I’ve made this video to discuss a specific aspect of these two movies.
“Avengers: Infinity War” (2018) and “Wonder Woman” (2017) are both impressive works, very well made in every aspect, script, acting, photography, effects, montage, sound…
The super villains, respectively Thanos and Ares, carry a point of view which is nowadays being attributed to part of the so called “elite”: the alleged necessity to depopulate.
Wonder Woman fighting Ares
Wonder Woman’s words of praise for humanity during her final battle with Ares, “They’re everything you say, but so much more”, refer to our capacity to love and sacrifice even our own lives for love or for a just cause, of which she has just been given proof. “They do not deserve your protection!” Ares says. She answers: “It’s not about deserve. It’s about what you believe. And I believe in love.”, which is of no interest to Ares.
He complains that humans are “filled with hatred”, but minutes before he was telling her how he instigates them and creates situations of instability which he knows would produce war. Ares, supposedly a superior being, is really not helping humans by showing them a superior way of life, a path to virtue, peace and respect for each other and the planet, because he’s also filled with hatred for humans, just as humans for humans according to his complain.
Gamora’s words to Thanos, “You kill and torture… and you call it mercy”, seem to be also motivated by empathy and by a moral compass, just like Dr Strange’s answer when Thanos defines himself “a survivor”: “Who wants to murder trillions”.
Only Bruce Banner mentions the voracious side of Thanos when he describes him as “… a plague… He invades planets. He takes what he wants. He wipes out half the population.” but he only does so while explaining the situation to Tony Stark… whose scientific genius, as we know from the “Iron Man” movies, is alas focused on weapons, not in finding solutions to reduce the impact on the planet of our activities and needs. He belongs to the military industrial complex, of which he is the elite of the elite.
Nobody really challenges Thanos and Ares directly on motivations such as “finite resources” and “we could return this world to the paradise it was before them”.
…and criticizes certain “elite” to which such will is being attributed (alas it’s very clear by now that conspiracy theories are not necessarily false).
If you like this video, please recommend it to your friends, if you didn’t, please recommend it to your enemies.
DISCLAIMER: of course many cuts (applied to reduce usage of the movies footage while keeping this video short) have not been made by the movie editors themselves and the final result does not represent their skill (especially: Bruce Banner relating to Tony Stark, Thanos attacking the Zehobereians, and the dialogue and flashback while Wonder Woman fights Ares). Editing an already edited sequence, through an already mixed down soundtrack, can be problematic.
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