Blog

I saw Avengers: Infinity War over the weekend and I left the theater the most excited I’ve been about the franchise since the first Avengers in 2012.  I’ve always been a fan of these movies and the Marvel universe in general, but in the last few years fatigue as slowly started to set in.  I can’t think of any MCU movie that I didn’t at least find enjoyable, but at a certain point it becomes “All right, I get it already.”  This movie had me forgetting that I had ever felt that way.

Infinity War is long, but it doesn’t feel like it.  20 or so movies in, it doesn’t waste any time getting into the plot and counts on the audience to already be familiar with the many characters and the situations they’re in.  As someone who has followed these films closely since the beginning, that worked perfectly for me, though I can see how someone less familiar might be overwhelmed.  Still, for as many characters as they pack into the movie, it never feels overcrowded and the pacing is perfect.

Thanos was also done very well, further proof that Marvel is starting to overcome its villain problem.  I read before seeing the movie that Thanos was the main character, and while I don’t know if I would go that far considering the massive cast, he is, from what I remember, the only character to have a real arc in this movie.  And that turns out to be a good thing.  The Avengers have all had at least one other movie for them to become established and grow as characters.  Teases aside, this was our first real encounter with the villain who has been hyped up for 6 years now.  They managed to make Thanos terrifying both physically and psychologically; he’s not a generic, mindless monster, he has a certain philosophy and he believes that he’s doing the right thing.  He’s insane, but it’s a quieter insanity, and that makes him more effective as a character.  He’s also fairly sympathetic considering that he’s an omnicidal (demicidal?) purple space man.

****SPOILERS****

So the big thing to talk about is the ending and the many deaths that occur in the film.  Loki is gone in the first few minutes, which surprised me, but really shouldn’t have.  It was a fitting end for the character, brought down by his own predictable compulsion to betray others, but I would have preferred a grander sendoff for the first great villain the MCU produced.  Then again, I suppose it’s fitting that Thanos, the next great villain, was the one to do it and it certainly set the tone of the movie.  Overall though that opening sequence was one of the few problems I had with the movie, not so much for what it was but because it kind of rendered all of the developments in Thor: Ragnarok moot.

Gamora’s death didn’t surprise me, but it was effective.  Going into the movie knowing people would die, Gamora is probably the one that made the most sense.  She has the personal connection to Thanos and is probably the one member of the Guardians of the Galaxy whose death would have the most impact both on the audience and on the other characters.  Similarly, I think it was the right call to have Nebula survive; if they had killed her, that could have been a minor tragedy for a surviving Gamora that would have faded compared to everything else that goes on in the movie, but now they have an opportunity to develop the character and make use of her existing traits.  While Loki may be gone for good this time (at least the adult male version of Loki), I hope and expect Gamora to come back somehow, if not in Avengers 4 than in Guardians 3.  Her death was tied to the Soul stone, and that’s the one Infinity stone that they have yet to give much of an explanation on in these movies.

Finally there’s the very ending.  I don’t have much to say about it other than it was effective despite the fact that it’s obvious at least some of those killed will come back (looking at you, Spider-Man and Black Panther) and that for the first time in a few years, I’m eagerly anticipating finding out what happens next in this universe.  It seemed to me watching it that they weren’t really allowing enough emotion in the survivors, like there wasn’t much of a reaction beyond shock and confusion, but then they got to Spider-Man and that made up for it.  Tom Holland and Robert Downey Jr. nailed the scene and to focus on Spider-Man (who is both Marvel’s flagship hero and, as this scene painfully reminds the audience, just a kid) really drove the whole movie home.

As of today, my first novel The Foremost is available as a paperback and a kindle ebook on Amazon.  For me, this has been a long time coming, definitely longer than I thought it would take in the beginning.  All that time was in the service of putting out the best possible version of this book though, and I think I’ve managed that or at least come close.  I won’t deny that it was quite an experience holding the paperback version in my hands for the first time, but honestly now that it’s all out there I’m more excited about being able to focus on writing over editing again.

I’ve never been one for socializing or sharing my thoughts on the internet, but here we are.  Why?  Because I wrote a book and I need some kind of platform to support it.

Apparent lack of enthusiasm aside, the truth is I’m still in the planning stages and still figuring things out.  I suppose my goal for this site is pretty standard, to have a place where readers can find updates on my work and contact me if they feel the need.  In practice, it may or may not prove to be more of an outlet for my thoughts on what I’m reading and watching at any given time.  For now I just want to have something in place while I finish preparations for publishing, aka “the fun part.”  So with that in mind, mission accomplished.