For the FIRST EVER! edition of Fourteen Favourite Shots I decided to do Avengers Endgame.
…which is in many ways a very ugly movie. I’M SORRY! But when I was screencapping it it felt like, so many scenes have this weird grey filter over them? Why?
However since I’m enhancing all the colours I suppose that doesn’t matter much.I still found it much harder than I expected to get a whole 14 shots I really loved though.
But! I do really love how the scenes on Vormir are lit. And that shot of Gamora on the top right is possibly my favourite shot of her ever – this tiny figure facing down the whole world.
I also totally love how there are two shots in here of a man staring at the woman he loves from the wrong side of a timeline.
On this day last year, Avengers: Endgame came out. I saw it in a theater with a bunch of other cheering fans, a situation I’ve never really been in before, and it was so much fun.
Loki got the biggest cheer of all (there was one group of dudes who seemed to be big Loki fans), I cheered for Gamora because heck if Loki’s getting a cheer she gets one too, everyone went nuts when Cap caught the hammer, when the Black Panther crew appeared and at “Assemble!”
I know not everyone likes cheering in a cinema, but it was really honestly quite electrifying for me.
There are other things going on in the world right now, far more important things. To be talking about some old men having an opinion on some popular films seems like an exercise in futility, and yet…
When Martin Scorsese says that the Marvel pictures are not cinema, he’s right because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration. I don’t know that anyone gets anything out of seeing the same movie over and over again. Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is.
This comes off as very hypocritical considering his positive comments on the MCU’s big hit Black Panther. Ryan Coolger specifically asked for his opinion and showed him an early cut of the movie. Now it seems he’s changed his mind. What a way to treat someone who looks up to you, don’t cha think?
But I digress…
I love the MCU and superhero movies in general. There’s a few of them I feel like I could say “This movie was made for me.” But, you know, they’re not made for me. The people behind them I feel are fundamentally making them for children, giving children good role models and good lessons. I mean, say what you want about Marvel movies as cinema, but they do generally contain the sort of thing you’d want your children to learn, you know? “Bad people should be stood up to” “Respect your friends even when they’re having problems” “Seek help whenever you need it”… yeah?
Like, take the ending of Black Panther. That’s an amazing scene and frankly I think a lot of real-life world leaders ought to take it on board.
And I think everyone can take something away from “I don’t like bullies, I don’t care where they’re from.”
Morally I don’t think the Marvel movies are despicable, not remotely. Disney as a company… I suppose you could debate til the cows come home about what their morals actually are besides money, but also I think it’s fair to assume that the individual directors of the various MCU movies probably came into the enterprise without any ill intentions. (Or, y’know, hopefully at least.)
Speaking as a former child, I love that more kids are getting the sort of stories I longed for as a 12-year-old… stories with women and girls in leading roles especially. Look at this fabulous list of Marvel heroines, and that’s only a handful of them.
And speaking as an adult, I look very forward to seeing the sort of things a generation raised on MCU movies will create. I suspect only some of them will be to my taste but I know what I’m not gonna label the ones I don’t like.
The release date for a new Black Panther movie was officially announced at D23! See?
But apparently “Black Panther II” is just a placeholder title, with the real one to come along later. And I’ve been wildly speculating…
What if its title is “Black Panther and Captain America?” Not old Cap, new Cap. Sam Wilson.
This guy.
Here’s all the bits and pieces which made me speculate that speculation:
The upcoming Falcon and the Winter Solider show is called just that, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when really Sam’s new name should be Captain America now. He was given the shield, so the codename is his. Apparently the show is going to be partly about Sam learning to take on the mantle, and…
On the most serious note, Sam being the first black Captain America is obviously very important. That’s something I can very much see Ryan Coolger and the other Black Panther creators wanting to tackle. Especially since Sam was the first ever black Marvel superhero. Him being Captain America now is a Huge Thing, and honestly I don’t think the story of him claiming the new title could be done by anyone better.
Sam has already encountered T’Challa and been to Wakanda, so a movie could jump straight into the action without having to do introductions all over again.
Marvel loves team-up movies (apparently the Doctor Strange sequel will be a team-up too, with Scarlet Witch) and titles with “and” in them!
And finally, I refuse to believe Sam won’t be on the big screen ever again.
Obviously I could be totally wrong, and probably am! But considering no-one really knows anything about the movie so far except its release date… here’s to quietly crossing my fingers?
So it’s been a few days now since Avengers: Endgame came out and I think I’m finally ready to put the Analysis Hat, and the Complaints Hat, and the Celebration Hat on. There were some things I loved and some things I loathed. Also since a lot of people haven’t seen it yet you have to click the ‘more’ button:
steve rogers was an irish-american with disabilities growing up in 30s new york in a gay neighborhood and some people actually believe he would be conservative
“with disabilities”? what disability does he have
Seriously?
wait…did people think that Steve was just some skinny dude that was otherwise healthy?
I get where those last two posts are coming from (just), but they’re rather infantalising of Steve, and therefore, by default, the thousands upon thousands of real people who have the same disabilities and rather like being allowed to go outside unaccompanied.
