. Sure. Spider-Man. Yeah. You may have heard of Spider-Man. A few other characters. Let's talk a little bit about the framing of this movie. This has been a long time coming. Sure. We saw Thanos for the first time, I believe, at the Stinger in the first Avengers film. He was not yet Josh Brolin, as I recall. He was just a CGI purple goatee figure. I don't remember if he was Brolin or not, but yes, that was when he first popped up. He had no speaking lines. And there's been a lot of build towards this.
Starting point is 00:04:14 This is 19 films in the making. Did it pay off? Did this actual storyline that we were going towards make sense? Yeah, I mean, I think I hadn't read a bunch of reviews before seeing the movie. I wanted to go in relatively fresh. But we talked about
Starting point is 00:04:29 the A.O. Scott review in the New York Times. I don't fully agree with all of his entire take, but I do agree, I guess, with the premise
Starting point is 00:04:36 that this is not a movie as we can conventionally describe a movie. There's just too much backstory. There's too many balls in the air. There's too much
Starting point is 00:04:44 just craziness. But all that said, as a culmination of all the movies that came before, it's hard to imagine anything that would have been more successful than this. Yeah, it feels like it would have. This was a very high bar to clear just to make it make sense. You know, there's so many different figures that you needed to account for so many balls that you needed to raise into the air and bring to the ground. It's funny that you bring up Tony Scott's review. I found it to be an interesting existential reflection on how to deal with these movies culturally. You know, this is obviously probably the 10th or 12th movie
Starting point is 00:05:14 of this kind that he's reviewed. And I think he started wondering, like, why? Why have we thrust ourselves into this comic book universe so headlong? I had a little bit of that feeling myself, even though I think I probably liked it more than Tony Scott did. Because there's no finality. There's no clarity. There's no truth.
Starting point is 00:05:35 There's no stakes. Because when you are dealing with something like the Infinity Stones, which are the MacGuffin of this movie. I'm glad you said it first because I've been overusing that phrase on the westworld podcast yeah i mean the the infinity stones the infinity gauntlet which is even more it's it's even it's an even easier punch line because it's a big glove like like it is like it fits like the most traditional definition of mcguffin right truly um and that's what motivates the entire plot. And then, without giving anything away, I mean, the Infinity Stones are part of
Starting point is 00:06:10 Marvel canon for decades or whatever. One of them is the Time Stone, right? And, like, without, I mean, again, without giving too much away, like, it can go back and forth in time. So at that point, the stakes are, and this is honestly not the ending of the movie. I'm really not spoiling anything. But, like, what, the stakes are, and this is honestly not the ending of the movie. I'm really not spoiling anything.
Starting point is 00:06:27 But what are the stakes? There's one that's life. There's one that's time. There's one that's literally called reality stone. Yeah, exactly. And you can just change reality. Exactly. So what are we dealing with?
Starting point is 00:06:37 It's just, yeah, they all could conceivably be like devices of retconning everything that happened in the previous scene. That's exactly right. I wish it was a little more like a Jersey Shore reality stone. You know, like that would be maybe make an interesting movie. But it's true. And it's funny because you have to do the thing that you have to do with a lot of movies like this. Not just comic book movies, but science fiction, fantasy, movies that have deep mythology that really require buy-in. If you don't buy into the Infinity Stone shtick,
Starting point is 00:07:08 this movie is going to seem really dumb because it's all built around this one character's quest to do it. I agree with you on an intellectual level. I think one of the great achievements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we might have talked about this the last time I was on your podcast, is that the stakes are generally pretty clear as opposed to some of the other movies in this genre broadly defined.
Starting point is 00:07:28 Like, you can watch or I could watch, you know, a Michael Bay Transformers movie and literally not know what had happened. Who's the bad guy? Yeah. But people love those movies. People still line up to see the sequel. So on some level, just like two and a half hours
Starting point is 00:07:41 of CGI superheroes punching each other or whatever could be considered some level of success, right? Yes, yes. But yeah, you do have to buy in. You do have to buy in a little bit. And stop me if I'm getting too far ahead, but Thanos in a lot of ways is an incredibly successful big bad, especially given the sort of narrative handicap that he is functionally a god from outer space. They make him mortal pretty early on, or they give evidence or potential evidence of his
Starting point is 00:08:16 mortality pretty early on. You know, throughout the movie, he engages in fist fights more than he does in like zapping people with magic rays and that sort of stuff. So, you know, there's a certain tangibility to it, even without the stones. I mean, he's, I know that the stones gave him this great power, but he was like all powerful at the beginning and seemed fairly, you know, he was fairly susceptible to certain forms of assault early on too. Does he bleed?
Starting point is 00:08:40 Is that like a philosophical question? I don't know. I mean, that's the thing. So one of the things that's interesting to me about that character, and I guess I actually think it's weirdly, and this may sound dumb to say, but a good Josh Brolin performance. Yeah. Even though he's not on screen and he's stuck with this kind of cartoonish character who very quickly became a meme on the internet when this trailer hit. I think Brolin is pretty good and imbues him with some genuine humanity. And one of the reasons that the character works when it does
Starting point is 00:09:08 work is he's kind of vulnerable and he's kind of got a code that you believe in. I feel like most comic book movie villains, there's a kind of illogical evil at play that we can't really cope with. Or the, I mean, you talked some about Lord of the Rings
Starting point is 00:09:23 on our walk back from the movie theater, but the sort of Lord of the Rings, like the evil consumes you, that's the motivator, right? And certainly that's not, at least that's not the entire case here.
Starting point is 00:09:32 He has an argument for the one thing you look for in a villain, the main thing is that they don't believe that they're a villain. Right. That's the only way
Starting point is 00:09:41 to make them compelling and human, and that, I feel like they got that across pretty well. I think so, too. I wonder if it's— And you're right about Brolin, by the way. I'm sorry to cut you off.
Starting point is 00:09:50 No. But it's hard to act through 20 layers of CGI. I thought they made a really good choice because he has the voice. He has the gravelly voice to pull off a Thanos. But he didn't go deep into it in the way that he wasn't trying to be Vin Diesel. He wasn't trying to just fill out this deep, whatever. He wasn't trying to play an alien. He was actually like, he had more lilting in his voice than he did in Sicario.
Starting point is 00:10:17 There was definitely a performance there in a role that didn't necessarily require one, or you wouldn't have expected one. And there's like a real sadness in the character. Again, I think it feels a little stupid to be positioning this mad genocide proffering alien as somehow sympathetic or interesting, but he has this kind of philosophy about balance in the universe and the reason that he is essentially trying to kill half of the population of the universe is because he believes that people should be thriving and that there's limited resources in the world. And so he's, you know, he's hoping to kill many, many, many people to save many, many, many people.
Starting point is 00:10:59 And there's this idea of sacrifice for salvation, which is, you know, a fairly weighty concept. And I kind of identified. Now, I don't identify with genocide. That's not what I'm saying. But as somebody who's like seeking balance in all things, it's weird to make a character like this like thoughtful. And he is thoughtful. This isn't Blofeld.
Starting point is 00:11:19 You know what I mean? Yeah. No, absolutely. There's a lot of depth. I mean, I don't know if there's a lot of depth. There is enough depth to carry you through the movie. Some. And that's actually been an interesting, I think an interesting evolution in a lot of the Marvel movies.
Starting point is 00:11:30 You know, I went back and watched the first two Avengers films, and there's not really any kind of clarity or sense around the Chitauri and Loki attacking New York City. And there's not really a ton of sense around Ultron, this AI that then comes to try to rule the world. Like, there's no depth to any of those characters. No, and the other thing you get into in a lot of those movies, but superhero movies in particular, is the sort of the Batman problem, which is that the superheroes are probably the cause of the supervillains and never, except in rare cases, never really wrestle with that.
Starting point is 00:12:05 But this was one where it was like, oh, this terrible thing is happening. Thank God the Avengers are here. Yes, truly. Let's talk about the Avengers a little bit. Do you have an Avenger you care about? Is there a character in these movies? As a childhood comic book fan, I was never an Avengers guy. I was an X-Men guy.
Starting point is 00:12:24 I was never an Avengers guy. I was an X-Men guy. I was as well. But I really appreciate not just that the MCU movies, obviously separate from the X-Men franchise, have been better than everything that came before, but also that they, I don't know if Marvel got lucky or what, but these were
Starting point is 00:12:41 the right characters to make successful movies in the 21st century with. They did get really lucky, honestly. I mean, we can talk a little bit about that because this wasn't – it was supposed to be X-Men and Spider-Man and Spider-Man's in this movie. But there's this whole long history. You can actually read about it in the journalist Ben Fritz's who grew up when we did, it was like it was Wolverine and Spider-Man. I think we're kind of the alpha and the omega. Sure.
Starting point is 00:13:14 Yeah. I mean, and the characters, I mean, in the 90s, it was I mean, there's a list of characters that aren't even in comic books barely anymore. They're making comebacks now. But the sort of supplemental X-Men characters like Cable and, you know, Bishop and Gambit, like those were bigger stars than Captain America back then. Side note, we will see Cable in a movie in three weeks. Also played by Josh Brolin.
Starting point is 00:13:36 Also played by Josh Brolin in Deadpool 2. Big 2018 for Josh Brolin. Incredible. It's a fascinating choice to double up in the Marvel Universe because now Fox is owned by Disney. And so inevitably at some point down the line, we'll probably have a Deadpool Avengers crossover. And what will they do with Brolin? I thought about that a few times when he was on the screen the night.
Starting point is 00:13:55 I think you can do Brolin versus Brolin. I don't think it'll come to that, but I think that he's sufficiently disguised in this one. That's interesting. But given the characters that we have here, you know, I know that you're a big Guardians of the Galaxy fan. Yeah. There's a lot of Guardians of theised in this one. That's interesting. But given the characters that we have here, I know that you're a big Guardians of the Galaxy fan. There's a lot of Guardians of the Galaxy in this movie. Sure. Are there other people?
Starting point is 00:14:11 Do you care about the Chris Evans Captain America? Watching the movie tonight, I was taken. This is not an original idea probably, but I was taken with how Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth, just based on when they were cast in the Marvel Universe, like they Marvel really lucked out with how capable they are at being actors. And Hemsworth in a certain way has it. I mean, he was a revelation in Ragnarok, but he still sort of has an easier path. He's playing a he's very much playing a role.
Starting point is 00:14:41 Chris Evans is like, I don't know that the Marvel Universe exists without Chris Evans secretly being just like a five star actor. Like he's very, very good at being a compelling Captain America. When the movie reveals him, it's a pretty fun reveal and it's an inevitable fight scene. There was a, and you know, this is an opening night crowd, but there was a palpable like, oh
Starting point is 00:14:59 shit, yes, Captain America is back, which that is a thought that never crossed my mind when I was 12 years old, like reading a comic book. I was never like, yes, Captain America. And it's because of what you're saying. I think Evans and the way they positioned the character, they like made him a little bit more of a, a little bit more of a badass. You know, he's such a, he's such a boy soldier that it's difficult to give him any edge.
Starting point is 00:15:21 There's a joke in Ultron where he says like, watch your language in the opening segment. So they've always been pretty keen about that. But yeah, I think Evans has done a great job. Hemsworth to me is, in many ways, the heart of the movie. The movie opens on him. He's a huge part of the conclusion. And I totally agree. It's funny
Starting point is 00:15:40 to think about because those are the two actors, along with Robert Downey Jr., who have been most rumored to be leaving the MCU at some point in in the future you know i don't want to say what happens yeah and i don't mean to i don't mean to to downplay rdj it's just that we knew who he was when he got signed up and even and even if you were unsure if he could pull off a superhero movie you knew that was the first movie was iron man you knew immediately that we what we were getting and it was fantastic. I will say that, if anything, he's been a little bit neutered by the fact that, like, everybody is quippy.
Starting point is 00:16:11 Yes. It was funny to watch him go toe-to-toe with Chris Pratt, particularly, because Chris Pratt is kind of feasting off some of the RDJ fumes in general. Star-Lord kind of gets to do some of that stuff. Yeah, I mean, there's a little bit of a different tone to that. To me, the weirdest one was Doctor Strange because Doctor Strange is, I don't think, not a humorless character
Starting point is 00:16:28 in the comic books, but he's certainly not, like, quippy in the same way. No. He's not the one that Doctor Strange I grew up with. He has a little bit of sass from what I remember,
Starting point is 00:16:36 but he's very spiritual. I mean, he's a dick. Yeah. Like, that's the thing, is he's, like, deeply spiritual, but he's also, like, the flip side of that
Starting point is 00:16:42 is that he's, you know, not a kind person always. An arrogant doctor. Yeah. Yeah. This is really only the second time we've seen C a kind person always. An arrogant doctor. Yeah, yeah. This is really only the second time we've seen Cumberbatch
Starting point is 00:16:47 in one of these movies. Yeah. You think he works? You think he fits in with some of those guys who've been around for 18 films? Yeah, I think that
Starting point is 00:16:53 I liked him more in his own, I mean, if only, I mean, and that can be said about a lot of the people in this, but I think just to make a really nerdy qualm,
Starting point is 00:17:01 it's just that like, as far as suspension of disbelief goes, everything works, like magic sort of needs to be in its goes, everything works. Like magic sort of needs to be in its own vertical sort of. I'd love for the ringer to have a magic
Starting point is 00:17:11 vertical. You think we should launch that? So many people would love that. I would really like that. One of my favorite things about the MCU is that they've normalized some of the other worldly powers. I mean basically they've made Norse mythology
Starting point is 00:17:26 into just a planet where some powered people live. Pretty smart. It's like alien tech is basically the entirety of this race of gods, right? Which makes sense in a universe where that is the definition of Thanos or whatever. But yeah, but the magic is still a little bit... There were several moments
Starting point is 00:17:45 in the movie where you were just, where of all of the ridiculous stuff going on, I had, you know, a moment of pause where I was just like,
Starting point is 00:17:54 that seems a little bit too much for magic right now. Or like, if he could just do that, why doesn't he do a thing right now? You know, like.
Starting point is 00:17:59 Well, he's not doing coin tricks. I mean, he's got these. No, he's got lots of stuff. Stuff. But then when he would do
Starting point is 00:18:04 his most impressive stuff, I would just do that five times. And I feel like the movie's over. It's a good point. So one of the things that the movie constantly reminds you of is what's the best version of this hero? You know, the hero gets to have their moment. And there is a Doctor Strange moment in particular where he goes full Sorcerer Supreme and it gets like very psychedelic for a minute and there was a part of me that was just like I wish this was just it just became this movie where it was just the psychedelic Doctor Strange movie for like
Starting point is 00:18:32 25 minutes and it only happens for like a minute and it's actually one of the flaws I think of the movie is because it has to serve so many masters. You don't really get a Black Panther moment even though there's a lot of Black Panther in the movie and there's a lot of Wakanda in the movie and those characters that we just came to fall in love with two and a half months ago.
Starting point is 00:18:51 It's almost, it's like a trick. You know, you get like 11 minutes with them. They got one line. I don't know, you know, when this was filmed in relationship to Black Panther or, you know, how much they knew of the success of the movie. It did feel like the success of Black Panther, the movie sort of muted Black Panther, the character, because Wakanda is what got all the time. That's right. And it was the cast of the six most significant, five most significant characters from the movie.
Starting point is 00:19:14 Yeah. A lot of looks for Winston Duke. Yeah. Chadwick Boseman got, you know, only as much as everybody else, pretty much. Yeah. I feel like I almost couldn't even hear what he was saying when he first came on the screen. I was like, they're kind of hustling him along there to get more of the Dora Milaj. Yeah, he had that, but I mean, he literally has a, his voice is, it's a different scale than most of the other male voices in the movie.
Starting point is 00:19:37 And it worked really well in Black Panther because he had this off, this like off-putting sort of, you know of tenor to his voice. But in this, it just seemed, you're right, your ears weren't accustomed to it when it came on the screen. It was strange. I'm going to go out of my way to stand for one character. Go for it, man. I'd love to hear what it is. I really think that they nailed Spider-Man with Holland.
Starting point is 00:20:00 Yeah. In this movie or in general? I loved Homecoming. I thought it was great. But this actually... He felt like in this movie what Spider-Man would be doing in a comic book.
Starting point is 00:20:09 And I was like... I've kind of been waiting for that. I've been waiting for the jokey kid who is a teenager who can hang with real heroes but you never forget that he's the youngest kid there.
Starting point is 00:20:22 Mm-hmm. All of that stuff fits together so well. They did such a brilliant job of making him inextricable to Iron Man and they really pulled that thread through in this movie really well. I don't know. Holland is just really, really winning. It's really like, oh, man, they could just build all these movies around this kid in the future
Starting point is 00:20:38 if they wanted to. I totally agree. I think he's definitely the best Spider-Man of the various Spider-Men. All due respect to those who came before him. But you're right. I mean, and I think that there's also a degree to which it's – I know that Spider-Man is not neatly part of the MCU, but certainly the success of the MCU
Starting point is 00:21:05 has allowed Spider-Man to be let Spider-Man be Spider-Man again I guess whatever I mean you don't the Sam Raimi movies are favorites of mine but even Tobey Maguire there's a little bit where you're casting him and you're sort of plotting out the future to him being the biggest action star in America
Starting point is 00:21:21 you gotta cast somebody based on like you can't let them be a scrawny 15-year-old forever. Tom Holland could keep doing that for five more movies. I think he's gonna look like that for a while. Yeah. Yeah, it's very true. And, you know, it's a lot, it just, it fits in perfectly.
Starting point is 00:21:35 Like you said, standing next to Spider-Man. I mean, next to Iron Man. I was really impressed with, I mean, you could almost feel like a reality to that relationship that like Robert Downey Jr. is just like, like he had to sign off on at some level. He had to sign off on spending that much time on screen with Tom Holland as opposed to the various other people that were around. In addition to his massive profit participation and huge salary, do you think he had casting approval of tom holland i don't maybe maybe not the casting of tom holland but but there's i'm sure there's a degree to which like he had to he was just like had to sign off on who he was spending two months of set time with because it was a pretty small
Starting point is 00:22:15 crew absolutely is there anybody you want to you want to ride for before we talk about maybe what didn't work yeah i mean i thought that they did a good job of giving everybody either the pro wrestling the pro wrestling i have to say this giving everybody the pro wrestling phrase is get your stuff in. Even if you're going to lose or even if you're not the main point of the match, you get three minutes in the middle of the match to do your big move and do your flex to the crowd. They let everybody get their stuff in. I was surprised with how I didn't feel like anybody, with the exception of Black Panther, I mean of Chadwick Boseman, there was nobody who I desperately wanted
Starting point is 00:22:51 to see more of coming out of the movie. Everybody sort of got their part. It was a really small part, but I thought, I mean, every part in this was relatively small. I thought the way they did, what they did with the Hulk was, it's really weird that they've done more with the Hulk sort of in Ragnarok and now Infinity War than they did all the time prior to that. Yeah, when he had two movies. Yeah, they've somehow made him a more interesting character. Yeah, it's funny.
Starting point is 00:23:19 I thought for sure that what they were going to do after Ragnarok was pivot towards that Planet Hulk storyline that is very famous. And that may still happen, but this kind of changes some of the dynamics of that. And yeah, he's... One, Ruffalo's great. And he's a more sensible Hulk because he makes Banner kind of a simp.
Starting point is 00:23:39 And that's really effective. And yeah, the way that they managed to show us and then not show us that character is really cool. It's funny, you were making the wrestling analogy. And there was literally a moment when I was watching Infinity War where I thought this is kind of like a RVD Sabu match in the late 90s where like they got to hit all their spots, you know, and everything had their spots. Then like somehow you didn't get your money's worth. Yeah. And I don't know how you want to pivot into this stuff we're not as high on in the movie,
Starting point is 00:24:05 but there was definitely the pro-wrestling vibe of, like, why has that guy been lying prone outside the ring for exactly the right amount of time it took for him to come in and make the save? Yeah, I don't want to spoil it too much, but there's a character during a very important showdown with Thanos who has a sincere relationship to Thanos who shows up and then, like, just disappears, and then we just never see again.
Starting point is 00:24:26 Yeah. And, you know, that's the problem when you have to serve 25 characters. It's like you just lose a thread. Things seem very convenient. How did they get to the places they're going? Yeah. If you try to do any logical storytelling math, you're going to lose your breath pretty quickly. Sure.
Starting point is 00:24:41 What else? What else? There was no bueno for you. You want to shit on Don Cheadle for ten minutes? No, he was fine. Yeah, no, I mean,
Starting point is 00:24:49 I'll say one thing, one more positive thing before we get to the bad stuff, and it's not about, it's not about Cheadle. I love Don Cheadle, for the record. This is sort of my borderline,
Starting point is 00:24:59 but I was, I was going through all of the moments I remember, and there were so many moments, like we said, it was a churn. I mean, it was nonstop.
Starting point is 00:25:07 Weirdly, the most, if I had to sum up the whole movie in one scene, and this is not spoilery, there's a scene where Rocket Raccoon, or let's say. Those are words you said out loud. Yeah. There's a scene where Thor and Rocket Raccoon are trying to pull off, basically trying to turn on a star, right? Yep. Normal stuff. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:31 And for Thor, Thor's part of it is literally like a godly feat of strength. And then he's like, and Rocket Raccoon is like piloting a spacecraft and Thor is just like, give it more, rocket, or whatever. And there's a scene where, I mean, just in a quick cut, the CGI raccoon, voiced by Bradley Cooper, is doing this very movie thing
Starting point is 00:25:56 where he's pushing the throttle, like the video game controllers as hard as he can in hopes of making the jets go faster. As if this is a thing. Now, if anyone listening to this has tried to make their car go faster by stomping as hard as they can, they understand that this is not a real thing that happens, but it's a very movie thing. It's not specific to this, but that was the, that was the, that was symbolic of the, of the whole movie for better or worse better and
Starting point is 00:26:26 worse and that the entire thing was this contrivance of trying to make like this crazy impractical space shit tangible you know and i mean it's the the idea that if we push a little bit harder it'll make it seem more real and it'll make it matter more. I think that's one of the struggles with the movie in general is there is an enormous amount of this in space. There's a lot of planet
Starting point is 00:26:55 hopping. We go to places that we've never heard of and we're meant to believe that there's something very important there and they have to go there and acquire something in Vormir. I think when they put up titles, location titles, on the bottom third of the screen, they should be obligated to let you know
Starting point is 00:27:12 whether or not you've been here before and where. Yes, previously seen on. Yeah, previously in Thor the Dark World. Just let me know. Maybe I can make that connection. Yeah, I was reminded of the movie Thor colon The Dark World when Thor is explaining to Rocket Raccoon that his mother was killed by a dark elf. Yeah. I think some of us had worked hard to forget Thor The Dark World.
Starting point is 00:27:35 My favorite parts of the Thor mythology are when he's just sort of irreverent but full of centuries of backstory. And I think that that was passable for me just as, you know, in that mode. What do you think about Vision and Scarlet Witch? That's exactly where I was hoping you would go. I think that, I mean, I said this to you before we started recording. As a comic book fan growing up, I was never a Vision and the Scarlet Witch fan,
Starting point is 00:27:57 probably because that was, like, the closest thing to a romance arc that Marvel had in those years, and that wasn't really my cup of tea, but also wasn't a big Avengers guy, and they weren't even the most interesting of the Avengers. And, you know, Scarlet Witch did have some kind of eccentricity, do her power set, but again,
Starting point is 00:28:12 is this sort of like slightly too all-powerful to be deeply interesting to me. And Vision sort of was just, seems sort of like a Justice League character that was shoehorned into the Marvel Universe. And all that said, I really enjoyed both the performances in this movie of Elizabeth Olsen and
Starting point is 00:28:29 Paul Bettany but it was asking too much for the emotional core of the movie to revolve around their relationship which I guess is a slight spoiler to say that it did because there just wasn't enough.
Starting point is 00:28:45 There wasn't enough there. Yeah, we got a little bit of it basically in the final 20 minutes of Age of Ultron. And that's really all or maybe it's Civil War. I can't recall which one where they focus on that. But there's not a lot of Ultron, right? And then they were together in Civil War. But yeah, it's all a blur now. And maybe that's part of the issue is you're trying to remember how all these storylines fit together, but
Starting point is 00:29:05 Paul Bettany for most of these movies was merely Jarvis, the voice from the Iron Man films, and Elizabeth Olsen came in fairly late to the game, and we just haven't spent a lot of time with him, and Vision has an Infinity Stone in his head. That's how he gets to exist,
Starting point is 00:29:22 and so he's a very important character, and Thanos is in pursuit of him. And yeah, there's just enough time spent there and there's enough pivoting around those two characters that just inevitably makes it feel less propulsive, I guess.
Starting point is 00:29:37 Because I just don't really want to be with them. I'm like, take me back to Spider-Man. I don't want to be with them and there's no, like I said, no knock on those characters. Elizabeth Olsen I thought was much better than I was expecting.Man. I don't want to be with them. And there's no, like I said, no knock on those characters. Elizabeth Olsen, I thought, was much better than I was expecting. Not that I thought she was going to be bad. She's actually very good in the movie. She made incredible use out of the limited screen time she was given. She does.
Starting point is 00:29:55 I mean, this is just fantasy booking or whatever. But when they laid out the plans for the MCU to get to Infinity War eight years ago or whenever it was, it would have been great if they had had the foresight just to cast. They knew how little screen time they were going to give these two. They should have just cast a couple. Like just cast Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling. Oh, I love it. Because then when they're talking about how much they love each other,
Starting point is 00:30:20 you think that they do. That is, there could be some worse. There is some stunt casting in this movie that I want to talk about. Okay. This is a little spoilery, so if you're a little allergic to this, avoid it. But Peter Dinklage is in this movie.
Starting point is 00:30:36 One of the many, I told you before, I haven't gone to a lot of first, the very first screening of a giant movie in a long time. Thankfully in Los Angeles, they have like a screening every five minutes for the first three hours. So, you know, the 7 o'clock screening, which is when it starts on the West Coast, is sold out or close to it. But like 7.15, you can get like the exact seat that you want. So I skipped like the line.
Starting point is 00:31:01 I skipped the – but I also missed the big moment. This was one of – this was my first experience in a long time of seeing, well, any movie with like massive amounts of applause for character appearances. But the first time I can remember applause in a Marvel movie – and again, this is just my experience since I think Spider-Man 2. It's like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. And yeah, Dinklage was a huge – was a huge, got a bunch of applause. A big laugh and an applause. And it was only hampered by the fact that it was unexpected. And the reveal was a little bit, I mean, he was in darkness.
Starting point is 00:31:37 It sort of came over the crowd in a wave because it wasn't really, no one, they didn't all immediately register him. Yeah, he plays, I think think Aitri the dwarf king I'm sure I'm getting that wrong and I apologize to anybody who is
Starting point is 00:31:49 voraciously consuming canon he's not a dwarf I mean he is a dwarf he's a dwarf king and he obviously Peter Dinklage is a dwarf
Starting point is 00:31:56 but he is a giant figure he is five ten times the size of Thor and so there's something and he also has had
Starting point is 00:32:03 his hands removed which is just brilliant so it's a very, and he also has had his hands removed. Which is just brilliant. So it's very funny, and he's a king of this star, and he also is a weapons maker, and he plays a huge, a very important role in the movie, but there's something very unnerving about it. Also, a former star of the X-Men movies, and if we want to keep going back to the actors who are double-dipping here,
Starting point is 00:32:23 you know, he was once upon a time. Was he Toad? Bolivar Trask, I think he played. Oh, yeah. So anyway, I would say that it was funny to see Dinklage, but I was kind of like, this is a lot. Like, I'm still trying to remember who Mantis is and you're going to make me look at Tyrion Lannister as well. Okay, well, is there anything else you were bummed out by?
Starting point is 00:32:42 I think overall the integration of all the different IPs went really well. I was a little bit underwhelmed by the Guardians of the Galaxy, especially by Peter Quill. I'm sure this will pivot into a Chris Wars podcast in the third segment, but he was definitely like the loser in the Chris Wars tonight for me. I think that there is something to be said about what that means for him in the future, but we'll get into some more spoilery. Where is this series going stuff in the next segment? But before that, let's take a break to hear a word from our sponsor. Today's episode of the big picture is brought to you by the Google assistant with the Google assistant. You can complete over a million actions on your phone,
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Starting point is 00:34:08 who's moved to the area after family turmoil of her own. But things are about to take a much darker turn. Beneath the surface of his charismatic persona, Sam is experiencing more than the usual teenage angst, a psychopathic urge to kill. His family and friends have no idea what he is capable of. Only his victims know the chilling truth. And they're not talking anymore.
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Starting point is 00:35:02 and that's part of the problem. Thanos, as we mentioned in the first segment, is all-powerful. Yeah. As you might imagine, he gets his hands on all them Infinity Stones. Yeah. There are six openings in the Infinity Gauntlet.
Starting point is 00:35:15 That's right. Each meant to hold a specific stone. Yes. You know, that is a Chekhov's gun for every knuckle and one on the back of the hand. He's going to get all the stones. I think that's safe to assume. Truly. So he acquires the stones.
Starting point is 00:35:30 And when he does, there's some all-out mayhem. In the meantime, you know, there's a lot of battle scenes. There's a lot of fighting. There's a lot of opportunities for people to get what they want. The movie, interestingly, opens with a couple of notable deaths. And I thought when these deaths happened that we were going to get like a truly
Starting point is 00:35:49 superhero genocidal movie. And we sort of do, but not really. Well, I mean, they did it. We're just saying things now, right? Let's just say stuff. This is the spoiler.
Starting point is 00:35:56 I've thrown up so many warnings that the people of Earth need to chill. So Loki dies in the first like five minutes of the movie. Yes. The great Tom Hiddleston,
Starting point is 00:36:04 who is really wonderful in all these movies. Yeah. So pour out a little bit for him. Thought it was a really smart move because of all of the rumors that people were going to die. At least at like five minutes in, you're like, well, maybe that's all the deaths we're talking about. Yes. You know, like maybe that's it. Heimdall as well.
Starting point is 00:36:19 Idris Elba kicks the bucket right off the bat. Yeah. Which sucks only because like of all of the franchises, I mean, Thor's got the biggest variants from like floor to ceiling, but...
Starting point is 00:36:30 It was trending up though. Yeah, but yeah, and I would watch, I mean, I could watch a, you know, a 10 movie series
Starting point is 00:36:36 of just like the goings on in Asgard if it's well done. Very much so. And it could have, they could have gone a lot, I mean, that could have been like
Starting point is 00:36:43 the Downton Abbey just set in Asgard or something like that and it would have been totally watchable. There's so many They could have gone a lot. I mean, that could have been like the Downton Abbey, just set in Asgard or something like that, and it would have been totally watchable. There's so many good actors that they threw in there. That's true, although so many of them are dead now. Rene Russo is dead. Anthony Hopkins is dead. Cate Blanchett is dead. Loki is dead. Yes, but then in the Avengers universe, everybody's dead now too.
Starting point is 00:37:00 Not everybody. I guess we'll get to that. We'll get to that. I sort of wish that they had killed more people in Act 1. Yes. I thought so too. I guess we'll get to that. We'll get to that. I sort of wish that they had killed more people in Act 1. Yes. I thought so too. I wish that Nebula, Karen Gillan, had died. She's a good example who I actually really love her as an actor, but she's one of those characters that Marvel seems to be insisting upon
Starting point is 00:37:17 in a way that, and probably because she's got the Thanos connection, but all up until now I'm just like, why is she coming back? I don't understand. Let's unpack Nebula and Gamora and a little bit of the Thanos stuff. So they are both the adopted daughters, essentially, of Thanos. Yeah. And Nebula was introduced as one of his sort of Harbinger, Super Soldier, Four Horsemen characters, right? Of which there are many in this movie, too, which I think to try to explain who all those characters are would be very confusing and difficult.
Starting point is 00:37:45 But, yes. And Nebula and Gamora have been bound in the two Guardians movies. many in this movie too, which I think to try to explain who all those characters are would be very confusing and difficult. But yes, Nebula and Gamora have been bound in the two Guardians movies and they both hate Thanos and resent and are angered by the way they were raised by him. Remind me when Nebula, again to go wrestling, turned babyface. It was fairly recently, right?
Starting point is 00:38:01 I think it was in the back half of Guardians 2. Okay, yeah, that sounds right. But there was always that latent kind of I love you even though we I think it was in the back half of Guardians 2. Okay, yeah, that sounds right. But there was always that latent kind of I love you even though we're mortal enemies even in the first Guardians film. Oh, yeah, yeah, between Nebula and Gamora, sure. But it was just sort of like I didn't need her. I didn't need her on the side of the angels. I agree.
Starting point is 00:38:19 It's just one more thing where there's – I completely agree about Karen Gillan too. It's like maybe make Karen Gillan just look like a human being in this movie she's like a beautiful great actress and you have her covered in like um robot skin but yeah so essentially gamora is aware of where one of the stones is and um she has to pay for that and nebula you think is going to pay for it and then gamora pays for it and that's really really, Gamora is forced to be, is sacrificed. And that's the only other significant death through the first two plus hours of the movie. I think that's right.
Starting point is 00:38:52 And that's very strange. There's also no- But I wish that we had just like, given, we'll get to the ending, I guess. But given that like many people were going to die theoretically, I think they could have just streamlined the movie down to like the 10 people you cared about and just mowed down all the rest. I think that there's this sort of, I talk about expectations on all of my podcasts a lot, but there's this sort of, your mind is sort of rolling with like the expectations that you have as a comic book movie consumer, but also what you know about like the movie industry and all the articles about the Marvel MCU
Starting point is 00:39:29 and the future of it and stuff like that, that I would have forgiven them the sort of contrivance of like all of the actors who are out of contract just get shot or just get destroyed in one scene almost. Right. Yes. They could have cut out a lot of the forced exchanges that we're talking about, though there's essentially two major storylines happening at once. There's one in Wakanda in the third act of the film, and then there's one, I believe, on Titan, which every other character is in Wakanda. And I mean, let's just like say what happens and then talk about what that means. Thanos gets the sixth stone. He defeats the people who are on Titan after actually, I think, which is one of the more thrilling battle scenes that Marvel's put together where the five Avengers are sort
Starting point is 00:40:22 of teamed up to try to remove the gauntlet from his hand. There's a lot of clever comic book stuff going on there where all the characters get to use their powers against this giant purple goatee.
Starting point is 00:40:31 Sure, that was really, really well done, really well choreographed. And when Star-Lord takes a bow for the game plan, I felt like that was an appropriate time
Starting point is 00:40:40 to sort of salute the direction. I'm sure you deal with this all the time, but one of the sort of subtle mind fucks of the whole thing is like, I don't know if if I should be who I should be applauding along the line. And it could just be like, you know, a 25 year old sitting at like, you know, Industrial Lights and Magic or whoever's doing this stuff now that just did all of the heavy lifting.
Starting point is 00:41:01 I don't know. It feels like it. I'm always trying to unpack what's real and what's CGI and what's previs and what was created on the spot. That sequence, I think, is effective because it feels like a comic book and it's right to feel like a comic book. You don't always want that feeling. There are a handful of evil villain characters who are completely CGI who kind of look bad in the movie as they often are in these movies. But in that case, it works anyhow. Thanos gets off a Titan. he goes to Wakanda boom boom
Starting point is 00:41:29 he essentially wins and in winning that indicates that half of the population of every planet in the universe will be instantaneously eradicated because he wills it so in an effort to create that balance that we talked about in the first segment.
Starting point is 00:41:45 Yeah. And so literal characters just start evaporating into dust. They're almost like the figures in Back to the Future disappearing from the photo.
Starting point is 00:41:55 You know, as if they never existed. And they take it pretty far. A lot of characters go. More than half, I counted. And I couldn't help but think it happens to Bucky Barnes first and I was like okay maybe Bucky's dying for some reason I don't quite
Starting point is 00:42:10 understand and then when you realize that Thanos's plan is going through yeah I was like this doesn't matter these aren't these stakes aren't real these characters are coming back you know what talking about that by the way total interjection here apos of nothing. Proxima Midnight was the female SWAT team member for Thanos, whatever. We were trying to figure out who voiced her. It was Carrie Coon who did the voice. Oh, I swear to God. When the movie ended, I walked out of the theater and I turned to David and I said, was that Tavi Gevinson?
Starting point is 00:42:44 The founder of... It's great that it was the... basically the mascot of TheRinger.com was actually the answer to that. My apologies to Miles Suri who stands so hard for Carrie Coon. Carrie Coon voices a CGI baddie.
Starting point is 00:43:00 That character dies along with many others. Yes. I will say, just to get my one complaint, my formal complaint out of the way, a lot of people were expecting Spider-Man to die. Yep. My argument from the first rumors about people dying in this movie was that if Spider-Man dies,
Starting point is 00:43:18 then I call bullshit on all of it because Kevin Feige does not have control over Spider-Man to kill him. Yeah. But I mean, Spider-Man does. He goes. Yeah. So like, yeah, along with half of the people. And to be fair, even if this is one half of the story and that there will be some people returning to life, they did a very compelling job of deciding who to kill or who to, you
Starting point is 00:43:43 know, off. Did they, though? See, I'll take issue with that. Every time that there were like two people that were like running to embrace and one of them like fell to pieces, disappeared into ash, I was sort of surprised by the one who ended
Starting point is 00:43:56 up going or often times I was and sometimes it was both of them and that was interesting too. Kind of messed with your expectations there a little bit. But it immediately felt like, similar to your Spider-Man thought. There's a moment where Black Panther vanishes. And I was like, what the fuck? Like, there's just no way there.
Starting point is 00:44:14 Show me the time stone now so we can go back to the past and undo all of this instantaneously. My mind went there immediately. Yes. And that's not great. I did spend a minute while other people were dying, I was not paying real attention because I was wondering,
Starting point is 00:44:28 I was trying to scroll through my memory to see if they had already scheduled a Black Panther 2 and how many pictures Chadwick Boseman had signed on for
Starting point is 00:44:36 because what an amazing flex that would have been to like, I mean, just for the MCU in general to like, do Black Panther, throw him in this movie for, you know, 10 minutes and then just be like, we're done.
Starting point is 00:44:48 Hell of a negotiating tactic. Yeah. The finest. No, I mean, I think separate. I agree with you. Obviously, you were throwing my own point against me. But but I mean, as a as a prompt, as a setup for whatever comes nextumably only the surviving Avengers, et cetera, are going to be the characters in the next movie.
Starting point is 00:45:11 And, you know, it's an interesting potpourri of, you know, leftovers that we have now. Let me see if you can help me answer a question. Okay. I have a 14-year-old sister. She's really getting into the mcu right she's right at that age where chris evans seems interesting to her as as he's interesting to you and i she's been sending me text messages and here's what she wants sean have you seen avengers
Starting point is 00:45:37 infinity war yet she's asked me this three times every time i've said no she asked me today i said i'm seeing it tonight she said you're so lucky but remember to do what I asked you to do, which is don't tell me who dies, but tell me how many people die. This is legitimately what she asked. Is she in like a betting pool? That was my guess. I was like, I did not realize you were a high stakes gambler. Maybe she's just setting up her own, just like preparing herself, stealing herself for the level of trauma she's going to endure. I should have known when she moved to Macau on her own at 14
Starting point is 00:46:08 that she had a lot of money riding on whether Downey makes it to the next movie. So I actually don't know coming out of this movie what I'm supposed to tell her because like 25 characters just disappear. Yeah. What do I do? Just tell her a lot and ask her how much she really wants to know. You have to go in on her But by the way, this is hilarious though because like as a for you have a 14 year old sister. I do so
Starting point is 00:46:31 For this is one of these great things that we all experience in life And we reach a certain age where like the young people that we know our relatives or whatever Just really couldn't give a shit about what we do like like your parents are much more impressed with what you do than your sister. And then finally, finally after hearing all, like hearing your parents gloat about your career for years and years, your sister's finally like, wait, Sean gets to see all these movies a week early. Finally, here is a thing that affects, that I care about. I don't think she thinks I'm cool, but she knows that I have information that is valuable.
Starting point is 00:47:05 The best part is that you didn't see the movie a week early and you can't really answer her question. It's true. In the past, I had seen some of these films early and I think she got excited. I saw Black Panther a couple weeks early
Starting point is 00:47:14 and she thought I was like the president. She was like, you have the most power of any man that could live. Sure. And in this case, that's not true. I'm not sure where we're going to go from here.
Starting point is 00:47:27 I worry that my prediction is too true that everybody's going to come back. Then I'll just come back and then we'll go back in time. Here's how this works in comic books. If I can just really overly simplify all of my memories from all of the cataclysmic storylines where mutants lose their powers and the government arrests all of the super-powered individuals, and even more broadly when just Marvel and DC decide to just retcon or reboot and start over with eight superheroes or whatever.
Starting point is 00:48:02 Generally, it's like everybody gets taken away or everybody gets killed or everybody gets disappeared in some sense. And then they bring back like all but eight eventually over the span of the next year. We kind of get back to where we were, at least in terms of headliners. Right. And there'll be some just functional people that don't come back or they're saving them for something down the road or whatever. I think that this is going to be both like meaningless in the sense that, I mean, did
Starting point is 00:48:29 you run through all of the names of people, of the headliners that didn't make it out of the movie? It was, I mean, literally half of the people that you care about are gone. Yes. Which is, will never hold. Right. Under any circumstances. But it's interesting who they chose because there were a lot of people, like
Starting point is 00:48:46 I said, like we talked about, Spider-Man and Black Panther were, it was bullshit. They are bullshitting us. They are the future of the MCU, so they're not going anywhere. But then there are people like Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. who are rumored to be interested in doing other things with their time who are still there. Fascinating.
Starting point is 00:49:02 Wait, is Robert Downey Jr., did he die? I don't even remember now. I can't recall. This is the problem with doing this, with doing an ending like this. And also, you know, we should say that the movie
Starting point is 00:49:11 basically ends there. It is very much a Hunger Games part one interruption where the movie essentially ends with Thanos sitting at peace
Starting point is 00:49:22 with a small smirk on his face. And then there's a stinger, which we can talk about. There's only one stinger. They make us sit through the whole end credits. To finish what I was saying earlier, I think that, because I talked myself out of that statement, but I mean, away from it,
Starting point is 00:49:34 but I think that it's clear that all of these people are going to come back or many of them are going to come back, but they'll use this contrivance to keep a couple of them dead. I agree with you. Or it'll just be a misdirection where it'll be like, everybody's back, but then'll use this contrivance to keep a couple of them dead. I agree with you. Or it'll just be a misdirection where it'll be like, everybody's back, but then Captain America's dead. Who were you most willing to sacrifice? Give me two people.
Starting point is 00:49:51 Weirdly, like, the two people who presumably are actually dead, Loki and Gamora, are two people who I don't want to say goodbye to in the MCU. I know. They bring a lot to their movies. With pretty limited, like, I don't feel like Hiddleston can't fit this into his schedule. I agree.
Starting point is 00:50:07 He's done a lot of work. He's been in a lot of these movies. But he's not a movie star per se. No. And he's perfect for this role. And judging only from, like, still photos on, you know, on comic book blogs, he seems to have the most fun at Comic-Con compared to everybody else. I saw him on Kimmel the other night, and he was lapping it up. He was there with five other cast members, and he was in all his splendor.
Starting point is 00:50:30 Who can I say goodbye to? I mean, of the people who pseudo-died at the end of the movie, or just in general? Just in general. Let's say we get, because we're going to get Avengers 4 next summer, and people actually are going to die in that one because contracts are up. And who are you ready to say goodbye to? I'll go through the top listing and just say yes or no. Robert Downey Jr., I could do without Robert Downey Jr.,
Starting point is 00:50:57 but I think it's unnecessary to do without Robert Downey Jr. I'm sure I've said this to you before in private conversations. It is just for the stability of the MCU, it's worth paying him $50 million a year to be filmed on his iPhone on his couch at home and CGI that into the armor, and it's worth it. You have said that to me before, and it's something I agree with. I think he actually makes scenes in this movie work,
Starting point is 00:51:22 even though what you said earlier is very true as well, which is that everybody's got jokes, so his jokes aren't as good anymore. But he's still, there is something central to what he's doing. We got through the first part of the podcast without mentioning his tracksuit, which I think we should, I don't know. His sort of camo hoodie.
Starting point is 00:51:39 It was a camo hoodie, like futuristic, but weirdly bell-bottomed tracksuit. You think that was his choice? You think he got to make that call? I spent a lot of the movie thinking about it every time he was on the screen. It's really something. It's honestly rich guy elite. You know, that's rich guy dressing like however he wants.
Starting point is 00:51:55 If that was a choice by RDJ, we can never be without him. Shout out to him. Tom Holland, we need to keep. Chadwick Boseman, we need to keep. I could do without ScarJo. That said, because of the amount of screen time she's gotten over the years and because of the fact that I like her as an actor,
Starting point is 00:52:18 she can do more with limited screen time than just about anybody else. Yes, she makes this character work. They never build anything around her though which is too bad. There's been a long conversation about whether there should be a Black Widow movie. It's funny that we've now had Atomic Blonde and Red Sparrow basically be
Starting point is 00:52:33 the Black Widow movie a couple of times. It's kind of sucked out some of the juice from that. Scarlett Johansson has made genre films, certainly not spy thriller, but has made, or she has, but has made enough genre films that you don't feel like you need this in the way that you did when she was casted. If you want to see that movie, you can see Lucy. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to save Chris Evans for the end.
Starting point is 00:52:57 I can do without Cumberbatch, at least in the Avengers, at least in, you know, I could watch more of those movies, but like I said, do without him in the movie. I like Anthony Mackie, but you can obviously do without Falcon. I like Mark Ruffalo, but I can do without Thor. I mean, without Hulk. I cannot do without Thor. I worry that we're going to be without Thor next summer. That might be true. There was one scene in the movie between him and Rocket where he kind of said goodbye.
Starting point is 00:53:20 Yeah. The single biggest achievement of this series, and you alluded to this earlier, is they just made Thor work. Yeah. There's the single biggest achievement of these this series and you alluded to this earlier is they just like made Thor work. Yeah. And they took them three Thor movies and
Starting point is 00:53:31 three Avengers movies and a lot of crossovers but they just really made that character interesting. Yeah. You got to find the right level of sort of
Starting point is 00:53:37 self-awareness and irreverence for all of these movies to work and that was the most surprising one that they found the tune. Gamora we said goodbye to although that makes
Starting point is 00:53:44 me sad. Nebula, I can do without. I love Guardians of the Galaxy, but this, but tonight's Peter Quill, I could live without. But I want them
Starting point is 00:53:52 to keep making those movies. There'll be another one. Keep him alive. Yep. I could never wish death on Dave Bautista, so Jack stays. You know my feelings on Loki.
Starting point is 00:54:01 Like I said, Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen were given, they were, you know, Au revoir. See you guys later. I can do without them.
Starting point is 00:54:11 Now, Chris Evans is the interesting one because I'd sort of made my peace with him being done. You know? He ain't done at the
Starting point is 00:54:18 end of this movie. He's not done at the end. And, not just that, but I get why he had kind of long hair and a beard, but it was interesting to go for a new look.
Starting point is 00:54:29 I mean, he's been sporting this for a while. But it's interesting to have this kind of late model Captain America and then pulling the plug. He did very little in this movie except, well, in a lot of ways, be Captain America. He just sort of was a walking symbol symbol, you know, or icon. In this movie, he does not wear the stars and stripes. He does not have his shield. He has a black star on his chest.
Starting point is 00:54:50 Yeah. He's just not the classical version of that. No, and the whole thing, and he did, he was the one character that left me wanting more. Like I was like, I could see, I want to see Falcon and Black Widow and Captain America as like a black ops just squad taking down Paris in the Middle East or whatever. They open in Scotland and it's like, what are these guys doing in Scotland?
Starting point is 00:55:13 Yeah, I mean, so I don't want to say goodbye to him, but he's the one person that I convince myself that it's just like, I just don't think Chris Evans, like I like Chris Evans enough at this point that I wish him well in whatever he wants to do with his life. And if that means not playing Captain America, then I guess that's fine. If you live in New York, go see Lobby Hero. He's wonderful in that play I saw a couple of weeks ago. Okay. I mean, is there anybody that you, is there anybody that you are just ready to get rid of?
Starting point is 00:55:39 Can't do without Pepper Potts. No. No. It's funny because that's one of those comic book things that you see that like you never like every time they put Spider-Man and Mary Jane, every time they've actually gotten married, they've had to retcon it and get rid of it because they lose their storytelling. Like the opening. One of the early scenes was Tony Stark and Pepper Potts like coming back from a jog and
Starting point is 00:56:00 embracing and talking about starting a family. And I was like, I could not care less about any of this. Me too. I was also kind of like, what could not care less about any of this. Me too. I was also kind of like, what are the odds that Tony Stark and Pepper Potts are just taking a jog around Central Park? Really? Tony Stark with like his chest, his chest piece in like full view of everybody? It's just ridiculous.
Starting point is 00:56:18 This guy's a billionaire arms dealer who is also a superhero. He's out for a morning jog with his girlfriend? Nonsense. Anyhow, I think there's a couple more people we wouldn't want to do without. Probably not Okoye, Shuri, some of the key characters from the Black Panther universe. Yeah, I think the second tier characters are in some ways almost more less expendable than some of the headliners. Because you can build a story around Tony Stark dies, but someone else takes over the job or whatever, but you want these kind of peripherals
Starting point is 00:56:47 to stick around and entertain us, and especially with how close we are to Black Panther. Like, I don't want any of them to leave. No, me neither. Let's wrap this up by talking a little bit about the stinger and kind of what's to come. The movie has a very long credit sequence, which everyone comfortably sat through.
Starting point is 00:57:03 There was not even, like, no one got up. No one got up. No one got up. I mean, even when you see these movies other times, you're just,
Starting point is 00:57:09 I mean, the other Marvel movies, there's always going to be like 15 people who are like, I either need to pee or it's like, you know,
Starting point is 00:57:16 my friend made me come and I don't care so I'm leaving now or whatever. I mean, nobody moved. Two hours and 39 minutes of Avengers
Starting point is 00:57:24 and people were like, I need more. So they all stayed because we've trained the culture to stay. And that is routinely fascinating to me. And this stinger was Nick Fury and Maria Hill, Colby Smulders and Sam Jackson, driving in a car essentially at the moment when Thanos' plan comes into action. So a car kind of spins out of the left side of the left lane.
Starting point is 00:57:43 I don't even remember where we are with Nick Fury at this point. I guess he's alive. I don't know. He's alive and he's dead. But he's still running SHIELD? Or are they just doing some sort of back-end Black Ops thing? I'll be perfectly honest with you. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:57:57 And so we see Fury and we see Maria Hill. And then they are almost in a car accident. And then we start seeing people disappearing in New York City, and then they disappear. But before they do, Fury reaches into the backseat of his car, and he pulls out some sort of transponder, and he sends a signal of some kind. And just as the signal goes through, he vanishes.
Starting point is 00:58:18 The signal hits the ground. The camera pans down to the transponder, and we see the iconography of Captain Marvel, which is a movie that is coming out next year starring Brie Larson that is set in the 90s. And so that actually had my brain churning a little bit. I believe Captain Marvel comes before the fourth Avengers film. I'm looking at the list right now. It's Infinity War, which is a movie we're discussing,
Starting point is 00:58:44 and then Ant-Man and the Wasp is later this year. Captain Marvel is, I think, early next year. And then next summer is Untitled Avengers film, if not the most significant character in combating Thanos. Because Captain Marvel is also a space story of a sort. This is the next year for Marvel, for the MCU, is, I mean, this is the greatest trick the devil ever pulled, is making you think you give a shit about Captain Marvel. And, sorry, all due respect to Carol Danvers or Captain Marvel, to give a shit about Captain Marvel. And sorry, all due respect to Carol Danvers or Captain Marvel, to give a shit about Ant-Man, a year is being tent-pulled by Infinity War on two ends and then being kept aloft by Captain Marvel and Ant-Man.
Starting point is 00:59:37 It's incredible. You talk about how crazy it was that Iron Man and Captain America and Thor became the figureheads of the Marvel Universe on screen, but, like, man, Captain Marvel and, you know, Thor became the figureheads of the Marvel universe on screen. But, like, man, Captain Marvel and Ant-Man who, like, literally neither of them had comic books for the first, like, six years of the MCU. It's the power of what they've built over the last ten years. It was notable in the opening credits when they showed the Marvel Studios insignia. The I-O in studios became a 10. I don't know if you picked up on that.
Starting point is 01:00:09 Yeah, I did. And, you know, we are at this decade moment where these movies are in the fabric of our lives. And even if it's Captain Marvel and Ant-Man, they are a huge part of movie-going culture. Yeah, the crowd erupted into cheers when the Captain Marvel tease came on the screen. And again, at that point, you're just punching and you're cheering or whatever. They're talking about a new movie. I was excited, too. But, I mean, are we excited about Captain Marvel, the character?
Starting point is 01:00:36 Are we excited about Brie Larson? Are we excited about, you know, a top flight female superhero? Maybe they were just like, it's over. I'm excited. That's totally true. It was, I mean, I'm excited for all of those reasons, but none of them like overwhelmingly so. I hope it'll be a really good movie.
Starting point is 01:00:57 I hope that all of the Marvel movies have been so consistently pretty good. Lately, they've been better than that. And, you know, you hope that... I'm sure it'll be a fun movie to watch one way or the other. I'm kind of excited post-Ragnarok, post-Black Panther, even post-Infinity War,
Starting point is 01:01:16 that they will, you know, that the stakes are high here. Not just... Yeah, I mean, the run of movies that we're on, but also really making a female superhero work. If they fail after DC's had success with Wonder Woman, that's going to be pretty ostentatious. And it's not even just that. They have to make it work because if this doesn't work, then we don't give a shit about the next Avengers movie.
Starting point is 01:01:41 It's very true. It's unique what they've been able to accomplish there. And even though I think that this is sort of a step back as far as the quality of the films from the last two Marvel movies goes. You mean Infinity War was a step back compared to Black Panther and Ragnarok? I think so. Well, I mean, listen, the first movie,
Starting point is 01:01:58 oh, you're in the middle of a sentence. No, no, my point is just I enjoyed the movie. I continue to be invested in going to see all these other movies, which is basically the most important thing for Marvel. Yeah. But, you know, I think Ragnarok and particularly Black Panther opened our eyes as cultural critics and thinkers and people who are sort of like, I can have the chocolate and the peanut butter here. Like something can be for the most part a great film and also just kind of an involving, ongoing ongoing serialized story that I've just agreed is part of my life to be invested in. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:02:30 And this is not so much that. Yes. I agree with that. I think that all of the the first first phase of of the MCU were kind of graded on a curve in the same way that basically every superhero movie that came before was great on a curve. I mean, people had very fond memories of like the early singer X-Men movies that were all trash. And and and I says like, I love them so much. And but that they were able to pull it off. Right. There are certainly more like eye opening examples that for Superman, you know, Tim Burton, Batman,
Starting point is 01:03:06 even the early Sam Raimi, Spider-Man movies were just like mind-blowing because they didn't just pull it off. They did something really successfully. But the first Avengers movie was graded on a curve, and I think that it was a fantastic movie. But even now, when you look back on it and praise it, a lot of your criteria is they pulled it off, right? Ultron was just a little bit of a mess,
Starting point is 01:03:28 and you told me you watched it recently and it was better than you remembered, but it didn't get the benefit of being the first time out. You heard it here first, guys. They pulled it off. Yeah. David Shoemaker is the ringer. This movie was, they pulled it off. Yeah. David Shoemaker, The Ringer. I mean, this movie was, they pulled it off in such a mind-blowingly entertaining, but also, like, high-wire way.
Starting point is 01:03:54 I mean, the fact that I was engaged with this movie in every scene, and at no point was I just like, what's happening now? Or like, what's this guy doing? Or who is this person? I mean, it was crazy how difficult this was and how kind of seamlessly they pulled it off. And that's like the greatest praise you could possibly give it. I think that that's a great place to wrap up. This movie is uniquely coherent
Starting point is 01:04:18 for something that makes no sense. Yeah. David, thank you so much for coming and breaking this down with me at 11 p.m. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. this down with me at 11 p.m. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. This was a blast. Excelsior.
Starting point is 01:04:34 Thanks again for listening to this week's episode of The Big Picture. Thank you to David Shoemaker. If you want more Avengers, trust me, when you go to TheRinger.com, you will find more, including a piece that I'm writing about whatever happens at the stakes in these superhero movies along with myriad other things by andrew godadaro miles surrey kate hallowell and a whole bunch of ringer staffers come back next week where we'll have another episode thanks again today's episode of the big picture has been brought to Thank you. and provocative films, TV series, and originals. Nuance Shutter is a limited event series born to kill. Sam is embarking on his first romance with fellow teenager Chrissy,
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