Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has explained his reasoning for not considering the ending of Avengers: Infinity War to be a cliffhanger.
As if you don’t remember, the climax of the Avengers’ penultimate outing saw the triumph of Thanos by using the Infinity Stones to erase half of all life. In the book Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame – The Art of the Movie, a quotation from Feige explains that he considers the events to finish on a resolution.
“One of the reasons why we don’t consider Infinity War a cliffhanger is because the end of the movie is not the heroes disappearing. The end of the movie is Thanos content on a planet in a rather shockingly idyllic environment doing exactly what he told us he would do: sit and look upon a grateful universe. He succeeded, and that’s the end of the film. Will the Avengers try and stop him? Maybe. They’ll try. But they didn’t have much luck before, and I don’t think he’s worried that they’re going to have much luck now.”
After a finale like that, it was inevitable that Endgame would see the remaining heroes attempt to reverse the Snap and bring everyone back, but rather than a continuation Feige clearly considers it a different story that follows on from Infinity War, and has always done so. When the films were first announced they were given titles of Infinity War: Part 1 and Part 2, but as early as 2015 Feige was quoted as stating the two movies were distinct and separate rather than being a single narrative cut in half.
Cliffhanger endings are ones that interrupt the story mid-event, usually at a deliberately chosen injudicious moment, or with the protagonists in some dire strait or other that has no clear resolution. The climax of Avengers: Infinity War does feature the latter when many of the titular supergroup are dusted along with half the universe, which prevents it from feeling like a true culmination since it’s highly unusual for heroes to be so roundly defeated.
However, Feige is right in that it is a conclusion, and not just because of the editing choice of the film’s final shot. Thanos seen alone and at peace form the closing moments of a story that was always stated to be his, with other characters obstacles to be overcome in the path towards his final victory.
