ODIN: Once, mankind accepted a simple truth.
There are relics that pre-date the universe itself,
an ancient force of infinite destruction.
RED SKULL: The Tesseract was the jewel of Odin's treasure room.
FURY: Legend tells us one thing, history another.
But every now and then, we find something that belongs to both.
TIVAN: There were six singularities.
Then the universe exploded into existence,
and the remnants of these systems were forged into concentrated ingots.
Infinity Stones.
These stones, it seems,
can mow down entire civilisations like wheat in a field.
THOR: The Mind Stone is the fourth of the Infinity Stones
to show up in the last few years.
Someone has been playing an intricate game.
ROGERS: You think you can find out what's coming?
THOR: I do.
THE OTHER: Humans.
They are not the cowering wretches we were promised.
(HULK GROANING)
To challenge them
is to court death.
THANOS: Fine.
I'll do it myself.
Since we've been building the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
we've been building to this idea of the Infinity Stones.
And what's fun about the Infinity Stones in the comics,
or the Infinity Gems, as they were known initially,
is there's this huge, incredibly powerful
set of McGuffins, for lack of a better word,
that existed on this cosmic level
and represented the culmination of the whole Marvel Universe.
We hit upon the idea years ago that we could make the Infinity Gauntlet
the big, big thing that's overarching in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe,
and culminate in an Infinity War movie.
JOSS WHEDON: Thanos has always been sort of grand puppet master.
Because he really is a god.
Even more than Thor, he is a supreme being of evil.
And so the idea that he was the prime mover behind all of this
just seemed natural.
LATCHAM: Once that Gauntlet's filled and he's got all the Stones,
then anything's possible.
In the comics, you know, traditionally there have been six Stones.
And the first of them is the Space Stone.
And it allows inter-dimensional space travel to happen.
And so, in the movie universe, we made the Space Stone the Tesseract,
which is a McGuffin that's been with us since Captain America.
KEVIN FEIGE: We knew that it had cosmic origins.
And up to that point,
the only cosmic element that we've introduced
is Thor, is Asgard, is the nine realms.
So we started saying, "What if that's where it came from?"
So we added a Norse overlay mythology to it,
and we tracked that Tesseract through World War II
to where it rests at the bottom of the ocean.
We started realising,
as Loki finds his way to Earth in the beginning of The Avengers movie,
that would be a hell of an artefact
for him to go after and find and wreak havoc with.
LATCHAM: And what we find out is that Loki's manipulating the Space Stone,
and he's been able to open a portal to outer space.
At the end of the movie,
the Tesseract is taken back to Asgard and put in Odin's treasure room.
LATCHAM: In Thor: The Dark World, we have the Aether
that ends up becoming the Reality Stone.
ODIN: While the other relics often appear as stones,
the Aether is fluid and everchanging.
It changes matter into dark matter.
It's one of the most dangerous and threatening things
they've ever come across.
And, honestly, it could consume the universe.
Have you come to witness the end of your universe?
I've come to accept your surrender.
LATCHAM: We last saw the Aether in The Collector's museum.
Why not keep it secure in your own vault?
The Tesseract is already on Asgard.
It is not wise to keep two Infinity Stones so close together.
The Collector is probably not the best custodian of that stone.
TIVAN: One down.
Five to go.
LATCHAM: So the Power Stone is this incredibly powerful relic,
as denoted by the name.
And we saw that one in Guardians of the Galaxy,
and that is kind of what is inside of that orb.
GAMORA: The Stone reacts to anything organic.
The bigger the target, the bigger the power surge.
All Ronan's got to do is touch the Stone to the planet's surface and zap.
All plants, animals,
- Nova Corps. - GAMORA: Everything will die.
Thanos' disciple is Ronan the Accuser.
JAMES GUNN : Thanos saw an opportunity
where Ronan would be able to get the Power Stone for him.
THANOS: Return to me again empty-handed,
and I will bathe the starways in your blood.
The Guardians of the Galaxy realise together,
they can actually stop Ronan
and maybe have a chance against Thanos.
RONAN: You're mortal!
How?
We're the Guardians of the Galaxy.
LATCHAM: At the end of the movie,
we leave the Power Stone in the Nova vault.
And it's left there safe, or so we think.
LATCHAM: One of the other stones in the comics is the Mind Stone.
It's the stone that allows the bearer to kind of alter people's minds
and mess with their perception of things.
And in the movies, what we've done with the Mind Stone
is we've said that it is the stone that is in the sceptre
that Loki brings with him from Thanos.
We catch up with it in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
The sceptre is managing to run all these different experiments.
Tony wants to study the gem, the stone that's in this sceptre
before Thor takes it back to Asgard.
And one of the things he does
is hook it up to his computer systems, to analyse it.
BANNER: It's beautiful.
If you had to guess, what's it look like it's doing?
Like it's thinking.
LATCHAM: And Tony ultimately realises by bringing Vision to life,
he actually will have something great.
And it's that combination of the vibranium they put into Vision,
the lightning that Thor puts into Vision,
and Tony's genius and intellect that he puts into Vision,
that ultimately brings Vision to life and makes him this pure being.
THOR: I've had a vision.
A whirlpool that sucks in all hope of life, and at its centre is that.
What? The gem?
It's the Mind Stone. It's one of the six Infinity Stones.
The greatest power in the universe,
unparalleled in its destructive capabilities.
LATCHAM: Those are all the stones that we've revealed so far.
And so we've been keeping track of them
over the course of all these different films,
and Thanos has been keeping track of all of it this whole time as well.
But then what do you do with the Soul Stone?
What do you do with the Time Stone? How do you play that out?
And now we just have to kind of bring it all together
over the course of phase three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
and kind of bring all these stones to fruition.
And set up for Infinity War,
which we think has potential to be just this huge epic saga.
STARK: We're the Avengers.
We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day,
but that up there,
that's the endgame.