Lots of jumbled thoughts about Endgame.
What I appreciated:
-all that stuff about movie tropes for time travel not being true, and then they go and pull a Yar (as in, TNG reviving Yar by pulling her out of an alternate timeline in Yesterday's Enterprise) with Loki and Gamorra. The characters we knew were still murdered by Thanos, but a version of them will persist in the MCU. I'm mostly okay with that.
Yeah, it'll be really interesting to see Quill deal with knowing the Gamora he knew is dead forever, and the one from alt-2014 has no idea who he is. I actually kind of hope that they don't have them get together. And my first thought when Loki disappeared with the Tesseract in alt-2012 was that this would form the basis for the Loki TV show, and it seems like most of the internet agrees with this. The adventures of a space hopping Loki in alt-2012 would be fun to watch.
Did the CGI on the Hulk look off to anybody else? Maybe it was just because Mark Ruffalo's voice was coming out of him instead of the character's usual deep, growly voice, but every time he spoke I lost my suspension of disbelief. Surprising to me, given how good Thanos's CGI was.
I thought it looked fine, myself. In fact, I thought all the CGI in the film looked great. I never had a moment watching it where I thought something looked off.
My only minor gripe was the questionable logistics of old Steve showing up without the use of the time machine thing. By the logic explained about causing messed up branches it seems like he would have needed to live his life in a different timeline, then return to the original MCU timeline through the machine at that point.
Well, we do see Tony and Steve go straight from alt-2012 to alt-1970 without jumping from or landing at a pad. To be honest, I'm not quite sure what the pad is supposed to do. It's kind of vague, but since we've seen a jump without one, I don't consider it a plot hole, even if the movie doesn't fully explain it all.
With some of the infinity stones being in containers (Tesseract, Loki's scepter), how did Steve return them? Did he just return them like that?
I was wondering that too. At any rate, they already split the timeline by showing up and taking them, and it probably doesn't make much difference if they are just returned as stones. The Tesseract and scepter are eventually cracked open anyway by Thanos.
Or he was in the main timeline, just hiding. Peggy never mentioned who she married by name, just some guy Cap saved in the war. By the time Sharon comes around, he would have had time to cultivate that persona. I mean, he already has the beard trick down, so he's a master of disguise!
I think this violates the rules established by the movie though. Banner explicitly states that one moment in time cannot simultaneously be your past
and your future.
If that Steve was always there, then the MCU we've been following this whole time has actually been a branch from a different originating timeline, and the Steve we see at the end is not "our" Steve. Unless something else contradicts this, I am assuming that Steve created an alternate reality when he went back, prevented all of the bad shit we've seen in the MCU from ever happening, and after Peggy was gone and he was too old to continue fighting, returned to the main timeline at the exact moment his younger self left (I don't think how is super important, but there's multiple explanations), walked to the bench, and sat down.
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Anyway, I've been reading a lot of people's thoughts about this movie after I saw it, and I'm kind of shocked by how many people think certain things are plot holes in the movie because they're still using Back to the Future logic to analyze it even though the movie tells us that BTTF is bullshit. People wondering why older Nebula didn't disappear when she killed the younger version, and how Infinity War even happened at all if Thanos from 2014 left and came to 2023 and then died. I don't know how it's possible to watch the movie and miss the multiple times they explain how their time travel will work.
Also, I've seen people say that the remaining Avengers can just go to alt-2014 to get Black Widow back, because their Thanos died in 2023, and they no longer need her for the sacrifice. Yes, great idea. Our heroes should definitely go kidnap a younger alternate version of their friend to make themselves happy.
There's also people who not only think the movie uses BTTF logic, but that when Tony snapped he just sent Thanos back in time to 2014 to preserve the timeline. Yeah, that makes total sense. The movie doesn't use single timeline logic, but even if it did, you've now sent back in time a Thanos who will wipe out EVERYTHING with his very first snap.
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Aside from it being unclear how Cap shows up at the end, and what exactly time pad things do when you can do a jump without being on one or going to one, I thought the movie was really consistent with how it used time travel and how it explained everything. I think I liked "part 1" a little more than this "part 2" because its story is more streamlined, and frankly, I kind of love movies where the villain unexpectedly wins, and no moment in the theater has ever been more eerie for me than seeing my favorite characters turn to dust. The theater being packed full and being deadly quiet made it even more impactful.
It does get major points from all the amazing fanservice moments in the final battle though. I can't really think of any major gripes with the movie. I loved it, saw it three times in three days, and enjoyed it every time. It really doesn't even feel like a 3 hour movie.