OT: The Spoilerrific Avengers: Endgame Thread

[TrueBlueGED]

We probably have enough people who have seen this and want to talk about it without spoiling it for others to deserve its own thread. Obviously, full spoilers here.

I mentioned in my initial reaction in the Movies/TV thread that I didn't really like it. I think there were some glaring issues that really just ruined it for me. In no particular order:

1) I thought the pacing was really poorly executed. The entire first half of the movie had too much time dedicated to some things and not enough to others, and so much lacking any and all context. We got a whole group therapy session with Cap, but we see Tony figure out time travel in about 3 microseconds. Captain Marvel randomly (?) stumbling about Tony to save him at the 11th hour. Nat's weird conversation with the team and "things" happening elsewhere, like they had no idea what to do with the characters in the interim but they had to be doing something.

2) I know what the initial mission where they killed Thanos was meant to do, but for me, having the "real" Thanos dead so early actually kind of emotionally disconnected me from what happened for the next 1-2 hours. Maybe it was the pacing and the scene choices, but I didn't feel invested after this.

3) I think the entire "retrieve the stones" quest was...boring. The moment with Tony and his dad was terrific, but I was sitting there just waiting for it all to be over. Even the minor tension by screwing up the Tesseract heist lasted for about 2 seconds and was pretty easily and seamlessly solved. They could have cut the entire middle frame and I don't think the movie would have lost anything for it. That's...not good.

4) Holy hell was Thor's arc bad. And by arc, I mean flat line. It was hilarious at first, and even fitting that he'd be kinda broken after not being able to reverse the snap. But when they had a legit plan to fix things, he really should've snapped out of it. I think it ultimately betrayed the character development he's had with Ragnarok and Infinity War. Learning how to be a leader, a king, protect his people, discovering his true power, etc. He also seemed really underpowered in the final battle relative to where he was in Infinity War with Stormbreaker.

5) Smart Hulk was pretty useless/pointless. It had potential, but was pretty poorly executed. 

6) So let me get this right....Captain Marvel can just fly straight through Thanos' mothership and obliterate it without breaking a sweat, but can't take Thanos 1v1 or at least essentially incinerate normal enemies? So incoherent.

I'm sure I'll think of some other things as the conversation evolves, but I left the theater and felt pretty empty. And not in a good way. It wasn't all bad, of course. I though Tony's arc was the best of the movie and excellent all-around. Cap's arc was good, even if the ending seemed to break the time travel rules they had established earlier. I loved the Nat and Barton soul stone quest; probably the only stone quest I enjoyed--thought it was great and fitting. The final battle was obviously super fun and I enjoyed Cap finally wielding Mjolnir. But overall I don't care if I never see the movie again.

[shrader]

The Thor stuff was horrible.  He was broken and he absolutely should have been, but they went way too far in how he got there.  The last two movies had him well on his way to replacing his father, but now he winds up being a rebel with no purpose tagging along with the guardians.  It was a complete waste.  They pretty much nailed the endings for Cap and Stark, but they completely booted Thor's.

All of the time travel stuff was a major league head scratcher.  They tried to establish that you can't go back and change history, but that was contradicted so many times.  If it can't be changed, why is it so vital to then return the stones back to where they came from?  Also, Thanos changed history in the last movie by erasing Vision's first death, and Strange did the same by getting killed about a million times by Dormamu.  I guess it's the time stone itself that allows for that, ok, but guess what they had in their possession once they retrieved all the stones... the time stone!
And then there's Nebula killing the past version of herself.  How does that one work?  And Cap going back and living a full life with Peggy and showing up as an old man still within their timeline.  It's all major league confusion that makes my head hurt.

 

But with that said, I did enjoy the movie even with these two main complaints.  I can get past all of that, because as a whole, they were able to close out the whole giant story.  It was a bit slow getting to the battle, but man was that fun to watch.  And no matter how much the time travels makes my head hurt, allowing for Cap to have that happy ending was huge.  I'm definitely a bit surprised that there were only two deaths, but man that first one was not a prediction I would have made.

[MODO Hockey]

The movie was watchable at most, mediocre movie. The jokes were so bad that i was a shamed in the theater, give the movie 5.1 out of 10, mostly for the cgi.

[sabills]

I thought it was pretty good. I'll agree that Thor needed something more, but I'm also glad they did just magic him back into good shape. I think Professor Hulk needed a more of an arc, and Captain Marvel was basically an after thought (though a pretty bitchin' after thought).

Still, they had a VERY heavy lift here. Closing up a decade of stories in a meaningful and heartfelt way is really tough, especially when its not just one person's story, but 6. I think, in general, they did a good job with it.

Don't think too hard about time travel. I don't think any movie has ever done it in a realistic way, because there IS no realistic way. It always leaves holes somewhere. But it was a nice way for them to revisit the old movies and didn't feel too heavy handed to me. Also, its a comic book movie at its core, thats just a part of the game.

[shrader]

I hope they somehow work some references into Spiderman next month about how Peter is now 5 or 6 years (whatever it was) younger than any classmates who didn't get dusted.  That's a fun little quirk to all of this that should be explored a bit, like Lang missing his daughter growing up.

[LTS]

Ahhh, where to start.

There were a lot of "jokes" that just didn't need to be in there.  No one needs commentary on Captain America's ass.  We didn't need a FortNite reference.  We don't need Lebowski Thor (although Stark's reference to him as Lebowski was classic).  Thor was tiring in the movie and irrelevant.  But, I think that's the point here.

The movie had 3 main focus points.  The closing of the story with Captain America, Iron-Man, and Black Widow.  As such, the movie, overall, was going to focus on those three.  It did so with what appeared to be pointless scenes.  

Captain America's therapy session - underscores his entire struggle.  He's always telling people they need to move past things but as he said, he never could.  In the end, he moved past it.

Iron-Man/Tony Stark - always needed to make sure he left the world a better/safer place.  His struggle was always "how" to do it.  The scenes with his daughter set the path for his end.  The conversation with his father sealed the deal.  His father lamenting he was too wrapped up in things other than his family.  In the end, Pepper tells him everyone will be okay and Tony can finally end his internal conflict.

Black Widow is a tough one.  Truthfully, if Barton is that which she loved most then what was with the whole Hulk romance angle?  If Barton truly loved Natasha then how does he live his life out with his wife and kids when he's overburdened with the love of his life being dead?  Perhaps we are to believe it was a different kind of love for each other?  That aside, her moments on basically taking over for Fury were what set up her end.  She's uncomfortable with being in that role and she's realized she's no path forward.  When she dies, she dies.  She can't have children. She's had no family other than the Avengers/SHIELD.  The battle is outpacing her with the onslaught of other world creatures.

So, yes, Captain Marvel was an afterthought, but she'll be a core component of the 4th phase of the MCU.  Thor and Hulk will be the ones who carry the link between the two just as Iron-Man and Captain America did from 2 to 3.

The next movies will likely really challenge people's loyalties because they will stop being about Earth and be more about the Universe. I'm sure there will be Earth angles thrown into the mix, but it's Asgardians, Guardians of the Galaxy, Hulk, and Captain Marvel.  I'm sure you'll get some Earth stories with Hulk, Spider-Man, the new Captain America (Falcon), etc. 

I won't touch on the time travel aspects.  I think there are some nuances that are not fully played out yet. My guess is that the movies may deal with repairing of the fractures in the time continuum.  Keep in mind that Loki from 2004 used the tesseract to disappear.  So, while he was killed in Infinity War, he prior self has forked the timeline at the Battle of New York.  The tesseract that Captain America and Stark retrieve is from 1970.  So, in theory, that's where Captain America returned the tesseract they stole.  So, there's a timeline fork (according to their time travel rules) that occurred with Loki.

One comment on the Time Stone.  The time stone allows travel forward and backward along a given time thread.  Sort of like a DVR.  It clearly allows the person who knows how to wield it to basically see all the options along any number of "choose your own adventure" paths, but there is no indication that it allows people to jump between them.  Just that they can see how time plays out.  So, it's not necessarily possible to use the time zone to simply jump around in time.  Keep in mind in Dr. Strange he uses the time stone like a DVR to replay the same moments over and over again to get a different outcome. He basically stops time on that timeline and repeats it.  This would be different then moving back in the timeline while time continues to move forward still creating new events.

Overall, I think the value of the movie will hopefully be increased with what comes next.  It was still entertaining, but there were some humor parts that I felt detracted from the film.

[LGR4GM]

Questioning how Natasha and Barton good love each other but also love others is silly. I love some of my friends very much. Barton loves his wife but has a special love for Natasha as she is his closest friend and they have 100 adventures together. It isn't a romantic love and never was supposed to be. 

Edited April 30, 2019 by LGR4GM

[LTS]

Just now, LGR4GM said:

Questioning how Natasha and Barton good love each other but also love others is silly. I love some of my friends very much. Barton loves his wife but has a special love for Natasha as she is his closest friend and they have 100 adventures together. It isn't a romantic love and never was supposed to be. 

You could rebut the point without telling me that I am silly for questioning it.  I know you don't care, but it's what sets people off about you.

I'm glad after all I wrote that's the point you wanted to debate.  Congrats, I'll concede it and move on. Hooray for you.

[LGR4GM]

Your question is silly, not you. Subtle distinction. But go ahead make it personal. Time for summer vacation. 

[shrader]

I'll add one thing to the Captain America therapy session you mentioned earlier.  That one to me also felt like he was in a way paying tribute to Sam.  Now that he has handed off the shield to Sam, I picture a full role reversal for the two and old man Cap running therapy sessions all the time.

[LTS]

12 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

Your question is silly, not you. Subtle distinction. But go ahead make it personal. Time for summer vacation. 

You should enjoy it.

You said "questioning" which is the act of raising the question, which implies that my action of questioning is silly. As such, you are implying that my actions are silly.  You didn't say "it's a silly question" which would be different.

But yeah, I made it personal.  Use sunscreen, you are already a little orange.

[JujuFish]

I took the day off to give myself a 3-day weekend and went to watch Endgame at 11 since the theater wouldn't be packed.

It sounds like I enjoyed it more than most people in this thread?  I thought it was a very satisfying movie over all.  I was worried about the 3 hour length going in, but I never felt distracted or bored.

I did have a couple issues.  Why would Nebula stick around when she realized Thanos knew?  Just time travel back and that entire battle plot is nonexistent.  And along that same line, how can the evil Nebula not only magically interface with a computer/machine she has never even seen before, let alone make it do something it was never designed and therefore shouldn't even be capable of doing, in bringing the entire Thanos ship to the past without Pym particles?   And as for Tony, the infinity stones literally give you the power to destroy and remake the universe at your whim.  Literal omnipotence.  It should be no effort at all to make yourself indestructible so you don't die from using them.

Either way, it was a lot of fun to watch.  I even liked Thor, for the most part.

[mjd1001]

We weren't going to see it, but we ended up breaking down and seeing it..just because it is the 'ending' to a saga we have seen most of the other parts to.

I thought it was OK...not great. I didn't like how they handled Thor either. Also, it was way too long. I like movies that are 2 hours in length..any more than that and I'd like them to find a way to tell the story better.

Also, I know most people don't like sequels as much as the first movies in a franchise..but for me personally that goes double for 'superhero' movies.  Origin stories are great...you deal more with how someone becomes who they are...and the heros (and villians) usually aren't so overpowered that it becomes comical.  As you get later and later into the franchise...you lose a little of the 'human' story (not all, but some) and the action gets too big and too loud and everyone is 'too overpowered'. I think we got that here.  Some people like that....but the over-the-top action and powers/abilities are not for me.

[nfreeman]

I'm not much of a fan of most superhero movies, although a few have been better than most, while a few have been worse than most.  This one was in the mediocre middle IMHO.  There were some funny lines, some clever plot points (among many dumb and/or cliched ones) and the scene with Tony Stark and his dad was really good.  I liked the Captain America resolution.  The low point was probably the women's rush near the end -- ridiculous PC pandering.

Having said that, I'll probably see the new Spider-man movie this summer -- the preview looked good and I'll enjoy taking my kids to it.

[Hoss]

52 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

The low point was probably the women's rush near the end -- ridiculous PC pandering.

ban me from this forum i don’t care but every time i read this dumb ***** i just laugh in the face of whoever said it. it’s incredibly unintelligent and insecure.

so at the absolute worse what a few seconds of screen showing a handful of women with superpowers banding together did was pander to a specific group of people. what a crime.

it’s a movie about superheroes, how dare they pander to nerd culture.

there’s a couple hot guys in it, how dare they pander to those attracted to the male figure.

thor is fat but still able to fight masterfully, how dare they pander to the obese.

it’s not pandering, it’s called inclusivity (and not even in the way that triggers old dweebs who want to go back to when women were considered the property of their husbands). it’s a three-hour movie for christ’s sake. because they had a single small moment showing that women might choose to unite their powers in a single moment is “ridiculous.” get outta here with that lazy garbage.

in reacting to that scene in this way it’s clear you’ve got a major issue that needs some serious exorcising.

captain marvel got a fair bit of criticism for pandering to women which is hilarious because there’s a million male superheroes and nobody ever complained about that. when we left the theatre with my friend’s fiancé she noted that she never really cared about the superhero movies but legitimately enjoyed that one because she looks like her. that’s dope. that’s what matters.

Edited May 5, 2019 by Hoss

[carpandean]

Since it now has its own thread, I'll restate my questions here ...

Was that Tony Stark hammering his original suit in the dessert at the very end of the credits?  If so, was it simply symbolic or will it mean that, somehow, some way, he will be back?

 

[matter2003]

I thought it was just OK. I liked Infinity Wars much better. I felt the first 45 minutes really dragged and could have been condensed into15 minutes.

Nothing really stood out to me in this one...honestly my favorite part might have been Quill singing and dancing like an idiot.

[dudacek]

I kinda liked the quiet first 45, although Thanos being ended lacked the shock value it should have.

To the Hoss/Freeman discussion, I thought that moment was calculated fan service in a film that was pretty much about providing such moments. 

It’s a franchise about heroes.

Edited May 5, 2019 by dudacek

[Weave]

4 hours ago, carpandean said:

Since it now has its own thread, I'll restate my questions here ...

Was that Tony Stark hammering his original suit in the dessert at the very end of the credits?  If so, was it simply symbolic or will it mean that, somehow, some way, he will be back?

 

Regarding your first question, the internet seems to think that was a callout to the original Iron Man movie.  Who knows, re: the second.

[Weave]

11 hours ago, nfreeman said:

I'm not much of a fan of most superhero movies, although a few have been better than most, while a few have been worse than most.  This one was in the mediocre middle IMHO.  There were some funny lines, some clever plot points (among many dumb and/or cliched ones) and the scene with Tony Stark and his dad was really good.  I liked the Captain America resolution.  The low point was probably the women's rush near the end -- ridiculous PC pandering.

Having said that, I'll probably see the new Spider-man movie this summer -- the preview looked good and I'll enjoy taking my kids to it.

It's kind of weird that the one thing you felt strongly enough to single out in a negative way was the women scene.  I guess we all have our triggers.

[Huckleberry]

4 hours ago, Weave said:

It's kind of weird that the one thing you felt strongly enough to single out in a negative way was the women scene.  I guess we all have our triggers.

To be honest, it felt to fake to me to.    

My biggest issue was that Thor was so weak in this movie.  

[drnkirishone]

2 hours ago, Huckleberry said:

To be honest, it felt to fake to me to.    

My biggest issue was that Thor was so weak in this movie.  

I thought thor was one of the stronger story lines and he was one of the 3 to square off with thanos to start the final battle

[dudacek]

I liked fat Thor.

[Taro T]

On Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 11:37 AM, LTS said:

Ahhh, where to start.

There were a lot of "jokes" that just didn't need teNo one needs commentary on Captain Amer We didn't need a FortNite reference.  We don't need Lebowski Thor (although Stark's reference to him as Lebowski was classic).  Thor was tiring in the movie and irrelevant.  But, I think that's the point here.

The movie had 3 main focus points.  The closing of the story with Captain America, Iron-Man, and Black Widow.  As such, the movie, overall, was going to focus on those three.  It did so with what appeared to be pointless scenes.  

Captain America's therapy session - underscores his entire struggle.  He's always telling people they need to move past things but as he said, he never could.  In the end, he moved past it.

Iron-Man/Tony Stark - always needed to make sure he left the world a better/safer place.  His struggle was always "how" to do it.  The scenes with his daughter set the path for his end.  The conversation with his father sealed the deal.  His father lamenting he was too wrapped up in things other than his family.  In the end, Pepper tells him everyone will be okay and Tony can finally end his internal conflict.

Black Widow is a tough one.  Truthfully, if Barton is that which she loved most then what was with the whole Hulk romance angle?  If Barton truly loved Natasha then how does he live his life out with his wife and kids when he's overburdened with the love of his life being dead?  Perhaps we are to believe it was a different kind of love for each other?  That aside, her moments on basically taking over for Fury were what set up her end.  She's uncomfortable with being in that role and she's realized she's no path forward.  When she dies, she dies.  She can't have children. She's had no family other than the Avengers/SHIELD.  The battle is outpacing her with the onslaught of other world creatures.

So, yes, Captain Marvel was an afterthought, but she'll be a core component of the 4th phase of the MCU.  Thor and Hulk will be the ones who carry the link between the two just as Iron-Man and Captain America did from 2 to 3.

The next movies will likely really challenge people's loyalties because they will stop being about Earth and be more about the Universe. I'm sure there will be Earth angles thrown into the mix, but it's Asgardians, Guardians of the Galaxy, Hulk, and Captain Marvel.  I'm sure you'll get some Earth stories with Hulk, Spider-Man, the new Captain America (Falcon), etc. 

I won't touch on the time travel aspects.  I think there are some nuances that are not fully played out yet. My guess is that the movies may deal with repairing of the fractures in the time continuum.  Keep in mind that Loki from 2004 used the tesseract to disappear.  So, while he was killed in Infinity War, he prior self has forked the timeline at the Battle of New York.  The tesseract that Captain America and Stark retrieve is from 1970.  So, in theory, that's where Captain America returned the tesseract they stole.  So, there's a timeline fork (according to their time travel rules) that occurred with Loki.

One comment on the Time Stone.  The time stone allows travel forward and backward along a given time thread.  Sort of like a DVR.  It clearly allows the person who knows how to wield it to basically see all the options along any number of "choose your own adventure" paths, but there is no indication that it allows people to jump between them.  Just that they can see how time plays out.  So, it's not necessarily possible to use the time zone to simply jump around in time.  Keep in mind in Dr. Strange he uses the time stone like a DVR to replay the same moments over and over again to get a different outcome. He basically stops time on that timeline and repeats it.  This would be different then moving back in the timeline while time continues to move forward still creating new events.

Overall, I think the value of the movie will hopefully be increased with what comes next.  It was still entertaining, but there were some humor parts that I felt detracted from the film.

Good takes as usual.  My rambling thoughts in no particular order.

Didn't mind the humor; kind of expected it as they seem to have been pushing humor a lot more in all themovies since the original Guardians.  Some jokes didn't work at all; but overall they seemed to work well enough.

As to the ending for Black Widow; I had a slightly different take on why it had to be her dying rather than Hawkeye.  To get the soul stone, you had to "give up who you love most or who you love most or what was most important to you."  Barton has kids and he loves those the most.  Natashia couldn't have kids and had no other family, so the most important person to her was herself.  So, she gave that soul up to get the soul stone.  Barton couldn't give up his own soul because that wasn't the most important one to him.  At least that was my take.

Thought they did a good job on the Iron Man arc in this one.  And really liked how Tony couldn't let himself die until Pepper told him they were ok and he could rest.

Would've rather seen Captain America's arc end with him having stayed in the 70's past and having some sort of message (like say a carving on one of the old trees that somehow nobody'd noticed until the end of the movie) sort of willing his shield to Sam.  But this ending still worked.

Thought that they might keep Thanos alive but with all his armies gone but still having the memory (from 5 years out Nebula) that he'd won but still ended up losing.  Still not sure exactly what happened to Gamorrah (sp?); did she disintegrate along with the rest of Thanos' crew because she was the Gamorrah prior to going to jail and meeting Quill or did she just sneak away somewhere after the battle; or is she gone because her soul was traded for the Soul Stone?  Or did she just want too much money to be in Guardians 3? :)

Rolled my eyes a bit at the start of the all female charge, expecting that they were going to run the glove all the way to the van.  Kind of surprised that they didn't.

Expecting Loki to be one of the villians in Guardians 3.  Will be interesting to see how that one plays out and if Gamorrah does come back there.

Thought they did a reasonable job with the time line / time travel paradoxes, but nobody gets all the contradictions covered and they would've made the movie at least an hour longer trying to cover them all and they still would've had holes in the storyline.

Thought they were going to have Hulk perish after holding up the rubble long enough for Rocket and the others to escape and join the battle above.  Guess not.

Liked the movie.  Not as good as Infinity War, but for what it was meant to do: close this chapter of the Avengers and give a starting off point for MCU Phase 4; it worked.

 

 

[...]

You all will note that Steve Rogers did not "come back" with Mjolnir. I think the next Thor movie is him getting back on the path we saw him on at the end of Infinity War (while Quill searches for Gamora). Loki, obviously, is back, so look for him in this one.

I agree with those who thought the Thor arc went too far.  I did find it funny that when they were in the Asgardian Palace, all of the Asgard guards were referring to Rocket as "rabbit" like Thor does, which always gave me a chuckle in the other movies.

I'm not happy the Tony Stark era has passed by, but I thought that arc was very nicely done, totally the best part of the movie aside from the main plot.  I wonder if we see Marvel trying to strengthen Spider Man's importance to the MCU based on how much he meant to Stark.

The Cap'n America arc was fine, I thought.  Predictable.  I don't see how Falcon can become a replacement for Cap'm America unless he undergoes the same treatment Rogers and Bucky had.

I am disappointed in how Dr. Strange was used to forward, or, more accurately, not used to forward the End Game.  This is actually the most disappointing part of the movie, IMHO.  Essentially, the only thing Strange did was keep Stark alive at the end of Infinity War, and, thus, put them on the 1/14,000,605 road to success.  Having sucked up all of the pre-movie theories, I would have preferred something about manipulating the Time Stone or something.

However, they shot that down when Hulk was talking with the Ancient One where she explained (rightfully) whatever thread of time you're on is your only present and your actions on that timeline, no matter where you jump on, do not affect the future of that timeline. because those actions are the future of that timeline.  Lacking in that explanation, and therefore leading to some of confusion in this thread, I think, is a reinforcement of the concept that each timeline is its own universe.  Each individual is on their own timeline and regardless of whether you go forward or backward in time, it is always still the individual's present.  

I won't say I'm disappointed with it, but I think @TrueBlueGED and I are about 95% in agreement on the film overall.  

 

Edited May 6, 2019 by ...