ANNOUNCEMENEWSBLASTCAST: Instead of focusing on their respective Weeks in Geek or having an extended conversation, Andrew and D. decide to cover a lot of news that dropped this week including the trailer to season 2 of Marvel/Netflix’s Jessica Jones, 20th Century Fox’s Deadpool 2 trailer, the reveal of the video-game-based-on-a-tabletop-game-based-on-a-tabletop-card-game, Sentinels of Freedom, the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons lorebook, Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, and the passing of John Mahoney.
[This article has been updated by the author since seeing the film; the content remains spoiler-free. -D. Bethel]
When Marvel’s trailer for Avengers: Infinity War debuted, many comic fans, like myself, were excited. The culmination of ten years of dedicated movie watching will pay off in what MCU mastermind, Kevin Feige, has dubbed “[a thing] you’ve never seen in superhero films: a finale.” But being a self proclaimed comic expert, and even having my own YouTube Comic Book Show, means you become the person your friends text when they have questions. One that struck me after the trailer debut was “Who’s the purple dude that looks Hellboy-ish? The bad one who put a jewel into his knuckle?” The question is perfectly fair, although my response was a bit, um, charged:
“Um… Thanos? The Mad Titan. The ultimate villain that has been teased since Avengers ONE. WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHO IS THANOS?!!!!”
WHO IS THANOS? Thanos is not amused. Source: Marvel.com
That simple question led down a rabbit hole of a discussion with my friend about the fact that they missed Thanos inallthree of his movie appearances (two of which were post- or mid-credits scenes), and his mention in another. Then you have the Infinity Stones and how they fit in (literally and figuratively) with the Infinity Gauntlet and how all of this relates to the average moviegoer. When all is said and done, when you sort the movies out using those requirements, you have the following:
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 – Mentioned due to being Gamora/Nebula’s “adoptive” father.
Infinity Stones Appearances/Mentions
Thor (post-credits scene) – Tesseract/Cosmic Cube – Space Stone
Captain America: The First Avenger – Tesseract/Cosmic Cube – Space Stone
The Avengers – Tesseract/Cosmic Cube – Space Stone and The Scepter – Mind Stone
Thor: The Dark World – Aether – Reality Stone
Guardians of the Galaxy – The Orb – Power Stone and Aether – Reality Stone
Avengers: Age of Ultron – The Scepter/Vision’s head – “Mind Stone”, All 6 of the Stones were in Thor’s vision.
Captain America: Civil War – Mind Stone in Vision’s head
Doctor Strange – The Eye Of Agamotto – The Time Stone
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 – mentioned Power Stone again
Thor: Ragnarok – Thor was looking for the Stones from when he had that vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
So, counting the above, in order to understand Thanos and the Infinity Stones (minus the Soul Stone.. WHERE IS THAT BAD BOY?) before going into Avengers: Infinity War, a person would have to have seen ten of the eighteen movies over the last 10 years just to understand everything that doesn’t have to do with our main characters. But is all that necessary? Could we shorten the list? Or, alternatively, how short can we make the list and still have it all make sense?
How many movies do you need to watch to even understand this promotional image? Where is Thanos’s helmet? Source: Marvel.com
Let’s start out with movies from above you could skip as they are unrelated to most of the Infinity War plot (either secondary mentions of Thanos/Infinity Stones or no mentions).
Thor
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2
Then let’s take out movies that can have single line explanations in Infinity War to remove the bloat:
Captain America: The First Avenger – By the way, the Cosmic Cube/Tesseract was the macguffin of this movie and is seen in The Avengers.
Doctor Strange – The necklace Stephen Strange wears and uses in this movie has time powers and is the Time Stone
Thor: The Dark World – The Aether (aka red mist) was from this movie and that is actually an Infinity Stone.
So removing those means that only fourfive movies in the MCU have to do with the actual events of Infinity War from an understanding of the villain, giant cast of characters, and major plot points.
[UPDATE]: After seeing Avengers: Infinity War I would recommend that you watch All NINE of the below films for the most effective enjoyment of this film aka THE NEW HOTNESS. My recommendation is less due to the plot in all nine movies and more attributed to the character arcs and relationships that help push the plot of the new movie forward. However as far as plot goes, Thor: Ragnarok has been added to the list as it leads directly into Infinity War.
The Avengers
Guardians of the Galaxy
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Captain America: Civil War
Thor: Ragnarok
Not bad. But let’s add in some movies to round out character motivations, and side characters that may be pertinent to Infinity War:
Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Arguably the best MCU movie and introduces The Winter Soldier who’s a pretty major character at this point.
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 – MORE GUARDIANS (for real they added another member to the team in this movie. Plus, BABY GROOT!).
Spider-Man: Homecoming – Gives you more information on Spider-Man and his relationship with Tony Stark.
Black Panther – Many of the locations and characters from Black Panther are sure to be important in Infinity War based on the trailers alone.
Clearly, Black Panther is important. Look at all that Black Panther stuff going on. Source: Marvel.com
In conclusion, here is this comic nerd’s list of the movies you should probably watch before Avengers: Infinity War. Additionally, if you swap Avengers: Age Of Ultron for Iron Man (the first) these may be the best movies of the 18 MCU films anyway. The list below is in viewing order (by MCU chronology) with bolded titles being the MUST SEE four films.
The Avengers
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Captain America: Civil War
Spider-Man Homecoming
Thor: Ragnarok
Black Panther
With all nine of these movies under your belt, anyone should be able to enjoy Avengers: Infinity War to its fullest.
Have any suggestions or edits to this list? Let me know in the comments below!
Taylor Katcher doesn’t like sand. It’s coarse and irritating and gets everywhere. But he loves comics, typefaces, and most other things to a fault…mostly.You can follow Taylor’s unbridled love for stuff on Twitter.
THE STATE OF SUPERHERO CINEMA (AND TV): With so much superheroic media out there right now, and with Marvel, DC, and Fox swinging wildly on both the large and small screens, Andrew and D. Bethel take a look at how things are sorting out, how they’ve changed over the last year or so, and where things might go.
RELATED EPISODES:
Episode 27 – “Super Sleep Mode”: The first Thanksgiving episode where Andrew and D. Bethel discuss post-apocalyptic fiction.
WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew talks about the premier of the new (and final) season of Star Wars: Rebels while D. Bethel talks about Netflix’s new based-on-a-true-story-kind-of David Fincher-led crime drama, Mindhunter.
SPOOKYTOBER: In celebration of the scariest month of the year, Andrew and D. discuss a movie each that really, truly gave them the scaries. Andrew discusses the cult classic, Jacob’s Ladder, while D. discusses the forgotten gothic horror of The Others.
RELATED EPISODES:
Episode 20 – “Hydra Healthcare”: A previous Spookytober episode where, in the discussion, D. and Andrew discuss the video games that scared or unsettled them.
Although old news for just about everybody, Lucasfilm released a new trailer for the upcoming film in the Star Wars franchise, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. [Note: Your guess is as good as mine as to how many colons belong in that title. I’ll leave that for Dan to determine at a later date.] As with any Marvel/Disney/Lucasfilm trailer, there’s a lot being packed into two minutes and thirty-four seconds. For those that missed it, here it is:
I’m not really here to make any major speculation or draw any conclusions from this trailer. As a lot of people on the internet have already pointed out, there is a significant amount of clever cutting and editing. Any conclusions that you may draw from the trailer are entirely speculative (unless your conclusion is, “These people are in this movie”).
However, there is one thing from the trailer that has also appeared in several other forms of advertising media that has turned a few heads and gotten a few people talking: Luke Skywalker in various stages of “looking like a bad guy.” In the trailer, some attentive fans have looked at 1:47, where a defeated (and wet?) Luke says, “This will not go the way you think.” Others have referenced 1:53, where a wet Rey confronts what appears to be Luke in his grimdark outfit. [Note: we’re not entirely sure what wetness has to do with it, but it may be important.]
Of course, a few seconds of a trailer never amounted to anything. Don’t worry, because Lucasfilm did not stop there. Shortly before the release of the trailer, Lucasfilm released the new poster for the movie. It features everything one would expect from a movie titled, “The Last Jedi.” All the characters locked in seemingly action poses. A couple of lightsabers. Lots of … red? Judge for yourself:
Apparently, the primary color being used here is “Sith Red.”
And let’s not forget about the IMAX Standee, also released last week.
Big movie requires big standee.
The standee, which is cleverly divided into “good guys” on the left and “bad guys” on the right, also happens to feature one character on both sides: our man Luke Skywalker, again. We could go on with this, but it’s just speculative absurdity at this point.
What does it all mean? Apparently, we’re meant to believe that Luke is playing both sides in this movie. Or not? It’s never really clear. Teasing the fanbase is something that Lucasfilm (or, more appropriately, Disney) has turned into a veritable art form and a standard operating procedure. At this point, the only thing we know for certain is that a lot of people are going to go see the new Star Wars movie in mid-December.
WEEK IN GEEK: D. Bethel doubles up this time to talk about a personally exciting moment he experienced while at this year’s Alternative Press Expo in San Jose, CA, as well as seeing the new cinematic version of (half of) the Stephen King classic, It, while Andrew discusses playing SteamWorld Heist.
D. Bethel’s comprehensive recap of his time at APE 2017:
WEEK IN GEEK: In a fit of nostalgia, Andrew picks up The Sims 3 again (starts at 1:49) while Dan can’t get past a nit-pick to enjoy anything Netflix’s Castlevania has to offer (20:46).
SDCC 2017: [starts at 34:04] It was a big weekend for nerd culture as the San Diego Comic Con dropped a bunch of new trailers on the world. Dan and Andrew look at three trailers and how they seem to be pointing out the creative direction of their respective studios with Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok, DC/Warner Bros.’ Justice League, and Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One.
For reference, here are the three trailers the discussion focuses on.
WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew spends some time with the Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite Story Demo while Dan gets conflicted watching Transformers: The Last Knight.
WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew watches through the first season of the hit Starz show, Ash vs. Evil Dead while Dan plays through the 2014 Bethesda game, Wolfenstein: The New Order, the reboot of the classic first-person shooter Id franchise.
KEEPING SCORES: It was announced this week that Danny Elfman has been hired to compose music for the upcoming DCEU movie, Justice League, after the original composer, Tom Holkenborg (aka Junkie XL), amicably left the project. Dan and Andrew discuss the expectations for an Elfman score in a modern superhero cinema context, and discuss their thoughts on film and televisions scores in general.
