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We know that Thanos' plan was to
instantly destroy half of all life in the universe
His plan doesn't appear to apply to lower or non sentient life forms
if it did half the trees in the final Wakanda scene would have disintegrated too
Does his plan apply to all beings more powerful than himself?
According to Marvel producer Kevin Feige Thanos' 'finger snap' resulted in the destruction of half of all life in the universe, not just higher beings.
Q. Are half the animals dead? Are half of the horses gone? Half of the ants?
Feige: Yes! Yes. All life.
Thanos' plan was
destroy half of the life forms in the universe because of over-population and lack of resources.
In that, there is a distinction.
If he deleted all the trees, he would be removing resources leaving the living in the same problem.
So...
he erased creatures that use up resources without giving back. So trees and non-sentient life are safe, and lower-life forms are okay because they serve a purpose to the biosphere. But humans, as well as other "dominant species", are what are causing there to be limited resources and must be forcibly reduced.
But when you get to things of a "higher order", you're generally talking about unique entities; such as the personification of "the Universe" and "The Beyonder". Since they are unique, you really can't wipe out "half"--which is...
...probably why Rocket lived as he is a unique creature onto himself.
The only race I could think of "higher" than Thanos would be the Watchers, in which case, it is likely they too were culled.
I guess a lot of it depends on what you call "higher order"...
.. probably why Rocket lived as he is a unique creature onto himself. ~> That's wrong. Groot was last survivor of his race (said by Collector) and yet he died.
The new trailer for Avengers: Endgame gives us an in-universe confirmation and a bit of a distinction from Kevin Feige's quote...
[Natasha Romanov] Thanos did exactly what he said he was gonna do, he wiped out fifty percent of all living creatures.
The distinction of creatures is an important one as it it defined as animals. So this is why all the trees and such are still standing. It also leaves room for unicellular organisms to remain.
Based on the precedent of the comics, he doesn't have the power to delete the truly cosmic-level entities - not that any of them have been )or will be) seen in the films.
Part of the problem is that while there are any number of beings of cosmic or universal power in the Marvel Universe, only a couple of the relatively weaker ones have been explicitly introduced in the films.
Dormammu is incredibly powerful, but he's nothing compared to, say, beings like the In-Betweener or the Living Tribunal. It'd be an argument whether or not the Celestials are more powerful than a Gauntlet-powered Thanos, but it'd be close. The Watchers are very powerful in the comics, but save for a cameo, we've no hard data about them in the MCU.
The truly cosmic entities joined the various fights against Thanos in the comics, but I don't recall any of them being destroyed or Snapped by him (corrections accepted). If we use that as a standard, it suggests that he doesn't have the power to delete them in the filmic universe either.
I suspect they won't be used in the movie, so the question will remain unanswered It'd take too long to explain who they are, not to mention we want to see the heroes win, not a literal deus ex machina where some totally new bunch of beings swoop in and save the day.
The-One-Above-All (hyphens) is the Primal Entity of the Marvel Multiverse. As often as people want to pit Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet against other beings, only nigh-supreme cosmic beings generally have any chance against their combined power.
But the-One -Above-All trumps all other powers in the Marvel Multiverse. It has supremacy over all things and has no equal save itself.
The Infinity Gauntlet is nothing in the face of its overwhelming capacity. This is one of its depictions as Above-All-Others from Thanos: The Infinity Finale #3. The One-Above-All is apparently responsible for the existence of all life in the Multiverse and possibly beyond, and is the master and sole superior of the cosmic overseer and arbitrator known as the Living Tribunal, whose faces, embodying equity, vengeance and necessity respectively, are in perfect alignment with one another as it passes judgment. While Thanos has few equals or betters while he wears it, the Infinity Gauntlet is one level of Infinity lower than needed to be a threat to The-One-Above-All. Even Thanos knows this and has done his very best to not bring himself to the focused attention of this Entity above all others.
Looking through the other answers here no one seems to address the OP’s concern about the Wakanda scene specifically - expecting to see 1/2 of every living thing (including grass and trees) vanish before our eyes. Eliminating half of anything doesn’t force you to be fair. In a room full of 100 trees with 1 bird in each tree, you can eliminate half the life by killing all the trees, all the birds, 75 trees and 25 birds, or half of the birds and trees. In the end, you start with 200 living things and end with 100 either way. In fact if the universe had a sense of humor Thanos’ snap could have left every humanoid alive and just wiped out some grasses, mosquitoes, viruses and some algae. As long as it equaled 1/2 of all life. Then he would really be the Mad Titan!
The only reason trees and grass in Wakanda would vanish would be if he eliminated “one half of each life form in the universe.” (How do you even eliminate half of the "Ego the Living Planets?") That is not what he said. After the snap, the number of living things in the universe was half of what it was before, and that is the only rule.
As far as higher order beings, there is no controversy over why even unique life forms like Galactus, One-Above-All, The Collector, or Eternity did not need to be killed. It applied to every living thing as a group. They just didn't lose the lottery.
