1. What happened to 1/2 of the Asgardians?
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At the beginning of the movie we are shown the destroyed ship that the Asgardians were aboard fleeing the events which happened in the previous movie, "Thor Ragnarok". I was very confused when watching the movie the first time around, I thought Thanos had killed ALL of the Asgardians. Originally, I had thought Thanos had broken his own rule by killing all of the Asgardians. What the audience was supposed to infer was, Valkerie helped the surviving half of the Asgardians escape. How were we supposed to know that?
2. Hulk's "performance" issues.
Once the dust settled and everyone had their chance to make jokes about Bruce Banner's struggles concerning his "performance" issues, this part of the movie was actually disappointing (joke intended). While trying to transition into "the other guy", the Hulk said he was scared and didn't want to come out. Is he scared of being in the Hulk form for extended periods of time such as "Thor: Ragnarok" where he was the Hulk for months on end, killing his opponents in the arena for sport on the planet Sakaar? Or is he scared of Thanos, who gave him one hell of a beating? Either way, the Hulk has evolved from what people thought of him as a mindless creature that punches everything in sight, to a mildly rational creature. Whether this is a development of more screen time, or the character himself, this is a very important point. The Hulk, who may not be able to rationalize at the same level as able-bodied adults, should be able to consider the importance letting loose to help in the cause of defeating Thanos.
3. Use the Time Stone to kill a younger Thanos.
I've had this particular discussion with different people before. If Dr. Strange has the Time Stone, why doesn't he go back in time and kill baby Thanos? To which people argue, well, that is immoral, he was not born evil. Which is where things get a little fuzzy. Why don't we kill teen Thanos? Or kill Thanos as he is heading over to Eitri to forge the gauntlet? At that point we know he is evil and needs to be stopped!
4. Thanos's plan only works in the short-run.
Whether you believe the glass is half empty or half full, losing half of the population would be devastating to us. While sincerely unfortunate, on the larger level, this effect will not last long. Thanos has not altered the amount of resources for half of the population to access. This means the population will reproduce back up to the original amount of people, up to the amount of resources available.
Lets pretend for a moment that I agree with Thanos, and was his evil adviser. A more long lasting action yielding better results is forced sterilization. Only allowing a certain amount of babies to be born per year. This would control the population permanently. (Forced sterilization is a bad thing! If you want to read some history about it, please click on this: Eugenics in the United States).
5. Why does Thor need a weapon?
As seen in, "Thor: Ragnarok", Thor does need need his hammer, Mjolnir to harness his powers. He has the ability to use his powers without the hammer. It feels like a waste of time for Thor to go far out in space to forge another weapon. He even survives the powerful energy of a star! If the gauntlet is made of metal, focus the energy on zapping it, therefore zapping Thanos in the process. I'd imagine there's enough bolts of energy to kill or at least stun Thanos.
6. Thanos sacrificing Gamora.
I've heard of people criticizing how Thanos acquired the Soul Stone. People argue, Thanos did not truly love Gamora, that it is not a healthy father/daughter relationship. Which I completely agree with the part that it is not a healthy relationship. However, I do believe that Thanos did love Gamora in his own warped way. In his point of view, he still sacrifices something precious in his life to obtain the Soul Stone. It is all about how he PERCEIVES the sacrifice. The "rules" did not entail the person being sacrificed to love Thanos in return.
7. Mantis trance gave the team many opportunities they did not utilize.
The scene where Mantis has Thanos in a trance had many opportunities to turn out differently. Just as Spiderman is about to slip off the gauntlet, Thanos regains consciousness (thanks to Peter Quill) and grabs the gauntlet in time to slide it back on. While he was unconscious, why didn't someone decapitate him? Granted, we are in a PG-13 universe, decapitation may be a bit intense. BUT they could have still chopped off his arm. Find some way where he would no longer have the ability to yield the gauntlet.
Regardless of what they could have done, this scene in the end was ultimately disappointing. While Peter Quill can be an impulsive character, I don't believe he would have just straight up punched Thanos. He knows what the plan is, to rip the gauntlet off to take away his power. He could then beat him as much as he would want after the gauntlet is taken from Thanos. HOWEVER, there are strong parallels to "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" when Ego was explaining how he killed Peter's mother. Ego explained that Peter's mother "had to die" as a means to get what he wants. This is similar to how Thanos explains how killing Gamora was necessary. Even with the blind rage of discovering another important woman in your life is dead, wouldn't have Peter just killed Thanos?
8. Just how random was the 50%?
There are a few different points I would like to discuss here.
First - When Strange bargained with Thanos to let Stark live in exchange for the Time Stone, Thanos agreed. However, when Thanos snapped his fingers to eliminate half of the people from the planet, Stark was spared. Was this by random chance, or was an extension of upholding Strange's deal from earlier? If this is upholding the deal, then the people obliterated were not 100% random because Stark had a guaranteed ticket to survive the snap. What if given the chance to be erased from existence, Stark would have been one of them, and someone else would have lived? Following this logic, there is someone who was obliterated when it could have been Stark.
Second - How was the 50% selected? Yes, the snap was random, but at what level was it randomized? If there is a random chance (at the global level) to obliterate 50% of the entire population, there is a CHANCE (extremely small) that whole countries could lose all of their people while another country goes untouched. Was the 50% selected at country level to make it more fair? For example - 50% of country #1 will be obliterated, 50% of country #2 will be obliterated, and so on. This seems more fair, right? What about the sex of people? Would there be a category of country #1 who are females where 50% is obliterated? I could continue on, with culture, color, and many other factors. While seemingly evil, Thanos thinks he is doing the right thing to help the species thrive by cutting out what he thinks is over population. Therefore, he probably would not find it beneficial to wipe out for example, an entire country of people.
