- How Thor: Ragnarok sets up Avengers: Infinity War.
Well, we're still feeling slightly hungover
from getting hammered with Thor: Ragnarok this weekend,
so hungover that yes, we're repeating puns
from yesterday's Nerdist News.
But as our Asgardian-sized buzz begins to wear off,
it's time to put Ragnarok in the rear view mirror
and start lookin' to the future,
all the way to next summer when the Marvel movie
to end all Marvel movies or least the Marvel movie
to end Phase Three finally finds its way to theaters.
But in the meantime, spoilers, spoilers, spoilers!
Spoilers!
You got that?
Avengers: Infinity War hits the big screen
May 4, 2018 and it's poised to put a big bow
on 10 years of cinematic storytelling
that began all that way back in 2008
with the first Iron Man movie.
Now there's one more MCU film on the horizon
before we get to Infinity War:
Next February's Black Panther.
But since that's the first solo outing
of a still relatively unknown hero,
we're guessing Marvel isn't gonna bog it down
with loads of franchise building
so audience's can better get to know the character
on his own terms.
So that means Ragnarok is probably
the last bit of table setting before the big event.
So we thought now would be the perfect time
for an Infinity War refresher course.
Let's begin with those six magical, marvelous macguffins,
the objects everyone will be going to Infinity War over:
The Infinity Stones.
Now they've been floating around the MCU forever
and it can be touch to keep track of all of 'em.
So let's review.
The Reality Stone is still in the Collector's collection,
the Power Stone is in the custody of the Nova Corps,
Vision is using the Mind Stone
to literally power his mind
and you can only check out the Time Stone
if you have a library card for Kamar-Taj's library.
The Space Stone is in the possession of Loki,
but probably not for long.
And the Soul Stone is, well, we're not really sure
where the Soul Stone is.
We may have had a few small assumptions about it
in the past, like that we were definitely 100% certain
that it would show up in Ragnarok.
(film shutter rolling)
- So there you have it: One final Infinity Stone
to be found before the MCU goes to Infinity War
and we're pretty sure we know exactly where it is
and where it's going.
And honestly, when have we ever been wrong before?
(dinging)
(film shutter rolling)
- But Ragnarok came and went
without a Soul Stone to be seen.
Now to be fair, we made those guesses
when we thought Infinity War would start off
with the Stones all in one place,
so we could just actually jump into the Infinity War
when the movie started.
But now we know from the Russo Brothers
that Infinity War is actually going to be more
of a heist film, following Thanos as he grabs each Stone.
So now it seems very intentional that they're keeping them
all separate for the structure of that story.
And the reveal of the Soul Stone
is probably gonna be some kinda big third act surprise,
maybe even the thing that evens the playing field
a little bit when Thanos has gathered the other five
and all hope seems lost.
But regardless, there are six Stones out there
which we're guessing means five or six big action set pieces
as different groups of heroes try to defend them.
Now as we already pointed out, Loki pretty clearly
grabbed the Tesseract on his way out of Asgard
and since we see Thanos' ship intercept him and Thor
in the Ragnarok post-credits scene,
it seems likely one of the first big scenes
will be Thanos snagging it from him.
The only question is if he'll have to fight Loki
for the Stone or if Loki could just
turn it over willingly.
Either way, that D23 trailer where Thor
ends up unconscious on the windshield of the Milano
means whatever happens, it doesn't end well
for the God of Thunder.
We also know that Thanos will be bringing his minions
into battle and from a structure standpoint,
it seems to make sense that we'll see
one or two of them deployed to capture each Stone.
Our own Dan Casey has previously schooled us
on the children of Thanos, so here's a quick rundown.
- The children of Thanos.
- First of all they're not actually his kids.
They're more like his disciples, like how Magneto
has his acolytes or Lady Gaga has her little monsters.
So no, Thanos is not paying child support
for four little villains he's reared.
Maybe just the two no-longer villains we already know about,
Gamora and Nebula.
Instead, the children of Thanos AKA the Black Order
are major fans and followers of the big guy
and help him carry out his bad guy goal
of enslaving the galaxy.
And we know or least can make a pretty darn good guess
from the statues unveiled at D23 a few months back
that four of the five members of the Black Order
will be making their way from comic books pages
to the big screen in Infinity War.
Namely, Corvus Glave, Proxima Midnight,
Ebony Maw and Black Dwarf.
So there we have four bosses who could be sent out
by Thanos to obtain the Infinity Stones
before the final showdown with big boss Thanos
when all 72 characters of this film
will be on the screen at the same time.
Or at least that's how we're fully expecting
it'll go down.
Probably more like 82 or 92.
But for sure no less.
(laughs)
But what do you guys think?
Do you think the Black Panther movie
is hiding an Infinity Stone?
Was there enough Marvel mythology in Ragnarok
and where could that pesky Soul Stone be hiding?
Let's discuss.
(electronic music)
(scribbling) (folding)