Fawbish
Sr Member
Re: Avengers: Infinity War
We have technically been introduced to the Celestials.
I think they need to go full throttle with his back story. If you don't go full throttle on this one, Thanos will suffer. If you don't get into the idea that he worships the physical embodiment of death (that concept alone will be difficult to portray with the right gravitas on screen) to such a degree that he willingly murders his family for her (ultimate mistress) and then essentially nukes his own race, then it's going to feel like Thanos-light. We don't want that.
Take us to Titan, show us Eternal parents, nice little voice over explaining the Celestials creating life on earth, and life elsewhere. Link it to the Guardians head mining scene. Show Thanos upbringing as a Deviant Eternal hybrid scenario, and his growing hatred and obsession with nihilism over the years as a short montage.
As much as I absolutely adore GotG, it does feel like they have slightly stifled what they might be able to do with him. His words are impressive so far ("I will bathe the star ways in your blood" is a particular favourite) but his actual actions don't feel like someone that should be the biggest threat to the ******* galaxy the MCU has ever faced.
However - some of what you're saying I think can be conveyed by his physical threat. If he literally is easily able to swat aside the Hulk, severely injure Thor, crack open Iron Man like a sardine can etc. That would be very, very interesting. What happens when the Avengers are genuinely outmatched physically? We haven't seen that yet. They've always had fodder to fight (which will happen again I imagine, with another alien race).
Speaking of which, we've never seen what planetoid Thanos is on when he is in his chair - I've just thought for the first time - is it a ravaged/desolate Titan already?
It's fascinating to hear the commentary track on Civil War where Markus, McFeely and the Russos discuss the writing process and how they navigated the inherent pitfalls with a project this complex and how they were able to subvert audience expectations. So I've been contemplating the problems with dealing with Infinity War which, in the comics, seems a fairly typical villain/macguffin vehicle but on a grand scale. In the MCU Thanos shouldn't just be some giant cosmic megalomaniac, which is kind of what we expect.
I think they need tune up Thanos' motivations and make them interesting if not completely novel or unexpected. His infatuation/romance with the literal embodiment of death can be approached in some interesting ways. The scale of Thanos could be conveyed by keeping him distant (emotionally and/or physically) and enigmatic, perhaps like how Galactus was sometimes portrayed in the early comics where even the presence of humans in his craft were as inconsequential as houseflies.
His nature and abstract motives (e.g. romance with death) might be revealed through Dr. Strange. I see Thanos as a being omnipresent in multiple planes of reality and whose enigmatic psyche might reflect his perception of multiple (all?) planes of reality.
While Thanos' portrayal in GotG seemed more conventional, there are a number of ways to contrive an explanation for that departure. Of course we can also simply presume much of his development occurred as a result of him possessing the stones - in which case we have every excuse to reinvent him from the ground up. It also separates him further from Gamora and Nebula (I always felt like the existence of two "daughters" could attenuate Thanos' "stature" as a big bad. i.e. How enigmatic can he actually be if he has two "daughters" who seem entirely relatable as characters?). His possession of the stones could corrupt him into a transdimensional omniscient being - but that premise, at face value, also is already a well-worn device (LotR etc.).
I'm just going to spitball my ideas in this thread.
With the scale of this film we might also use the opportunity to also allude to or introduce grand cosmic beings, like Eternity, the Celestials, etc.
We have technically been introduced to the Celestials.
I think they need to go full throttle with his back story. If you don't go full throttle on this one, Thanos will suffer. If you don't get into the idea that he worships the physical embodiment of death (that concept alone will be difficult to portray with the right gravitas on screen) to such a degree that he willingly murders his family for her (ultimate mistress) and then essentially nukes his own race, then it's going to feel like Thanos-light. We don't want that.
Take us to Titan, show us Eternal parents, nice little voice over explaining the Celestials creating life on earth, and life elsewhere. Link it to the Guardians head mining scene. Show Thanos upbringing as a Deviant Eternal hybrid scenario, and his growing hatred and obsession with nihilism over the years as a short montage.
As much as I absolutely adore GotG, it does feel like they have slightly stifled what they might be able to do with him. His words are impressive so far ("I will bathe the star ways in your blood" is a particular favourite) but his actual actions don't feel like someone that should be the biggest threat to the ******* galaxy the MCU has ever faced.
However - some of what you're saying I think can be conveyed by his physical threat. If he literally is easily able to swat aside the Hulk, severely injure Thor, crack open Iron Man like a sardine can etc. That would be very, very interesting. What happens when the Avengers are genuinely outmatched physically? We haven't seen that yet. They've always had fodder to fight (which will happen again I imagine, with another alien race).
Speaking of which, we've never seen what planetoid Thanos is on when he is in his chair - I've just thought for the first time - is it a ravaged/desolate Titan already?