SPOILERS - Avengers: Endgame

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Dingbatt

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#249084 24-Apr-2019 16:58

Just as I did with Infinity War I wanted to start a separate thread to talk about this movie so people looking at the “What Movie Did You Just Watch?” thread don’t get things spoiled.

THIS THREAD CONTAINS PLOT DISCUSSION AND SPOILERS, SO DON’T CONTINUE READING IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE.

Firstly the movie was quite long, but on reflection, because of the way it includes nods to previous MCU movies going all the way back to Iron Man (1). While the end point was as expected, how it got there wasn’t (certainly by me). The ultimate fate of some of the ‘originals’ was guessed (CA and IM in particular) others were a bit of a surprise but it was obvious some arcs needed to be concluded.
I didn’t particularly like Thor’s storyline, although I can see that it arcs from Ragnorok, but I think it was taken a bit far.
Decisions by Dr Strange in Infinity War only dawned on me after I left the theatre this time.

I thought it would be difficult to top the ‘Superhero Arrival’ by Thor at the Battle of Wakanda in Infinity War but this movie did that, and then some.

I’ll leave it there until a few more GZers have seen it and can discuss.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

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#2225239 26-Apr-2019 09:06

So having waited a couple of days and a chance to discuss the movie with my sons, who are big MCU fans I have a few thoughts.
Firstly, as soon as you involve time travel anything is possible, as the X-Men franchise has proven. I did like the reference to a whole bunch of Hollywood time travel movies (calling a lot bs). Dr Who, X-Men and Deadpool didn’t get a mention. What was bugging me was that 2014 Thanos was dusted in 2023 by Iron Man, so didn’t that destroy the timeline from 2014 on? However I have read a commentary that posited that the final ‘snap’ sent Thanos and his minions back to 2014 because the gauntlet, with the power of all the Infinity stones (especially the time stone), can do anything the wearer wishes.
Time travel also allows the resurrection of the truly dead (see Gamora) so it isn’t necessarily the end for Loki, Black Widow, Hiemdahl, etc either. Steve Rodgers took more Pimm Particle containers than were used. Although with Hank Pimm back can’t more be made?
Great bookending with things like “I am Iron Man” at the the end of the first MCU movie and the same at the end of this.
Nice reconciliation between Tony and Steve before both characters are signed off.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

Yogi02

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#2225323 26-Apr-2019 09:32

A couple of things that I have questions about:

How did Steve Rodgers get old? - He hasn't aged since the 40's when Captain America was created.

What are the implications for Thor (and Past Thor) with his Hammer being taken from an earlier time to the future.

What happened to Gamora? - I assume she disappeared at the end, guess it would have been good to show

Zepanda66

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#2225326 26-Apr-2019 09:35

Yogi02:

A couple of things that I have questions about:

How did Steve Rodgers get old? - He hasn't aged since the 40's when Captain America was created.

What are the implications for Thor (and Past Thor) with his Hammer being taken from an earlier time to the future.

What happened to Gamora? - I assume she disappeared at the end, guess it would have been good to show

I'm assuming they left what happened to Gamora vague in case they want to bring her back for Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

Re Thor. Who knows. Maybe they will explore that in the upcoming what-if animated series?

Steve went back in time and return the stones and then stayed with Peggy. Because hes a supersoldier he takes a long time to age. He basically lived to full lives. The one we saw in real time in the MCU and the one in the past with Peggy. He then turns up to Tony's funeral and gives Falcon his shield.

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pgs2050

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#2225330 26-Apr-2019 09:41

Black Widow and Gamorra (IW), like Tony Stark will remain dead in the current timeline. Gamorra (Endgame) was returned to her timeline by Iron Man's snap - she is not at Tony's send-off. I think only those who were "killed" in the snap have returned. If they were able to bring back the dead surely they could do something for Iron Man. Others who died by other means remain dead. I wonder what that means for GOTG3 - Nebula replaces Gamorra or will it be Thor?

allio

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#2225385 26-Apr-2019 10:15

Captain America was frozen in ice from 1945 until 2011, which explains his relative youth. I guess since then he's been aging just like everybody else.

I thought the way Endgame dealt with time travel was quite clever and neatly avoided the paradoxes inherent to the "traditional" movie take on time travel. It's impossible to change "the" future by altering the past, but you can and will change "other" futures. Every instance of time travel results in a different parallel universe splintering off. So now there's a universe where Thanos died in 2014 (well, technically in 2023, but he disappears from the timeline in 2014), and thus will never effect the events of Infinity War. There's also now a universe where Loki presumably gets up to all sorts of mischief with the Tesseract in 2012... and a universe where Thor loses his hammer in whatever time that was. But whatever impact those things have doesn't have any effect on "the" universe.

Handsomedan

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#2225419 26-Apr-2019 11:52

allio:

Captain America was frozen in ice from 1945 until 2011, which explains his relative youth. I guess since then he's been aging just like everybody else.

I thought the way Endgame dealt with time travel was quite clever and neatly avoided the paradoxes inherent to the "traditional" movie take on time travel. It's impossible to change "the" future by altering the past, but you can and will change "other" futures. Every instance of time travel results in a different parallel universe splintering off. So now there's a universe where Thanos died in 2014 (well, technically in 2023, but he disappears from the timeline in 2014), and thus will never effect the events of Infinity War. There's also now a universe where Loki presumably gets up to all sorts of mischief with the Tesseract in 2012... and a universe where Thor loses his hammer in whatever time that was. But whatever impact those things have doesn't have any effect on "the" universe.

No I think all the alternate timelines or branches were shut by the return of the infinity stones, as per the discussion between Hulk and the Sorcerer.

My take on Gamora is that she lived and she's gone off to explore the galaxy after the revelation that Starlord is "the one" as was said...I think the GOTG 3 storyline will explore the hunt for Gamora and the weird dynamic that has now occurred as a result of the change of the timeline.

I think Thor will (at least for a while) become a GOTG as he's now bored and looking to lose some weight and get involved in something new. Perhaps even Captain Marvel may show up in GOTG 3 as she's a space-bound entity too.

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Dingbatt

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#2225468 26-Apr-2019 12:56

Steve Rodgers returned Thor’s Hammer to its correct timeline at the same time as returning the Infinity Stones to theirs. I reconciled his not-ageing/ageing with being frozen for 70 years.
As for Gamora, if she did get dusted back to 2014, you’ve got to expect Peter Quill will go back looking now he knows it’s possible.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

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allio

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#2225560 26-Apr-2019 14:30

Handsomedan:

No I think all the alternate timelines or branches were shut by the return of the infinity stones, as per the discussion between Hulk and the Sorcerer.

That seems to be the prevailing theory (as in this article), but I understood that conversation a bit differently. I thought the Sorceror was saying that however noble a reason Hulk had for needing the stones in his timeline, that wasn't her timeline. Hulk taking the stone from 2012 (and not returning it) would doom that timeline to all kinds of different, new problems because they wouldn't have the stone to protect them. Returning the stone would ensure they could protect themselves (and thus keeping things more closely aligned with the original timeline) but wouldn't shut the branches. It's impossible to shut the branches because taking the stones wasn't the only thing that happened. The Loki thing was particularly irretrievable (even if Captain America returned the Tesseract to where they took it from, Loki would have a second one - yikes), but even a tiny change would set the timeline on a new course.

I personally think that linked article misses the whole point, which is that changing the past changes that version of the future - but not the future that matters. That was why they ruled out killing Thanos as a baby - it would just create a new timeline where Thanos didn't grow up to destroy the universe. No help for the Avengers' own timeline, with everything they were trying to protect and preserve.

Handsomedan

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#2225564 26-Apr-2019 14:32

allio:

Handsomedan:

No I think all the alternate timelines or branches were shut by the return of the infinity stones, as per the discussion between Hulk and the Sorcerer.

That seems to be the prevailing theory (as in this article), but I understood that conversation a bit differently. I thought the Sorceror was saying that however noble a reason Hulk had for needing the stones in his timeline, that wasn't her timeline. Hulk taking the stone from 2012 (and not returning it) would doom that timeline to all kinds of different, new problems because they wouldn't have the stone to protect them. Returning the stone would ensure they could protect themselves (and thus keeping things more closely aligned with the original timeline) but wouldn't shut the branches. It's impossible to shut the branches because taking the stones wasn't the only thing that happened. The Loki thing was particularly irretrievable (even if Captain America returned the Tesseract to where they took it from, Loki would have a second one - yikes), but even a tiny change would set the timeline on a new course.

I personally think that linked article misses the whole point, which is that changing the past changes that version of the future - but not the future that matters. That was why they ruled out killing Thanos as a baby - it would just create a new timeline where Thanos didn't grow up to destroy the universe. No help for the Avengers' own timeline, with everything they were trying to protect and preserve.

Gah.

This bloody film is giving me a headache.

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graham007

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#2225587 26-Apr-2019 15:05

hi there

is there like a long form written content / web page / medium article anywere on the net which anyone can share about what is the story so far

I want to watch endgame but am afraid i wont understand it as i dont have much clue about the back story / characters etc

cheers

Handsomedan

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#2225588 26-Apr-2019 15:09

graham007:

hi there

is there like a long form written content / web page / medium article anywere on the net which anyone can share about what is the story so far

I want to watch endgame but am afraid i wont understand it as i dont have much clue about the back story / characters etc

cheers

You'll be entertained but somewhat clueless if you watch this without seeing the other movies in the MCU...I can't imagine there's a condensed version of the story arcs so far because it's been 22 movies over 11 years and you need to know at least MOST of them before entering the Endgame.

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pgs2050

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#2225634 26-Apr-2019 15:42

graham007:

hi there

is there like a long form written content / web page / medium article anywere on the net which anyone can share about what is the story so far

I want to watch endgame but am afraid i wont understand it as i dont have much clue about the back story / characters etc

cheers

I've seen an article or two that stated the directors recommended watching Captain America Civil War and Avengers Infinity War to catch up on the story. But this movie has numerous call-backs to the other 20 movies (may not all of them) that may be of interest to long time followers.

Also, did you miss the spoiler warnings? You probably shouldn't stay in this thread for much longer (until you've seen the movie at least, unless you don't mind that sort of thing).

allio

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#2225639 26-Apr-2019 15:52

Handsomedan:

Gah.

This bloody film is giving me a headache.

Time travel, man. I don't even know if there's a "right" answer to these questions - just different kinds of paradoxes.

In terms of what to watch before watching this: the only movie you have to have seen is Infinity War. That will get you up to speed with the main plot at least. But just about all of the earlier movies feed into this movie in one way or another. I think I've seen probably three quarters of the Marvel movies and still get the sense I missed quite a lot in this one.

I'd single out the Ant Man movies as probably being worth watching. I haven't seen them and now wish I had.

Varkk

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#2227363 29-Apr-2019 13:35

The thing about Captain America going back and staying with Peggy is that it goes against almost everything we knew about his character. It would have been better to just end with him going back to return the stones but then never returning not even as an old man. Also the sorcerer said without the stone the universe would be opened up to unimaginable darkness. But now the stones are all destroyed does that mean things are going to get really bad in the next phase of the movies? Or is the next phase going to be about restoring something similar to the infinity stones? Perhaps Guardians 3 will be the Guardians crew (With Thor) looking for a way to restore the soul stone and bring back Gamora somehow.

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#2227439 29-Apr-2019 15:19

So we watched it on Friday - I would place it 4th overall in my favourite "Avengers" films (assuming you count Civil War as Avengers and not "Captain America") ahead of Ultron but not as good as Infinity, Civil War and the original.

It was decent enough but nowhere near as good as Part One which had much better action and genuinely surprised me in a few places, though frankly I would have been shocked if the pay-off had really been able to match or top the build up of Infinity War!

The "solution" was all a bit too Deus Ex Machina/Dr. Who "timey-wimey" to really satisfy.
I was pretty certain Tony would be a goner, though TBF I wasn't really expecting BW to go as well.
The Captain America denouement was utter bilge.
The "Epic" action trope is getting boring now - just throwing millions of flailing objects on screen is dull - it needs to be grounded in something more and the setting and choreography really matters. The action scenes in the streets of New York at the beginning of Infinity War, The Airport scene in Civil war etc are some of my all time favourites and there was nothing close to this in EndGame IMO.
Smart Hulk was good
I want to like Captain Marvel more than I do - she is pretty meh, but that is the character herself more so than Brie Larson who does a decent job
Bringing Gamorra back was a total cop-out and retroactively ruins one of the strongest emotional beats of Infinity War.

So yeah. Having been a big big fan of the franchise overall for the last 11 years or so, I think I may finally reached peak-Marvel. Perhaps time for a break?!

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