Endgame: jarring interactions

[tielan]

I posted this article a few days ago: spoiler anxiety is ruining pop culture.

One of the things that I definitely think it ruined is Endgame.

The issue of forcing an actor to act with no context around their lines is really jarring in the second-last scene by the lake.

They just sent Steve off with the stones to return tem, he's supposed to come back five seconds later, instead, he comes back to that moment the way most people travel through time: one second at a time. When he reaches this moment, he's an old man.

Bucky's the first one to notice, but rather than going over to see Steve - his oldest friend - he calls Sam in, and Sam's the one to go over and approach Steve. Only he doesn't. He stays about a metre and a half away, looking at Steve, not going up or anything. The man who paused next to Steve just a minute ago and said "I can help you do this if you like" didn't even sit down next to him on the bench.

That scene? That was probably shot in very separate sections. Mark Ruffalo, Seb Stan, Chris, and Anthony for the departure and then the realisation that Cap ain't coming back. Then Anthony and Chris for the scene on the bench - and the truth is that Chris may not even have been wearing his aged stuff. Which would be why Anthony was probably instructed not to go too close, so they wouldn't have to mess with him in post-production. Then Chris does the scenes with aged Steve but no Anthony-as-Sam, just doing his lines. And although Sam looks to Bucky at some point, all he has to do is look off-camera, and then they cut to SebStan nodding his approval of what's happening, but not having Bucky go talk to Steve. There's no shock, no surprise, no "what the hell have you done", no sense of any emotion. And I'd bet it's because SebStan doesn't know what happened to Steve at that point. But that just throws Bucky's reaction way off and...

It's...a massively jarring scene, even for someone like me who doesn't ship these three in any serious way. I mean, if you brought a stranger in and told them to watch these three people interact, I'm pretty sure they'd never guess that these three guys had been friends and buddies at all.

*sigh*

--

The article makes a good case that we've elevated the plot above all things - including the character interactions. Which may work for the casual viewer, but it's seriously disconcerting for the fans and anyone who looks a mite deeper. And it kind of puts a glossy shine on something that doesn't have that much beneath it - or has something disturbing beneath, like the body at a funeral showing: sure it looks okay on top, but when you think about it, it's actually a rotting corpse.

Comments

[bladespark]

Studies show that getting spoiled beforehand tends to increase the enjoyment of viewers, even if the viewers *claim* otherwise. One of those paradoxical effects. The human mind really likes being right. Going into something with a rumor you knew about and seeing it be right is subconsciously deeply satisfying, even if you fight tooth and nail to avoid doing so in the idea that it will "ruin" everything.

[tielan]

Huh, that's really interesting.

So our culture is going with the conscious response rather than the unconscious regarding spoilers, and perhaps in doing so is shorting the enjoyment factor.

[kore]

I'm one of those people who always has to check the end of the book before I buy it or even start reading it to See How It All Comes Out, and with movies like these I deliberately spoil myself. And it always feels like I get endless shit for it, LOL, so seeing that recent article was nice.

[catpella]

yeah, I cannot imagine the Bucky from TFA would nod at Sam and not go there himself. I really would have expected more emotions from the 3 of them together!!

[tielan]

It's pretty disappointing IMO.

[kore]

There was some impressive no-homoing going on in that movie, besides all the fanservice lulzy comments on Steve's ass (which rang very fake to me, more like macho posturing). "On your left" was a beautiful moment that got cut off immediately, and we didn't see Sam and Bucky reuniting with Steve; Tony and Steve kind of mended fences but the intense emotional bond for them was with Pepper and Peggy; and they really kind of ended Bucky's role at the end of CW when he's all "freeze me, I am a weapon and will never be anything else and am too dangerous to be awake." Sam and Bucky had a couple of nice moments but wow that was one heteronormative movie (and usually I roll my eyes at the word "heteronormative").

[tielan]

I thought that Steve and Bucky got a scene during the battle, but that could be my imagination transposing the "you're taking all the stupid with you" exchange into a moment when it needed the same force of feeling.

While there were plenty of 'macho men joking around' moments, it did feel like the only Avengers relationships that were really framed as emotively important were heterosexual romantic ones (even Nat/Clint had that 'soulmates who found each other after one had already married' angle that I wrote with a Maria/Clint pairing in "between destiny and love:). Like, everyone feels distant - even Steve and Nat seems a little disconnected in both the 'i don't know what i'll do if it doesn't work' scene and the five years later conversation.

[kore]

I thought that Steve and Bucky got a scene during the battle, but that could be my imagination transposing the "you're taking all the stupid with you" exchange into a moment when it needed the same force of feeling.

No, the only time we see Bucky in the battle is one shot of him firing his giant gun, he doesn't interact with Steve (or anyone else really) at all. If I were SebStan I'd be kind of pissed.

it did feel like the only Avengers relationships that were really framed as emotively important were heterosexual romantic ones

IT SURE FUCKING DID, YEP (and het pairings that were marriages that had produced kids, at that. Did you notice how at the end, Hope and Scott are with Cassie but not her mother and stepfather?).

even Steve and Nat seems a little disconnected in both the 'i don't know what i'll do if it doesn't work' scene and the five years later conversation.

Yeah, you can't convince me that Steve wouldn't stay in the giant empty Avengers HQ with Nat. And Steve Rogers running a support group? It was a nice callback to Sam's in TWS, but honestly I cannot think of someone less equipped to or less WANTING to run a support group. He's good at inspiring speeches and at inspiring and comforting teammates, but he's the Man Out of Time, perpetually alienated.

I saw someone's post on that sequence and they apparently thought that both Nat and Steve were doing great jobs trying to help people move forward and holding the Avengers together and doing basically groundwork like people in the US post-2016, and to me, both Nat and Steve just seemed so utterly miserable. And what they were doing was ineffectual. Steve's reassurances to his group sounded super hollow, and Okoye and Carol and Rhodey just didn't seem to want to deal with Nat. And Clint ABANDONS HER! W.T.F. He's under house arrest, yeah, but then his family goes poof and he doesn't try to get in touch with Natasha or even go off to help them? He just starts off on being Ronin? (Of course, maybe he did call her, we don't know, because we never see it, like we never see about 50-60 percent of a lot of emotional stuff in this movie.)

And as soon as I heard Nat tell Steve "I had nothing, and then I got this job, this family" in the trailers I knew she was a goner. And dammit I didn't want to be right.

[kore]

That scene? That was probably shot in very separate sections. Mark Ruffalo, Seb Stan, Chris, and Anthony for the departure and then the realisation that Cap ain't coming back. Then Anthony and Chris for the scene on the bench - and the truth is that Chris may not even have been wearing his aged stuff. Which would be why Anthony was probably instructed not to go too close, so they wouldn't have to mess with him in post-production. Then Chris does the scenes with aged Steve but no Anthony-as-Sam, just doing his lines. And although Sam looks to Bucky at some point, all he has to do is look off-camera, and then they cut to SebStan nodding his approval of what's happening, but not having Bucky go talk to Steve. There's no shock, no surprise, no "what the hell have you done", no sense of any emotion. And I'd bet it's because SebStan doesn't know what happened to Steve at that point. But that just throws Bucky's reaction way off and...

GROAN

I hadn't even thought about "Bucky and Sam can't be too close to him because the age makeup/CGI." But dammit, that sounds right.

Poor Brie Larson apparently got to shoot her first MCU scene EVER -- that mid-credits scene for CM that was part of EG but didn't make the final cut -- in front of a greenscreen, with no idea of what the rest of the scene was, with one line ("Where's Fury"). No idea if all the other actors in that scene knew she was supposed to be there, too, which is probably why it cut out immediately after her line. Argle.

[tielan]

Honestly, age makeup would have been easier to interact with, that stuff can do a bit of CGI touch up okay. But full CGI would be a different matter.

And yes, the scene is all kinds of stiff and awkward and weird. Whoever wrote that one either had little to no idea of how humans actually interact, or else had turned it off the day they wrote that scene...

Poor Brie Larson apparently got to shoot her first MCU scene EVER -- that mid-credits scene for CM that was part of EG but didn't make the final cut -- in front of a greenscreen,

I was kind of looking forward to that scene, tbh. A bit like Thor's entry in Avengers: a challenge, a throwdown, some emotion from anyone but Tony...

[kore]

As it was there's like a whole big connective piece of movie that got cut or never made --

- how they got Nick's pager (Cameron Klein? Maria's calling him at the end of IW)
- how they all reacted to Carol popping up going "WTF IS THIS"
- Carol going to find Nebula and Tony (srsly nobody thought Tony was going to die, and it would have been an awesome sequence and not taken that long)
- everyone's reactions after they realize the stones are gone, Thanos is dead, they truly lost.

Instead it was "Five years later!" and Nat eating a PB&J of sadness while trying to talk to people who were basically putting her off. For all that this movie was three overstuffed hours long, I kept thinking it really should have been two movies, because so much was rushed or just missing.

[tielan]

*points you at my fic*

[kore]

YESSSSSSSSs.

[weaselett]

That scene was the worst, but a lot of it felt very much like filmed in snippets (how rare it was to have more than one person in frame outside of meetings and battles...)

I think it's less plot and more twists? (the spoilers/plot points they never want to get out are always the 'twists' though I totally blame m night for me thinking of them as 'twists' *face palm*)

It is funny though, because it has been proved so much that spoilers help (which is likely why marvel did a weird thing with endgame having sooooo many clips released, versus the weird filming, oh and far from home trailer - trying to have their cake and eat it)

(the two main examples I can think of, outside of the studies, are: the deadpool leak that gained the backing for the film to be made and the leverage pilot being leaked got the demands for more)

[tielan]

I didn't notice the 'very separated out frames' issue until that last scene when I was wondering why it was bothering me so much. I guess it felt like it was supposed to be this really emotional moment, but instead it felt very...alienated.

[weaselett]

yeah it was very much that, and especially noticable as the 'finale' emotional piece in theory.

[kore]

and the truth is that Chris may not even have been wearing his aged stuff

I read the directors/screenwriters interviewers and apparently he was wearing a fairly heavy prosthetic/makeup and they also CGI'd his neck and shoulders to make him have that sort of elderly look. Boy it looked fake. He was unrecognizable to me until he opened his mouth, altho I knew who it was.