Avengers: Endgame Spoiler Thread

[broodblik]

Just watched it but for some reason the movie just did not work for me.  It was not bad but it was not great as well.

[TordelBack]

Mmm, I sympathise, Broodblik. It was definitely pretty emotional for me when the cavalry finally arrived, and at several other points, and there were a lot of good laughs and wow moments, but I'm not sure the film fully worked as a whole either. Hugely, ridiculously impressive, and very thorough, but perhaps lacking... something?  Maybe I'll find it on a re-watch, as often happens with these over-anticipated finales.  I've certainly enjoyed digesting it!

It might have been fun if they'd inserted a shadowy figure lurking in the backgrounds of the time-travel scenes à la Chonocops, that we would later realise had been Cap.   

Some interesting questions arise in the aftermath:

The Sorcerer Supreme no longer has the Eye of Agamotto at his disposal. How vulnerable is Earth to supernatural assault now?

Now that Steve and Peggy did get together and live happily ever after, does this mean Cap was snogging his niece in Civil War?  And is that why the lovely Emily VanCamp wasn't in this one? 

Where did Steve return Mjolnir to? He had to do it *after* the Dude of Thunder summoned it, but where was it when that happened?  (Goes off to find Dark World DVD...)

If Pym Particles and the Quantum Realm can allow you to move anywhere in space as well as time, complete with miniaturised cargo, why isn't everyone doing at least the less-paradoxy instantaneous-travel part?  Surely Hank isn't the only guy in the universe to come up with this?

[broodblik]

The movie had its moments and fun parts but the most difficult thing is how do you end a story ? We had some great MCU movies the last few years and it was hugely entertaining.  Maybe I expected something more and the biggest question is why was it necessary for the movie to have the big battle at the end (was it because we needed another superhero fight scene ?).  It almost felt that Infinity War never happened. Thanos was killed in the future so they actually did change the timeline. Back to the future is still the best time travelling movie ever.

[TordelBack]

You're right about the big battle, it was there 'cos big superhero crossover rumble had to be on the table.

However, Infinity War did still happen - everyone except Thanos 2 & Co did experience it, Heimdall, Vision and everyone who died at Wakanda before the Snap are still dead. In fact Gamora is the only person alive at the end who doesn't remember it. Thanos still found, used and destroyed the stones. Thanos's trip to the future is a closed loop, a consequence of the Avengers 'borrowing' the stones, it doesn't affect what had already occurred. I think that was one of the best things about the movie.

But I'm with you on Back to the Future!

[broodblik]

I get what you saying TorderBack but there is to many illogical gaps in the story. For example when Nebula killed herself, how can she still exists ? Maybe it is impossible to make a movie which the hype is bigger than the end result.

[JOE SOAP]

I get what you saying TorderBack but there is to many illogical gaps in the story. For example when Nebula killed herself, how can she still exists ? Maybe it is impossible to make a movie which the hype is bigger than the end result.

It's explained that Time travel, in Endgame, doesn't work linearly. Travelling back and changing the past doesn't change the future that exists for the travellers and their own time/space reality.

Although the idea of two Caps occupying the same time-stream is an interesting dilemma that I'm not sure is resolvable.

[broodblik]

It's explained that Time travel, in Endgame, doesn't work linearly. Travelling back and changing the past doesn't change future events that are happening/happened.

Although the idea of two Caps occupying the same time-stream is an interesting dilemma that I'm not sure is resolvable.

So they did exactly what Banner promised the will not do to The Ancient One, they split the timeline.

[TordelBack]

Don't think that's the case!  The Ancient One gave the Time Stone to Bruce, and Tony used it to undo the Snap in the future. Then Steve (off-screen) returned to New York and gave the Ancient One back the Time Stone (and Hydra back the Mind Stone). It passed to Dr Strange, and he gave it to Thanos.  Thanos used it, and then destroyed it. This gave the lads the idea to send Bruce back to get the stone from the Ancient One... It's one timeline, it just detours off in a loop before returning. For all we know, Steve always met Steve in Stark Tower, Loki always escaped with the Tesseract (before being recaptured at some point down the line and handed back - conveniently gagged - to Thor).  In fact, as we saw in Endgame Hydra would have had both the Sceptre and the Tesseract without intervention from the future - as it happened, they only ended up with the Sceptre in 'both' versions.

As Bruce explains to Scott et al, once you travel into the past, it becomes your future - your past remains your past. The Thanos that travels from the past to the present is not the Thanos of the Avenger's past: he's their future. (I may have to lie down now).

The one that's harder to square is Steve and Peggy (although I wouldn't have it any other way) - it takes from the emotion of their scenes in Winter Soldier if she had actually had had a life with his older self, but given her mental state at the time, it may well be that she had genuinely forgotten.  Old Steve may have scheduled his visits to avoid the times he knew Young Steve was there.  Presumably there were false names involved.  I've already head-cannoned it that Steve picked up again with Peggy in the 60's or even when he had returned the Tesseract in 1970, rather than right after he went into the ice.  It allows for both of their growth and experiences over a dozen years to be real, rather than him just popping up behind her in the Hydra base and saying "ta-dah!" as if nothing had happened. 

BTW, I think the thing that feels a bit odd about the final battle is that it looks more like a DC film in terms of aesthetic...

[TordelBack]

Although the idea of two Caps occupying the same time-stream is an interesting dilemma that I'm not sure is resolvable.

Three Caps. I didn't think it too many.

[JOE SOAP]

BTW, I think the thing that feels a bit odd about the final battle is that it looks more like a DC film in terms of aesthetic...

Only it's fun, has a villain and earns its blasted earth apocalypse.

[TordelBack]

Oh no arguments there!  But there are a lot of CGI nasties fighting in a dark, burning wasteland, so it does look a bit like the average scene from a DCU film... Compare it to the broad daylight of the CW Airport fight and the IW Wakanda battle, or even the inventive shifting landscape of the moonsteroids raining down on Titan.  It's a much more typical 'everything's on fire, everyone's hitting things' setting, although on a really huge scale, and with nice little component sequences (Spidey's journey across the battlefield with the gauntlet, for example).

[broodblik]

I agree the final battle felt more like out of the DC world but I believe it was done for the mood of the movie. The whole first two hours is a dark disillusion world without hope.

I still do not like the logic of the time travel component and how everything worked out.

My next question is how do the Marvel-verse go from here ?

[JOE SOAP]

Oh no arguments there!  But there are a lot of CGI nasties fighting in a dark, burning wasteland, so it does look a bit like the average scene from a DCU film... Compare it to the broad daylight of the CW Airport fight and the IW Wakanda battle, or even the inventive shifting landscape of the moonsteroids raining down on Titan.  It's a much more typical 'everything's on fire, everyone's hitting things' setting, although on a really huge scale, and with nice little component sequences (Spidey's journey across the battlefield with the gauntlet, for example).

Aye; it's ALL the battles.

As much as the whole film recaps MCU history I suppose they had to make the re-do of Infinity War's ending the negative of the bright plains of Wakanda. Not just to make it look different but feel the greater reckoning for all the primary characters. As you say, it's the the small stuff that makes it, like Steve with the Hammer (probably the loudest genuine gasp from an audience I've ever heard in a cinema) and the slow push-in on Strange (who's never been used better) giving Stark 'the finger', that ties-in so well with his sacrifice for Stark on Titan after losing to Thanos the first time.

It's the huge cumulation of moments, replays and pay-offs that blows any misgivings about hanging the story on time shenanigans into insignificance.

[TordelBack]

It's quite the balancing act - just a few nods to the preceding films and it would look like a knowing greatest-hits compilation, but the sheer number and importance (and quality, and diversity) of the call-backs made it into something else again. 

For me the single best moment in the movie was 'Hail Hydra!'.  I'm quite happy to say that Winter Soldier is my top MCU film, and this whole scene, topped with a moment of pure genius, was a great reprise, and maybe just a leeetle jibe at a certain outraged subset of comics fandom. 

I was struck by the faith that the film placed in its audience - having key moments depend on remembering the end-credits scene of Ant-man and The Wasp, leaving the introduction of Captain Marvel to the team to the end-credits of that movie (which isn't even available outside of a cinema yet), what happens to Frygga in much-maligned The Dark World, or indeed who the hell Robert Redford was playing... It's a kind of game that can go badly wrong (see the Star Wars prequels, or indeed the Sequels), but here it's the whole point of the film: you've invested your 50+ hours and this is the payoff.

[Buttonman]

Although the idea of two Caps occupying the same time-stream is an interesting dilemma that I'm not sure is resolvable.

Three Caps. I didn't think it too many.

I'm seeing double here - SIX Captain Americas?!