Avengers: Infinity War is the most highly anticipated comic book movie coming out next year and people are dying to see it since it is less than a month away from us. And, the hype keeps growing day by day as the Marketing drive that began this month including a brand new trailer gave us a lot to be excited about the upcoming Superhero extravaganza.
This Superhero movie is the biggest ensemble we have ever seen on the big screen as it has about 67 characters appearing in the movie and we will get to see about 35 Superheroes in a scene altogether. History will be created.
The scale and scope of this movie is huge, and the stakes are really high as this is the first time that Thanos will really make us feel his presence. It is going to be the longest MCU movie ever as the time clocks to be 2 hours and 36 minutes. This is enough time to do whatever Marvel wants to. Throughout the time span, we will see all the Superheroes assemble to go up against Thanos who is coming for the Infinity Stones that are hidden throughout the Universe.
Now, the timeline of this movie has also been confirmed, and it could get things messy just like Spider-Man: Homecoming did. Homecoming messed up the timeline by being set 8 years apart from the first Avengers movie. It was only set a month or two later than Captain America: Civil War, so that makes Civil War also a movie which is 8 years apart from the Avengers.
Similar to these movies, Doctor Strange and Black Panther are also set in similar timelines as Panther was just weeks apart from Civil War and Doctor Strange was certainly set before Spider-Man and after Civil War because we could see the Avengers tower in that movie, and in Homecoming, the tower was sold to an unknown buyer.
It was really hard for us to imagine this 8 years gap when things would have made much more sense if the gap was just around 4-5 years tops. And now, Infinity War brings even more timeline issues to think about. The timeline of the movie has been confirmed by Scarlett Johansson in her latest interview with ‘Entertainment Tonight’ as she claimed the movie to be set up 2-3 years after Civil War. Here’s what she said:
“When we last saw these characters in Civil War it’s been probably 2 or 3 years that have passed, and our characters have been kind of part of some sort of counter-terrorism unit efforts but we’re flying under the radar. You know, it’s a lot I think when you are on these kinds of missions with no governmental support. You don’t even have the support of just the general public, and you’re sort of running rogue, trying to do what you know is best for the common man but you don’t have someone to guide you or support you.
We’re kind of fractured ourselves, and then, of course, the last we saw Hulk he was floating into the stratosphere. Now we are reintroduced to this whole expanded universe. There’s been a lot of change that’s gone on since the original Avengers assembled.”
So this would mean that there is a significant gap between all other Phase 3 movies. This will mean that Peter Parker aka Spider-Man will have aged 2 years, T’Challa would be King for two years and Wakanda will have been open to the world for two years as well. Also, Doctor Strange will have been practicing his mystical abilities for around 2 years. So we will be missing a lot of character growth among these characters.
But here’s where the main issue in this timeline lies. For one second, we could believe that Civil War and Homecoming took 8 years to happen, but there is no way we could believe that Thor: Ragnarok is a year apart from Avengers: Infinity War. It was stated in Ragnarok that Age of Ultron was 2 years ago, so that makes Civil War be set a year after that, and also Ant-Man will have been months after Age of Ultron and months before Civil War.
Now, this totally contradicts Johansson’s statement of Infinity War being 2-3 years away from Civil War as Thor: Ragnarok leads right into it. In the mid-credits scene of Ragnarok, We saw the Sanctuary appear in front of Thor’s Ship full of Asgardians as they were moving towards Earth, and here’s when Thor would be beaten to death and be left floating in space to meet the Guardians. Now, there is no way that Thor could have been floating around in Space for a year and then be attacked by Thanos.
So, it just does not make proper sense and it is confirmed that the MCU timeline is very close to reaching X-Men levels of timeline mess where people don’t age at all and different characters appear to be totally different as they are recast or change appearances in very significant ways.
Let’s do a year count, Avengers was confirmed to be set in 2012 by the news bulletins for the attack of New York that we saw on Netflix shows. So, adding 8 years to that, Civil War and Homecoming will be set in 2020, Age of Ultron and Ant-Man in 2019, and Infinity War will be around 2022 or 2023.
So, this will raise a bunch of questions like Tony Stark being Iron Man for 14 years? Will Captain Marvel be set around 30 years in the past? Nick Fury, who looked to be in his 50s back in Iron Man will now be around 65-70 years old? God, this will make people go crazy thinking! Everything would be so easy and make much more if the timeline is brought back to being set in the same years as in real time.
But the good thing is that Marvel has acknowledged issues pertaining to the timeline and has decided to officially publish the larger MCU timeline, here is what Kevin Feige said:
“All of that debate has encouraged us. We are going to be publishing an official, and I’m not sure when, or in what format, an official timeline. It’ll probably be a part of ah, I don’t know, a part of an in print that you can fold out and look at. But suffice to say, only in limited cases do we ever actually say what the actual years are because we never want to be tied down to a particular year and I think people assume that whenever the movie is released is when is when the movie is taking place, and that is not the case.”
Avengers Infinity War will open worldwide on April 27, 2018. The movie is directed by Russo brothers who have an amazing track record of making epic comic book ensemble movies, Captain America: Civil War is the case in point. Kevin Feige is the producer along with a set of executive producers including Stan Lee, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso and Michael Grillo. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have written the screenplay.
Here is the official plot synopsis released by Marvel:
“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”.
“Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk and the rest of the Avengers unite to battle their most powerful enemy yet — the evil Thanos. On a mission to collect all six Infinity Stones, Thanos plans to use the artifacts to inflict his twisted will on reality. The fate of the planet and existence itself has never been more uncertain as everything the Avengers have fought for has led up to this moment”.
“An unprecedented cinematic journey ten years in the making and spanning the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Studios’ “Avengers: Infinity War” brings to the screen the ultimate, deadliest showdown of all time. The Avengers and their Super Hero allies must be willing to sacrifice all in an attempt to defeat the powerful Thanos before his blitz of devastation and ruin puts an end to the universe”.
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