Before I get to my main focus, I have to rant here just a little bit. Now, while I did very much like Avengers: Endgame, I have to say that I was also disappointed with it. I guess that largely stems from Avengers: Infinity War (2018, Anthony Russo, Joe Russo) being such an impressive achievement. By comparison, Avengers: Endgame (2019, Anthony Russo, Joe Russo) was to my mind a much more flawed film. My one major grievance is the choice of using time travel to solve this Thanos created crisis. To my mind, time travel opens up too many paradoxes, inconsistencies and contrivances. For one thing, would Nebula’s future self really instantly transmit her knowledge to her past self? I’m no expert here so maybe it would, but this element feels like a glaring contrivance. And speaking of contrivances, why in the world didn’t Nebula tell Natasha/Black Widow and Clint Barton/Hawkeye about having to make a sacrifice to get the soul stone?!? That seems like another glaring contrivance. A couple of other grievances: To my mind, in Infinity War, Thanos (Josh Brolin) was one of the greatest superhero villains ever (see more below) but in Endgame, for the most part he is rendered one-dimensional. I also hate the way Gamora (Zoe Saldana) is brought back. Apparently, the past Gamora is now going to fill in for deceased Gamora, which means that all that development of her character and her relationships with the other Guardians, especially of course with Quill – really rich material — is gone, a disappointing development, at least for me. I have other minor grievances, but I don’t want to make this a review piece, and, really, again, I did really like Endgame. Indeed, overall, it is an ambitious film and at times the results equal its ambitiousness.
Avengers: Infinity War
What I want to focus on here is a deep element in the two films, which began in Avengers: Infinity War.
Before I get to this deep element, as I say above, for me, Avengers: Infinity War is an amazing achievement, superbly written, directed, orchestrated, a truly epic film that somehow does the impossible, juggle a multitude of important characters and seamlessly (mostly so!) give them all something meaty to do. That the film is not just a series of action sequences but also has character and relationship development moments (e.g., touching moments between Wanda and Vision and Quill and Gamora, to name just two) also speaks to the depth and breadth of this sublime film.
The Sacredness of Human (Sentient) Life
In terms of the deep element in the film — in short, our vital need to evolve ourselves to think of all human life as sacred — I think one moment really punctuates this element. The moment comes when Vision (Paul Bettany) first tries to sacrifice himself for the greater good of the universe:
Vision: “Thanos threatens half the universe. One life cannot stand in the way of defeating him.”
Steve Rogers/Captain America: “But it should. We don’t trade lives Vision.”
Vision: “Captain, 70 years ago, you laid down your life to save how many millions of people? Tell me, why is this any different?”
The question essentially goes unanswered by Captain America (Chris Evans), but the answer is ostensibly simple: Captain America didn’t just offer himself up to be killed/sacrificed but rather risked his life for others by fighting against the forces of evil. And that gets to the deeper point of this moment and this film: Lives are precious, sacred, or at least they should be, including — and this shouldn’t even be an emphasis (!) — lives that are Other, which, since Vision is an AI, he is as Other as can be. In this way, we can first see how this moment is allegorical, in that Vision is a stand-in for all Others (people of color, “immigrants”/”refugees,” people of alternative religious belief systems, LGTBQ people, women, etc.) and so in coding his life as sacred, precious, we have to code all Others’ lives as sacred. (For more on this element, check out my blurbs on the important clone/AI films Never Let Me Go, Blade Runner, Ex Machina, and Moon in my “Favorite Science Fiction Films” post.)
Moreover, by giving Vision over to the mass murderer/genocidal Thanos, they would be negating this very act of making life sacred, by in effect saying that one life is not. But if we make even just one life not sacred, then we negate the sacredness of all lives.
Of course, sometimes scenarios dictate a lack of choice in the matter – a life must be sacrificed for the greater good — but to my mind, that doesn’t negate this point, e.g., when there is a choice – and Vision and The Avengers had an alternative option, albeit a long shot option – one must always uphold the sacredness of human life.
Thanos, An Allegorical Villain
Two other related threads in this film add to the depth of this point. First, in making Thanos an extremely complex villain, a villain who can “love” and who weeps at the loss of a loved one, and by making him a sophisticated monster who doesn’t just routinely, mindlessly slaughter Others (he spares many lives he encounters in one-on-one scenarios), his twisted “philosophy” can be taken more seriously, albeit in a way where we also know that it is monstrous. That is, when Thanos says that by eliminating half of a population, he has then made it viable for that population to survive, there is a kind of twisted logic to his claim. After all, over-population can mean the consumption of scarce resources, to the point where a planet can collapse, killing all the population. But then that begs the question of who lives and who dies? (Of course, Thanos answers that by making it arbitrary but that doesn’t negate the moral dilemma for us.) That, then, kicks back to this core point I mention above: If we instill the absolute sacredness of all human (or humanoid/sentient) life, then this morality question can never arise. In other words, if such a scenario were to ever come to pass, to keep our humanity, we would have to find an alternative means for survival or die in the process. To do otherwise, is a figurative killing of the self such an act is so dehumanizing.
The other crucial point here is that because Thanos is such a serious and complex villain, I would contend that he becomes deeply allegorical, a figure who represents our own history of ruthless authoritarian, fascist, genocidal maniacs who litter our history (e.g., Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.). In this way, too, Infinity War attempts to right our past and recent history of what I think is some slippage in our moral fiber, where we have too easily let authoritarian figures today (most notably Trump in our present moment) dictate a lack of seeing humanity as sacred and precious, which is most easily seen by Trump’s lack of upholding this sacredness of humanity, which can be seen in any number of his policies and actions, e.g., separating families, deporting individuals back to dangerous situations in their home country, supporting a crimes against humanity war in Yemen, not taking action in the Saudi’s killing of Jamal Khashoggi, enabling Israel’s human rights violations against the Palestinian people, denying climate change, to name just a few concrete examples.
In short, if we ingrained into our very way of being this sacredness of human life, then we would not accept acts that are the contrary to that.
When Sacrifice is Unavoidable: The Sacredness of Human Life is Reinforced
Finally, Infinity War reinforces this sacredness of humanity through specific moments and choices in the film. There is a noticeable motif that runs throughout the film, whereby characters either sacrifice themselves for loved ones or who honor the wishes of a loved one and, well, kill them. So, we get the two obvious examples of this, Vision finally persuading Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) to destroy his infinity stone, which will kill him, and Quill (Chris Pratt) fulfilling his promise to kill Gamora if Thanos gets a hold of her. These two moments would ostensibly not fit into this thread of stressing the sacredness of human life, but as I suggest above, this absolute choice of sacredness of human life can’t stand when faced with a situation where there are no alternative options to sacrificing Others. Then the sacredness of human life is forcibly shifted to the lesser of loss, the test of humanity then becoming whether one can uphold this sacredness of human life by, paradoxically, ending it, though I have to also stress here that the very nature of this paradox — the very nature of this extraordinarily painful and traumatic killing/sacrifice — is what reinforces our clarity of the sacredness of human (sentient) life. Faced with the imminent getting of an infinity stone, both Gamora and Vision know that their choice – and the choice of others – has come to an end and they must choose to die. What isn’t easy is convincing a loved one to do the killing, which is also part of this sacredness of human life thread, in that Quill and Wanda must do the most difficult thing an individual could ever do, kill a loved one. In this act, we don’t only see how difficult such a choice is (we are sutured into their choice and thus go through the mental act of making this impossible choice ourselves), we also come to see just how precious and sacred human life can be, via how these loved ones (Quill and Wanda in this case) are torn apart by this choice, which, in turn, makes us see how all human (sentient) life is precious, since each and every individual is seen as just as loved and precious as Vision and Gamora are by Wanda and Quill.
This is all hyper-accentuated by Thanos choosing death over life – he chooses to sacrifice his beloved “daughter” Gamora for an infinity stone – which, in turn, speaks to part of the allegory I mention above, how entities of power do not value life, do not see life as sacred, and thus they will choose gain even over loved ones.
Peter Parker’s Heart Wrenching Death
Finally, I just want to touch on one other interesting element at the end. When Thanos snaps his finger and wipes out half of the universe, we see many characters and figures fade away into dust. Though this whole sequence is disturbing, I would contend that it isn’t as devastating as it should be, which is why I think the Russo brothers make Peter Parker’s/Spider-Man’s (Tom Holland) death more traumatic, both for the surrogate father figure Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and for us. Parker is the youngest hero of the bunch, just a “kid,” and thus his death is already particularly sad, but his last words even more so personalize his death. In the same strange phenomenon where people seem to care more about a single (localized) death than millions dying from drought or genocide, Parker’s personalized death is necessary to make this mass loss of life personal for us the spectator. Moreover, by making his life so personal, here too we can see why all life is sacred; half of the universe has just been wiped out but via Parker’s personalized death, we feel every loss even more so.
Avengers: Endgame
Again, to my mind, Endgame isn’t as deep as Infinity War, but it did have a few threads that deepened this focus of the sacredness of human (sentient) life.
Most generally, Endgame mournfully materializes the truly heartbreaking impact of so much loss of life, a kind of end of the world sensibility that is also deeply humbling for humanity, a way for us to kind of get a sense of our true precarity, e.g., we like to think of ourselves as the center of the universe and in control of our fate, but when one factors in our true state of being – our planet is a speck of dust in an unpredictable universe that could blink us out of existence in many different ways, not to mention that we ourselves can disrupt our delicate balance of sustaining life on this planet and blink our own selves out of existence – we can more properly put ourselves back in a more telling context of our place in the universe. In this way, too, when so much life is lost, we can better see and feel what is truly important in the world, not wealth accumulation or increasing profit and power or other materialistic pursuits or stimulation (consumerist) fixes but life itself and living life in a way that maximizes bonding time with loved ones and our fellow human beings. More pointedly, Endgame powerfully captures the collective grieving of people who have all lost someone they love, a way for us to envelop ourselves not just in a loss of loved ones but in a unique way of bonding with Others who have shared this experience, these Others literally being virtually every person on the planet, a way to collapse differences and even Otherness and collectivize in a self/self dynamic, which, in turn, again, speaks to the true measurement of humanity, a people who view loved ones as sacred life, which, in turn, speaks to all of our shared view of life as sacred.
(I have to add just one caveat to this point: There is really a missed opportunity here, e.g., I wish the Russo brothers had at least given us some images of people around the world grieving this massive loss of life, making this a worldwide loss and not so much focused on American loss, which, in turn, would have been a profound way to really hit home this point I make above, to collectivize all of humanity; instead of seeing each other as Other, this monumental crisis – or, in representational terms, this represented crisis for us the spectator– would have collapsed differences and bonded people the world over as one, as humans and not a nation-state division of people.)
A couple of other threads supports this focus on the sacredness of human (sentient) life.
Clint Barton/Hawkeye
The Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) thread would seem to not fit since he is going around the world slaughtering people. But if we think a little deeper, I think this thread fits this focus. To put it in its proper context, Barton’s loss is monumental, him losing his entire family to Thanos’ monstrous act. To alleviate his trauma, Barton chooses to lose his humanity and seek out and kill gang figures who become a kind of displacement for Thanos himself. In other words, since Barton can’t actually get Thanos, he can do the next best thing and kill others who do the same thing as Thanos, though of course on a much, much smaller scale. That is, Barton is targeting monstrous figures (gangs, cartels, etc.) who do not view life as sacred but instead live self-centered lives, putting their gain before people. That doesn’t excuse Barton’s act, but it does speak to a vital point, that Thanos isn’t just a throwaway comic-book villain but is in fact part of our very way of being, predatory people snapping their fingers every day so to speak. (Here again, if we think of Thanos as allegorically representing authoritarian figures or other figures of power — e.g., CEOs, transnational capitalist class entities. etc. — such figures can eliminate Others with something akin to a snap of their fingers.) That, in turn, creates predators, in this case Barton going from being a good person who had chosen to leave a hero’s life and instead become a family man who intimately bonds with his family to, well, a predator. Finally, the film doesn’t shirk from emphasizing that despite all these reasons for why Barton becomes a monster, he still becomes a monster who wantonly kills Others, which is best illustrated by that shot that hyper-emphasizes his slaughter of an Asian gang. In this way, too, the film emphasizes that the sacredness of human life is diminished when we kill, even when we kill monsters, since it is a dehumanizing act that, in turn, dehumanizes the human doing the killing, and, I would say, humanity itself since such an act speaks to this dehumanizing potentiality in humanity in general.
Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel
This thread isn’t developed at all, but there is one thing interesting about the Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) element. At one point, James Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle) chastises Danvers about not being on Earth when Thanos’ does his heinous deed, to which she responds that there are other planets in the universe and not every planet has The Avengers to protect them. In responding this way, Danvers’ point becomes deeply allegorical, in the sense that we can see how revealing this general sentiment is, how it speaks to a history of self-centered interests taking precedence over Others. To just focus on America (though this is very much a human thing, especially in terms of Western/Eurocentric history), America has again and again put its own self-interest ahead of Others, especially Others who don’t hold any geopolitical interests for America. To take just one example, America and other “first world” countries have just stood by while genocidal acts were being perpetrated, e.g., in Rwanda and Darfur to name just two. One can also take this to a micro level focus and see how this works internally, where America’s history is largely about putting the self-interests of the dominant social order (e.g., capitalistic, white supremacist, patriarchal) before Others (e.g., Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Asians, etc.). In other words, by just this one line and by the fact that Danvers’s mission is to help other “alien” species, we can see how the film is rejecting a self/Other divide and instead stressing a self/self equation where all life is sacred. (We get this better developed in the film Captain Marvel [2019, Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck] , where the Skrulls are very much an allegorical element in the film, an allegorical representation for “third world”/“immigrant”/”refugee” Others.)
Gamora Chooses Life
Finally, a key pivot in the film is, ironically enough, Nebula (Karen Gillan) – now in the role that Gamora played in the second Guardians of the Galaxy film (2017, James Gunn) – convincing her sister Gamora to do the right thing and resist their mass murderer father Thanos. Of course, we already know from the first Guardians film (2014, James Gunn) that Gamora takes this step and leaves her father and resists his hate and lack of seeing sentient life as sacred. So, this moment in Endgame just punctuates this thread: In seeing what her father sees – that he succeeds in his plot to wipe out half of the universe – Gamora all too starkly now realizes just how monstrous her father is and thus joins Nebula in resisting him. The deeper implications of this element are profound: When monsters are revealed to be monsters, then no matter what one’s relationship to that monster is, one must resist. In other words, the sacredness of life takes precedence over the familial or any other bonded relation one has to a monster. In short, if you side with a monster, that makes you a monster.
A Crimes Against Humanity Crisis
I just want to add one other element here: To my mind, the one (only?) moment that realizes Thanos as the complex and serious and allegorical villain we saw in Infinity War is when he is about to enact his monstrous act again, though this time he says that instead of wiping out half of sentient life in the universe, he is going to exterminate all sentient life and replace it with new sentient life forms, the point being he says is that in this way, his newly created sentient life will not feel the massive loss of loved ones and instead flourish in his new altered reality. This new plan makes Thanos an out and out genocidal monster and one that fits with many genocidal monsters who see the purging of Others (e.g., Jews during the Holocaust being the most obvious example though there are many others) as a way to create a “pure” “race.” In the massive mobilization against Thanos and his minions, we can also see how (allegorically!) such a monster must be dealt with, through massive resistance, a collectivization of Others in defense of this sacredness of life sensibility.
One would hope that this sacredness of life lesson is adopted by the people who see these two films, e.g., resistance to those who betray this sacredness of life is an imperative for all who see themselves as heroes…as human.