Spoilers Avengers: Endgame grade and discussion thread

[stj]

One minor thing to point out, the reason Thor and Hulk both ended up on Sakaar is because that's where anyone using a wormhole without a proper exit point (or something messes up the wormhole teleport) will end up. The planet is the Terminus for all "lost in a wormhole" people. It wasn't coincidence.

The only exit ramp if you're lost isn't any better than the only gas station. Except that in trillions of galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars are going to have so many lost tourists Sakaar would long ago have become a black hole due to the titanic mass of tourists.Or, to put it another way, if there's no proper exit or the wormhole is messed up, you don't get out of the wormhole at all.

The MCU is indeed a very small universe.

Forgot to remind Ylu that Ronan was very much a big deal in the Kree empire, and yes, over the years, Captain Marvel/aka "Vers" would have known a great deal about Ronan's activities. And yes, helping people does mean keep an ear out for stories about maniacs who slaughter half the population. And yes, the connection between Ronan and Thanos should have led to Thanos too.

 

[Anwar]

The only exit ramp if you're lost isn't any better than the only gas station. Except that in trillions of galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars are going to have so many lost tourists Sakaar would long ago have become a black hole due to the titanic mass of tourists.

That's what the games are for, to kill off the excess population.

 

[Awesome Possum]

I'm not sure why people keep saying Bucky showed no interest in talking with Old Steve, he just encouraged Sam to go first. I mean, Steve didn't die right then and here, there'd be plenty of time for the two of them to talk. That scene wasn't about two friends talking, it was about passing on the torch.

On a related note, I've also seen several people claim that Bucky is the logical choice because he has the super serum (or Zola's closest approximation.) Clearly some people either weren't paying attention in CA:TFA and forgot how and why a ninety-pound asthmatic ended up being chosen to be Captain America in the first place.

Bucky was the one who motioned for Sam to go over to him. Either he’s psychic or him and Steve planned this out in advance. I got the impression that Old Steve and Bucky had met before and maybe even both agreed that Sam was the right choice. Bucky seems more at peace with living in Wakanda, he only came back to fight to help Steve and defend the planet.

 

[Noname Given]

"Sometimes" Wanda is linked to the stigma of her father being her father, you know, like how Hitler's kids would have been, if the Winter Soldier hasn't killed him.

However in the MCU, (unless they retcon things now that Disney also owns rights to the X-Men film IP) she's NOT the daughter of Magneto.

 

[Awesome Possum]

I think the comics retconned Magneto being Wanda’s father a few years back.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

They go back and forth on it. Anyway, Wanda and Pietro's backstory in the MCU is thin enough that they easily could be Magneto's kids if that's what Feige wants.

 

[Claudia]

Bucky was the one who motioned for Sam to go over to him. Either he’s psychic or him and Steve planned this out in advance. I got the impression that Old Steve and Bucky had met before and maybe even both agreed that Sam was the right choice. Bucky seems more at peace with living in Wakanda, he only came back to fight to help Steve and defend the planet.

I think so, too, that Bucky knew what was going on - why give that superlong goodbye-hug before Steve left if you were about to see Steve again 5 seconds later? It was initiated by Bucky, not Steve.

And I also doubt that Bucky has any interest in picking up the shield: Back in IW he was quite resigned to be called back to fight - and that happened a few days for him, not 5 years ago.

He [Tony] gets to decide that everybody killed in the chaos of the snap is Wicked Witch of the East dead so that he gets to have a wife and daughter without the hassle of making up with Pepper again. And he gets to lay this down without anyone even arguing! He gets an apology from his dead father for being a bad father even though the on-screen premise is that Howard Stark is talking to a random stranger.

Okay...

the Howard thing: He doesn't get an apology. What he gets is context. First of all, Tony's a father now too, he knows how fatherhood changes perspectives. Secondly, it was heavily implied in previous movies that Tony felt his father either didn't love or didn't care about him, that he was essentially a nuisance to him. Now he learned that Howard was very much looking forward to his birth. And thirdly, we learn that Howard himself was raised by an abusive father... which leads us back to point one: Perspective/context.

Where did Tony have to make anything up to Pepper? She sent him to the Avengers. And TBH, which father would give up his own daughter just like that? But, of course, Tony's egotistical for laying down limits.

And *by the time* they started their timejumps there was no way to bring back those 5 years. They didn't have enough Pym Particles, the platform only in 2023... So it's a non-issue anyway.

And let's assume for one second that they decide, after the collection of all the stones and before Thanos arrives, they send back Bruce (or all go) to 2018 (because Steve brought back the Particles from 1970) and Bruce uses the stones then to bring all those back... wouldn't matter for the "original" timeline: The snap-reversal would create another diverging timeline, the original continues to exist - and Thanos would arrive on earth or 2023 (original timeline), this time there wouldn't be any stones (because sent back to 2018), neither to recall all those who didn't survive the snap, nor for Thanos to finalize Earth's destruction, so Thanos armies would just destroy everything in a conventional way.

But let's all be satisfied with the simple explanation that Tony's selfish...

 

[ichab]

I give it a B+. Not ashamed to admit that I teared up three times and got a major rush with that "avengers assemble" moment. Was completely thrown by Tony dying because I really thought cap would be the one to die at the end (glad he got a happy ending and hope it stays that way.) Natasha's death was also very well done but it also peeved me because I've wanted a Black Widow movie ever since the first Avengers.

Only thing that keeps it from A grade for me is I think some scenes could have been shortened a bit (Thor's time in the new Asgard come to mind) and added more time to the big finale.

Overall a great movie that brought closure to some characters while nicely opening the door for their replacements to pick up the ball for the next one.

 

[Reverend]

Bucky was the one who motioned for Sam to go over to him. Either he’s psychic or him and Steve planned this out in advance. I got the impression that Old Steve and Bucky had met before and maybe even both agreed that Sam was the right choice. Bucky seems more at peace with living in Wakanda, he only came back to fight to help Steve and defend the planet.

I didn't get the impression that Bucky had any fore knowledge, he was just quicker on the uptake because he knows how Steve thinks and he was the first of the three there to spot him.
I took his prompting Sam to me felt like a act of kindness to Sam (showing how their relationship has changed since the antagonism of 'Civil War'.) If Bucky approaches first, then he knows Sam will hang back out of respect. By prompting him to go first, he's allowing him a degree of privacy.

Bucky is a lot of things, but a Captain America in waiting was never one of them. He's Captain America's friend, he'll always have his back and that will be true whether Steve or Sam holds the shield. Sam aspires to be more like Steve, so it makes him a much more natural choice IMO.
Plus even before he was the Winter Soldier, it's hinted that Bucky was more morally flexible and willing to get his hands dirty (he was the HC's sniper after all), somewhat lacking Steve's natural sense of rightness. On some level I think Bucky needs someone like Steve or Sam to light the way. In a sense it's the same way Nat & Clint pull each other towards the middle ground.

 

[Guy Gardener]

However in the MCU, (unless they retcon things now that Disney also owns rights to the X-Men film IP) she's NOT the daughter of Magneto.

See where I said "sometimes".

They are inhuman in the comics? Wanda and Pietro in the mcu were augmented by an infinity stone.

Polaris is definitely Magnetos daughter "at the moment".

Quicksilver and Polaris spent years together on US government backed mutant team X-Factor in the 90s, but it never came up.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

Artists Peter Stults has done his own 'What-If' of the MCU movies in different eras; these versions of the Marvel movies are what's called a 'premake'-a current movie re imagined in a previous era-and there are posters for such movies, in particular related to the MCU. (I'm only posting one poster from each of the links, sorry.)

Black Panther and Infinity War

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok

Logan

Doctor Strange, Captain America-The First Avenger, Captain America-Civil War, Thor, Thor-The Dark World, Deadpool

Guardians Of The Galaxy, Avengers-Age Of Ultron, Daredevil, Ant-Man, Iron Man

Captain America-The Winter Soldier, X-Men: Days Of Future Passed

Iron Man III

As for the movie? Solid A+ all the way-this was the most amazing and exhilarating conclusion to a movie series. Everybody played their parts well, the action scenes were amazing, as were the dramatic ones. And the ending was shocking, but then it just felt right, as at the end of The Last Jedi.

I hear Disney is pushing for Oscar noms for this movie-let's hope that one of these would be for Best Picture.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Artists Peter Stults has done his own 'What-If' of the MCU movies in different eras; these versions of the Marvel movies are what's called a 'premake'-a current movie re imagined in a previous era-and there are posters for such movies, in particular related to the MCU. (I'm only posting one poster from each of the links, sorry.)

Black Panther and Infinity War

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok

Logan

Doctor Strange, Captain America-The First Avenger, Captain America-Civil War, Thor, Thor-The Dark World, Deadpool

Guardians Of The Galaxy, Avengers-Age Of Ultron, Daredevil, Ant-Man, Iron Man

Captain America-The Winter Soldier, X-Men: Days Of Future Passed

Iron Man III

As for the movie? Solid A+ all the way-this was the most amazing and exhilarating conclusion to a movie series. Everybody played their parts well, the action scenes were amazing, as were the dramatic ones. And the ending was shocking, but then it just felt right, as at the end of The Last Jedi.

I hear Disney is pushing for Oscar noms for this movie-let's hope that one of these would be for Best Picture.

Those are... something else. Frank Langella as part of the cast of 'The Infinity War' has me intrigued, I can't make out who he's supposed to be playing.

 

[Captrek]

Those are... something else. Frank Langella as part of the cast of 'The Infinity War' has me intrigued, I can't make out who he's supposed to be playing.

Michael Jackson? Mel Gibson? Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yuck. It’s like having Stephen Collins in Star Trek. I don’t want these movies to feature people who make me sick.

 

[stj]

Claudia picks a couple more questionable items to defend Tony the character. I'm afraid even if she were entirely successful, it still doesn't justify the preposterous choice to give Tony two death scenes. One is touching, two is not.

The flaw in Howard's little speech is not the content, it's the fact that it was given at all. If you want to say Howard Stark is giving perspective to a random stranger that just happens to give lifetime closure to a fraught relationship to his then unborn son, I suppose that's all well and good for your viewing pleasure. It doesn't make any difference what you call an unbelievable scene shoe horned in for a supposed feel good moment, perspective or apology. It's the crudity of the manipulation so Downey earns his big bucks.

Reciting some of the time-babble does come closer to justifying Tony. The problem of course was that it's all silly, even in its own terms. The thing is, since, as "the original continues to exist" there is no way whatsoever to undo the snap, which will always kill half the people, forever. Multiple timeline stories always have this problem, which is, sure, our protagonists have moved into a better neighborhood, but happy as they might be, all the bad stuff still happened and still continues in the original timeline that continues to exist. This defense is that it's not just Tony who's selfish, but *all* of them. I don't think that makes the movie better.

(By the way, the multiple timelines was partly about resolving temporal paradoxes. This movie manages to put paradoxes back into a multiple timelines story. I don't think the explanations make sense, and I don't see what they add to the story. The story could be straightforward if you did away with paradoxes, and said you can't abolish the people who went back in time to get the infinity stones to use them to restore the vanished, thus the five years can't be abolished. But then of course, the infinity stones would have the power to restore all the other people who were killed because of the annihilation, in plane crashes, starvation and disease in a destroyed economy, etc.If Thanos can create an all new universe, then they can restore the extra-dead. Now if you want to argue the infinity stones are so ridiculously powerful they shortcircuit a sensible plot, well, you got me there.)

If the snap is undone, then Pepper/Tony are back to the beginning of Infinity War, when they weren't together. If Tony makes up, they can have their daughter. The notion that she's somehow automatically abolished comes from...well, who knows?

 

[LaxScrutiny]

In T:R, Odin says to Thor, “That hammer helped you control your power, focus it. But it was never the source of your strength.” That meant Thor could summon lightning without Mjolnir. But if Mjolnir wasn’t the source of the lightning-summoning power, how was Cap able to do it?

Both Mjolnir and Thor had lightning summoning power. Mjolnir was a device that could be used by someone with the right qualifications. Thor had it in him all along.
The device allowed control over the power. Without the device, Thor had to learn that he could control it himself.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

Artists Peter Stults has done his own 'What-If' of the MCU movies in different eras; these versions of the Marvel movies are what's called a 'premake'-a current movie re imagined in a previous era-and there are posters for such movies, in particular related to the MCU. (I'm only posting one poster from each of the links, sorry.)

Black Panther and Infinity War

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok

Logan

Doctor Strange, Captain America-The First Avenger, Captain America-Civil War, Thor, Thor-The Dark World, Deadpool

Guardians Of The Galaxy, Avengers-Age Of Ultron, Daredevil, Ant-Man, Iron Man

Captain America-The Winter Soldier, X-Men: Days Of Future Passed

Iron Man III

As for the movie? Solid A+ all the way-this was the most amazing and exhilarating conclusion to a movie series. Everybody played their parts well, the action scenes were amazing, as were the dramatic ones. And the ending was shocking, but then it just felt right, as at the end of The Last Jedi.

I hear Disney is pushing for Oscar noms for this movie-let's hope that one of these would be for Best Picture.

I see an aweful lot of Michael Jackson in those posters.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

I see an awful lot of Michael Jackson in those posters.

Stults decided that Michael Jackson would make a great Starlord, and so he posted him in the premake posters of Guardians Of The Galaxy.

I disagree with him about Vanity as Gamora; there were better actual actresses out there in the 1980's that could have played Gamora,and if none could be found, then a casting call could be put out to find a unknown to play Gamora (I'm just not convinced that Vanity can even act.)

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

As I say: Agree to disagree. Where did Tony force Steve to sign?

I said:

Trying to force

--using manipulative means, as pointed out earlier.

He argued strongly

Where was this strong argument? The only reason he agreed with the Accords was his own guilt; there would be no young man killed if not for Stark's entire Ultron project, and if he was not approached by the grieving mother, he would run around as always. That was all on Stark, and he dragged dutiful Avengers into the mess he created, culminating in Sokovia, hence the driving incident which the accords were named for..

Wanda wasn't kept at the Compound to force her to sign

Wanda is a free individual. Locking her up at the Avengers HQ is a jail by another name. .

And again, Tony went to *back up* Steve and Bucky in Siberia (hence my "stupid" notion that he had their back).

Stark was all in favor of backing Ross until he finally learned what Steve told him for some time: Bucky was framed, but he (Stark) did not want to hear anything about the innocence of Cap's "war buddy".

And using Spider-Man is as contrived and manipulative as using Ant-Man (and Wanda to be honest since she's got a beef with Tony since the beginning).

Ant Man, Wanda and Hawkeye were defensive measures; Steve knew Stark and others would come acting as enforcers, so he had no choice.

If you start about the pen, then please remember that Steve brought up Ultron. He isn't above manipulation, either.

Ultron led to deaths of innumerable innocent people. If anything needed to be brought up in the debate, it was certainly the Ultron disaster.

Overall, you really must have seen a different movie here. I know it's called "Captain America: Civil War" but just because Tony's cast as the bad guy here from Steve's point of view doesn't mean he necessarily is in the wrong and/or that Steve can't do any wrong.

In Civil War, Cap was right: Bucky was innocent, and his trying to uncover the evidence was the right thing to do. By the film's end, even T'Challa admitted (to Zemo) he was wrong in his relentless pursuit of Bucky. Regarding the accords, most of what Ross mentioned were not "faults" of enhanced people, for example, New York was invaded by aliens, so there was only one response to that; Hydra infiltrated the most powerful security/espionage agency on earth, and was destroyed. Without the actions of enhanced people in those specific cases, millions would have died. The biggest piece of evidence in Ross' favor was Sokovia, since that was an Avenger-created disaster.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I'm not sure why people keep saying Bucky showed no interest in talking with Old Steve, he just encouraged Sam to go first.[/quite]

That, and when Bucky had his parting lines with Steve, it was clear Rogers had already discussed his plans with Barnes. Sam was the only one out of the loop, so the bench moment was intended for Sam.

I mean, Steve didn't die right then and here, there'd be plenty of time for the two of them to talk. That scene wasn't about two friends talking, it was about passing on the torch.

...but I have to say that it was a missed opportunity not to have some pre-time travel scene with the two.

 

[Awesome Possum]

I see an aweful lot of Michael Jackson in those posters.

He was the biggest star in the world at one point. If they had wanted an unconventional space hero who dances, he’d be at the top of the list. He was originally going to be in Jim Henson’s Labyrinth as Jareth.

Then things changed. Thankfully we don’t have a movie where Michael Jackson kidnaps a baby and instead got David Bowie, who provided the sexual awakening for way more people than you expect for a film with puppets.


Take me away Goblin King.