With ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ now available on Digital (with a Blu-Ray and DVD release just a few weeks away), the special features for the film are finally coming to light, including many details on why the filmmakers made many of the epic choices they did for the massive hit. And of course, some of the biggest questions fans have concern the choice of who “died” when Thanos snapped his fingers and obliterated half the known universe at the end of the film (sorry, no spoiler warning, if you haven’t seen it by now, that’s on you). These questions appear to have some answers from the directors of the film and one of the producers.
In the new special features released with the digital version of the film, directors Joe and Anthony Russo talk about the choices of who was to disappear in “the snap” while discussing the Battle Of Wakanda in the film’s third act, saying:
“The movie sort of keeps twisting at the end there in ways that you can’t believe it’s going one step beyond and that the fate of our characters and the fate of our universe are still at play. In terms of our choices of who Thanos would end up eradicating with his snap, it was very story focused. How do we pay off each individual character story most profoundly? The first person to go is Bucky Barnes and it’s shot from Captain America’s perspective. We’re watching Cap go through the experience of watching him go away. We’re watching Okoye, whose number one mission it is in life is to protect the king. She watches the king go, in front of her. To see those characters react in those situations is very powerful and resonant.”
Producer Trinh Tran revealed that they did not even tell the cast how it was all going to go down in the end until the last possible second:
“When Thanos shows up, we really wanted to make this the most powerful moment ever. The blip out sequence, we had gathered the whole entire talent, they are circled around our directors, and basically revealed to them that morning of that scene was happening, that some of them were gonna be disappearing…This, by far, has been the most secretive of all 18 movies.”
Joe Russo continued the point about secrecy and not wanting to alert the audience about what was going to happen, stating:
“The audience is so good at predicting stories that even just the smallest clue can tell them where the film is gonna go. So, we worked really hard to make sure none of the secrets of the film leaked. It’s about as massive a production as you can mount. About 6,000 crew members working on the film from around the world.”
Do you think every character death was based solely on who would get the most reaction from it? It would certainly make sense with Spider-Man’s death (Tony Stark), Groot’s death (Rocket), but then you have a bunch of straggler characters like Peter Quill, Drax, and Mantis (though the argument could be made they all died to motivate Rocket and Nebula), and then Scarlett Witch, though if they manage to bring Vision back online in the next film her death could be a primary motivator for him to rejoin the struggle and stop Thanos.
Feel free to share your thoughts on the matter in the comments below!
