The Avengers was a rip-roaring success which raised the expectations bar for the second movie. Although Age of Ultron did well at the box-office, it wasn’t a smashing hit. The big villain was an evil AI created by Tony Stark who is hell-bent on the destruction of humanity as it believes that is the only way to save it. The voice-over of Ultron is done by James Spader.
Thor: Ragnarok was supposed to pick up the pieces from Avengers: Age of Ultron, technically speaking, but Taika Waititi completely ignored everything that happened to Thor in Avengers 2 leaving a major plot hole in the entire narrative. In MCU phase 3, almost every movie botched up timeline without a proper explanation. For instance, in Civil War Vision said it’s been 8 years since Iron Man, Doctor Strange is a huge misfit alongside other movies etc. The general MCU timeline for Homecoming is supposed to be around 2016 in accordance with Civil War events. But the plot hole was that “The Avengers” is supposed to be in 2012, so “eight years after” puts it at 2020 which throws the current day premise out of the window. It should actually be four years later to ensure the timeline of the current crop of Marvel movies is intact.
In Thor: Ragnarok, despite bringing two of the mightiest superheroes under one roof, the movie was more standalone and paved the way for a mega team-up movie Avengers Infinity War in the post-credit scene. But if we look at the full character arc of Thor, it doesn’t make sense at all.
In the Age of Ultron, Thor went on his own mission as he was haunted by the visions of Asgard’s destruction to discover the truth about Infinity stones but clearly, that didn’t go well as he was shown to be a prisoner of Surtur in the first scene. It was never explained how he reached there in the first place.
He said that he did try to search for ‘ingots’ but only found death and destruction during his journey and then he gave up and somehow turned his attention to stop prophecy of Ragnarok. The Infinity stones are never discussed in the rest of the film. Loki steals Tesseract in the end like a piece of cake. The question is – What did mighty Thor do to track Infinity stones?
We know that there are six infinity gems in the MCU – Space gem (the first Infinity stone, popularly known as Tesseract which allows you to be omnipresent and warp yourself in any part of the universe. It is orange in color, although it was shown in blue and sits at the top of the fist, it is now in Loki’s pocket), Reality gem (It is the Aether from Thor: The Dark World, it has superlative mystical abilities, grants the user to make things happen that are otherwise impossible.
Lady Sif gave it to the Collector and its now in the rubble of his museum), Power Gem (It is purple in color and gives the user ability to access all forms of energy and boosts the power of other gems. It is locked away on Xander), Mind gem (It is yellow in color, when it’s used along with power gem it allows the user to simultaneously track the minds of all beings in the galaxy and manipulate them at will. It is in Vision’s forehead and Thanos will come for it) and Time stone is in the possession of Doctor Strange.
The only stone which has not been discovered is ‘Soul Stone’ which will be found in next year’s Black Panther to power advanced tech in Wakanda.
The biggest problem is Thor couldn’t have looked into them as he stated at the end of ‘Age of Ultron’ that Mind stone was “the fourth of the Infinity Stones to show up in the last few years”. This means that he knew about four Infinity gems already but he never chased any leads. For instance, Does he even know about Guardians of the Galaxy?
Apart from this, it is now reported that the ending of the Age of Ultron was changed due to major spoilers leaked online ahead of the film’s release. In the end, when Avengers defeated Ultron, Hulk took off in Quinjet in search of solitude, and we were told that S.H.I.E.L.D lost signal and he was last seen flying over the Caspian Sea.
The Marvel President Kevin Feige recently revealed that Avengers 2 was not supposed to end on that note. The plan was to tell the audience where he was actually heading.
In Thor: Ragnarok, it’s been revealed that Hulk/Bruce Banner fell into the wormhole when he was flying Quinjet and that he has been living as a famous gladiator on Planet Sakaar. Feige said that the idea was to give a more pronounced explanation of his disappearance instead of vague one which we got.
In a recent interview with The Wrap, Kevin Feige explained:
“You had the big scoop about us doing Planet Hulk. It turned out to be accurate (but) at the time, it was not accurate because we didn’t have any plans to do it and Joss (Whedon) was doing Age of Ultron at that time. The way it ends as you recall with Hulk in the Quinjet going off, right? We said, ‘Joss, we can’t do that because he’s not going into space and people are going to think we’re doing Planet Hulk because Umberto has some big hot scoop that we’re doing Planet Hulk, we can’t do it.’ He goes, ‘Well, what are you going to do?’ We said, ‘We don’t know.’ So, if you go back and look at that shot of the movie, he’s in the sky. It’s blue sky.”
The ending had a huge impact on Hulk fans as it totally eliminated the possibility of Planet Hulk movie. When Feige was asked about his thought on Planet Hulk movie, he said the studio has different plans. Although, its good that Marvel is thinking about an expansion of Hulk’s role in Marvel Phase 3 but trilogy means three solo films instead of small parts in three different movies.
On one hand, Ragnarok did a disservice to Age of Ultron plot but it was a great bridge for Avengers Infinity War. It managed to answer a huge question that fans were asking incessantly for days related to Infinity Gauntlet in the wake of a recent controversy.
There was a lot of confusion as to whether there are actually 2 Infinity Gauntlets that exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When Avengers: Age of Ultron came out, at the end of the movie, we saw the Infinity Gauntlet rising in a vault and Thanos appears and wields the Gauntlet from that vault saying, “Fine, I’ll do it myself” referring to him taking the charge against the Avengers by collecting all the Infinity Stones.
How can there be an Infinity Gauntlet full of all the Infinity Stones studded in it in the first Thor movie within Odin’s Vault or another one in the possession of Thanos? Well, then people thought that Thanos was wielding the same Infinity Gauntlet in Age of Ultron and somehow, he might have reached Odin’s Vault and the Gauntlet has been missing ever since without anyone noticing it.
But, this theory is not feasible as that Gauntlet had all the stones studded in it and the Gauntlet Thanos took out had none. Also, when you notice properly, Thanos takes out the Gauntlet with his left hand and the one in Odin’s Vault was for a right hand.
Thor: Ragnarok successfully took the easter-egg and turned it on its head. Also, the president of Marvel, Kevin Feige has confirmed that yes there are indeed 2 different Infinity Gauntlets and the one which is at Asgard with the stones on it did not have the real Infinity Gems, they were just decorative stones to make the Gauntlet look full. So basically, the Infinity gauntlet that Thanos is the real one.
So, all he has to do is collect the Infinity Gems, he already has “Black Order” i.e a group of ruthless mercenaries he picked up from Black Quadrant, assemble the gauntlet and use it for death and destruction. The only missing gem is “Soul Gem” which could be in the possession of Hela, and that’s why Thanos was interested to know what was going on in Asgard.
Here’s the official synopsis of Thor: Ragnarok:
“Imprisoned on the other side of the universe, the mighty Thor finds himself in a deadly gladiatorial contest that pits him against the Hulk, his former ally and fellow Avenger. Thor’s quest for survival leads him in a race against time to prevent the all-powerful Hela from destroying his home world and the Asgardian civilization”.
Chris Hemsworth aka Thor will return with his long hair in Avengers Infinity War.
Here’s the official synopsis of Avengers Infinity War:
“As the Avengers and their allies have continued to protect the world from threats too large for any one hero to handle, a new danger has emerged from the cosmic shadows: Thanos. A despot of intergalactic infamy, his goal is to collect all six Infinity Stones, artifacts of unimaginable power, and use them to inflict his twisted will on all of reality. Everything the Avengers have fought for has led up to this moment – the fate of Earth and existence itself has never been more uncertain”.
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