Spoiler: Thanos's Plan
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You have to remember that the core of Thanos's motivation is his own experiences on Titan. Overpopulation and dwindling resources were choking his people to the point that, not long after dismissing Thanos's 50% genocide plan, the entire planet died and what was left was a planet of dust. The fact that they didn't listen to him, and he didn't force his point, is referenced by him as his greatest regret. He could have saved his people, if he'd tried. 50% would die, yes, but fairly. Random chance. No preferences, no bias. And in the end the world would carry on with a lower burden on it.

Thanos doesn't want to rule. He doesn't even want to kill. He isn't even trying to impress Death Incarnate in this movie. All he wants to do is hit the snooze button on the doomsday clock that marks the ultimate, inevitable decline of every sapient race on every planet, even if just this once. Maybe the blessed reprieve it grants them, the brief moment of prosperity, will show the planets the wisdom he learned the hard way and resolve to find a solution of their own for next time. He can hope. But this time it fell upon him, this was his chance to redeem himself for failing to save his own home by saving the galaxy...

Not saying I agree with his argument, but I totally understand it as a Big Picture solution. Hell, it's even heroic if you remove that pesky morality aspect of it. Overpopulation and dwindling resources are inevitable fates to any society that mirrors ours and, faced with the outcome of that fate once already, he dedicated what was left of his life to keeping it from happening anywhere else. If anything, he's like Tony Stark in Age of Ultron: so dedicated to fixing his mistakes that he's blind to the fact that he's making a bigger one.


Spoiler: My Opinion on the Movie. Short version: the best of the Marvel movies to date.
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Funny, dramatic, and shocking all at (mostly) the proper times. The comedy didn't shoot itself in the foot the way it frequently did in Ragnarok and Black Panther, wrecking the pacing of otherwise epic moments. Characters were mostly on point, and those points where they seemed out of character were still in keeping with their spirits (I, for example, wholly agree that Starlord's flipping out at Gamora's death was entirely reasonable for an emotionally stunted man-child with severe issues with relationships and intimacy. Giving him someone he cares about and then taking it away from him is the surest way to break him.)

Breaking the massive cast up into bite-sized subgroups was inspired. Groupings were mixed up from their standard arrangements to showcase new interactions and some much needed comedy. Strange teaming up with Stark and Parker in particular was fun, as Stark and Strange have massive egos and all three of them are devastatingly clever each in their own way. Having Hulk lose a fight for once and spend the rest of the movie hiding like a frightened child helped remove a gamebreaker element from the plot and continue to evolve the character.

The "dust deaths" were pretty well done. With the exception of Parker, none of the others really had time to understand what was happening before they went, and watching this terrified teenager beg for his life was heartbreaking. Ending it with Fury going out like a proper Samuel L Jackson was also fun. I strongly suspect that most of the surviving characters will not survive the next movie - those who are left tend to be veterans nearing the end of their actors' contracts. So the next movie will likely have them making numerous sacrifices, with only a few surviving to see the others restored, handing off the torch to a new generation. The movie's actual ending was also pretty solid just for how curtly it stops. No heroes regrouping, no turning points, just the Mad Titan watching the sunset in the peaceful confidence that he did an unpleasant job that was for the greater good. The movie ends with the flat thud it needed.

The one part I didn't like was the Wakanda battle. It was too big, took too long, and the Shaky Cam slider was set too high. The thresher wheels in particular were superfluous - just go from the horde to the elites to Thanos. And did I mention the Shaky Cam? I couldn't make out half the action against the horde because of it, which made it unique in the movie and just plain unpleasant.


Also worth mentioning: I'd always thought they should do a Marvel-Star Wars crossover, but I didn't think they'd actually do it. Snoke comes off as a badass in this movie and it's satisfying that Stark and Parker are the ones to beat him this time.