‘Avengers: Endgame’ Was a Bad Movie. Change My Mind.

 

Endgame was released about ten years ago (er, in April), but I didn’t watch it until this week. I don’t really see movies in theaters anymore, partly because the nearest theater is a 45-minute drive from my house. Also, it’s so damn expensive for tickets, and I can’t pause the big screen when I need to go to the bathroom. Anyway, I don’t think it was that great of a movie.

Obviously, this post is going to have some spoilers in it, but if you haven’t seen the movie yet, then tough. I mean, it did come out like ten years ago.

OK, so, there was time travel. Time travel is stupid. It never makes sense. The screenwriters tried to get around this by making jokes about Back to the Future. All that did was confuse things even more. I thought that Smart Hulk said you can’t change the past because you’re already your past self’s future. But then the Ancient One told Bruce Banner that if he changed the past it would create alternate realities. So Bruce’s brilliant plan was to return the stones back to the exact moments they’d been taken out of the timeline so that the timeline would stay the same. But then 2012-Loki stole the Space Stone (the “Tesseract”) due to 2023 Tony Stark losing hold of it when Angry Hulk knocked him over. And that definitely didn’t happen in the old timeline, obviously.

So then Tony and Captain America time-jumped from 2012 to 1970 (by the way, without any explanation of how they could do that without the platform thing that they used in 2023 to enter the quantum realm), and stole the Tesseract from Tony’s father Howard (and maybe Loki was sitting on a bench in the background when Tony hugged Howard). So that created a third reality, right? Or no? Because Cap returned the Tesseract to 1970 later. But there’s still the 2012 divergence when Loki escapes.

Speaking of Steve Rogers, after returning the stones throughout time (and space) he goes and marries Peggy Carter in what looks like the 1950s or early ’60s. So that really is a third reality, since in the original timeline Peggy married someone else and had children, believing that Steve was dead. (In one of the scenes from an earlier movie when Cap visits Peggy in a nursing home, she has a picture on her bedside table of a family.)

So, anyway, the time travel stuff is a mess. Oh, yeah, 2023-Nebula kills 2014-Nebula. How does that work? There’s a fourth reality. Oh! And Iron Man dusts 2014-Thanos along with his entire army. So there’s a fifth reality (a good one; Thanos never dusts half of all living beings in that timeline). Oh, I forgot that 2023-Cap fought 2012-Cap and told him that Bucky was still alive. That had to have opened up a sixth reality.

But enough about the time travel. Here are some of my other gripes:

What happened to 2014-Gamora? She switches sides with the help of 2023-Nebula, Starlord kisses her, and she kicks him in the nuts. That’s it. We don’t see her again. She’s out there, somewhere, in 2023, having time jumped past her own death. (A seventh reality/timeline, by the way — 2018-Gamora is killed by Thanos in order to get the Soul Stone.) She’s not present with the other Guardians at Tony’s funeral.

Speaking of Tony’s funeral, who was that random guy standing by himself?

OK: Captain Marvel. Uh. Dud. I did not see that movie, but boy does Brie Larson suck the energy out of every scene she’s in. She has anti-charisma. She’s the anti-Robert Downey Jr. Anyway, apparently she’s superpowered and whatnot. She can fly and travel between planets in outer space without a spaceship. So, you know, she might be useful to take along on the time-travel mission. Nah. Let’s not even bother to contact her before we risk the very fabric of reality. It’s not like there was any great pressing need to go now. They’d already killed Thanos. They could have waited for her to come back to Earth.

In fact, she did show up, totally out of the blue, for the final battle. And, if you follow the timeline, you’ll realize that the final battle in 2023 is like, 20 minutes after they start their time travel mission. They’re only “gone” for like 10 seconds! They all leave 2023 at the same time to various times and then no matter how long it takes them to complete their mission, they all come back at the same time. So, for instance, Ant-Man comes back earlier with the Mind Stone (Loki’s scepter), and Tony and Cap take an extra day or two to recover the Space Stone, and they all return at the same moment, right after they all left initially. Again, like ten seconds later. They come back and they’re sad that Natasha sacrificed herself on Vormir, and then Smart Hulk brings back all the dusted people from 2018, but to 2023 not retroactively to 2018, because they don’t want to create an alternate reality (because they’re super concerned about that for some reason all of a sudden). And then 2014 Gamora brings Thanos through the time hole and the battle begins. Maybe it’s more than 20 minutes. At the very least, it’s the same day. Boom! Captain Marvel is there. Why didn’t they wait for her in the first place?

OK, so then there’s the big battle. I have no idea why Howard the Duck is there, but I guess he has to be to fulfill Dr. Strange’s prophecy. (????) Whatever, that’s just an Easter (Duck) Egg. Apparently Ant-Man can now be giant man for extended periods of time without falling asleep? Cool.

One of the most annoying scenes in Avengers: Infinity War was when the alien woman told Scarlet Witch that she would die alone and then Black Widow and Black Warrior Lady show up and say “She’s not alone!” Ooooh. Womyn power. This was described by one of the movie’s executive producers in a bonus feature about the Battle of Wakanda as “one of the most powerful moments in the movie.” Well, it wasn’t. It was stupid. So they decided to double-down on stupid in Endgame when Spider-Man hands off the gauntlet to Captain Marvel and says, “I don’t know how you’re going to get through them” (the alien army), and then all the women show up and say, “don’t worry, she’s not alone.” So stupid. So forced, so fake, so agenda-driven. Like, absolutely dumb level.

What else? Thor’s like, oh, I can’t be king anymore because I’m a drunk. I know, I’ll make Valkyrie the Queen, since it’s not like she’s a drunk or anything. 🤦‍♂️

Why is Peter Parker going back to high school? He just missed the past five years. Was his buddy also dusted that’s why he’s also still in high school? (I guess these questions are probably answered in Far From Home, but I haven’t seen it yet.)

Was Wong dusted? Because the Avengers probably could have used some magicians on their mission, too. But they don’t seem to have had any association with them 2018-2023.

Tony solves time travel in about 15 minutes. Gee, that’s convenient. 🙄

It comes back to time travel being stupid.

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  1. Hugh Member
    Hugh
    @Hugh

    So…. a few points:

    • The movie was OK.  
    • I watched the movie on a plane on my iphone in economy with lots of aircraft noise.  Then I watched it at home.  I’m glad I watched it.  
    • There are some great characters in the Marvell universe.  Doctor Strange, Tony Stark.  I really liked Thanos even though he is a greenie.
    • Time travel never works very well.   the two types I like are:
      • when you go back in time and change everything back no normal everything resets and no one remembers anything that happens and
      • Time itself seems to have a certain sentience or instinct and when you change time then Time itself works to undo what you have done so that normality is restored in some fashion.
      • some Time Travel movies or books try hard to make sense of what is happening.  End Game didn’t bother to try. (lazy writers)
    • In End Game time travel was about the only way to get out of the pickle they had got themselves into (the writers, not the characters). 
    • They also had to figure out how to wrap up the universe because too many of the star actors had become too frickin’ expensive and were eroding the billions they hope to make on future Marvell movies.
    • Given the hill they had to climb I think they did OK.

     

    • #61
  2. Shawn Buell (Majestyk) Member
    Shawn Buell (Majestyk)
    @Majestyk

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):
    I don’t know for sure, but suspect they didn’t really have the whole MCU 19-plus movie story arc in mind when they made the first Iron Man.

    It was definitely well planned-out all the way back in 2008.  The presence of the Stingers at the end of each film served as a preview of coming attractions (akin to “James Bond will return in MOONRAKER”) and the design of the overall narrative structure was carefully constructed to seamlessly overlap with one another.

    Of course if the films hadn’t been the runaway financial successes they were they would have either skipped some of the lesser properties and gotten to the main events. As it was you saw in “Infinity War” the culmination of a journey of discovery of practically each Infinity Stone and the path that each one of them cut through this proposed alternate history.

    The Captain America movies were particularly strong and ask some interesting questions about how far we should go to prevent terrorism and the first is just a good World War II film, actually.

    • #62
  3. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Was a Bad Movie. Change My Mind.

    Max Ledoux:

    So I didn’t “read” ur “post” bc ur just wrong. Like, racist wrong. Plus ur literilly Hilter! 

    Once my poest gets all the likes ppl will be all “TBA wins LOL!” 

     

     

    Oh wait, this isn’t twitter. Never mind. 

    • #63
  4. Gossamer Cat Coolidge
    Gossamer Cat
    @GossamerCat

    I just watched it for the 3rd time, this time on a plane.  I was awake for the beginning, pretty much dozed off in the middle except for Black Widow’s death scene, and then was awake for the big battle scene and aftermath.  Much to my surprise, I liked it much better.  There is a lot of poignancy to the first part and the last part, especially when Captain America stands all alone battered and prepares to fight one more time.  Then the cavalry comes.  So when you get rid of all the time travel confusion and zipping back and forth, it actually has some emotional heft to it.

    • #64
  5. Max Ledoux Coolidge
    Max Ledoux
    @Max

    Oh, one other thing I forgot. Fat-Thor steals 2013-Thor’s Hammer! I’m sure that didn’t have any consequences.

    • #65
  6. Hugh Member
    Hugh
    @Hugh

    Max Ledoux (View Comment):

    Oh, one other thing I forgot. Fat-Thor steals 2013-Thor’s Hammer! I’m sure that didn’t have any consequences.

    2013 thor can just call his hammer back and….hey presto!  all the way across time and space comes his hammer.

    • #66
  7. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Hugh (View Comment):

    Max Ledoux (View Comment):

    Oh, one other thing I forgot. Fat-Thor steals 2013-Thor’s Hammer! I’m sure that didn’t have any consequences.

    2013 thor can just call his hammer back and….hey presto! all the way across time and space comes his hammer.

    Basic PFM physics. 

    • #67
  8. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    TBA (View Comment):

    Hugh (View Comment):

    Max Ledoux (View Comment):

    Oh, one other thing I forgot. Fat-Thor steals 2013-Thor’s Hammer! I’m sure that didn’t have any consequences.

    2013 thor can just call his hammer back and….hey presto! all the way across time and space comes his hammer.

    Basic PFM physics.

    I did like the dialogue in one of the earlier movies when Captain America and Iron Man are trying to lift the hammer, and Thor is explaining that they have to be “worthy”.  I think it was Iron Man who said “If we put it in an elevator, and the elevator lifts the hammer, does that mean the elevator is worthy?”

     

    • #68
  9. Max Ledoux Coolidge
    Max Ledoux
    @Max

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    Hugh (View Comment):

    Max Ledoux (View Comment):

    Oh, one other thing I forgot. Fat-Thor steals 2013-Thor’s Hammer! I’m sure that didn’t have any consequences.

    2013 thor can just call his hammer back and….hey presto! all the way across time and space comes his hammer.

    Basic PFM physics.

    I did like the dialogue in one of the earlier movies when Captain America and Iron Man are trying to lift the hammer, and Thor is explaining that they have to be “worthy”. I think it was Iron Man who said “If we put it in an elevator, and the elevator lifts the hammer, does that mean the elevator is worthy?”

     

    That was in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Some say that you have to have a soul in order to be worthy, and that’s why The Vision was able to lift Mjolnir later on in the movie — he’s a machine with no soul. At least, at that time, 5 minutes after coming into existence, he had no soul. What would have been interesting would have been to find out if, through Scarlett Witch’s love, he had acquired a soul. On the other hand, maybe souls have nothing to do with it. Or they do, and Vision had a soul from the get-go. Steve Rogers almost lifted Mjolnir in Age of Ultron (it shifted slightly), foreshadowing that he would be able to lift it in Endgame. Thor regained his powers in the original “Thor” by putting his own self interest aside and essentially sacrificing himself for the good of others. Captain American is always willing to sacrifice himself for others (that’s why he’s Captain America). It’s not clear to me why he was able to lift Mjonir in Endgame but not any other time.

    • #69
  10. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Max Ledoux (View Comment):

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    Hugh (View Comment):

    Max Ledoux (View Comment):

    Oh, one other thing I forgot. Fat-Thor steals 2013-Thor’s Hammer! I’m sure that didn’t have any consequences.

    2013 thor can just call his hammer back and….hey presto! all the way across time and space comes his hammer.

    Basic PFM physics.

    I did like the dialogue in one of the earlier movies when Captain America and Iron Man are trying to lift the hammer, and Thor is explaining that they have to be “worthy”. I think it was Iron Man who said “If we put it in an elevator, and the elevator lifts the hammer, does that mean the elevator is worthy?”

     

    That was in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Some say that you have to have a soul in order to be worthy, and that’s why The Vision was able to lift Mjolnir later on in the movie — he’s a machine with no soul. At least, at that time, 5 minutes after coming into existence, he had no soul. What would have been interesting would have been to find out if, through Scarlett Witch’s love, he had acquired a soul. On the other hand, maybe souls have nothing to do with it. Or they do, and Vision had a soul from the get-go. Steve Rogers almost lifted Mjolnir in Age of Ultron (it shifted slightly), foreshadowing that he would be able to lift it in Endgame. Thor regained his powers in the original “Thor” by putting his own self interest aside and essentially sacrificing himself for the good of others. Captain American is always willing to sacrifice himself for others (that’s why he’s Captain America). It’s not clear to me why he was able to lift Mjonir in Endgame but not any other time.

    Favorite fan theory is that he realized he could lift it in Age of Ultron, but didn’t because he didn’t want to embarrass Thor.  He’s just that nice.

    • #70
  11. Hugh Member
    Hugh
    @Hugh

    Max Ledoux (View Comment):

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    Hugh (View Comment):

    Max Ledoux (View Comment):

    Oh, one other thing I forgot. Fat-Thor steals 2013-Thor’s Hammer! I’m sure that didn’t have any consequences.

    2013 thor can just call his hammer back and….hey presto! all the way across time and space comes his hammer.

    Basic PFM physics.

    I did like the dialogue in one of the earlier movies when Captain America and Iron Man are trying to lift the hammer, and Thor is explaining that they have to be “worthy”. I think it was Iron Man who said “If we put it in an elevator, and the elevator lifts the hammer, does that mean the elevator is worthy?”

     

    That was in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Some say that you have to have a soul in order to be worthy, and that’s why The Vision was able to lift Mjolnir later on in the movie — he’s a machine with no soul. At least, at that time, 5 minutes after coming into existence, he had no soul. What would have been interesting would have been to find out if, through Scarlett Witch’s love, he had acquired a soul. On the other hand, maybe souls have nothing to do with it. Or they do, and Vision had a soul from the get-go. Steve Rogers almost lifted Mjolnir in Age of Ultron (it shifted slightly), foreshadowing that he would be able to lift it in Endgame. Thor regained his powers in the original “Thor” by putting his own self interest aside and essentially sacrificing himself for the good of others. Captain American is always willing to sacrifice himself for others (that’s why he’s Captain America). It’s not clear to me why he was able to lift Mjonir in Endgame but not any other time.

    Or maybe the lifting the of the hammer is just a plot device…..

    • #71
  12. Max Ledoux Coolidge
    Max Ledoux
    @Max

    Judge Mental (View Comment):
    Favorite fan theory is that he realized he could lift it in Age of Ultron, but didn’t because he didn’t want to embarrass Thor. He’s just that nice.

    Actually, I think that’s totally what happened.

    • #72
  13. Gossamer Cat Coolidge
    Gossamer Cat
    @GossamerCat

    Hugh (View Comment):

    Max Ledoux (View Comment):

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    Hugh (View Comment):

    Max Ledoux (View Comment):

    Oh, one other thing I forgot. Fat-Thor steals 2013-Thor’s Hammer! I’m sure that didn’t have any consequences.

    2013 thor can just call his hammer back and….hey presto! all the way across time and space comes his hammer.

    Basic PFM physics.

    I did like the dialogue in one of the earlier movies when Captain America and Iron Man are trying to lift the hammer, and Thor is explaining that they have to be “worthy”. I think it was Iron Man who said “If we put it in an elevator, and the elevator lifts the hammer, does that mean the elevator is worthy?”

     

    That was in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Some say that you have to have a soul in order to be worthy, and that’s why The Vision was able to lift Mjolnir later on in the movie — he’s a machine with no soul. At least, at that time, 5 minutes after coming into existence, he had no soul. What would have been interesting would have been to find out if, through Scarlett Witch’s love, he had acquired a soul. On the other hand, maybe souls have nothing to do with it. Or they do, and Vision had a soul from the get-go. Steve Rogers almost lifted Mjolnir in Age of Ultron (it shifted slightly), foreshadowing that he would be able to lift it in Endgame. Thor regained his powers in the original “Thor” by putting his own self interest aside and essentially sacrificing himself for the good of others. Captain American is always willing to sacrifice himself for others (that’s why he’s Captain America). It’s not clear to me why he was able to lift Mjonir in Endgame but not any other time.

    Or maybe the lifting the of the hammer is just a plot device…..

    Someone told me that it was because he was hiding the secret of Tony Stark’s parents’ death.

    • #73
  14. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Gossamer Cat (View Comment):

    Hugh (View Comment):

    Max Ledoux (View Comment):

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    Hugh (View Comment):

    Max Ledoux (View Comment):

    Oh, one other thing I forgot. Fat-Thor steals 2013-Thor’s Hammer! I’m sure that didn’t have any consequences.

    2013 thor can just call his hammer back and….hey presto! all the way across time and space comes his hammer.

    Basic PFM physics.

    I did like the dialogue in one of the earlier movies when Captain America and Iron Man are trying to lift the hammer, and Thor is explaining that they have to be “worthy”. I think it was Iron Man who said “If we put it in an elevator, and the elevator lifts the hammer, does that mean the elevator is worthy?”

     

    That was in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Some say that you have to have a soul in order to be worthy, and that’s why The Vision was able to lift Mjolnir later on in the movie — he’s a machine with no soul. At least, at that time, 5 minutes after coming into existence, he had no soul. What would have been interesting would have been to find out if, through Scarlett Witch’s love, he had acquired a soul. On the other hand, maybe souls have nothing to do with it. Or they do, and Vision had a soul from the get-go. Steve Rogers almost lifted Mjolnir in Age of Ultron (it shifted slightly), foreshadowing that he would be able to lift it in Endgame. Thor regained his powers in the original “Thor” by putting his own self interest aside and essentially sacrificing himself for the good of others. Captain American is always willing to sacrifice himself for others (that’s why he’s Captain America). It’s not clear to me why he was able to lift Mjonir in Endgame but not any other time.

    Or maybe the lifting the of the hammer is just a plot device…..

    Someone told me that it was because he was hiding the secret of Tony Stark’s parents’ death.

    Weird how it turned out that they were actually killed by the Joker, but that’s alternate timelines for ya. 

    • #74
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