Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread

[Jayson1]

I think it must have been after he was frozen. Of course he could have rescued other Steve so other Steve and Peggy live happily ever after. He basically becomes a life long bachelor fighting evil and teaming up with other Steve and Peggy and having adventures.

 

[UssGlenn]

Except for the rules laid out perfectly clear by Banner in the movie itself. The action of simply going into the past to meet up with Peggy would have created an alternate timeline. It doesn't matter whether or not he changes anything. The simple fact that he's there creates the alternate timeline.

No it doesn't. When the Ancient One shows banner the timeline demonstration, the timeline isn't split. It only splits after she pulls an infinity stone. Then after returning it, that blackened timeline doesn't turn golden, it disappears completely. Only messing with the stones can split a timeline artificially. (This is different from natural splits as seen in Loki.) Banner was always having a conversation with the Ancient one off screen in the Original Avengers Movie. Once Steve returns the stones he goes to the late 40s and has no way to create a different timeline. Whatever he did to try and help behind the scenes only resulted in exactly the timeline we saw unfold in the movies. Like Bruce said, you can't change your past.

 

[Rich Watson]

Oops, someone's going to get a talking to.

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[Christopher]

No it doesn't. When the Ancient One shows banner the timeline demonstration, the timeline isn't split. It only splits after she pulls an infinity stone.

Yes, because the removal of the Infinity Stone is the catalyzing event in her explanation.

Then after returning it, that blackened timeline doesn't turn golden, it disappears completely. Only messing with the stones can split a timeline artificially.

Uhh, you're mistaking a visual aid the Ancient One "drew" to make her point for something physically real. It was just the equivalent of drawing a sketch on a chalkboard, just with more magic/CGI. It can't be taken as binding evidence of how reality works. And again, the reason it was the Stone that made the change was because that was the point she was illustrating in that specific instance. It's nonsensical to think that means it's the only thing that can possibly have an effect.

Besides, the real evidence is in the dialogue, the way the Ancient One and Bruce explain it. That was the scripted intention of the writers. VFX artists often interpret things differently than the way the writers intended it, because they often prioritize what looks cool over narrative accuracy (the Secret Hideout Star Trek shows are perennially bad at this). In this case, the visual they came up with doesn't quite fit what was explained in the script -- and what happened later in the film, when Thanos, Gamora, and their fleet left their past without erasing their actions in the original MCU timeline. Their act of time travel split the timelines in itself, making them variants of the originals. And the variant of Gamora did not "disappear" when the Stones were returned, because, again, the whole damned point of the time travel theory used by Endgame's writers is that the Back to the Future-style fantasy model of people or things disappearing when their timeline changed is absolute nonsense. Bruce had that whole scene about the BTTF version of time travel is wrong, how you can't erase events that happened, only create alternate versions of them. So the visual effect was simply wrong, as proven by the entire rest of the film.