We are going to take a short break from blogging about video game development to talk about something different, but still related to one of our favorite topics: storytelling. Jeremy and Mark are going to discuss the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU): Avengers: Infinity War.

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains many spoilers for the movie. We strongly recommend that you do not read on unless you’ve already seen Avengers: Infinity War.

MARK: Now that we’ve both seen Avengers: Infinity War, what is your overall impression of the movie?

JEREMY: I thought it demonstrated all of the strengths of the Marvel movies to date: different groups of characters interacting, a huge cast where nobody feels slighted and the whole thing isn’t unwieldy, and there was a good mix of superhero action with a personal touch.

MARK: I agree. They did a remarkable job juggling such a huge cast of characters without it feeling like a mess.

Was there anything in particular that you really liked or didn’t like about the movie?

JEREMY: There was very little not to like. The only complaint I’ve really heard from anyone is that while it doesn’t necessarily end on a cliffhanger, you know that this can’t be how the series will be left.

And I think they really succeeded at the one thing that they have struggled with in the past, which is to have a great villain. I loved the Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming, but aside from him and Loki, you don’t get a whole lot of MCU baddies who you can actually remember. But Thanos was a great villain. How did you feel about its choice of villain?

MARK: I think Thanos was my favorite thing about this movie, and I loved that they took the villain and made him the protagonist. Thanos got a lot of screen time.  He was sympathetic.  His insane scheme almost sounded logically merciful at times.  He had some great emotional scenes regarding family and love.  And, in the end, he triumphs and achieves his goal.  In my mind, he was in every way the main character of the film.

And the moviemakers confirmed that by saying “Thanos Will Return” at the end of the credits instead of “The Avengers Will Return”.  I was not expecting Thanos to be the star of the movie, so it surprised me, but I loved it and I thought it was a brilliant move.

What are your thoughts on Thanos as the protagonist and who do you see as the heroes and villains in this movie?

JEREMY: This was a great film for illustrating that “protagonist” and “hero” are not necessarily the same thing. The protagonist is the person who wants something, and the heroes were the ones putting roadblocks in his way, which technically makes them the antagonists.

I think this could’ve easily not felt as fun as your typical MCU film because you had a collection of somewhat flawed heroes and a villain who you can almost relate to, except that he did have four minions working for him who were thoroughly evil and unredeemable. That way the viewer could get some satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment by the heroes defeating all of Thanos’s Black Order, even as they utterly fail to stop Thanos himself.

And when you start to feel too soft on Thanos, you get a scene of him torturing one of his daughters to get to the other one. The film felt to me like it was getting at the sort of complexities of character and motivation that a show like Game of Thrones demonstrates regularly, though not quite, because the viewer never loses sight that Thanos is, in fact, the bad guy. And I think they did a good job of using him as the through-line that held together this mashup of all the other heroes’ worlds.

What do you think that the MCU did right when bringing together a bunch of different film worlds that sometimes vary considerably in tone?

MARK: I think they gave us what we wanted and expected from each group of characters.  To give a couple of examples: Pairing Tony Stark and Peter Parker together gave us more of the fun father-figure vs teenager back-and-forth that we had in Spider-Man: Homecoming. And when the Guardians of the Galaxy first appear onscreen we see them lip-syncing to a 70’s tune, which immediately reminds us of the two Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

In addition to giving us what we expected, they gave us some new interactions between characters meeting for the first time that I found thoroughly enjoyable; for instance, the humorous interactions between Thor and Star-Lord.

And on the topic of humor, one common thread that I’ve really liked in these Marvel movies is that they don’t take themselves too seriously.  And neither does Infinity War.  Despite the fact that Marvel has been building up this crescendo for ten years, they still had fun with it and poked fun of their own film.

When Star-Lord called Thanos “Grimace”, it’s definitely funny, but it’s also pointing out that, yes, we the filmmakers acknowledge that the main character is a big purple guy.  I also really liked it when Tony Stark summarized the plot-so-far to Peter Parker as “He’s from space and he wants to steal a necklace from a wizard.”

JEREMY: Yes, I also loved that Iron Man line.

MARK: Put it that way and yes, it makes the whole plot sound silly — because it is — which makes us laugh and then we can go on enjoying it despite — or because of — its quirks.

Furthermore, they kept the tone from becoming too serious by following a serious scene (Star-Lord promising on his mother – and we know how much she meant to him – that he’ll kill Gamora – knowing how much she means to him – if she gets captured) with a silly one (Drax crunching potato chips while watching them while being “invisible”).

And I loved that Thor called Rocket Raccoon “rabbit” throughout.

What did you think of the humor in the film?

JEREMY: Yeah, ”Rabbit” and “Tree.” The humor in Thor: Ragnarok and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was so thick that it undermined my enjoyment of those movies.

MARK: I agree, I felt the same way about those two films. They were enjoyable but they were almost too silly.

JEREMY: In Infinity War, even though Thor and the Guardians were still spitting out lots of jokes, there’s enough grim seriousness in the movie to balance it out.

I also liked the line were Okoye is asking why they had been keeping Scarlet Witch back in the base after she showed she could single-handedly annihilate the enemy’s entire front line.

One of my favorite moments was the payoff related to the soul stone. We’re in an era where every bit of foreshadowing in TV and film feeds into the Internet’s massive crowdsourced plot prediction machine. There were many theories on where the soul stone might be: It seemed like it could’ve been in Wakanda and partly responsible for their technological advancement, or maybe Heimdall had it and that would explain his orange eyes and the reason he could see into your soul. But no, Marvel surprised us and put it on a planet watched over by Red Skull who had been sent there by the space stone.

MARK: So you were impressed that Marvel still managed to surprise us?

JEREMY: Yes, I thought it was notable that Marvel could still outmaneuver the collective brainstorming of the Internet. And they included Red Skull so it still felt connected to the greater story line.

Were there any surprises that stood out for you?

MARK: I think the biggest surprise for me was the ending.  Not because I naively thought everyone was going to make it out, but because I didn’t think it would be left so unresolved.  But I then immediately remembered that during production this movie was once called Infinity War “Part 1″.  They later dropped the “Part 1” but clearly it is still the first part of a two-parter.  If I’d known that going in (e.g., if they’d kept “Part 1” in the title), I think would’ve been less letdown by the ending.

JEREMY: I knew a bit about the comic book Infinity War, which suggests Thanos would get all the stones, so I wasn’t too surprised by the ending. And with Dr. Strange seeing the future and then choosing that path it really made it feel like the ending was hopeful rather than just a big bummer. This movie also avoided the problem I had with the first of the final two-part Harry Potter films, which was that this movie was a complete narrative in itself.

MARK: Good point about it having a complete story arc. Ending it with Thanos looking at the sunset and smiling was a sort of satisfying ending, to my surprise and enjoyment.

JEREMY: Later, I took a look at it through the lens of the Hollywood Formula. The protagonist is clearly Thanos: he wants something concrete, to use the stones to kill half of everyone. The antagonist is the various collections of Avengers, because they’re trying to prevent it. And the relationship character is Gamora. The theme of the movie seems to revolve around what someone is willing to do to achieve their goals, and maybe even if you would choose that over those you love. It shows up with her and with Wanda ultimately deciding to kill Vision to prevent Thanos getting the stone. And in classic Hollywood Formula-style they revisit that theme when he snaps his fingers and is transported to a place with a young Gamora who asks him if he did it, and what it cost.

Do you have any characters in this film that you felt that you understood or identified with, or maybe just thought was really cool? If you were showing up to play an Infinity War RPG, who would you want to be?

MARK: Honestly I think Thanos is my favorite character in the movie.  I respected that he had a strong sense of his own destiny and that he wasn’t going to let anything stand between him and fulfilling that destiny.

If I were playing an RPG, of course I’d want to be Thanos!  How cool would it be to have a character that can telekinetically grab a moon and throw it at his enemies?  My second choice would probably be Thor.  I’ve enjoyed all of his movies and I just really like the character and I liked that he had an important role in this movie, too.

JEREMY: The moon throw was awesome. I was walking around snapping my fingers for a week after I saw the movie, so I guess I would also pick Thanos. But if I had to pick a good guy, I’m probably going with Spider-Man. I love how they finally got Spider-Man right: he’s young, he dives right in over his head, and he talks the whole time. He’s extremely competent but you can see him struggling with a touch of imposter syndrome. He’s trying hard to be the hero he already happens to be. I also liked that between Tony Stark, Dr. Strange, and this kid, the kid was the one figured out how to kill Ebony Maw.

MARK: What about any favorite non-comedy moments, such as emotional moments or action moments?  I thought the most powerful scene in the movie for me was hands-down the moment that Thanos drags Gamora to the edge of the cliff.

JEREMY: As for emotional moments, the one where Thanos kills Gamora was the big one. And there were plenty of others too, especially when people started evaporating. Of those, I think I liked the simple look of relief that was on The Scarlet Witch’s face when she realized she wasn’t going to have to keep living with Vision dead.

MARK: I completely agree that this movie had a surprising amount (at least, for a blockbuster superhero action flick) of emotional and very human moments, and that was one thing I really enjoyed about the movie.

Any final thoughts?

JEREMY: Well, I am excited for the next few films and the resolution to this story, but I’m even more excited that now that they bought Fox that we might get some Fantastic Four movies that don’t suck (just as it happened with Spider-Man) and Dr. Doom and Galactus. What about you?

MARK: Agreed, I would love to see some Galactus and Silver Surfer enter this version of the MCU!

I thought Infinity War did what few movies (especially big budget blockbusters) can do: It lived up to the hype.

I love the Marvel movies and I hope that they could become for this current generation of youngsters what the Star Wars movies were for our generation growing up in the 80’s.