Post 173: Less than a sidekick, but still the main character.

Is having a relative or friend that is cooler or smarter than you are your greatest achievement? If so, A Wrinkle in Time and Epic are movies you will really empathize with. Epic is a movie where a girl is chosen to help save a race of tiny people (think Fern Gully but with less humor, a forced and awkward romance, no moral/message, and no Robin Williams) where she is told that she was chosen for a reason. The ending conclusion? She was chosen…to fetch her dad. But only sort of because it really came down to her leaving a push pin in a map. Despite his tantrum where he said he was done looking for them and the fact that he was convinced she left, he decides to show up anyway and doesn’t seem surprised that she is tiny and arrives at the exact right time to save the day. And then even after he shows up, basically she just uses his phone to play bat sounds and that was really his whole part. So, it is a good thing that the bud thing used its magic to shrink her down to be there to use her dad’s iPod rather than use its magic to stop the Queen from dying.

Wrinkle in Time, the movie at least, seems to carry a similar ending message. The main character is the older sister of a genius. Her role is to be a pessimistic, screw up and to just sort of be there in the end to tell her brother, she loves him. But it also seems to suggest that if she hadn’t been there a lot of what happened could have been avoided in the first place. So…why did she need to be there?

For those who know Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there is a scene where Willow witnesses the love her life murdered in front of her. Her best friend is also shot. She is devastated and basically loses it and turns into what could basically be described as a black magic goddess and goes on a bit of a revenge spree. She targets the people responsible for her friend’s near death and girlfriend’s death then decides that isn’t enough. Her best friend who almost died, Buffy, has to fight her because she has turned evil. Her father-figure Giles has to try to fight her. And no matter what she is still stuck in darkness. She is about to bring about the end of the world when her other best friend and the friend she had the longest shows up and stands in her way and as she attacks him and tries to scare him away he continues to tell her he loves her. He tells her over and over until she comes back to her senses.

The end scene in Wrinkle of Time was like a weak version of that scene, but instead of fighting with his own darkness her brother was fighting against a force of darkness that I feel like was never explained as thoroughly as it should have been. And he pushes her around but being as powerful as it is supposed to be, it seems like it could have killed her or just made her disappear or something, but no. She serves as a reminder of his humanity, but as the movie seems to imply she is the main character it certainly seems like she should have more of a purpose than that. He could have looked in the mirror and seen himself and had an epiphany. Wonder Woman was about to kill a psychopath responsible for so many deaths and realized that wasn’t who she was through a memory of Steve. Thumbelina decided not to marry because the ring she received from her past fiancé reminded her of him and even though she thought he was dead that was enough for her to call off the wedding. Now those aren’t the exact same situation, it is comparable and her big moment at the end could have been replaced by an inanimate object, memory, or his own reflection.

You know what it seems like (to me at least)? Like they were trying so hard to make it a female protagonist, that they just slipped the character in even though they didn’t do anything. It would have been more interesting if her dad shrank down instead or if her brother was the main character. If they’re not going to have a role in the story, they certainly shouldn’t be the main character. It would be like if instead of James Bond movies focusing on him having some random girl be the main character and acting like Bond having to save her somehow made her the actual hero.

In both movies the most interesting characters are in it the least, while this wet blanket character acts as the central point. Yeah, it sucks your dad is always working. Boohoo. You literally shrank down to the size of a thumbtack and are involved in what is suggested to be some epic good vs evil battle that looks like it will actually have an effect on the world as a whole (though how and what that implies are never brought up) but sure keep complaining about how your dad doesn’t spend all his time with you and goof around while lives literally hang in the balance.

I’d rather not have a main female character than a fake main female character. I don’t want some stock character who is there just to be there for diversity. If they’re not going to serve a purpose, then lose them.  

Post 172: Thoughts after Avengers: Endgame

I really empathize with Hawkeye in Avengers: Endgame. Imagine you are on a cruise with your family, everyone you care about, and everyone you admire. The cruise ship starts to sink, so everyone scurries to the lifeboats. You are separated from your family and friends, but make it to a life boat. You are there desperately trying to see if your loved ones made it to your life boat, to the other lifeboats around you. You see some of them, but not your family and not everyone. Your family is gone, half of the people you care most about are gone. And you find out it is because there wasn’t enough space for everyone in the life boats. Maybe, you would have gladly given up your space in the lifeboat. You are hurt enough as it is that they died, while you lived. And then you find out that there were murders, pedophiles, human traffickers, and rapists on the lifeboats. Your family died. Hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people including children all died, while these criminals lived. More than that, they died specifically because the others lived. And it isn’t like this changes their ways and they decide to be better people, nothing changes for them. They continue to hurt those who survived. It would be hard not to hate them. In Hawkeyes’ case it wasn’t a cruise, it was Thanos and it wasn’t hundreds or thousands that died, it was billions.

The survivor’s guilt alone probably made him hate himself. He would have gladly died for them, for even one of them. He probably thought they deserved to live more and hated himself for surviving while they died. Hating the criminals that survived probably both helped him alleviate his hatred towards himself, but gave him a purpose. A way of reasoning why he would survive without his family.

I thought the movie had some good humor and some interesting twists. But, there were some big questions I had about the overall time travel. They make fun of time travel a lot so the fact they had such weird plot holes made no sense. I think it is less about it not making sense overall and less they didn’t explain it. For example, Thanos comes from the past to the future and they kill Thanos. With the big push to “not change the timeline, you can’t be seen, everything has to be put back where it came from”, Thanos is a pretty big absence from the timeline. It actually creates multiple diverging timelines.

In the second time line (Tony/Steve/Scott), Steve tells them in the elevator that he knows that they are working for Hydra and Loki disappears after being captured at the end of the first movie. Who knows how that effects the timeline? Captain America also sees Captain America, but because Loki disappeared it is entirely possible that it is explained as Loki’s doing.

In the next time line Rocket removes the stone from Jane and Thor meets his mother, he even temporarily takes his hammer.

In another, Natasha dies and Thanos, Gamora, and Nebula learn about the future. This timeline is the least fixable. If Steve goes back he can maybe fix the Thor/Rocket timeline, depending on the time he went back he might even be able to fix the Tony/Steve/Scott timeline, though it would be hard to return the stone and recapture Loki without running into his past self from that time or the past self that took the stone in the first place. So, it is likely Loki will still be MIA.

And then the final timelines are not really fixable at all. Past Nebula is dead. Past Thanos is dead. Maybe Past Gamora went back into the past, but that would create another time line. She might be able to take down Ronan herself and dismantle Thanos’ following since his army and advisors basically all died in the future. And with Thanos dead and without a need for the stone the whole first Guardians of the Galaxy really wouldn’t have happened. Either because Quill wouldn’t have been sent to fetch the stone, or because he went to get it and ended up being captured by Rocket and Groot and sent to jail. In which case, both her going back and staying would be the same because without her there to start a fight, they wouldn’t have been arrested together or banded together. But, if she doesn’t go back, Ronan would still likely try to take the stone. And without them working together, Ronan would have succeeded in destroying the planet. If he still had the stone when they turned him in, Ronan would kill everyone in the prison including Drax and Quill. Or, if Rocket and Groot kept it, he would have killed them.

So, there isn’t really a way to fix that. I think instead of a three hour movie, they should have split this into another two movies. Because I want to know how Steve got everything back! It took teams of 2/3 people each to get these things gone in the first place! Loki disappeared, he saw himself, SHIELD officers think he knows that SHIELD=Hydra, he can’t put it back before they took them because then two would exist. And he can’t put them back in the exact moment, because he could run into either of his past selves. Or do more damage. He has to wait a certain amount of time, but not too long either. And did he even take a ship? How is he going to get into space? Does he put all of the stones back? Surely, some of them didn’t need to go back. Like what about the stone that brought Vision to life, couldn’t they have kept that and brought Vision back? Why not destroy one of the stones (like the one someone has to die to get) and then put the rest back so NO ONE can pull a Thanos in any future.

Plus, how did Steve explain his presence to Peggy? Did he tell her that he was alive and under the ice and was from the future? What did he do as a job? He was relatively famous, did people not recognize him? He knows Bucky is a live, does he try to find him in the timeline? He meets Peggy again when she is old in their timeline, so does that Peggy know him or is it a new timeline entirely. But it can’t be a totally different timeline because he is sitting on the bench as an old man to pass the mantle on. I just have too many question. And I don’t think it is because any of them are unanswerable. They just ran out of time.

This is a question that has actually only come up recently, but I was thinking about it and I’m seriously wondering what happened to mess up the future in Endgame. Dr. Strange insisted that Stark live. Which makes sense, Stark is who actually defeated Thanos and brought about a victory in the end, in more ways that one. Without Tony, they wouldn’t have been able to time travel to get the stones. And without Tony, even if they brought everyone back they will would have all died when Thanos snapped again. So, Dr. Strange had to save Tony.

Dr. Strange knew this. He went through the possible futures and saw how many of them they actually won and defeated Thanos. Tony asks him and Strange says he can’t tell Tony, because if he tells Tony it won’t happen. But then, in the final moments of battle, Tony looks to Strange and Strange singles that it was one. That he saw only one future where they defeat Thanos. And that spurns Tony into the action be took that leads to their victory. But, that also seems to suggest that it isn’t true that he couldn’t tell him. He did tell him in the end. And if he hadn’t told him, he might not have jumped in and did what he did. Which makes me wonder, if there were more but at that point other things had happened to reduce their chances.

I didn’t actually see Dr. Strange. Which might be why I’m confused about how he sees the future. If he sees all the possible (or even some/most) of the possibilities, how much does he know about each future? There is a movie with Nicolas Cage, I can’t remember what it is called but he basically can go through different possibilities to see what happens but it seems limited to what is in his knowledge and the possibilities he looks to explore (ie. “If I go left or right what happens?” But he doesn’t also know what would happen if he turned around.) He asked for Tony to be spared which means he knew that Tony would play a major part in the ending. And people say he specifically planned the timing so that the snap would happen while Ant Man was in the Quantam Realm. But, without Nebula going back in the future, past Thanos wouldn’t have come to the present. Without Natasha, Clint wouldn’t have come back to the Avengers. He didn’t even ask about Captain Marvel, was the assumption just that she would be safe? Though, her character was really minimally present and almost unnecessary. I mean, Scarlet Witch actually did more damage to Thanos than she did. Plus, she was absent for so much of the movie. And I get it, she says it herself that she is going around to other planets too but it just leads to more questions. Like wasn’t there a sort of galactic police force introduced in Guardians? And what about the Guardians themselves, even before the snap how did they not cross paths? How is Earth the only planet that had heroes/superheroes?

Anyway, back to my original question, there are so many characters that brought about the victory. Yes, having Ant Man was important. But if Captain Marvel hadn’t been there to save Tony he would have died, if Pepper hadn’t been there to keep Tony sane, he probably wouldn’t have been of any help to anyone.

Steve and Natasha also probably knew the most about Fury and the pager too. I mean, it really seems like it wasn’t just Tony, the people who survived are the exact people that needed to survive for them to win. Which is why I wonder if Tony was originally going to be snapped away and that is why Strange specifically asked for him to be spared. Which actually also leads me to another question, if Thanos could specify who he gets rid of and what, why did he just specify half? Why didn’t he specifically target like everyone who was violent? Or just certain families? Was it just a lack of empathy that lead him to not realize that if he killed half of all living things that it would cause them pain? With his power, could he not have done something to specify the most violent/cruel people would be those to die? Or even those people and their connections, so that there would be no one left to really miss them or be sad they’re gone.

If a family of ten loses 5 people, they will obviously be very upset. If a family of ten hears about the disappearance of another family of ten, they will feel sympathy but more than that relief it wasn’t them. And I know Thanos agreed to keep Tony alive, but can he really not specify more than that to get rid of all Avengers but Tony? If he really had no control beyond a few, then he could have snapped away everyone good leaving only the most violent? I don’t know I said it earlier. But I think this should have been two movies. I am just left with so many questions. And I feel like we totally miss out on seeing Nebula and Rocket bond. I think they would be a really interesting relationship duo to explore. Both of them started out as normal and were experimented on and medically altered with technology against their will from a young age. Rocket doesn’t like talking about what happened to him, but I think if anyone would understand it would be Nebula. They are both not used to affection or compassion and have a loose sense of right and wrong.

Also, like I get that scene that everyone is freaking out about is when Captain Marvel gets the gauntlet from Peter Parker and he asks how she is going to get it across and all the women show up to have her back but…what can Mantis do? Like, if Captain Marvel is supposed to be that strong and with Scarlet Witch, should they have even really needed the rest? Can’t Dr. Strange create teleport portals? Why couldn’t he just create a portal between Peter and the van? Or himself and Peter and then to the van?

I mean, yes the scene had me like “women represent” but it also had me like…okay but are they only all there because they are women? Like, it is the middle of a battle that decides the fate of literally every single life form on the planet, I think making sure that the best people for the task are always the one on the task regardless of gender.

The whole Thor plot line was a little questionable. Like, they constantly seemed to be making fun of his weight quite a bit. If they had pulled that with any of the female characters, people would have had a fit. I mean, they even had Rocket grossed out by being hugged by him with a close up on Thor’s beer belly. Like...they’ve all been through some serious crap. Tony had serious PTSD that I don’t think they ever explained if it went away, it seems like it just sort of stopped being an issue they talked about. Meanwhile, Thor is clearly going through a traumatic time. And the fact they were all surprised shows that no one had been there to see him. They basically just all went their separate ways instead of making sure that they were okay. And some of them were definitely not okay. I mean, sure Steve ran support groups but he literally risked the timeline to stay back with Peggy, so he was clearly not over his loss either.