Thanos and the Infinity War: Building up the Suspense

Thanos Arrives.
The beat down. You shouldn't have messed with Hela.

With each movie from Marvel a new brushstroke adds to the painting that will eventually become the Infinity War. According to Marvel's plan we are now in Phase 3, which thus far in 2017 the audience has yet to watch Thor: Ragnarok. This will lead to Black Panther in 2018 and the Infinity War in May 2018, Antman and the Wasp 2018, Captain Marvel 2019 and Avengers 4; 2019.

As a member of the audience it sometimes feels as though we don't know enough about Thanos. In terms of the progress towards the Infinity War the story of the good guys, the Avengers, has been well told and as the suspense builds up it would be nice if under the mastery of Kevin Feige in Phase 3 the Infinity War movies were pushed back in order to include a Thanos stand alone movie. This would allow the audience to fully receive and comprehend Thanos' backstory. If you don't know anything about Thanos which is likely to be the case for a good deal of the audience there's a lot of information about him available on the internet, for example here.

Thanos has a very intriguing backstory. Its a little graphic, but all it needs is to be humanized for the audience to identify with him as the protagonist rather than the antagonist. For instance, at birth Thanos is born with physical features that are different from the Eternals and that affects his relationship with them. Eventually this has a strong impact on his personality. He is not necessarily born evil, but his being physically different and falling short of the standard of beauty held by Eternals, the life experiences he encounters through the formative years slowly turns him from a likable child into an Eternal who's views on morality, life and death have become "justifiably" jaded or twisted especially,  when the one woman who embraces him, treats him as someone beautiful, shows him affection, who makes him laugh and know true love,  allows his self esteem to grow until it becomes egotistical is the mistress of death, presumably Hela. It would be great if Hela were Thanos' childhood companion. Whereas the other children in the "playground" would tease and shun him, isolate him, she would instead befriend him. She would often have to shield or console him such that his attachment to her grew immeasurably. Thanos' feelings for Hela in the audience's mind are thus made real and relatable. This could be portrayed and would unfold cinematically. Over time Thanos befriends others who feel like outsiders who eventually become the crew with which he arrives in the Infinity War. In the same way that the Avengers assemble as a result of the personal connections and friendships that develop, antagonists like Thanos and company develop groups for similar reasons. They care about each other, defend one another, dive into harms way to protect one another, don't like to see team members hurt and feel each other's pain. Thanos would then be seen to closely follow the news that Hela is rumoured to be on earth as Thor: Ragnarok unfolds.

Hela goes up against the Avengers in Thor Ragnarok and is most likely defeated. After her defeat , lets say she is trapped or imprisoned in some way by the Avengers. What profound effect would this have on Thanos? Put it this way. Everyone in the audience thinks Thanos is coming to earth to complete the Infinity Gauntlet. But, put yourself in Thanos' shoes, if you were going about your business and heard your girlfriend had been knocked about and tied up by a bunch of so called heroes in spandex; how would you react? Get my point. You would drop everything you were doing, tell your squad where to meet you and gun for the earth. And when you got there all hell was going to break loose. This angle would resonate with the audience. Nevertheless, as was observed of Batman Vs Superman a better trailer than the last one does not necessarily mean the movie itself has been improved.

It would make more sense to the audience if Thanos wanted the Infinity stones to impress and avenge Hela, and free her than if he wanted them simply for the sake of having great power. To seek the infinity stones simply for the sake of power would make Thanos seem too simple, too one dimensional. Furthermore, it may be a good idea to explore the fact that a person wearing the Infinity Gauntlet is undefeatable. Its power is so immense that it simply cannot be taken from the bearer. To assume anyone can pull the gauntlet off anyone wearing it is weak. The gauntlet cannot be taken by trickery or by force. The only means to defeat the person who wears the Infinity Gauntlet is to make them take it off by themselves, willingly. Since the gauntlet makes Thanos too powerful to take on physically, then Hela may prove to be the only means at the disposal of the Avengers to make him choose to take it off. Every villain and hero has a weakness, an angle through which they can be defeated. Life and death exist in a balance. Though at first Thanos' destruction spreads death it unravels this balance too deeply threatening to permanently destroy both life and death, existence itself. The Avengers recognize this, give Thanos and his crew a hard time but he just keeps coming back, proves undefeatable. As everything falls apart Hela begins to see and sense that if all life in the universe must end then so too must death as one has no meaning without the other. She begins to understand that this plan is flawed. However, at this point in his campaign to free Hela and please her with limitless death Thanos does not see things have gone too far. Defeated the Avengers must do the unthinkable: plead with Hela to confront Thanos by seeing reason and understanding what this means. Hela seeing the problem at hand must now go against her own inclinations and confront Thanos, with the Avengers. But he has become so consumed by the objective and the high of wielding the Infinity Gauntlet that her first attempts to get through to Thanos fail. There are only brief intermittent moments in the battle where Thanos is momentarily weakened enough for her to communicate with him. When she breaks through its as though they converse in a dream. She reminds him of their past. In each brief moment she is able to reach Thanos a little more. She reasons with him, but he counters her arguments with his own sensible responses, refuses to back down and forces her out. The battle rages on. Hela doesn't relent. She finds her way back into his thoughts and calls on their past, the quiet times, the good times. Until finally he sees her. At last, he lets her pull the Infinity Gaunlet from his hand. In that twinkling the fastest member of the Avengers retrieves the Gauntlet, but Hela and Thanos are too intense to notice it being spirited away, Hela teleports herself and Thanos away...or something like that. The Gauntlet is then later used by the Avengers to restore the destruction and lives it decimated.

The only force capable of disarming Thanos is love.
This is confirmed by his backstory.

It makes financial sense for Marvel to have Hela play a substantive role in the Infinity War when it comes to the Avengers taking on Thanos. Women constitute a significant proportion of the audience. Psychologically they will identify with leading actresses in a movie and become more involved in the unfolding story arch if there is a strong female role in a movie. It does not matter whether the female role is of a protagonist or antagonist, the quality of presentation for the character is what attracts the female audience when the feminine nuances portrayed by the actor, guided by the director are done properly. If you want some proof of this working watch the Thor: Ragnarok trailer reactions on youtube and study the responses of the female audience when Hela appears with nuance excellently expressed by Kate Blanchet, for instance, when she runs her hands over her shoulders sensuously and this changes the design of her suite antlers and all, its strong, its womanly, there is certainly a connection made with the female audience and some excitement there that can be observed in the trailer reactions. A director has to be able to identify movement done by a male or female hero that is appealing. For instance when Thor stands up toward the end of the trailer with lighting in his eyes, his posture and the manner in which he rises is very masculine, it is intimidating but it would be a mistake to have a female hero rise with this same posture even though the very same message were being conveyed. Creating super hero's is an art. This is nuance. The difference between genius and mediocrity.

Thanos has a fantastic backstory that is financially viable to Marvel. It would make sense to include this brush stroke. Then when the Infinity War begins through empathy Thanos should ideally have some people, if not routing for him, at least able to appreciate why he and the Avengers are going to war as will be the case in the Infinity War.