Spoilers The Falcon and Winter Soldier discussion

That's my preference as well, it just means justifying how his going back didn't make a new timeline.

 

That's the point, if you believe time travel creates alternate timelines, those are covered.

If you believe only removing an infinity stone creates alternate timelines, then those things happend *before* an infinity stone was removed. In addition to Star Lord getting knocked out, Steve saying Hail Hydra, etc. So they cause a problem

And the new timelines theory is flatly contradicted by the movie's *explicit* claim that the Avengers are capable of going back to return all the stones exactly where they came from. If time travel always creates a new timeline, then that Ancient One can never get her Time Stone back which means the Avengers paid for their last hurrah with the lives of an entire universe making them even worse than Thanos. But, of course, Bruce and the Ancient One are explictly supposed to be the experts on this and they say that it is possible which obviously means it must also be possible to go back in time without creating a new alternate universe.

 

When they failed in 2012, they went to 1970 without a pad.

Steve was supposed to go to three places to drop off the time stones and Mjolnir.

That's not an issue.

Either that's the original Steve, or that's the original everything thing else.

He didn't actually have to drop the stones off to exactly where he left them.

Take them to 1950.

And then they are some wherein the universe for the rest of time.

Did Thanos actually destroy the stones, or did he just break them down?

In a million years, maybe they'll reform?

Maybe the only reason time travel works is because Thanos "destroyed" the stones?

Although, they went back to where there was an MCU with 6 stones, and they could still time travel fine.

 

Time travel may not be real, but real scientists have come up with theories about scientifically plausible ways it could theoretically work, and that's what we got in Endgame.

 

That was the implication. He dropped himself in the past and lived out his life until he showed up at the end of the movie.

As for the alternate Thanos and the alternate New York timeline, they collapsed when the stones were returned and ceased to exist. Gamora and Loki are remnants of now non existent timelines.

 

Why wouldn't they be able to? They know what the instant was that they left the new timeline their intervention created, they know the new timeline's "quantum address," for want of a better term, and by definition they'd never been further into the future of that timeline than the moment they'd left from, so there's nothing stopping them from returning precisely to when they left. If it wasn't possible to return to a specific timeline you'd previously been in at the specific moment you'd previously departed from it, they wouldn't have been able to come home from the time-heist in the first place.

 

They exist, they're just removed from them. All timelines exist as a four dimensional object, they've simply been relocated to another point in space-time.

As for Steve catching up the old fashioned way: according to the rules laid down in that very movie (also: actual quantum physics) he couldn't have; hence the endless arguments.

Again, people really need to get the idea of a literal "timeline" out of their heads. It implies a definitive sequence of events that's somehow both linear and "special" (for want of a better term.) Better to think of it as a serial number or set of co-ordinates; one of an infinite number of other equally valid ones that describes the outcome of every particle interaction from the dawn of time to the end of all creation.

 

Agreed; its all Plot Convenience 101 just to get to a result, so any character can rattle off anything about time "just because". Nevermind the fact that--as other have pointed out since the film's release--the contradictory "understanding" and theories about time, how its accessed and used.

 

Loki alive with the space stone timeline didn't collapse because its in a new TV show about Loki.

Staying with the rules, they can create a new tiime line where the TVA can get him, leaving the other time line where he's free as a bird.

 

That won't work, you'd end up with duplicate infinity stones in each of the new timelines. For example the 2013 Asguard timeline would have one Reality Stone, but 2 of all the rest of the stones.

"Reduced to atoms". So they still exist to keep the universe stable.

 

How do you explain Steve's old age then? He is the age he would be if he lived his life in the past with Peggy to the present. When, exactly, does he time travel to the park bench? A week before? From the future?

 

Something like that.
Remember it's not just time travel, it's also space travel and it goes through the quantum realm.
Travelling from 5mins ago on that very same bench, or five centuries in the future somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy. It makes no difference.

 

He's old because he lived his life? What reason would he have to return if he built a life in a new home with Peggy? The way I see it, he just stayed long enough to drop off the shield for Sam and let his friends know that he was all right, and then returned home.

 

Dunno, who's his daddy in the MCU? Yeah they're going "comics accurate", but they haven't introduced Zemo the Elder. I have to admit the idea that a previoius Zemo might have fought Cap has crossed my mind.

 

The Ancient one is not an expert on Time travel because the Hulk convinced her to believe in bull shit bad science.

The Hulk is not a expert on time travel because he believes in bullshit bad science.

But these are the only people explainin... HOLY SHIT... What if Ant-Man was right, when the were telling him that he's an idiot?

Consider the end of Doctor Strange 1.

Was Steven moving back in time 30 seconds, or was he creating dozens if not hundreds of new realities where Mordamu kills him in Realities where Mordamu and Strange already exist.

Mordammu must have returned to the Dark Dimension to have a Civil War with himself.

So there are two Dr Strangers too... And two time stones.

He had a spare fucking Time stone all along!!!!!

 

We might need a separate thread for this issue.

 

But where is home? What year? Why bother doing any time travel at all since... he's already there?

 

Agreed. So I can avoid it.

 

What I need to know is where, exactly, was he traveling from/to and what possible story reason there is for such a convoluted solution.

 

There are 2 options for the origin of old Steve.

1. He traveled back to the past of the MCU and is part of a stable time loop. He had a second shield made in secret at some point, and gives it to Sam when he ages back to the "present".

2. He travels back to the past and in doing so creates a new divergent timeline, which might differ wildly from the MCU. In his old age he decides to travel back to his original timeline to tell his friends he is ok. We don't know what year he left from, exactly what tech he used, or where the shield came from.

I still prefer option 1, it's cleaner.