Avengers: Infinity War - 23 New Secrets Revealed
14. Why Xandar Wasn't Shown
The Russos have previously confirmed that the Xandar battle that happens prior to the start of Infinity War was left out as they "thought it’d be one too many" in terms of showing where the Stones were. And the commentary doubly confirms this as Joe Russo says it was left out to avoid repetition and focus on more emotional scenes:
"It was an attempt to not be repetitive. We decided to cut it from the script and, as you said, start in the middle of the story."
Writer Christopher Markus confirms in the commentary that there was a scene actually set-up for Xandar including Gamora and Thanos coming face to face:
"We wrote version of Thanos attacking Xandar and it had a similar purpose in the script to what Knowhere does now. It was a place where Thanos and Gamora encountered each other but the fact of the matter is you know exactly what... If Thanos went to Xandar to get that stone, you know what happened. It was a big battle and he got it."
His writing partner also confirms why they chose to not show that but showed the Collector's lair, which could have also been cut by the same logic:
"And make every Stone collection an emotional moment. Sometimes its because there's a person who is either wearing one or has one in his head and sometimes it's because of who Thanos encounters there, what you have to get it, who you have to sacrifice...Scenes need to do more than one thing and every Stone collection scene is going to be plot based but we also wanted it to be deeply character based."
13. Hulk Really WASN'T Scared
Though it has been suggested that Banner has "performance issues" in Infinity War because Hulk is scared after his first encounter with Thanos, that's just not true.
Director Joe Russo talks about Hulk's arc in the commentary confirming it was more because he simply wasn't interested in protecting Banner any more:
"This was an interesting journey we went on with Banner, trying to decide how we move him forward in the Marvel Universe. What makes him unique as a character is that there is a host body that is being fought over by two distinct personalities who hate each other. And both want control of the host body. So we thought an interesting direction to take him in is what if Banner, who typically uses the Hulk to solve crisis situations, what if the Hulk were no longer interested in solving those problems for Banner? So that the relationship is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. That's what's going on here."
"People have speculated whether there was some fear on the Hulk's part about having to face Thanos again. But I think ultimately what it is, is that he's tired of playing hero to Bruce Banner."