#its kind of cool that iron banner existed all the way back during the dark ages

[urlyngendary]

TLDR: "A Man With No Name" Lorebook from Destiny 2

"A Man With No Name" lorebook reveals the origins of the polarizing character being The Drifter, some people enjoy his laid-back, witty-tongued nature, some people despise the fact that he's the figurehead of the grueling Gambit playlist. Here is a quick summary of "A Man With No Name"'s 9 pages.

The Drifter is resurrected by his Ghost during the Dark Ages, his ghost tells him to go one way, Drifter runs the opposite, getting himself killed in the process. His Ghost resurrects him, but he still runs in the opposite direction.

Drifter, in his trek away from wherever his Ghost wants him, begins to die of starvation, his Ghost asks if he can help his Guardian, Drifter refuses on the grounds of "Don't need you. I got this" The Ghost implores the Drifter to give himself a name, or perhaps name his Ghost, Drifter refuses, and dies to a scorpion sting.

The Drifter begins to live in a small village named Eaton, he keeps his ghost a secret and lives amongst mortals. He takes on the name of Germaine.

The Iron Lords, lead by Iron Lord Dryden, offer Eaton resources for the harsh winter to stay at their village and use it to set a trap for a notorious Warlord known as the Red Man. A well-known man in Eaton named Judson protests, saying that being around any Risen¹ will get them killed.

A small child talks to Drifter of Judson, that she agrees with him, that the Risen are awful. The Drifter talks how, without the food the Iron Lords had given them, her parents would've starved to death.

Judon attempts to leave Eaton, wanting to get out before his predicted shootout takes place. He says that the Risen kill by nature, and no matter of negotiating will change that. Drifter attempts to get Judson to stay, but he leaves anyways.

A group of 6 Risen Warlords return a week later with Judson, with The Red Man leading them. The people of Eaton accept Judson back, but the Red Man questions where the Iron Lords are on grounds that they saw a Ghost about theie town.

A very bloody fight breaks out amongst Eaton residents, Iron Lords, and Warlords, Drifter's Ghost flies away to a safe space. It is unclear who won the battle, but it is said that multiple risen leave the battle alive, Iron Lord Dryden is one of them.

Drifter is resurrected after the battle amongst the ruins of Eaton, everyone is dead, or gone. Ghost calls him Germaine, Drifter tells him that it isn't his name. He buries the bodies, and finds a barely alive Judson, who sees that Drifter is Risen, accuses him of killing Eaton, then dies.

The Drifter's Ghost tells him that The Drifter has done wrong, that he needn't live amongst mortals, that he can be so much more, in response, Drifter raises his hand towards the Traveller and gives it the bird. 🖕

The Drifter now operates a bar at the base of Felwinter's Peak, he lives under the name Wu Ming and runs "The End of the World Bar"

Citan (Yes, of Citan's Ramparts) comes to take all of Drifter's Food and drink, Lady Efrideet stands up for the bar and wins in a gunfight against Citan and his fireteam.

Drifter climbs Felwinter's Peak to speak to Felwinter, asking him to kill Iron Lord Dryden for wronging Eaton. It is Iron Lord code to not meddle with mortal affairs in the midst of Risen conflicts. Felwinter turns him down, but after he leaves, Felwinter tells his ghost to ready his Iron Banner arsenal.

¹ "Risen" is the term used for resurrected Lightbearers pre-City age. It refers to Guardians, just anyone resurrected via a Ghost to utilize the Light.

#destiny 2 lore #destiny lore #destiny the game #the drifter #felwinter #lady efrideet #iron banner #iron lord felwinter #iron lords #destiny 2 #destiny #tldr #forsaken #season of the drifter #its kind of cool that iron banner existed all the way back during the dark ages #drifters ghost has never been given a name #despite the name change to wu ming it seems germaine stuck. eris calls him germaine in an entry from season of the haunted #felwinters iron banner arsenal does include the felwinters lie shotgun #i wanna know why the red man was so feared

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

GUARDIANS 3 Opening Ain't a Disappointment

Some seem to be writing it off as a disappointment, but I'd say it's pretty cool that the third GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movie opened with around $118m this past weekend.

That's a sentence no one would've imagined being a reality back in, say, 2004... Or even 2014, when the first was on its way to theaters.

"A third GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movie made over $100m on its opening weekend".

The first GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movie opened with $94m back in August of 2014, which was an astounding number for this kind of movie back then: Based on characters few outside of the comic-sphere have heard of, and for a movie that was more a space opera with weird funny creatures in it as opposed to the more grounded superheroes like Iron Man and Captain America. This time we had snarky raccoons and talking trees... How was THIS thing going to do?

Before GUARDIANS came out, the MCU kind of slowly held our hands when it came to introducing the world above Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, and Natasha Romanoff... THOR had the Asgard/Nine Realms/fantasy stuff, THE AVENGERS had some rather generic alien invaders, and THOR: THE DARK WORLD mostly played it safe with the space/cosmic stuff... Until its mid-credits scene featuring The Collector. A brief scene which was directed by GUARDIANS trilogy director James Gunn. A very brief taste of what was to come regarding the cosmic side of the MCU... And Gunn's wacky FARSCAPE/FUTURAMA-esque space adventure movie truly blew it all open. THOR, THE AVENGERS, and THOR 2 walked so it could run, you could say...

And yet, these guys and the world they inhabited were completely new. Only The Collector and his slave Carina appeared in THE DARK WORLD, which had opened with $85m domestically. The Marvel brand, post-AVENGERS, absolutely had to have helped this movie, because this kind of space saga isn't always an easy sell if you aren't STAR WARS... And even STAR WARS was largely doubted before it was unleashed unto the world. GUARDIANS would go on to score a great 3.5x multiplier and went on to make a lot of money for what it was. It managed to outgross CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER and THOR: THE DARK WORLD, even.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY was more than a homework movie, it was more than a picture you had to watch to keep track of what was going to happen in the next AVENGERS movie...

It's interesting to me because GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY largely revolves around one of the Infinity Stones, and Thanos is present in the movie, but the immense heart of the storyline and Peter Quill's whole deal, these weirdos with rough pasts and dodgy backgrounds all coming together... It made for something special, and that beating heart of the story shined beyond the few MCU trappings, namely its big explosive third act set-piece and the stuff that hinted at the future.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 was even more stand-alone, so self-contained that it could exist - almost plausibly - outside the MCU. It even takes place a little after the first movie, which was set in 2014, the year of its release... And this movie came out in 2017. It wasn't concerned with what was happening on the ground or elsewhere. It didn't have any major cameos, not that I can remember anyways. I don't even think Ego's seed terraforming on Earth during the final battle was even referenced by future Marvel movies or at least the ones set after it (like CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR). The movie opened with $146m, an astounding total. Then it made a decent 2.6x its opening, probably because it was more frontloaded this time, and the movie was a little more ambitious than the first one. Some elements in it were a dealbreaker for some people, including quite a few critics. The same is being said about VOL. 3 as well.

(For the record, I love all three of these movies, VOL. 3 might just be my personal favorite of the bunch... I have to sit with it for a few...)

Then the Guardians themselves made appearances elsewhere, namely in AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR and AVENGERS: ENDGAME. The plots of those movies absolutely inform some of the characters' arcs and story elements going forward, largely concerning Peter Quill and a Gamora who never met him. Otherwise, GUARDIANS VOL. 3 manages to be self-contained once more.

I see it this way. The first one surprised and did very well, the second one was the peak of the series at the box office, and the third one comes down a bit...

It's happened before. SHREK, SHREK 2, and SHREK THE THIRD have the same trajectory. As do the DESPICABLE ME movies not counting the MINIONS spin-offs. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN is another example off the top of my head.

We're at a point now, I think, where a lot of people are stepping off of the MCU train post-AVENGERS. They'll show up for certain movies that appeal to them, such as SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME, BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER, and this picture, but that's it. I expect VOL. 3's multiplier to be closer to those than to ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA's abysmal 2.0x multiplier. I feel the same has been happening with DC movies, too. Look at how SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS just did, or how BLACK ADAM kinda came up short.

Here's some mutlipliers that I think kind of speak volumes...

SHANG-CHI - 2.9x

ETERNALS - 2.3x

SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME - 3.1x

MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS - 2.1x

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER - 2.3x

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER - 2.5x

QUANTUMANIA - 2.0x

It shows me that these movies are a lot more frontloaded now than ever before by the diehard fans, and that general audiences are kind of directing their attention elsewhere. It's natural, really, for the MCU is now a 15-year-old franchise, the first IRON MAN movie having debuted in May of 2008. That it's still pulling in these kinds of monster grosses and opening weekends is kind of astounding. Even QUANTUMANIA posted a trilogy high for ANT-MAN, with an $106m opening. An MCU movie hasn't missed that threshold since ETERNALS, unsurprisingly a movie that introduced a ton of new characters and a new side of the MCU hitherto unseen.

I predict GUARDIANS VOL. 3 will have okay legs, as it does have an A CinemaScore grade. Probably about on par with how VOL. 2 held up after its opening weekend. Should either just reach $300m domestically, or barely miss it. It's doing pretty good worldwide, so I think it's safe to say that this is one audiences will stick around for. I see it making a profit, unlike QUANTUMANIA. The GUARDIANS movies are unique like this, in that they're not homework movies or ones you have to watch in order to keep up with the wider universe. You can follow these characters through all three of their movies, and you only watch two other movies to get the rest of their story. (Their cameo in THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER has next to no bearing on this film.)

I think it really shows just how much audiences love those characters, and not what they mean to the MCU as a whole. Gunn and his crew really scored there...

Now, when THE MARVELS opens in November, and CAPTAIN AMERICA: NEW WORLD ORDER next spring, I suppose we'll get a better idea of the MCU's trajectory going forward and what it might splinter into...

[aion-rsa]

Zack Snyder’s Justice League New Trailer Breakdown and Analysis

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It’s been nearly a year since it was officially announced, and we’re now only a month away from its arrival on HBO Max, but “The Snyder Cut” is very real. Zack Snyder’s Justice League is apparently complete, and after months of teases we finally have a full trailer, one comprised almost entirely of unseen footage.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch it here…

Now, in order to properly give this the analysis it deserves, we’re not going to go chronologically or shot by shot. Instead, we’ll break this up into themes, characters, and events, and try to piece together the significance of each in relation to what we think the story is.

With that in mind, let’s start with the the character who has been the most central to Zack Snyder’s conception of the DCEU…

Superman

Zack Snyder started the DCEU with Henry Cavill starring as Superman in 2013’s Man of Steel. That first film told a detailed Superman origin story, and was followed by 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which not only introduced Ben Affleck’s Batman, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, and Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor, but it also killed off Superman at the hands of Doomsday. Superman’s resurrection was always intended to be a central piece of Justice League, and it’s front and center in the trailer for Zack Snyder’s Justice League…

Literally the first shot of the trailer appears to depict Superman’s resurrection. Here we have Cavill’s Supes, still with that gruesome, gaping chest wound that was inflicted on him by Doomsday during the climax of Batman v Superman, seemingly being resurrected.

Or…is he?

While the color scheme at first seems to reflect that of the Kryptonian scout ship which was the site of his resurrection in the theatrical cut, that doesn’t quite line up with what we’re seeing here. First of all, he wouldn’t still be wearing his ruined and bloody costume if that were the case. And if you look closely, there appears to be a giant, monstrous hand holding/lifting his body as he cries out.

In all likelihood, this is some kind of dream sequence, either a vision Superman himself sees as he dies, or perhaps how Darkseid and the forces of Apokolips are alerted to his death. The way his scream is represented by soundwaves here, and is juxtaposed with Eisenberg’s Luthor saying that “a bell has been rung” would seem to indicate the latter. It makes me think that this is something we’ll see early in the film to bridge Batman v. Superman with Justice League.

Here we have Jason Momoa’s Arthur Curry and Gal Gadot’s Diana watching some kind of holographic representation of Superman. This is almost certainly the ol’ “wow, wouldn’t it be great if this guy was around to help us whup some alien ass? It’s a shame you helped get him killed, Bruce!” kinda scene.

What’s really notable here, though is what a classic Superman pose this is. This is a really cool shot, and looks like a Curt Swan/Murphy Anderson drawing of the Man of Steel come to life.

Unlike that first shot, this is DEFINITELY from the resurrection of Superman scene. In the foreground there’s a photo of Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent sinking in the water/chemical bath just as Cavill’s Superman is being lowered into it in the background. Costner’s “you’re here for a reason” speech here faintly echoes the one Glenn Ford as Pa Kent gave young Clark in Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie, as well.

Amy Adams as Lois Lane seems to be coaxing a recently resurrected Clark to come with her, as they stand on the grounds of the Kent farm. With the distance between them, and Adams’ beseeching gesture, is it possible that at this point Clark is “alive” but not yet fully “aware” of who he is?

In the theatrical cut of Justice League, when the team first awakens Superman he’s disoriented and fights them. So the human connection, first with the woman he loves and then with the place he grew up might be what makes the difference and reminds him of his human soul, despite his Kryptonian upbringing.

Clark has put a shirt on here, so we can assume that this embrace with Lois and Diane Lane’s Martha (!!!!) is the following morning, after he has reacclimated to the land of the living, has his full mind and soul back under control, and is ready to deliver the feel-good ass kicking of the year to Steppenwolf, Darkseid, and a whole mess of Parademons.

And what better way to represent Superman’s “rebirth” than with an homage to the “first flight” scene from Man of Steel? I always liked the way they represent the onset of Superman’s powers of flight in that film, as it implies that he doesn’t just propel himself like a jet, but rather manipulates the very force of gravity itself around him.

And let’s face it, many folks have tried to bring the famed post Death of Superman/Reign of the Supermen black Superman suit to live action, but nobody has ever gotten it quite as right as what we see here. This looks really sharp.

There’s long been speculation that when Superman returns in Zack Snyder’s Justice League that he’s evil, or that his mind has been manipulated by Darkseid to make him a slave and another soldier of Apokolips. There’s plenty of precedent for that in both the comics and animation, and whenever you see “angry Superman doing heat vision eyes” in a Zack Snyder movie, it’s easy to assume that’s where we’re going. Especially considering the “knightmare” vision Batman had in Batman v. Superman, which is also present in this trailer (more on that in a minute).

I’m not entirely sure that’s not where we’re going, but at the moment, I don’t think that’s what happens. I just think that Superman wears the black and silver suit, likely as a way to augment himself while still relatively weak from resurrection, to deliver the aforementioned feel-good asskicking of the year to Steppenwolf and friends. Maybe. Don’t hold me to that.

Anyway, speaking of Steppenwolf and friends…

Steppenwolf

The biggest alterations to Zack Snyder’s Justice League come in the form of the main villain, Steppenwolf, and the addition of other villains (including Darkseid, Desaad, and Granny Goodness). Let’s start with Steppenwolf…

Get a look at Steppenwolf unmasked. He’s certainly um…distinctive.

They didn’t skimp on his armor, nor his axe. In fact, based on a very quick cut that sees him knock an Amazon warrior off her horse with his axe and drawing a considerable amount of blood splatter, I don’t think they’re going to skimp on the amount of damage Steppenwolf’s vibro-axe can do.

This is an interesting new shot, though. Steppenwolf kneels before what might be a boom tube opening, or is perhaps communicating with Apokolips via whatever that coffin-shaped device is.

Is he reporting his progress to Darkseid? Is Darkseid displeased with him? Does this sequence take place in the past or the present?

In fact, let’s talk about these new villains for a bit…

Darkseid, Desaad, and Granny Goodness

In addition to the redesigned Steppenwolf, we’re going to see some more baddies from Apokolips show their demonic faces in Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

This is a very cool shot, and it appears to depict the evil homeworld of Apokolips, and specifically the throne room of Darkseid himself. Apokolips is ruled with an iron fist by Darkseid, in stark contrast to its twin planet, New Genesis, which is populated by the heroic New Gods. All of these characters and concepts were created by Jack Kirby during his time at DC Comics in the early 1970s, and they’ve remained a cornerstone of the DC Universe ever since.

And here we have our best look at the unholy trinity in the background of Steppenwolf’s assault on Earth. From left to right we have Desaad (who is Darkseid’s advisor and torturer-in-chief), Darkseid himself, and Granny Goodness (who trains the armies of Apokolips).

You can see Darkseid wearing the omega symbol, which is also visible on the banners in the throne room. Darkseid’s eyes are glowing with what is known as the “Omega Effect,” a powerful energy he discharges from his eyes.

It’s not clear if this image of shirtless Darkseid swinging a warhammer of some kind takes place in the present or the past, or on Earth or Apokolips. It’s likely the past, though, perhaps when he was still known as Uaxas.

And speaking of the past…

Just like we saw in the theatrical cut, we’ll learn in Zack Snyder’s Justice League that this isn’t the first time that Steppenwolf and the hordes of Apokolips have visited Earth. Here we have Diana in some kind of temple (is it in Greece? On Themyscira?) looking at an old depiction of a conflict…one that certainly appears to depict at the very least the combined armies of Themyscira and Atlantis taking on the alien invaders. The “circular” ships in the sky line up with how we see the Apokoliptian craft elsewhere in the trailer…

Not sure if the above shot is contemporary or from a flashback, but we’ll get to all that in a moment. There’s another reference to Darkseid having made his way to Earth in the distant past…

While my Ancient Greek is rusty/non-existent, this seems to say something to the effect of “darkness” and “Darkseid,” so…yeah.

Note the cool depiction of a Mother Box, too. Something something, “any sufficiently advanced technology,” etc etc. Also, Darkseid seems to holding a spear or an arrow in that painting which…

Whatever that arrow is, it’s ancient, and may end up being key to defeating the forces of Apokolips. Now, as for this mysterious temple…is there any chance that it’s also this from elsewhere in the trailer?

Or was this something more ancient that was at one point the headquarters of Steppenwolf and his invading force?

Now, on to the rest of the heroes…

Cyborg

It has long been indicated that Ray Fisher’s Cyborg didn’t seem to get enough to do in the theatrical cut of Justice League. Zack Snyder has stated, however, that Cyborg is “the heart” of his intended Justice League story, and it seems like we’ll be seeing more of him in Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

Nothing too specific here other than how much more versatile he already appears, from the cannon on his shoulder, to what seems to be his comic book accurate sound cannon on his right arm, and more!

Perhaps more importantly, we’re going to spend a little time with Cyborg before he was Cyborg. Here’s Ray Fisher as Vic Stone, quarterback for the Gotham City University football team. We’ll likely see his origin on film, or at the very least get some more footage of Vic as a football star, but this shot in particular seems to be something a little different. Perhaps when Vic is navigating cyberspace, he still sees himself as he was when he was still whole…or maybe this is something else entirely.

As possibly indicated by…

If I had to guess (and this is only a guess), Vic is trying to interface with a Mother Box here, and it isn’t going well. Is this what sends him into that possible dream state from the image above?

Interestingly, the next shot seems to show the Flash appearing over his shoulder, is it to save him from whatever’s happening here? Or is Vic’s issue with the Mother Box bringing Flash back from somewhere else in spacetime?

And speaking of The Flash…

The Flash

We never really learned a heckuva lot about Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen/Flash in the theatrical cut of Justice League, but that seems like it’s going to change with The Snyder Cut.

Iris West

It’s been no secret that Kiersey Clemons’ Iris West, who was left out of the theatrical cut of the movie will finally make her debut here. This shot in particular of the rescue scene that has been teased several times is new to us, though.

The fact that it also involves food and condiments as Barry’s perception of events slows time down seems to pay homage to Flash’s first appearance in Showcase #4, in which one of Barry’s first super speed acts was to catch a spilled tray of food in a diner in mid-air before the waitress knew what had happened.

Henry Allen

Even though we saw Billy Crudup show up as Henry Allen in the theatrical cut, his appearance in the trailer here would seem to indicate that maybe Barry’s overall arc will feel a little more important in this version then it did there.

The whole “hands on the glass” thing was done quite a bit between the TV versions of these characters, played by Grant Gustin and the great John Wesley Shipp. But there’s one other similarity to the TV show worth pointing out…Henry is rocking the Jay Garrick look with the grey hair at the temples going on. With certain developments on The Flash TV series, this could also be an indicator of how things will be handled in the DCEU. And seriously, wouldn’t Crudup look badass as Jay Garrick? I wrote lots more about Jay Garrick, one of my favorite characters, right here.

Wonder Woman and the Amazons

Remember that while both Wonder Woman movies take place before the events of Justice League, Zack Snyder always intended his vision of the character to be pretty consistent between Batman v Superman (where she emerges “in public” to the world) and Justice League (which furthers that theme). This shot of kids in danger and not necessarily relieved to see an immensely powerful being who may or may not be coming to their rescue

We’re definitely going to get that massive flashback sequence (to the first “Age of Heroes”) where the mythical armies of Earth take on the first invasion from Apokolips in ancient times, and the Amazons are once again front and center.

This is just an extremely badass shot. I genuinely hope this flashback, which was pretty brief in the theatrical cut, is extended for a while here. The Amazons have backup of course…

Aquaman and Atlantis

As with Wonder Woman, it’s important to remember that Snyder was the one who cast Jason Momoa as Aquaman, and there’s likely elements of his Atlantean backstory that didn’t make it into the theatrical cut of the film.

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I’m just hoping that as with the Amazons, we get more of the armies of Atlantis kicking ass in ancient times. This former king of Atlantis (or Poseidon himself?) wearing Aquaman’s armor is a pretty cool shot.

Batman

I saved the Batman section of this for last because, well, on the surface ol’ Bats seems to get the least to do in this trailer. Or does he?

I’m only including this shot because it’s a reminder that Ben Affleck might very well be the best live action Bruce Wayne ever. Dude looks like if the Batman: The Animated Series version of Bruce stepped into the real world.

Anyway, here he is feeling guilty about the events of Batman v Superman. As he should.

A new Batmobile?

This doesn’t appear to be the “Knightcrawler” vehicle that Batman drove during the battle under Gotham Harbor in the theatrical cut so…what is it? From this angle, it does kind of remind me of the “bat-tank” version of the Batmobile that was made famous in Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, and Lynn Varley’s The Dark Knight Returns, which was a profound influence on Batman v Superman and the conceptualization of the DCEU Batman as a whole.

Is it possible that this shot, in which we see Parademons about to lift and flip the current Batmobile, is an indicator that it’s destroyed and Batman upgrades to something a little more heavy duty?

It seems plausible, especially since the reasoning for Batman driving a tank in The Dark Knight Returns came down to the fact that he had “modified her during some nasty riots.”

Detective Comics #27

And here we have the old reliable homage to the cover of Batman’s very first appearance in 1939’s Detective Comics #27…

Parademons might be a little tougher than those gangsters, though.

Knightmare

The “knightmare” dream sequence in Batman v Superman was one of the more controversial elements of the film, and it was used to justify Batman’s mistrust of Superman. In it, we saw a world ruined by the armies of Apokolips. It seems we’ll be revisiting that vision here, albeit this time with a twist…

Jared Leto’s Joker Returns

“We live in a society…” (seriously, dudes?)

OK, but for real, Zack Snyder revealed a bit about the return of Jared Leto’s Joker in a recent interview. In particular, if you’re wondering why Joker is dressed in police gear with a bulletproof vest, the director says he collects this stuff, as well as badges (presumably from officers he has killed). “He has tons of badges,” Snyder told Vanity Fair. “Those are his trophies.”

So the long-awaited meeting between Leto’s Joker and Affleck’s Batman isn’t part of the “main” story of the film, and instead takes place in a kind of dream sequence, like an addendum to the “knightmare” scene from BvS. We’re likely to learn a little bit more about their history in the course of whatever talk they’re going to have here, too.

And there you have it, folks…all the sense we could make out of this massive trailer for Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Spot anything else? Let us know in the comments!

Zack Snyder’s Justice League hits HBO Max on March 18.

The post Zack Snyder’s Justice League New Trailer Breakdown and Analysis appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[themeatlife]

Avengers: Endgame, the Legacy of the Avengers, and the Future of Disney and the Marvel Cinematic Universe

#DontSpoilTheEndgame is over on Monday, so I’ll discuss Avengers: Endgame - the movie itself and the larger impact it has on the legacy of the Avengers and the MCU.

Avengers: Endgame - A Review

To begin, it’s kind of hard to judge the film on its own. Even more so than its predecessor Avengers: Infinity War, Endgame is largely dependent on the previous films. So the impact of it is less so on someone that’s only seen a handful of the Marvel movies than for someone who has invested time seeing the now 22-film catalog.  With that being said, for those who have seen most or all of the other movies, wow. It is both extremely entertaining and extremely gratifying.  If you are an MCU fan, Endgame was made especially for you.

Now, SPOILERS AHEAD!

I’m not going to explore all the plot points (because there is a LOT of plot), I want to hit on some of the major ones though.

Much of the first two hours of the film (this thing has a three hour run time) is spent in the melancholy post-Snapture.  The opening scene is Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye with his family as they disappear from Thanos’ snap.  Just in case you forgot the stakes that were established in Infinity War, well this will certainly remind you.  We see our heroes trying to deal with loss and trying to move on in the aftermath.  I like this touch.  Throughout the MCU, the writers and directors have always tried to a least have a sort of psychological realism, always visiting not only the epic battles but the emotional aftermath.  To reenforce this, next we see Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man and Karen Gillan’s Nebula stranded in space running out of resources to get to Earth (much of this featured heavily in the trailer). It looks hopeless until Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel rescues them and reunites them with the surviving Avengers at Avengers HQ in upstate New York. She doesn’t really have much of a role in the film outside of this and the some of the final sequences.

After hunting down and killing Thanos in the first 20 minutes of the film (Thor goes for the head this time), time jumps to five years later.  Earth’s mightiest heroes go on what Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man calls a “time heist,” a quest to use the quantum realm go to the past to collect the Infinity Stones.  Ant-Man’s return from the quantum realm having only aged 5 hours rather than 5 years spurs this. Not to change the past and prevent Josh Brolin’s Thanos from the Snapture, but to bring everyone back that was lost by the Snap, mainly because Stark now has a family with Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts and a little daughter he doesn’t want to lose.

The time heist features three teams: Iron Man, Ant-Man, Chris Evans’ Captain America, and Mark Ruffalo’s now hybrid Bruce Banner/Hulk going back to 2012 during the Battle of New York in the first Avengers movie to retrieve the Space, Mind, and Time Stones.  Chris Hemsworth’s now broken and depressed and overweight Thor and Bradley Cooper’s Rocket Raccoon going back to Asgard in 2013 during the events of Thor: The Dark World to retrieve the Reality Stone.  And Don Cheadle’s War Machine, Nebula, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye/Ronin, and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow going back to Morag/Vormir in 2014 during the time of the first Guardians of the Galaxy with War Machine and Nebula tracking down the Power Stone and Hawkeye and Black Widow tracking down the Soul Stone.  Highlights from these ventures include Captain America fighting his 2012 self, Thor interacting with his mother on the day of her death, and Hawkeye and Black Widow’s dramatic fight for who will sacrifice their life so the other can get the Soul Stone.  We also get a bonus time jump back to 1970 with Iron Man and Captain America. (My gosh, so much plot here, and that’s not even all of it. No wonder this thing is three hours long.)

While I won’t dive too deeply on what happens, what this part of the movie effectively does is show just how far back the arc of the original six (Stark, Rogers, Thor, Banner, Barton, and Romanoff) goes and how far they have come.  We also get to see how focused 2014 Thanos was at achieving his Snapture goal even back then.  And it’s a good excuse for Marvel to revisit some of the places they have been, kind of like a Greatest Hits album (although I wouldn’t consider The Dark World one of those hits, I would consider it a flex by Disney/Marvel to make one of their lesser movies that important in the long term story).

And then the last hour of the film is all kinds of crazy action, and the results are satisfying and enjoyable. 2014 Thanos gets onto the Avengers plan and sends 2014 Nebula to replace 2023 Nebula to go back to the future (OH I forgot to mention there were a lot of Back to the Future and other time travel movie jokes). So 2014 Nebula opens up the quantum realm portal to 2014 Thanos. That Thanos takes out the Avengers HQ right after the Hulk snaps his finger with the new Stark-made Infinity Gauntlet. There is then a showdown between Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man against Thanos, after which sets up an epic splash-page like final battle between Thanos’ Chitari army and the recently resurrected rest of the Avengers crew. Highlights in this part include a psyched Thor when Captain America not only lifts up Thor’s hammer Mjolnir but summons it and wields it’s power and a touching brief reunion between Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and Iron Man. The battle ends with Tony Stark swiping the Infinity Gauntlet back from Thanos and snapping Thanos and his army out of existence.

This concludes the Tony Stark character arc, for the snap was too much to bare and ultimately kills him. But not before Peter Parker and an Iron-suited Pepper Potts say their goodbyes (Potts with the emotional “now you can rest” line). There is a somber funeral sequence with all the major Marvel characters that are still alive making an appearance, along with a big surprise.

After the funeral, we also see the conclusion of the Steve Rogers story arc. Hulk sends Rogers back in time to return the Infinity Stones back from where they grabbed them. He doesn’t return when Hulk tries to summon him back but Anthony Mackie’s Falcon and Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier notice someone sitting on a bench in the distance. It’s old Steve Rogers, who ended up settling down in the past after returning the stones. He hands off the Captain America shield to Sam.

The movie ends with Steve Rogers sometime in the 1940’s in a new house finally having that dance with Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter.

Rather than a credits scene, the opening of the credits showcases each Marvel hero over the years with the actor who played them and ends the sequence with the original six Avengers with the actors’ signatures displayed on screen. Cool way to salute the actors in some of the major roles over the years.

Other than a couple of time travel issues (time travel is ALWAYS tricky to pull off in movies and television and maybe some other time I’ll go over those), the storyline works very well. I dug the balance it struck between the emotional weight, action, and humor. It was smart to have a lot of small moments early in the film where it focuses the interaction between characters. And it was a lot funnier than I expected it to be. The film as a whole is emotionally gratifying and clearly wraps up this chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But as I said earlier, it is at max effectiveness if you’ve already invested the time in the characters’ previous stories, in particular the original six. If you know the original six’s stories in particular, you will thoroughly enjoy this movie.

I’ll save my ranking the Infinity Saga movies for after Spider-Man: Far From Home (Marvel President Kevin Feige calls the latest Spider-Man the final installment in the Infinity Saga). You can expect that Endgame would rank very highly in my ranking.

The Legacy of the Avengers

What is the biggest impact the Avengers and Marvel’s Infinity Saga have had on pop culture?

It is crazy to think that when Iron Man came out back in May of 2008 when Marvel Studios was using Paramount to distribute, it was considered a risk. Robert Downey Jr had yet to make his comeback complete (Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes a year later marked his return full return to stardom). Iron Man was a few months before The Dark Knight came out and garnered critical acclaim and helped legitimize the comic book-based genre. And the MCU was in its infancy, no one thought it would become the bohemeth it is now.

Marvel Studios, whether intentional or accidental, helped mold and was molded by the changing methods of which people were consuming their visual entertainment. The early 2000’s saw the advent of binge-watching television, where serial series like Alias, 24, and Lost saw people prefer to consume episodes in bulk. Once Netflix got their streaming service going, the idea of binge-watching caught on everywhere. Television ratings waned as people watched things more on their time on devices other than an actual TV. People only tuned in to things when they are originally broadcast if they were billed as an event, like a series finale (or in Game of Thrones’ case a final season) or a live event like the Super Bowl. Similarly, film started becoming more event-based. Blockbusters had to be built up as an event to go to in order for films to be successful, more so now than any other film era. And in making an event out of their films, Marvel serialized their MCU movies like a season of Lost - individual episodes focused on a character or set of characters with the overarching story in the background until culminating in the season finale, or in Marvel’s case an Avengers movie.

So the biggest impact the MCU has had is shaping other movie studios approach to movie releases. After 2012’s The Avengers, many tried the serialized team-up event concept to varying degrees of failure. Universal flopped trying to launch a shared monsters universe with Tom Cruise’s The Mummy reboot in 2017. Warner Brothers has a semi-successful MonsterVerse going with Godzilla and King Kong. We’ll see how that progresses with the new Godzilla movie this summer. Warner Brothers also has the mostly failed DC Extended Universe. Starting strong with 2013’s Man of Steel but limping thereafter with lackluster installments in 2016’s Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad and 2017’s Justice League, DC/Warner Bros has seen more success with the mostly standalone attempts Wonder Woman in 2017, Aquaman in 2018, and Shazam in 2019. DC’s current strategy is kind of confusing though, with some plans to continue the DCEU, and other plans to do more standalone work.

So the fact that Marvel’s shared universe set of movies has worked and has been the only one to work so successfully is an anamoly and an achievement. Marvel was allowed to build its world over time, a luxury that was afforded to them by Paramount from 2008-2011 and by Disney when they were acquired in 2012. The first two phases of the MCU spanned ten films from 2008-2015, building a foundation for what the franchise is today. That type of patience has not been lended to DC in particular, something that ended up looking and feeling rushed and resulted in a less successful and less satisfying result in the DCEU.

The Marvel approach has changed not just the method of outside studios release strategies but also in releases within their Disney family. For studios to make money on these films, they have to culminate in an event to get people to the theater. Fewer and fewer indie films turn into financial successes, at least at the theater. So event movies galore are on the horizon at Disney. Disney proper has “live-action” remakes of classics animated classics Aladdin and Lion King coming out this summer. Pixar has Toy Story 4 set for a summer release as well, even though the third installment was originally thought to be the conclusion of the story. Lucasfilm has what has been announced to be the finale of the Skywalker saga in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker coming out this winter. Each of those marketed as an event, whether it be a nostalgic event, an unexpected continuation, or a conclusion of a story.

Up Next for the Disney and the Marvel Cinematic Universe

While Marvel Studios has changed the movie industry and pop culture, it is hard to say what the next step for the MCU is. We know of a few things coming though.

With the announcement of Disney’s streaming service, Disney+, coming in November, there were MCU projects also announced to debut on the service. Loki, Falcon/Winter Soldier, and Wanda/Vision will all get series on Disney+. There will also be an interesting What If series where they were explore what if scenarios of some of your favorite Marvel characters.

The MCU’s film future is less set. We know that Spider-Man: Far From Home (co-release with Sony Pictures) comes out in July and is set in the immediate events after Endgame. After that, we know a few projects are in production but no definitive release dates have been set. Projects include a Black Widow flashback, origin stories for The Eternals and Shang-Chi, and sequels for Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, and Black Panther as well as talks of sequels for Ant-Man and Wasp, Captain Marvel, and Thor (although I think the route for the Thor character should be to join the Guardians).

And then there is 21st Century Fox. Disney acquired the entertainment wing of Fox proper earlier this year (I was scared of Apple taking over the world, but Disney is closer to doing so). Fox owned the movie rights to all the Marvel properties included in the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. Fox’s run of X-Men movies presumably concludes this summer with Dark Phoenix. Since Marvel Studios now owns the movie rights to what has been traditionally two of the more popular Marvel brands, one would think some sort of reboot and integration into the MCU would be coming in this next chapter.

I’ll end on this. The Avengers Infinity Saga, the Star Wars Skywalker Saga, and Game of Thrones are all pop culture epics that will be ending their current chapters this year. It is hard to imagine the changing entertainment world will ever have subjects as impactful as these given the number of formats available and the vast number of entertainment options now available. Those three epics, especially the oldest being Star Wars, caught pop culture at a time when people would watch and experience the same thing. Soon, the event-centered entertainment world will grow smaller with less people gathering to experience and watch the same thing. Or maybe I’m wrong and every generation finds a way to galvanize to have that shared experience (Gone With The Wind, the original Star Wars, Titanic in the film world all being previous examples). I hope for the latter, but I can’t help but feel that the record-breaking Avengers: Endgame will be one of the last of its kind: an event that everyone wants to share and experience together.