Avengers: Infinity War was a phenomenal film that not only began to tie up the loose ends in the MCU but also showed us Thanos has a heart. The depth of character that Thanos has is something that is new for Marvel, a studio known for weak, one-note villains. Thanos brought a heavy dose of heart with him in Infinity War. Although the film was full of comic nods, one panel was almost taken directly from the Infinity Gauntlet comics.
WARNING: There are big Avengers: Infinity War spoilers ahead
Image: Marvel Studios
Thanos ended Infinity War with a bang (or a snap actually), essentially deleting half of the population of the universe, including a number of big-time Marvel heroes. This is a moment that happened much like it did in the comics. According to Digital Domain’s VFX supervisor Kelly Port, in an interview with The Wrap, the team originally wanted to include the “snap” graphic from the comic panel in the film:
“As a fun aside, we explored the idea of lifting the actual graphic from the frame of the comic showing the snap, the little yellow action triangles for a single frame of the moment of the snap. They appreciated the idea but didn’t ultimately go for it.”
This is the panel they are referring to:
Port went on to say that although the snap was a pivotal shot in the film, it went smoothly:
“Weirdly enough, you would think this particular shot… this particular critical moment, would have a tremendous amount of pressure and back and forth to get it just right, but it actually went pretty smoothly. I asked the compositor on this particular shot how it felt to be working on one of the most important shots in Marvel history. A shot representing the culmination of ten years of story. No pressure!”
Image: Marvel Studios
The hardest scenes for the team were in dealing with conveying Thanos’ emotions. Without this aspect, Thanos has no motivation and audiences wouldn’t relate to the Angry Titan.
The most difficult scenes for the team were actually those in which they needed to convey Thanos’ emotions. After all, without the emotional depth of Thanos, Infinity War doesn’t really work. Port says:
“You saw how many close-ups and subtle dramatic and heavy moments Thanos went through that really needed to come across, we spent the extra time and attention on shots like that — Our animation and modeling teams would go in and refine these performances with shot by shot, frame by frame attention.”
Image: Marvel Studios
“The essence of the original Thanos design stayed true to comics and previous films, but of course, we had to improve the photorealistic nature of the character. We were better able to address the realism as technology has improved and better lighting and rendering solutions have become available. But just as important, if not critical, was that we had the ability to capture the subtle details of Brolin’s performance and make sure they come through on Thanos. So many people say that they have sympathy with him or at least an understanding of his motivation. He’s a complex character — that’s all in the writing and Brolin’s performance, so it was essential to get it right given the amount of screen time had. This had to work in order for the movie to work.”
Image: Marvel Studios
What do you think of this move? Would it have altered the scene in theater? Let us know in the comments below!
Avengers: Infinity War is currently in theaters worldwide.
