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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
It's already implied that he retired anyway. The open ending could just as easily be resolved that he was weakened by the trip somehow and was around but lost the ability to superhero. Him just living his life in the present, as a regular guy Walking the Earth in the present, free of obligations, would've been a pretty good one too. If they're afraid about him and Bucky being too gay, just have Bucky remark that he's off dating girls in the present. Metal Gear Rising Revengeance got away with similar implications about Otacon.
As I've also beat this dead horse before, I'm aware of the out-of-universe circumstances that Evans wanted to leave, and I get that, so they could've kept the time travel part, but modify the circumstances of his trip so that it avoids a lot of the Unfortunate Implications it has in its current form. At least have him be somewhat conflicted about leaving the present, or set it that he didn't have enough particles to return young, rather than making it a particularly OOC choice of his, or needlessly retconning out the whole of Agent Carter (which the writers had very firmly committed to as of Civil War and been aggressive in promoting Sharon as the One True Love before critics at the time).
Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 21st 2021 at 4:40:39 AM
Yeah, I suspect that the filmmakers' motivation for Steve's ending was rooted in the simple fact that both Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans planned to leave once Endgame finished. Either Steve or Tony could do the big sacrifice scene, but they can't both do it.
This is kind of a caveat to a big shared universe like this. There's never a point where it's done. Ant-Man can't defeat Yellowjacket, then hang up his suit because, like, it's over. The big scary thing was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, it's finished, and the world will never be imperiled like this again. He can just go have a normal life now.
No, in the superhero shared universe, there's always another Big Scary lurking around the next corner. It's hard to retire characters. What, Captain America's going to turn on the evening news, see that Mephisto has eaten half the souls of North America, then shrug and go, "Ehhhh, not my problem anymore?" We've established so many times that he'll put down the shield when he's too dead to lift it anymore, so how do we now write him putting down the shield?
He can't just go away. We've already seen that. Tony Stark already went away at the end of Iron Man 2. And Iron Man 3. And Age of Ultron. He keeps coming back because of course he keeps fucking coming back. He's Iron Man. It doesn't make sense for him to stay away. If the actor wants to leave, then the character needs to be incapable of coming back.
If we kill him and Tony, that's redundant. So how do we make Steve incapable of coming back? Well, the filmmakers were writing a time travel movie. So maybe he uses time travel to go home. The premise of the film presented an "out" for the character, so they used it. With little regard to how it fit with the mechanics of the story, with the themes of the character, or with the themes of other stories in the MCU, because it was literally just a vehicle through which Chris Evans could leave.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 21st 2021 at 1:26:29 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Like I keep saying, I already get that part of it, but also think that of the choices they could've made with that restriction, the way they handled it was still badly done from a characterization and setting standpoint when it was easier to not have (said aggressive heteronormative and borderline tradwife angle, which smacks of executive fiat).
Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 21st 2021 at 4:33:51 AM
I argue it wasn't. Steve made strides to move on in AOU, but he was relapsing in Civil War and was all in all shown as lost after the Blip, even if doing the best he could given the circumstances.
Him jumping at the chance when it was in front of him, and having done already more than enough by any metric, it felt right.
The only issue I had was the whole timeloop interpretation by the writers, that has luckly been discredited by the ongoing Narrative.
If the purpose was to have the character exit the story, this was about the best way they could have achieved it without having him die in combat.
I would have bought a "Steve dies/Tony retires for realsies this time we swear" ending, actually. Unlike the IM 3 -> AOU rebound Tony now had an additional reason to hang up the suit (his kid).
They coulda had it so all the time traveling he did to put the stones back caused advanced aging so he couldn’t captain the America anymore
It ties up the thread of the time travel the Avengers found being a sort of conflict breaker but it’s not a great ending for Steve really
Forever liveblogging the AvengersLet's face it, the snap to end Thanos would work just as well with Steve.
I wonder if we could get an unusual What If episode where we literally see the timeline Steve settled in for sixty years. But that's probably stepping too heavily on potential plot points that might want to be reserved for when Steve returns in some form down the line.
It would be nice to see a reverse of Steve's man out of time narrative, with him being now a man from the future. Also could have him team up with Hank Pym and Wasp in their prime to take down Hydra.
I really don't uderstand why this thread specifically is always so pushy against Steve's ending. It's the only place where I really experience such a negative backlash.
I felt it was a great way to write him off out of the narrative when I left the theater, and continue to do so.
Trapping him in the past is an even more unsatisfactory answer than him simply choosing to stay, and still runs until all the time complications of the ending they chose.
You can make him forcibly old as a side effect of time travel, but what is gained going that route outside of shortening his life to keep him out of the game in the present.
You achieve the same with the current ending, and he gets to have a life of happiness after having spent all his time fighting since he enlisted all the way in the 40s.
Edited by MrSeyker on Sep 21st 2021 at 1:45:52 AM
I think we've all gone mad from highly regarded Infinity War and Endgame is when they have some issues that would be nice to be able to discuss.
(Infinity War is probably my least favourite Avengers film? That's an unpopular opinion outside of this forum.
Edited by Whowho on Sep 21st 2021 at 9:49:43 AM
I'll be honest, it's nice that Black Widow does show Natasha did get a grave of her own (implying that she did get a funeral), but it would've been nice if she'd been mentioned a bit more beyond that brief mourning period between when the Time Heist concluded and when Bruce put on the gauntlet. Something like one of the Avengers saying, "This is for Natasha!" as they launch an attack on Thanos.
I'll be honest, there's several moments in it where I'm like, "I'd rewrite it to change who gets spared/dusted."
Edited by dmcreif on Sep 21st 2021 at 4:46:30 AM
Okey Dokey!This discussion was spurred by an offsite think piece about how much the author hated Steve's ending. Not convinced? Here's another
. So it's definitely not restricted to this thread.
It's a case where it seems to go against some of Steve's character arc from the prior movies of moving on from his past and establishing a new life for himself in the present. Having him go back seems like he's tossing away everything he built for himself over the past few movies, including Bucky who's now in the exact predicament Steve is in, only without a well-established support network. Plus, there's the awkward situation that Steve ended up making out with his future niece in Civil War. So, that's kinda gross...
I honestly feel pretty neutral towards Steve's ending. It's not something I particularly like, but I get why they did it. I have to pull some big headcanons for me to say it entirely works, but it doesn't actively ruin the movie for me.
But I know some people feel very strongly about it.

My best guess is that they wanted to give Steve a proper ending, but killing him off would've probably would've stepped on Tony and Natasha's deaths and having him retire would've been a bit too open-ended. So, time travel it was.