Spoilers Avengers: Endgame grade and discussion thread

[UssGlenn]

3. How did past-Nebula get Thanos' ship through the portal if she used the return batch of Pym-particles for herself?

I don't think one bottle equals one trip. When Scott says they have enough for everyone to go and return plus 2 tests he's holding up a single vile. Cap grabbing 4 bottles gives them a large safety buffer.

because each change essentially exists as a divergent reality, which the Ancient One laid out fairly explicitly.

She said removing an infinity stone creates a divergent reality. That implies to me that time travel without stealing a stone is the predestination kind where your actions result in your own history. So Steve's last trip plays by the rules.

 

[FreezeC77]

Yeah the movie was pretty upfront about changes made in the past do not affect the present (Tony even name-drops David Deutsch, a proponent of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory) because each change essentially exists as a divergent reality, which the Ancient One laid out fairly explicitly.

The only real problem with this is how Steve living out his life in *this* reality seems to show-how circumvent it. If we follow the logic of the rest of the movie, the reality he lived out his life in should be a different one from the one he left because as it stands, it creates a predestination paradox. If he has always been Peggy's unseen husband then it means that Thanos's defeat was always inevitable...so why when he looked into 14 million possible futures was there only one where this was true? it should have been all 14 million.
The only way I can see around it is that this wasn't *our* Cap, but a near identical one from a nearly identical universe that returned the stones to our reality after defeating Thanos in his reality and is in-turn replaced by another and so on and so forth while *our* Steve lives out a very similar, near identical life in yet another reality, all in a vast but still finite loop. 14 million after all, is nothing next to infinity, so it stands to reason a large yet finite number of realities beat the odds and destroyed Thanos.

Your cap theory fits with the marvel time travel rules imho. The idea of a predestination loop doesn't really mesh with can't change your past because the second someone time travels to the past it should create an alternate timeline. So somewhere there is a MCU "Prime" where everything happened much like in the movies, but where Steve Rogers returned the infinity stones & Thor's hammer and NEVER returned when he stayed in the past creating a new timeline and kept his footprint as small as possible. He lived in this alternate timelineand grew old and in 2023 we see him again. So that means the MCU we have watched all along is actually an alternate universe created by another universe's Steve Rogers or the ending we saw changed to an alternate universe.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Your cap theory fits with the marvel time travel rules imho. The idea of a predestination loop doesn't really mesh with can't change your past because the second someone time travels to the past it should create an alternate timeline. So somewhere there is a MCU "Prime" where everything happened much like in the movies, but where Steve Rogers returned the infinity stones & Thor's hammer and NEVER returned when he stayed in the past creating a new timeline and kept his footprint as small as possible. He lived in this alternate timelineand grew old and in 2023 we see him again. So that means the MCU we have watched all along is actually an alternate universe created by another universe's Steve Rogers or the ending we saw changed to an alternate universe.

My head hurts.

 

[Admiral2]

Joining the A+ crowd. Good character interaction, good dialogue, kick-ass final battle and satisfying resolution.

 

[Gryffindorian]

I wonder if Marvel's time travel logic is similar to the Arrowverse Universe (I'm looking at you, EOBARD THAWNE!) where none of it really makes sense.

Each time they went back to fetch an Infinity stone, they created new timelines (Loki escaping, Dr. Strange not becoming the Sorcerer Supreme, the Guardians not facing Ronin in combat, etc.), which were all eventually restored by Steve Rogers, except he himself changed his own history without creating any major ripple effect. So we can safely say this is no longer the Prime Marvel Universe, but an altered one.

 

[FreezeC77]

I wonder if Marvel's time travel logic is similar to the Arrowverse Universe (I'm looking at you, EOBARD THAWNE!) where none of it really makes sense.

Each time they went back to fetch an Infinity stone, they created new timelines (Loki escaping, Dr. Strange not becoming the Sorcerer Supreme, the Guardians not facing Ronin in combat, etc.), which were all eventually restored by Steve Rogers, except he himself charged his own history without creating any major ripple effect. So we can safely say this is no longer the Prime Marvel Universe, but an altered one.

Or it has never been the prime universe. We have been watching an alternate all along.

BTW, I wonder how many of those created alternate universes are better or worse off.

If indeed the Sorceror Supreme changed her mind on Dr. Strange then there may be no Thanos defeat in that timeline.

At first thought the 2014 Guardians alternate looks better off with Thanos gone from it, but there is no Gamora so who knows how that affects the Guardians. Perhaps it means Ego succeeds.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I don't think one bottle equals one trip. When Scott says they have enough for everyone to go and return plus 2 tests he's holding up a single vile. Cap grabbing 4 bottles gives them a large safety buffer.



She said removing an infinity stone creates a divergent reality. That implies to me that time travel without stealing a stone is the predestination kind where your actions result in your own history. So Steve's last trip plays by the rules

Everytime time branches in this movie, which is always happening, or only happens whenever someone time travels, everything in the universe is duplicated, including the six stones, unless one or more of the stones are being removed from the older time line with time travel, so almost every new divergent timeline that has all 6 stones, is safe.

Although all the time stone does is time travel, therefore endlessly lcreating ruined timelines that don't have a time stone any more.

"Sigh"

Time can loop with out it being a predestination paradox. It can all just be similar. That old man at the end is not our Captain, he's just similar, because this timeline "diverged" when that Captain America arrived here from a similar reality 80 years ago.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Natasha not getting a big funeral/memorial is like Scott not asking Cassie about Maggie and Jim. Just because it didn’t happen on screen doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

I always remember something the creators of Venture Bros said with their writing when someone asks why didn't they show something or show the characters dealing with something. We don't see every moment of these characters lives, what we do see is just the important bits that need to be seen. It was mostly to joke that Doc Venture spends a lot of his time in Walk of Fames at conventions signing autographs and hating his life.

I didn’t get any sense of Hulk’s personality in PH, and IINM PH referred to Banner in the first person and Hulk in the third person. It seems the Hulk personality was killed when Banner took over the body.

Hulk is sort of Banner's reaction to things. But both are haunted, isolated and want to be left alone. Professor Hulk is both of them set free and at peace because both are at peace with themselves.

The problem is that it makes no sense. They destroyed their own plot by having him steal the Tesseract and not changing anything after that. It's ridiculous. None of the other movies would have happened, and their little hand-wave about past and future - you know, where they spout bullshit nonsense and then make a dumb joke as a distraction - does not excuse the utter absence of logic. This movie is so, so stupid. I'm willing to give time travel stories the benefit of the doubt, but this? It's completely idiotic. They were so caught up in creating cool scenes that they forgot to actually write a coherent story.

It just created a timeline where Loki escaped. The original timeline wasn't affected.

 

[Samurai8472]

I'm going to ask you this one time. Where is Gamora?

:P

I mean there's no other spaceship she can steal and run away on. Everything of Thano's army was dusted.

She has no idea who the Guardians are and she's on a planet she has no information on.

I lol'd at Thor's lightning neatly braiding his beard.

 

[Anwar]

About Steve at the end. It isn't that he went back to the Prime Past, lived there and made it all the way back to the future because that violates the time travel laws that you can't change the past.

What he did was go back to Peggy, marry her and live a life with her and create yet another branch of history where he lived the life that was robbed of him in First Avenger. Then when Peggy passed away like she did in the Prime Universe and he knew the two timelines were now at the same point, he came back to the Prime Universe as an old man to pass on his shield before he went back to the branch he created. Or he stayed in the Prime Universe as an old man since Peggy was dead (unless he had grandkids back in his branch, then he went back).

Or...it was a stable time loop and he was always meant to stay in the past in the first place and thus he never "changed" anything.

 

[StarMan]

Great motion capture re: Josh Brolin. Thanos looked anxious for the first time when he saw the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe descending on him.

"Is that everyone?" -

 

[Awesome Possum]

I'm going to ask you this one time. Where is Gamora?

:P

I mean there's no other spaceship she can steal and run away on. Everything of Thano's army was dusted.

She has no idea who the Guardians are and she's on a planet she has no information on.

I lol'd at Thor's lightning neatly braiding his beard.

She left, Peter was trying to reach her in the end. This is old Gamora, the one we've known for years is still dead. There's no coming back from getting the Soul stone.

 

[Awesome Possum]

About Steve at the end. It isn't that he went back to the Prime Past, lived there and made it all the way back to the future because that violates the time travel laws that you can't change the past.

What he did was go back to Peggy, marry her and live a life with her and create yet another branch of history where he lived the life that was robbed of him in First Avenger. Then when Peggy passed away like she did in the Prime Universe and he knew the two timelines were now at the same point, he came back to the Prime Universe as an old man to pass on his shield before he went back to the branch he created. Or he stayed in the Prime Universe as an old man since Peggy was dead (unless he had grandkids back in his branch, then he went back).

Or...it was a stable time loop and he was always meant to stay in the past in the first place and thus he never "changed" anything.

They can't change their own timeline, so he always went back.

 

[Samurai8472]

She left, Peter was trying to reach her in the end. This is old Gamora, the one we've known for years is still dead. There's no coming back from getting the Soul stone.

I don't think you understand me. Yes 2014 Gamora is on earth somewhere. Hence the call back to

"Where is Gamora"

 

[CommanderTrip]

I saw the movie Friday night. It was my first time at an IMAX 3D/4XD theatre, so that was something.

I loved it. A fitting conclusion to the first 10/11 years of the MCU.

In regards to the old Steve debate/plothole, I've found it easy to reconcile if you look at it in terms of Prime Universe/Kelvin Universe.The Steve Rogers from the first 22 MCU movies was Leonard Nimoy. He went back in time and is starting to live his life with Peggy Carter in an alternate universe set in 1940s/1950s,The old Steve we met at the Endgame finale saw was Zachary Quinto in old age makeup.

I also think the rules of time travel are different regarding the time stone/eye of agamoto and the Quantum Realm. Time travelling in the quantum realm takes you to alternate realities. Time travelling with the time stone/eye of agamoto is more Back-to-the-Future rules of time travel, mainly affecting cause and effect within a single reality.

None of this is set in (infinity) stone. Nor do I claim any of this as fact. But I can say I enjoyed the "All Good Things,,," of the MCU, and that these "plot holes" may not be plot holes at all.

In any event, one thing is for sure.We all know where to find America's ass.

 

[Awesome Possum]

I don't think you understand me. Yes 2014 Gamora is on earth somewhere. Hence the call back to

"Where is Gamora"

I know, I don't think she's on Earth though. She seemed to have gone somewhere after the battle.

This will probably tie into Guardians Vol 3 since Nebula is now a Guardian and she and Quill would have an interest in finding her.

 

[Anwar]

Guardians 3: the Search for Gamora.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

on a time travel logic level, the steve ending doesn't work for all the reasons mentioned here. But it works on a character level and is good enough for me to close the book on the character in a poetic and appropriate way. There are a lot of films that I tend to over-analyze, but I decided Endgame won't be one of them. I'm just glad the story of the OG Avengers is over, and it works on an emotional level...what bugged me was Captain Marvel.. and that woke movie during the battle in which all the female heroes and only the female heroes are in a frame.. i worry about the future of this franchise

 

[Guy Gardener]

They can't change their own timeline, so he always went back.

A predestination time loop is impossible using the rules given.

When you go back in time and you start a divergent timeline, and you do not touch your own personal history.

The Captain America who arrived back in time for "the dance" one week after he went into the ice, was not the same guy from the end of Endgame. Old Steve had to have been from an alternate, but similar timeline, who had lived a similar life, won similar victories, and then gone back to be with Peggy, leaving for the past at about the same datestamp.

Young Captain America, who we have been following since 2011/2012 is not the same man as old Steve on the bench. They are not tethered or connected. These two Steve Rogers are (eventually?) from different timelines.

Younger Captain America (from Endgame) could have died or decided not to go back into the past, and it would have had no effect on old Steve on the bench because they are not the same person, and this is not a predestination paradox, because you cannot travel into your own past.

 

[DEWLine]

Anyone looking into Mark Gruenwald's rules of Marvel Comics time travel?