Editor’s note: The following post contains spoilers for “.”Late in the action of Joe and Anthony Russo’s “Avengers: Infinity War,” one of Thanos’ henchman (a CGI-encased Carrie Coon) sets about fighting a weakening Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) during the film’s massive Wakanda-set battle. As Coon’s Proxima Midnight goes after Scarlet Witch, she sneers at the superhero that her partner Vision will “died alone, as will you.” Behind her, another voice calmly announces, “She’s not alone.”It’s of the penultimate Avengers films: Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) is there to help defend Scarlet Witch, as is Okoye (Danai Gurira), and the pair face off against their fierce alien foe in a high-energy action scene that feels both natural and inevitable. Yes, it’s all women, but that’s not the only reason for the scene — which makes it all the more exciting to fans who have long been eager to see the MCU embrace its many female superheroes. As Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel attempts to move that blasted Infinity Gauntlet, she goes looking for help, and it arrives in the form of fellow Marvel heroines like Scarlet Witch, Valkyrie, Okoye, Mantis, Shuri, Hope Van Dyne, Gamora, Nebula, and Pepper Potts all assembling to assist her in her quest.No matter the empowering intentions here, the scene feels empty, as the women — some of whom only don’t even have any lines in the script — simply line up, charge forth, and look powerful as they do it.
Every character in Avengers: Endgame's final battle came from various corners of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and they united together in their last stand against Thanos.Here’s a list of all.
The message is certainly a good start (look at all these ladies!), but it’s delivered in a hammy way that ultimately reduces each character to a single trait: Powerful women.It doesn’t add anything to the film as a whole, nor does it expand on the characters themselves, and their roles in earlier Marvel movies prove they have more to offer, even as the franchise has lagged when it comes to crafting films explicitly about its many female characters. While Marvel has plans to build on its strong base of female stars, from the recent success of “Captain Marvel” to a planned “Black Widow” standalone, the MCU can’t afford this sort of superficial pandering when working towards catalyzing real storytelling change.“Captain Marvel” co-director Anna Boden — as of now, still the only female filmmaker to have directed an MCU film, though more are certainly coming — has been honest about the process by which she and partner Ryan Fleck attempted to find their way into the character beyond just “here’s a superhero, make a movie about her.”. MCU stars like Tessa Thompson, Brie Larson, and Zoe Saldana on an all-female Marvel movie. “I think Kevin Feige is really excited by the idea,” she said, “and if you look at what’s happened already in Phase 4 with me and Valkyrie and our story, and then in ‘Black Panther,’ the women rule supreme. There’s an interest in having women at the forefront of this phase. I feel like it’s hopeful.”Last year, Feige continued to hint at a future for the MCU that included more diversity, including for its female filmmakers and stars. “I think it’s only the beginning,” as the studio prepared to release “Black Panther.” “I think you’ll see more and more of that in front of the camera, behind the camera and that that is what is required of us as storytellers.
We want these movies to reflect the world in which they are made, and be brought to life by all types of people behind the camera.”. “Black Panther”MarvelFortunately, the franchise already has plenty of directors within its fold invested in telling female-led stories with nuance and care, from Fleck and Boden to Peyton Reed, whose “Ant-Man and the Wasp” offered a female-fronted superhero film months before “Captain Marvel” debuted.
When that film was released last summer, about his desire to make sure Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Van Dyne reflected a superhero with some real grit.“Evangeline kept banging this drum in a great way,” Reed said at the time, recalling that she told him, “I don’t want to be overly glam. That’s not who Hope Van Dyne is.
When I fight in the movie, I want to be sweaty, and in terms of my hair when I’m in the suit, I want it to be a clean, practical ponytail, because how is that helmet going to go on and off otherwise?”Last year, “Black Panther” star Danai Gurira told IndieWire how her experience with director Ryan Coogler on the set of the smash hit made her feel secure in the direction of the film. That one of the great joys of the film was vision that was rooted in the women that Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole had made central to their story, including not just her own character, but roles for T’Challa’s mother, sister, and a love interest.“He would describe these women characters in ways that I’ve never heard women described,” Gurira said at the time. “I want to see stories told authentically, given accessibility, that’s my thing. What was also really thrilling was that he wrote them as women of integrity and women of complexity and women of strength.”It’s the next great challenge of the MCU, post-Avengers: how to deliver on a promise, with significantly less posing and posturing, no matter how cool it may look in the moment.
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Bit of a hot take here but hear me out.The final battle of Endgame contains some wonderfully amazing moments, no doubt. The portals sequence, Cap lifting Mjolnir, Tony's sacrifice, all are amazing moments that took years of film and development to lead up to. But, other than that, what really is there to it all?I mean. Some of the spectacle is cool and what not, but there's a severe lack of substance to it all.I get it, ' the movie's not about the action! It's about the characters and paying tribute to them!'
And that is totally true, but there is still tonnes of room to improve with the final battle here.First off, Thanos' army feels like fodder in this. They have no, personality, no clear goal other than stopping the good guys, and they're not even that much of a threat to our heroes. They're just a mild inconvenience, if you can even call them that.If we switch over to Infinity War for a sec, there is a clear threat and goal in mind from the outriders view. They're supposed to ambush the heroes and get to Vision who has the mind stone. There, the stakes are set. Not the mention that the outriders actually get the upper hand on our heroes multiple times, and feel like an actual threat.What about Endgame?
Here, their goal isn't really to get the stones (as that was Nebula's task before she was killed by herself), it just seems to be. Kill the Avengers? Which is serviceable and all but we're never really told this, nor do they actually feel like they have a chance at achieving that task because they are noticeably weaker and get killed off like.that. I mean, when Hawkeye, a guy with a bow, arrow and sword, can kill an entire horde of them on his own, whereas just one gave Steve a hard time in Infinity War, you know something isn't right.Also don't forget the Black Order, who are also reduced to background fodder in Endgame. Only two of them get any actual lines in this, not to mention the fact that they have also been significantly nerfed since Infinity War. In the final battle, the same people who gave Scarlet Witch, arguably the most powerful Avenger, a hard time in Infinity War, it's just plain sad to see them get swiftly killed off by someone like Okoye, who doesn't even compare in power and skill to her.Finally, the action just isn't that interesting to watch.
I mean, compare Infinity War's action to Endgame (I know I keep comparing the two but IF is peak MCU action IMO). They don't really compete do they?Infinity War had magnificent setpieces, such as the Strange vs Thanos fight, and the Tony vs Thanos battle, as well as the Wanda/Vision vs Corvus and Proxima battle, (I CAN GO ON). In Endgame, pretty much all of the action scenes are quick cuts, bland cinematography (except for a few instances) and really bad colour grading/tones.The only scene that actually gets close to competing with Infinity War is the trio vs Thanos fight at the beginning of final battle, but that cuts away as soon as the action gets going, so by the time we cut back the scene only lasts for like 2 minutes, where most of that is dedicated to Cap getting Mjolnir.Also, majority of it is just punching and shooting. In Infinity War, the action scenes actually reflected the character's personality and unique skill sets quite well.For example, Steve and T'Challa were brawlers, and ran straight into the frontlines of the battle. Spidey kept his distance at times and acted as support in many ways (similar to what he was told to do in Civil War). Strange used a combination of unique and dazzling spells and enchantments to either subdue or face Thanos head on, with him also using his magic to support other members when they needed to.
Thor played air support and completely obliterated ships and large groups of grunts with his axe.See what I mean? The personalites of the characters are all represented there, but in Endgame none of that is really showcased (which is especially a shame seeing as this film was the culmination of many of the character's arcs).Ok I've droned on for long enough, sorry for the nagging, but I wanted to love Endgame (still do to a certain extent), it's just that there were so many areas in which I thought it could have been improved.If you want to see another person's perspective on the issue then I highly recommend checking out The Closer Look's video on the subject below.Thanks!. Most of the action in Endgame(the final battle) is awesome but so much happens in so little time.Tony and Pepper fighting together, we get barely 5 seconds of that.I know Thor is fat but he can't take Thanos with 2 weapons?
I know Thor was fueled by rage in IW but that shouldn't make him much powerful.Also, what's with the comms? When did they get mics for all characters?When Cap says if anyone has seen the ice-cream truck, Valkyrie says 'Yes'. How the hell she heard Cap when she is literally flying over a giant battle?Also, there are so many people in the battle (the 'wizards' and people of Wakanda) but when Thanos orders the hellfire a lot of people must have died?NO? It's just we don't go over what happened to them or even get a shot of their graves. I know Thor is fat but he can't take Thanos with 2 weapons? I know Thor was fueled by rage in IW but that shouldn't make him much powerful.The Russo's literally stated that Thor was at his most powerful in Endgame, so why he couldn't defeat Thanos is a bit of a question.
Even Cap got more damage done to him in that fightAlso, there are so many people in the battle (the 'wizards' and people of Wakanda) but when Thanos orders the hellfire a lot of people must have died?NO? It's just we don't go over what happened to them or even get a shot of their graves.Another problem I had with the battle. There were no real significant deaths or even damaging blows taken to the heroes, which made it feel less of a 'grand final battle'. The whole 'enemies being nerfed' thing is common to all action films. One enemy is a huge thread. Each individual member of a hoard is weak cannon-fodder.TV Tropes lists this as, with the idea being that there's a finite amount of badassery to go around.
If there's one enemy, then that enemy is formidable because s/he's got all the badassery (let's say 100 Badass Units). If there are a hundred enemies, then each is weak because the same amount of badassery is spread out between them all (1 Badass Unit each). The entire battle felt like it was just going through the motions.
Captain Marvel showing up and just destroying his ship completely killed so much tension. The absolute worst part was the one sided relationship between our heroes and the villain. Time Travel Thanos was a much less interesting character than the Infinity War Thanos. All the great hero villain interactions from Infinity War were completely missing.They really downgraded Thanos as a character in Endgame. From their most interesting one to run of the mill in just one film. I was disappointed in how they treated him in that final battle and his power level was ridiculous without the gauntlet. This is exactly what I thought too.
The jokes and characters seeing each other again kinda ruin the action vibe and it really looks like a set in those moments. Thor swapping hammers with Cap, Tony and Peter reuniting.In some shots it doesn't feel like a huge battle, would've liked some more wide shots of the battle.But I think the biggest thing is the set, you can't tell where they are because everything looks the same. I watched Ready Player One last week (finally) and I like the style of that final battle way better. It feels like an ongoing battle while the Endgame battle cuts to smaller groups of characters throughout the battle, makes it feel cheap in a way. Its not that I don't like the mood of the setting, I don't like the generic nature of its topography. There's a reason the big battle in The Avengers (still Marvel's best) and Age of Ultron was in a build-up area. Even Avengers 2.5 (aka Captain America: Civil War) was set in an airport.All these environments have a topography which allows the combatants to interact with and utilize their surroundings during the course of the fight, whereas in this (yes, and in Infinity War's Wakanda setpiece) its effectivelly just a field over which the characters can punch it out.
I think a better comparison is with the Titan setpiece in Infinity War.