Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Warning, today's episode contains spoilers for The Avengers Infinity War. You understand, boy? You're about to take the full force of a star. It'll kill you. Only if I die. Yes, that's what killing you means. Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion.
00:00:37
Speaker 2: And I'm Rosie Knight.
00:00:39
Speaker 1: And welcome back to X-Ray Vision, the podcast where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.
00:00:47
Speaker 3: In today's episode, we are continuing our ever more impending doomsday series, Eat We are revisiting one of the 15 properties Marvel has highlighted as essential viewing before Avengers Doomsday. We started with X-Men and X2. We've done the first Avengers film. So if you haven't heard those, you can find them in this feed or the impending Doomsday feed.
00:01:06
Speaker 2: We're going to start off with some banger facts.
00:01:08
Speaker 3: We're going to lay the land.
00:01:10
Speaker 2: How was it when Infinity War came out? Can you remember? It was a different time.
00:01:14
Speaker 3: So we're going to tell you the production woes, the lead in, the drama. Then we're going to recap the movie.
00:01:19
Speaker 2: And afterwards, we're going to answer the question. Why is this included?
00:01:24
Speaker 3: Why do we need to watch Infinity War before Doomsday?
00:01:28
Speaker 1: Let's start. It's a back issue. Quick facts about Avengers Infinity War. No Hugo Weaving is the Red Skull. This is one of those.
00:01:41
Speaker 1: Shouts to Ross Markand, who did a fantastic job.
00:01:45
Speaker 2: I did not know that when I saw the movie.
00:01:48
Speaker 1: Doing his Hugo Weaving German accent as the floating disembodied Red Skull on Vormir, Hugo Weaving turned the role down because they just were not ponying enough money. Weaving told Time Out in January 2020 that his original deal covered three pictures and that the offer for the two Avengers films, Infinity War and Endgame, was less than he was paid for Captain America, the first Avenger alone. And that he had been told the sequels were only a voice job. And to be fair, you're in this movie for two and a half minutes.
00:02:26
Speaker 3: Come on, Hugo Weaving.
00:02:32
Speaker 1: So he said on the negotiation, quote, I actually found negotiating with them through my agent impossible.
00:02:39
Speaker 3: Hey, look, he's not the only one who's ever said it, okay? It's true. He's not out here saying this is a shocking fact.
00:02:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. He said that he would have done it, you know, I guess if they met his price. Ross Markand, as noted, played the Vormir Stonekeeper instead. And Time Out notes that the Russos have publicly confirmed that weaving was approached, but they didn't. Go into the details.
00:03:03
Speaker 3: Come on. Come on.
00:03:04
Speaker 2: Come on.
00:03:05
Speaker 1: Come on. Okay.
00:03:06
Speaker 3: Two lines of Spider-Man's death scene were scripted. And this is an incredible note because I love this scene so much. And the rest came from Tom Holland on the day. Joe Russo to offer up rocks during the release was said like on the page was, I don't feel so good and I'm sorry. And everything in between is Tom. So when he's like, I don't want to go, Mr.
00:03:25
Speaker 1: Stark.
00:03:25
Speaker 2: And he's like crying.
00:03:27
Speaker 3: I think my first review for this movie after I saw it, probably on the Disney lot was.
00:03:31
Speaker 2: Give Tom Holland an Oscar.
00:03:33
Speaker 1: The campaign starts now.
00:03:35
Speaker 2: He sold that shit to me.
00:03:37
Speaker 3: Russo said they pushed Holland towards the idea that he was a child who did not understand what was happening. Anthony Russo credited Robert Downey Jr. with feeling the performance in the moment, describing him as giving a performer who helped them find the take.
00:03:50
Speaker 1: That's right. I'm going to skip the next one because that's really just a version of the first one. The hero shot from the first trailer, which shows, you might recall this, The Avengers and the Wakandan army charging towards the camera. Hulk, not Banner and Hulkbuster, full Hulk among them, of course, does not exist in the film and was shot and created only for the trailer. Anthony Russo on the Happy Sad Confused podcast said it was literally created in that version for the trailer. Joe Russo said they used footage shot for other scenes. And, of course, created it in CG specifically for trailer purposes. Everybody does this now, by the way.
00:04:30
Speaker 2: It's so normal now.
00:04:32
Speaker 1: It's so normal to do that. Separately, Thanos' trailer line about balancing the universe was scripted and shot. Jor-El said it was spoken to Gamora on Nowhere and replaced in post with a different line.
00:04:44
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
00:04:45
Speaker 3: Every actor on the film was given a fake script, and as we know, Joe Russo named Tom Holland as the reason. Russo told GamesRadar the cast was working from scripts with invented scenes, twists, and endings, and that very few people had seen the finished film. On why we can't trust anybody. Least of all, Tom Holland with the truth.
00:05:04
Speaker 2: Okay, calm down. He's young, guys. It's a cute bit. Like, don't be so crazy.
00:05:08
Speaker 3: He added that it was easier on the actors to have read a fake ending than to know the real one and carry the pressure of hiding it. Two days later, on BBC Radio Scotland, Russo put Holland's status plainly. The actor had a couple of slip-ups in the past, so he's on the blacklist now. and they said they wrote a fake script specifically for him. Russo also said the cast could work without the real pages because the objectives of each scene were contained in the scene and that no one besides him and his brother needed to know the villain's overall goal. Paul Bettany described rehearsing material with fake scenes and fake storylines being told on set that none of it was what happened and then being handed the real deal.
00:05:45
Speaker 2: Sounds confusing.
00:05:46
Speaker 1: That's... We're going overboard now. Yeah. It is a little too much, guys.
00:05:51
Speaker 3: We know what happens in the comics. Like, he clicks away 50% of the people.
00:05:55
Speaker 1: I love that they just, like, hung poor Tom Holland out to dry.
00:06:00
Speaker 3: They threw my man under the bus.
00:06:02
Speaker 1: And you know what?
00:06:02
Speaker 2: He's doing better than any of them right now. So it's okay.
00:06:06
Speaker 1: Jim Starlin.
00:06:07
Speaker 3: Woo! Legend.
00:06:08
Speaker 1: Absolute legendary artist, creator of Thanos, Gamora, and Drax. Did some great Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. work as well. Paid for his own ticket to see The Avengers. Speaking to the LA Times, Hero Complex, in May 2012, after Thanos appeared in the tag, Starlin said he was not officially told the character was in the film and learned about it from friends who had seen internet rumors. Crazy. They're just like us, comics legends. On compensation, it was the second film containing something he created for Marvel. The Infinity Gauntlet and Thor being the first and both films I had to pay for my own ticket to see. So Jim Starlin, not loving it.
00:06:48
Speaker 3: I do want to say, that is very specifically at this time. He was good enough at doing these interviews that now I think he is quite happy. And by the time we get to Endgame, there will be a different story. The film opened, Jason, this is crazy. These were crazy times.
00:07:03
Speaker 1: To $ 257, 698, 183 domestic. A record at the time. And it finished.
00:07:05
Speaker 3: $ 2, 052, 415, 039 worldwide. Domestic total was almost $ 700 million. International was over a billion, like.
00:07:24
Speaker 2: A $ 33. 67 split.
00:07:26
Speaker 3: Its own sequel took the domestic opening record later, just 13 months later, with $ 357. 1 million opening.
00:07:35
Speaker 2: Doomsday is not going to do that much. I'm sorry to the Russo brothers.
00:07:39
Speaker 1: Maybe with inflation, but it'll get somewhere in the area. But I mean, these were... But not to open.
00:07:45
Speaker 2: I mean, to open to almost 400 mil.
00:07:47
Speaker 3: Though Spider-Man did open to almost 300.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: So we could be back in the realm. Who knows?
00:07:52
Speaker 1: I mean, these were, to your point, crazy times. Okay, let's take a quick break. We'll be back in three years. And we're back. We open in deep space. This is a distress call. We hear a distress call going out saying that the vessel, the statesman, the Asgardian refugee ship carrying King Thor, Loki, and others after the events of Thor Ragnarok.
00:08:34
Speaker 3: Remember that?
00:08:35
Speaker 1: Remember Thor Ragnarok? And which at the end, just to quickly update, Asgard... as a realm was destroyed and a good number of its civilians were evacuated on the statesmen. Other than Thor and Heimdall, there's really just like civilians and families aboard this vessel. And they're mostly dead now. It's already.
00:09:02
Speaker 2: It's bad times.
00:09:03
Speaker 1: Bad times. It's already happened. Ebony Maw is walking around talking shit. Stepping over Asgardian bodies. Oh, God. Here he goes again. To talk about, oh, you have the honor of dying by Thanos. Your deaths bring balance. To the Uriah, he's giving the whole Thanosian ideology.
00:09:29
Speaker 2: Calm down, mate.
00:09:30
Speaker 1: Give me a break. Thanos is there, and we finally see him in his full bulk.
00:09:37
Speaker 2: There he is, the big boy, the Josh version.
00:09:40
Speaker 3: He's fully here. He's looking chunky.
00:09:42
Speaker 2: He's got the ball chin. He's huge. He's Thanos' daddy.
00:09:46
Speaker 3: People will draw many pictures of his butt as this movie comes out.
00:09:50
Speaker 1: He monologues a little bit while he's carrying Thor around like a bowling ball, which is very scary. Gives you an idea about how strong he is.
00:09:58
Speaker 3: So scary.
00:09:59
Speaker 1: All Loki can do... is watch while, you know, Thanos is flexing the glove. He's only got the one, he's only got the power gem, power stone in there right now. And he wants to Tesseract. And he's like, Loki, where is it? I know that you have it. But Thor is like, ha ha ha. It was destroyed. Well, you may not know this, but Surtr, the great demon unleashed by Hela, destroyed Asgard. And sadly, everything on Asgard, including the Tesseract, which was in the trophy room, was destroyed. And then Loki's like, no, actually, I kept it. And he pulls it out of his sleeve. What a Loki thing to do.
00:10:42
Speaker 3: Also, I love that Thor has the time while this.
00:10:45
Speaker 2: Is all going on that he says, you really are the worst brother.
00:10:48
Speaker 3: And I love that they still have that banter in this terrible, fatal moment.
00:10:53
Speaker 1: And then Loki is like, you know, about to hand it to Thanos, but he's like, we have a Hulk. And then the Hulk comes out and lands some good shots. But in a measure of just how strong Thanos is, he's already got one stone, which makes him insanely powerful. And he was strong before that. He just easily, frighteningly easily, pieces up the Hulk.
00:11:18
Speaker 2: Not even an issue.
00:11:20
Speaker 1: No. Throat chop, one, two, three, four, five, little jab, jab, jab, bitter patter. And then body slams him, and the Hulk is, like, knocked unconscious with ease. Heimdall is, like, you know... Odin, give me the strength for one last rainbow bridge. Calls one last rainbow bridge and sends Banagher away to Earth.
00:11:40
Speaker 2: MVP moment, I think.
00:11:41
Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
00:11:42
Speaker 3: Like, if we really think about it, Heimdall doing this is what allows the rest of the Avengers to know. So, once again, Idris Elba coming through for us all.
00:11:52
Speaker 1: He's done so much, and it's just kind of an unsung hero in the Marvel Universe.
00:11:57
Speaker 2: He's the one who keeps it going.
00:11:59
Speaker 1: It's so true. Thanos immediately kills him. Thor is like, well, now you're going to die for that because that was my guy. That was my really, really good friend. Ebony Maw is just a noseless, obsequious worm. And he's like, oh, Lord Thanos, it is my great honor to give this to you. And he like kneels and hands the cube to Thanos and Thanos crushes it and refines the gem and puts the gem back. in the glove, and it's like a pure cocaine hit.
00:12:29
Speaker 3: Crazy. Thanos is high.
00:12:31
Speaker 2: He's high off the gem.
00:12:33
Speaker 1: He's just like, ah!
00:12:36
Speaker 3: Super Saiyan Thanos. Did we ever realize, Jason, do you know why they changed the order of the gems on the glove?
00:12:43
Speaker 2: Do we know?
00:12:44
Speaker 3: I never understood. I can't remember if we ever got an official opinion or if it was just it looks cool and the colors look good.
00:12:52
Speaker 1: It's a good question. We should figure that out because it's not, to your point, it's not in the order they were unveiled. Yes. And it's not in the order, the original order.
00:13:05
Speaker 2: Original order on the glove.
00:13:07
Speaker 1: On the glove.
00:13:08
Speaker 3: I guess it probably was just so it looks cool. I think it might be like the colors that go well together. But I think about it every time he's putting a gem in, the little comic book guy in the back of my head is like, he's putting it in the wrong place. But, I mean, what a rad sequence this is. Where he crushes it?
00:13:25
Speaker 1: It must simply be that it's in order that he gets them, right?
00:13:32
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
00:13:33
Speaker 2: And he just puts them along the knuckles as he goes.
00:13:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, as he goes. Like, he wouldn't go, oh, yeah, like, that goes in the third. The soul goes on the third one, yeah.
00:13:44
Speaker 2: Paint by colors, paint by numbers, which one you put it in.
00:13:49
Speaker 1: He then tells his Black Order minions... There's two gems on Earth, Time Stone with Doctor Strange, Soul Stone and Vision's forehead. Go get them! Loki is like, oh, Earth? Guess what? You might need a tour guide. I am the perfect guy. I know New York really well. I invaded it, that whole thing. Thanos is like, oh, you mean your failed war where you got captured and that whole thing? Like, give me a fucking break. I.
00:14:20
Speaker 3: He was his boss. Thanos was his boss and he failed him. And he's like, want to hire me again? It's not going to work. Good pitch, Loki, but it's never going to work.
00:14:29
Speaker 1: Loki says, listen, you could use me. I promise you, I'm going to give you my like undying fidelity. He's obviously lying. He's building it up too much. He then pulls out a knife as Thanos gets close, but Thanos just freezes him with the power gem and laughs at the word choice, like undying, ha ha ha, like you should have picked something different, and then strangles Loki to death in front of his brother Thor. No resurrections this time, Josh Brolin says, and then he portals out, destroys the ship with the Power Stone, and he's gone. We go to Greenwich Village. Dr. Strange and Wong are having a very, very amusing conversation about a deli run, deli order. Wong- apparently never has any money, is always asking to borrow money from Strange. And as they're discussing this, Bruce Banner falls through the roof of the Sanctum Sanctorum, through the stairs, and they look in the hole. He's transforming back into Bruce Banner. The green is ebbing away. He's going, Thanos is coming!
00:15:39
Speaker 3: Thanos is coming!
00:15:41
Speaker 1: Elsewhere, Tony and Pepper... In what appears to be the East River walk, I think, are talking about work and their personal lives. And Tony is saying, you know, I had this dream that you and I had a kid. The child was named Morgan. And what if we did that? What if we found out they're getting married? What if we had a kid? And Pepper's like, well, if you're really serious about settling down into married life, having a kid, you wouldn't be wearing... your experimental nanotech arc reactor, which means actually you're ready for battle, not a home life because we discover this movie is really good at giving you exposition in little lines of things that have happened off screen. She complains about the arc reactor and he says, yeah, I don't need it. I had the surgery. So now you know that Tony actually doesn't need it for his heart anymore. And this movie is really good at delivering moments like that. But it's clear that he just loves being Iron Man. He loves his suits.
00:16:45
Speaker 3: It's keeping the nanotech. That's the reason he gives her right now. And in her mind, she's like, just settle down, man. You don't need the suit if you're going to be the husband.
00:16:54
Speaker 1: He says, well, I just want to protect us. And then he promises no more surprises, which is going to be an important line to open Tony's entrance in Endgame. But then Dr. Strange portals in and says, hey, congrats on the wedding, but I need you. And look who's here with me. It's Bruce Banner back from space. And Bruce looks so shaken that Tony knows it's a big deal.
00:17:18
Speaker 3: Jason, that's one of those moments in the theater where this movie really starts to amp up, right? Because you get your portal, Strange walks out, he says, Tony Stark and he's like, who the fuck are you?
00:17:29
Speaker 2: Like what's going on?
00:17:30
Speaker 3: And you get that moment of connection between these different parts of the Avengers universe. And I think that as well, like you mentioned about that exposition. The way they reintroduce characters here works so well. But everyone has a favorite moment. Mine is obviously the Scarlet Witch vision stuff, which we'll get to. But this is such a fun way to establish the normality of these heroes being in this world at this point. Like, Doctor Strange can just portal into New York, no issue.
00:17:56
Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah, it's so great to see everybody finally come together. It's just wonderful. They go to the Sanctum Sanctorum. Wong does the PowerPoint on the Infinity Stones, kind of update Tony about what they are. Strange is like, and by the way, check this out. And he throws his neck piece on his chest and.
00:18:20
Speaker 3: Opens it up.
00:18:21
Speaker 1: And there's a time when Tony just has to show it off. And so Tony is like, okay, perfect. Why don't you just destroy that since that's what he wants.
00:18:33
Speaker 3: And then.
00:18:34
Speaker 1: You know, they kind of go back and forth. There's a great dick measuring war going on between the two. Banner is like, listen, you have to focus. It's about Thanos. Thanos is the one who sent Loki and the Chitauri to invade in New York. He's collecting the stones. He already has two, which makes him the most powerful being in the universe already. There's four more. If he gets all six, like we're fucking finished. There's also some fun banter here in which we discover that Ben and Jerry's has various Avengers flavors. Yes.
00:19:02
Speaker 3: Hulk is the favored flavor in the Sanctum Sanctorum because it's like more of a chocolate flavor.
00:19:08
Speaker 2: I believe it's Fudger Fudger Burning Hulk is what it's called.
00:19:12
Speaker 1: There's got to be like some sort of mint or pistachio involved, right?
00:19:15
Speaker 3: I feel like they should have, but it sounds like they went for more of a hunk of burning love. Tony doesn't like his, the Iron Man one apparently is a little chalky.
00:19:25
Speaker 1: So Tony is like, yeah, just destroy the time stone and we're kind of like done, right? And Strange is like, I can't. It's my job. My job is to use this thing and protect it and protect all of reality, you fucking dick. Like, you don't even understand how complex and serious my job is. And so, okay, what about the Mind Stone? Well, that's in Vision's forehead. We need to secure Vision. And Tony's like, ugh. Well, here's the thing about Vision.
00:19:53
Speaker 4: Uh-oh.
00:19:53
Speaker 1: We've been letting him go off and have his little fuck fests in Rwanda, like across the world.
00:20:01
Speaker 3: Eating fish and chips in Scotland.
00:20:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just like staying at what appear to be some of the nicest places apartments and or hotels like in the area. But it turns out that vision has turned off his like, find my vision app because he doesn't want to be found. And we don't know where he is. And Banner's like, you lost another super AI super bot who can find him. And on very, very fortunately it is Steve Rogers. Now Banner has no idea that there's been a whole civil war. that Tony found out that Steve's 100-year-old best friend actually murdered his parents. And there was a whole falling out over that. And there's the Sokovia Accords in which there was a registration push and that a bunch of heroes led by Cap have gone underground. So Tony has to update him on this a little bit. But it must be serious because Tony realizes, fuck, I guess I got to call Steve. He pulls out his phone. But before he can Hit send. There's like a strange hum and the Ebony, you know, the Black Order, Ebony Maw and Corvus Glaver here. There's a ship outside on the Manhattan streets. People are screaming.
00:21:22
Speaker 3: They're like running.
00:21:23
Speaker 1: Oh my God. This car is crashing.
00:21:25
Speaker 3: It's very the beginning of The Leftovers.
00:21:27
Speaker 2: Like every car is crashing. Everything's going wrong.
00:21:30
Speaker 1: New York again at the center of it. And across town on the Williamsburg Bridge, Peter Parker's Spidey tingle pops. And he looks and he sees the ship, Stanley driving the bus, by the way.
00:21:42
Speaker 3: There he is.
00:21:43
Speaker 5: There he is.
00:21:44
Speaker 1: Peter suits up, slings over to the ship, while Strange on the street in front of the ship casts what I think everyone agrees is Winds of Watoom.
00:21:52
Speaker 2: Correct.
00:21:52
Speaker 1: Which stops the chaos, settles the debris, makes everything very still. And Tony realizes in that moment that, oh, hold on, maybe the bleaker street magician has some juice. He's got a little bit of juice.
00:22:05
Speaker 2: He's got some juice.
00:22:06
Speaker 1: Ebony Maw and, excuse me, Call Obsidian come down.
00:22:10
Speaker 3: How could you get it wrong?
00:22:11
Speaker 1: Sorry, excuse me. The absolutely personality-less Call Obsidian.
00:22:16
Speaker 3: I hate the children of Thanos.
00:22:18
Speaker 2: It just does not work for me.
00:22:19
Speaker 3: I don't think they're interesting. I do love one of them is played by Carrie Coon.
00:22:23
Speaker 2: That's crazy enough to make me care.
00:22:26
Speaker 1: I will say that they are also personality lists in the comics.
00:22:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not like they it was always a strange addition. And honestly, this is not going to surprise anyone who listens to this podcast. I am holding a grudge because I remember the year I think D23 or some kind of Marvel presentation when they had the four statues and.
00:22:46
Speaker 2: They were covered in.
00:22:48
Speaker 3: You know, blankets and everyone thought it was a Fantastic Four reveal and it was fucking Black Order and Corvus Glaive and nobody cared and they never lived up to it. But you know what?
00:22:57
Speaker 2: They get the job done.
00:22:58
Speaker 3: They keep it moving.
00:22:59
Speaker 1: They do get the job done. They get the job done. So Ebony Maw is talking his regular oily shit about, oh, rejoice for you are to die at the hands of Thanos who will bring balance to the galaxy. Strange and Wong are ready to fight. Tony's like, hey, Bruce, it's been a long time, babe. You ready? You want to get in there? I love when you Hulk. He does.
00:23:23
Speaker 3: He always loved it.
00:23:25
Speaker 1: I've loved it since Marvel's The Avengers. I've loved watching you Hulk out. Get your guy up. Let's go. And Bruce is like, I don't want to, but okay. And then he's like, come out. But he can't do it. And this is a continuing theme for Banner in this movie. He cannot transform. So Tony... It has to suit up, and we get our first look at the nanotech transformation of the Mark 50 armor. Pretty cool.
00:23:49
Speaker 3: So many armors. Like, how much money has he spent on armor at this point, my guy? Trillions. Like, do something else with it. You could have cut these people out.
00:23:59
Speaker 1: So, Cull is just a big brute with, like, a... ship anchor on a chain. And he's kind of easily dealt with, although very, very strong. But Ma's telekinesis is very, very powerful. He's like throwing cars around, cutting them in half with like a gesture. He's powerful. The fight between Thanos' minions, Tony and Wong and Strange is, I think, really good. This immediately lets you know we're getting some great action in this movie. And boy, does it arrive fast. Peter arrives on the scene, makes it complicated. But then, you know, Tony gives Peter a very humorous update where he's like, Mr. Stark, what's going on? These guys are from space. They came to steal a necklace from a wizard. Perfect.
00:24:45
Speaker 3: That is the perfect synthesis of what the MCU does well. And it works with Tom Holland's Peter Parker, who loves movies, who loves stories, who is a kid.
00:24:54
Speaker 2: Oh, I love that line.
00:24:57
Speaker 1: So... Strange is doing a pretty good job, but he gets captured kind of quickly. And if not for the cloak, he would be very, very cooked right away. But Ma can't get the stone off of him because of this very powerful, unbreakable dead man spell that even if he kills Strange, it actually gets worse. And you just never, ever, ever get it. So Ma chokes Tony out with like some steel girders. And then there's a brief chase in which Peter Parker's trying to get him back, but then they all end up getting beamed up to the ship with Strange and Peter going up, up, up, up, and up. Wong gets a portal on Cull Obsidian and cuts his arm clean off. They just leave him, I guess, to run around in Antarctica or something.
00:25:43
Speaker 2: Crazy, but love that use of the portals.
00:25:45
Speaker 3: We really start to see why Wong is going to become the Sorcerer Supreme. He utilizes them in a totally different way than Strange, and it's really fun.
00:25:53
Speaker 1: So Tony goes flying up over the ship, up to the ship, which is now leaving Earth orbit. Peter's attached to the ship, but it's getting higher up into the atmosphere and he's beginning to pass out. So Tony launches his new spider suit, the Iron Spider, which I guess he just made for free without even talking to Peter.
00:26:11
Speaker 3: I think it was just... I thought about this moment a lot. I think it is an acknowledgement of the fact that Tony knows Peter is going to keep getting himself in trouble. He's always going to follow him. And at some point, he's going to need a more serious suit. And I do love it.
00:26:26
Speaker 2: It's really cute. But it is also suit ex machina. Like, no question.
00:26:31
Speaker 1: Now, fun fact, in the comics, Tony also gives... Peter this suit after Peter registers with the registration heroes. And in a shocking moment, which required some serious like retcon retelling, Peter takes off his mask at a press conference and tells everybody I'm Peter Parker for my whole life. I've been Spider-Man. But that's the comics not here. So the suit just attaches itself to Peter. He just stops passing out. Tony releases his like, you know, Friday, send him home. Friday, send him home and releases the parachute at the back of his suit. So he goes flying back to Earth. Tony cuts his way into the ship and goes inside. Meanwhile, Spider-Man, though, of course, has not gone home. He sneaks aboard with unbeknownst to Tony Stark down the street. Banner picks up. Tony's phone, and good thing he found that phone.
00:27:32
Speaker 3: Imagine if anyone else did.
00:27:34
Speaker 1: I know. In the wreckage of Greenwich Village with all things destroyed, he finds the phone. Wong goes back to the sanctum, and Banner flips it open and calls Steve. Out in space, we go to the Guardians of the Galaxy who are bopping around towards the Statemen's distress call, which they have luckily picked up. They find Thor when he just bumps into the windshield, half-dead. But of course, he's not dead. They bring him aboard. And the whole ship, except for Peter Quill, is like, holy cow. This guy is so good looking and hot and handsome with big, hard, strong muscles. So funny. Wow. The beard is great.
00:28:15
Speaker 3: Stunning.
00:28:16
Speaker 1: He's beautiful. And Peter Quill is like, hold on. I look good, too. Do I not have good muscles and stuff? And Drax is like, actually, you've kind of been putting on weight, honestly. And there's this whole thing. They wake him up. There's a great moment where Gamora is like, his muscles are so hard.
00:28:39
Speaker 3: He looks like a space angel warrior.
00:28:45
Speaker 1: Gamora and Drax tell Thor everything they know about Thanos, which is a lot, actually, because they're personal. Very personal. Thanos, of course, killed Drax's wife and family. And Gamora is his adoptive daughter. So they know about a lot about him. Thor, when he hears that Gamora is his daughter kind of was like, Oh, are we going to have a problem? But Thor understands, he really understands a lot about kids not being their parents and they're being sometimes like there's a difference there and you can't always make up the difference. It doesn't mean that the kids are the parents. And so he's like, we're good to go. We're, we're, we're fine. Yeah. But I need a hammer to fight Thanos. Quill, meanwhile, is taking on Thor's voice and doing.
00:29:31
Speaker 3: So silly.
00:29:32
Speaker 1: There's a weird.
00:29:32
Speaker 5: Hold on, Rosie.
00:29:33
Speaker 1: There's a weird drape.
00:29:36
Speaker 3: Thanks for my curtain.
00:29:37
Speaker 2: It was very dramatic.
00:29:39
Speaker 1: You know, like... he's like, yes, hold on. Where are you going? And he's like trying to put on Thor's voice. So funny.
00:29:45
Speaker 3: I'm the captain.
00:29:47
Speaker 1: It is really funny. He's denying that he's doing it. But anyway, Thor's like, I know where, Thanos is going to nowhere because he must be going there to get Um, the reality stone, which is held there by the collector. And of course the guardians know nowhere. Well, it's the planet inside the head of a, of a celestial. And, uh, they mentioned the, the soul stone is mentioned. Gamora has a very interesting reaction. She's like, Oh, she's like clearly knows something about it, but doesn't say anything. Keeps it to herself. Thor is like, okay, well I got to forge a new weapon to fight Thanos. I'm going to knit a valier. which is this intergalactic forge where like really, really cool weapons comes out of. And Rocket is like, holy shit, that's a real place. Like, I definitely want to go. So Rocket, Thor, Teen Groot, who's always on his Nintendo Switch, head to Diddy Valir and the Guardians go off to nowhere to kind of head off Thanos. We go to Edinburgh, Scotland. It's late in the evening. Vision and Wanda just got done having sex yet again in their sex apartment.
00:30:58
Speaker 3: Squish sex apartment. They are living.
00:31:01
Speaker 1: They're living.
00:31:02
Speaker 3: It's plush furnishings. The curtains are nice.
00:31:05
Speaker 2: It's cozy.
00:31:06
Speaker 3: You know, there's a roaring fire. They've been having a great time.
00:31:10
Speaker 1: Viz has been having some trouble with the stone. The stone is acting up. It's trying to tell him something, he thinks. But he doesn't know what. And they've been at this, we discover, for years. Just going around sex here and there. Loving as a couple. They're deeply in love by this point. They're just a couple like in the comics. And it's actually quite nice.
00:31:32
Speaker 2: It's my fave stuff.
00:31:33
Speaker 1: I love it so much. I mean, we could do, if this was the comics, Rosie, there are so many things in this film that would be like, they would have given us a one shot that's just like Vision and Wanda like, two years on the road.
00:31:49
Speaker 3: Favorite meals like most romantic dates like that's the kind of cool weird shit we would have gotten and also they probably ran into some kind of Scottish witch coven at some point right you know like it would be a random adventure but I'm really actually so and we'll talk about this more after but I'm so excited to see the MCU go back to Scotland and see Vision return to what we the same place from what we've seen from the Vision Quest trailers. So this is a really exciting moment to rewatch in the lead up to that and Doomsday.
00:32:21
Speaker 1: I totally agree. They go for a walk. Viz is like, I have to check in. I did promise Stark that I'd check in regularly when I'm out, like when we're on our walkabouts, but What if we don't do that anymore? What if neither of us check in anymore? What if we just drop out? Forget all the superhero shit. We did that. What if we just fade away, live our... Because there's this really wonderful moment where they both agree, this just works. This was an experiment. Can a android man... And a mutant witch live together. And clearly they can. And so they're really concerned. What if we just forget all of that and just live together as man and wife? But before Wanda can say yes, and it seems like she was getting ready to say yes, they see the news report from New York and they realize, oh, shit. Now Viz is like, this is about the stone. This is what the stone has been trying to tell me. I need to go on the run now because they're going to be after me. But before he can really do that, Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight pop out of nowhere. And Glaive stabs, or Proxima, I think, stabs Vision with that kind of scepter thing she has. And it interferes with his phasing and his body self-healing. And he's really fucked up. Wanda does a great job fighting them while also trying to save Viz. And they end up crashing into a train station where we get one of the- One of the chill-inducing moments of the MCU.
00:33:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, we love this moment.
00:34:02
Speaker 5: You get the.
00:34:04
Speaker 1: And there's Captain America. He's behind the train. He's got the beard, you know. And they beat the shit out of Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight. Black Widow stabs Corvus Glaive with Proxima's scepter and he's... we find out is a mortal wound because he later dies off screen.
00:34:24
Speaker 3: Crazy. Sorry to that Corvus.
00:34:28
Speaker 1: Sorry to that Corvus Glaive who had very little screen time. And our heroes are back together and rescued. We then flashback. We watch and we, I think, we'll later discover from the scene that is after this, this is Gamora remembering.
00:34:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
00:34:45
Speaker 1: She's remembering Thanos doing a genocide on her planet. and my guy how he pulled her out of like the death line was like what's wrong why are you crying i don't know because you're killing half my planet yeah and he's like well let me show you something he pulls out his little dagger he does that little thing where he balances the dagger on his finger and he's like too much this way too much the other and he's like that's why i have to kill basically almost everyone and isn't that great and then we've reunite with Gamora modern day she's on the ship she is off thinking about this and she makes Quill promise like listen we're going to confront Thanos on nowhere if I am captured by Thanos kill me don't let him take me and Quill's like what are you fucking talking about I can't do.
00:35:36
Speaker 3: That He's useless, first of all, Gamora. Just so you know, you picked a losing horse. Losing dog, bad choice. We're going to get into it more. But I have to say, I love this whole conflict. I actually do not really care for Quill or the Guardians particularly.
00:35:51
Speaker 2: It's not my tone of the MCU.
00:35:53
Speaker 3: But I think the way they deal with Gamora not wanting to be taken by her dad and tortured and Quill not wanting to kill the woman he loves is actually some of the emotional heart of this movie that really works.
00:36:04
Speaker 1: I have to say also- With regards to the tone, I don't mind it. It's not my favorite either, but I like the Guardians. But I think the Russos did a really good job integrating that very different tone into the rest of the MCU. I didn't think coming into this movie at the time that it would necessarily be possible to do it, but they really succeeded in integrating the Guardians. Agreed. So they arrive on Nowhere. Thanos has already killed the Collector, taken the stone, but he casts this illusion so they don't realize that he's done it right away. And he does capture Gamora. And she's like, Quill, remember that thing that you promised? And he's like, I can't do it. I can't do it. But then he props to him. He pulls the trigger and is like, okay, I will kill you. He closes his eyes and does it. But Thanos uses his newly acquired reality stone to turn the blasts into like little soap bubbles. And then he's like, I like you. And disappears.
00:37:27
Speaker 3: I know. He's like, I see why my daughter likes you. I have to say as well. Look, I'm not saying we should give him a power ring. I know it's a different universe, but Thanos' imagination is good. These illusions are really, really good. Like the way he plays with reality, he would be a great Green Lantern or at least a great ring bearer.
00:37:45
Speaker 2: He would have an incredible will and imagination.
00:37:48
Speaker 1: He's quite good at it. We go to the Avengers compound upstate New York. Secretary Ross, fucking Thunderbolt Ross, that piece of shit is giving Rhodey Giving Rhodey the fucking riot act, talking about working with criminals, a.k.a. Steve Rogers and the rest. They are known fugitives. You know about them. They've broken all kinds of international laws, and yet you've called them back in on this. How fucking dare you? You're in big trouble, mister. And just as he's saying that, in walks Steve, Nat, Sam, and Banner. And they give Secretary Ross a little, like, how are you doing? And then hang up on him.
00:38:30
Speaker 2: I also want to say, let's give a shout out for Beard Steve.
00:38:33
Speaker 3: It was a big moment at the time. A lot has happened since. I understand that Steve having a beard is not that big news now, guys. But in 2019, 2018, 2017, we are very excited about Beard Steve. And he's looking good in Infinity War, okay?
00:38:47
Speaker 2: It looks beautiful here.
00:38:49
Speaker 1: It looks really, really good. There's no question in my mind that him and Nat were having very casual situationship sex in this time. Come on, it's been two years.
00:38:59
Speaker 2: Come on. Just the two of them out there as if.
00:39:02
Speaker 1: No, no feelings. Obviously, like Nat understands that Steve's heart's elsewhere and that, you know. And I think it was just a very casual situation.
00:39:12
Speaker 2: You don't think that they do, like, cosplay? Like, you don't think they're doing, like.
00:39:15
Speaker 3: Captain Peggy roleplay?
00:39:17
Speaker 2: And she's like, because she's getting to relive her life. I mean, I don't want to think about it, actually. Keep it to the situation shit.
00:39:24
Speaker 3: Don't think about it.
00:39:25
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I don't think Steve has that kind of. He's a.
00:39:29
Speaker 3: Little, I feel you. He's a bit vanilla.
00:39:32
Speaker 1: He's a little vanilla. It's just, it's mish for Steve.
00:39:40
Speaker 3: Missionary is the mission for Steve Rogers.
00:39:42
Speaker 1: Yes. So everybody has had a very, very rough couple years. We learned that Clinton Scott took a plea deal. And that, so they could, because they couldn't separate from their families. You know, Clint Barton, big family man. He's got to be on that farm in MAGA country. And of course, Scott also had to go back, you know, because of his situation in the shared custody with his daughter. But of course, nobody knows that right at this very moment. No. Scott is in the quantum realm. The Ant-Man. Banner had no idea that there was an Ant-Man now. So the plan that is kind of coalescing right now is get the stone out of Vision's head with him alive so that Wanda can destroy it. Vision is like, it's fine if it kills me.
00:40:29
Speaker 2: We can just do that.
00:40:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fine. And Steve's like, no, no, no, no, no. Come on. We're the Avengers. I'm Steve Rogers. Like, I don't do that. It's not the way we do it. And I know where we can go because there's only one lab, one place on Earth that We can pull the stone out of a synthezoid's brain that has the equipment to do that and has probably the best anti-alien, anti-supervillain defenses on Earth. Wakanda. T'Challa has gotten the call. He's there. He's prepping the nation for war. He's calling in the tribes, calling in all the warriors, getting them ready. He goes out to Bucky, who's, I guess, just been goat farming for the last couple of years. and brings him a new vibranium arm. I assume it's vibranium, right?
00:41:19
Speaker 3: It's definitely vibranium. I think that the implication is it's vibranium, but we see definitely vibranium. Bucky does not consider, he's clearly been lulled into the goat herding life because he does not consider that maybe he's not in full control of the arm, but we will see that later.
00:41:33
Speaker 2: But I love the vibranium arm. We'd love to see the white wolf get his little arm. This was a very fun moment. We were all screaming.
00:41:39
Speaker 1: That's probably like a $ 1. 5 billion arm when you think about it.
00:41:43
Speaker 3: I mean, I think you're talking more in the trillions if you think about the actual worth of that vibranium at this point in time in history to the rest of the world and also the weapons making capabilities. Like in liquidity, yes, you could probably sell it on the black market for one and a half.
00:42:00
Speaker 2: Bill, but it's probably worth so much more.
00:42:02
Speaker 3: And they just gave it to this man who two years ago was still under control of some kind of Hydra situation.
00:42:09
Speaker 1: We love him. Hey, Steve vouches for him.
00:42:12
Speaker 3: Hey, that's his bestie, okay? It's all right.
00:42:14
Speaker 2: It's okay.
00:42:16
Speaker 1: On Ma's donut ship, Strange wakes up. He's surrounded by all these crystal surgery needles, we find out. And Ma again is talking to Shane. Oh, these needles were made for microsurgery. What will they do to you? And he's putting the needles into Strange's face. But before he can really go too far... Tony and Peter execute Peter's plan, which is based on, he says aliens. This really old movie. Yeah. Remember this really old movie called Aliens? But it also works for Alien because in both movies, the alien was sucked out of the airlock. So they blow Ma out into space and he freezes and he's dead. Goodbye. After short intros, Strange and Tony are beefing again where Tony's like, I fucking saved your life. Not even a, you're welcome. And Strange is like, bro, he's like, You don't get it. You don't understand what's going on here. And Tony's like, you don't understand. I've been having visions of Thanos for six years. And that kind of, I think, impresses Strange. He's impressed by shit like that. Because also, it.
00:43:22
Speaker 3: Means Tony is open to stuff outside of science. Like, he's an open-minded man. He believes that it can be, you know, there can be more.
00:43:31
Speaker 1: So... Tony is arguing that we go wherever this ship is going and we fight Thanos there rather than fight him on Earth and Earth gets all fucked up. And when Strange realizes, oh, Tony's been having visions, he's like, okay, maybe this is the way to go. But he stresses to both Tony and Peter, he's like, listen, if saving the stone means that both of you die, then that's what has to happen. Like, I will save the stone and sacrifice you to In the process, if it comes to that, just so you're aware. And Peter's like, oh shit. On Thanos's capital ship in the throne room, which is, I think we discover from this scene that the scenes from Marvel's The Avengers, where the other is talking to Thanos on what we thought was just like open space, like on a asteroid, was actually this interior. Yeah. This weird open-air interior of Thanos' capital ship, which is made to look like an asteroid.
00:44:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really good.
00:44:36
Speaker 3: Gives you the kind of scope of how big he is, how organized he is, how long he's been planning this.
00:44:42
Speaker 2: At no point do you ever feel like Thanos is behind.
00:44:45
Speaker 3: He's always two steps ahead, which I think is what is so engaging about watching this film. It's very rare that we get to see a villain be ahead and win, honestly.
00:44:55
Speaker 1: Yeah. He brings Gamora, like, I think some soup.
00:44:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, some kind of stew.
00:45:00
Speaker 3: Some kind of bad father stew. Here's the daddy issue goulash, babe. Like, hope it makes you feel better.
00:45:09
Speaker 1: And she's like, I hate you. I hate that I was raised by you. I'm not your daughter. I don't like you. Like, I hate what you're doing. I hate your old mission in life. Your fucking philosophy is stupid. You're a genocidal maniac. He's like, Gamora, how many times do we have to talk about this?
00:45:26
Speaker 3: He's like, come on, babe.
00:45:28
Speaker 1: I have to kill half the beings in the universe. Like, that's what has to happen. And it'll make, you don't understand, Gamora, it'll make everything better.
00:45:37
Speaker 3: It's gonna be great.
00:45:38
Speaker 1: It'll make everything better. And I am, I guess, sadly, the only one with the will to do it. You used to be a person with the will to do it. Now you don't anymore. But I have the will to do it. And you're gonna see, it's gonna make everything fucking great. She's like, you're a piece of shit, which only makes him like her more.
00:45:57
Speaker 3: He loves it. He loves to be told what, no, there is actually like an older generation of like grandpa or uncle who they only really respect you if you tell them off.
00:46:07
Speaker 1: Right.
00:46:07
Speaker 2: And this is definitely giving that energy.
00:46:10
Speaker 1: He's like, I'd like you to see something pretty crazy. He takes her to see Nebula, who he's got in his torture chamber. She's like pulled apart, you know, like, and in what, also would be a marvel one shot in the comics we learned that nebula snuck onto the ship some time ago and came very close to killing thanos very very close and he's like but she failed and now i'm going to torture her in front of you unless you tell me where the soul stone is so he's torturing nebula to get gamora to tell him where the soul stone is and she's like i have what are you talking about? I don't know where it is. Please stop doing this. And he's like, oh yeah? And then he plays memories that he had taken from Nebula's mind in which, and it's a conversation between Nebula and Gamora where they're talking about making sure that Thanos never finds the soul stone in the door.
00:47:07
Speaker 3: Aye, aye, aye.
00:47:08
Speaker 5: Aye, aye, aye.
00:47:09
Speaker 1: You got to erase that stuff!
00:47:10
Speaker 3: You got to erase it, especially because it seems like when he was, you know, torturing Nebula as a child, he sort of made her, remade her into this sort of warrior. Also, I have to say, you know what? karen you also get a little shout out here because what an introduction karen gillen this is so huge and nebula is such a part of what is amazing about the future of the mcu and everything from here it's such a great introduction but yeah babe if your eyes are like recorders and your dad can just usb plug into your head don't do it don't talk about him in front of it like do that via writing down or braille or some way he can't.
00:47:46
Speaker 1: Tell yeah so finally gamora has no choice and she's like it's on vormir it's on We go to Nidavellir. The forge is dead. The ring is frozen. All the machinery is broken. The last dwarf alive is Peter Dinklage, who is nine feet tall.
00:48:01
Speaker 2: Love that twist.
00:48:03
Speaker 1: It's so good. And apparently it was Eitri who forged the gauntlet for Thanos. Uh-oh. And Thanos then killed all the dwarves anyway and melted Eitri's hands into metal so he could never make anything again. And there's this whole rigmarole now, this side quest that Thor and Rocket and Eitri have to do, which involves restarting the forge, which involves harnessing the power of a star, which involves Rocket going outside with his little pod ship. And it looks like it's going to be very, very, very hard.
00:48:41
Speaker 2: Definitely hard.
00:48:42
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, on Thanos' ship, Nebula manages to escape, and she fires off a message to Mantis, which is, Guardians, meet me on Titan. Big stuff going down on Titan. On Titan, which is where the donut ship is currently crashing, Tony, Peter, and Strange find that the world is totally fucking dead. The Guardians show up. There's a brief hero on hero scrap until they all realize they're all on the same side. They want to kill Thanos.
00:49:11
Speaker 2: Great writing.
00:49:12
Speaker 1: Fun.
00:49:12
Speaker 3: Exactly what you want.
00:49:14
Speaker 2: Comic book.
00:49:14
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:49:14
Speaker 2: Whippy.
00:49:15
Speaker 3: Bantha.
00:49:16
Speaker 2: It's exactly what people love about the MCU, this sequence.
00:49:19
Speaker 1: Absolutely. perfect. They argue about the plan. Okay, what's the plan? How do we kill him? They realize Quill hasn't been on Earth since the 80s. His pop culture references are very, very dated. Meanwhile, Strange is meditating in his fast forward time meditation and And he comes out of it, and he's like, I just viewed 14,605,000 futures to see how it shakes out this coming war with Thanos. And Stark is like, okay, what's our win percentage? And Strange is like, one out of 14,605,000. So that's really bad. We go to Vormir. Stonekeeper, it turns out, is the Red Skull, marooned here since World War II. Woo! when, recall, he placed his hand on the Bear Tesseract in his Valkyrie bomber heading towards New York City and was zapped into space. The stone is hidden somewhere on the planet, cannot be accessed at all unless the price is paid and the price is a soul. Thanos is sad about it. He's crying.
00:50:29
Speaker 3: He's a little sad.
00:50:31
Speaker 1: He's genuinely feeling bad about it, but he also does it without any hesitation. He throws Gamora to her death, and then he wakes up in this calming pool of weird, misty water, and he's got the Soul Stone. Meanwhile, Wakanda, the Black Order dropships have come in. They release their dog-like... Outrider creatures.
00:50:56
Speaker 3: Another thing I don't love, another design I feel like they kind of rushed.
00:51:00
Speaker 2: It's very, it's just whatever.
00:51:03
Speaker 3: It's like, it's not the black or it's not like the design level, the production, the wrecking. No one's got a figure of the Outrider animals. You know what I mean?
00:51:13
Speaker 2: It's like, it feels like a little bit of they didn't know what to do.
00:51:16
Speaker 3: It's my other only click.
00:51:18
Speaker 1: I don't disagree with you. I think if we could have done something more orcish, here, you know, whatever.
00:51:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's other options, but we got many movies in the MCU to take from.
00:51:32
Speaker 1: Whatever the case may be, the fight here is truly awesome.
00:51:37
Speaker 2: So sick.
00:51:38
Speaker 1: Banner is in Hulkbuster armor now, which I guess they just have on Wakanda, and it's a great, great fight. Meanwhile, on Titan, the Tony-led team fights Thanos, and their plan is actually very, very good, which is to keep him from closing his fist, put Mantis... In a position to work her little magical empathy powers on him. And it's kind of going okay until Nebula arrives. And then they get it. They lock him up. They have him so he can't close his fist. His arms are separated. Mantis drops out of portal onto his shoulders. She's keeping him contained. And now it's just like, pull that fucking glove off of him.
00:52:20
Speaker 3: It's gonna happen. It's great.
00:52:23
Speaker 1: It's 100% gonna work. But then Peter Quill... fucks up the whole.
00:52:28
Speaker 4: Thing this fucking guy one of the most frustrating moments to re-watch in the MCU like no joke it stresses me out so much every time such.
00:52:39
Speaker 3: Good writing to make the audience mad and make the audience hate a character I don't think he's ever been able to come back I don't think there's any dispute in the fandom that if he had not freaked out this plan would have worked and they would have got the gauntlet off Thanos and stopped all of this like no question.
00:52:57
Speaker 1: I mean, it's right now trillions of lives hanging in the balance and Peter can't get his head in the game.
00:53:03
Speaker 2: Ridiculous.
00:53:04
Speaker 1: Because he is just kind of like getting through the mumblings of Thanos that it really does seem like Gamora's dead and that he killed him. And he's being like, tell me the truth, like do it. And like Thanos is, you know, like in this kind of like hazy state in which Mantis is struggling, struggling to keep him in that. And he breaks out, of course, and beats them all. And it fucking sucks. Meanwhile, in Wakanda, things are going good, and then they're going okay, but then they're going bad. And then Thor shows up with his newly forged Stormbreaker with a teen Groot handle. Yay! And kind of turns the tide back to, it's going good. Back on Titan, you know, Thanos is wiped the decks with everybody. He smashed the nanotech Mark 50 armor to the point that like Tony's looking at him through like a hole in the mask and his like gloves are off and he stabbed through the guts and strange to save Tony's life and kind of to save all of their lives right there decides, you know what? Hail Mary pass. I'm going to give you the time stone because in that one, we later you figure out on your own. But in the one situation in which they win, it unfolds like this. So he gives Thanos the Time Stone. No tricks. Just lets him walk away with it. Stark is like, you fucking idiot. I'm going to kill you.
00:54:34
Speaker 3: How could you do this?
00:54:37
Speaker 1: So he portals to Wakanda. by this time they flushed out Scarlet Witch who joins the battle on the field. And Okoye is like, why wasn't she with us at the beginning?
00:54:49
Speaker 2: Why wasn't she at the front? Why wasn't she here the whole time? Correct.
00:54:53
Speaker 3: Everyone's asking the same thing, Okoye.
00:54:55
Speaker 2: Everyone wants to know.
00:54:56
Speaker 1: Vision is flushed out of the lab and goes running around. Wanda and Steve go to help him. And now it's desperation time and they realize, okay, you know, Wanda comes to terms with the fact that like, I have to kill my love, Vision, in order to save the universe from Thanos and him having all six stones. So she uses her hex powers to basically destroy Vision and shatter the stone in him into a million, billion, trillion pieces. And it's heartbreaking. Terrible. And we've won. The price has been terrible, but the good guys have won. And all this time, Steve is.
00:55:38
Speaker 1: Fighting Thanos, who he's totally outmatched by, but is just trying to slow him down. Thanos comes over and realizes, fuck, they destroyed the stone. But then he's like, oh yeah, watch this. And he takes the time stone and he rewinds time. No, no, no.
00:55:52
Speaker 3: I hate to see this sequence. It's so heartbreaking. Elizabeth Olsa, get your awards, baby.
00:55:58
Speaker 2: They owed you for this one.
00:55:59
Speaker 3: You were selling it. I believe you are heartbroken killing that man and watching him die again.
00:56:04
Speaker 1: And one wonders- Is this a moment that changes things, causes incursions? Because he changes time. He rolls back time, but only in the area around where Vision was. So only right there, like the rest of the world does not go back two minutes or whatever. Just like this 12 meter orb around where Vision had been destroyed and recreates him. plucks the stone out of his head, he falls lifelessly to the ground, and he puts the fucking stone in the gauntlet, he snaps his fingers, and then he's like, and he leaves. Steve's like, what happened?
00:56:50
Speaker 2: Did we do it? You've got to do the Thor thing, where Thor almost kills him.
00:56:55
Speaker 5: Oh, yeah, Thor.
00:56:55
Speaker 2: He chops him in the chest.
00:56:56
Speaker 1: That's right, yeah. Thor comes in, drops from the sky, and throws his hammer... Down at Thanos and then like brings it down and gets it into his chest. And Thanos is like, it's again, you feel like, oh shit, we're going to win. It's really going to happen. But then it doesn't. And then he just like disappears and everybody, half the people here start turning to dust, including Peter Parker, who we watch deliver that Tom Holland improvised line.
00:57:30
Speaker 2: So good.
00:57:30
Speaker 1: Bucky, Bucky goes down. Black Panther goes down. A lot of heavy hitters just kind of disappear from the field. And we go to Thanos' garden planet where Thanos, wounded from the battle, is watching the sun come up on a grateful universe and he has won. That's the end of the movie. It was a shocking end of the movie. Mid-credit scene. Nick Fury and Maria Hill are driving through New York City talking about everything that's going on that's really bad. The alien invasion and, you know, what is it? Hill, you know, they all of a sudden see cars crashing and like a helicopter is falling out of the sky.
00:58:11
Speaker 2: Scary stuff.
00:58:13
Speaker 1: Fury looks back at Hill. She turns into dust. She's gone. Fury's like, oh, fuck. Like this. He pulls a pager out of his pocket. He's like, this is like my break glass in case of emergency thing. Punches in a code. Just as he turns to dust, the pager hits the ground. But he did manage to fire off an intergalactic message to Carol Danvers. Ooh, and let's take a break here. We'll be back to talk about why this movie is one of the 15 projects that leads to Doomsday. And we are back. Rosie, if you need... Infinity War, what a great MCU movie. Woo! Why do you think... What do you think it is about this project that is going to be important for Doomsday?
00:59:16
Speaker 2: Obviously, you know that we're leading into Endgame.
00:59:19
Speaker 3: So the connective tissue here and the fact they're releasing Endgame.
00:59:22
Speaker 2: Is your big obvious version.
00:59:24
Speaker 3: But there is a lot of stuff here, like we mentioned.
00:59:26
Speaker 2: There are touches from First Avenger here.
00:59:29
Speaker 3: These things do start to seem like they are connecting. The question is, where are the threads and, you know, I guess what would have been at different times the kind of offshoots of the timeline that this is going to have created that are going to cause those problems?
00:59:47
Speaker 2: That's our big question, right?
00:59:49
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:59:49
Speaker 2: So I do think you're right.
00:59:51
Speaker 3: I think the Thanos time, the little two minute time is very interesting. I also think that honestly, in that two year, three year period, while Scarlet Witch and Vision were on the run, they were living a stolen life.
01:00:03
Speaker 2: You know, we could be seeing Doom.
01:00:06
Speaker 3: Be hunting down vengeance for things we haven't even seen. Like we assume it's all about Steve, but there are moments here where you realize, oh, actually there are other things that could have continued on. if these people had not been living their own lives.
01:00:22
Speaker 1: I agree with you. And I think if the theory that Wanda is one of Doom's witches is right, then what if he's not just fighting, he's not just doing whatever he's doing because of something that was stolen from him. It's like all of them feel like something was stolen. And I wonder if Wanda isn't doing this because she feels like that life that she was going to have with Vision wasn't stolen from her. And that also is a perfect tie-in to some of the Loki stuff and certainly is a huge, huge emotional arc in this movie.
01:01:08
Speaker 3: Also, it ties back to what she says to Doctor Strange in Multiverse of Madness. You get to break the rules and you get put on a lunchbox and I do it and I'm a villain, right? Right. That is very much something that Doom could play on with Wanda, where it's like, oh, so it's a problem for you to go and get your kids back? But when Steve does it, he goes and gets to have a whole second life?
01:01:29
Speaker 2: Is that not an issue for you?
01:01:31
Speaker 3: I think that is.
01:01:32
Speaker 1: A really interesting... takeaway.
01:01:35
Speaker 3: I'm hoping no Black Order, obviously, calling that in. Thanos, I don't, you know, we have talked about the potential of seeing various versions of him.
01:01:44
Speaker 2: There are clones of him in the comic books. Will we get a Thanos callback?
01:01:49
Speaker 3: Maybe. I mean, I think the biggest things here are really, look at the players. Look at the way this is stitched together. This is a story told across a world. It's just like how they're going to have to do battle worlds. You're going to have multiple different people all over. You're going to have to establish that there are different loyalties, different teams.
01:02:08
Speaker 2: I think this is a narrative playbook of how they're going to do Secret Wars.
01:02:11
Speaker 3: I think it's going to be story told in a similar way where we're following all different groups. The question is, what do they add to Endgame? to state that it is most important. That's what I'm interested in. Because like, we could be reading everything into this. And I have to say, we have a pretty good track record of getting things right. We're decent. It's not too bad, you know, as people who love outrageous theories. But Jason, if you're thinking kind of aside, because we always start these conversations with impending doomsday with kind of laying out the basic groundwork of why it's included just You know, Disney chose it.
01:02:48
Speaker 2: Here are the stepping stones. What's your kind of more out there version?
01:02:51
Speaker 3: Like, what's your craziest theory you came away with after watching this time?
01:02:56
Speaker 1: Well, my out there version is some version of that this is the motivation for Wanda joining Doom. I love that. Her losing vision, being forced to kill him, being forced to watch him like be brought back through time, reassembled, then killed again. Like, I'm sorry, that is so fucking traumatic.
01:03:18
Speaker 3: She never had to kill him either because Thanos was still going to take the stone.
01:03:22
Speaker 5: Yes.
01:03:23
Speaker 1: Great point. And I also wonder if the 14 million is not something because Strange kind of, it's kind of a cheat, right? He looks forward in all these universes, sees the one in which they win. And now you wonder, did he just stop when they won? Because it seems like if he would have watched a little after that, he might have seen this. So does he know that this is coming when he picks the one- in which they win the battle but potentially lose the Doom War.
01:04:03
Speaker 3: This is great because I think you make a good point because also this brings into the question a multiverse of madness where Doom, I mean, not Doom, where Strange, there is a version of him who wants to beat Thanos and decides to do it a different way. Obviously, that doesn't work, leads to the incursion. So Strange can see how these fail in different places. But I love this idea of, But in the moment, he was like, okay, this is how we can survive a year, five years.
01:04:27
Speaker 2: However long, right?
01:04:29
Speaker 3: But the reality of that, especially if we start to think about the prominence of Doctor Strange in this story and the prominence of the Ancient One in Endgame, how the stones are returned and how the Sanctum Sanctorum feels about protecting the time stone could heavily play into what we're going to see. Because I did, it did strike me as kind of crazy when I watched this, how Strange is just like, I can't destroy it.
01:04:57
Speaker 2: That's my job. And I was like, I feel like there should have been more of a.
01:05:00
Speaker 3: Conversation there before we killed the sentient android. So I'm interested to know if those choices or the way that the Sanctum Sanctorum and the Ancient One choose to say to Banner, put them back here, put them back here.
01:05:14
Speaker 1: Is that true?
01:05:14
Speaker 2: Is that just what protected them? Does it actually align with the rest of the universe?
01:05:18
Speaker 3: Or have we just been doing the bidding of the Sorcerer Supreme and the Ancient One?
01:05:22
Speaker 1: I'm interested. And as we know from Endgame... Strange's story is that actually I can't tell you how it unfolds. I can't tell you about how the one fate unfolds or else it won't happen. Yeah. Which true or untrue basically means that only Strange knows what that is and what happens next. So yes, I do think that's my most crazy theory. What's your most crazy theory?
01:05:49
Speaker 2: I really, I love that one a lot.
01:05:52
Speaker 3: My most crazy theory after watching this, I would love to see Doom.
01:05:59
Speaker 2: Connected to Wakanda.
01:06:00
Speaker 3: I've always thought that Latveria and Wakanda were very interesting. They're both isolationist states. I think there's something interesting to draw on there. I think the death of T'Challa, the Void, the implications with Namor. I don't know. I just feel like Wakanda is so focused here. We're remembering again that Shuri.
01:06:21
Speaker 2: Is one of the smartest people in the world. She's the only person they could come to for this.
01:06:25
Speaker 3: I'm just wondering how Wakanda is going to play into it and whether or not they are going to lean into the clear parallels between Latveria and Wakanda and Doom and T'Challa and all.
01:06:36
Speaker 2: Of that good stuff.
01:06:37
Speaker 3: I think... Working out how that connects is my most interesting kind of big theory. But I would also say as well, just like the Tony Stark of it all. Where do we stand on this? Like, is it him? Is it a variant him? They've said it's not a variant him. But obviously people, if they see the face, are going to know it's him. I love a Doom who never takes off the mask, but we've yet to have that in the movies.
01:07:00
Speaker 2: So I don't think we're going to get it. Where do you feel like after watching Infinity War, do you.
01:07:05
Speaker 3: Think they're going to have a Pepperdew moment?
01:07:08
Speaker 2: Who do you think is going to be the.
01:07:09
Speaker 3: Big heavy hitter for that big, oh my God, is it you kind of, I guess Tom Holland would be the big one?
01:07:20
Speaker 1: I do wonder if what, like what if they make RDJ look so different through makeup Contact lenses and CG. I'd love that. That he literally is, that there would be no question that he is actually a different guy. Could that be? I think that there's a world in which they do that. He takes off the mask and he's this really smooth faced, beautiful, like Nordic looking guy. I love that.
01:07:51
Speaker 2: Do something different. Do something unexpected.
01:07:53
Speaker 3: I mean, my favorite version of Doom is that version where he doesn't even really he's got like a tiny scar and he just wears it for vanity.
01:08:00
Speaker 2: Right.
01:08:00
Speaker 3: Like it's not like he's got a terrible scarred face. So I think that's a really cool idea.
01:08:04
Speaker 2: I'd love to see them do something a bit more transformative.
01:08:07
Speaker 3: And we know that RDJ is not afraid of being a bit silly with this role because the accent is very Transylvanian. So maybe there will be a little camp to it.
01:08:16
Speaker 1: Finally, I think that something in these movies has to be Doom's backstory. Because... Or has to play into Doom's backstory. Because it's not how Marvel usually does it. And it would feel very abrupt to.
01:08:34
Speaker 1: Like we were building up to Thanos and it's true that we didn't get a lot to him, but this is starting from basically a complete stop to a sprint. We've had one scene of Doom, like that was post-credits that wasn't even played by RDJ. Exactly.
01:08:53
Speaker 3: I was going to say it was just like the Avengers one.
01:08:56
Speaker 1: Okay.
01:08:56
Speaker 2: Jason, if you are.
01:08:58
Speaker 3: Trying, and this is hard, so this is a little bit of Mad Libs, but if you're looking at X, I mean.
01:09:03
Speaker 2: X-Men 1, X2, Captain America, First.
01:09:08
Speaker 3: Avenger, Avengers, Infinity War, out of all of those movies, do you see a moment or a top three moments that could be.
01:09:19
Speaker 2: Doom, this is why he's here. This is him being created. We had Charles, right?
01:09:24
Speaker 3: We think that Charles doing his psychic seizure could definitely be one of them. What do you think about anything from Captain America that's really, obviously the.
01:09:32
Speaker 2: Date was important, but anything else in there?
01:09:35
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the Vormir portal, you know, the Red Skull somehow being transported elsewhere.
01:09:43
Speaker 3: Stolen life.
01:09:44
Speaker 1: Stolen life. The fact that, I mean, humans had the Tesseract for decades and we don't really know what they were doing until we catch up with them, you know, back when they're fucking mucking about with portals and they were destroying like an energy research center by accident.
01:10:03
Speaker 3: Something I don't even think I got as annoyed about as I should have when we were talking about the movie.
01:10:07
Speaker 2: So I think this could be added to this list.
01:10:09
Speaker 3: Tony Stark just nuking space during the Avengers.
01:10:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did just nuke space.
01:10:13
Speaker 3: When he just put the space through the.
01:10:15
Speaker 2: Like, he just put the nuke through the portal and nuked space.
01:10:18
Speaker 3: I feel like that could have had huge ramifications that we are yet to be.
01:10:22
Speaker 2: Hearing on how that could have implicated other universes.
01:10:26
Speaker 3: We don't really know how the universes work in Marvel yet. as much as that there are these kind of jump points that you can get to between them. So I feel like throwing a nuke through could definitely destroy somebody else's jump point or world. Infinity War, I do think it's that two-minute moment that you called out, Jason. I think it's Thanos turning... What would that mean to you? How could that have played it into Doom's origin? Is it it messes up the rest of the time stream?
01:10:54
Speaker 2: What do you think it is?
01:10:56
Speaker 3: I mean.
01:10:58
Speaker 1: You know, there's that moment where Quill is like, this planet, they're on Titan. He's like, this planet is eight degrees off axis. Like, I just feel like it's got to do something, right? If you take a portion of the time stream, even though it's a small by area, a relatively small piece, and you rewind it in time. Mm-hmm. Does it stay like that? Does it catch up? How does that work? And we have not really thought about it. And it seems like a very small moment that Thanos just kind of did, recreated an entire life. Did that, in that moment, create a branching string?
01:11:37
Speaker 2: I think that's a great question.
01:11:39
Speaker 3: And also, it makes sense if we're thinking about the kind of notion of how time works in the MCU and how life works.
01:11:49
Speaker 2: I think Vision Quest will probably give hints to us.
01:11:52
Speaker 3: On this, but I love the idea that it might have kind of been a butterfly effect, essentially, that turning those two minutes back messed things up everywhere else so badly.
01:12:02
Speaker 2: Oh, I can't wait.
01:12:03
Speaker 3: I'm very excited to speak more about the potentials.
01:12:08
Speaker 1: Do we actually know what is causing the incursions? Because we understand that they're happening. By the time we get to Multiverse of Madness, we understand that it's happening. But do we know why?
01:12:23
Speaker 3: In Multiverse of Madness, the reason the incursion is happening, the one we know about is just Peter's spell, right?
01:12:30
Speaker 2: That's the first one.
01:12:32
Speaker 3: But the knowledge is that there has been incursions. And then Clea says, well, there's more. So I think the idea is that No Way Home kind of sparked off this new wave, but they have been happening before and it can happen. The first time we really saw it happen was actually in What If? Season one, episode four, one of the best episodes. When Doctor Strange tries to save Christine so much that he causes his world to implode. I wish they'd kept that stuff canon.
01:12:58
Speaker 2: It's so useful. It's so well done.
01:13:00
Speaker 3: But I think that that is basically anytime someone changes something, and it seems to be something that's just for them. So I do think the Thanos one fits in. Because Wanda does the sacrifice, but Thanos rewinds time for something selfish.
01:13:14
Speaker 5: Yes.
01:13:15
Speaker 1: Right?
01:13:16
Speaker 3: I wonder if that is one of the things that caused an incursion. I wonder if Doom's world was destroyed by multiple incursions. You know, maybe it was multiple universes. Maybe that's why he wants to create one that's all different universes together. There's so many options because we still don't really understand how the multiverse works.
01:13:34
Speaker 1: I am really eager to find out what his beef is with Reed and the Fantastic Four. I mean, and if... Are they in the right universe? Like when they became bombarded by the cosmic rays, did they come back to the same place that they left? Like there's a lot of questions about their relationship that Doomsday has to answer.
01:13:59
Speaker 3: That is a great point, Jason, because one of the biggest questions we've all had is like, where was Victor during all of the Fantastic Four? It is weird to have a world where the Fantastic Four are celebrities and established and Victor isn't. So what if they all came from a different world and after they were hit with cosmic rays, they fell to that world and they were seen as these heroic gods and that in itself is a stolen life while Victor's world dies. That's a pretty good motivation.
01:14:27
Speaker 1: I mean, this is tinfoil hat. But what if the entire... Because the Fantastic Four's world seemed really, really weird. I mean, what if their whole... Life is actually a cover story that they escaped incursion from a different galaxy. Like, they're the only survivors on the life ship from whatever, some other incursion universe in which they lost Victor. Oh, no, we had to sacrifice Victor to get out of there or something happened with Victor. Yeah. he's pissed that they left him behind or something like that.
01:15:07
Speaker 3: I love that idea because the Fantastic Four and Victor have a very complicated relationship. Reed and Victor have a very complicated relationship. This could be your new shipping fave, depending on how they play it. I would, yeah, I just think that's such an interesting take, Jason. Because there is something off about that whole movie for whatever reason, right? And this is a great way to retcon it if you want to. But also the TV element of it all, it's all like a story. It's all a special.
01:15:35
Speaker 2: It's all kind of fake.
01:15:36
Speaker 3: It's all an illusion potentially to cover up the fact that, yeah, maybe you did escape and you got these, you know, maybe they were on the ship when the incursion happened and they were able to, but they left Victor behind or, you know, they saved Victor and, And his family was left behind, so he didn't want to be saved anymore.
01:15:53
Speaker 2: I think there's something really cool there.
01:15:55
Speaker 3: And also, we know that the way that they were playing the Fantastic Four was.
01:15:59
Speaker 2: Very kind of dark.
01:16:01
Speaker 3: And there is a potential for Reed as the maker, this kind of evil version of Reed Richards. So I think that muddying the waters there would really work.
01:16:11
Speaker 1: Well, on the next episodes of Extra Vision, we're diving into the biggest news of the week. And then our next episode, after that, we'll cover Lanterns. And of course, next week on Impending Doomsday, it is the sequel to Avengers Infinity War, Avengers Endgame.
01:16:27
Speaker 3: Uh-uh.
01:16:28
Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk about it. That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening.
01:16:31
Speaker 3: Bye.
01:16:34
Speaker 5: X-Ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepcion.
01:16:36
Speaker 2: And Rosie Knight.
01:16:37
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01:16:39
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Joelle Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
01:16:43
Speaker 5: Our supervising producer is Abu Safar.
01:16:45
Speaker 2: Our producers are Carmen Laurent, Ian Johnson, and Baywax.
01:16:49
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01:16:54
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Sol Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman, and Heidi, our Discord moderator.