Spoilers Avengers: Endgame grade and discussion thread

[Ovation]

I agree, but the movie gloats about not being as janky as Back to the Future and other movies.

True. But that just guaranteed it wouldn’t really be any more logical or persuasive by the end. So not surprising to me. Still loved it (perhaps influenced by my 13 year old son’s enthusiasm just a bit).

 

[urbandefault]

It's simple enough, just follow the rules of the movie and accept it as gospel.

1. You can't change your past.
2. Removing a stone from the past creates a branching timeline that could be catastrophic for the people in that timeline.
3. Returning the stone to the exact point that it was removed should "trim the branch."

I might have missed some of the finer points, but that's basically how I understood it in one viewing.

My wife, who has not seen all of the films in the series, understood (arguably) more of the plot than some people in this thread.

 

[Turtletrekker]

It's simple enough, just follow the rules of the movie and accept it as gospel.

1. You can't change your past.
2. Removing a stone from the past creates a branching timeline that could be catastrophic for the people in that timeline.
3. Returning the stone to the exact point that it was removed should "trim the branch."

I might have missed some of the finer points, but that's basically how I understood it in one viewing.

My wife, who has not seen all of the films in the series, understood (arguably) more of the plot than some people in this thread.

I don't think it was removing the stone that created the alternate timelines, it was the act of traveling to the past in the first place. The stones had to be returned to their proper timeline because the fabric of that newly established reality depended upon the existence of the stones, or some such.

 

[urbandefault]

I don't think it was removing the stone that created the alternate timelines, it was the act of traveling to the past in the first place. The stones had to be returned to their proper timeline because the fabric of that newly established reality depended upon the existence of the stones, or some such.

Bruce literally removed a stone from the Ancient One's timeline illustration thingy, creating a branch. When he put it back, the branch dissipated. Don't overthink this stuff; it'll drive you insane.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Bruce literally removed a stone from the Ancient One's timeline illustration thingy, creating a branch. When he put it back, the branch dissipated. Don't overthink this stuff; it'll drive you insane.

Except there's no way that that timeline dissipated unless Steve remembers fighting his other self just after the Battle of New York.

 

[TedShatner10]

Maybe they'll somehow revisit the soul stone because it does raise a question: do two 4th dimensional instances of the same individual have separate souls, or is part of past Gamora still stuck in the soul dimansion?

The Russos say that the Soul Stone shrine is more like a slot-machine than a pawn shop and the original "real" Gamora is likely truly gone: I think a grief stricken Peter Quill will be disappointed and heartbroken after wrongly thinking the 2nd Gamora will be exactly like the 1st dead Gamora he fell in love with (even if Mirror Gamora could form more of a bond with a reformed future Nebula).

 

[Romulan_spy]

It's simple enough, just follow the rules of the movie and accept it as gospel.

1. You can't change your past.
2. Removing a stone from the past creates a branching timeline that could be catastrophic for the people in that timeline.
3. Returning the stone to the exact point that it was removed should "trim the branch."

I might have missed some of the finer points, but that's basically how I understood it in one viewing.

My wife, who has not seen all of the films in the series, understood (arguably) more of the plot than some people in this thread.

My issue is what about past-Thanos that got dusted by Tony at the end of the battle? If past Thanos gets dusted then he never did the first snap from Infinity War. So that creates a branching timeline where the events of Infinity War never happened?

 

[DEWLine]

Gamora and Natasha still got a bad deal by design.
Good scripting and performances or not, we don't have to be happy with it.

 

[Set Harth]

Something just occurred to me.....

How was Captain America able to use Mjolnir like Thor?

Think about it... what do they have in common?

It turns out the key to using Mjolnir is not using bad language. Who knew?

I don't think it was removing the stone that created the alternate timelines, it was the act of traveling to the past in the first place.

Take Morag, for example. We saw the way it went down in the original timeline, and it's not the way it went down in Endgame.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

A few more observations while the movie is still fresh in my mind.

-Unlike Infinity War, the characters barely used their powers at all before the final battle. Hulk was big and green and didn't even do anything that required strength. I kinda liked that, how it was all about cleverness.

-Other than Thor the entire original Avengers crew is dead or retired. Probably why those seven just happened to be the primary snap survivors, a good sendoff to that era of the MCU before the newer generation (Black Panther, Spiderman, Guardians, Antman, Captain Marvel, etc) can be the centers of attention in the next story intersection.

-Captain America's time in the past. I didn't see the movie that would make me know for sure, but I'm guessing that woman is his daughter. And judging by his age, that's the time he stayed in. So...no way he steered clear of her. I wonder if there's any timeline implications there.

-Did they definitively destroy any chance of further time travel? Cause it seems the stones are gone forever, unless things get really time travelly in the near future.

-I SOOOO want in the next Deadpool for him to somehow run through the background of scenes either from or implied by this movie.

 

[Turtletrekker]

-Did they definitively destroy any chance of further time travel? Cause it seems the stones are gone forever, unless things get really time travelly in the near future.

They still have the time vortex's in the quantum realm.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

-Did they definitively destroy any chance of further time travel? Cause it seems the stones are gone forever, unless things get really time travelly in the near future.

At this point, I think it's just a question of being able to make more Pym particles.

Plus, regarding Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:

Spoiler

They have their own time travel method, the White Monolith.

 

[Set Harth]

Did they definitively destroy any chance of further time travel? Cause it seems the stones are gone forever, unless things get really time travelly in the near future.

They didn't need the stones for their time travel in the movie.

Captain America's time in the past. I didn't see the movie that would make me know for sure, but I'm guessing that woman is his daughter.

 

[Trekker4747]

Think about it... what do they have in common?

They're both played by an actor named Chris?

Does this mean Starlord is "worthy" too?

 

[Captrek]

I agree, but the movie gloats about not being as janky as Back to the Future and other movies.

The takeaway from that scene: Endgame uses a different model than BTTF.

Not the takeaway from that scene: Endgame uses a more realistic model than BTTF.

We’re talking time travel. As Banner says (said? will say? will have said? has been going to say? whatever) it’s all a joke.

 

[theenglish]

Bruce literally removed a stone from the Ancient One's timeline illustration thingy, creating a branch. When he put it back, the branch dissipated. Don't overthink this stuff; it'll drive you insane.

I'll look for it when I rewatch the movie in a few months, but what was the moment Bruce took the stone. What was happening with the other characters before and after that?

 

[Guy Gardener]

That may or may not be true, but nothing in the movie says that.

Hulk explains to War Machine that they cannot change the present or the future by going to the past, or changing the past.

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They say "new future" instead of "New Timeline" but that's what Bruce is talking about, when they return to the timeplatform they launched off, into the past, and created a new timeline that had zero effect on present day, they would have to go diagonal in time to get back to the time platform, rather than forward upstream, so "present day" would have to be an anchored return point either via technology or it's just a natural phenomenon of time travel that you are "drawn" to your home universe, it's where you belong, or else the Avengers would just be randomly hopefully throwing themselves diagonally at an infinite number of parallel timelines, parallel to the new timeline they had just created.

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This is totally false. The Ancient One specifically says that time 'splits' if you remove an infinity stone. She also never says that the resulting split is doomed, what she says is that her new reality would automatically be in danger as long as it was missing the time stone (because the time stone is her greatest weapon against danger, not because the time stone is required to keep the universe from exploding).

Time splits whenever a time traveler arrives in the past, because if it didn't, they would be messing with their own past, which is impossible. It may also split every time someone in every universe makes a decision. Taking or not taking a stone is a decision, so time is always splitting, and sometimes there are less stones than 6 in any particular timeline.

I agree that the Ancient One's perspective is Macroscopic, but since she said that removing any of the stones, and not just taking the time stone from her is a problem to the safety of her world, then it's not just or only about the Sorcerer Supreme having a cool weapon on standby, since she doesn't even have the other 5 stones.

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She's talking about protecting Earth. Just Earth? The Ancient One is talking small bananas or the script writer fucked up.

 

[Reverend]

Time splits whenever a time traveler arrives in the past, because if it didn't, they would be messing with their own past, which is impossible. It may also split every time someone in every universe makes a decision. Taking or not taking a stone is a decision, so time is always splitting, and sometimes there are less stones than 6 in any particular timeline.

So far as I understand it; according to quantum physics the entire universe "splits" every time any particle interacts with any other particle, anywhere and at any time. So effectively infinite branching, everywhere and at every time....unless there's some weird void in the universe with zero particle interactions.

Of course, that's not how it works since "splits" implies a linear path that can deviate rather than what's probably really going one which is everything existing everywhere and at every time and our perception of causality is just a chain of infinite collapsed wave functions along a 4 dimensional light-cone.

Time travellers and indecisive restaurant patrons do not have the magical ability to create new timelines anymore than a boat creates the currents in the ocean. It's all always there, it's just a matter of navigating the infinite, which is what Stark's gizmo did: provide a means of returning back to the *exact* point of origin down to the planck unit.

 

[Liza Johnson]

I love that it's not just me that stayed awake all night trying to follow all the possibilities of the time travel element. In the end, I decided that there are several elements that do not add up, but as a long time fan of DR who there are always messy little timey wimey bits left over after constructing the plot. So I let it go and slept much better.

As for Thor and Cap sharing the hammer..it has happened in the comics on several occasions and has been explained as being "consistently and unwaveringly" pure of intent. Wonder woman had it once in a crossover but that was so long ago I don't remember all the details.

 

[TedShatner10]

Gamora and Natasha still got a bad deal by design.
Good scripting and performances or not, we don't have to be happy with it.

We're supposed to be strongly affected by it, especially after the fake out deaths in the MCU. They were the saddest deaths in Infinity War and Endgame - sadder than even Tony's, because at least he lived a life of happy hedonism after his parents' deaths and later on settled down to a more responsible family life after the Snap.

Happiness was denied to Natasha and Gamora when they were small children and (barring a few periods of reprieve with the Avengers and Guardians respectively) their adult lives were generally violent, harsh, and miserable throughout. They deserved so much better.

With Natasha's noble, sad suicide, she was the bravest Avenger and the first Gamora's death served no noble purpose.