Avengers: Endgame (2019) Watch Movie Online Free
The not-so-hidden environmental politics of Marvel's apocalyptic
blockbuster Tickets to the opening night of Marvel Studios' "Avengers:
Endgame" are not the only scarce commodity involving the film.
As the Avengers (at least some of them) return to deal with the aftermath of genocide-survivor turned super-villain Thanos having wiped out 50 percent of the universe, the message of the blockbuster movie is one for our times: Resource scarcity and overpopulation are not in the distant future. These are issues of critical importance to the future of the world — today.
As the Avengers (at least some of them) return to deal with the aftermath of genocide-survivor turned super-villain Thanos having wiped out 50 percent of the universe, the message of the blockbuster movie is one for our times: Resource scarcity and overpopulation are not in the distant future. These are issues of critical importance to the future of the world — today.
Concerns about adequate supplies of freshwater, population booms across the developing world that will require much greater food production, and the broader debate over human-caused climate change in the industrial era that created unprecedented levels of economic growth — but also the potential for human extinction — are all reflected symbolically in the Avengers' concluding storyline.
"Avengers: Endgame" will bring at least some of its many characters
together one last time to save the planet, and the culmination to the
10-plus years of storytelling includes an environmental message. Marvel
picked a good week, too. Monday is Earth Day.
Thanos' ambitions are due to his own planet, Titan, running out of resources and ultimately being destroyed.
"I think the basic idea is that Thanos feels that humans are destroying the planet (or every planet) and that population control is the only answer. There are many environmentalists who believe this, although I am not sure it is true," said Daniel P. Schrag, an environmental science professor at Harvard University. "It just pushes the problem back another few decades, until population again becomes very large and strains the earth's system."
A recent book by best-selling science writer Charles Mann called "The Wizard and The Prophet," tells the story of two 20th century giants of environmental thinking who present the fundamental divide that still exists today in seeking solutions. The prophets are those who see the apocalypse coming and believe we need to return to a idea of community, simpler concepts like small-scale, organic farming. The wizards believe human intelligence and creativity will always lead to a technological solution that society just cannot yet see, such as crop production techniques that lead to unprecedented booms in food production.
Thanos is a prophet of the apocalypse, though to be fair to environmental thinkers of the 20th and 21th centuries that fit the prophet mode, even as they rebuke the endless drive for technical solutions to all of the world's problems their philosophies extend well beyond a snap of the fingers.
Last year, when Josh Brolin's Thanos snapped his fingers and wiped out half of all living creatures (with the help of a fully loaded Infinity Gauntlet), the act served not only as a devastating conclusion that aided in the film's $2 billion-plus worldwide gross, but also as a form of symbolism to a simplistic way of thinking.
"This film is a commentary on simpilism and taking extremely complex problems and boiling them down to a single solution," said Paul Anastas, director of Yale University's Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering. "I view this film as a commentary on the simple and flawed approaches that believe you could solve complex, interconnected issues by a snap of the fingers."
The Wakandans of "Black Panther" and Tony Stark/"Iron Man" are clearly in the wizard camp. In the Stark storyline from the original comics, Tony's father Howard creator the arc reactor technology that would become central to Iron Man as a source for clean energy.
Back in December, the first teaser for "Endgame" smashed the 24-hour video views record with 289 million. The previous winner? "Avengers: Infinity War" with 230 million views.
"These are movies seen by millions of fans, making up a very large piece of our cultural identity in the early 21st Century," said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst for Boxoffice.com. "Without a doubt, pop culture is an important channel for serious subjects facing humankind to be addressed and put under the microscope at times."
Thanos' ambitions are due to his own planet, Titan, running out of resources and ultimately being destroyed.
"I think the basic idea is that Thanos feels that humans are destroying the planet (or every planet) and that population control is the only answer. There are many environmentalists who believe this, although I am not sure it is true," said Daniel P. Schrag, an environmental science professor at Harvard University. "It just pushes the problem back another few decades, until population again becomes very large and strains the earth's system."
A recent book by best-selling science writer Charles Mann called "The Wizard and The Prophet," tells the story of two 20th century giants of environmental thinking who present the fundamental divide that still exists today in seeking solutions. The prophets are those who see the apocalypse coming and believe we need to return to a idea of community, simpler concepts like small-scale, organic farming. The wizards believe human intelligence and creativity will always lead to a technological solution that society just cannot yet see, such as crop production techniques that lead to unprecedented booms in food production.
Thanos is a prophet of the apocalypse, though to be fair to environmental thinkers of the 20th and 21th centuries that fit the prophet mode, even as they rebuke the endless drive for technical solutions to all of the world's problems their philosophies extend well beyond a snap of the fingers.
Last year, when Josh Brolin's Thanos snapped his fingers and wiped out half of all living creatures (with the help of a fully loaded Infinity Gauntlet), the act served not only as a devastating conclusion that aided in the film's $2 billion-plus worldwide gross, but also as a form of symbolism to a simplistic way of thinking.
"This film is a commentary on simpilism and taking extremely complex problems and boiling them down to a single solution," said Paul Anastas, director of Yale University's Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering. "I view this film as a commentary on the simple and flawed approaches that believe you could solve complex, interconnected issues by a snap of the fingers."
The Wakandans of "Black Panther" and Tony Stark/"Iron Man" are clearly in the wizard camp. In the Stark storyline from the original comics, Tony's father Howard creator the arc reactor technology that would become central to Iron Man as a source for clean energy.
Back in December, the first teaser for "Endgame" smashed the 24-hour video views record with 289 million. The previous winner? "Avengers: Infinity War" with 230 million views.
"These are movies seen by millions of fans, making up a very large piece of our cultural identity in the early 21st Century," said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst for Boxoffice.com. "Without a doubt, pop culture is an important channel for serious subjects facing humankind to be addressed and put under the microscope at times."