# Avengers: Endgame SPOILER THREAD



## trappedslider (Apr 26, 2019)

If you read this thread, you forfeit any right to complain about being spoiled.

I knew that RDJ was going to go,but I didn't expect him to die and it was cool to see Cap pass the torch onto Sam, and all the little call backs to previous movies, and the confirmation that Cap is indeed worthy to hold Mjolnir. The last fight with everyone joining in was awesome and the all female grouping got a big cheer at my showing. When Clint and Nat going after the soul stone, I wasn't surprised it came down to a fight between them over who got to jump.


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## ccs (Apr 26, 2019)

1st, although there are some examples that are done better than most, let me say that I really really really dislike time travel.  Even the better done examples. In comics, in movies, etc.  

With that said?  End Game is about as good as it could be given its horrible central plot device.
Hopefully now that they've ticked this particular box the MCU has gotten this out of its system....

My favorite part?  Watching two of my favorite characters wield the hammer.

My least favorite part was old man Steve passing the shield.
Not because I have anything against Sam, but because:
1) I dislike turning one existing character into another.  I didn't like that move in the comics & I like it no better here.  But at least Bucky didn't get it.  That's some consolation.  And I hope to God that future movies don't give Sam both the shield + wings (and any version of that awful looking suit he wore in the comics).
2) I think it would've been a better ending to leave the Avengers in the dark as to what happened to Steve.
And then, after the credits, close it out with the scene of Steve & Peggy dancing back in the past.

All in all?  I was well entertained.


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## GreyLord (Apr 26, 2019)

trappedslider said:


> If you read this thread, you forfeit any right to complain about being spoiled.
> 
> I knew that RDJ was going to go,but I didn't expect him to die and it was cool to see Cap pass the torch onto Sam, and all the little call backs to previous movies, and the confirmation that Cap is indeed worthy to hold Mjolnir. The last fight with everyone joining in was awesome and the all female grouping got a big cheer at my showing. When Clint and Nat going after the soul stone, I wasn't surprised it came down to a fight between them over who got to jump.




I thought that it should have been the other.  Yes, the one that didn't jump had those to go to if they were successful, but I'd still think the other should have been sacrificed instead of who was.  
On a side note, it is interesting how many waited to try to see if there was an end credits scene.  Marvel has trained them well.  

I'll try to hide the next part, sorry if you are on the black screen instead of white.

PS:  There were no scenes in the credits or afterwards that I could see, just the sound if the hammer...


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## trappedslider (Apr 26, 2019)

ccs said:


> (and any version of that awful looking suit he wore in the comics).




Anthony Mackie wanted to wear the red and white outfit when he took the part of falcon lol



GreyLord said:


> I'll try to hide the next part, sorry if you are on the black screen instead of white.
> 
> 
> PS:  There were no scenes in the credits or afterwards that I could see, just the sound if the hammer...



Well this is a spoiler thread so no need to hide anything


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## GreyLord (Apr 26, 2019)

trappedslider said:


> Anthony Mackie wanted to wear the red and white outfit when he took the part of falcon lol
> 
> 
> Well this is a spoiler thread so no need to hide anything




I'm not wanting to go too far into the spoilers yet (I've held out for a little while at least already) until at least Friday and Saturday, or others spoil it first.  Not wanting to be the one who really spoils it for someone who think they want to find things out, but didn't really want to know.

The thing I put down though, was something I think was interesting.

Most of those I saw stayed in their seats waiting for a scene that never came.  I was caught in the middle so I couldn't get out without disturbing all of them. The even crazier thing...I managed to not have to go to the restroom until after the entire movie ended.  For those as old as me, you know how hard that can be...and this is a long movie.


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## MarkB (Apr 26, 2019)

It was a good "passing the torch" movie, and I'm glad that they brought these storylines to a conclusion, and that they didn't go for a consequence-free time travel reset that made the events of the previous movie not happen.

That said, I still don't see how the final sequence with past-Thanos being wiped out doesn't violate their own self imposed time travel rules.


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## ccs (Apr 26, 2019)

trappedslider said:


> Anthony Mackie wanted to wear the red and white outfit when he took the part of falcon lol




I was referring to the awful looking cap suit he got in the comics along with the shield.


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## ccs (Apr 26, 2019)

GreyLord said:


> On a side note, it is interesting how many waited to try to see if there was an end credits scene.  Marvel has trained them well.
> 
> PS: There were no scenes in the credits or afterwards that I could see, just the sound if the hammer...




I don't watch the credits for the end scenes.  I never have.  They're just nice modern extras.

For movies I've enjoyed I watch the credits because:
A great many virtually anonymous people worked really hard to entertain me for 2-3 hours.  The least I can do, even though I'll never remember them/manage to read them all, is to read a few of their names as they scroll by.

In general:
When I see a movie opening weekend, or at popular times, there's so many people all trying to leave the theatre/parking lot/use the restrooms all at once that it's pointless for me to get up out of my seat.  By the time the credits are finished the crowds dispersed.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 26, 2019)

I really liked how the trailers basically spoil absolutely nothing of importance, and about 10 minutes you have no idea how the movie will go, and I don't think anyone predicted this. I guess that is subverting expectations in the good way.



MarkB said:


> It was a good "passing the torch" movie, and I'm glad that they brought these storylines to a conclusion, and that they didn't go for a consequence-free time travel reset that made the events of the previous movie not happen.
> 
> That said, I still don't see how the final sequence with past-Thanos being wiped out doesn't violate their own self imposed time travel rules.




Up to Old Steve Rogers on the bench, it made perfect sense to me.
You can't change the past. It's set. When you travel in the past,you are really traveling to a parallel universe. 
You can do there whatever you want, including stealing stuff, and use it for your own purposes, it has no effect on the timeline you come from. Of course, you might screw over that universe if you steal something important, like the Infinity Stones, but you can also help them a great deal if you remove something dangerous, like, say a guy hell-bent on wiping out half the universe. So basically, their actions saved actually two universes (or the population worth one complete universe), because they undid the snap in their own timeline, and removed Thanos from the other. 

But I can't quite reconcile how that works for Old Steve Rogers. I mean it's possible there has always been a Steve Rogers that came back at some point to reunite with Agent Carter (clearly after the events of the series), and that's our old Steve Rogers now. But that suggests that travel into the past doesn't always end up with an alternate timeline. But how would the time travel mechanism "know" which option to pick?


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## trappedslider (Apr 26, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I really liked how the trailers basically spoil absolutely nothing of importance, and about 10 minutes you have no idea how the movie will go, and I don't think anyone predicted this. I guess that is subverting expectations in the good way.




The Russos admitted that some of what was in the trailers was fake, and you can noticed that in certain scenes like when every one comes to watch Captain Marvel brings Tony home Peper was edited out for the trailer.


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## MarkB (Apr 26, 2019)

trappedslider said:


> The Russos admitted that some of what was in the trailers was fake, and you can noticed that in certain scenes like when every one comes to watch Captain Marvel brings Tony home Peper was edited out for the trailer.




It made an interesting switch that they didn't do any set-up for that rescue. The mid-credits scene from Captain Marvel set up her arrival in Avengers Endgame, but with previous movies you'd expect to see the scene again within the new movie. Instead, we cut straight to her finding Stark and Nebula.


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## RangerWickett (Apr 26, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I really liked how the trailers basically spoil absolutely nothing of importance, and about 10 minutes you have no idea how the movie will go, and I don't think anyone predicted this. I guess that is subverting expectations in the good way.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Let me explain how the ending with Cap isn't a paradox.

You only split off a new timeline if you change what you know. So Loki escaping? New timeline. Sending Nebula into the future and then bringing your army? New timeline. Rocket stabs Jane with a syringe? Slightly new timeline.

But Captain America never knew who Peggy Carter married, and she dutifully kept it secret from the recently thawed Steve Rogers. So when he went back and reunited with her, that changed nothing. Thus, it's the same timeline.


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## Nellisir (Apr 26, 2019)

I liked it. I don't think it was as amazing as the critics seemed to think, and it was pretty rushed much of the time, but it was a good wrap-up.

I liked...
- Nebula had a very, very good arc, actually. 
- Hawkeye.
- Wanda did good at the end there. So...maybe WandaVision covers the time between Ultron and IW?
- Cap, pretty much all the way through.
- Ant-Man
- Given that BW has a movie in the works, I didn't expect her to get axed. So...prequel? I'm really glad that Hawkeye got to reunite with his family, but it still sucks.
- I'm sure I'm missing a bunch.

Things I didn't like...
- Big-Gut Thor. It was a one-note joke that never ended. And movies are a visual medium; give us a Big Visual Cue that he's refound his purpose as a Warrior. Don't just braid his beard. (See Ragnarok for this done right.) Pretty cool for him to be in GotG3 though, if that's how it develops.
- Professor Hulk. No real explanation, no development, no tension, no conflict, no nothing. And he doesn't even break anything in a particularly impressive fashion. Dud. I'm just hoping this means they're saving it for something a little further down the line.
- The flying horse was unimpressive.
- There were a few moments, mostly involving Captain Marvel, that fell flat. When the final fight started I kept waiting for a reference to her, and...nothing. That's not how you build anticipation. If there's a gun, etc, etc. A shot of someone clicking the pager, or saying something that acknowledged her, would've been awesome. 
- Her defensive "team" seemed gratuitous and frankly, unnecessary given what she'd LITERALLY just gone through. I love the idea, but it didn't flow organically. (it was much better done in Infinity War)

That's what I can recall right now. Maybe I'm expecting too much of CM; I really really liked her movie, but this appearance lacked depth.


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## trappedslider (Apr 27, 2019)

Nellisir said:


> That's what I can recall right now. Maybe I'm expecting too much of CM; I really really liked her movie, but this appearance lacked depth.




Well, Bri is signed on for 7 more movies, and has already been dubbed the new RDJ in that regard.


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## Nellisir (Apr 27, 2019)

trappedslider said:


> Well, Bri is signed on for 7 more movies, and has already been dubbed the new RDJ in that regard.




That doesn't really make it better. Right now it's all tell and no show re her being the new core of the MCU. She could've been given a little more personality. (I'm totally blaming the writers & directors, btw.)


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## Derren (Apr 27, 2019)

I wonder if Thor will stay with the Guardians in future movies (if there are any).

A bit surprised that Captain Marvel didn't had a bigger role in it and also that her arrival was totally different than in the trailer. I guess initially she came to earth and then started to look for Tony instead of simply finding him in space, but that was cut.

Also, didn't they plan a Black Widow movie? I guess it will be a prequel.


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## Kramodlog (Apr 27, 2019)

Too much emotions by actors who want their screen time. The time travelling plot was clunky at best. The action and plot of Infinity War was better. It is a disappointing end to great series.


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## RangerWickett (Apr 27, 2019)

Yikes.

So characters being affected by events and then resolving to try to save the day anyway just ain't your brand of heroism, huh?


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## Kramodlog (Apr 27, 2019)

RangerWickett said:


> Yikes.
> 
> So characters being affected by events and then resolving to try to save the day anyway just ain't your brand of heroism, huh?




Forced emotions do not reach me. Black Widow and Hawkeye were tertiary characters at best. Their deaths (well ultimately Widow's) was meaningless and only made the film longer. And the film is full of those types of boring forced moments. A terrible end to a great series.


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## Tonguez (Apr 27, 2019)

strangely enough the only point where I got emotional was in Scotts reunion with teenage Cassie, the rest of the movie was good, but not the epic I heard about in reviews. That might have been due to the length or maybe just that Time travel/alternate universe stories arent my thang. I've also tended to be fine with the lighthearted approach of the MCU but think that some of the jokes in this were unnecessary and detracted from the gravitas. 

That said I liked Capt Americas arc and Nebulas too and really liked Capt being able to summon lightning. Giant Man going big enough to hold Hulk in his hand was also very cool.

I didnt like that Professor Hulk was just there without any explanation of how Banner and Hulk got reconciled. I also didnt like that the Hulk personality was entirely gone - the lacklustre car smashing scene was dumb. 
Slob Thor joke was stretched out too long, although the moment with his mother was nicely done. Some of the team combos were a bit dumb too - like why were Hawkeye and Natasha sent to Vormir when neither had been in space before AND Black Widow would have been more valuable on the New York mission than Tony was?

Final battle was great


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## Erekose (Apr 27, 2019)

I enjoyed it but not as much as I enjoyed Infinity War - Endgame just wasn’t as coherent a film.

For a blockbuster film it was the quiet character moments that were the best - pretty much the first and last quarters of the film.

The only thing I particularly didn’t like was “Lebowski” Thor. Having him badly affected by Infinity War and pointlessly killing Thanos was interesting but it turned Thor into a joke character for virtually the whole of the remaining film (not withstanding the final fight with Thanos).

I’m sure it’s been mentioned elsewhere but I couldn’t quite see how Thanos with no Infinity stones could take on Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America (and with Thor having Stormbreaker and Mjolnir) ...


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## ccs (Apr 27, 2019)

Tonguez said:


> Some of the team combos were a bit dumb too - like why were Hawkeye and Natasha sent to Vormir when neither had been in space before AND Black Widow would have been more valuable on the New York mission than Tony was?




Because since the 1st Avengers movie we've been told, and shown, that Clint & Natasha share a personal bond just not present with the rest of the characters present at that point in the film.  So if you've got to sacrifice someone you care deeply about to get the Soul Stone what other pairing are you going to send?
Any other available character you pick had some arc/function/scene THEY were integral to later in the movie.


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## Ovinomancer (Apr 29, 2019)

Erekose said:


> I’m sure it’s been mentioned elsewhere but I couldn’t quite see how Thanos with no Infinity stones could take on Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America (and with Thor having Stormbreaker and Mjolnir) ...




Thanos pretty effortlessly beats the Hulk in IW, then goes on to almost beat the Stark/Strange/Spidey/GotG team _ambush_ without the stones.  Using the stones has a visible tell fir each stone -- everything else is straight up Thanos.


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Apr 29, 2019)

That was the equivalent of an old team up book event series with too many characters, poor writing, but very nice art. About 2 hours in I was thinking "I'm about ready to go..."  And making Thor the comic relief wasn't my cup of tea.  Haven't really enjoyed the last few Marvel flicks I've seen, admittedly that isn't very many of them.  As a long term comic fan I think I'm about super hero movied out.  

2 out of 5 flexes.


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## Istbor (Apr 29, 2019)

*shrug* I liked beer gut Thor. 

One because, oh look the events of the past actually affected someone, and here are the results. The other is because I'm sure it totally miffed some people who couldn't wait to get another look at those pecks and abs. Heh. 

Otherwise, it was enjoyable. I could have probably done without the time travel myself, but really, what else could they do once Thanos destroyed the stones?


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## Tonguez (Apr 29, 2019)

ccs said:


> Because since the 1st Avengers movie we've been told, and shown, that Clint & Natasha share a personal bond just not present with the rest of the characters present at that point in the film.  So if you've got to sacrifice someone you care deeply about to get the Soul Stone what other pairing are you going to send?
> Any other available character you pick had some arc/function/scene THEY were integral to later in the movie.




yeah, from a meta-perspective I liked the narrative drama of those two going, but "in game" it means the Avengers knew a sacrifice was needed and were willing to make one (which is a No on both fronts). A more logical team would have been Natasha goes to New York for the stealth mission with Antman and Capt, send Tony to the Wizard and send Hulk to Vormir.

Its a minor quibble though, I liked it...


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## Erekose (Apr 29, 2019)

Ovinomancer said:


> Thanos pretty effortlessly beats the Hulk in IW, then goes on to almost beat the Stark/Strange/Spidey/GotG team _ambush_ without the stones.  Using the stones has a visible tell fir each stone -- everything else is straight up Thanos.




Hmm - I’m not so sure. Thanos has the Power Stone already in Infinity War when he fights Hulk and it’s not until the beginning of Endgame where we see him fight without any Infinity Stones and he’s dealt with pretty easily (albeit he’s nearly died recently destroying the Infinity Stones).

Which begs the question of how the Avengers so easily handle the individual stones when collecting them in Endgame. Guardians of the Galaxy had an ending that showed what happens if your half-Celestial and half-human and handle a single stone!


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## Ovinomancer (Apr 29, 2019)

Erekose said:


> Hmm - I’m not so sure. Thanos has the Power Stone already in Infinity War when he fights Hulk and it’s not until the beginning of Endgame where we see him fight without any Infinity Stones and he’s dealt with pretty easily (albeit he’s nearly died recently destroying the Infinity Stones).
> 
> Which begs the question of how the Avengers so easily handle the individual stones when collecting them in Endgame. Guardians of the Galaxy had an ending that showed what happens if your half-Celestial and half-human and handle a single stone!




There's a visual tell whenever a power stone is used.  Thanos doesn't use it against Hulk, and is prevented from doing so against the ambush (until he isn't).  Everything without a glow-y stone effect is just Thanos.


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## Erekose (Apr 29, 2019)

Ovinomancer said:


> There's a visual tell whenever a power stone is used.  Thanos doesn't use it against Hulk, and is prevented from doing so against the ambush (until he isn't).  Everything without a glow-y stone effect is just Thanos.




Sorry I didn’t ignore you when you said this before and I agree that when a stone specific power is used there’s a visual tell. However, as Thanos adds each stone to the gauntlet he appears to get suffused with power that takes him a moment to control. I.e. I think he does get a more generic physical power-up as well as when he uses the stone specific powers.


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## Ovinomancer (Apr 29, 2019)

Erekose said:


> Sorry I didn’t ignore you when you said this before and I agree that when a stone specific power is used there’s a visual tell. However, as Thanos adds each stone to the gauntlet he appears to get suffused with power that takes him a moment to control. I.e. I think he does get a more generic physical power-up as well as when he uses the stone specific powers.




Well, it appears this is incorrect, as a zero stone Thanos appears to be capable of the same feats a multi-stone Thanos could do without the visual tells of stones activating.  I mean, we could argue this, but I'd have to wonder if you're looking for consistency in the movie or just defending your prior assumptions.  

Hulk and Tony both also had moments where they looked to be infused with power from the gauntlet, but that appeared to be more merely trying to survive the combined might of the stones, not a power-up, especially since neither of them evinced any greater ability or power afterwards.


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## Erekose (Apr 29, 2019)

Ovinomancer said:


> Well, it appears this is incorrect, as a zero stone Thanos appears to be capable of the same feats a multi-stone Thanos could do without the visual tells of stones activating.  I mean, we could argue this, but I'd have to wonder if you're looking for consistency in the movie or just defending your prior assumptions.
> 
> Hulk and Tony both also had moments where they looked to be infused with power from the gauntlet, but that appeared to be more merely trying to survive the combined might of the stones, not a power-up, especially since neither of them evinced any greater ability or power afterwards.




Hmm ... maybe


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## Rabulias (Apr 29, 2019)

Tonguez said:


> yeah, from a meta-perspective I liked the narrative drama of those two going, but "in game" it means the Avengers knew a sacrifice was needed and were willing to make one (which is a No on both fronts).




I have only seen it once so far, but I am not sure they knew a sacrifice would be required. All they know is what Nebula said: that Thanos took Gamora there and she did not come back with him. Nebula thinks he murdered her (true), but they might think Gamora made one last-ditch effort to stop Thanos from getting the stone and he killed her.

If they knew a sacrifice would be required, I think Cap would have volunteered to be the one to go.


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## Rabulias (Apr 29, 2019)

Erekose said:


> Which begs the question of how the Avengers so easily handle the individual stones when collecting them in Endgame. Guardians of the Galaxy had an ending that showed what happens if your half-Celestial and half-human and handle a single stone!




Note that most of the stones are in containers (The Tessaract, The Orb, The Scepter, Rocket's syringe) that are safe to touch, and all the raw stones are manipulated by machines when put into Tony's Infinity Gauntlet 2.0 back at Avengers HQ.

The naked Time Stone seems to be surrounded by a force field of some kind, both here and in _Avengers Infinity War_; people who grab it don't really touch it. The Soul Stone places itself in your hand when you claim it. After what you pay for it, maybe it "knows" its owner? Maybe the sacrificed soul is inside the stone, and protects that person?


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## RangerWickett (Apr 29, 2019)

My only quibble is I would have liked them to call in Captain Marvel to do the unsnapping, so that her role in the movie is greater, and to give her a chance to be part of the team grieving Natasha, whom she seemed to have at least a bit of a rapport with in the teleconference scene. Then due to the snap, she is out of commission for the first part of the fight against Thanos's army, but gets to have a big hero moment bursting out of the ground. 

Also, I wanted Hulk to be holding up the debris to protect people, and instead of looking panicked, he should have glowered and said something about how Thanos just made him angry. Then let him smash a bit, but do smart smashing.


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## Erekose (Apr 30, 2019)

Rabulias said:


> Note that most of the stones are in containers (The Tessaract, The Orb, The Scepter, Rocket's syringe) that are safe to touch, and all the raw stones are manipulated by machines when put into Tony's Infinity Gauntlet 2.0 back at Avengers HQ.
> 
> The naked Time Stone seems to be surrounded by a force field of some kind, both here and in _Avengers Infinity War_; people who grab it don't really touch it. The Soul Stone places itself in your hand when you claim it. After what you pay for it, maybe it "knows" its owner? Maybe the sacrificed soul is inside the stone, and protects that person?




Doesn't Tony pick-up The Tessaract with his hand and put it in the briefcase?


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## Bagpuss (Apr 30, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> But how would the time travel mechanism "know" which option to pick?




That's what I thought the anchor point, base plate they start on was for to make sure you get back to the right dimension. Since Steve and Tony jumped further into the past with just the suits, no base station, it seemed you don't need it to travel into the quantum realm and through time.

But yeah Steve taking the long way back doesn't make sense if they are actually visiting alternate dimensions... unless of course we are just seeing the dimension where Steve travelled the long way back, and not really the same as the one he left, even though there is a base station there (perhaps the Steve that left that dimension is dead in a ditch?). If there are multiple dimensions then pretty much any outcome is possible.

The movie has a load of improbable things, like all of Peter Paker's class being part of the 50% to disappear, or all the ladies lining up (erm Hope, weren't you at the van they are trying to get the glove to a second ago and maybe you should be fixing it as Scott was never the brains of your team) and massive plot holes, but you know what I don't care, loved it anyway.


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## Maxperson (Apr 30, 2019)

RangerWickett said:


> Let me explain how the ending with Cap isn't a paradox.
> 
> You only split off a new timeline if you change what you know. So Loki escaping? New timeline. Sending Nebula into the future and then bringing your army? New timeline. Rocket stabs Jane with a syringe? Slightly new timeline.
> 
> But Captain America never knew who Peggy Carter married, and she dutifully kept it secret from the recently thawed Steve Rogers. So when he went back and reunited with her, that changed nothing. Thus, it's the same timeline.




Yes, Captain America staying can be explained without creating a new timeline, however...

You forgot Nebula killing the Nebula of the past, thereby ending her own existence(except it didn't somehow) new timeline.  Killing Thanos off before he ever used the stones in Infinity War new timeline.  Killing Thanos off before he ever killed Gamora(that should have brought her back since Thanos never sacrificed her) new timeline.  

And let's not forget that the old Nebula didn't have any more Pym Particles to even bring Thanos into the future with, having used the one round trip worth of them that she she got from Nebula to get to the future in the first place.

Great movie, but some pretty sizable plot holes.


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## GreyLord (Apr 30, 2019)

Maxperson said:


> Yes, Captain America staying can be explained without creating a new timeline, however...
> 
> You forgot Nebula killing the Nebula of the past, thereby ending her own existence(except it didn't somehow) new timeline.  Killing Thanos off before he ever used the stones in Infinity War new timeline.  Killing Thanos off before he ever killed Gamora(that should have brought her back since Thanos never sacrificed her) new timeline.
> 
> ...




That's right, I hadn't thought about that.

How DID Thanos follow?


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## Istbor (Apr 30, 2019)

GreyLord said:


> That's right, I hadn't thought about that.
> 
> How DID Thanos follow?




True. It wasn't explained well. One could argue that being a super alien warlord allowed him to study the substance use his advanced tech and probable army of techs to engineer more.  That would be my first guess. I don't know what the in cannon reason is though.


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## Erekose (Apr 30, 2019)

Well the easy answer to all of the inconsistencies is that Tony restored everything back to its proper place when he clicked his fingers. We’ve no evidence this isn’t what happened. All we saw was that Thanos and his army disappeared.


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## Tonguez (Apr 30, 2019)

Istbor said:


> True. It wasn't explained well. One could argue that being a super alien warlord allowed him to study the substance use his advanced tech and probable army of techs to engineer more.  That would be my first guess. I don't know what the in cannon reason is though.




well considering that Tony figured out time travel in half an hour after finishing the dinner dishes, theres really no reason why Thanos couldnt figure out that all he needs is a mobius strip too


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## Istbor (Apr 30, 2019)

Tonguez said:


> well considering that Tony figured out time travel in half an hour after finishing the dinner dishes, theres really no reason why Thanos couldnt figure out that all he needs is a mobius strip too




Yeah. That is basically where I am at as well. Just wasn't shown on screen. I can understand how that could cause some confusion. 

Thanos had the juice and the bracelet. Reverse engineer that stuff and you have everything that is really needed to get to the 'Prime' dimension.


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## trappedslider (May 1, 2019)

Avengers: Endgame directors answer Captain America mystery

Avengers: Endgame explained: The logic behind the heroes' master plan


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## carrot (May 1, 2019)

Tonguez said:


> well considering that Tony figured out time travel in half an hour after finishing the dinner dishes, theres really no reason why Thanos couldnt figure out that all he needs is a mobius strip too




Thanos had access to Nebula's knowledge of the Mobius strip via 2014 Nebula's implant.


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## Erekose (May 1, 2019)

trappedslider said:


> Avengers: Endgame directors answer Captain America mystery
> 
> Avengers: Endgame explained: The logic behind the heroes' master plan




Hmm - so Steve went to another dimension to stay with Peggy (and presumably have lots of adventures that didn't happen in his home dimension) . . . and then came back to his home dimension to have his chat with Sam. Presumably that means Peggy still died, chronologically speaking, at roughly the same time she did in Steve's home dimension . . . but that again means that Steve has permanently (or is it?) left a dimension full of a lifetime of friends for one where he's only close to a handful of people???


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## Maxperson (May 1, 2019)

carrot said:


> Thanos had access to Nebula's knowledge of the Mobius strip via 2014 Nebula's implant.




What knowledge?  I don't remember Tony explaining the details of how time travel works to her.  She probably just knew to press this button to get there and press that one to get back, much like most people can use a TV or cell phone, but can't begin to build one.


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## Tonguez (May 1, 2019)

Maxperson said:


> What knowledge?  I don't remember Tony explaining the details of how time travel works to her.  She probably just knew to press this button to get there and press that one to get back, much like most people can use a TV or cell phone, but can't begin to build one.




they still had to build the time machine, and she's shown to be one of Tonys tech-buddies when they were doing stuff on the ship. I'd accept that she helped in the time machine build too


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## Rabulias (May 2, 2019)

Erekose said:


> Doesn't Tony pick-up The Tessaract with his hand and put it in the briefcase?



Yes, but the actual Space Stone is _inside_ the Tesseract. Remember Thanos crushing the Tesseract and extracting the stone after getting it from Loki in _Avengers: Infinity War_?


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## Erekose (May 2, 2019)

Rabulias said:


> Yes, but the actual Space Stone is _inside_ the Tesseract. Remember Thanos crushing the Tesseract and extracting the stone after getting it from Loki in _Avengers: Infinity War_?




Good point! Although that didn’t help Red Skull too much at the end of the First Avenger! Mind you, he did hold it earlier in the film with no problem.


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## Erekose (May 2, 2019)

Nothing new to what's been discussed here but still an interesting read:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/movies/avengers-endgame-questions-and-answers.html


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## Ovinomancer (May 2, 2019)

Erekose said:


> Nothing new to what's been discussed here but still an interesting read:
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/movies/avengers-endgame-questions-and-answers.html



Sorry, fat fingered the laugh button.  Please consider that xp.


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## Mercurius (May 2, 2019)

Saw it last night. My overall impression is a lower grade version of the Last Jedi phenomenon: a bit baffled by how much the critics loved it. The movie felt like a jumbled mess...I mean, time travel plots almost never work out well. I enjoyed it as far as pure entertainment, but even the spectacle didn't feel new: we've seen it all before.

But here's something I haven't seen mentioned as I scanned through this thread, and bothered me: so they feel safe about just sending the Infinity Stones off in different directions, knowing full well what they are capable of? How are they to prevent some other mad crazy bad guy from trying to assemble the Stones in the future? I mean, why doesn't this happen again and again? Shouldn't the powers that be in the universe find a better way of safeguarding the Stones?


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## MarkB (May 2, 2019)

Mercurius said:


> But here's something I haven't seen mentioned as I scanned through this thread, and bothered me: so they feel safe about just sending the Infinity Stones off in different directions, knowing full well what they are capable of? How are they to prevent some other mad crazy bad guy from trying to assemble the Stones in the future? I mean, why doesn't this happen again and again? Shouldn't the powers that be in the universe find a better way of safeguarding the Stones?




Theoretically, they don't exist anymore. By placing them back in their original times, they still got to be picked up by Infinity-War-Thanos, used to wipe out half of all sentient life, and then destroyed by Thanos.

But seriously, just thinking about it makes my head hurt.


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## megamania (May 2, 2019)

My understanding / take on it is there are many alternate timelines (14,000,000,605 ?) BUT only one set of six Infinity Gems (Stones).  These were created as "Timeline #1" was created.  By spreading them out it messes with time - yes but also makes it that only through time travel can these ever be brought together again.


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## Blue (May 5, 2019)

Nellisir said:


> - Professor Hulk. No real explanation, no development, no tension, no conflict, no nothing. And he doesn't even break anything in a particularly impressive fashion. Dud. I'm just hoping this means they're saving it for something a little further down the line.




There was a five year gap.  We got to see several characters how they grew during those five years.  Cap leading small counseling sessions because he cares about actual people.  Tony and Pepper starting a family.  Nat burning herself out trying to hold her chosen family together.  And Banner/Hulk resolving the issues from the end of Infinity War, finding his center and coming to peace with himself (himselves?).

While it wasn't the only way to have that work out, it would have been jarring and bad writing if that hadn't been resolved in some way during that time.


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## Blue (May 5, 2019)

RangerWickett said:


> My only quibble is I would have liked them to call in Captain Marvel to do the unsnapping, so that her role in the movie is greater, and to give her a chance to be part of the team grieving Natasha, whom she seemed to have at least a bit of a rapport with in the teleconference scene. Then due to the snap, she is out of commission for the first part of the fight against Thanos's army, but gets to have a big hero moment bursting out of the ground.




This would have been cool, though since her power is from one of the stones in the first place I wonder how it would have affected her.

But yeah, that makes sense.  I think she wasn't there just so they could have the dramatic entrance.  They were expert and whipsawing our emotions up and down throughout the movie and that fight scene.



RangerWickett said:


> Also, I wanted Hulk to be holding up the debris to protect people, and instead of looking panicked, he should have glowered and said something about how Thanos just made him angry. Then let him smash a bit, but do smart smashing.




I had two thoughts about the drowning scene with Hulk.  first is that Hulk gets stronger when angry, and I think he wasn't angry - he was scared.  The other is that he was down an arm due to the snappening.  It's still in a sling at Tony's wake in the denouement.


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## doctorbadwolf (May 5, 2019)

MarkB said:


> It was a good "passing the torch" movie, and I'm glad that they brought these storylines to a conclusion, and that they didn't go for a consequence-free time travel reset that made the events of the previous movie not happen.
> 
> That said, I still don't see how the final sequence with past-Thanos being wiped out doesn't violate their own self imposed time travel rules.




He came from another timeline, and never changed his own past, or anyone else’s.


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## Imaculata (May 5, 2019)

I greatly enjoyed the movie. It is great to see all the characters deal with the aftermath of Infinity War, and reunited with characters from previous flicks. I also enjoyed fat Thor, and happy they kept him fat all movie long. The only real crinchy bit was all of the female characters teaming up, that felt very fan servicy and on the nose. I also loved seeing Pepper in Ironman armor again.


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## Umbran (May 5, 2019)

Saw the movie last night...

Those of you who have a problem with the Thor "joke" are having a problem with a decent (for the genre and setting) depiction of how trauma impacts people.  It is in part played for the joke (because, apparently, alcoholism is funny to people), but his descent into that and depression are entirely appropriate.

And, to be honest, if you didn't turn from laughing at him to feeling some pity for him... Well, maybe that's on the film, and maybe it is on some of our culture's views on alcoholism and grief.



			
				Mudstrum Ridcully" said:
			
		

> But I can't quite reconcile how that works for Old Steve Rogers. I mean it's possible there has always been a Steve Rogers that came back at some point to reunite with Agent Carter (clearly after the events of the series), and that's our old Steve Rogers now. But that suggests that travel into the past doesn't always end up with an alternate timeline. But how would the time travel mechanism "know" which option to pick?




No, you got it.  The thing we need to realize is... Old Cap is not Cap.  At least, not "our" Cap.

When you travel in time, you go to alternate timelines.  They establish that the way you get back to your own timeline is *through a portal*.  Cap and Iron Man even initiate a jump (to 1970) without a portal, but to return, they use the portal.  Without the portal, any time jump you make is to an alternate timeline.  

Old Cap did not come through the portal.  So, it isn't our Cap.  He's a Cap from an alternate timeline.  

There's actually a ton of timelines going through much the same thing - each with their own Thanos trying to kill off half the people in its universe.  There's a bunch of Avengers jumping through a bunch of alternate timelines trying to do much the same thing.  But... *we* are an alternate to someone else.  So, Our Cap jumps out, goes to an alternate timeline, and spends a life with alternate Peggy Carter.  A *different* Cap jumps from somewhere else into our timeline to deliver the shield.



RangerWickett said:


> You only split off a new timeline if you change what you know.




I think you are incorrect.  See above.

---

Now, aside from time travel shenanigans - 

I like how the one person who manages to get their Infinity Stone by just straight up rational discussion... is the Hulk.


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## Janx (May 5, 2019)

I snuck out Friday after lunch to see it.  Then the Tornado Watch stopped the film right before Nebula stuck her hand into the fry your hand field (I was right).

Much waiting in the hall as we wondered just how close the Tornado was (4 stop lights away at Hooks Airport). Then it's back into the theatre where they nicely rolled it back a minute or so and we got to silently rewatch Quill dancing his way through stupidity, an arm frying and a Nebnapping by Thanos with some silent soul searching as he pondered the meaning of headless him in silence.

Then the sound came back.

I liked it.  I liked fat Thor, because he's pointed out how grueling the workouts for these movies are, so it was a bit meta.

I liked the time travel movie jokes as they struggled to come to grips with time travel is not like Back to the Future.

I liked that many past actors of the MCU got to be in this film, from Carter to the Civil war guys and Jarvis.  Missed Coulson.

I liked that we finally got to hear "Avengers Assemble."

In marriage, as Cap will tell us, it's about finding something you love in the other person, not their faults.  Here's to another 20 MCU films and until Thanos stops sitting down so much, make mine Marvel!


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## MarkB (May 5, 2019)

Umbran said:


> No, you got it.  The thing we need to realize is... Old Cap is not Cap.  At least, not "our" Cap.
> 
> When you travel in time, you go to alternate timelines.  They establish that the way you get back to your own timeline is *through a portal*.  Cap and Iron Man even initiate a jump (to 1970) without a portal, but to return, they use the portal.  Without the portal, any time jump you make is to an alternate timeline.
> 
> ...




I feel like they did a very poor job of explaining that in the movie. They talk about how movies like the Back To The Future trilogy - which _does_ involve time travel creating alternate timelines - always get it wrong, and they make it very clear that the Infinity Stones _must_ be returned back to their original point in time in order to prevent a disruption to the timeline. The whole reason why they bring back the Snapped people five years later instead of just reversing the entire Snap via time travel is to prevent a paradox. And when they first go back to New York, they seem to be doing their utmost not to disrupt existing events so as to avoid rewriting their own past.

Even when Hulk debates with The Ancient One about how taking the stone will create another, darker timeline, he wins her over partially by demonstrating that its return will prevent that timeline from ever existing.

So, are those alternate timelines still out there? Did they get nipped off when Captain America went back in time to return the stones? Since the things that happened in those timelines are now part of these characters' pasts, how can they be unmade without causing a paradox? If they'd simply gone back in time and prevented the Snap, wouldn't that have created a timeline in which everybody lived, without so much hassle?


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## Umbran (May 5, 2019)

MarkB said:


> I feel like they did a very poor job of explaining that in the movie.




It isn't like time travel is easy to understand or explain.



> They talk about how movies like the Back To The Future trilogy - which _does_ involve time travel creating alternate timelines




No.  Back to the Future involves changing the one, singular timeline.  Back to the Future has Marty McFly going to the past, making changes, and possibly erasing himself.  In Marvel Time Travel, this is not possible.  You *CANNOT* change your own past to make it so you never happen.  You can jump timelines, and make it so an alternate you never happens.  Upon your return, you'll find your own world's history has not changed.  

In the Marvel Movies, history is like... a classic straw broom.  You are on one straw.  You can travel down that straw at the rate of one minute per minute.  Or, you can jump to the past or future of *ANOTHER* straw.  This is classic "many worlds" time travel.  

It is probably better to think of it less as "time travel" and more like "alternate world hopping".  



> and they make it very clear that the Infinity Stones _must_ be returned back to their original point in time in order to prevent a disruption to the timeline.




No, it isn't disruption to "the" timeline.  The Ancient One is on a timeline.  It is pretty much exactly like the Hulk's.  The only difference is that, in the Hulk's timeline, no Hulk came and talked to his Ancient One (so far as we know).  The Ancient One tells him that if he takes off with her Time Stone, she and Doctor Strange won't have it later to protect her timeline from the ravages of evil - specifically, if he doesn't have it back in 5 years, Strange can't stop Dormammu.  Basically, she cannot allow him to take it, because *her* home timeline will be screwed, not "the" timeline will be screwed.  



> The whole reason why they bring back the Snapped people five years later instead of just reversing the entire Snap via time travel is to prevent a paradox.




No.  Take this instead: It isn't to "prevent paradox".  Creating paradox is *impossible*.  They could create a new timeline in which those people came back five years ago... but in their own timelne, those people would still be gone. 



> And when they first go back to New York, they seem to be doing their utmost not to disrupt existing events so as to avoid rewriting their own past.




The Ancient One makes it clear - rewriting your past is just not possible.  Your past is *FIXED* and immutable.  Any past you change is in an alternate timeline.



> If they'd simply gone back in time and prevented the Snap, wouldn't that have created a timeline in which everybody lived, without so much hassle?




Because, I repeat - you *CANNOT*.  

If you are in a timeline that had the Snap, and go back and make it not happen, you end up with two timelines - one in which there was a snap (your original), and one in which there wasn't.  There's still a timeline that sucks for the half the universe that didn't die.  This doesn't actually fix anything.  Those people still die, and the survivors still suffer.  You just also have a world in which that didn't happen.

Instead, what you do is not make the snap not happen.  You let the snap happen, and then *remake the people* five years later, not creating a major new timeline.

There are still some minor new timelines - there's a timeline where, at the end of Avengers 1, Loki escapes Thor's custody.  Our Loki didn't escape.  He still died at the start of Infinity War.  

There's now a timeline in which Peter Quill never meets Gamora - she leaves her original timeline, and comes to ours, and doesn't get to meet her home-timeline Quill.  

There's now a timeline in which, at least for a while, there's some members of Hydra who think Cap is on their side.  Their Cap is unaware of this, but is aware that BUcky is still alive.  That'll be fun for him - their version of The Winter Soldier might be quite different from ours.

All in all, what they've done is introduce the standard Marvel Many Worlds.  The standard comics take place in Earth-616.  The Marvel Cinematic Universe is in Earth-199999.


----------



## Blue (May 5, 2019)

doctorbadwolf said:


> He came from another timeline, and never changed his own past, or anyone else’s.




I agree, just want to add.

Until the moment that Nebula's memories sync'd, that was "the timeline".  But as soon as it did it created an alternate timeline that wasn't the past that the Avengers were on.  So Thanos came from that alternate timeline exactly as you say - it just was a recently diverged timeline.  But still not the Avengers past any more.


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## Blue (May 5, 2019)

Umbran said:


> No, you got it.  The thing we need to realize is... Old Cap is not Cap.  At least, not "our" Cap.
> 
> When you travel in time, you go to alternate timelines.  They establish that the way you get back to your own timeline is *through a portal*.  Cap and Iron Man even initiate a jump (to 1970) without a portal, but to return, they use the portal.  Without the portal, any time jump you make is to an alternate timeline.
> 
> ...




If what the characters in the film described was the complete truth, then I disagree to a point.  Of course, it's time travel so there's probably no objective truth.

What I got was that there was one timeline and every time time travel caused a change then it caused a split and there was the original timeline and the new timeline.  Who know how many times this has already happened in the past, from never any time travel (unlikely with the Time Stone being controlled) to very large but finite numbers of them.

So, for example, when the team jumped back and started interacting, it split off a timeline that until that point had been their own timeline.  In the "base Avengers" timeline, Professor Hulk never dented a car and tossed someone's bike.  That's when the timeline split from their past to a new timeline.  Same for when Nebula's memory intertwined - interacting and changing the past is what splits a new timeline.  Same for back in 1970s when they interacted with the lady on the elevator.

Now, these changes are relatively minor, and will likely leave the timeline very close to what it should be.  At least, that's the subtext I got from the Ancient One's speech where she was only really worried about the stone being missing, not the changes made by her not interacting with the Battle of New York for a few minutes while talking to astral form Bruce.

What this means in terms of Old Steve.  Either Old Steve caused a time stream split by going back in the past, or he had _always_ done that, including not warning anyone about all of the disasters he knew were coming.  The second seems out of character, so most likely he lived his life out on an alternate time stream.  Now, how he got back I don't know, so that theory also has flaws.

(As a side note, they had already worked out how to run time through someone to de-age them, and they kept the memories because Scott Lang remembered being an old man.  So hypothetically they could de-age him.)



Umbran said:


> Now, aside from time travel shenanigans -
> 
> I like how the one person who manages to get their Infinity Stone by just straight up rational discussion... is the Hulk.




I absolutely enjoyed how Banner/Hulk resolved their issues from the end of Infinity War and became the Hulk of Endgame.  The crowning moment for that for me was not that kids felt safe to come up to him for pictures only a couple years after he went rampaging though a city and needing the hulkbuster armor to take down (though that was close), it was him just casually walking by Scott Lang and giving him his own tacos because Scott's was ruined.


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## Jester David (May 5, 2019)

_Endgame_... 

So many thoughts.

I wept openly after "Avengers Assemble". I'd wanted that line in the movies for ages and felt a little slighted we didn't get it in _Age of Ultron_. But, man, this made it worth it. So amazing. 

The focus on the characters and giving so many of the Avengers an "end" was neat. _Dark Knight Rises_ was the first comic movie to dare to "end" the story of their heroes rather than setting up endless sequels. I don't think this movie could have done this without that. The idea of having characters die or retire is anathema to comic fans; if this were a comic story, there would have been several more shock deaths and one heroic sacrifice, all of which would be undone within three or four years. 

Damn it was ballsy not only having the snap still happen and not erasing things back a year or two, but going ahead five years. Yikes. It does make _Spider-man: Far From Home_ a little funky, as apparently every member of his supporting cast was also snapped away, otherwise they wouldn't be in High School still. 
And future Marvel movies might be weird, as the world will be somewhat similar, but everyone's lives should have been uprooted by the Snappening. (To say nothing of what will happen in _Agents of SHIELD_, or when that might take place.)


I adored how they ended with Cap finally getting his dance with Peggy. That was beautiful. 
(I do hope they do an _Agent Carter_ movie on Disney+ that wraps up the dangling threads of her series and ends with her reunion with Steve.)

I'm a little sad we'll never get another Hulk movie. Having the Hulk become Professor Hulk feels like a character change that should have been a climax of another movie. Hulk is fun here, but he's given the least to do, as his arc is over before the movie starts. He doesn't even really get an end. 

A lot has been said about Black Widow. I'm sad she died but... honestly, I can't think of an alternative arc for her. If she lived, you'd need to explain why she wasn't still helping and saving the world. She just fades into the background like Fury, which is awkward. But she can't find love and retire (like Cap) or live out her days with her family (like Hawkeye) and you only need one climactic end sacrifice. It's a weakness of the film (and the preceding two films with her) that she doesn't have satisfactory "win" condition. But she's never been a stand out character in the comics either, so there's far less to draw from or use as inspiration: Black Widow has always just been there and seldom a starring character. 
In theory they could have left her alive and trusted the solo film to give her an end. But I don't think that film was entirely solidified in 2017 when they were planning and filming _Endgame_. 

Thor....
, did I hate what they did with Thor. 
Okay, having him be depressed and suffering PTSD and survivor's guilt works. Falling into depression and loss of confidence is fine, and having his arc be rediscovering himself is okay. If circular. It doesn't really lead to an "end" for him. But the route they took where he was a walking punchline was inappropriate. It was several hours of body shaming and laughing _AT _Thor. It should have been a sad examination of alcoholism and depression, but instead it was endless fat jokes. So the final words his doomed mother say to him are "eat a salad". And even after he gets the pep talk from her and finds his confidence, he's still a pathetic mess begging to commit suicide by snap. 
And then he runs away. Abandons his people and responsibility to wander with the Guardians, hiding from his duty as much as if he were still getting drunk and playing video games.  

Captain Marvel was underused. Okay, this makes sense as they were filming her movie at the same time, so she was likely pretty busy. And they didn't have a clear idea of her character. 
But they also have a Superman problem with her now. She's too powerful. She took out his ship without breaking a sweat, took a blow from Thanos without flinching. She's stronger and tougher than the Hulk and Thor but can fly and shoot energy. 
How do they challenge her in her sequel?
And given she's meant to be the "Iron Man" of the next phase where the team forms around her... why does she need a team? Do you need an Avengers when you have Captain Marvel?


It will be interesting to see where Marvel goes from here. We have _Spider-man_ coming later this year and then... nothing. This is almost the end. We've had a firm idea of everything up to Avengers 4 since 2014. And we've known _Far From Home_ was coming since 2018 when that filmed. They were talking about sequels to _Doctor Strange_, _Black Panther_, and an _Eternals_ movie, (plus _Asguardians of the Galaxy_) but with them not filming this year, 2020 might be the first Marvel-less movie since 2009


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## Umbran (May 5, 2019)

Blue said:


> If what the characters in the film described was the complete truth, then I disagree to a point.




I have only seen it the once, and I was a bit busy experiencing to remember all the statements in their entirety.  But, I'm still of the opinion that my interpretation is consistent with what is seen.



> Of course, it's time travel so there's probably no objective truth.




It is a *movie*, so there's probably no clear truth.  The fact that time travel is involved isn't the determiner, but how much the storytellers stick to their logic.

There's a second question as to whether there's sufficient information in the movie to determine what that truth is, without having to assume some things on our part.



> What I got was that there was one timeline and every time time travel caused a change then it caused a split and there was the original timeline and the new timeline.  Who know how many times this has already happened in the past, from never any time travel (unlikely with the Time Stone being controlled) to very large but finite numbers of them.




I would want to review *exactly* what the Ancient One said, but again, I'm still of the opinion that what I said was consistent with their exposition.  Specifically, I think she already references her timeline as different from the Hulk's, when no notable changes have been made, yet.  In any case, we have the "you cannot change your own past" line from several folks before that.  If you cannot change your own past, that pretty strongly argues for at least the idea that every act of time travelling backwards creates an alternate timeline.  That means they created at least... five?

Alternate 1: Hulk, Ant Man, Iron Man, and Cap all go back to the Battle of New York.
Alternate 2: Rocket and Thor go to Asgard
Alternate 3: Nebula, War Machine, Hawkeye, Black Widow go to Spaaaaaace!
Alternate 4: Iron Man and Cap go back to the Army Base in 1970.
Alternate 5: Captain America goes back to be with Peggy Carter.




> What this means in terms of Old Steve.  Either Old Steve caused a time stream split by going back in the past




The film makers have said that Cap spent his life in an alternate timeline, my #5, above.  I believe the quotes for that can be found upthread.  

In fact, this *has* to be true, because he comes up with an unbroken Shield.  That can't be our Cap's original.  It must be from an alternate timeline.  Or he had a second one made while back in the past?   That doesn't make a lot of sense.



> (As a side note, they had already worked out how to run time through someone to de-age them, and they kept the memories because Scott Lang remembered being an old man.  So hypothetically they could de-age him.)




Well, they did that once, in uncontrolled circumstances, before they had Tony's input on time travel.  They didn't "work it out" so much as it happened on one of their experiments.  That doesn't mean they can replicate that in a controlled manner....  But yeah, they could use time shenanigans to de-age him... but that brings up a question of why anyone ever ages in the universe ever again, and the ethics of withholding de-aging from the general populace.   Don't go there.

They could also invoke the Super Soldier Serum, since in normal comic continuity that keeps him nigh-immune to aging (and he has lost it once or twice in the comics, and aged as a result).  Give him another shot of Vita Rays, and he's good to go!  They could also invoke what I said, above - that the Old Cap comes from an alternate timeline, and our Cap eventually comes back from his trip through the portal, just later than planned.  

I'm guessing both Evans and Downey are done, though, and unlikely to show up except in flashbacks and recordings.



> The crowning moment for that for me was not that kids felt safe to come up to him for pictures only a couple years after he went rampaging though a city and needing the hulkbuster armor to take down (though that was close), it was him just casually walking by Scott Lang and giving him his own tacos because Scott's was ruined.




I loved that moment.  Just plain old fashioned empathy, at its finest!

Also, I am a nigh-unabashed Cap fan. The moment of him getting Mjollnir in the big fight (and, Thor's reaction - when Cap first almost moved the hammer in Age of Ultron, Thor looked worried.  In this one it was a joyful, "I knew it!!!1!")  Growth of both Cap (now worthy) and Thor.  I was happy that I didn't twig to that possibility when Thor came back with the alternate hammer.

I also appreciated that they also put some goals other than "kill them all" into the fight.  The Great Game of Keep Away gave a flow to the big fight that would have otherwise been extremely hard to follow.

And, the trading of places: In Infinity War, Tony with Parker as he dusts, and now, Parker with Tony as he's in his final moments....  They must have sewed the actor's mouth shut to keep him from blurting out that spoiler.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 5, 2019)

MarkB said:


> I feel like they did a very poor job of explaining that in the movie. They talk about how movies like the Back To The Future trilogy - which _does_ involve time travel creating alternate timelines - always get it wrong, and they make it very clear that the Infinity Stones _must_ be returned back to their original point in time in order to prevent a disruption to the timeline. The whole reason why they bring back the Snapped people five years later instead of just reversing the entire Snap via time travel is to prevent a paradox. And when they first go back to New York, they seem to be doing their utmost not to disrupt existing events so as to avoid rewriting their own past.
> 
> Even when Hulk debates with The Ancient One about how taking the stone will create another, darker timeline, he wins her over partially by demonstrating that its return will prevent that timeline from ever existing.
> 
> So, are those alternate timelines still out there? Did they get nipped off when Captain America went back in time to return the stones? Since the things that happened in those timelines are now part of these characters' pasts, how can they be unmade without causing a paradox? If they'd simply gone back in time and prevented the Snap, wouldn't that have created a timeline in which everybody lived, without so much hassle?




I can only say how I understood it, and it made sense to me: 

The different timelines are essentially different universes. What you do there can't affect the timeline you're from, e.g. what ever happened already there will always happen. So you can't go back to undo the snap, because that wouldn't be in your timeline, but someone else's. 

If you take something from the timeline you visit, it is gone there. That can have minor to major effects. For example, Thanos leaving that timeline to get into "ours" means there is no Thanos to ever do a big snap in the other timeline. That doesn't help you in your timeline, but at least Thanos leaving that timeline and the Avengers defeating him in "ours" means that they basically saved two different universes. 

It is however a bit different for the infinity stones. Because they are intimately tied to the universe they are from, removing them is bad for the respective timeline. That's what the Ancient One discusses with the Hulk. So if you don't give them infinity stones back to where you took them, you're screwing that universe over.  If it wasn't for that, it would probably be a very good idea to actually keep the infinity stones and not give them back, because it means no Thanos or Thanos-wannabe can get the full set (unless he figures out how to cross to the other timelines) and you save a few extra universes along the way. But since the removal of a stone or a few more is harmful for that universe, you got to bring it back to where you took it. And if you're nice, also any other useful tools you got. 

Captain America stayed in one of the other timelines to live with Peggy. He didn't live his long life with the Peggy from this timeline. What he did in that timeline we don't know. Maybe it meant Bucky was in Russian captivity for decades, or he got him out and gave him a chance for a good life, we don't know, it is an untold (and maybe never to be told) story.
He returns somehow to our timeline to hand over a shield for Sam - it can't be his original one, because that's destroyed, it might be from the timeline he stayed with Peggy, or it's a new shield (Wakanda still has plenty of Vibranium)


---

Edit: Just read Umbran's previous posts, and it could be that the infinity stones aren't as special for the "safety" of a universe as I thought - it might really just be the role they would normally have to play in the future is sometimes very important. The Infinity Stones are bad for their abusal potential, but without Dr.Strange wielding the Time Stone, there seems to be no way to avert Earth being consumed by that other dimensional timeless being whose name I forgot. And I suppose several of the stones have important roles later on, and not just negative ones. For example, if Quill never gets the stone he's after, Gamora will never go after him and the Guardians of the Galaxy will never form. There might never be a Snap, but Quill's father would probably also not be stopped and murder all life, which is not exactly better. So that are at least two infinity stones that are still important for the future of the respective timelines.


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## Umbran (May 5, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Edit: Just read Umbran's previous posts, and it could be that the infinity stones aren't as special for the "safety" of a universe as I thought




Well, we need to hope not.  Because in Earth-199999, they are now *gone*.  Thanos destroyed them.  

So, like, if you were looking or Adam Warlock in Guardians 3... he can't have the Soul Stone in his forehead.  Unless they have something like, "Thanos thought he could destroy billions-of-year-old singularities, permanently?!?  That's rich!  Nope, they reconstitute themselves, and off we go again!"

Cap was sent to put back all the stones they borrowed.  We can perhaps presume he succeeded - none of the timelines end up lacking stones they need in what we think of as the past.  Going forward, however, if they are necessary for something, there's a problem.


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## MarkB (May 5, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Well, we need to hope not.  Because in Earth-199999, they are now *gone*.  Thanos destroyed them.
> 
> So, like, if you were looking or Adam Warlock in Guardians 3... he can't have the Soul Stone in his forehead.  Unless they have something like, "Thanos thought he could destroy billions-of-year-old singularities, permanently?!?  That's rich!  Nope, they reconstitute themselves, and off we go again!"
> 
> Cap was sent to put back all the stones they borrowed.  We can perhaps presume he succeeded - none of the timelines end up lacking stones they need in what we think of as the past.  Going forward, however, if they are necessary for something, there's a problem.




I seem to recall Thanos saying that he "atomised" them. So maybe, rather than being destroyed per se, their power is simply dispersed and distributed across the universe. Their special properties aren't lost from the universe, but they can't be brought together again to perform cosmic-scale renovations.

Notably, Captain Marvel's power is derived from the Space stone, so if it were gone from the universe there's some question whether her powers would still function.


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## Umbran (May 6, 2019)

Jester David said:


> Thor....
> 
> Okay, having him be depressed and suffering PTSD and survivor's guilt works. Falling into depression and loss of confidence is fine, and having his arc be rediscovering himself is okay. If circular. It doesn't really lead to an "end" for him.




Correct.  But, the only true ends in the movie are Black Widow, Tony Stark, and Cap.  Everyone else has ways forwards as heroes.



> It was several hours of body shaming and laughing _AT _Thor.




With respect, he gets minutes of screen time, not hours.



> And then he runs away. Abandons his people and responsibility to wander with the Guardians, hiding from his duty as much as if he were still getting drunk and playing video games.




Here, I disagree strongly.  For most of his movies, Thor has been saying that the doesn't want to be king.  Odin remarks upon it, that he has one son that wants the throne to much, and another that doesn't want it at all.  He reluctantly takes it on at the end of Ragnarok, and then... immediately fails to protect his people (against an overwhelming force, but still) before they can even reach a planet!

How long does he have to go on before he is allowed to realize that "duty" or not (duty by right of birth, really?) he isn't really suited to the job of ruling?  That he is doing his people a *service* by being the action hero he's really built to be, instead of an administrator?


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## Jester David (May 6, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Correct.  But, the only true ends in the movie are Black Widow, Tony Stark, and Cap.  Everyone else has ways forwards as heroes.



Well, Hawkeye was retired already. So he returns to retirement with his family and has an "end". Back to retirement really. (Although, they're talking about a mini-series on Disney+ to pass the Hawkeye torch to Kate Bishop.)
Hulk... is smart and lost an arm. So he's likely just being a scientist guy again and not being a hero. Again, he found his happy ending between movies.
So that's five out of the six.

The old wild card was Thor, who was expected to have an end, but they changed their mind at the last minute because _Ragnarok_ did well and the actor wants to stick around...



Umbran said:


> With respect, he gets minutes of screen time, not hours.



Minutes spread out over the hours. 
Pretty much every single scene with Thor is laughing at him. After the prologue, every scene Thor is a part of is him being the fat comedic relief. 
His role in the film is being Melissa McCarthy/ Chris Farley.

Even a character that pretty much wholly exists as comedic relief (like Groot or Rocket) got wholehearted honestly emotional scenes in their films. Thor doesn't. He's continually the punchline. And his emotional pain and psychological trauma is treated as a freakin' joke. Oh, he lost everything and failed everyone and is now an overweight alcoholic. He has to threaten twelve year olds playing video games. He has to run away from his ex, likely dooming people again to get drink. Ha ing ha.

Would that work for Cap? Iron Man. Can you imagine if they had decided to just make fun of Captain America continually for the entire movie? If they had stuck Chris Evans in the fat suit and made Cap give rambling speeches while running away from his mission because he wasn't able to lead the team. 
Heck, Iron Man would make sense as a drunk. _Demon in a Bottle_ is a famous character arc. Just a drunken Tony being extra belligerent with people making jokes about if he still fits in the armour. And then the scene in the 1950s where he meets his dad again, his father tells him to ease off the drink and stick to salad.

Iron Man gets an amazing and touching scene where he makes peace with his dad and gets to say "goodbye", which was a major regret from _Civil War_. Thor gets shade cast on him from his mom. 



Umbran said:


> Here, I disagree strongly.  For most of his movies, Thor has been saying that the doesn't want to be king.  Odin remarks upon it, that he has one son that wants the throne to much, and another that doesn't want it at all.  He reluctantly takes it on at the end of Ragnarok, and then... immediately fails to protect his people (against an overwhelming force, but still) before they can even reach a planet!
> 
> How long does he have to go on before he is allowed to realize that "duty" or not (duty by right of birth, really?) he isn't really suited to the job of ruling?  That he is doing his people a *service* by being the action hero he's really built to be, instead of an administrator?



He abandons the throne at the end of _Dark World_. Him taking the throne and leading his people at the end of _Ragnarok_ was character growth. But he's never given a chance to "rule" and then all but abandons his people to sit in a room, getting drunk and playing _Fortnite_. Having Thor actually assume the responsibility and *act* like a king—to take the job seriously—would have been a decent end to the character. 

Having him bugger off with Star-lord with more adventures is just returning Thor to where he was before _Age of Ultron_. Without even Jane Foster really. Heck, so he's pretty much the wandering warrior he was at the beginning of _Thor_.

Again, I think the writers just had zero idea what to do with Thor as a character. So they decided to just rely on Chris Hemsworth's effortless charm and perfect comedic timing. So rather than make Thor into a character people care about and give people a reason to like Thor—like they did for Captain America and Iron Man—they changed Thor to match the actor. 
And because the actor is willing to stick around, he's likely in _Guardians 3_. Not because he really belongs with that team or has a role to play in the next cosmic story. But because the actor has chemistry with Chris Pratt. Where he will likely continue to be a giant walking joke.


----------



## Janx (May 6, 2019)

Side Question: Did Peter Parker ever register under the Sokovia Accords?


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## lowkey13 (May 6, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Istbor (May 6, 2019)

Jester David said:


> He abandons the throne at the end of _Dark World_. Him taking the throne and leading his people at the end of _Ragnarok_ was character growth. But he's never given a chance to "rule" and then all but abandons his people to sit in a room, getting drunk and playing _Fortnite_. Having Thor actually assume the responsibility and *act* like a king—to take the job seriously—would have been a decent end to the character.
> 
> Having him bugger off with Star-lord with more adventures is just returning Thor to where he was before _Age of Ultron_. Without even Jane Foster really. Heck, so he's pretty much the wandering warrior he was at the beginning of _Thor_.
> 
> ...




I think we did see character growth. I think the disconnect is that it what is expected is linear. Instead what I see happening is Thor trying to fit into this role he was told and expected to fit into. And as his mother tell him, is that he should be who he is, and not what he is expected to be. 

Maybe, what he is, is just a rogue warrior out there trying to right wrongs. He's an adventurer. He now maybe realizes this. So he leaves Valkyrie as the leader of the Asgardians, not abandoning them.

So yeah. I see growth. I didn't laugh at him because he was fat the entire time, I laughed because Thor is slowly realizing that as he thought, he isn't King, and that's totally okay. Maybe now he can finally feel guilt free for being who he is, and for not following in with other's expectations of him. I'd say we could all use a bit of that same feeling.


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## Umbran (May 6, 2019)

Janx said:


> Side Question: Did Peter Parker ever register under the Sokovia Accords?




I don't believe it is ever made clear.  I think the answer is "probably not".


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## Jester David (May 6, 2019)

Janx said:


> Side Question: Did Peter Parker ever register under the Sokovia Accords?




Probably. It was probably a requirement of him joining Team Stark.
Presumably he just didn't need permission to do things like stop muggers and ATM thieves. Citizen arrest type stuff. 

It's a weakness of the MCU that we never got a full examination of what the Sokovia Accords actually limited. And never got to see if they succeeded or failed.


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## Jester David (May 6, 2019)

Istbor said:


> I think we did see character growth. I think the disconnect is that it what is expected is linear. Instead what I see happening is Thor trying to fit into this role he was told and expected to fit into. And as his mother tell him, is that he should be who he is, and not what he is expected to be.



Which is rolling back his past character arcs. And, hey, he's a prince: they seldom get to be who they are expected to be. 



Istbor said:


> Maybe, what he is, is just a rogue warrior out there trying to right wrongs. He's an adventurer. He now maybe realizes this. So he leaves Valkyrie as the leader of the Asgardians, not abandoning them.



The catch is, that doesn't work for the MCU. Because then you have to wonder why Thor doesn't come back and help. Because he's a rogue warrior out there trying to right wrongs. 
So why isn't he helping when the inevitable _Avengers 5_ happens?

Instead, he needs to have his "end" in _Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3_. Which feels weird, as that should be about the Guardians and wrapping up their story.


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## Istbor (May 6, 2019)

Jester David said:


> Which is rolling back his past character arcs. And, hey, he's a prince: they seldom get to be who they are expected to be.
> 
> 
> The catch is, that doesn't work for the MCU. Because then you have to wonder why Thor doesn't come back and help. Because he's a rogue warrior out there trying to right wrongs.
> ...




I guess you already know how all the movies and arcs go. So I will just end my bit with:
Yeah. Sometimes you have to find out who or what you are not, to discover who you are. Seems like Thor is doing that. He is not a King, prince or no. Seems like he is okay with that now, finally. Maybe they will change it all back, who knows.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 6, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Well, we need to hope not.  Because in Earth-199999, they are now *gone*.  Thanos destroyed them.
> 
> So, like, if you were looking or Adam Warlock in Guardians 3... he can't have the Soul Stone in his forehead.  Unless they have something like, "Thanos thought he could destroy billions-of-year-old singularities, permanently?!?  That's rich!  Nope, they reconstitute themselves, and off we go again!"
> 
> Cap was sent to put back all the stones they borrowed.  We can perhaps presume he succeeded - none of the timelines end up lacking stones they need in what we think of as the past.  Going forward, however, if they are necessary for something, there's a problem.




I think using the infinity stones to destroy themselves could be a particular exemption clause for this.


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## tomBitonti (May 6, 2019)

Re: Whether Cap is the original.  My sense is that we don't know, but in the absence of a direct statement from the movie, to have him be from a different timeline feels unfair to the viewer.  I'd prefer that he be the original Cap.

What are Cap years to normal human years anyway?  How old is the old looking Cap at the end of the movie?  There might a lot of years more in Cap's timeline than the calendar difference between when he arrived in the past to the present.

Thx!
TomB


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## ccs (May 6, 2019)

Jester David said:


> Which is rolling back his past character arcs. And, hey, he's a prince: they seldom get to be who they are expected to be.
> 
> 
> The catch is, that doesn't work for the MCU. Because then you have to wonder why Thor doesn't come back and help. Because he's a rogue warrior out there trying to right wrongs.
> So why isn't he helping when the inevitable _Avengers 5_ happens?




Even moderately intelligent people will realize that, as Capt. Marvel pointed out on screen, it's a big universe out there.
So storywise why doesn't Thor appear?  Because he's busy doing something far far away.  And that _might_ be a story we'll all get to watch later. 



Jester David said:


> Instead, he needs to have his "end" in _Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3_. Which feels weird, as that should be about the Guardians and wrapping up their story.




Wrong on both counts.  Neither needs a "end".  
What's needed is A) coherent storytelling, B) Leaving the door open for more stories involving these characters.  
So Thor flying off with the Guardians here as End Game wraps?  That's a great place to leave Thor.  If it works out & they come up next story involving Thor & Hemsworth signs on?  Great!  If not?  Then Thor flew off with the Guardians, parted ways with them at some point off screen, & is just off having adventures we just don't get to see.  But he _could_ return.

Likewise with the Guardians.  They don't need an "end".  Just a good adventure.  Nor does Thor _have_ to be with them just because we last saw him standing in their ships cockpit.
And if any of the actors don't return after G3?  Then those characters are just off screen doing their own thing.


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## Jester David (May 6, 2019)

ccs said:


> Even moderately intelligent people will realize that, as Capt. Marvel pointed out on screen, it's a big universe out there.
> So storywise why doesn't Thor appear?  Because he's busy doing something far far away.  And that _might_ be a story we'll all get to watch later.



But even with the big universe out there, Captain Marvel still made it back in time for the big final fight. 
If there's a big galaxy threatening problem, you have to wonder why Thor isn't helping. 

Will it be a story we get to watch later? Probably not. Hemsworth maybe has one movies left in his contract. Maybe. Like RDJ, Chris Evans, Patrick Stewart, or Hugh Jackman he'll want to retire eventually.

It will be weird if Thor just fades into the background never to be seen again, rather than getting the amazing send off the character deserves (like Wolverine, Iron Man, Captain America, etc, etc.)
(It will also be somewhat weird if—of all the characters—Thor gets a fourth movie.)



ccs said:


> Wrong on both counts.  Neither needs a "end".
> What's needed is A) coherent storytelling, B) Leaving the door open for more stories involving these characters.



No, you're wrong here. It absolutely NEEDS and "end". 

You think there'll be a _Guardians of the Galaxy 4_? 
That the actors will be drop everything in 6 years when it's time for _Avengers 5_?
That they should be like Han Solo, and being sad, pathetic space vagabonds still out trying to make a score into their 70s?

The MCU doesn't seem to be doing the standard super hero movie thing of endless sequels with the same characters. They chose to kill half the original Avengers rather than recast them.

The next Guardians movie will likely be the last with those characters. And having the door open for more stories just means those characters are left hanging and have no resolution.
It'd be one of those movies that is supposed to launch a franchise or sets up a sequel but that doesn't happen.



ccs said:


> So Thor flying off with the Guardians here as End Game wraps?  That's a great place to leave Thor.  If it works out & they come up next story involving Thor & Hemsworth signs on?  Great!  If not?  Then Thor flew off with the Guardians, parted ways with them at some point off screen, & is just off having adventures we just don't get to see.  But he _could_ return.



Right, but he shouldn't.
This was the "end" of the MCU as we know it. Thor should have had his end, rather than be the weird guy that hangs around the party after everyone else has gone home. 

Having him fade away here just makes his ending sad. He's just a giant space vaganbond. What was Thor's end? Dead in a ditch outside a space truckstop I guess...
And, not to mention, the fans will spend the next decade asking "where's Thor"? Y'know, like they have been with the Leader or Mandarin other dangling plot threads that will never be wrapped up.



ccs said:


> And if any of the actors don't return after G3?  Then those characters are just off screen doing their own thing.



Which is then weird. Because if/when they do the Kree/Shi'ar war or the Annihilation Wave, you'll wonder why the Guardians of the Galaxy aren't there.

People were asking non-stop why Captain Marvel wasn't involved in Avengers 1 and 2. And that's not going to stop any time soon.


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## Jester David (May 6, 2019)

My problem with the presentation of Thor is actually largely divorced from his character arc. 
To make my point, let's change one small detail: he's not fat, he's completely drunk. 

Rocket and Hulk show up and Thor staggers out, slurring and barely able to stand. At the meeting, he's hungover and barely able to think. When he goes back in time, he pulls out a flask and downs it, then passes out. Rocket badly hides his body, and it is discovered by his mother who gives him a pep talk. 
What changes about his arc in the movie? Nothing. He has the exact same character development from a loss of confidence to, well, abandoning his throne. Is he still the comic relief? Sure, we're just laughing at him for being an alcoholic. 

The difference is, we're not making it about his body. All the jokes aren't about him being fat. Instead of "Cheese whiz" running through his veins it's "malt liquor". You're not making him into Chris Farley, where he's a bumbling, clumsy fat guy. 
_And_ you're not equating video game playing with obesity, invoking the tired cliche of gamers as overweight nerds who flee from women. 

The difference is… it feels kinda bad to laugh at someone for being an alcoholic due to depression. That feels like much more of a tragic arc than someone who is just fat.
Even though _*in both instances you're treating a serious mental illness as a joke*_.
Swapping a bumbling and overeating for drunkenness is a lateral move, but it's still making a character crippled by depression into the movie's comic relief. 

And it's not like the movie was super serious the rest of the time. You had Hulk dabbing. Scott losing his taco. America's Ass. Hulk double tapping… with a car. Rocket being Rocket. Paper football. Scott becoming a baby. 
You didn't need Chris Hemsworth in a fat suit doing a Melissa McCarthy impression. 


But capping that with a lame character arc just adds insult to injury. 


It should have ended with Thor deciding it was time to actually be king, and not just fake it for 30 seconds. He should have been given the opportunity to grow up rather than continue to be a giant man-child that's unable to handle any responsibility.
He shouldn't have dumped leadership on Valkyrie, so he can continue shirking his responsibility and doing "nothing". He's just trading Korg and Miek for Star-Lord and Drax.

It should have ended with Thor giving up the warrior life for his people.His final scene with him should be him whispering Odin's restrictions into Stormbreaker _“Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.”_ and tossing it into the distance where it will lie until found by a new Thor.


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## Umbran (May 6, 2019)

tomBitonti said:


> What are Cap years to normal human years anyway?  How old is the old looking Cap at the end of the movie?  There might a lot of years more in Cap's timeline than the calendar difference between when he arrived in the past to the present.




In the comics, his lifespan under the Super Soldier Serum is... unknown.  He ages either extremely slowly, or not at all.

In the movies, it looks like he was born in 1918.  He goes into the ice in 1945, when he's about 27 years old.  He comes out of the ice in 2011, still effectively 27.  Infinity War happens in 2017, when Rogers is 33.  Jump 5 years in Endgame, he's 38 or so.  Conveniently, Chris Evans happens to be 37.

Then he goes back to... some unknown year.  The music playing in the scene where he's dancing with Peggy Carter is "It's been a long, long time," a tune released in 1945.

He lives a life with Peggy Carter.  In the MCU timeline she dies in 2014 (in Winter Soldier) - presumably a that point he jumps forward to deliver the shield?

So maybe we can say he spent 1945 to 2014 in that life.  That'd be 69 years.  That would make him around... 107 when we see Old Cap?


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## Umbran (May 6, 2019)

Jester David said:


> No, you're wrong here. It absolutely NEEDS and "end".




Maybe yes, maybe no.  But, have you forgotten that the hero riding off into the sunset (without being set in some particular permanent state) is often a perfectly acceptable end?



> The MCU doesn't seem to be doing the standard super hero movie thing of endless sequels with the same characters. They chose to kill half the original Avengers rather than recast them.




Um, maybe you need to see the new Spider-Man Trailer.  (See it here - https://youtu.be/Nt9L1jCKGnE )

They have an entire multiverse to work with now.  Alternates of all the different characters, played by the same or different actors, are now on the table.  The singular connected stretch of the MCU is no longer a given.  

Also, let us remember - Thor is 1500 years old.  In the MCU, Odin was something like 5000+ years old when he died.  In the comics, Odin was a literal million years old, if I recall correctly.  For Thor to settle into one thing as an "end" at this point would be like saying someone getting out of college and having their first job be the end of their story.  Barring accident, Thor is going to live a long time.  He doesn't have to be king *NOW*.


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## Jester David (May 6, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Maybe yes, maybe no.  But, have you forgotten that the hero riding off into the sunset (without being set in some particular permanent state) is often a perfectly acceptable end?



Only when there’s no sequels. 



Umbran said:


> Um, maybe you need to see the new Spider-Man Trailer.  (See it here - https://youtu.be/Nt9L1jCKGnE )
> 
> They have an entire multiverse to work with now.  Alternates of all the different characters, played by the same or different actors, are now on the table.  The singular connected stretch of the MCU is no longer a given.



Yeah.... I’m pretty sure the con artist who started as a fake hero is scamming Fury.

You can guess the story pretty easily. Spider-man doesn’t want to be the new “Tony”. He’s debating leaving the hero gig. Wants the normal life. Mysterio shows up and is all “I’m Iron Man from another reality. I got this.” Spidey buys it and debates retiring. He has the “out”. But, of course, it’s a trick. And Mysterio is behind the whole thing.



Umbran said:


> Also, let us remember - Thor is 1500 years old.  In the MCU, Odin was something like 5000+ years old when he died.  In the comics, Odin was a literal million years old, if I recall correctly.  For Thor to settle into one thing as an "end" at this point would be like saying someone getting out of college and having their first job be the end of their story.  Barring accident, Thor is going to live a long time.  He doesn't have to be king *NOW*.



Him being 1500 years old just makes it worse that he’s just being a perpetual man-child that is refusing to grow up.


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## Umbran (May 6, 2019)

Jester David said:


> Only when there’s no sequels.




Strange.  Guardians of the Galaxy ended this way - "A little of both!"  It can be a setup for a sequel, *or* an end.  A multi-tasker!



> Yeah.... I’m pretty sure the con artist who started as a fake hero is scamming Fury.




Because Fury is easily scammed?  He would accept this because one guy says it?  He would not, say, go visit Doctor Strange and get some verification, or something?  Really?

Perhaps.  Maybe one theme for the movie will be "Fury is now out of his depth." 



> Him being 1500 years old just makes it worse that he’s just being a perpetual man-child that is refusing to grow up.




Look, I get the idea that you don't like how the movie ended for his character.  But this is starting to get really judgemental against a whole lot of real-world life paths.  Yes, in our culture there's this expectation that you have a wild youth, but then you settle down into some "acceptable" role.  Something comfortable.  Conventional.  Get promoted to top dog, and then settle in for the long quiet of middle age and beyond. 

You ever hear of the Peter Principle?  It is the principle that you see a lot of incompetent people in upper levels of an organization, because they take people who were really good at one job, and "promote" them into a new job at which they aren't skilled.  

Thor is really good at beating people up.  He is the God of Thunder.  He is not the God of Hammers, or the God of War, or the God of Bureaucratic Administration.

None of what he *is* indicates that his skills are put to good use sitting on a chair and making decisions.  If there's something cool about the message here, given to him *by his mother*, who is queen and so has both his and her people's best interests at heart, is that he should, first and foremost, to his own self be true.  Very Shakespearean.

The only thing Thor has that would make him a decent ruler is a moral heart.  Otherwise, he shows none of the characteristics of someone you want as head of a government.  Chaining him to a throne would be a great way to make sure that the BBEGs of the universe don't get dealt with.


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## Jester David (May 6, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Strange.  Guardians of the Galaxy ended this way - "A little of both!"  It can be a setup for a sequel, *or* an end.  A multi-tasker!



Yeah. But then there was a SEQUEL.



Umbran said:


> Because Fury is easily scammed?  He would accept this because one guy says it?  He would not, say, go visit Doctor Strange and get some verification, or something?  Really?
> 
> Perhaps.  Maybe one theme for the movie will be "Fury is now out of his depth."



I'm not saying it would be easy. But it's also not impossible.


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## tomBitonti (May 6, 2019)

Umbran said:


> So maybe we can say he spent 1945 to 2014 in that life.  That'd be 69 years.  That would make him around... 107 when we see Old Cap?




Yes.  Then: How old should he appear after 107 chronological years?  Does his appearance in the movie match 107 "Cap" years?  Could he be much older than 107?

Thx!
TomB


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## Umbran (May 6, 2019)

tomBitonti said:


> Yes.  Then: How old should he appear after 107 chronological years?  Does his appearance in the movie match 107 "Cap" years?  Could he be much older than 107?




We don't know.  In the comics, they don't really call out that the Super Soldier Serum keeps him from aging until his age started to become an issue.  You don't need to plant Spider-Man's or Iron Man's birth in any particular year, but Cap's background referenced a ever-receding WWII, and a way for him to stay hale and hearty was called for.  

Until this point in the movies, he never hit 40, and no explanation was needed.  In theory, Old Steve could have been in that alternate timeline for nigh forever.  But, until there's some *reason* to think that, why would we?


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## Jester David (May 6, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Look, I get the idea that you don't like how the movie ended for his character.  But this is starting to get really judgemental against a whole lot of real-world life paths.  Yes, in our culture there's this expectation that you have a wild youth, but then you settle down into some "acceptable" role.  Something comfortable.  Conventional.  Get promoted to top dog, and then settle in for the long quiet of middle age and beyond.



I don't want to crap on anyone's lifestyle or choices. Or imply there's only one route to find yourself. But we've seen Thor be the king of Asgard before in the source material, and he's often done a good job. It wouldn't be out of character for him. 

But Thor's decision at the end of the movie really feels like a juvenile move. It's someone opting out of life. He's still running away from his problems and friends and life. 
He spent five years getting drunk and playing video games. And now he's off bumming around space Europe. 

Just lobbing his responsibility to the strong female in his life so he can be an irresponsible man-child. He barely gave Valkyrie a choice.
Plus... how is she better suited to lead? She's just as much a warrior as he is (and has as much of a drinking problem).


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## Umbran (May 6, 2019)

Jester David said:


> Yeah. But then there was a SEQUEL.




I don't see what you mean.  The same end to one movie works as a lead-in to new stories, or to an implied, "and he goes off and does whatever he does, that's not what this story is about."  Not all stories have to end with a character in a state of knowing what is next.  

Not everything needs to be tied up in a bow, dude.  




> I'm not saying it would be easy. But it's also not impossible.




Quentin Beck may be lying about being a hero.  Or from being from another dimension.  Or both.  He's probably lying about something, but if they've structured it well, we probably won't guess exactly what for a while.

But the fact there *are* other dimensions/universes/timelines to be from?  We established this is true in Endgame.  The Ancient One paints the picture for Hulk (and us).  Presumably Doctor Strange can firm that up afterwards - he already knows that there are beings from timeless other places, after all.  And the fact that they borrow Infinity Stones, Mjollnir, and Cap's Shield without wonking up their own past proves it, too.

There are many places to be from in the MCU, now.  Get used to it.


----------



## Jester David (May 6, 2019)

Umbran said:


> I don't see what you mean.  The same end to one movie works as a lead-in to new stories, or to an implied, "and he goes off and does whatever he does, that's not what this story is about."  Not all stories have to end with a character in a state of knowing what is next.
> 
> Not everything needs to be tied up in a bow, dude.



Then why did they wrap up every other character (with the exception of Hawkeye who is getting a TV series). Why not pass on the hammer like they did with the shield?

If Thor is never in another movie would you feel satisfied with this ending?



Umbran said:


> Quentin Beck may be lying about being a hero.  Or from being from another dimension.  Or both.  He's probably lying about something, but if they've structured it well, we probably won't guess exactly what for a while.
> 
> But the fact there *are* other dimensions/universes/timelines to be from?  We established this is true in Endgame.  The Ancient One paints the picture for Hulk (and us).  Presumably Doctor Strange can firm that up afterwards - he already knows that there are beings from timeless other places, after all.  And the fact that they borrow Infinity Stones, Mjollnir, and Cap's Shield without wonking up their own past proves it, too.
> 
> There are many places to be from in the MCU, now.  Get used to it.



Yeah. But we already knew there was a multiverse from _Into the Spider-Verse_.
Or that the MCU has always been Earth-199999. 
That’s not really new to Marvel.


----------



## MarkB (May 6, 2019)

Jester David said:


> If Thor is never in another movie would you feel satisfied with this ending?




They're comic-book characters, and Thor is thousands of years old. I'd far rather his story end with him still out there doing what he does than leaving him sitting on a throne.


----------



## Jester David (May 6, 2019)

MarkB said:


> They're comic-book characters, and Thor is thousands of years old. I'd far rather his story end with him still out there doing what he does than leaving him sitting on a throne.



Then why would we never see him doing what he does?


----------



## MarkB (May 6, 2019)

Jester David said:


> Then why would we never see him doing what he does?




If his story ends with him sitting on a throne, why would we never see him sitting on a throne?


----------



## Jester David (May 6, 2019)

MarkB said:


> If his story ends with him sitting on a throne, why would we never see him sitting on a throne?



If the story never goes to New Asgard, there’s a good reasons why he’s not involved. Especially if he gives up the hammer.

If he’s off fighting and saving lives, and there’s a big galactic wide threat, why would he stay out? If Earth is in danger, why wouldn’t be Bifrost from across the galaxy to help?


----------



## MarkB (May 6, 2019)

Jester David said:


> If the story never goes to New Asgard, there’s a good reasons why he’s not involved. Especially if he gives up the hammer.
> 
> If he’s off fighting and saving lives, and there’s a big galactic wide threat, why would he stay out? If Earth is in danger, why wouldn’t be Bifrost from across the galaxy to help?




If he's living in Norway and there's even an Earth-scale (heck, even just Europe-scale) threat, nevermind galactic-scale, why wouldn't he stand up off his throne and help? If anything his non-appearance in future movies is far more plausible if he's half a galaxy away.


----------



## Jester David (May 6, 2019)

MarkB said:


> If he's living in Norway and there's even an Earth-scale (heck, even just Europe-scale) threat, nevermind galactic-scale, why wouldn't he stand up off his throne and help? If anything his non-appearance in future movies is far more plausible if he's half a galaxy away.



Which is why I also had him giving up the hammer. 

Besides... not running off to fight and staying behind to rule would be the point or his growth. Having him change from _Thor 1_ to now and be more than the warrior quick to rush into battle without thinking. 
Other than growing a sense of humor (because the actor is a goofball) has Thor really changed and grown over the past five movies? I don’t think so. _Endgame_ erased any growth he underwent previously, returning him right back to where he was at the end of _Dark World_. If not the end of Thor 1.

[video=youtube_share;u6Bq_jK0Z1Y]https://youtu.be/u6Bq_jK0Z1Y[/video]

[video=youtube_share;mzIJ4HzLiIE]https://youtu.be/mzIJ4HzLiIE[/video]


----------



## Nellisir (May 6, 2019)

Blue said:


> There was a five year gap.  We got to see several characters how they grew during those five years.  Cap leading small counseling sessions because he cares about actual people.  Tony and Pepper starting a family.  Nat burning herself out trying to hold her chosen family together.  And Banner/Hulk resolving the issues from the end of Infinity War, finding his center and coming to peace with himself (himselves?).
> 
> While it wasn't the only way to have that work out, it would have been jarring and bad writing if that hadn't been resolved in some way during that time.




It was jarring and bad writing the way they did resolve it. 

You're exactly right. We did see Cap and how his sessions. Natasha trying to save the world. Clint likewise, in his own way. Tony moving on. 

We didn't SEE Banner/Hulk resolve anything. We were told it. "Show, don't tell" is bog standard story advice in any medium.

And, why didn't Hulk come out in Avengers: Infinity War? There's no answer in the movie; no resolution. It's just a dropped plot point. You can speculate or guess, but the fact is they just didn't answer the question.


----------



## ccs (May 6, 2019)

Jester David said:


> Then why did they wrap up every other character (with the exception of Hawkeye who is getting a TV series). Why not pass on the hammer like they did with the shield?




Because maybe their not done with him yet?  Or haven't decided one way or another yet?
So best to leave it vague & be flexible for the moment.



Jester David said:


> If Thor is never in another movie would you feel satisfied with this ending?




Yep. 100%. 




Jester David said:


> Yeah. But we already knew there was a multiverse from _Into the Spider-Verse_.
> Or that the MCU has always been Earth-199999.
> That’s not really new to Marvel.




So now we're counting Spiderverse as cannon MCU?  What about every other appearance - animated or live-action - of Marvel characters through the decades?


----------



## Jester David (May 6, 2019)

ccs said:


> So now we're counting Spiderverse as cannon MCU?  What about every other appearance - animated or live-action - of Marvel characters through the decades?



It’s a Marvel film. They are a “canon” for Marvel and all part of the same multiverse.

The regular comic Marvel Universe is Earth-616. Spider-Verse is Earth-1610. The MCU is Earth-199999. The X-Men films are on Earth-10005. The 2002 Spider-man is from Earth-96283


----------



## ccs (May 7, 2019)

Nellisir said:


> And, why didn't Hulk come out in Avengers: Infinity War? There's no answer in the movie; no resolution. It's just a dropped plot point. You can speculate or guess, but the fact is they just didn't answer the question.




Well, in the movie I saw I clearly heard Bruce explain to the group how the IW loss was worse for him.   He lost not once, but twice!

So I don't have to speculate or guess.  Hulk was afraid.  IW _showed_ me the hulk getting his ass kicked & his later refusal to emerge.  In EG Banner _told_ it to me.  What more do I need?  Joe Russo sitting in the seat beside me personally explaining it?


----------



## MarkB (May 7, 2019)

Jester David said:


> Which is why I also had him giving up the hammer.



For someone so concerned about Thor's character growth, I'm surprised you completely missed the point of his character growth in Thor Ragnarok. He already lost his hammer, then came to understand that he no longer needed it.

He's not Thor, God of Hammers. He doesn't need a prop in order to channel his power anymore. If he gave up Mjolnir he'd still be an all-powerful thunder god, capable of facing any world-threatening calamity.


----------



## Jester David (May 7, 2019)

MarkB said:


> For someone so concerned about Thor's character growth, I'm surprised you completely missed the point of his character growth in Thor Ragnarok. He already lost his hammer, then came to understand that he no longer needed it.
> 
> He's not Thor, God of Hammers. He doesn't need a prop in order to channel his power anymore. If he gave up Mjolnir he'd still be an all-powerful thunder god, capable of facing any world-threatening calamity.



And then he got another hammer. Which was also BS.
Because they have no idea what to do with Thor...


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## ccs (May 7, 2019)

Jester David said:


> It’s a Marvel film. They are a “canon” for Marvel and all part of the same multiverse.
> 
> The regular comic Marvel Universe is Earth-616. Spider-Verse is Earth-1610. The MCU is Earth-199999. The X-Men films are on Earth-10005. The 2002 Spider-man is from Earth-96283




Do you also count: 
The Captain America serial (from the 40s)
The '67 Spiderman cartoon
Spiderman & his Amazing friends from the '80s
The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, & Spiderman live actions from the 70s/80s.
The 90s Captain America movie.
The assorted Marvel animated series from the 90's+ (XM, Spidy, FF etc)
David Hasslehoffs Nick Fury, Dolph Lungrens Punisher, Gen X
The Blade series.
Ben Afflecks Daredevil
2 more Punisher movies
Nick Cage's Ghost Rider movies
Ang Lee's Hulk
The Sony Fantastic Four movies (FF, FF:RotSS & that reboot)
Venom
Legion
Whatever I might've missed....
The Netflix series (yes, I know these + SHIELD & Agent Carter are in the MCUverse - but if you can accept that none of these guys (especially the SHIELD crew) would get involved in Avengers stuff then you shouldn't be worried about not featuring Thor in a future event)

*I'll be nice & leave Roger Corman's FF and 3 Dev Adam off this list as one wasn't intended to be released & the other wasn't an authorized use of Cap & Spidy.


----------



## Jester David (May 7, 2019)

Fine.  it. I’m wrong not to like what they did with Thor. 
Let’s all laugh at fat people. Ha ha, you’re all lazy, clumsy fat chumps. Gamers are useless cowards. It’s cool that they made a favorite character of mine a walking joke. 

Whatever.


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## Jester David (May 7, 2019)

ccs said:


> Do you also count:
> The Captain America serial (from the 40s)
> The '67 Spiderman cartoon
> Spiderman & his Amazing friends from the '80s
> ...



They all have Earths. 
https://fanlore.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Universes


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## MarkB (May 7, 2019)

Jester David said:


> And then he got another hammer. Which was also BS.
> Because they have no idea what to do with Thor...




Yeah, that I'll grant you is a failing of the Avengers movies - they feel free to ignore any elements of the standalone movies that take the cast away from their standard depictions. Most jarring in Age of Ultron where they essentially ignore the whole "I gave up all my suits" bit in Iron Man 3 in favour of Tony building an entire army of robot suits in addition to building more suits for himself.


----------



## ccs (May 7, 2019)

Jester David said:


> And then he got another hammer. Which was also BS.
> Because they have no idea what to do with Thor...




Would you prefer that he accidently summoned his Ultimates style hammer or Bill's Stormbreaker?  Vs having a giant Tyrion make it? 
Or maybe you'd prefer his dumb looking axe from recent years of the comics?


----------



## ccs (May 7, 2019)

Jester David said:


> They all have Earths.
> https://fanlore.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Universes




Right.  The Marvel Cinematic MULTIverse is a big place.  So if you're willing to call all this {crap} cannon for the MCU line of movies, what's your beef with Thor just flying away & maybe not ever being used again?  And likely with no explanation of why he wouldn't come running back when the poop hits the fan for avengers 8 or such.  Like I said earlier, maybe he's just far far away atm.  _(you know, 4 universes aware & down the rabbit hole by about 3 divergent timelines - and busy.  Could take a moment to get back....)_


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## Blue (May 7, 2019)

Jester David said:


> Probably. It was probably a requirement of him joining Team Stark.
> Presumably he just didn't need permission to do things like stop muggers and ATM thieves. Citizen arrest type stuff.
> 
> It's a weakness of the MCU that we never got a full examination of what the Sokovia Accords actually limited. And never got to see if they succeeded or failed.




As a minor he would have had to have his parent or legal guardian sign them, and Aunt May doesn't seem to know he's Spidey.  So it seems pretty clear he couldn't have signed them / had them signed on his behalf.


----------



## Blue (May 7, 2019)

Jester David said:


> [Thor] has to threaten twelve year olds playing video games.




Just to share, the line from my youngest daughter on the car ride home was "I'm not sure I like that NoobSlayer69 existing is now canon for the MCU."





Jester David said:


> Would that work for Cap? Iron Man. Can you imagine if they had decided to just make fun of Captain America continually for the entire movie?




You mean like they already did to Cap in Spider-Man: Homecoming?  Where there was the running gag about his gawd-awful PSAs for students that he was decades out of touch with?

All of the MCU movies have humor.  Look at how many times things have gone humorously wrong for Tony, in his own Ironman films or in various Avengers.

Thor has been the butt of jokes in his own shows, often because of his brother Loki, who hate gnomish paladins with rapiers .. wait, wrong Loki.  *ahem*  But Ragnarok came and put Thor in that role again and again ... and it worked.  Even Hulk outsmarted him with the shocking door field, plus Grandmaster, Valkyrie, and the whole dang environment.  Ragnarok did much better than the other Thor movies - grossing greater than 50% more than either of the first two.  ($315mil vs. $181mil and $206mil.)

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=thor.htm

So yes, they found that, like Starlord ("Who?"), Thor did well as the butt-monkey for jokes to be made at.  Trying to say that every character should have an equal amount of comedy should be self-evident as wrong - you can't say "this wouldn't work for Cap so it can't be done to Thor".



Jester David said:


> He abandons the throne at the end of _Dark World_. Him taking the throne and leading his people at the end of _Ragnarok_ was character growth. But he's never given a chance to "rule" and then all but abandons his people to sit in a room, getting drunk and playing _Fortnite_. Having Thor actually assume the responsibility and *act* like a king—to take the job seriously—would have been a decent end to the character.




So what I'm hearing is - if they wanted to get rid of Thor, they had a  great way to do it.  That's great, but it seems they don't want to get  rid of Thor.



Jester David said:


> Having him bugger off with Star-lord with more adventures is just returning Thor to where he was before _Age of Ultron_. Without even Jane Foster really. Heck, so he's pretty much the wandering warrior he was at the beginning of _Thor_.




I'm with you on this - I don't like all the backsliding of his character growth.  He's doing what he always did, which would have been in character if he hadn't grown.



Jester David said:


> Again, I think the writers just had zero idea what to do with Thor as a character. So they decided to just rely on Chris Hemsworth's effortless charm and perfect comedic timing. So rather than make Thor into a character people care about and give people a reason to like Thor—like they did for Captain America and Iron Man—they changed Thor to match the actor.
> And because the actor is willing to stick around, he's likely in _Guardians 3_. Not because he really belongs with that team or has a role to play in the next cosmic story. But because the actor has chemistry with Chris Pratt. Where he will likely continue to be a giant walking joke.




All of this is likely true.  If Hemsworth will stay around as Thor, the studio will have him.  If Ragnarok did fantastic financially because he has great comedic timing, putting him with one of the two high comedy teams (Ant-Man is the other, btu that's not as natural a pairing) so that they can math the tone of the movies also makes financial sense.

Does what actors want to do, and what brings in profit, always make the best story for everyone?  I wish, but it doesn't.  If it did, we'd have more Robert Downey Jr.  

Hemsworth has draw, is in with an MCU team where he can use his comedic talents, and moviegoers know that the GotG films will have a lot of comedy and if that's not their wish they can avoid them.  It's not the best it can be, and lets us down some in that they aren't acknowledging the great character growth he's had over the series.  But people will still pay to see the next movie.


----------



## Kaodi (May 7, 2019)

Was the hammer sound at the end of the credits taken from when Tony was building his original makeshift armour in that cave?


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## Hussar (May 7, 2019)

Kaodi said:


> Was the hammer sound at the end of the credits taken from when Tony was building his original makeshift armour in that cave?




That was my takeaway


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## lowkey13 (May 7, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## lowkey13 (May 7, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Umbran (May 7, 2019)

Jester David said:


> Then why did they wrap up every other character (with the exception of Hawkeye who is getting a TV series).




Winter Soldier and Falcon get a series.  Vision (who is dead!) and Wanda get a series.  Loki gets a series.  There's talk of a "What If...?" series that could touch on any character.

Seems to me lots of characters are getting some form of follow-on or further storytelling.



> Why not pass on the hammer like they did with the shield?




Business wise, though Hemsworth has become terribly expensive, he hasn't publicly expressed a desire to be done with it nearly as much, so maybe they'll use him again, maybe not?

In a narrative sense, Captain America and Thor play different roles.  Cap is more of a symbol to people than Thor is.  Didn't you listen to Falcon?  He mused that he had problems considering a world that didn't have Captain America.  Cap said, in essence, "You don't have to."  Nobody is having a problem imagining the world without Thor - he's spent far more of his time off Earth.  



> If Thor is never in another movie would you feel satisfied with this ending?




Yep.  I'm good.




> Yeah. But we already knew there was a multiverse from _Into the Spider-Verse_.




Into the Spider-Verse is *NOT* MCU canon.  At all.  



> That’s not really new to Marvel.




It is, however, new to the movie universe.  Until now, they have not used this trope within the movies.


----------



## Umbran (May 7, 2019)

Jester David said:


> If he’s off fighting and saving lives, and there’s a big galactic wide threat, why would he stay out? If Earth is in danger, why wouldn’t be Bifrost from across the galaxy to help?




Carol Danvers already answered this question.  It is a big universe, and there are thousands of planets that don't have Earth's Mightiest Heroes to defend it.  They establish that Earth is not unique in needing support from super-powered beings.  

 The MCU has chosen the position that there's action happening off camera, which is the same as the comics - not every hero or villain appears in the pages of a comic every month.  We don't see all of them all the time.  Sometimes, they are out of the frame, but we can assume they are not just sitting doing nothing.  Thor is 1500 years old - he's had a ton of adventures we have never seen, and we should not assume we see all the ones to come in the future.


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## Umbran (May 7, 2019)

Jester David said:


> It’s a Marvel film.




No, it isn't.  It is a *SONY* film.  While they list is as "in association with Marvel" it isn't like Sony is bound to things that happen in the MCU, or vice versa.  Marvel's creative control over what Sony does in its movies (including, say, the Venom films) is limited.  Sony and Marvel have a special deal around having Spider-Man in the MCU, but that deal doesn't cover the rest of  the Marvel content Sony has movie rights to.



> The regular comic Marvel Universe is Earth-616. Spider-Verse is Earth-1610. The MCU is Earth-199999. The X-Men films are on Earth-10005. The 2002 Spider-man is from Earth-96283




Um, not quite.  Earth-1610 is the universe of the Ultimates line of Marvel comics.  It is the first place we see Miles Morales.  It has also been destroyed, and the Miles Morales of that universe has moved to Earth-616.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse focuses its action on what is referred to as Earth-TRN700.  The "TRN" stands for "Temporary Reality Number", and is used for things that Marvel *hasn't* given a permanent reality number to.  Basically, the comics canon does not yet solidly accept Into the Spider-Verse and it's several realities as canon, yet.

The movie references "E-1610" in the background, but that is an Easter Egg.  Miles Morales of Earth-1610 has an established backstory in the comics canon, and it does *not* include the events of the movie. This is yet another universe, where only Spider-Man elements appear, and is *not* the same as the Marvel Comics Earth-1610.


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## Blue (May 7, 2019)

I was talking to my wife (always smarter than I) about Thor's end.  To her, it was like growing up in a small town and then getting out to see the world.  Even if you were the mayor's kid and a shoe in to be mayor yourself one day, maybe you aren't happy with just that small town any more.  Even if it's a pretty spectacular small town.


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## Umbran (May 7, 2019)

Blue said:


> I'm with you on this - I don't like all the backsliding of his character growth.  He's doing what he always did, which would have been in character if he hadn't grown.




I think the character growth is still in place - growth does not mean, "consistent movement towards a management position".   Sometimes growth isn't about changing what you do, but why you do it, for example.  

Consider, Iron Man.  He keeps on promising Pepper, "No more surprises."  Does he stop with the surprises?  He does what he always does.  Heck, even after outright refusing to do what he always does (like, figure out time travel), he goes and does it anyway, and then he talks with Pepper and they both admit that even having done it, he can't throw it away - he *has* to go back and do what he always does....

There is a fine line between being in the groove, and being in a rut - and sometimes growth is about moving from the latter into the former.



> (Ant-Man is the other, btu that's not as natural a pairing)




Hm.  What's the classic "team up" combat move here?  Ant Man shrinks down, Thor *thwaps* him with a hammer, and he takes off like a bullet, passing through three or four robots before stopping?


----------



## doctorbadwolf (May 7, 2019)

Jester David said:


> Just lobbing his responsibility to the strong female in his life so he can be an irresponsible man-child. He barely gave Valkyrie a choice.
> Plus... how is she better suited to lead? She's just as much a warrior as he is (and has as much of a drinking problem).




It’s established early in the movie that she has been leading New Asgard for 5 years, already, and we see no signs of her drinking in the film.


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## Umbran (May 7, 2019)

doctorbadwolf said:


> It’s established early in the movie that she has been leading New Asgard for 5 years, already, and we see no signs of her drinking in the film.




Yeah.  She had a problem in the beginning of Thor: Ragnarok.  But her involvement in those events seem to have shaken her out of her rut.


----------



## Janx (May 7, 2019)

Why are we still picking on Thor?

Yes, it would have been nice to see everybody get happy ending.

But the reality, actual drunks fall off the wagon a few times.  People stumble.  Thor might regress again or hasn't quite lost his wanderlust. Got a few things to work out, yet.  He didn't actually figure out what he wanted to do from all of that movie, that was just him dealing with the problem that he got dragged back into.

Hemsworth said he was done being Thor, but here he is with a non-retired ending. So there we are.  He'd have asked for an endier ending if he wanted it.

Besides, he'll change up the dynamic of GotG.  Quill won't hit on him, because he's still pining over Gamora.

What would GotG been if Quill got the G back at the end?  The same team-up we had in the last 2 movies.  So now, the 3rd one will be different.


----------



## Blue (May 8, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Yeah.  She had a problem in the beginning of Thor: Ragnarok.  But her involvement in those events seem to have shaken her out of her rut.




Though as a bit of a continuity bobble - why didn't she lose to Thanos as well?  Where was she?

End of Ragnarok she was on that singular ship with Thor, Heimdeil, Loki and the rest.  Which is destroyed in Infinity War.  But here's Valkyrie as well as Korg and Miek.

But yeah, she stepped up in the 5 years.


----------



## ccs (May 8, 2019)

Blue said:


> Though as a bit of a continuity bobble - why didn't she lose to Thanos as well?  Where was she?




Off recovering from the beating she & everyone else - who wasn't already dead - on the Asgard ship took at the beginning of IW I'd imagine.  There's not a lot of time passing from start to finish of IW.... 
So if you're not Thor or the Hulk, guess what?  You don't get to heal up enough to play a part.


----------



## Nellisir (May 8, 2019)

ccs said:


> Well, in the movie I saw I clearly heard Bruce explain to the group how the IW loss was worse for him.   He lost not once, but twice!
> 
> So I don't have to speculate or guess.  Hulk was afraid.  IW _showed_ me the hulk getting his ass kicked & his later refusal to emerge.  In EG Banner _told_ it to me.  What more do I need?  Joe Russo sitting in the seat beside me personally explaining it?




That would highlight how the movie dropped the ball there, yeah. 

I like Endgame. It's a good movie. I don't think Banner or Hulk (who existed as a functionally separate character until this movie - another victim of the snap) were well served by it. But it's a big movie with a lot of moving parts, and not every plot point could be knocked out of the park. It's still epic.


----------



## Umbran (May 8, 2019)

Blue said:


> Though as a bit of a continuity bobble - why didn't she lose to Thanos as well?  Where was she?
> 
> End of Ragnarok she was on that singular ship with Thor, Heimdeil, Loki and the rest.  Which is destroyed in Infinity War.  But here's Valkyrie as well as Korg and Miek.




I vaguely recall they mention in that scene - as usual, Thanos killed *half* the people on board.  We don't see the other half - I imagine Thanos shoved them into escape pods or something.

Of course, this shows Thano's logic issue - the Asgardians had just lost a small horde of people to Hel.  The entire race fits on one ship now - not exactly a major resource-sink any more.  They probably don't need their population cut in half at that point.


----------



## Umbran (May 8, 2019)

ccs said:


> Well, in the movie I saw I clearly heard Bruce explain to the group how the IW loss was worse for him.   He lost not once, but twice!
> 
> So I don't have to speculate or guess.  Hulk was afraid.  IW _showed_ me the hulk getting his ass kicked & his later refusal to emerge.  In EG Banner _told_ it to me.  What more do I need?  Joe Russo sitting in the seat beside me personally explaining it?




Yeah, this was pretty clear to me, too.  

We can't speak to it from just folks here but... I am not sure enough people missed that to call it the movie "dropping the ball".  If everyone was asking, "Wait, what was up with the Hulk there?" I'd see that.  But... I have not heard such a chorus.


----------



## Ryujin (May 8, 2019)

Nellisir said:


> That would highlight how the movie dropped the ball there, yeah.
> 
> I like Endgame. It's a good movie. I don't think Banner or Hulk (who existed as a functionally separate character until this movie - another victim of the snap) were well served by it. But it's a big movie with a lot of moving parts, and not every plot point could be knocked out of the park. It's still epic.




The merging of the two might have been a bit of fan service to comic readers who remember "Smart Hulk."


----------



## Morrus (May 8, 2019)

Well, I saw if finally. I can confirm it was ... a film.


----------



## Istbor (May 8, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Well, I saw if finally. I can confirm it was ... a film.




Do tell Morrus.


----------



## Janx (May 9, 2019)

Today, I saw the counter-argument that BW got worse treatment than Thor.

Way back in Ultron, they turned her into a romantic interest and had her say she was a monster while revealing she couldn't have children.  Not a good time to combine two angsty things as it sent the wrong message about women, having children defining their worth, and the arc she was having where she accepted her past and red ledger in Civil War. 

Now fast forward to EndGame, and she's in a who can kill themselves quicker race with Yeehaw Barton (you can search Twitter for that and find the source of this entire chain of thought) to jump off a cliff and die.

Basically, all that growth, and she's disposable because Barton, who 20 minutes earlier was killing people of color, has children.

Topping off that sad cake with a short bit of sad "where's Natasha" when they return, and that's it.  Tony got a funeral. BW did not.

I couldn't tell you the Russo's intent (or Whedon's) and imagine they'd argue differently.  But I can see how this interpretation also makes sense and wouldn't strike some people as a good ending or handling for BW.


----------



## Nellisir (May 9, 2019)

Ryujin said:


> The merging of the two might have been a bit of fan service to comic readers who remember "Smart Hulk."




Oh, yeah, totally. I don't MIND that they were merged. I just don't think it was handled all that well. And most of the smart Hulk incarnations (I think there's a "Professor Hulk", and Joe Fixit, and the Maestro, and...others?) took on aspects of Hulk's personality. I didn't really see that. It was Hulk body and Banner mind. Potent, but...man. It would've been great to see Banner get really really angry.  

I suspect Ruffalo has fun with the Hulk and he might turn up a few more times.


----------



## Nellisir (May 9, 2019)

Janx said:


> I couldn't tell you the Russo's intent (or Whedon's) and imagine they'd argue differently.  But I can see how this interpretation also makes sense and wouldn't strike some people as a good ending or handling for BW.




Yeah, when it's laid out like that...it's pretty . Hopefully the movie does her right.


----------



## GreyLord (May 9, 2019)

Janx said:


> Today, I saw the counter-argument that BW got worse treatment than Thor.
> 
> Way back in Ultron, they turned her into a romantic interest and had her say she was a monster while revealing she couldn't have children.  Not a good time to combine two angsty things as it sent the wrong message about women, having children defining their worth, and the arc she was having where she accepted her past and red ledger in Civil War.
> 
> ...




Enough time has passed that I think I'll just flat out post spoilers...now that they are out anyways.

I think it was this thread where I commented earlier (somewhere I said it) they killed off the wrong one in that scene.  With the weight of Hawkeye on himself...should have been him who died instead of BW.

Just my thought on that one as far as the movie goes (without any thought of merchandise, toys, future series in the making...etc).  For the movie, I felt it would have made a LOT more sense of Black Widow to have survived...though I think she probably could have outfought him.  He had done a lot of killing of people already, and knowing that his family could be back...that's a lot of weight and guilt to have around.  In some ways, the movie implies he actually was a villain for a while, while Black Widow remained a hero.


----------



## Umbran (May 9, 2019)

Janx said:


> Today, I saw the counter-argument that BW got worse treatment than Thor.




Yeah. She literally fights her way to jump off a cliff and straight into the fridge.


----------



## Morrus (May 9, 2019)

So does past Thor now no longer have Mjolnir, since future Thor turned up and stole it and took it back to the future? And when future Thor was talking to past mum, and called Mjolnir to him, did he rip it out of past Thor's hand? Is past Thor standing around with a confused look on his face wondering where Mjolnir just flew off to?

(I don't remember where past Thor is at that point in time?)


----------



## Janx (May 9, 2019)

Morrus said:


> So does past Thor now no longer have Mjolnir, since future Thor turned up and stole it and took it back to the future? And when future Thor was talking to past mum, and called Mjolnir to him, did he rip it out of past Thor's hand? Is past Thor standing around with a confused look on his face wondering where Mjolnir just flew off to?
> 
> (I don't remember where past Thor is at that point in time?)




I think the 2019 avengers are relying on the 5-second Rule.  So if they steal it from the past and return it right after they stole it, it's OK.

So Cap went back in time at the end to return all the stones (and quill wakes up with a headache) along with Mjoljnir on Asgard.

Past Thor is used to forgetting where he left his hammer, so it's no big deal.


----------



## Morrus (May 9, 2019)

Janx said:


> So Cap went back in time at the end to return all the stones (and quill wakes up with a headache) along with Mjoljnir on Asgard.




Oh, did he take Mjolnir with him? I missed that!


----------



## Janx (May 9, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Oh, did he take Mjolnir with him? I missed that!




yep, Cap had it with him when he got on the platform.


----------



## MarkB (May 9, 2019)

Morrus said:


> So does past Thor now no longer have Mjolnir, since future Thor turned up and stole it and took it back to the future? And when future Thor was talking to past mum, and called Mjolnir to him, did he rip it out of past Thor's hand? Is past Thor standing around with a confused look on his face wondering where Mjolnir just flew off to?
> 
> (I don't remember where past Thor is at that point in time?)




It seems to be more the case that any past they visit becomes an alternate universe. So alt-past-Thor loses his hammer, but also his girlfriend isn't dying of infinity-stone-poisoning anymore.


----------



## Umbran (May 9, 2019)

Janx said:


> Past Thor is used to forgetting where he left his hammer, so it's no big deal.




There are a couple of points in his movies where he holds out his hand and he... waits for a moment for the hammer to show up.

I wonder if in The Dark World, there's one of those moments just after that point, where they are hustling Jane Foster away.  That would be... pretty epic.


----------



## Janx (May 9, 2019)

MarkB said:


> It seems to be more the case that any past they visit becomes an alternate universe. So alt-past-Thor loses his hammer, but also his girlfriend isn't dying of infinity-stone-poisoning anymore.




"Oh, hi. Are you Jane Foster?"

"Oh my god, you're Captain..."

"Yes, ma'am. Would you mind bending over, I need to..um.."

"Excuse me!?"

"I just have to put this infinity stone back in you."

"That still sounds as dirty as that rabid raccoon that attacked me a few minutes ago..."


Prelude to The real reason Jane Foster and Thor broke up...


----------



## doctorbadwolf (May 9, 2019)

Blue said:


> Though as a bit of a continuity bobble - why didn't she lose to Thanos as well?  Where was she?
> 
> End of Ragnarok she was on that singular ship with Thor, Heimdeil, Loki and the rest.  Which is destroyed in Infinity War.  But here's Valkyrie as well as Korg and Miek.
> 
> But yeah, she stepped up in the 5 years.



 Thanos always kills half, not everyone. 



Nellisir said:


> Oh, yeah, totally. I don't MIND that they were merged. I just don't think it was handled all that well. And most of the smart Hulk incarnations (I think there's a "Professor Hulk", and Joe Fixit, and the Maestro, and...others?) took on aspects of Hulk's personality. I didn't really see that. It was Hulk body and Banner mind. Potent, but...man. It would've been great to see Banner get really really angry.
> 
> I suspect Ruffalo has fun with the Hulk and he might turn up a few more times.




He was a mix of both, though. His confidence and sort of jocularity is Hulk. Banner doesn’t act like that in any MCU movie.


----------



## Morrus (May 9, 2019)

So did anybody die in that massive battle at the end (other than Iron Man)?

And why didn’t Chewie get a medal. I mean Black Widow get a funeral?


----------



## Umbran (May 9, 2019)

Morrus said:


> So did anybody die in that massive battle at the end (other than Iron Man)?




Nobody named - I presume some Wakandans and sorcerers bought the farm, but all other named characters survive.



> And why didn’t Chewie get a medal. I mean Black Widow get a funeral?




I am pretty sure there's no good answer to that one.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 9, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Nobody named - I presume some Wakandans and sorcerers bought the farm, but all other named characters survive.
> 
> 
> 
> I am pretty sure there's no good answer to that one.




Well, the movie had an extended run time already, and it's not like group funerals are common in such scenarios. It was either Stark or Black Widow, and if anyone would have a big funeral with plenty of visitors, it's probably the rich guy, and not the spy.


----------



## Hussar (May 9, 2019)

And with a Black Widow movie coming, is she really dead?


----------



## Morrus (May 9, 2019)

Could they use the stones to bring Stark back?


----------



## MarkB (May 9, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Could they use the stones to bring Stark back?




The only people they bring back via the stones are the Snapped, and as I recall it's suggested at some point that they can't bring back people who were outright killed via other means.

Besides, using the stones is what killed Stark. Whoever used them to bring him back would likely suffer the same fate.


----------



## Janx (May 9, 2019)

Hussar said:


> And with a Black Widow movie coming, is she really dead?




I heard it was a back-history movie.  So back before she was dead.


----------



## Janx (May 9, 2019)

Morrus said:


> So did anybody die in that massive battle at the end (other than Iron Man)?




Iron Man
Vision didn't come back (died pre-snap)
Natasha

NPCs.

Many Bothans.  Notice how there was not a disclaimer about "No Bothans were hurt or killed in the making of this film."


----------



## Hussar (May 9, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Yeah. She literally fights her way to jump off a cliff and straight into the fridge.




Yeah, no.  A female character dying is not "fridging" the character.  Fridging means that you are providing a male protagonist a motivation that is entirely based on the needless killing off of a love interest character.  Black Widow dying was neither needless (as someone had to die, be it BW or Hawkeye), nor does it provide any real motivation for the male protagonist(s).  It's not like they suddenly want to stop Thanos because Black Widow died.

While I can see that a particular interpretation of Black Widow's death might be problematic, this particular issue isn't one of the problems.

The notion that the character is "disposable" is also stretching pretty hard.  Professor Hulk makes a point of saying that he tried to bring her back with the Stones.  IOW, he lost an arm trying to bring her back.  Hardly seems "disposable" to me.  And, as far as "she's a monster because she can't have kids" that's also missing the point.  The audience is supposed to look at that and have the same reaction that every other character has - she's wrong.  She's not a monster.  

I think folks might be trying just a tad too hard to find interpretations that fit a specific narrative by cherry picking examples and ignoring the rest of the movies.


----------



## Umbran (May 10, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Yeah, no.  A female character dying is not "fridging" the character.  Fridging means that you are providing a male protagonist a motivation that is entirely based on the needless killing off of a love interest character.




1) While they are not romantically involved, there is a love between them, or her sacrifice would not have worked.  2) Hawkeye wanted to die.  His stint as Ronin is him basically going out to kill people until one of them finally gets him.  Her death makes it so he *has* to keep going on, or her death is in vain.  

Sounds like giving a male character a motivation to me. 

Note, also - two out of two people sacrificed to get the stone are women.  And they do it so men can get the stone, and go do big things with them.  The sacrifice is very much used as 'kill a female character so the male character is enabled to do what they do'.  So, I think the fridging point has merit.




> Black Widow dying was neither needless (as someone had to die, be it BW or Hawkeye)




Setting up the plot specifically with "someone dies here" and only using it on women who have a love-relationship with a male character, and claiming it isn't fridging is kind of like saying something really snarky, but claiming it is okay because you put a smilie face on it.  

The movies are still good, but this isn't their finest moment.

While I can see that a particular interpretation of Black Widow's death might be problematic, this particular issue isn't one of the problems.



> And, as far as "she's a monster because she can't have kids" that's also missing the point.  The audience is supposed to look at that and have the same reaction that every other character has - she's wrong.  She's not a monster.




With respect, you are missing part of the point of the pushback on this.

The issue isn't about her feeling she's a monster, and being wrong about that.  I mean, yeah, she's not shown to be a person with flawed judgement, so suddenly she's wrong about this one thing?  But, okay, we can swallow that.  

The issue is that it is positioned and presented such that, for however many people she has killed, that isn't what makes her a monster.  In her eyes, not being able to have babies is what makes her a monster.  Now, that's a thought you could spend some time with, and maybe work it around and have *her* come to he conclusion that's she's wrong, and that's fine.  But, they don't have time to do that.  They just dump it out there, and leave her with it.

I know a woman who is barren.  Can't have kids.  It is kind of a sore spot for her.  She left the theater in tears when those lines came out in Ultron.  Another woman I know had her tubes tied, for personal reasons.  That scene, suggesting that a powerful woman - her representation in that movie - feels that what makes her a real person is her womb, made her angry.

*DO NOT* tell me how these women were "supposed to" feel there.  They felt as they felt - and those feelings were valid.  The film makers didn't think enough about how those words could come across to the audience.  Having made that error, they should have learned from it, but apparently didn't.


----------



## Hussar (May 10, 2019)

Umbran said:


> 1) While they are not romantically involved, there is a love between them, or her sacrifice would not have worked.  2) Hawkeye wanted to die.  His stint as Ronin is him basically going out to kill people until one of them finally gets him.  Her death makes it so he *has* to keep going on, or her death is in vain.
> 
> Sounds like giving a male character a motivation to me.




Umm, they were sent to retrieve the stone.  They already had motivation.  The death of Black Widow in no way motivates Hawkeye to do anything.  Still not seeing it.



> Note, also - two out of two people sacrificed to get the stone are women.  And they do it so men can get the stone, and go do big things with them.  The sacrifice is very much used as 'kill a female character so the male character is enabled to do what they do'.  So, I think the fridging point has merit.




Again, this is reaching pretty hard.  Fridging is a very, very specific trope.  It's when you kill off the female character pointlessly for the sole purpose of motivating the male protagonist.  That is very much not true here in any, way, shape or form.  Thanos didn't decide to do the snap because he killed Gamora, nor did he decide to get the stones because he killed Gamora.  He killed Gamora because he had to kill something he loved in order to get the stones.  Hawkeye doesn't even get that much.  Black Widow kills herself.  She sacrifices herself for the greater good because she believes that Hawkeye has to return to his lost family.  She can never get a family back.  This way, she gets to reunite a family, go out a big bloody hero and achieve her goals.  

Again, not seeing the problem.



> Setting up the plot specifically with "someone dies here" and only using it on women who have a love-relationship with a male character, and claiming it isn't fridging is kind of like saying something really snarky, but claiming it is okay because you put a smilie face on it.
> 
> The movies are still good, but this isn't their finest moment.
> 
> While I can see that a particular interpretation of Black Widow's death might be problematic, this particular issue isn't one of the problems.




Yeah, only if we reach really, really hard to find interpretations that fit a specific narrative and misapply tropes.  Black Widow dies to save a family.  How else would you expect Black Widow, the character that BECOMES the hero Black Widow because of destroying a family, to die?



> With respect, you are missing part of the point of the pushback on this.
> 
> The issue isn't about her feeling she's a monster, and being wrong about that.  I mean, yeah, she's not shown to be a person with flawed judgement, so suddenly she's wrong about this one thing?  But, okay, we can swallow that.
> 
> ...




Are you seriously saying that this is a position that no woman would ever take?  Really?  That being unable to have children is something that would never cause any woman to question herself?  Because, well, there's a rather large amount of research and whatnot that would tell you differently.  

But, the point is, and it's hammered home that SHE'S WRONG.  She's never presented as being right in this.  She feels this way, but, those feelings are not supported by anything else.  She's a hero in the movies who has overcome her past to become the leader of the Avengers, keeping the world together when everyone else has buggered off to do their own thing.  

Heck, I'll see your anecdote with one of my one, where friends have had their tubes tied and reacted EXACTLY the same way as Black Widow.  I'd say it's a lot more important to show that despite losing the ability to have children, you can still be a hero that everyone loves and looks up to.  Remember, two characters - Banner and Hawkeye are shown to show great affection for Black Widow.  The other female characters all look up to her and treat her as an equal or a superior even.  At no point is she shown to be anything less than a hero, regardless of her ability to have children.

I'd say that's a much, much more powerful message to send out there than trying to claim that her death is "fridging".  That's so disrespectful to the character and what the character does.  You're basically saying that her sacrifice is pointless and completely outside of her control.  Which, frankly, is the opposite of the truth.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 10, 2019)

I’m thinking that the pushback is a result of feeling that “barren = monster” is pretty lazy, male-centric writing, considering some of the things the character would have done in her history as a former KGB agent and one of the most talented spies and assassins in the entire world.

Certainly someone like that has some pretty nasty secrets and made decisions that resulted in homicides by her own hand, some of which would require some extremely warped ethics to justify to herself.


----------



## MarkB (May 10, 2019)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I’m thinking that the pushback is a result of feeling that “barren = monster” is pretty lazy, male-centric writing, considering some of the things the character would have done in her history as a former KGB agent and one of the most talented spies and assassins in the entire world.
> 
> Certainly someone like that has some pretty nasty secrets and made decisions that resulted in homicides by her own hand, some of which would require some extremely warped ethics to justify to herself.




Perhaps they chose to go with that precisely because it's a completely forgivable 'sin' in the eyes of the audience, whereas some of the crimes you allude to would have left many audience members convinced that she truly could not be redeemed.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 10, 2019)

MarkB said:


> Perhaps they chose to go with that precisely because it's a completely forgivable 'sin' in the eyes of the audience, whereas some of the crimes you allude to would have left many audience members convinced that she truly could not be redeemed.



...and yet we have all the other movies indicating otherwise.  Questions of religious redemption and the requirements therefor notwithstanding, how many times does a shady character have to save _literally_ millions of people (or more) before we start thinking he or she is on a path of atonement?


----------



## MarkB (May 10, 2019)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> ...and yet we have all the other movies indicating otherwise.  Questions of religious redemption and the requirements therefor notwithstanding, how many times does a shady character have to save _literally_ millions of people (or more) before we start thinking he or she is on a path of atonement?




I'll put it this way. I always knew Darth Vader was a villain in the Star Wars trilogy, but I still fully bought into his redemption arc in _Return of the Jedi_.

And then I retroactively unforgave him once I saw what he did during the invasion of the Jedi temple in _Revenge of the Sith_.

People can accept the idea of a character with a shady past who's on a path of redemption, right up until they're confronted with the full reality of that past, in detail.

Or to put it another way, a lot of us _will_ judge someone on the basis of their worst day.


----------



## Umbran (May 10, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Are you seriously saying that this is a position that no woman would ever take?  Really?




No.  Nothing of the sort.  And if that's what you are getting from this, there is no real point in continuing.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (May 10, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Umm, they were sent to retrieve the stone.  They already had motivation.  The death of Black Widow in no way motivates Hawkeye to do anything.  Still not seeing it.
> 
> 
> 
> Again, this is reaching pretty hard.  Fridging is a very, very specific trope.  It's when you kill off the female character pointlessly for the sole purpose of motivating the male protagonist.  That is very much not true here in any, way, shape or form.  Thanos didn't decide to do the snap because he killed Gamora, nor did he decide to get the stones because he killed Gamora.  He killed Gamora because he had to kill something he loved in order to get the stones.  Hawkeye doesn't even get that much.  Black Widow kills herself.  She sacrifices herself for the greater good because she believes that Hawkeye has to return to his lost family.  She can never get a family back.  This way, she gets to reunite a family, go out a big bloody hero and achieve her goals.



I think that is an important part - it's self-sacrifice. It's not someone murdering her to get at the hero (be the intention by the "author" or by the in-universe murderer). She has full agency, and is making a decision.


----------



## Ryujin (May 10, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Yeah, no.  A female character dying is not "fridging" the character.  Fridging means that you are providing a male protagonist a motivation that is entirely based on the needless killing off of a love interest character.  Black Widow dying was neither needless (as someone had to die, be it BW or Hawkeye), nor does it provide any real motivation for the male protagonist(s).  It's not like they suddenly want to stop Thanos because Black Widow died.
> 
> While I can see that a particular interpretation of Black Widow's death might be problematic, this particular issue isn't one of the problems.
> 
> ...




While there was an explicit "for Nat" moment, I have to agree with you. The motivation was already present.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 10, 2019)

MarkB said:


> I'll put it this way. I always knew Darth Vader was a villain in the Star Wars trilogy, but I still fully bought into his redemption arc in _Return of the Jedi_.
> 
> And then I retroactively unforgave him once I saw what he did during the invasion of the Jedi temple in _Revenge of the Sith_.
> 
> ...




_But Darth Vader didn’t become a Sith because he was sterile.*_  I mean, really- imagine if the window into the Vader’s darkness revealed he became what he was and corrupted himself because he was infertile.  

But somehow, this is OK with Black Widow?






* “Duh!”, as his kids might say.


----------



## Maxperson (May 10, 2019)

Erekose said:


> Good point! Although that didn’t help Red Skull too much at the end of the First Avenger! Mind you, he did hold it earlier in the film with no problem.




With a single stone I think holding it is okay.  Using a stone is a different matter.


----------



## Ryujin (May 11, 2019)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> _But Darth Vader didn’t become a Sith because he was sterile.*_  I mean, really- imagine if the window into the Vader’s darkness revealed he became what he was and corrupted himself because he was infertile.
> 
> But somehow, this is OK with Black Widow?
> 
> ...




Except, if I remember the lore correctly, BW was sterile because she was a spy, as part of her training. She wasn't a spy because she was sterile.


----------



## MarkB (May 11, 2019)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> _But Darth Vader didn’t become a Sith because he was sterile.*_  I mean, really- imagine if the window into the Vader’s darkness revealed he became what he was and corrupted himself because he was infertile.
> 
> But somehow, this is OK with Black Widow?




That isn't what I was saying. I simply meant that revealing actual horrific details about Black Widow's past for her to feel monstrous about runs the risk of leaving us, the audience, agreeing with her assessment, alienating us rather than evoking sympathy. The infertility does not.


----------



## Hussar (May 11, 2019)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> _But Darth Vader didn’t become a Sith because he was sterile.*_  I mean, really- imagine if the window into the Vader’s darkness revealed he became what he was and corrupted himself because he was infertile.
> 
> But somehow, this is OK with Black Widow?
> 
> ...




Becoming a cold hearted killing machine wasn't because she was sterile.  She was forcibly sterilized as part of her transformation into a cold hearted killing machine.  Why would anyone even think that her "dark side" moment is because of her forced sterilization?  The forced sterilization was a symbol of the horrific things they did to her to turn her into a monster, not the reason she became a monster.  

And then, when she destroys a family, she begins to try to redeem herself by switching sides - the whole "red ledger" thing.  At the end, she balances the ledger by saving a family through her own self sacrifice.

As I said, I'm really not seeing the issue here.  [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION], if the only thing you took out of my entire argument was that line, then, sure, there isn't much to talk about here.  Talk about cherry picking an argument.  

Gamora?  Maybe, you might be able to make the argument, because the death of Gamora drives Quill.  But, even then, that's stretching pretty hard.  Not every female character that dies is a fridging.  Sometimes, it's actually ok to kill off female characters.  Heck, why isn't the death of Vision being touted as fridging?  Seems to be the driving force behind Scarlet Witch after all.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 11, 2019)

Agreed with all about the facts of BW’s sterilization.  (All similes ultimately fail at some point.)

The point is, regardless of the infertility’s causation, the prospective alternative Darth Vader’s negative view of himself based on infertility would probably be seen as a weakly written characteristic in _him_, and it isn’t any better for _her._  And some would assert it is worse, given the historical context of how men have viewed and valued women.


----------



## Umbran (May 11, 2019)

Hussar said:


> As I said, I'm really not seeing the issue here.




That's your problem at the point.  I am not going to try to make it clear to you.  Please don't mention me again in this thread.

Have a good weekend.


----------



## Hussar (May 11, 2019)

But, again, it's not like this is a male centric viewpoint.  There are lots and lots of women who react exactly this way to being able to have children.  It's entirely plausible.  There are numerous papers that support the psychological effects of a hysterectomy on women.  Never minding being violated in such a way that you are forcibly sterilized.

And, I keep coming back around to the fact that Black Widow sacrificed herself.  She wasn't murdered.  She wasn't accidentally killed.  She CHOSE to save Hawkeye because he had a family.  This is completely in keeping with character.  

If any other character actually agreed with Black Widow that her sterilization made her less of a person or less of a hero, then I think the criticisms would be valid.  Thing is, no one does.  She says it, but, she's shown to be wrong.  And she proves the point wrong by ending as a 100% bad ass hero.


----------



## MarkB (May 11, 2019)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Agreed with all about the facts of BW’s sterilization.  (All similes ultimately fail at some point.)
> 
> The point is, regardless of the infertility’s causation, the prospective alternative Darth Vader’s negative view of himself based on infertility would probably be seen as a weakly written characteristic in _him_, and it isn’t any better for _her._  And some would assert it is worse, given the historical context of how men have viewed and valued women.




Would it really be any weaker than what we got? Anakin's clingy, one-sided love and desperate fear of abandonment isn't exactly a great motivation for a villain. Having him be truly in love with Padme, but finding that he was physically unable to give her the family that both he and she wanted, would hardly have been any weaker as a motivation.


----------



## Hussar (May 12, 2019)

I'd also point out that there are numerous characters that are killed in the Avengers movies.  Is Vision fridged?  He didn't get a funeral.  His death is a major motivation for Scarlet Witch.  Does that count as fridging.  He was also killed to further Thanos' story, so, what's the difference between Vision and Black Widow?  As I recall, didn't Thanos kill The Collector as well, for exactly the same reason - to get the stone.  

So, it's not like Thanos only kills Gamora to get a Stone.  He kills LOTS of people to get the stones.  I'm not sure you can single out Gamora and claim that her death should be treated differently.


----------



## jonesy (May 12, 2019)

Only just saw the movie yesterday (it was awesome), and I haven't had a chance to read through everything here yet, so apologies if someone already mentioned this.



Jester David said:


> Captain Marvel was underused. Okay, this makes sense as they were filming her movie at the same time, so she was likely pretty busy. And they didn't have a clear idea of her character.



In their interview on Ellen Brie and Scarlett mentioned that when Brie was shooting her scenes for Endgame they hadn't even started with the Captain Marvel movie (didn't even have a script), so Brie had _no idea at all_ what the character was going to be like. She basically went into Endgame blind.

(They talk about it at 4:35 in that video.)


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## Blue (May 13, 2019)

jonesy said:


> In their interview on Ellen Brie and Scarlett mentioned that when Brie was shooting her scenes for Endgame they hadn't even started with the Captain Marvel movie (didn't even have a script), so Brie had _no idea at all_ what the character was going to be like. She basically went into Endgame blind.




Great googly moogly!

Knowing that you have a movie focusing on you coming up that you have no idea what your character will be like, but needing to portray that character accurately in a different movie filming first, showing second, that will have a huge audience.

Ugh, I do not envy Brie Larson.

This does explain why they kept down the numebr of character interaction scenes.  Not flinching when Thor testing her is an easy guess.  But there was discussion about why she wasn't around for mourning of Black Widow and not knowing how the character takes it (stoic, empathizing, etc.) is much harder.

Thanks, I did not know that and it helps put some things in perspective.


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## Nellisir (May 14, 2019)

A second viewing was definitely helpful for me. I still stand by most of my previous commentary (I'm a bit more relaxed about Thor), but it was nice to actually relax into a bit.


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## Janx (Jun 3, 2019)

There is murmur that Namor was hinted at during the conference call and one of the problems was left at the bottom of the ocean.

Now here's the thing I think would be awesome.  Get Jason Momoa to play Namor.

Go ahead, get the sputtering out of your system.

Yeah.  Exactly.

Rip-off the rip-off by sharing the actor.


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## jonesy (Jun 21, 2019)

[video=youtube;hBmj4rs1KrI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBmj4rs1KrI[/video]

I think this video fits quite snuggly into this thread.


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## trappedslider (Jun 23, 2019)

Well,it's coming back with deleted scenes included along with other surprises. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/19/ave...d-with-more-footage-in-bid-to-top-avatar.html


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## CorbanWeiss (Jun 24, 2019)

I think some scenes must be deleted (if you know what i MEMe)


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## Ryujin (Jun 24, 2019)

trappedslider said:


> Well,it's coming back with deleted scenes included along with other surprises. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/19/ave...d-with-more-footage-in-bid-to-top-avatar.html




From the commentary on Nerdist News it sounds like those additional scenes are just getting tacked on the end, as stingers. They aren't dropping them into the appropriate parts of the movie.


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## MarkB (Jun 24, 2019)

Ryujin said:


> From the commentary on Nerdist News it sounds like those additional scenes are just getting tacked on the end, as stingers. They aren't dropping them into the appropriate parts of the movie.




Makes sense. That way they can still release the original version on Blu-ray / streaming, and then sell the Special Definitive Edition later, with all the deleted scenes added back in.


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