Spoilers ahead for Avenger: Infinity War.
While it was released back in April, Marvel fans still haven't recovered from the wild events of Avengers: Infinity War. Ten years of blockbusters came to a head, with all of the MCU's major characters uniting against Josh Brolin's Thanos. Unfortunately, it was all for naught, as the villain was able to gather all of the Infinity Stones, and wipe out half the universe with the snap of a finger. But how exactly did that work? Marvel VFX supervisor Dan DeLeeuw recently opened up about crafting Infinity War's visuals, where he revealed it was the Power Stone that caused the mass murder, through the use of the Infinity Gauntlet. As DeLeeuw tells it,
The Power Stone was blipping them out of existence.
And just like that, the inner workings of Thanos' finger snap of death has been explained. Each of the Infinity Stones has different abilities, and it's hard to keep up with Thanos' powers once he arrives in Wakanda for Vision. And in addition to destroying Titan's moon, the Power Stone was also responsible for half of the universe fading away to dust.
Because the events of Infinity War are so dizzying and shocking, the specifics of Thanos' powers weren't really explained. Josh Brolin's character was largely the film's main character, and his inner motivations and psyche were explored more than how each Infinity Stone affected his strength. As such, there's plenty of questions that hardcore fans may still have, many of which were answered through Infinity War's commentary and special features.
During his same conversation with Inverse, Dan DeLeeuw also explained how the finger snap was originally going to be a much more complicated sequence. Before landing on the Power Stone, DeLeeuw was tasked with combining all of the stone's effects into the massive death scene, including the Soul Stone. Ultimately this was scrapped, and the finger snap's affects were shown by each affected hero fading away in front of our eyes.
We had concept art combining all those things, and it was getting too busy. It became too complicated. It was stepping on what the actors were doing. So it became 'body turns to ash.' We peeled away all those layers and focused on that one [Power Stone], deciding how quickly it would consume someone, what pattern it would consume them.
Simplifying Thanos' snap was probably the best choice, as the death scene played out with silent horror. Thanos succeeded in his task, leaving the Avengers and Guardians alone as their members began falling at alarming numbers. Each death is more devastating than the last, ending with Peter Parker's heartbreaking exit in the arms of Tony Stark.
Avengers: Infinity War is available digitally now, and will arrive on Blu-ray on August 14th. In the meantime, check out our 2018 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.
