ok first off SPOILER SPOILERS SPOILERS INFINITY WAR SPOILERS -
So maybe I let my guard down because Ragnarok made all the money and everybody apparently loves Thor now but I really thought that Marvel wouldn’t continue in its grand tradition of fucking over everything that happens in Thor’s solo movies :/
Every single Thor movie leaves really interesting dangling plot threads and cliffhangers that I’m pumped to dig into and watch the messy resolution of and EVERY TIME Marvel just like, hand-waves them or gets them out of the way as quickly as possible or just never talks about them again? I’m just tired.
I wouldn't be so disappointed in the opening of Infinity War if it had been a longer, more built up sequence. I can’t believe how most of it really was in the trailer. The whole movie was big action sequences and you’re telling me we couldn’t have taken the fifteen minutes to actually watch Asgard going down in a blaze of glory, fighting to their last breaths? We just jumped right in at the end, and missed all the potential narrative setup. I guess we have time for Tony trying to convince Pepper they should have kids - but we can’t pick up right where Ragnarok left off?
In a movie this big you have to carefully use your time and I really think they missed an opportunity for exposition by skipping the build up to and actual battle at the beginning. We missed Thor - all powered up off Ragnarok, all cocky, ‘that’s what heroes do’ ‘everything will be fine’ - not realizing what a threat Thanos is. We missed Loki trying to explain to Thor/the audience literally anything you might have wanted to drop there. Like, I dunno, maybe names for some of the Black Order ??? Maybe some of what he experienced pre-Avengers? We missed a chance to have Valkyrie appear at all?!?
(I LOVE bad guy squads you guys I really wanted to like the Black Order but Infinity War was so busy trying to make me care about Thanos it wasted precious time we could have spent on literally anyone else))))
Considering Thor is the one who almost strikes the final blow and his entire subplot is gearing up for round 2 against Thanos, I don’t see why we didn’t actually get to watch round 1. They could have mirrored the conversation he has with Rocket later on, but in the beginning he’s sure of himself, he believes it will be fine. He’ll win. He’s Thor. It would have been crushing to see him so confident at the beginning, lose it all, and then echo it later but way waaaay more desperate under the weight of defeat.
The battle could have gone on for a bit in stages (Ship to ship so they don’t actually know who they’re fighting. Then the Black Order boards and shit gets worse. Then Thanos boards and THEN we have where the movie starts). I’m not surprised at all Loki died - i mean, I’m disappointed because it’s the laziest, most obvious trope they could have gone with and its not even that satisfying narratively - but yeah, after all the apparent hints from Avengers onward about whatever happened to Loki after Thanos pulled him out of the void I really think we could have used just a little closure on that.
If we’d had a longer fight it would have been edge of my seat engaging to see Thor beaten at Thanos’s feet and Loki pinned down by the Black Order but as it was we just jump in and its like - ok. I dunno. Jarring. I have questions. I keep buying tickets to watch the characters I like and you keep skipping past the parts I’m most excited about.
I think we deserved, especially after Ragnarok's arcs, to see Thor and Loki fighting at the end together knowing they won’t make it out this time. Thor deserved to trust Loki completely for the highest stake battle and be rewarded with loyalty. Loki needed to have a chance to escape - maybe multiple I mean the Tesseract lets you teleport? - and choose to stay and die protecting Thor. Because redemption arcs are always treated like a single choice, and often followed by either a flawless alignment change or a redemptive death and both are boooooring and played out. Loki’s already done the right thing in other movies - a real redemption arc is showing that this time he’s continuing to choose to do so. Especially since it ends with him standing up to Thanos. And Thor needed that to be his last memory of Loki, not the realization that the last thing he ever said to him was ‘you really are the worst’
and if we’d seen a longer fight, and seen them fail and get beaten repeatedly then the desperation of Loki’s last acts would feel more pressing? I mean, people are already pointing out that Loki’s last feint is stupid and obvious and it really is but if we’d already seen Thor and Loki doing their best and it not working the fact that at the end, backed into a corner like that, Loki going for a last ditch desperation play makes more sense. It would have been sad instead of like, do you really think a tiny knife is the solution here? please do some magic.
Also man Gamora got fucking shafted in this movie. She deserved way better. She deserved to get to use her knowledge of Thanos to help set the groundwork for his defeat. instead she got dragged around and fridged in a really terrible attempt to make me feel bad for Thanos. And, again, they really missed out on the exposition potential of Gamora for things like, again, maybe developing the Black Order a little? Maybe when Thor goes at her and mentions Loki uuhhhhhh you might revisit that whole pre-Avengers void time? We spent a lot of time having Thanos explained to us from his perspective - I want to hear about him from the people whose lives he ruined because fuck him.
anyway redemption equals death is a tired trope - Gamora and Loki both did terrible shit and were fucked up but trying to do better and they both got tossed out for actually standing up and facing what they’d done. I’m not sad about anyone who got disintegrated at the end because they’re obviously going to undo all that in IW2 - except Peter that was tragic - but Gamora and Loki are pretty permadead and I honestly don’t know what I expected from Marvel.
Also holy fuck what was even the point of Thor going through three movies to figure out how to be king and all that if we just wipe out Asgard off-screen? Thor really can’t have anything nice. At least he got time to grieve in this movie.