The 19th installment of the massively successful Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers: Infinity War has embarked with a thunderous box office collection, beating Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and leveling Justice League’s entire collection in mere three days. It has opened to a mammoth $260 million plus an opening weekend at the box-office worldwide which is highest ever by any comic-book movie. The movie is incredibly poised to reach $ 1 Billion mark in no time and has enough legs to breach $2 Billion when all is said and done.
Finally redeeming itself of its villain curse, Infinity War has managed to alter the entire tone of the previously light-hearted and humorous universe. This one had a much darker tone throughout and real stakes with dramatic consequences for the MCU.
Thanos was not just a powerful cosmic bully who would tear apart everything because he can, he is driven by a mission i.e to bring balance to the universe even if it means wiping off half the life from the universe so that limited resources can be more evenly divided. He believed he was the only strong-willed being who has the tenacity to do what is necessary, in a twisted way he was the hero of his story.
Avengers: Infinity War boasts of a terrifying villain, the one which finally puts the villain issue to rest. Since the first Avengers (2012), Tom Hiddlestone’s portrayal of Loki had been a benchmark for the villains to surpass in this cinematic universe.
In Thor: Ragnarok, Hela was yet another amazing MCU villain. While Michael B. Jordan did manage to win a lot of fans with his portrayal of Erik Killmonger in Black Panther, it all comes down to Josh Brolin, who truly managed to showcase his acting prowess on the silver screen.
While almost everything has been done to perfection in this latest installment, there is but one issue which throws light on the continuity issue of this inter-connected cinematic universe. Avengers: Infinity War definitely got this part right, but, in a way; it creates a discontinuity for its antagonist and his powerful Infinity Gauntlet.
Thanos has been teased prior to the release of Infinity War. Since the first installment of the Avengers, Thanos has been making small appearances in post-credit scenes. Going back to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1, we get to see the full glimpse of Thanos sitting on his chair.
In the movie, it is implied that Thanos is in a quest to find all the Infinity Stones, starting with the Power Stone by the help of Ronan the Accuser.
Once again, Thanos makes his appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron, where he is certainly pissed at the failed attempts to retrieve the stones, and goes out himself at last. While those cameos were certainly marvelous, the latest installment of the Avengers has kind of tore down the continuity of these connected events. We will break it down for you.
According to the Russo Brothers, the events in Age of Ultron took place three years prior to the events of Infinity War. As Thanos embarks on his journey to retrieve all the stones by himself, it is safe to assume that he started it three years ago. And that’s where the problem arises.
Thanos’ first visit is to Xandar, where he decimated half the population and steals the Power Stone. In order to wield it, he required the Infinity Gauntlet, the only device which can harness the powers of these stones. In Infinity War, it is revealed that Thanos visited Nidavellir to get the gauntlet, which was created by the dwarf Eitri, played by Peter Dinklage.
So, Thanos must have reached Nidavellir three years ago, where he forced Eitri to make the gauntlet and killed off all the dwarves except Eitri. Also, he made sure that Eitri never manages to create another weapon like the gauntlet by sealing off his hands with metal. Oh, in case you forgot, Nidavellir is the place where Mjolnir was forged, along with other weapons wielded by the Allfathers of Asgard.
To a casual viewer, the obvious error in the timeline won’t be easily visible. But if you look a bit closely, spending three years alone in a planet is quite impossible. On top of that, add the fact that Eitri lost both of his hands, which makes it quite difficult to survive. Even if you decide to defend this situation using the effects of gravitation on space and time, it still won’t hold ground. It’s not three weeks we are talking about, it’s three full years.
Another point which strengthens this argument is that the destruction of Nidavellir should have been noticed by the Asgardians or even any other sentient being in the cosmos. Even though Loki had replaced Odin as the king, the incident should have attracted Thor’s attention since he was on a quest to find the solution to Ragnarok. Such an important place which also contains the heart of a dying star should have attracted at least some sort of attention for going dark for such a long period of time.
The only viable solution to this error would be that the post-credit scene in Age of Ultron happened at least after a year or two. Or else, the creation of the Infinity Gauntlet casts a serious problem on Marvel’s timeline.
The fissures in the timeline is not something new to MCU as it has been dealing with these issues for quite some time now. The biggest breach was witnessed in Spiderman: Homecoming which was supposed to be around 2016 post Civil War but the plot hole was “Battle of New York” took place in 2012, so an 8 year hence makes it 2020 which throws entire MCU timeline out of the window.
But since these issues persisted, Kevin Feige came with a brilliant plan to officially publish the MCU timeline.
“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,” he said. “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.”
Currently, Avengers Infinity War is playing successfully in theaters. It is directed by Russo brothers who have earlier directed two Captain America movies – Winter Soldier and Civil War. It is produced by Marvel President Kevin Feige along with a bunch of senior executive producers like Stan Lee, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Michael Grillo. The script is written by an amazing duo – Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
The cast is jaw dropping as it has some of the who’s who of Hollywood under single roof including Josh Brolin (Thanos), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), Chris Pratt (Star Lord), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), Sebastian Stan (Winter soldier), Anthony Mackie (Falcon), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Mark Ruffalo (Hulk), Bradley Cooper (Rocket Raccoon), Vin Diesel (Groot), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Jeremy Reiner (Hawkeye), Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Strange), Benedict Wong (Wong), Tom Holland (Spiderman), Letitia Wright (Shuri), Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther), Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlett Witch), Karen Gillian (Nebula), Pom Klementieff (Mantis), Dave Bautista (Drax), Paul Bettany (Vision), Peter Dinklage (Eetri), Samuel Jackson (Nick Fury) and Cobie Smulders (Mariah Hill).
The official movie synopsis reads:
“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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