The switch from Tesseract = Cosmic Cube to Tesseract = Infinity Stone was a particularly vivid example of this. In AVENGERS, Thanos gives the sceptre (which is "powered by the cube") to Loki, and later we're told actually the sceptre is another one of the Infinity Stones he's desperately seeking.
in fact it’s just some random alien dude and I believe Thanos was tossed into the post credits by Joss Whedon on a whim!
original Avengers plot: Loki is taken in by some aliens and talks his way out of being eaten or what by telling them that via the use of the Tesseract he can arrange for them to invade a planet that they would never be able to reach otherwise, and he’ll do it if he can plz be put in charge
retconned Avengers plot: Thanos entrusts an obviously shifty drifter he finds in space with the only infinity stone he has. Loki retrieves the second stone but Thanos just abandons him to fuck it all up. As it turns out it’s actually extremely easy to just jump to Earth so what was that all about
also worth saying that Infinity War actually further enstupifies Thanos’s plan as it seems highly likely Thanos knew the time stone was in New York City when his literal massive space army invaded New York, but he wasn’t arsed about it
“No other being has ever had the might, nay the nobility to wield not one but two infinity stones…which you could have done waaaay earlier if you hadn’t abandoned Loki, honestly I’m not sure you are up to the job boss”
And if you go far enough back in the source material, the Chitauri are were shape changing reptillians inspired by the conspiracy theories of David Icke.
Were they introduced in the first Ultimates book as basically Skrull stand-ins or am I misremembering?
Yep, Millar had them take the role of the skrulls, but was heavily inspired by Icke's nonsense (in a "look at this nonsense" way, not a "this guy is onto something" way)
The one Whedon added on a whim was the restaurant scene, filmed just a day or two before the film's premiere. It's why Chris Evans is covering his face with his hand, because by that point he'd grown a beard
yeah sorry I don’t think he made the Thanos scene on the fly but he just shoved it in as a kind of random bonus Easter Egg thing with no actual plan
I mean, canonically Thanos wanted the Cosmic Cube (for basically the same reason he later wanted the Infinity Stones), so it kind of makes sense for Thanos to be in the plot at that point. But they'd clearly not settled on the Infinity Stones plot until Thor: The Dark World.
yeah I think the main issues are that 1) the sceptre was originally just a cool weapon, it wasn’t ridiculously stupid to give it to Loki 2) opening a big portal in space was a much bigger deal at this point
kind of embarrassing but it wasn't until the third Star Wars trilogy did I fully 100% realise that film companies really will green light billion pound multi-film projects with less of a roadmap or plan in place than your average 13 yr old D&D DM
I think that has to be history’s most egregious example though! you can at least see with MCU that it starts roughly pulling together from around Guardians of the Galaxy onwards
Frankly it's a testament to them that they pulled it all together for Endgame as well as they did.
Also what was the deal with the "I'll do it myself" thanos post credits scene at the end of age of Ultron. He didn't have anything to do with Ultron lol.
Right? I guess the Mind Stone is in the film, but it's not like Ultron was trying to get it for Thanos or anything.
Loki conned Thanos into a dodgy investment scheme
This is canon now.
And even there you can hang a big lampshade on it if you're willing to let the story dance. "the impossible hubris of holding an infinity stone in my hands and not even knowing it", etc.
I love Hera just yelling "Fake!" as she knocks an Infinity gauntlet off a plinth in Thor Ragnarok, thus solving a plot hole with a throwaway joke.