Avengers Endgame spoiler thread

NVM, pagetopper.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on May 21st 2019 at 10:25:01 AM

To me Infinity War is a stand alone movie. It is built on what happened beforehand, but it is basically the movie in which the Avengers lost. Endgame is basically a highlights reel, and I don't say that as a criticism. And the only criticism I have is that while Tony's story felt finished and got a good conclusion in Endgame, Steve's feels like it is missing a huge chapter which should have been in Endgame (or before Endgame). Same for Black Widow. It feels like a chapter is missing.

It can be standalone but I don't think that does it any favours. Title change and difference in feel of Endgame aside, Infinity war still really feels like a part one (or, well, a part 19 of more than 19)

Only if you can't deal with the end.

Anyway, this is simple, but it made me laugh:

https://lousysharkbutt.tumblr.com/post/184698014217

I like to think that Steve returned the Reality Stone and Mjolnir last, just in case he needed Mjolnir to fight with.

Or he returned the Space Stone last, and being in 1975 gave him the idea to go back to the 40s and live out the life he needed.

Given how Bucky and Sam saw Present Steve just sitting at a bench facing the lake immediately after he got into the Time Machine, how did he get there immediately after he left, especially considering that he settled in an alternate timeline's 1945 and married Peggy.

Temporal drift

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Presumably he just traveled to that date, since the time machines are shown to use the characters own personal timelines as reference points without interference (otherwise they'd be returning to alternate futures as soon as they started mucking around in the past and taking stuff).

NOMUUUUUUUURAAAAAAAA!!! >:(

I like to think Old Steve came back to the present a few hours before they even got there, and he was just waiting on the bench all that time.

Same reason he didn't bother saving Black Widow while he was popping around the past: we're in the denouement, the movie's ready to end, and it doesn't really feel like justifying anything to you.

The writers wanted that dramatic scene where an old Cap bequeaths the shield to Sam to happen. So they just did it, regardless of how much sense it makes.

EDIT: Musing on the ignored obvious solution in the epilogue to the Vormir sacrifice.

I've talked about other ways to handle Vormir and that's another one. If we absolutely have to refuse Taking a Third Option and play Vormir straight, then I think it'd have been cool to use a time travel revival and for it to be Clint that takes the leap.

The way it would work is that Clint makes the jump, everyone gets to mourn him, things continue as normal. Then, when Cap goes back in time, instead of being stood up for the return trip, the quantum tunneler activates as expected. But it's Clint who returns. He's holding Cap's shield, and he's like, "Cap wanted me to tell you that he's not coming back."

Mythology Gag: Clint was one of the candidates to become Captain America after Steve died in the wake of Civil War. Tony wanted Clint to take the shield, but Clint refused it.

So Clint starts to read off Cap's farewell words to his friends, and Cap's voice-over slips in over his. He gets to say goodbye to everyone and, at the end, Clint passes the shield to Sam as Steve's V.O. gives his reasoning.

I don't know. Just something that came to mind off the top of my head. End of the day, I just think there were a lot of better ways to do the things Endgame tried to do.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 22nd 2019 at 8:43:33 AM

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I swear you've become an active killjoy Tobias.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

Where would the extra Clint have come from?

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• Banner: How is this possible?
• Barton: You said that changing the past doesn't change the future. So Steve decided to change the past.
• Romanov: He stopped you from making the jump. What about me? What happened to me?
• Barton: Instead of putting the Soul Stone back, he gave it to you along with the temporal coordinates to return it to. The people in that version of our time will put it back when they're done.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 22nd 2019 at 8:51:08 AM

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Why would that Clint have agreed to abandon his timeline to hang out in a new one?

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Tobias, that doesn't even work with any of the established rules.

In order for Steve to have ANYTHING to return, someone, somehwre, fricking died. You can't get around that.

Edited by MrSeyker on May 22nd 2019 at 8:07:37 AM

I think that makes a paradox of one timeline with zero Soul Stone and another with two.

Though arguably it hardly matters since the Soul Stone doesn’t appear to have been used at all for a very long time. Unlike the Time Stone and Space Stone where removing either permanently would mess with tons of events.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on May 22nd 2019 at 8:07:25 AM

Doesn't matter if it was never used by anyone. It's absense from the timeline would still cause trouble by the very nature of what the stones are.

While the talk with AO is a lot more direct because it revolves around a stone we KNOW makes a difference, what she explains would happen with any other stone too.

Just in ways we can fathom because we got no frame of reference.

You absolutely can get around it. The whole movie is about using time travel to circumvent "X is gone forever".

Per the Endgame time travel rules, changing the past doesn't change the future. Once you have the Soul Stone in-hand, you can pop back in time and grab the person who had to die for it. There are no consequences for doing so. You keep the Stone and get the person, because Endgame does not have temporal paradoxes that would erase the Stone from your possession.

It made sense that they couldn't do it at the time due to the dramatically-established limit on Pym Particles, but there's really no reason Cap couldn't have done it when he made his return trip.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 22nd 2019 at 12:27:38 PM

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Yeah, but then that creates a new timeline which is doomed.

Honestly, there is no reason why there can't be an exchange policy for the soul stone other then the writers not wanting another character surviving due to a get out of jail free card.

Yes, there are. Going back in time doesn't affect your timeline, but it does create a split timeline and now you've doomed that timeline, because you took their Black Widow.

Okay, let's say Black Widow sacrifices herself for the Soul Stone:

1. You go back in time to replace the Soul Stone, but end up saving Black Widow's life.
2. Now there is a timeline where Black Widow never gave her life and the Stark Gauntlet never completed.
3. But, say, you give alternate Hawkeye the Soul Stone you took. That isn't possible, because, again, getting the Soul Stone still requires a sacrifice. Even if you want to give it away. That's kind of the whole point.
4. But then, let's say you get Alt-Hawkeye to sacrifice himself and now Alt-Black Widow has the Soul Stone...she still needs to stay in the Split Timeline to give to the other Avengers, so you still have no Black Widow to take back.
5. But then, let's say you clear all that up (somehow)...why would Black Widow go with you at all to your timeline? She's from an Split Timeline and presumably she would want to stay in her Split Timeline. She doesn't want to replace a dead version of herself, she'd rather live her own life. (Gamora had no choice in coming to past and now is presumably trapped here. Unless you are planning on kidnapping Black Widow and forcing her to replace her dead self, there's no way Natasha would agree to do it.)

Edited by alliterator on May 22nd 2019 at 11:30:07 AM

I think you're adding a lot of your own personal branching-timelines headcanon to the film.

No, there's not. The Stark Gauntlet was completed in the future and you can't change the future by changing the past. Removing Black Widow from the past has no effect on the future.

Maybe it creates a timeline where Black Widow didn't die on Vormir but everything else continued exactly as is in the Modified 2014 timeline, but even that's probably not true; the Ancient One indicated that only the Infinity Gems split the timeline.

So, by the film's logic, there is no consequence for plucking her from the timestream. As long as that person is not an Infinity Gem, you're good.

You made that up. Handing the Soul Gem from one person to another does not require a sacrifice. Nobody had to die for Hawkeye to give the Gem to Hulk, for instance.

Getting the Soul Gem from Vormir requires a sacrifice but once it's in a person's possession, you can pass it around to whoever you want.

The sacrifice is a feature of Vormir, not an ever-present feature of the Soul Gem. It is not a Clingy MacGuffin.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 22nd 2019 at 12:39:42 PM

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That is not what the ancient one said. She said that removing the infinity stone would DOOM her timestream, not that removing them is the only way to change it.

Honestly, I'm pretty sure the conversation between the Ancient One and Bruce indicated that returning the Gem would coalesce the timelines into a single one and prevent branching. The Ancient One shows us the timeline branching out when expressing her concerns, and Bruce's solution causes that branch to connect back into the main line and return to singularity.

That's why Cap's in this timeline. Because all the Infinity Gems were returned so there aren't any alternate timelines, and nothing but the Infinity Gems creates alternate timelines.

I know that makes negative sense, but I swear that's what Bruce and the Ancient One were talking about. It's why "Exact Second" was so important. It wasn't just about having the Gems on-hand for the stuff they're needed for, but about preventing the dramatic temporal consequences of taking them.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 22nd 2019 at 12:45:20 PM

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If only the Stones matter, why did Cap need to return Mjolnir?