Finally, the new trailer for Avengers 4 is here! After all the hype and false alarms, we now not only have the trailer, but also the title: Avengers: Endgame. Disclaimer: I have not read the comics, but I have been closely following social media conversations involving theories and comic references for this universe. This trailer made me geek out and I needed an outlet, so this is why I’m glad I have a blog now. So I can do stuff like that.
I promise, I have not peeked at any other trailer reviews as of yet, though as soon as I post this I’m going to, so all this is 100% my inferences from this trailer based on what I know. I can’t source anyone because a lot of my knowledge is from scrolling through Tumblr and Pinterest, so credit to anyone to whom credit is due.
The trailer starts with Tony, leaving a message for Pepper via his damaged helmet. Tony looks like he’s alone on the ship, which is obviously Peter Quill’s ship, the Milano. But Nebula was left on Titan, too. Where is she? And with that question, the scene cuts to the Marvel logo, which disintegrates as a visual reminder of the events of Infinity War.
Even though it starts with an image of Tony’s helmet, the trailer looks to be more about Steve’s story. The Russos said that characters not given much screentime in IW (like Steve) will be given more in Endgame. If IW was about Tony (engagement to Pepper, dream about a baby, responsibility and burden of guilt, Peter’s death, Thanos recognizing him, Strange sacrificing the stone for him) then Endgame will be about Steve because they are equal characters and equally reaching the end of their character arcs.
There’s a quick shot of Thanos’ armor set up on a pole,almost like a scarecrow…not sure where or why. Is it a warning, a trophy, a memento?
Then we see someone walking through a field of prickly plants. It’s impossible to tell who this person is, or even if they’re male or female, but they’re limping. The left leg is noticeably stiffer than the right. The sun is shining on the camera so it’s hard to see…but my first impression was that it almost looks like Gamora. I have no proof of this. It could just as easily be Nebula, Natasha, or Bucky, as all of them wear gloves like that on occasion. But I’m leaning towards female, and it just feels like Gamora. No explanation, just a gut instinct. But if I’m right, how is this possible? Is it inside the Soul Stone? Does she get resurrected somehow? The plants could also signify that the world is flourishing with half its population pruned, just like Thanos predicted, which is supported by Natasha’s voiceover about Thanos wiping out 50% of the world’s population. Just like a forest is always more healthy after a wildfire. The prickles, however, might also signify that it’s not flourishing in a good way.
Quick shots of a once-again clean-shaven, weeping Steve, then Nat, who is still blond but her hair is longer, long enough to pull back as we see later in the trailer. Steve crying is an instant tearjerker and hits us right in the feels, especially when we remember that the last time we saw him crying was at Peggy’s funeral. (Remember that detail, I’ll come back to that). Then we get Bruce looking at photos of Peter, Scott, and Shuri. The remaining Avengers don’t know the status of any of these three individuals, though we know that Peter disintegrated in the Snap and Scott is stuck in the Quantum Realm. Scott’s name clearly has the word MISSING next to it, and it looks like Peter’s does too. And it looks like neither we nor the characters know where Shuri is at the moment.
We see a wide shot of that large room in the Avengers training facility, then Thor in a hoodie, sitting in front of a white, interestingly paneled wall. Kinda gives off a prison cell vibe, what with the black bar passing in front of the camera’s foreground, but don’t quote me on that. He could just as easily be taking some alone time somewhere in Wakanda or the training facility.
Next, a shot of Nebula obviously on the Milano. So Tony isn’t alone, though he sure seemed like it at the beginning. Maybe she hates him and won’t talk to him. She probably hates him, given that 1) she hates everyone and 2) Thanos succeeded with the snap, Gamora is gone, and yet she and Tony survived– for her character, this could easily equal survivor’s guilt taken out on him.
Then blue fingers – assuming this is still Nebula, since she’s the only blue character confirmed to be in this movie – brushing some fabric that looks like the sleeve of someone sitting in a chair, with a strap that looks like a seatbelt. Whose sleeve? Tony’s? But Steve’s voiceover (“We lost friends,”) seems to say maybe it’s someone different, maybe at a later time in the movie.
Then – Hawkeye! But, actually, I don’t think it’s him. Not really. This seems to confirm the longstanding fan theory about Ronin. Like I said, I am unfortunately not a comic reader, but Ronin is said to be Hawkeye’s darkest alter ego from the comics. While the Russos and the MCU in general cannot be said to have ever imitated the comics exactly, I have been hearing for over a year now in all the hype for IW and now End Game (so many sources I can’t even cite something) that Hawkeye will don the Ronin alter ego, who is a kind of lone samurai act, because he lost his entire family in the Snap. Which is super sad, because Clint is my favorite character, and I love his family, but it makes sense as a character motivation and would be a great next step in his character arc, which has kind of been dragging compared to other Marvel characters. This is further strengthened by Steve’s voiceover again saying, “We lost family,” just as Clint appears on the screen.
There are so many interesting things about this scene alone that I want to highlight: what’s that cool sword/butcher knife thing he’s holding? And the even cooler armguard? I wanna know more about his costume and why he chose it. Who’s that on the ground at his feet? And why does it look like they’re outside the Sanctum in Hong Kong from Doctor Strange? Doesn’t it look like the same street that the final battle happens in? If so, why are they there? And we just saw Nat at the Avengers training facility in New Jersey so how and why does she end up there?
And look – Steve is holding his compass with Peggy’s picture in it. Now that’s interesting – now Peggy has been connected with this movie twice in this trailer, even though she died in Captain America: Civil War. I haven’t seen that compass for a while. It’s nice to know he still carries it. Why does he have it out now and why was it placed in this trailer? The music and the closing of the compass lid happen in such synchronicity I wonder if there’s some symbolic meaning to it. A firmness of purpose? Is he giving up? Is it foreshadowing his death? Or is there something else going on here?
Aaaaand, the Avengers logo and title reveal! Notice, however,that the A in the background is assembling (pun intended) out of the ashes.This looks like a symbolic reference to the reversal of Thanos’ destruction,hopefully. Kind of the opposite of the “ashes to ashes and dust to dust” line from the Bible used in funerals a lot. If Thanos caused so many characters to become ashes, then surely in a comic book universe that can be reversed. And this would be the time to talk about the time travel theory, but that’s way too much for an already long post, so I’ll save it for a future one. Suffice it to say that the prevailing theory for End Game is that they find a way to travel back in time to prevent Thanos from obtaining the Infinity Stones in the first place, likely by attempting to change Loki’s timeline during or after the Battle of New York.
Also, we have to talk about the symbolism of the title “Endgame”. This phrase is used twice in the movies, once by Tony in Avengers: Age of Ultron – “We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day but that up there, that’s the end game,” and by Steven himself in IW, right after viewing all 5 million possible futures: “We’re in the end game now,”. It was my top pick out of all the circulating title possibilities and I have to say I’m gratified that I was right.
Then, at the very end, we get one more treat – because every Marvel trailer has to have a post-credits scene, just like the movies. This time it’s Ant-Man! Wait, how did he get out of the Quantum Realm? Let me guess…..bum ba dah dum! Captain Marvel! She wasn’t shown in this trailer, did you notice? They probably want to show us her skills in her own movie first. My guess is she won’t be in any of the trailers, and she will be their biggest surprise. Especially since they said that she will be the most powerful character introduced in the MCU so far. Given what Wanda did in IW, that’s saying something.
That’s a lot! Do you think I got everything? Please comment below if you noticed something I didn’t or have some insider information I’ve missed, from the comics or otherwise. I hope you enjoyed this post and keep a lookout for more soon! I’ll be sending out the other half of my cosplay story next week, unless something else comes up.
I really don’t know what direction this blog is going to take.
I haven’t posted anything regularly yet, but I’m constantly thinking of ideas for it. I think the problem is actually making time to sit down and do something about it but I am going to rededicate myself to this project as many times as I need to in order to get this thing going.
I was going to focus this blog mainly on books. Well, stories. Well, it was already a lot of things when I thought it up. Books, book reviews, movies, TV shows, comic books, fandoms, music. And I’ve been adding to my list of fandoms that I want to talk about, not the least of which is Doctor Who, which has become kind of a big thing for me. And I think Doctor Who has made me an official fan in that, for the first time, not only am I getting the strangest impulses to write fanfiction (why on earth I want to do that I have no idea – I usually stay away from that kind of stuff because it’s mostly smutty), but I have started to dress up as my favorite characters, as well.
It started as a Halloween thing. I’ve never celebrated Halloween officially before (Woo-hoo, popcorn/movie nights with all the porch lights off so we won’t get interrrupted!) but this year, being at college and participating in all this college stuff, I needed a costume. And it just so happens that my wonderful friend Emily made me some Loki horns and a scepter for my birthday party earlier this year.
So, decided to dress up as Loki for Halloween, even though I had never really done costumes before. But more on that later. Because – my Loki horns were really delicate and were disassembled from the trip to my university, I decided they weren’t really travel-hardy.
Enter the Plan B costume for the fall break trip I just came back from….
Amy Pond from Doctor Who!
I picked her because I look most like her, out of all the Doctor Who companions, as you can see in this next picture. Also, because I mostly dress like her anyway (what a coincidence!) and all I had to do was borrow a miniskirt from a hallmate (because I don’t wear miniskirts) and voila! I’m Amy Pond.
I put a lot of thought into this costume….I looked at pictures of Amy on Pinterest and picked out items in my wardrobe that I thought she would wear, then decided which ones represented her entire character best. It’s a mix of different style from different episodes, but the winners were the purple plaid shirt, the miniskirt (even though the red plaid shirt she wears in Series 5 isn’t paired with a miniskirt, it still represents the character best, in my opinion), the brown jacket and red scarf. I meant to also wear my maroon fingerless mitts that my mom made me like Amy wears in The Pandorica Opens, but it totally slipped my mind.
And absolutely, I decided to draw tally marks all over my face and arms because the Silence were an awesome foe for series 6 and because I think that for anyone who has seen the show, the marks would instantly remove any and all doubt as to who I was supposed to be.
Then, as I was deciding what shoes I should wear, because Amy wears several different kinds of shoes, I went, “Hey, I should wear my Converse to represent the Tenth Doctor, because he’s my favorite.” And Amy wears blue Converse in an episode so it’s not totally out of her style, even though mine are the Doctor’s off-white classic look.
So in a kind of weird Doctor-Amy mashup I then had to build myself a sonic screwdriver. I decimated probably around two dozen pens/markers/sharpies and it cost about two hours and some silver Sharpie’d fingers, but I’m really happy with what I came up with considering I’ve never built anything like it before. I had a blue glow-stick inside it that I’d cut down and taped so it glowed, but I couldn’t figure out a good cap to put on it that would still show the blue glow but not stick out too much. So right now the blue pom-pom is holding its place.
I’m thinking about building another screwdriver when I get the chance to buy some actual materials to work with, so I can have it actually lengthen out, glow blue and make the sonic sound when I press a button, but all in all, I’m super proud of my work. I would do Amy Pond again for Wednesday’s campus-wide costume contest, but, like I said: I have Loki horns, and I don’t want them to go to waste.
So. Back to the horns.
They’re made out of cardboard, foam, and tinfoil, and Emily cleverly glued the pieces together, then spray-painted them gold. Which is perfect – she’s really got her game up – except they came off soon after the party, and I transported them to my dorm room in pieces. The scepter came apart as well when it got knocked over.
So tonight I’m working on supergluing them back together. There are pieces scattered all over the floor right now, in various stages of drying, and I have them off to the side a little because I don’t want my roommate tripping over them when she comes back later. The horns are slightly difficult to re-glue because they are heavier than the cardboard headpiece and unbalance the helmet as a whole to create the look. I hope I don’t run out of superglue trying to keep them on, don’t think I will, but I have to use painters tape at the top for right now because that’s all I have to keep the horns attached. Fortunately, I won’t be doing any looking down in that thing (heaven forbid) so nobody will see it, but it feels tacky to me because I have no gold spray paint to cover it over.
Also, this afternoon, I came to the sudden realization that while I have horns and a scepter, and I can make do with a green sweater and black pants for the outfit, I don’t have a cape! Loki needs a green cape! So as soon as I got back from my fall break trip this afternoon, I hopped on my bike and pedaled over to the nearest party store to get a green cape.
It took me forever to find it because it was really well hidden. It felt like the entire store was secretly owned by Edna Mode (“NO CAPES!”) because I couldn’t find a single cape, let alone a green one, anywhere. I finally had to ask an employee where they were and she pointed me to the back corner of the store. Fortunately, it was only about 5 bucks, so I felt like I could justify spending that much with my broke college student budget. I had to pass on the black wig, though, one because I didn’t see a wig I thought would work really well, and two because I couldn’t justify spending that much when I’m trying to save for my next tuition payment. So my own (very) red hair will have to do, slicked back and pulled into a ponytail at the base of my neck.
Since I now have a gorgeous green cape (doesn’t fall all the way down to the floor but you can’t have everything), I decided I should put a little more work into the other details of the costume. I have only cardboard, the Internet, and a printer to work with, but I took a template I found online for the arm guards and just traced the outline onto some cardboard and cut it out. I then got the cardboard wet at the sink and bent it around my forearms so that it has a shape to it. They’re drying on my water bottle and a glow stick package now and I’ll see how I want to decorate them in the morning.
I have a brown paper bag that I can cut up to make the other gold pieces of the costume (I’m thinking specifically the Avengers/Dark World look) but I don’t know exactly how I’m going to do it yet. And I want to take my popsicle stick sword that I used for one of the freshmen events earlier this semester and cut it down, sharpen it a bit and maybe color it silver so I can have a useful knife to hide in my costume and randomly stab someone (ehehehe).
Well, so far so good and I’ll try to keep you updated, but in a really really long nutshell that was how my hunt for a Halloween costume turned into a serious attempt at cosplay and this might very well become a major part of my life and my blog now.
And since we were on the topic of capes and Edna Mode, I thought I’d share this funny with you:
(Author’s Note: Avengers: Infinity War came out on April 26th, and I thought since there’s such a huge hype about it, and I personally have an emotional attachment to this thing, I should write a post on it. This isn’t a review of the movie, just me talking about the kinds of things that ran through my mind most while I was waiting for the movie to finally come out.)
Let’s get started!
I’m a HUGE Marvel fan, so much so that my family members (who are also fans) tease me about it. And last Thursday I got to finally watch Avengers: Infinity War!
My family usually goes together to see Marvel movies, but this time I got a text from a friend saying that there was a group of grads from my homeschool group going to see it together.
Of course I said yes, especially since the 26th was at least a day earlier than I had planned on seeing it, depending on when my family had time to go.
I was so excited.
The entire 10 years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has culminated in this moment, and though I’m not going to spoil anything in this post since it’s been less than two weeks since the movie came out, I just wanted to share some of my biggest feelings and hopes that I had regarding this movie before I saw it.
First of all, I wanted to see it as soon as possible. There was no way I was going to let social media spoil it for me (I saw my first spoiler post today on Pinterest, as a matter of fact, and I was so glad I’d seen the movie), and I didn’t want to have to stay off the Internet altogether if it was going to be a while before I’d seen it.
I also was (like I mentioned already) really, really pumped!
I mean, nothing like this has ever been done in the history of movies before. It’s such a big crossover! I have seen all the movies anywhere between one and two dozen times, except for Spiderman: Homecoming, and can practically quote some of them.
I’ve grown very attached to most of the characters, and was constantly reading and coming up with theories of my own about what the Russo brothers were going to do with the movie. But, judging from how amazing Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War turned out, I wasn’t really worried that the movie would be terrible.
I was worried about the characters, obviously. I have definitely have favorite characters, and I don’t want to see anything happen to them. But I also like to try to see movies from a storyteller’s point of view as well. So imagine seeing the story from both sides, both as a fan (“I really hope they don’t kill off this character! The universe wouldn’t be the same without him/her!”), and as a writer (“Hmm, this character’s story arc is just about complete. The best ending for this character would be to _______ and then probably die.”).
Like I said, I’m not giving away any spoilers in this post, but some of my theories turned out to be correct and others were way off mark. There were some things that were totally unexpected and had never even crossed my mind.
And finally, I was super impressed with the hype. The marketing was done so well! Every time I turned around, at least on my social media, there was a new poster, or a new trailer, or a new TV spot. By keeping the movie and what could possibly happen so public and yet so under wraps (no spoilers, Tom Holland and Mark Ruffalo!), it really kept people talking about it and wondering what was going to happen.
Overall, my general impression of the movie itself was that I probably shouldn’t make a decision yet – I need to wait for Avengers 4 before I can make a final judgement on what I really thought of it. But Marvel already has an A+ in market strategy, in my opinion.
As far as rating the movie goes, I’ll just say that I’m very glad I went to see it, and if you’re a Marvel fan, you should go and see it, too. I even got a cool souveneir
Avengers: Infinity War cup! I’m going to take it to college with me and use it for popcorn.
I will post again in a few weeks with a full-breakdown review – spoilers and everything – about my most and least favorite moments in Avengers: Infinity War. Make sure you see it before then!
Here’s the trailer for you (if you by some coincidence you haven’t seen it):
On a side note, what kind of a fan are you? Do you try and research everything you can about a movie beforehand – promos, clips, fan theories, because it increases the anticipation for you? Or do you try to stay away from anything related to the movie because you don’t want to have the experience ruined by possible spoilers?
I’m of the first opinion – in my mind, the anticipation before the event is half the fun! I always try to make the most of the wait, so even if I’m disappointed in the movie, I at least enjoyed something.
I’ve been going through lists of posts you should make when starting a blog. You know, looking for ideas about what to write.
And one of the ideas that I’ve found most popular is to share your Pottermore sorting.
Obviously, I thought that would make a good starting point.
I’ve recently gotten into Harry Potter. I read all the books within the last few months, and saw all eight movies in less than a week with my family.
And though it’s not my most favorite series in the world, I like it enough to research J. K. Rowling’s writing techniques, such as the meanings behind her characters’ names and the inspiration for certain scenes.
So I decided to visit Pottermore and sign up to see what house I would be sorted into.
It’s not what I expected.
Before I read the series, I had taken a couple of those internet quizzes that sorted you into the different Hogwarts houses, but they were pretty straightforward and obvious enough that I could tell which answers I would have to give to end up in a certain house.
So naturally, I ended up in Gryffindor, which is my favorite house.
But on Pottermore, the questions were a lot more intense and unpredictable
And I ended up in….
HUFFLEPUFF!
Not a bad house, just not what I expected. I can now claim a commonality with Cedric Diggory, after all.
Pottermore says that your house is permanent (at least on the site), so I’ll go with Hufflepuff for now.
But I can still be secretly disappointed that I wasn’t in Gryffindor…
Additionally, I also found out what my Patronus would be.
The graphics in the quiz were pretty cool.
But I’m not sure what this is. Maybe I missed it in the books, maybe it’s because I haven’t read Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them yet. Maybe you guys can fill me in.
My Patronus is an…
OCICAT!
Is it like a cross between a cat and an ocelot? It’s pretty cool, in my opinion, even though I don’t know exactly what it is.
Pottermore says the test can be only taken once, which makes sense. But it’s also a bummer, because I can’t help wanting to know what it would have been if I’d made different choices.
Let me know in the comments which Hogwarts house you’re in, or even if you’re a HP fan or not.
And don’t be afraid to ask me questions about what I liked or didn’t like in the series (for example, I think my favorite book would be either Order of the Phoenix or Deathly Hallows).
I’ll start a Harry Potter thread on the forums, as well.
I’ll sign off with my favorite quote from the series, or rather, word:
So in a kind of weird Doctor-Amy mashup I then had to build myself a sonic screwdriver. I decimated probably around two dozen pens/markers/sharpies and it cost about two hours and some silver Sharpie’d fingers, but I’m really happy with what I came up with considering I’ve never built anything like it before. I had a blue glow-stick inside it that I’d cut down and taped so it glowed, but I couldn’t figure out a good cap to put on it that would still show the blue glow but not stick out too much. So right now the blue pom-pom is holding its place.
re. Fortunately, it was only about 5 bucks, so I felt like I could justify spending that much with my broke college student budget. I had to pass on the black wig, though, one because I didn’t see a wig I thought would work really well, and two because I couldn’t justify spending that much when I’m trying to save for my next tuition payment. So my own (very) red hair will have to do, slicked back and pulled into a ponytail at the base of my neck.
Since I now have a gorgeous green cape (doesn’t fall all the way down to the floor but you can’t have everything), I decided I should put a little more work into the other details of the costume. I have only cardboard, the Internet, and a printer to work with, but I took a template I found online for the arm guards and just traced the outline onto some cardboard and cut it out. I then got the cardboard wet at the sink and bent it around my forearms so that it has a shape to it. They’re drying on my water bottle and a glow stick package now and I’ll see how I want to decorate them in the morning.
First of all, I wanted to see it as soon as possible. There was no way I was going to let social media spoil it for me (I saw my first spoiler post today on Pinterest, as a matter of fact, and I was so glad I’d seen the movie), and I didn’t want to have to stay off the Internet altogether if it was going to be a while before I’d seen it.
