I saw the Avengers: Infinity War movie this weekend. I wasn't as excited to see it after Black Panther since I can't believe anything can top that in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) this year. That's my bias showing, though.
Miraculously, I avoided all of the previews and the spoilers that were shown beforehand. It was hard to do that since the advertising for this movie started right after the Black Panther movie. It was a good move for the Marvel Comics Industrial Complex to place this latest Avengers movie right after Black Panther. We definitely needed to get the storyline from Black Panther to complete all of the threads that have been hanging around like chads since the start of the Marvel Comics films.
The largest thread, of course, is the one involving the Infinity Gems. Hence, the title of this movie. Throughout the various MCU movies, various stones have appeared. The six primary gems are the Mind Gem, the Soul Gem, the Space Gem, the Power Gem, the Time Gem and the Reality Gem. Each of these gems has appeared in various movies. What I didn't know is that Thanos's name is spelled out with these stones as in the following: Tesseract (Space Stone), Aether (Reality Stone), Orb (Power Stone), Scepter (Vision Stone), Soul (as it implies, Soul Stone), and Time (Time Stone). Well, at least the stones spell different parts of his name. This seems suspect to me, but I'm willing to go with it. :-)
Where do these stones appear in the various movies?
The Tesseract stone first appeared in Captain America: First Avenger. Loki steals it and Thor ends up taking it back to his home in Asgard. That stone also appears in Thor: Ragnarok. The Tesseract gives the user power over space. It can create portals from one part of the universe to another.
The Scepter stone first appeared in Loki's scepter in The Avengers. It gets recovered by The Avengers in the Avengers: Age of Ultron movie. Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Bruce Banner (The Hulk) use the stone to create Ultron. However, they also end up creating Vision. The Scepter Stone is essentially the mind stone which is used to control the minds of others.
The Aether Stone appears in Thor: Dark World. The villain in that movie uses the stone to manipulate matter which alters reality for the victims. At the end of the movie, the Asgardians give the stone to The Collector. Of course, that's a bad idea.
The Orb stone appears in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. The Orb (Power) Stone bestows upon its holder a lot of energy—the sort of energy that you can use to destroy an entire planet. As you can imagine, anyone that has that stone will probably have a hard time controlling it. At the end of the movie, the Guardians give it to Nova Corps, the space police, for safekeeping. Another bad idea.
The Time stone appears in Doctor Strange, the movie. Stephen Strange discovers it in the Eye of Agamotto pendant. He uses it at the end of the movie to trap an evil person in time. The stone grants its owner the power to rewind or fast-forward time. Doctor Strange is probably one of the few superheroes that realizes the power of the stone and ends up keeping it. Smart guy.
The final stone is the Soul Stone. This stone appears in the current movie, Avengers: Infinity War. Thanos has to pay a steep price to get it. Whereas, the other stones are just a matter of taking them away from the superhero that has it.
What is the price that Thanos has to pay to get the Soul Stone which is being guarded by the Red Skull? Thanos has to sacrifice his daughter, Gamora. Gamora is a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy crew and is the love interest of Peter Quill, the Star-Lord. The most moving parts of the film occur when Gamora and Thanos interact. Significantly, when it comes time for Thanos to claim the Soul Stone, she believes that he has nothing in his life that he loves enough to sacrifice for the stone.
We see him cry. Of course, we all realize that he will end up sacrificing Gamora in order to get the stone. She comes to this realization after the Red Skull points out that he is not crying because he will fail. He's crying because he has something in his life that he loves enough to trade for the stone. If anything, the tragedy is that she didn't realize that he loved her that much until this very moment of her imminent death.
He throws her off the cliff and we see her falling to her death. I cried for the very first time in sympathy for a super villain. But, I shouldn't have.
The bottom line is that Thanos is a very evil person despite the fact that his evilness has a strange logic to it. He states that he is killing off half of the known universe because there are limited resources. Unfortunately, for all of the planets that he lays waste to, the inhabitants have overrun their resources or will overrun them in time. Hunger and misery are what those inhabitants have to look forward to as a consequence. In his own twisted way, Thanos plans to "balance" the world by bringing back quality of life for the survivors. Death is the way through.
Considering how much we disrespect our planet, I wouldn't be surprised if we need Thanos to being some balance into our world. Events are occurring now on our planet without Thanos physically appearing on our planet.
Or, is he already here?
I spy an emerald, an amethyst, a sapphire, a ruby, an orange citrine and a huge yellow diamond. Who needs a crown?