Sophinisba Solis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophinisba) wrote2019-10-06 09:08 am
sophinisba) wrote2019-10-06 09:08 am
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Avengers: Infinity War
Okay okay okay, I know what you're thinking: but sophinisba, did you like that other Avengers movie, the one that came out a year and a half ago?
I didn't, especially! Here is a post about that, with spoilers for both Infinity War and Endgame.
I mean, background, I'd always felt half resentful at fandom anyway for getting so excited about these movies that I felt like I had to see them to keep up with anything, though I'd ended up liking some of them –– Iron Man 3, Thor: Ragnarok and Spider-Man: Homecoming spring to mind. But big Avengers ones, ugh, so heavy, and always such long fight sequences that I don't care about. The fact that it was called Infinity War and was three hours long just seemed like the quintessence of everything I don't like about action movies. My interest in fandom in general had been slowly waning for a long time but I said, fine, I will go and then I can stop trying to avoid the spoilers.
Sure, there were things that were enjoyable about it. In general Avengers movies are neat because you get to see favorite characters from different movies come together and have fun interactions. I am not immune. There were some fun combinations, what with more Avengers showing up in Wakanda and then the stuff with the Guardians. But I was also sad about how chopped up it was, that we kept alternating between these different stories with a few characters each in them, and we never got to see the core members of the team together.
But the more frustrating thing to me was this repeated element of characters having to choose to hurt their loved ones. I mean really. Some people love thinking about the Trolley Problem and I have no interest in it. (I don't even like that episode of The Good Place, and I love The Good Place.) To me it has always seemed straightforward, if you need to kill one person to save more people that is the right choice. Does that mean it's easy to do? Obviously not, and that's part of why I don't like thinking about it. To be honest the fact that other people find it morally complicated also makes me feel like there's probably something wrong with me, like I don't love individuals who are close to me as much as I should.
So but anyway I'm like, okay, it's unpleasant but let's get it over with. Peter, you need to shoot Gamora! Wanda, you need to kill Vision! (Maybe there were other parallel situations I don't remember oh my God there have been so many fucking movies.) The choice is clear but please do it now and hello why am I being forced to watch this? But since it's a movie it's very drawn out and then... It doesn't matter? Because Thanos already has whatever stone so your choices matter not at all, and your sacrificing the person you love matters not at all, and basically nothing anybody does in this movie matters at all and I still spent three hours of my day at it? I mean what?
All that said, I kind of loved the ending! Not having read any comics or spent much time in the fandom (I'd read some fic, mostly when I had a specific reason to want to make a podfic) I had no idea what was coming and found it really shocking, and I loved the visual effect of the dust lingering in the air. I had no idea what to think about what would come next. I had no idea what the post-credit scene with Fury and Maria and the pager meant.
I left the theater feeling somewhat impressed but also shaken and confused and tired. And, because of the way my local sad old mall is set up, I walked through the Marshall's on my way to the car and there were some cute purple Sketchers on sale so I stopped to buy them. The cashier was this cute skinny teenage boy who seemed bored to be working in a very boring job, and I felt awkward as I do in almost every personal interaction, and awkward about doing something so banal when half the universe had just died, and as we were waiting (and waiting) for the credit card transaction to work I said, "Have you seen the new Avengers movie?" and he said yeah and I asked him what the post-credit scene meant and his face lit up telling me about Captain Marvel and comic books, and that made me feel a lot better. Those shoes have turned out to be not great for my feet but they're still very cute and I always smile when I wear them because they're my Infinity War shoes.
Then I mostly quit fandom for like a year (not completely but like, no fanworks in over a year, and I stopped looking at any of these accounts for maybe six months). It wasn't that I was upset about Infinity War or anything, like I said that wasn't my fandom, I just hadn't found anything to replace Merlin in my heart, and I felt like nobody cared about my lady-centric podfics in random fandoms (very few people do, to be fair), and work was busy, so yeah I checked out. Captain Marvel came out in the spring and reviews were so-so and I said yawn there is a thing I used to be sort of interested in, maybe I'll see it when it comes out on streaming.
But my partner B (who thinks of Marvel movies as the thing I drag her into while I thought of them as the thing y'all drag me into) said no we should really go see it before it leaves the theater. So we showed up at the sad old mall one Saturday but ooops, it was the opening weekend for Endgame and the ticket lines were so long that we gave up and went home. But we went back on a weekday a few days later and you guys! Captain Marvel was so good!? So full of feelings and surprises and with so little concern for white guys! I found it really satisfying and did not feel the need to come back here and be fannish about it, but I thought oh heck, we might as well also go see Endgame and wrap everything up, so we went back a few days later and did that.
And like, there is much that can be said about the many terrible things that happened in this movie, and I have read many of those posts and I get and agree with most of the criticisms but also, for me
And so here we are! I'm still so amused that I immediately came on Dreamwidth and Twitter expecting everybody else to be as excited as I was, and found out almost all my old friends were either enraged or indifferent, but anyway that's some of my journey.
I didn't, especially! Here is a post about that, with spoilers for both Infinity War and Endgame.
I mean, background, I'd always felt half resentful at fandom anyway for getting so excited about these movies that I felt like I had to see them to keep up with anything, though I'd ended up liking some of them –– Iron Man 3, Thor: Ragnarok and Spider-Man: Homecoming spring to mind. But big Avengers ones, ugh, so heavy, and always such long fight sequences that I don't care about. The fact that it was called Infinity War and was three hours long just seemed like the quintessence of everything I don't like about action movies. My interest in fandom in general had been slowly waning for a long time but I said, fine, I will go and then I can stop trying to avoid the spoilers.
Sure, there were things that were enjoyable about it. In general Avengers movies are neat because you get to see favorite characters from different movies come together and have fun interactions. I am not immune. There were some fun combinations, what with more Avengers showing up in Wakanda and then the stuff with the Guardians. But I was also sad about how chopped up it was, that we kept alternating between these different stories with a few characters each in them, and we never got to see the core members of the team together.
But the more frustrating thing to me was this repeated element of characters having to choose to hurt their loved ones. I mean really. Some people love thinking about the Trolley Problem and I have no interest in it. (I don't even like that episode of The Good Place, and I love The Good Place.) To me it has always seemed straightforward, if you need to kill one person to save more people that is the right choice. Does that mean it's easy to do? Obviously not, and that's part of why I don't like thinking about it. To be honest the fact that other people find it morally complicated also makes me feel like there's probably something wrong with me, like I don't love individuals who are close to me as much as I should.
So but anyway I'm like, okay, it's unpleasant but let's get it over with. Peter, you need to shoot Gamora! Wanda, you need to kill Vision! (Maybe there were other parallel situations I don't remember oh my God there have been so many fucking movies.) The choice is clear but please do it now and hello why am I being forced to watch this? But since it's a movie it's very drawn out and then... It doesn't matter? Because Thanos already has whatever stone so your choices matter not at all, and your sacrificing the person you love matters not at all, and basically nothing anybody does in this movie matters at all and I still spent three hours of my day at it? I mean what?
All that said, I kind of loved the ending! Not having read any comics or spent much time in the fandom (I'd read some fic, mostly when I had a specific reason to want to make a podfic) I had no idea what was coming and found it really shocking, and I loved the visual effect of the dust lingering in the air. I had no idea what to think about what would come next. I had no idea what the post-credit scene with Fury and Maria and the pager meant.
I left the theater feeling somewhat impressed but also shaken and confused and tired. And, because of the way my local sad old mall is set up, I walked through the Marshall's on my way to the car and there were some cute purple Sketchers on sale so I stopped to buy them. The cashier was this cute skinny teenage boy who seemed bored to be working in a very boring job, and I felt awkward as I do in almost every personal interaction, and awkward about doing something so banal when half the universe had just died, and as we were waiting (and waiting) for the credit card transaction to work I said, "Have you seen the new Avengers movie?" and he said yeah and I asked him what the post-credit scene meant and his face lit up telling me about Captain Marvel and comic books, and that made me feel a lot better. Those shoes have turned out to be not great for my feet but they're still very cute and I always smile when I wear them because they're my Infinity War shoes.
Then I mostly quit fandom for like a year (not completely but like, no fanworks in over a year, and I stopped looking at any of these accounts for maybe six months). It wasn't that I was upset about Infinity War or anything, like I said that wasn't my fandom, I just hadn't found anything to replace Merlin in my heart, and I felt like nobody cared about my lady-centric podfics in random fandoms (very few people do, to be fair), and work was busy, so yeah I checked out. Captain Marvel came out in the spring and reviews were so-so and I said yawn there is a thing I used to be sort of interested in, maybe I'll see it when it comes out on streaming.
But my partner B (who thinks of Marvel movies as the thing I drag her into while I thought of them as the thing y'all drag me into) said no we should really go see it before it leaves the theater. So we showed up at the sad old mall one Saturday but ooops, it was the opening weekend for Endgame and the ticket lines were so long that we gave up and went home. But we went back on a weekday a few days later and you guys! Captain Marvel was so good!? So full of feelings and surprises and with so little concern for white guys! I found it really satisfying and did not feel the need to come back here and be fannish about it, but I thought oh heck, we might as well also go see Endgame and wrap everything up, so we went back a few days later and did that.
And like, there is much that can be said about the many terrible things that happened in this movie, and I have read many of those posts and I get and agree with most of the criticisms but also, for me
- seeing the original six Avengers together, after being denied that in IW, was great
- seeing several of them at the Battle of New York brought me back to 2012 in real life and me feel such incredible affection for the wonderful, talented fans whose enthusiasm has forced me to watch all these fucking movies
- seeing characters make choices and make sacrifices that had consequences was so very satisfying in exactly the way that Infinity War was not, and
- I cried when Steve gave Sam the shield.
And so here we are! I'm still so amused that I immediately came on Dreamwidth and Twitter expecting everybody else to be as excited as I was, and found out almost all my old friends were either enraged or indifferent, but anyway that's some of my journey.
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