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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

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Spider-Man: Far From Home Thoughts Part 1 a.k.a. MCU Chapter 23

As I did for Homecoming I’m going to split my thoughts on the film up based on looking at it as a film unto itself/part of the MCU and then separately looking at it in terms of being an adaptation.

However in trying to write the former section I soon realized it was more practical to further partition coverage of the film.

Because MCU films can be looked at not merely as part of a film trilogy/quadrilogy (or as the latest chapter in a specific character’s arc) but as installments in the wider MCU story. Spider-Man: Far From Home is in essence simultaneously ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man 2′ and ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe Part 23′. And those two lenses do affect how you evaluate the film.

So as such I’m going to have three sections across...however many parts it takes. These posts are something of a stream of consciousness so I’m aiming for 3 parts but we’ll see what happens.

Let’s start with how this stacks up as the latest installment in the MCU Saga.

On a scale of Iron Man 3/The Dark World/Captain Marvel to Winter Soldier/Civil War/Endgame, Far From Home sits comfortably in a middling position, much like its predecessor.

Like Homecoming it’s a mostly entertaining time killer, decent popcorn fun...just not quite as high quality popcorn fun as say Avengers 2012 or Iron Man 2008.

Speaking of Iron Man his post-humorous presence in the film illustrative of a strength and weakness of the MCU’s narrative style, hence I’m going to talk a lot about it here.

Whilst the MCU is often touted (even by Disney themselves) as replicating the comic books’ shared cross continuity nature, in truth it doesn’t.

In Marvel comics one can mostly follow Iron Man or Spider-Man or Avengers runs on their own. The shared universe is there and comes into play at times, but really you don’t need to follow everything.

With the MCU, whilst a lot of the films are accessible you really couldn’t just watch the Iron Man Trilogy and call it a day because Tony’s arc plays out across other films too, it climaxes 5+ years after his last solo film. In essence the MCU is like a TV show wherein you get 2-3 episodes per year and the season finales are the Avengers movies.

This is relevant to Far From Home because, despite what anyone tells you, this is the start of Phase/Season 4 and it feels that way (it more or less states that to you at the start of the movie). As such the film acts as MCU Spider-Man 2 but also MCU Chapter 23/MCU Book 4 Chapter 1 and HAS to address the fallout of the last episode/chapter/season finale.

Thus Peter’s arc in FFH gets hijacked as a kind of Endgame/Tony Stark post-mortem...sorta. We’ll talk more about that in another post, but understand that in so far as Tony’s post-mortem does hijack the movie it undermines Peter’s personal narrative.

However, in regards to the post-Endgame state of affairs it is rather unsatisfying, almost disrespectful.

And by disrespectful I mean that as the Marvel Studios logo opens up we have a rendition of ‘I Will Always Love You’ (the Whitney Houston version I believe) over poorly picked out, low res stills of all Avengers who died or didn’t come back in Endgame; to the film’s credit it does look like something a high schooler would make. That is followed by the first of two clunky exposition drops played for laughs and repeating the unrequited romance joke between Betty and Jason from Homecoming, complete with a focus upon Jason’s bewilderment over now being older than his little brother. Oh and let’s not forget the gag about the high school band turning to dust and then reappearing in the middle of a basketball game to wacky effect. The film even makes a point of not addressing if the Avengers are even around as a team anymore, which is likely a meta commentary as well.

I’ll give the movie this, it made it’s intentions clear. It was not going to really treat the aftermath of the biggest MCU movie with much weight, it was going to be a superfluous, light, fluffy funfest. That’s a stupid direction to adopt after Endgame but at least it didn’t try to trick the viewers that it would be anything else.

Now in spite of that tone and approach the film could still explore how the post-Endgame world has changed. Maybe we won’t get anything dark or dramatic per se, but at least we’ll get some information right?

In fact, as much as I had disdain for this film going in, seeing the post-Endgame MCU was what I was really interested in. And the film delivered on that...initially...in the very same clunky exposition drop played for laughs.

We don’t talk about the blip again apart from 3 or 4 quick references, one of which explained who Mysterio was and why he could’ve duped Fury.

As for how this affected Peter, it didn’t. Many speculated Aunt May might’ve survived the blip but no, we’re told very explicitly she disappeared too.

This is very much a mixed bag for FFH as an MCU film and as a Spider-Man movie (yes I know I said I was separating those two things but it’s more efficient for this next part).

On the one hand for those who want to follow the broader MCU story FFH gives them answers but brief ones. It’s the equivalent to simply googling the answer to a murder mystery rather than experiencing the story unfold towards that answer. We had a huge opportunity to examine the ramifications of such a globally changing phenomenon but we simply acknowledge it happened and then press on as though it didn’t. The same opening exposition makes that clear too when it says that they’re moving on.

On the other hand were the film to properly explore the ramifications of the blip it would hijack the whole movie, even more than the Iron Man post-mortem already was.

On the other other hand having everyone of relevance to Peter’s life (sans Happy and Tony) die and come back, keeping them all ‘synched’ with him basically, is extremely convenient.

On the other other other hand it’d derail his narrative in a huge way if MJ or Ned or May (who’s still not ‘Aunt May’ btw because fuck this movie) were suddenly in their 20s.

On the other x4 hand the presence of such a massively fantastical event like death and resurrection (along with aliens and space technology) has already derailed the verisimilitude of his solo films which began by painting themselves as comparatively more down to Earth and ‘friendly neighbourhood’ even in spite of alien tech being repurposed. The same applies to having him go on international adventures; yet another inconsistency between this and the last Spidey movie.

So it’s very much a case of pick your poison.

Getting back to this film as a Tony Stark tribute, when viewed as part of the ongoing MCU saga it’s presence and handling succeeds more than it fails.

As I said Tony began the MCU and along with Cap was one of the twin pillars holding it up, so his death demands examination. On a metatextual level we need a film grieving Tony Stark before we can move on to the next step.

So in this regard the film giving so much attention to the hole left behind by him and how that’s really the impetus for the entire primary plot of the film is incredibly fitting.*

This applies to Mysterio in a sense.

I’ll talk more about his place when compared to certain other villains in a future instalment, but in the context of this movie his role as a kind of evil Iron Man/pretender to Iron Man’s throne works well. In fact he’s an exceptionally great villain...for Iron Man.** You see where I’m going with this, but that’s for another post.

Lets switch gears a little and discuss another wider MCU element, Nick Fury. At certain points of the film I felt Fury was out of character and a huge jerk. But twist at the end that it was actual Talos mitigated all that, it made sense. It also addressed another huge problem I was having with the movie up until that point, the absence of other heroes.

Like in the trailers the movie takes strides to address why Thor, Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange can’t help out against the Elementals. But of course this leaves the huge problem of literally everyone else. You could make a case for Falcon and Winter Soldier being of little use against such seemingly powerful foes like the Elementals, but what about Scarlet Witch, Black Panther, Valkyrie, etc? Thankfully the Talos reveal addresses this as Talos is ultimately not Nick Fury so wouldn’t have access to all those heroes.

It also sets up for future films, implying the Kree/Skrull War is far from over and that we will soon be seeing S.W.O.R.D.

Really that’s all there is to say about the movie moving forward into the MCU.

We get answers but they’re underwhelming and unsatisfying whilst getting a movie grieving Tony Stark and making the audience feel his loss.

If only Spider-Man himself seemed to feel as upset...

*Too bad all the comedy and light teen drama crap undermines it.

**In fact the entire villainous crew and villain scheme revolves around Iron Man’s legacy. I guess that makes this film also a.k.a. Iron Man in Memoriam

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quillium · 5 years

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Alright, let’s talk Far From Home and character arcs. As you know, the typical character arc moves in four main points. The protagonist wants something, they can’t have it, they must act to obtain it and they end with changed ideals, realizing that their goal wasn’t actually what they wanted.

Alright. Great. How does this tie into FFH? Let’s start with what Peter wants at first: A break from being Spider-man. This is clearly shown when he makes the decision to leave the suit at home, but it’s also shown/implied in other moments such as when he has a panic attack in front of the reporters and says out loud that he just wants a nice break in Europe where he can ask out MJ and not be Spider-man. He wants a break from Spider-man. He wants to be normal.

Great. Fine goal. Except. The typical character arc implies that this is a bad goal and that Peter’s ideals here are not good. I think you’re reading a bit too much into this, you say. Well, let’s keep going.

The second part. They can’t obtain their goal. Peter’s hopes of avoiding Spider-man during his vacation are dashed when ‘Nick Fury’ approaches him and the whole Mysterio debacle occurs. Furthermore, May Parker, the older guardian who’s supposed to look after Peter, packs his suit for him. Add this on top of Peter receiving EDITH and being told it’s for “the next Tony Stark” (also is nobody addressing the fact that Peter shouldn’t have to be the next anything?), it seems like Peter can’t really avoid being a hero. He’s got to do it. He can’t avoid this. Well...

This brings us to the third bit. He must act to obtain his goal. So Peter acts. He tries to focus on his vacation. Clearly tells them no, I’m not going to be a hero, I’m on vacation, I’m trying to be normal and ask out a girl I like. He gives EDITH to Mysterio. And, of course. We see what happens here.

Total disaster.

Things go nuts! Mysterio is evil. Peter can’t trust anyone. The Avengers are off wherever and Peter’s the only one who can stop Mysterio, who seems to only have become so powerful and succeeded so well in his plan because Peter allowed it to happen. Because Peter tried to avoid his responsibility--because Peter wanted to be normal, wanted to avoid being a hero.

So this brings us to the conclusion of Peter’s arc. The jet scene. Peter accepts that he has to be a hero--that he’s apparently the only one who can stop Mysterio (BS if you ask me, where the heck are the Avengers?). Peter’s arc concludes with him realizing he can’t be normal, he has to be Spider-man, and it’s his duty to continue being a superhero and he must hold the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Great, you say. But isn’t that a good message? That you should take responsibility and not shirk from it? Maybe (and that’s a very big maybe). But we’re also talking about a seventeen-year-old kid. Maybe it’s because I’m around Peter’s age, but Peter should not be dealing with this kind of responsibility.

Where are the adults? Where are the people to protect Peter when he’s basically tortured and hit by a train? Where are the people who say you’re hurt and scared and that’s okay, I’ll take it from here? I’ll tell you where. They’re dead. Because the only person who did that for Peter is Tony and he’s dead.

Why is there nobody else to help Peter? To even support him? May packs Peter’s suit despite him not wanting it. Happy basically says “you can do it, now go do it” but never offers Peter an out. Fury--don’t even get me started.

You’re misreading the movie, you’re thinking, this isn’t about Peter wanting to be normal. It’s about him being scared to live up to Tony, it’s about him feeling insecure about stepping in Iron Man’s shoes.

I think that’s how they wanted to handle it. But it wasn’t shown like that. It’s heavily implied that he’s insecure, but never expressly said up until the jet scene. Instead, Peter explicitly states that he wants to be normal. That he wants to have some peace and quiet and ask out MJ. He doesn’t even want to quit full time! Just have a break! But he can’t even have that.

It just feels a bit heartbreaking. Peter shouldn’t be forced to be a hero. It should be that he sees that he can do good and chooses to do it. Not he has to or else everyone he loves and tons of people will die because of him. He’s just a kid.

#mcu #marvel #spider-man far from home #far from home #spider-man #peter parker #I'm just--a bit upset #anyways if you disagree feel free to tell me #but be nice and polite about it i'm small #thoughts? comments?#quilliumrants #me: after calming down and taking some time to step away from my anger I've realized that I'm totally justified #i didn't touch on some things because I felt I covered them in my initial rant #anyways... I can't be the only person who walked out of the theatre with a sinking feeling in my gut

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gotgifsandmusings · 6 years

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Full musings on Infinity War

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: I'm just waiting for your thoughts on Thanos. I know there will be thoughts.

Ha, there are thoughts indeed. I was thinking of recording a video about it, but my mic seems to be messed up from the journey, and Griffin’s mic picks up everything...

Alright, fuck it, I’ll just write everything I was thinking about Infinity War, because overall I’d call it a frustrating viewing experience.

FULL MOVIE SPOILERS are below the cut, so you have been warned.

Very warned.

Okay then, let’s get into it.

I want to be able to have a neatly packaged thesis statement of “I did/didn’t like it,” but I do think my dissatisfaction with it is a bit more nuanced? Like, I was viscerally annoyed sitting through Ragnarok, and a lot of that were thanks to the expectations I had going into it. Here, I kind of didn’t care that much and didn’t read spoilers for that reason. Griffin was super hype to see it, I knew Lindsay Ellis didn’t react favorably to it on Twitter, and those two things alone were my only basis for any expectations.

I tend to have my mind wander think, “am I liking this?” during a movie screening. Had I been asked during this one, I couldn’t have clearly answered at all, at least not until the very end. There were some jokes and dialogue I laughed at, the action pieces always felt earned by the context, though not necessarily incredibly engaging. It was a mixed bag, maybe, but it was more just me kind of nodding along at the direction. Not in a “cool” way, but more a, “okay here’s what they’re doing now.” It became very obvious Thanos was going to get the all stones this movie, and equally obvious that it was not going to be fully resolved, so it was really the question of how and where the final action piece would fall.

Gamora’s death was some bullshit. I sort of felt like it sucked out the emotional tension, since this is just big purple dude from space beaming in with stones who doesn’t have any direct connection to 98% of the characters. But even more than that, I was having trouble understanding what they were going for there at all.

I didn’t see GOTG2, though I want to. However, I do know about the familial dynamics with Gamora and Nebula and Thanos. I think Gamora giving up the soul stone location to save her was seeded, at least from what I understand went down. And frankly, I can even track Gamora kissing Peter given the stakes, given she asked him to kill her, and so on. What loses me was why they painted her death as a sacrifice of Thanos’s, because it’s 100% clear this guy is an abuser to her and Nebula, and then even backing out of this, he’s 100% incapable of empathy, which is why his solution to ~famine~ is a glove that can literally do anything (like...you know...make resources more plentiful or increase education about birth control or something), and his solution is still “equal opportunity genocide.”

So that Gamora was explicitly shown to us to be someone he loved to get the soul stone sends all kinds of really dangerous messages, and also does it banking on the believability of his philosophical commitment to thinning the herd. Except that philosophy itself falls apart with minor scrutiny. His planet fell apart because of thin resources, so he can extrapolate that to the universe? And he really believes just arbitrarily murdering half the population would do anything, without addressing birth rates, or power structions, or anything at all?

It was just so, so, so weak as a motivation for him. And I’m absolutely flabbergasted critics are seriously comparing Thanos to Killmonger as two villains with “understandable” motivations. These are two massively different scales of understandability, right?? How is there any basis for comparison other than to say, “wow Thanos is a shitty villain after Killmonger.”?

The problem is, Thanos was the closest thing we had to a movie protagonist, since it was his journey. But there’s nothing remotely sympathetic about what he’s trying to accomplish, or particularly logical, and to have him be the one to “sacrifice” to get there was like...for what? Otherwise we wouldn’t have believed how hardcore he was?

I think how much this movie lands for someone is going to fall entirely on their view of Thanos. I wasn’t impressed and I don’t understand why this is the guy they built towards, and specifically him and the infinity gauntlet.

Because yeah, that damned gauntlet. I really can’t stand unclear power scaling like that. The gauntlet can do anything with all the stones in it, but minus two of them, Dr. Strange can go toe-to-toe with Thanos? It’s just...the fights became increasingly irrelevant because Stones of Random Power so things happen that need to happen just because. They are one of the most profoundly uninteresting plot devices I can think of.

Oh also? Hands down the worst moment was when Starlord was so full of Manpain about Gamora that he ruined Peter Parker and Tony Stark almost getting the gauntlet off Thanos. Just utter horseshit there. Not to mention even going with the mapain, he could have just shot him in the face or slit his throat instead of punching him, and then boom, movie over.

Idk, that moment, along with Gamora’s death earned heavy eyerolls. There are so many more inventive ways to have those guys lose a fight to him, or to have Thanos obtain the soul stone, and I don’t see her dead body being the necessity for any of them. Especially with the soul stone. Maybe Thanos creates some kind of illusion using the reality stone where Gamora thinks she has to get the soul stone in her possession to save Nebula, and then Thanos is able to take it. Idfk. Just...why this?

(Also the Guardians felt super off to me. I know stuff happened in GOTG2, but it seemed obvious they weren’t being penned by their usual writer.)

I do want to address the darkness of this movie. I got one ask saying it was acedia at its finest, and another saying that no, the thesis of the movie was that every life is important (Steve says this to Vision) and we fight for something saving or whatever. I lean more with the acedia anon.

If anyone is reading this and doesn’t know the spoilers, the movie ends with Thanos, having assembled all of the stones, snapping his fingers and killing half of the universe. The finger snap itself is mentioned as the threat and how easy it’d be fore him to do it at least 5 times, so it was certainly seeded. Then, we get a lovely sequence where we watch half the Wakandaans turn to dust, T’Challa among them, along with half the Avengers: bye bye Sam, Bucky, Elizabeth Olsen, every Guardian of the Galaxy except Rocket, Dr. Strange, and Peter Parker. That’s after already watching Vision, Gamora, Loki, and Heimdall get killed by Thanos.

Like yes, everyone knows this is not going to stand. We are shown about two minutes before this charming sequences Thanos going back in time because he has the time infinity plot device, and we also know Avengers 4, GOTG 3, Black Panther 2, the next Spiderman follow-up, and so on are in the works.

Oh except children in the audience. There was a BAWLING 7-year-old outside the theater, and what do you tell them? “Don’t worry, it’s just the Russo brothers doing it because they can, and they want to seem edgy and bold”? It’s not bold. It’s kind of the biggest cop-out possible, because we know nothing is permanent now, it’s probable everyone who died in this is brought back (...maybe Loki or Heimdall or all of the Asgardians are exceptions? maybe?), and it was basically just an exercise in the limitations of the movie medium for comic narratives.

But thank god we got to watch all of our heroes horrifically die with everyone reacting to them. Like good god, the very young Peter Parker had to be given time to freak out about how he feels sick and doesn’t want to go? What was the point of that? Or was that the reserved take, and in the full cut there was actually a death scene for Princess Shuri too or something.

Speaking of Shuri and Wakanda, I do want to say that I think there’s an element of this that’s in poor taste. Black Panther is *still* airing in theaters, and there have been how many pieces coming out about the importance of representation and what Wakanda meant to so many viewers. So the fact that it was in Wakanda when we see half the population dying... Like, I do like that Wakandans were given an instrumental role in end-of-the-world stakes. But then that meant that yeah, you’d watch half of them crumble to dust in that sequence. Yes, you know that half of San Diego is also crumbling to dust, but it’s a little more viscerally upsetting to see it.

And honestly, why couldn’t T’Challa have been a living Avenger in this? Why was his death particularly necessary? The body count of black characters was kind of high across the board when you take into account Heimdall and Sam (and out-of-universe Zoe Saldana as Gamora. Oh and then Nick Fury in the post-credits. Also is Valkyrie implied to have been with the half of the Asgardians that lived, or did she die off-screen? Cause I’m not sure I imagine her *not* fighting back.). I’m not sure if this is a point of contention with viewers for the most part, but there was just something about T’Challa’s unceremonious death alongside half his country where you’re like, “seriously, why is this what they’re showing now?”

Because guess what? It wasn’t an effective ending! We KNOW it’s being turned back, especially given the utterly ridiculous volume of deaths with key characters who we know have movies. You know what would have been a better ending for this? Just...Thanos snapping. That’s it. “You should have aimed for my head. *Snap*.” Cut to black.

There was no reason I can think of to have been this explicit about everyone’s deaths when they’re just temporary anyway. “Hey kids, enjoy your horror-free entertainment!” Especially Peter Parker’s death. That really, really felt like acedia at its finest.

Because part of the thing with acedia, as Gretchen has so eloquently explained, is that it’s a dark kind of writing where nothing really matters, bad shit just happens. And boy if *that* wasn’t the actual thesis statement of the movie.

Steve said that no, you save every life because that’s what you fight for. But that point was heavily undercut multiple times in the film. There seemed to be countless situations where a character had to either kill or consider killing someone they loved for the greater good (or not saving someone they loved, or giving Thanos keys to something really bad). It was utilitarianism vs. the power of emotional connection, and it was constant. Frankly, it was pretty cohesive.

Except magic man got magic gauntlet and did magic thing, so choice was rendered completely useless.

All told, once this movie is put together with Avengers 4, it’s possible there is some message that works to this end. But right now we essentially got half a movie based around an incredibly weak motivation that we know is all going to be back-dialed anyway. But thank god we got to traumatize kids in the name of ~boldness~ in the process.

Loki gave over the Tesseract but tried to kill Thanos, and got punished for it. Peter pulled the trigger to kill Gamora like she asked and got punished for it. Gamora tried to stab herself and got punished for it. Gamora tried to save Nebula at the cost of an infinity stone and got punished for it. Trying to save Vision didn’t work. Trying to not save Vision didn’t work.

Nothing mattered. Except apparently Thanos “sacrificing” Gamora. Wow, what commitment to bullshit philosophy and a laughable “solution” to a problem that is at best, temporary in nature.

This was a downer of a film, and not in a way that made me interested to see the resolution. I just want this out of Marvel’s system. It was event comics writing at its worst, and using an event that never could have really worked for this medium with this schedule of releases.

So okay, fine, my thesis statement is: I really didn’t like it. The longer I think about it the more annoyed I am. Had it ended five minutes earlier, I would have had major issues with it, but it would have been more of an “...okay then” kind of thing. Gamora got the shortest end of the stick, from what I can see. But nothing really came together, and the climax with the RANDOM EVIL ARMY was just going through the motions.

Honestly? If I had to sit through this or Dark World again, I’d choose the latter in a heartbeat. That was a mess and often boring in places, but at least the climax was inventive and fun, and there was lip-service to character development. This was just...an event. Can’t wait for it to not matter at all!

#avengers: infinity war #infinity war spoilers #not got #mcu #thanos

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