Avengers: Endgame Spoilers thread

[Aglondir]

War Machine was boring as hell (but at least he gave the Vision a chance to do something on screen).

I'm surprised at how shabby he was treated in Civil War. At the airport battle:

• Cap hits him dead center with a shield toss
• Cap blocks his club attack
• Cap deflects his second attack and his club breaks
• Cap/Ant Man toss a truck at him, he takes the explosion full force
• Ant Man (giant form) grapples and tosses him
• He launches a salvo at AM, doesn't seem to have any effect
• He tries a sonic (?) blast at AM, no effect
• AM punches him
• He tries a mini-gun barrage, no effect
• Scarlet Witch slams him with a bolt of red force
• (+) He sonic blasts SW, knocks her out
• He slams AM with a cart, no effect
• (+) He and Iron Man punch AM, topple him
• He takes a yellow bolt to the chest from Vision (critical hit)
• He plummets to the ground. End.

That's 2/15. Is there any other Avenger who does worse? In any Marvel movie?


Other observations from the battle:

Spider Man is using tactics that are way too advanced for his status as a teenager/untrained new hero.
Scarlet Witch is far more effective than I realized.

[Aglondir]

I thought that both Tony and Pepper stagnated. There were multiple sequels, but neither them or their relationship developed significantly - until Endgame. Part of this is that Hollywood writers always have trouble with continuing relationships rather than courtship. I dislike the trend of killing off characters as a way to generate interest when writers couldn't write them interestingly. I'd prefer to just have better writing.

You're right. I think the blame is Iron Man 2 and 3, which just weren't that good. It's not just their relationship, it's also Stark's character development. He was awesome in IM 1, the perfect blend of ego and heart. I think his high point was his best line, in the Avengers:

Without a suit, what are you?
Genius. Billionaire. Playboy. Philanthropist.

But it went downhill in IM2 with the pissing in the suit and the watermelon nonsense. It went off the rails in IM3, with the weird panic attacks and the blowing up the suits at the end. But I was impressed with him in Spiderman, and of course, Endgame.

[deadDMwalking]

For Iron Man 2 to make sense, it would have helped if they had it clear that while the arc reactor was keeping him alive, it had problems, too.  Since everything he does in Iron Man 2 stems from the fact that he expects to die, it would have made it flow better.  That being said, they did establish that it was poisoning him, and I think the movie flows well.  I think Iron Man 3 was the weakest in part because it had another CGI-fest at the conclusion that ends up being just about exactly like Age of Ultron (only it's Iron Man suits, not Ultrons that are being blown up).

[Aglondir]

Speaking of Iron Man, when did he build the nanite suit?
It was like "Earth is closed today. And I've got nanite tech now."

Did I miss something?

[Aglondir]

If the Asgardians are a multi-ethnic diverse group, and not Norse, why is New Asgard in Norway? Why not America? Or anywhere?

[Spinachcat]

Endgame finally came to the El Cheapo and it was worth the $2.50. I did a double feature with Men in Black, so it was 5 hours of Thor and Valkyrie.

Time travel almost is always a mess and Endgame was no exception. I know Chris Evans wanted to retire Captain America (and allegedly retire from acting) and the fans wanted Cap and his WW2 girl to get back together, but the bizarro continuity of Cap going back in time and just hanging around enjoying life throws all sorts of wrenches into the system. But its a comic book movie so squinting too hard just gives you a headache.

I like Falcon, both the character and actor, but without the super serum, I don't get how Falcon is really the new Captain America, other than in name. And if Captain America stayed back in time, hooked up with his girl, somehow stayed hidden from sight for 70 years and just got old, how does anyone even know him?  

As for Guardians 3, as long as James Gunn is directing, I have faith it will be fun.

[rgalex]

Endgame finally came to the El Cheapo and it was worth the $2.50. I did a double feature with Men in Black, so it was 5 hours of Thor and Valkyrie.

Time travel almost is always a mess and Endgame was no exception. I know Chris Evans wanted to retire Captain America (and allegedly retire from acting) and the fans wanted Cap and his WW2 girl to get back together, but the bizarro continuity of Cap going back in time and just hanging around enjoying life throws all sorts of wrenches into the system. But its a comic book movie so squinting too hard just gives you a headache.

I like Falcon, both the character and actor, but without the super serum, I don't get how Falcon is really the new Captain America, other than in name. And if Captain America stayed back in time, hooked up with his girl, somehow stayed hidden from sight for 70 years and just got old, how does anyone even know him?  

As for Guardians 3, as long as James Gunn is directing, I have faith it will be fun.

Well, the Falcon and Winter Soldier Disney+ show is about the US government not wanting him to be Captain America.  Also, the actor has said he's not the new Captain America.  So yeah, not sure where it's all going to end up there.

As for the timeline, well it's wibbly-wobbly stuff.  His going back creates a new timeline where he's in the past with Peggy.  Since he had to live though all the events we've seen to get to the point where he can go back, he can safely go have a life with her knowing the past him is out there saving the world.  Everyone knows who Cap is and Steve gets to live a "normal" life.

[HappyDaze]

Well, the Falcon and Winter Soldier Disney+ show is about the US government not wanting him to be Captain America.  Also, the actor has said he's not the new Captain America.  So yeah, not sure where it's all going to end up there.

That TV show is also supposed to have USAgent in it, so we might have a contender for Captain America.

[jhkim]

Time travel almost is always a mess and Endgame was no exception. I know Chris Evans wanted to retire Captain America (and allegedly retire from acting) and the fans wanted Cap and his WW2 girl to get back together, but the bizarro continuity of Cap going back in time and just hanging around enjoying life throws all sorts of wrenches into the system. But its a comic book movie so squinting too hard just gives you a headache.

As for the timeline, well it's wibbly-wobbly stuff.  His going back creates a new timeline where he's in the past with Peggy.  Since he had to live though all the events we've seen to get to the point where he can go back, he can safely go have a life with her knowing the past him is out there saving the world.  Everyone knows who Cap is and Steve gets to live a "normal" life.

In the timeline, they deliberately leave a bunch of stuff vague. However, what appears in Endgame is at least consistent with a branching timeline model - which makes more sense than most time travel movies. Reproducing what I said on the other thread...

The two common standards for time travel in film are:

1) Closed-loop like the first Terminator movie, or The Final Countdown. The past and future are fated, so if you go back and change the past, you're just fulfilling what happened. It's consistent, but the predestination can feel frustrating - like none of the character's choices matter. If you try to change the known past, you are fated to fail.

2) Open-loop like Back to the Future, where the timeline overwrites itself in a fuzzy sort of way. There can be paradoxes like killing your own grandfather, but they cause mysterious and illogical problems - like photograph images fading from the feet up. You *can* change the past, but it's generally considered bad according to semi-mystic laws. There is still generally a sense of Fate - that history is supposed to go a certain way - and the characters are supposed to act to support it.

But there's a third model used in a number of books but almost no movies:

3) Branching timelines. Any trip into the past creates a new branch off of the original timeline. You can't change your own past - that just creates new branches without changing your own timeline.

Endgame fits with branching timeline, which I like because it doesn't have the issue of Fate. The Endgame characters aren't trying to change the past, and they also aren't trying to fix the past. If we go by the branching interpretation, then Steve was in another timeline that branches off in the late 1940s. There would be another Steve frozen in ice in that timeline, but in the branching model, time-traveling Steve isn't required to do anything according to Fate. He could kill that other Steve, or he could un-freeze that other Steve and both live as a polyandrous family with Peggy, or whatever.

Assuming it is a branch, though, he needs some mechanism to jump back to his original timeline as an old man. His old suit might not work any more, which would explain why he didn't just appear on the platform. But he could have used some other tech, with help from alternate timeline Hank Pym, say.

[deadDMwalking]

Technically, the Terminator was not a closed loop; if it were there would have been no need to send anyone back in time; it was an attempt to rewrite the future where John Connor did not lead humanity to defeat Skynet.  Presumably, the plan would have worked if Reese hadn't also been sent back; the fact that both things had to happen to conceive John Connor makes it APPEAR a closed loop.  

When they destroy the pieces of the original terminator in Terminator 2, they also change the future - at least changing the timeline.

[jhkim]

Technically, the Terminator was not a closed loop; if it were there would have been no need to send anyone back in time; it was an attempt to rewrite the future where John Connor did not lead humanity to defeat Skynet.  Presumably, the plan would have worked if Reese hadn't also been sent back; the fact that both things had to happen to conceive John Connor makes it APPEAR a closed loop.  

When they destroy the pieces of the original terminator in Terminator 2, they also change the future - at least changing the timeline.

That's how closed loops work. People can go back and *try* to change the past, but the only thing that they succeed at is producing exactly the timeline that they lived through. In the case of The Terminator, the machines were defeated - so they went back in time in order to kill John Connor, but what they accomplished was *producing* John Connor - who would never have been born and raised the way he was if not for the events they caused.

If the machines hadn't gone back in time, then Reese wouldn't have chased them, so John Connor never would have been born. There's only one timeline shown, and as far as we see, no rewriting happened.

Terminator 2 did explicitly try to change this, with Sarah wrestling with the question of "No Fate". It's deliberately unclear at the end of Terminator 2 what the result of their actions is. Thematically, the suggestion of "No Fate" implies that maybe they created a different future, but it's not explicit.

[Aglondir]

But the soul stone. What does it do?

I would think you should be able to resurrect people.
Or at least talk to the dead.

[jhkim]

But the soul stone. What does it do?

I would think you should be able to resurrect people.
Or at least talk to the dead.

I've never read the comics, myself - but from quick search, this is apparently what it does in the comics, according to a Marvel wiki:

The Soul Gem is sentient; it has a desire to collect souls. Somebody in possession of the Soul Gem can use it to attack another's soul in various ways: The gem can reveal information by peering into another's soul or using the 'Cold Light of Truth.' The gem can trap souls inside itself in an idyllic world named Soul World, also allowing its user to access the memories and skills of those imprisoned there. The gem's power can circulate life and death forces on a planetary scale, revert beings to their natural state, and give its user control over any and all life be it sentient or not. Additionally, the Soul Gem protects its wielder from soul-based attacks. The gem can disrupt the anima of a soul with a karmic blast rendering the target temporarily unconscious. Certain beings are immune to this attack.

Source: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Soul_Gem

For what it's worth, my son found the Infinity War saga in the comics very cheesy, and didn't recommend it to me.

[Mind Crime]

Personally, I liked the alternate ending to Terminator 2 more than the ambiguous one they ended up using. Judgement Day came and went, John was a congressman playing with his child at the park and Sarah got drunk. Not a totally "happy" ending, the events of the movies still ended up wrecking her life but humanity never had the war with the machines.

Side note: In my mushroom addled thoughts, I almost convinced myself that Skynet becoming self-aware was actually Skynet being taken over by Job from The Lawnmower Man.

[jhkim]

Personally, I liked the alternate ending to Terminator 2 more than the ambiguous one they ended up using. Judgement Day came and went, John was a congressman playing with his child at the park and Sarah got drunk. Not a totally "happy" ending, the events of the movies still ended up wrecking her life but humanity never had the war with the machines.

I think I like the ending that was shown.

The point, as I saw it, is that the future is unknown and undefined. Anything could happen. Showing any one particular future doesn't convey that. I think it is thematically unambiguous in T2 that the future is malleable - i.e. no fate but the one we make.

EDITED TO ADD: Technically, the ending of T2 leaves open the possibility that it is still closed-loop. i.e. That somehow, Judgement Day still occurs and the same future happens. But I think from the theme and voice-over, it is unambiguous that it is not closed-loop.