You have to put it back Marvel Studios: He knew how to make his films look like big events at the time. After the original Avengers discontinued in 2012, almost every entry aimed to be bigger in some way, as if the company as a whole was obsessed with outdoing itself. Sometimes it was in pursuit of a greater thematic depth (often with mixed results, depending on the payoff), but more often than not it would be spectacle: how many set pieces, explosions, and joyful character moments can be put on screen for you to leave the theater with with a smile on his face. confront?
This whole philosophy emphasizes Avengers: Endgame, the last chapter of The saga of infinity it started with the first Iron Man movie. Originally published on April 26, 2019, End of Game was positioned as the film that would end all films, tasked with both resolving Thanos’ genocidal snap that ended Avengers: Infinity War the previous year and being a swan song for the original Avengers themselves. If every Marvel movie before then was an event, this was it, but it also served as a victory lap celebrating his own greatness as if he were going to retire immediately afterwards.
Marvel was very aware of Game over importance, if a reissue only to do more money than Avatar I am not aware of this. When marketing wasn’t doing the job nostalgia gamehe strangely stingy about what was actually a fairly simple time travel plot that some fans had figured out months before. (Similarly, ahead of its first trailer, Marvel kept its secret subtitles for no reason.) Yet the studio knew that the journey here was as vital as the destination, and that people had come to love the Avengers and everyone in their orbit. There’s something commendable about the time it takes to depict what the surviving heroes have been up to in the years since their clash with Thanos; ditto for the space it gives the actors to play their characters still reeling from their first real L. That the entire second act is basically a “do you remember when?” the reel of callbacks and cameos with a few welcome returns is always effective, mainly because the actors know how to sell what’s happening on screen.
The MCU has often been compared to television, and End of Game is an example. If we follow this analogy, then this was in fact a series finale for a prestige show, half of which would have benefited, if not from more wiggle room, then from significant systemic and structural changes in the most large machines. What was your the turn of your favorite character? Do Hulk and Banner resolve their issues off-screen during the five-year timeskip? The disconnect in how the film approaches Hawkeye and that of Thor respective post-Snap breakdowns? Everything to do with how Natasha’s death hovers over the third act, then goes largely unnoticed in the final moments? Tell us in the comments below!
And yet… despite all that, Game over the peaks remain undeniably good. I will not forget how the audience went wild in the theater when the heroes began to flock outside the gates doing poses as Alan Silvestri’s music swelled. Captain America destroys the shit out of Thanos with his shield and Mjolnir it continues, and even smaller beats like Nebula bringing an alt-2014 version of Gamora to her side or Thor reminding her of the hammer hit as hard as they did in 2019. The promise of the premise comes true Really. , just like the result of a continuous investment over 11 years. It’s just that the film rests on shaky foundations at times, given how erratic things have been for these characters from one film to the next.
Two months later Avengers: Endgame was released and took the world by storm with a box office of $2.799 million, Kevin Feige took the stage at San Diego Comic-Con to tout the sequel. Eternals, Shang Chi, Blade, mutated guys – it laid it all out, with Phase Four also serving as a kickoff point for upcoming MCU shows on Disney+. And then a funny little thing called the covid-19 pandemic happened, paralyzing the entire world. For the first time, the MCU had to come to a halt, and it’s sadly telling that it took a world-changing event for Marvel Studios to hit the brakes. Once things have relatively stabilized in 2021, shows and movies restartedand the end result was a pair of Unequal phases and a feeling of exhaustion that still permeates even much-loved recent works like X-Men ’97 And Ms. Marvel.
Over the past couple of years, various cracks have appeared in Marvel’s armor, since Nightmare VFX Crunch do not understand how does television work and changing frequently release date. It’s like End of Game was the seventh seal that held things relatively together, and now that it’s gone, things have become quite chaotic. Things will work themselves out eventually – sure, this is a branch of one of the biggest companies on the planet – but all of this is testament to what a miracle it is. End of Game was in hindsight. Even if it ends up being one of the best Avengers films ultimately, the tragedy is for a film so obsessed with time that it was not possible (or unauthorized) to give the audience time to take a deep breath and gather itself before diving headlong premiere in a new epic featuring new characters for people. fall in love with.
There probably won’t be a film of the same scale or monumental importance as Avengers: Endgame, from Marvel or anyone else. Maybe that’s a good thing; The “sky’s the limit” approach got the studio through the 2010s because there really wasn’t anything like it at the time. (Or at least, not as consistently successful.) But those glory days are over now, and maybe it’s time to move on to a different type of game, or maybe just a few. new players entirely.
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