MCU Plot Twists:
The power of a plot swerve is the eradicating move of all fan theories that gain the best public response ever. Arguably, these adaptations are the tools of a risky business that can wipe your smirk off your faces right in the middle of interesting service of thoughts. Remember the Sixth Sense movie or the 12 Monkeys how they twist the twists at the end and become the perfect examples of how end reveals should be unfolded. To have the paralyzing effect throughout you need to have the power of the gratifying twist and snap of the Thanos Infinity Gauntlet Glove which made it a financial and critical success, unlike the movie Savages where everything played out a dream in the end to the disappointment of the audiences.
It is the wipeout of Nick Fury and post-Ant Man’s trappings antics in the finale that gets the biggest reactions, although if the audience feels cheated by the changed reaction they do not accept the harmony at all. It’s not about how the pieces unfold but how they should play out. A very popular saying goes that the beginning is a delightfully meta ending of all endings. The question every heavy serialized drama begs just how much people worry about wrapping up the plot. It could be a good fit it could be worse it could be engaging.
These fictions always generate tons of plot and mysteries and the deeper the viewers go, the more compelled the guests feel to theorize as in what must be happening in the show. A great twist hides in plain sight surrounded by all the pieces of a puzzle where you need to figure directions since they do not all fit together. It’s the feeling like the shock of seeing Norman Bates holding a knife, clad in mother’s clothes, grinning maniacally under the swinging lamplight. It is the realization of Kevin Spacey’s run for a bunch of lies where it was Keyser Söze the whole time. Or Ryan Gosling’s fantasia with a brutal car crash in Stay where he is not hurt at all. The Terry Gilliam’s time travel film of its earlier episodes of 12 Monkeys offers a full “Ghost of science fiction” over the proceedings.
One plot swerve can hinge the success of a movie, so the entire servings must be carefully trodden upon. But these films prove that the universe has got a few tricks left up its sleeve, ones that have centered themselves over the years.
Beware of spoilers!
Here are some of the best movie swerves of the 21st Century:
1. Loki is Hulk
Just to Recap in Avengers one, when Loki was aboard the Helicarrier, his arrogance and demeanor couldn’t get contained in the glass box along with him. The God was never out of tricks, his devious plot of getting the Avengers together in one room was to create a divide among the greats only to transform Bruce Banner into the Hulk. The creature was devised to tear the aircraft to pieces, destroying the Avengers from the inside. Trickster Nature is the god’s catnip power, that always makes him the favorite of several fan theories.
Some fans believe that in Infinity War the God of Mischief somehow disguised himself as Dr. Banner which sounds ridiculous but is actually well thought out when you think. Before Thanos’ throat crushes the god, Loki quotes Tony’s iconic line from the Avengers and summons the Hulk. The fight immediately shifts to Thanos and Hulk while it gives ample amount of time for the classic Loki clone magic to stab Thanos but fails miserably. Thanos seems to kill the real Loki but Hulk gets transported by Heimdall back to his home planet, Earth.
2. Red Skull guards the Soul Stone
The visual dictionary of the MCU is the perfect handbook of explaining one of the greatest mysteries of the Avengers: Infinity War just how did the Red Skull knew so much about the soul stone. Far from being extinguished the in the 1st Captain America movie with the help of Tesseract’s power, he’d been transported to the ominous planet Vormir, the original location of the Soul Stone. Marvel Studios had launched their first visual dictionary that covers almost the last decade of MCU movies.
The book is a brief glimpse of the artifact and the objects that discloses little extra details about the film. It provides a possible explanation for the Red Skull’s ancient knowledge. The successful location of the Tesseract at an old church building in Tonsberg wasn’t the only artifact acquired. There was a book which was the earthly version of the Book of Yggdrasil. A book that revealed the story of the nine realms and the history of Odin’s family. Norse Cultists viewed this as mythology, but for the Red Skull, it was pure History.
With this book, the Red skull knew a lot more about the cosmos even darker secrets than the in-depth knowledge of the Asgardian Prince. The certain irony in this idea is that the Red Skull learned because of the stolen knowledge of the guardians of one Infinity Stone, only to be transported to the soulless Vormir had become the guardian of the stone himself. As he calls out “ A soul for a soul”.
3. Ragnarok
For the Vikings, the myth was about a prophecy of what was about to transpire. But the end took a complete turn about how the prophecy was not to be meddled with but to unleash havoc on Asgard so that it resulted in the extinction of Thor and Loki’s cannibal sister queen Hela.
At the beginning of the movie, Thor is held captive by Surtur, the fire demon where he says he’s been plagued by visions of Asgard in the flames, he believes that the demon is in charge, so he was there to finish him once and for all. To which Surtur reveals that he can only bring on Ragnarok once his crown is immersed in the eternal flame in Odin’s vault. Thor on hearing defeats Surtur seemingly ending the threat. However, the real threat against his home is his banished sister Hela.
In the finale, Thor realizes that the visions weren’t the prophetic warning, but they were signals to destroy the only world that Hela wanted to rule. And so, the newly formed Revengers help evacuate Asgard while Loki to his devious plans unleashes Surtur, who burns Asgard to the ground along with Hela.
4. What’s next for Mordo?
Chiwetel Ejiofor was the terrific training side-partner cum mentor for Benedict Cumberbatch’s arrogant doctor. In the end, it becomes inevitable for Mordo to quit Doctor Strange’s battalion since the laws of nature were already defied. However, the post credit scene we are introduced to Pangborn another mystical being who channels his powers into regaining the use of his legs.
Analyzing the ending of the Scott Derrickson-directed blockbuster the first blow comes at the end of the second act when Doctor Strange exposes the dark secret of the Ancient One potentially for centuries. While the Sorcerer Supreme prevented her followers from abusing dark magic and tapping into the power of Dormammu in the dark dimension, it was being broken by the supreme leader herself. That led Kaecilius to steal the powers from the hypocrite and seek the power form himself.
Deeply troubled it was this battle that Mordo decided to put an end to the Sorcerer’s reign on the planet. Mordo sucks the energy out of the Pangborn which concludes him saying “This Earth has too many Sorcerers”.
This was the villainous turn for the great Mordo.
5. Killmonger is T’Challa’s Cousin
Killmonger’s antagonistic motivations were the mechanism of unraveling the liberation of African origin. By introducing him as the cousin to T Challa’s throne of Valor, the drama encapsulated the best of two worlds. It is the cheesy one-liner “Hey Aunty” and the visiting museum scenes that embraces the profound tragic villainy of Eric Killmonger. Black Panther has been a love letter to people of African origin. Killmonger came to Wakanda as a conqueror.
Over the period of the movie, it is revealed that Eric is the son of King N Jobu and hence in, either way, it comes down to this in a world marked by racism, a man of African nobility must fight his own blood relative whose goal is the global liberation of blacks. That’s what transformed the Killmonger into a sympathetic character, which is the direction one did not expect the movie to take.
6. Ego Check: Star Lord’s Father is a planet
The inevitable of all inevitables happened when the biggest sweep came in form of Star Lord’s Dad. The father figure is none other than EGO the Planet who was officially introduced in 1966’s Thor #132, where the god of thunder battled the mysterious alien Rigelians, who had captured the planet earth in a “planet lock”. Fearing this, the god of thunder made a deal with the Rigelians where he needed to care of the Black Galaxy, which destroyed everything that entered it.
Thor agreed and headed into the Black Galaxy along with a Rigelian Recorder robot where they discovered a talking planet name Ego. The next issue Ego was described as a powerful being, noting that Thor was essentially beneath his notice where he explained he would assume a humanoid form and defeat the hero, which became the inspiration for Kurt Russel’s character in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. Peter Quill was known for his father issues. Earlier when the kids used to ask him who his father was, he would say” David Hasselhoff”.
According to the comics, Peter’s father was a Spartoi who went by the name of J’Son, it was when the movie culled a different direction. Specifically, by introducing Ego, the Living Planet as Peter Quill’s dad.
7. Star-Lord is the villain of Infinity War
The real enemy wasn’t the Proxima Midnight or Thanos or even the children of Thanos, it was the villainy of Peter Quill aka Star-Lord. The theory is completely undeniable that Thanos has Blood and Superhero dust- on his hands in Infinity War. The concept of genocide is basically an intentional action to destroy people usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial action in whole or in parts.
Even as terrorists of today favor being egalitarian, a mass murder is a murder. Despite having multiple contracts the heroes are dead as a doornail and hence, all because as Star-Lord claims it, it was his plan. He went straight forward in punching Thanos’s face when Mantis, Drax, Doctor Strange, Iron Man, and Spider-Man nearly wrested control of the Infinity Gauntlet from him.
Peter Quill has the roughest time of all Avengers he is made fun of by Thor, inadvertently hands over his girlfriend to the evil stepfather, petrified by the fact she was thrown off a cliff to add to the misery and coming to know that Footloose was never the greatest movie of all time. It is a proven fact that the guy was never particularly adept in handling his emotions.
8. Bucky and Iron Man
If the airport fight in the civil war was the ultimate battle, then think again for the world witnessed the most painful fight at the end of the movie. Bucky on having regained his full memory back was framed by Captain Nemo for the murder of Black Panther’s father.
After Steve has Bucky and questions him, he tells that Zemo was specifically asking him for Mission report on December 16, 1991, the day he killed Starks. At the end of the airport battle, it appeared that the heroes’ bout had reached its end and Cap is joined by Bucky and Tony to stop Nemo’s plan of awakening the super soldiers. But to their surprise Nemo hadn’t extinguished any of the HYDRA party, instead, he revealed an old video acquired from the cams of the HYDRA facility, the night Bucky killed Tony’s parents with his firearm, once he ran them off the road.
To add to this jarring realization, the Captain admitted that he knew this information, the result was a bone to bone fight with Bucky losing his arm and Captain withdrawing his shield. An interview with Sway Universe, The Russo Brothers were all discussing how they believed in raising the stakes, and how the end of Avengers 4 will shake every one of them.
“We will say this, obviously Thanos is a very formidable villain and to beat Thanos will come at a very high cost. We’re committed to stakes, we believe in stakes, and we like to shake up the Marvel Universe. We had a big game-changer at the end of Winter Soldier, had a big game-changer at the end of Civil War, a big game-changer at the end of Infinity War. Obviously, there will be a big game changer at the end of Avengers 4.”
9. Trevor Slattery
Trevor Slattery a struggling British actor whose lear was portrayed by the infamous Ben Kingsley was hired by Aldrich Killian to pose as the Mandarin. His Fear injected video killings were the source for terror in Iron Man Third. Taking the responsibility of the widespread accidents caused by Killian, the media got the face of the idealist perfect terrorist who convinced people that he oversaw the virus infected terrorist organization known as Ten Rings, only to lead the path of becoming the most feared terrorist of the west.
To masquerade his failed experiments with the Extremis virus as terrorist attacks, the actor reveals it all to the Iron Man mid-way in the movie’s most interesting scene when he is captured in his bathrobe coming out of the washroom. The actor Mandarin then is handed over to Seagate prison where he becomes the subject of a documentary by Jackson Norris who was the true agent of Mandarin, whose real purpose was to kidnap Slattery in revenge for the insult to the Mandarin.
10. HYDRA survived WWII
The birth of the evil organization since cold war days was declared extinct, only to be found by Captain America that a conspiracy was boiled to make SHIELD follow orders according to the puppetry of HYDRA, who existed within the same organization. The paranoia thriller early on results in the demise of Nick Fury only results in the revelation of double agents and spies, who work covertly to kill civilians.
Hence, Robert Redford now turned head for SHIELD orders, super soldiers, to hunt Captain America who may have information pertaining to Nick Fury’s death. This is when Cap teams up with Black Widow and the two follow to a lead to a secret shield based in New Jersey. At the location not only do they uncover HYDRA’s secret existence, but also about the secret operatives planted deep within SHIELD before it’s formation.
A favorite cameo of Toby Jones Voice was automated to reveal the entire proceedings, hence it left the audience in doubt of who they can trust and this entire noir setup within the organization was something of an internal political affair that swerved repercussions throughout the entire MCU.
According to the Russo Brothers who were fresh off the boat, referred to their inspiration behind the legacy of the Winter Soldier Swerve.
“We love compulsive pacing. You know, we’ve seen “Goodfellas” a hundred times and we probably picked up from that film. We like dynamic energy in storytelling, but also coming from television, working on “Arrested Development,” “Community,” “Happy Endings,” we look at all those shows as sort of a compulsive pace to those shows. A lot of people that worked on those shows used to joke that they would call “The Russo Edit,” because we would just come in and suck the air out of everything.”
Like many people, the Russos were terrifyingly disturbed about the Obama administrations so-called “Disposition matrix” (a.k.a. the database that helps track and kill suspected U.S. enemies) and the increasing use of ethically unsettling drone strikes…strikes that don’t only kill bad guys. With the urge to handle the story from scratch the institution of SHIELD was formidably transformed into a corrupt organization.
The entire plan was about developing an algorithm that can determine who’s a threat and who’s not. It was a HYDRA’s scheme to assassinate those who opposed their new order. Even before Steve Rogers learns about the diabolical plan run by a group of Nazis, he was uneasy with the whole idea of drone strikes.
11. Zemo Destroyed all Super Soldiers
Baron Zemo could have been the world’s best James Bond with an anti-persona on his chart sheet that could have ended all careers of other spies including Romanoff. Zemo kills and impersonates the UN psychiatrist tasked with interviewing Bucky at SHIELD. Zemo figured out via the HYDRA files that Black Widow leaked on the web at the end of Winter Soldier, that something involving the Winter Soldier was to create the perfect battle that went down on a certain date in 1991.
His next target was the capture of Bucky’s Winter Soldier era Handler, who refuses to tell him what that date exactly entailed, which didn’t turn out well for the handler and only for Zemo to have succeeded later as he gets Buckster charged with the act of Terrorism which gets him captured by SHIELD in the end. Zemo uses this opportunity to activate Buckster’s funky fresh Winter Soldier side using codewords he stole from the handler.
When asked about 1991, Bucky reveals to Zemo about the A) about what happened on that date in ‘91 and B) about a secret HYDRA facility in BugFuck McColdsville along with the info on the release of five super soldiers with the potential to topple any government. Meanwhile Captain and Iron battle off against each other who are already not on great terms because of Sokovia accords, a situation that Zemo had NADA to do with.
When Bucky tells Cap about Zemo’s plot they both follow him to the HYDRA Facility only to be joined by Iron Man who had already figured that Bucky had nothing to do with blowing up the UN. Everybody gets to the HYDRA base, where they discover that the super-soldiers have been shot in the head as they were just a deterrent. The real reveal was that the day in 1991 Bucky murdered Tony’s parents, for which Tony goes monkey and tries to kill Bucky who was then joined by Cap in stopping the Iron Man once and for all.
12. Avengers Age of Ultron’s post credit scene
Well, they are no absolutes with the dealing of the future MCU plots. At the curtain of the post-credit Winter Soldier scene, we see two gentlemen talking something strange walking along the dark passages of a cellar. The scene introduced Baron Von Strucker as he was explaining how he was using Loki’s staff to perform an experiment on volunteers to pass them powers. In this scene, Strucker and a lesser member of his crew discuss their recent failed takedown of S.H.I.E.L.D., where Strucker and his HYDRA cohorts about still having a few cards to play, since they were in possession of Loki’s sceptre.
When he added that there were two survivors, the camera gives us a glimpse of “The Twins”: Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), held prisoner in side-by-side glass cells as mental prisoners, the former bouncing around the room like a lightning-quick junkie, the latter silently juggling toy blocks with her mind. The scene was nothing short of a miracle since Fox agreed that both X men Universe and Marvel could play out their own versions.
13. The Unfortunate event for Spider-Man Homecoming
Homecoming has been spiced with a lot many references to the Spider-Man’s long run in comics. Donald Glover, the seemingly low criminal character is actually the uncle of Miles Morales, that plays out a whole new another chapter as introduced in Spider-verse. The character played by Angourie Rice represents Betty Grant who is one of the famous girlfriends of the Spider-Man comics.
There are times when Spider-Man is faced with the morale of having to choose between his Social life and Superhero Ego. The question is best answered when he comes to receive his long-time crush Liz, only to be answered by the Vulture, who happens to be Liz’s father played by Michael Keaton. This moral dilemma is very well translated on-screen when the villain in law and the superhero have a private conversation in the car.
14. Obediah was the Iron Monger
Obediah Stane, also known as the Iron Monger, was the identity who appeared in the movie Iron Man and was based on the American character that has appeared in several American comic books. Created by Dennis O Neil and Luke Mcdonell, the first character to use the alias Obediah Stane appeared in Iron Man #163. Tony Stark was the Megamind behind the weaponry manufacturing corporate that made its big bucks out of the arms dealership contract worldwide with the national defense.
It was obvious that as the right-hand man Obediah grew tired of Tony’s arrogance and his personal one-sided biddings. The biggest swerve came when Obediah replaced him by filing the injunction at the board of committee for his exit. It was his endeavors that got Tony hyped about the entire attack being orchestrated by the one and only Iron Monger. A favorite scene of mine is when Tony misses the award presentation only to be covered by Obediah, probably because our hero was getting drunk and playing poker somewhere.
15. Nick Fury’s Avenger Initiative
The best post-credit scene of the generation by MCU has been Nick Fury’s entry in Iron Man 1. As Tony enters his living room, he is quite frightened by the sight of the black man with an eye patch. He blurts out “Avengers Initiative”. The reaction attracted from the audiences was enough to be the biggest swerve served onscreen.
