![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWell, found a few more articles on Avengers: Endgame for the people who are fans of this franchise and universe.
1. Avengers End-Game Questions Answered..How Does the Time Travel Work
It's basically an interview with the writers and for long time comic book fans of the MCU, it's not surprising.
Time Travel has been done multiple ways in fiction. Avengers' Endgame humorously discusses most of them, and why a lot of them make no sense.
* Outlander -- if you change time in the past, it has little effect apparently on the present? Eh no. Romance writers suck at time travel. Sorry, they do.
* Terminator -- if you change time in the past -- it predetermines the present no matter what you do, you are guaranteeing what will happen, because it was pre-ordained you'd go back to change it. Similar to the Outlander take.
* Ray Bradbury, 12 Monkeys, Time Cop, and Butterfly Effect -- if you change the past you fuck with the present.
* Timeless, Frequency, Back to the Future....you change the past, you change the present for good or ill.
* Marvel and Star Trek -- if you change the past you create a separate time line or universe that runs parallel to your own. This is actually the one most based on physics and quantum mechanics or parrallel string theory. It also makes the most sense.
All of it is beyond confusing and why I despise Time Travel stories. I prefer Marvel and Star Trek's take, mainly because it makes the most sense.
2. Avengers Endgame Questions and Answers provided by the directors, writers and producers of the series, why they did what they did
It’s crucial to your film that in your formulation of time travel, changes to the past don’t alter our present. How did you decide this?
MARKUS We looked at a lot of time-travel stories and went, it doesn’t work that way.
McFEELY It was by necessity. If you have six MacGuffins and every time you go back it changes something, you’ve got Biff’s casino, exponentially. So we just couldn’t do that. We had physicists come in — more than one — who said, basically, “Back to the Future” is [wrong].
MARKUS Basically said what the Hulk says in that scene, which is, if you go to the past, then the present becomes your past and the past becomes your future. So there’s absolutely no reason it would change.
“Endgame” shares some unexpected parallels with “Game of Thrones,” which also recently ran episodes about its heroes preparing for a significant battle and then the battle itself. Why do you think these narratives are similar? Did you ever look at “Game of Thrones” for inspiration?
MARKUS We’re in a high-stakes time and a jarring time in history, where you have to contemplate what you’re willing to do to improve the situation. Whether or not everyone’s speaking to that, or just good old-fashioned storytelling, I don’t know.
McFEELY Marvel has been accused of being the most expensive television show there is, and there’s some truth to that. The genres are different, the tones are different, but it’s serialized storytelling.
MARKUS We occasionally wonder, did we just make the world’s most expensive inside-baseball fan service? But then we go, the fans are actually the majority of people who come to this. It’s inside baseball, but everyone is following the baseball. That’s also why the Marvel characters have lasted this long. They’re weird. They have strange quirks.
McFEELY The bland ones don’t last.
MARKUS I remember “Game of Thrones” being a reference for the first movie. How far apart can you keep these strands, and for how long, and still feel like you’re telling a single narrative? “Game of Thrones” has people who are just meeting now! As much as people think the culture’s going down the drain, there seems to be an elevating of people’s estimating of the kind of narrative that will succeed in popular culture.
McFEELY Whatever you think of this movie, it’s complicated. It is not another sequel.
MARKUS And a lot of popular TV is complicated. “This Is Us” is complicated. “Simon & Simon” was not that complicated. Great as it was. But it does seem like there is an acceptance of more complicated forms of storytelling.
Why does Natasha Romanoff have to die?
McFEELY Her journey, in our minds, had come to an end if she could get the Avengers back. She comes from such an abusive, terrible, mind-control background, so when she gets to Vormir and she has a chance to get the family back, that’s a thing she would trade for. The toughest thing for us was we were always worried that people weren’t going to have time to be sad enough. The stakes are still out there and they haven’t solved the problem. But we lost a big character — a female character — how do we honor it? We have this male lens and it’s a lot of guys being sad that a woman died.
MARKUS Tony gets a funeral. Natasha doesn’t. That’s partly because Tony’s this massive public figure and she’s been a cipher the whole time. It wasn’t necessarily honest to the character to give her a funeral. The biggest question about it is what Thor raises there on the dock. “We have the Infinity Stones. Why don’t we just bring her back?”
McFEELY But that’s the everlasting exchange. You bring her back, you lose the stone.
Was there a possible outcome where Clint Barton sacrifices himself instead of her?
McFEELY There was, for sure. Jen Underdahl, our visual effects producer, read an outline or draft where Hawkeye goes over. And she goes, “Don’t you take this away from her.” I actually get emotional thinking about it.
MARKUS And it was true, it was him taking the hit for her. It was melodramatic to have him die and not get his family back. And it is only right and proper that she’s done.
I agree with them. It fit.
3. Avengers Endgame Writers Defend How They Handled Thor
This is spoilery. Don't click unless you saw the film.
How about Thor? At what point in the process was there discussion of putting a little weight on Thor’s midsection?
CM: Well, we were discussing, “After this five-year jump, what is the evolution for each character?” And Thor had been on a mission of vengeance in the last movie, so we couldn’t put him on that. What is the end result of a guy who has lost so much and just blatantly failed? We wondered, “Okay, well, what if he does become a sort of depressive alcoholic?” And the weight gain was just part and parcel of that state of mind. We didn’t go, like, “Let’s chunk him up, it’ll be hilarious.” And we leave him in that state at the end of the movie. Even though he’s emotionally resolved … We fix his problem, and it’s not his weight. I know some people are sensitive about some of the humor that comes from it, which I understand. But our issue that we wanted him to deal with was his emotional state that his mom addresses. And I think he is the ideal Thor at the end of the movie, and he’s carrying some weight.
That’s an interesting point. People are understandably getting upset about it being fatphobic, but I suppose, at the end, he’s a larger man and [the weight is] not the problem.
CM: No, and I have to say, we’re all used to Chris Hemsworth the, in effect, living god. But when he came out with the prosthetic on, it wasn’t so much, Oh my God, what a silly fat man; it was, He kinda looks like me when I take my shirt off. [Laughs.] Thor became human, for the first time.
SM: I took a bunch of people to the movies and I had a friend, she came up to me and she said, “I didn’t think you could make Thor more attractive.” She was all-in for heavy Thor.
I actually didn't have an issue with it when I thought about it -- because it's a nice counter-point to the commentary on heavy set or fat women in film, and our obsession with body image. The fact people got upset -- emphasizes the fact that we all have this obsession. We're all halfway convinced that if we were thin life would be better -- but it's not. The movie sort of underlines it. Thor also gives up on how he looks -- it no longer matters to him, which is huge, because in the previous movies he cared.
1. Avengers End-Game Questions Answered..How Does the Time Travel Work
It's basically an interview with the writers and for long time comic book fans of the MCU, it's not surprising.
Time Travel has been done multiple ways in fiction. Avengers' Endgame humorously discusses most of them, and why a lot of them make no sense.
* Outlander -- if you change time in the past, it has little effect apparently on the present? Eh no. Romance writers suck at time travel. Sorry, they do.
* Terminator -- if you change time in the past -- it predetermines the present no matter what you do, you are guaranteeing what will happen, because it was pre-ordained you'd go back to change it. Similar to the Outlander take.
* Ray Bradbury, 12 Monkeys, Time Cop, and Butterfly Effect -- if you change the past you fuck with the present.
* Timeless, Frequency, Back to the Future....you change the past, you change the present for good or ill.
* Marvel and Star Trek -- if you change the past you create a separate time line or universe that runs parallel to your own. This is actually the one most based on physics and quantum mechanics or parrallel string theory. It also makes the most sense.
All of it is beyond confusing and why I despise Time Travel stories. I prefer Marvel and Star Trek's take, mainly because it makes the most sense.
2. Avengers Endgame Questions and Answers provided by the directors, writers and producers of the series, why they did what they did
It’s crucial to your film that in your formulation of time travel, changes to the past don’t alter our present. How did you decide this?
MARKUS We looked at a lot of time-travel stories and went, it doesn’t work that way.
McFEELY It was by necessity. If you have six MacGuffins and every time you go back it changes something, you’ve got Biff’s casino, exponentially. So we just couldn’t do that. We had physicists come in — more than one — who said, basically, “Back to the Future” is [wrong].
MARKUS Basically said what the Hulk says in that scene, which is, if you go to the past, then the present becomes your past and the past becomes your future. So there’s absolutely no reason it would change.
“Endgame” shares some unexpected parallels with “Game of Thrones,” which also recently ran episodes about its heroes preparing for a significant battle and then the battle itself. Why do you think these narratives are similar? Did you ever look at “Game of Thrones” for inspiration?
MARKUS We’re in a high-stakes time and a jarring time in history, where you have to contemplate what you’re willing to do to improve the situation. Whether or not everyone’s speaking to that, or just good old-fashioned storytelling, I don’t know.
McFEELY Marvel has been accused of being the most expensive television show there is, and there’s some truth to that. The genres are different, the tones are different, but it’s serialized storytelling.
MARKUS We occasionally wonder, did we just make the world’s most expensive inside-baseball fan service? But then we go, the fans are actually the majority of people who come to this. It’s inside baseball, but everyone is following the baseball. That’s also why the Marvel characters have lasted this long. They’re weird. They have strange quirks.
McFEELY The bland ones don’t last.
MARKUS I remember “Game of Thrones” being a reference for the first movie. How far apart can you keep these strands, and for how long, and still feel like you’re telling a single narrative? “Game of Thrones” has people who are just meeting now! As much as people think the culture’s going down the drain, there seems to be an elevating of people’s estimating of the kind of narrative that will succeed in popular culture.
McFEELY Whatever you think of this movie, it’s complicated. It is not another sequel.
MARKUS And a lot of popular TV is complicated. “This Is Us” is complicated. “Simon & Simon” was not that complicated. Great as it was. But it does seem like there is an acceptance of more complicated forms of storytelling.
Why does Natasha Romanoff have to die?
McFEELY Her journey, in our minds, had come to an end if she could get the Avengers back. She comes from such an abusive, terrible, mind-control background, so when she gets to Vormir and she has a chance to get the family back, that’s a thing she would trade for. The toughest thing for us was we were always worried that people weren’t going to have time to be sad enough. The stakes are still out there and they haven’t solved the problem. But we lost a big character — a female character — how do we honor it? We have this male lens and it’s a lot of guys being sad that a woman died.
MARKUS Tony gets a funeral. Natasha doesn’t. That’s partly because Tony’s this massive public figure and she’s been a cipher the whole time. It wasn’t necessarily honest to the character to give her a funeral. The biggest question about it is what Thor raises there on the dock. “We have the Infinity Stones. Why don’t we just bring her back?”
McFEELY But that’s the everlasting exchange. You bring her back, you lose the stone.
Was there a possible outcome where Clint Barton sacrifices himself instead of her?
McFEELY There was, for sure. Jen Underdahl, our visual effects producer, read an outline or draft where Hawkeye goes over. And she goes, “Don’t you take this away from her.” I actually get emotional thinking about it.
MARKUS And it was true, it was him taking the hit for her. It was melodramatic to have him die and not get his family back. And it is only right and proper that she’s done.
I agree with them. It fit.
3. Avengers Endgame Writers Defend How They Handled Thor
This is spoilery. Don't click unless you saw the film.
How about Thor? At what point in the process was there discussion of putting a little weight on Thor’s midsection?
CM: Well, we were discussing, “After this five-year jump, what is the evolution for each character?” And Thor had been on a mission of vengeance in the last movie, so we couldn’t put him on that. What is the end result of a guy who has lost so much and just blatantly failed? We wondered, “Okay, well, what if he does become a sort of depressive alcoholic?” And the weight gain was just part and parcel of that state of mind. We didn’t go, like, “Let’s chunk him up, it’ll be hilarious.” And we leave him in that state at the end of the movie. Even though he’s emotionally resolved … We fix his problem, and it’s not his weight. I know some people are sensitive about some of the humor that comes from it, which I understand. But our issue that we wanted him to deal with was his emotional state that his mom addresses. And I think he is the ideal Thor at the end of the movie, and he’s carrying some weight.
That’s an interesting point. People are understandably getting upset about it being fatphobic, but I suppose, at the end, he’s a larger man and [the weight is] not the problem.
CM: No, and I have to say, we’re all used to Chris Hemsworth the, in effect, living god. But when he came out with the prosthetic on, it wasn’t so much, Oh my God, what a silly fat man; it was, He kinda looks like me when I take my shirt off. [Laughs.] Thor became human, for the first time.
SM: I took a bunch of people to the movies and I had a friend, she came up to me and she said, “I didn’t think you could make Thor more attractive.” She was all-in for heavy Thor.
I actually didn't have an issue with it when I thought about it -- because it's a nice counter-point to the commentary on heavy set or fat women in film, and our obsession with body image. The fact people got upset -- emphasizes the fact that we all have this obsession. We're all halfway convinced that if we were thin life would be better -- but it's not. The movie sort of underlines it. Thor also gives up on how he looks -- it no longer matters to him, which is huge, because in the previous movies he cared.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-12 08:43 pm (UTC)That's rather interesting about Steve and the hammer, too. I'm assuming given their discussion that their intention was following what Joss said, which is that Steve could indeed have lifted it but just never did because it was Thor's thing. I'd assumed that ever since Ultron came out given that in the comics he can.
Also, while it's clear they didn't put much thought into Tony's final line, I think that it's a happy accident that it just emphasizes what you said about his arc. I've seen criticism that it was too gimmicky, but I think it could be argued that there's a closure to it on both the textual and metatextual level. After all, it's Tony's final line in IM1 and it was part of what created such a big change in the idea of the superhero film.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-12 10:05 pm (UTC)But...I do think they went a bit overboard. I wanted to say at one point, yeah, we get it, Thor has REALLY let himself go. How Peter Quill of him.
After all, it's Tony's final line in IM1 and it was part of what created such a big change in the idea of the superhero film.
Yeah -- in both films it's a sort of "fuck-you, I'm Iron Man" moment, except in the first it comes from a self-interest perspective. Look at me, I'm Iron Man, and in the last film, it's more self-deprecating or self-referential -- stating, yeah I see myself in you Thanos, and I'm so over it. Snap. We're both rendered moot.