Caution: HERE BE SPOILERS! You have been warned.

Very quick spoiler-free summary: if you’re going into this movie cold with minimal knowledge of the movies that have preceded it, this will be A Lot Of Stuff Happening Without Much Context. If you’re all over all things Marvel, it’s a great flick that will leave you hankering for the sequel. (Oh yes, despite removing the “Part I” and “Part II” nomenclature, this is most definitely a Part I.)

One last chance to click away and avoid spoilers- I start discussing the film after this warm, delicious cup of coffee:

Rightio then. So if you’re still reading, you’ve probably already seen Infinity War, so you will know full well what I mean when I say…

Wow, that was a brave choice for the ending of the film. I think the last time I saw a film that ended on such an unrelentingly bleak note was Kevin Smith’s Red State, and that was an MA-rated movie which did not pull its punches in the slightest. Infinity War has to in order to keep its PG-13 rating (it’s an M on the Australian classification scale), but it is no less of a downer.

It starts out happy enough; Thor meets up with the Guardians of the Galaxy (which makes sense, given the two most recent films are very similar in terms of their look), Spider-Man swings into action from his school bus, Doctor Strange and Iron Man bicker like an old married couple, and it seems like we’re getting the band back together. And then they get beaten. Over and over and over. Even the small victories end up being little more than speed-bumps on Thanos’ grand journey.

To borrow a theory from the Something Awful forums (I dare suggest this has been brought up elsewhere as well, but that is where I found it): don’t think of this film as Avengers 3, but as Thanos 1. The movie basically sets up Thanos as the protagonist; it follows his story arc as he starts out on his journey, suffers some temporary setbacks, regathers and refocuses, and then overcomes last-minute hurdles to succeed in his goals before earning some much-needed R&R.

Of course, the collateral damage as he achieves his grand vision includes a bunch of characters we know and love, as well as half the universe’s sentient beings, and so we don’t see him as heroic- he becomes a villain protagonist. Thanos, meanwhile, believes he is doing the just and moral thing and returning balance to the universe. And you know, omelettes, eggs and all that.

Overall I liked the movie, but I felt that a lot of the film relied on its audience knowing the Marvel lore. This is not necessarily a shock- after all, it’s the third Avengers movie and something like the nineteenth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and you’re unlikely to spring for this as your first Marvel movie. The film would have also been quite unwieldy if each character needed some introduction and backstory, rather than just being able to slot in where needed and have the audience already know what’s going on.

In addition to knowing the movies, though, it helps if you go in with some knowledge of the comic books on which Infinity War is based. Partially, this will help you come up with potential ways the sequel could play out, but partially you need a bit of that lore in order to work out who the characters are. In particular Thanos’ hired help- sorry, the Black Order- never get a proper introduction other than “slightly creepy zealots who do some of Thanos’ dirty work” and their names aren’t revealed unless you read the credits at the end. (They probably don’t need much more than “Thanos’ hired help” for the purposes of the story, but you needed some way to work “Proxima Midnight” into the script. I mean, that’s a heck of a name.)

The Infinity War comics also provide some hints as to how things will continue in a post-Thanos world. Are the disintegrated folks stuck in the Soul Stone? Could Gamora be in the Stone (given her sacrifice was necessary for Thanos to wield it)? Does the Time Stone/Eye of Agamotto give us an undo button? What was the one path to victory that Strange saw? Again, some of this stuff makes sense with the backstory but is just wild guessing if you weren’t aware of the source material.

A bit of movie-studio politics also helps. We know, for example, that Tom Holland will return as Spider-Man in a follow-up to Spider-Man: Homecoming, so Peter Parker will return (rather than recasting Spidey yet again or going for an alternate Spidey like Miles Morales for future films). Similarly, Chadwick Boseman is returning as Black Panther; even if in-universe the title of Black Panther is handed down from generation to generation (and could be given to his sister or one of the royal guard if need be, as has happened in the comics), the real-world Disney won’t want to risk the backlash that would follow killing off T’Challa after his (wildly successful) debut.

Also, while Superman’s “S” (yeah, I know, Kryptonian lettering, whatever), the Bat-Signal, Captain America’s shield and maybe even Iron Man’s arc reactor are fairly iconic symbols that are instantly identified by the audience, how many of us are going to recognise Captain Marvel’s crest? The character has had literally no involvement in the MCU until now, and while we know there’s a movie in the works for early 2019 in the leadup to Not Infinity War Part II, we know literally nothing about her (except that she’s a woman because the role has already been cast). Plenty of people are diving for their phones to search for “what was that symbol on Nick’s pager?” on the way out of the theatre.

I am that nerd who knew a lot of this stuff going in, so I was fine with it, and I was there on opening night surrounded by people who also knew this stuff going in. This is a film made very much for us (the MCU devotees), and if its goal was to have us on tenterhooks for the next year waiting for Not Part II, then it succeeded. Whether or not Infinity War is an Empire Strikes Back (a bleak film but the setup for a triumphant finish) or a Matrix: Reloaded (kind-of cool but ultimately let down by its followup), I guess we’ll find out in twelve months’ time.