Avengers: Endgame SPOILER THREAD

[MarkB]

No, you got it. The thing we need to realize is... Old Cap is not Cap. At least, not "our" Cap.

When you travel in time, you go to alternate timelines. They establish that the way you get back to your own timeline is *through a portal*. Cap and Iron Man even initiate a jump (to 1970) without a portal, but to return, they use the portal. Without the portal, any time jump you make is to an alternate timeline.

Old Cap did not come through the portal. So, it isn't our Cap. He's a Cap from an alternate timeline.

There's actually a ton of timelines going through much the same thing - each with their own Thanos trying to kill off half the people in its universe. There's a bunch of Avengers jumping through a bunch of alternate timelines trying to do much the same thing. But... *we* are an alternate to someone else. So, Our Cap jumps out, goes to an alternate timeline, and spends a life with alternate Peggy Carter. A *different* Cap jumps from somewhere else into our timeline to deliver the shield.

I feel like they did a very poor job of explaining that in the movie. They talk about how movies like the Back To The Future trilogy - which does involve time travel creating alternate timelines - always get it wrong, and they make it very clear that the Infinity Stones must be returned back to their original point in time in order to prevent a disruption to the timeline. The whole reason why they bring back the Snapped people five years later instead of just reversing the entire Snap via time travel is to prevent a paradox. And when they first go back to New York, they seem to be doing their utmost not to disrupt existing events so as to avoid rewriting their own past.

Even when Hulk debates with The Ancient One about how taking the stone will create another, darker timeline, he wins her over partially by demonstrating that its return will prevent that timeline from ever existing.

So, are those alternate timelines still out there? Did they get nipped off when Captain America went back in time to return the stones? Since the things that happened in those timelines are now part of these characters' pasts, how can they be unmade without causing a paradox? If they'd simply gone back in time and prevented the Snap, wouldn't that have created a timeline in which everybody lived, without so much hassle?

 

[Umbran]

I feel like they did a very poor job of explaining that in the movie.

It isn't like time travel is easy to understand or explain.

They talk about how movies like the Back To The Future trilogy - which does involve time travel creating alternate timelines

No. Back to the Future involves changing the one, singular timeline. Back to the Future has Marty McFly going to the past, making changes, and possibly erasing himself. In Marvel Time Travel, this is not possible. You *CANNOT* change your own past to make it so you never happen. You can jump timelines, and make it so an alternate you never happens. Upon your return, you'll find your own world's history has not changed.

In the Marvel Movies, history is like... a classic straw broom. You are on one straw. You can travel down that straw at the rate of one minute per minute. Or, you can jump to the past or future of *ANOTHER* straw. This is classic "many worlds" time travel.

It is probably better to think of it less as "time travel" and more like "alternate world hopping".

and they make it very clear that the Infinity Stones must be returned back to their original point in time in order to prevent a disruption to the timeline.

No, it isn't disruption to "the" timeline. The Ancient One is on a timeline. It is pretty much exactly like the Hulk's. The only difference is that, in the Hulk's timeline, no Hulk came and talked to his Ancient One (so far as we know). The Ancient One tells him that if he takes off with her Time Stone, she and Doctor Strange won't have it later to protect her timeline from the ravages of evil - specifically, if he doesn't have it back in 5 years, Strange can't stop Dormammu. Basically, she cannot allow him to take it, because *her* home timeline will be screwed, not "the" timeline will be screwed.

The whole reason why they bring back the Snapped people five years later instead of just reversing the entire Snap via time travel is to prevent a paradox.

No. Take this instead: It isn't to "prevent paradox". Creating paradox is *impossible*. They could create a new timeline in which those people came back five years ago... but in their own timelne, those people would still be gone.

And when they first go back to New York, they seem to be doing their utmost not to disrupt existing events so as to avoid rewriting their own past.

The Ancient One makes it clear - rewriting your past is just not possible. Your past is *FIXED* and immutable. Any past you change is in an alternate timeline.

If they'd simply gone back in time and prevented the Snap, wouldn't that have created a timeline in which everybody lived, without so much hassle?

Because, I repeat - you *CANNOT*.

If you are in a timeline that had the Snap, and go back and make it not happen, you end up with two timelines - one in which there was a snap (your original), and one in which there wasn't. There's still a timeline that sucks for the half the universe that didn't die. This doesn't actually fix anything. Those people still die, and the survivors still suffer. You just also have a world in which that didn't happen.

Instead, what you do is not make the snap not happen. You let the snap happen, and then *remake the people* five years later, not creating a major new timeline.

There are still some minor new timelines - there's a timeline where, at the end of Avengers 1, Loki escapes Thor's custody. Our Loki didn't escape. He still died at the start of Infinity War.

There's now a timeline in which Peter Quill never meets Gamora - she leaves her original timeline, and comes to ours, and doesn't get to meet her home-timeline Quill.

There's now a timeline in which, at least for a while, there's some members of Hydra who think Cap is on their side. Their Cap is unaware of this, but is aware that BUcky is still alive. That'll be fun for him - their version of The Winter Soldier might be quite different from ours.

All in all, what they've done is introduce the standard Marvel Many Worlds. The standard comics take place in Earth-616. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is in Earth-199999.

 

[Blue]

He came from another timeline, and never changed his own past, or anyone else’s.

I agree, just want to add.

Until the moment that Nebula's memories sync'd, that was "the timeline". But as soon as it did it created an alternate timeline that wasn't the past that the Avengers were on. So Thanos came from that alternate timeline exactly as you say - it just was a recently diverged timeline. But still not the Avengers past any more.

 

[Blue]

No, you got it. The thing we need to realize is... Old Cap is not Cap. At least, not "our" Cap.

When you travel in time, you go to alternate timelines. They establish that the way you get back to your own timeline is *through a portal*. Cap and Iron Man even initiate a jump (to 1970) without a portal, but to return, they use the portal. Without the portal, any time jump you make is to an alternate timeline.

Old Cap did not come through the portal. So, it isn't our Cap. He's a Cap from an alternate timeline.

There's actually a ton of timelines going through much the same thing - each with their own Thanos trying to kill off half the people in its universe. There's a bunch of Avengers jumping through a bunch of alternate timelines trying to do much the same thing. But... *we* are an alternate to someone else. So, Our Cap jumps out, goes to an alternate timeline, and spends a life with alternate Peggy Carter. A *different* Cap jumps from somewhere else into our timeline to deliver the shield.

You only split off a new timeline if you change what you know.

I think you are incorrect. See above.

If what the characters in the film described was the complete truth, then I disagree to a point. Of course, it's time travel so there's probably no objective truth.

What I got was that there was one timeline and every time time travel caused a change then it caused a split and there was the original timeline and the new timeline. Who know how many times this has already happened in the past, from never any time travel (unlikely with the Time Stone being controlled) to very large but finite numbers of them.

So, for example, when the team jumped back and started interacting, it split off a timeline that until that point had been their own timeline. In the "base Avengers" timeline, Professor Hulk never dented a car and tossed someone's bike. That's when the timeline split from their past to a new timeline. Same for when Nebula's memory intertwined - interacting and changing the past is what splits a new timeline. Same for back in 1970s when they interacted with the lady on the elevator.

Now, these changes are relatively minor, and will likely leave the timeline very close to what it should be. At least, that's the subtext I got from the Ancient One's speech where she was only really worried about the stone being missing, not the changes made by her not interacting with the Battle of New York for a few minutes while talking to astral form Bruce.

What this means in terms of Old Steve. Either Old Steve caused a time stream split by going back in the past, or he had always done that, including not warning anyone about all of the disasters he knew were coming. The second seems out of character, so most likely he lived his life out on an alternate time stream. Now, how he got back I don't know, so that theory also has flaws.

(As a side note, they had already worked out how to run time through someone to de-age them, and they kept the memories because Scott Lang remembered being an old man. So hypothetically they could de-age him.)

Now, aside from time travel shenanigans -

I like how the one person who manages to get their Infinity Stone by just straight up rational discussion... is the Hulk.

I absolutely enjoyed how Banner/Hulk resolved their issues from the end of Infinity War and became the Hulk of Endgame. The crowning moment for that for me was not that kids felt safe to come up to him for pictures only a couple years after he went rampaging though a city and needing the hulkbuster armor to take down (though that was close), it was him just casually walking by Scott Lang and giving him his own tacos because Scott's was ruined.

 

[Jester David]

Endgame...

So many thoughts.

I wept openly after "Avengers Assemble". I'd wanted that line in the movies for ages and felt a little slighted we didn't get it in Age of Ultron. But, man, this made it worth it. So amazing.

The focus on the characters and giving so many of the Avengers an "end" was neat. Dark Knight Rises was the first comic movie to dare to "end" the story of their heroes rather than setting up endless sequels. I don't think this movie could have done this without that. The idea of having characters die or retire is anathema to comic fans; if this were a comic story, there would have been several more shock deaths and one heroic sacrifice, all of which would be undone within three or four years.

Damn it was ballsy not only having the snap still happen and not erasing things back a year or two, but going ahead five years. Yikes. It does make Spider-man: Far From Home a little funky, as apparently every member of his supporting cast was also snapped away, otherwise they wouldn't be in High School still.
And future Marvel movies might be weird, as the world will be somewhat similar, but everyone's lives should have been uprooted by the Snappening. (To say nothing of what will happen in Agents of SHIELD, or when that might take place.)


I adored how they ended with Cap finally getting his dance with Peggy. That was beautiful.
(I do hope they do an Agent Carter movie on Disney+ that wraps up the dangling threads of her series and ends with her reunion with Steve.)

I'm a little sad we'll never get another Hulk movie. Having the Hulk become Professor Hulk feels like a character change that should have been a climax of another movie. Hulk is fun here, but he's given the least to do, as his arc is over before the movie starts. He doesn't even really get an end.

A lot has been said about Black Widow. I'm sad she died but... honestly, I can't think of an alternative arc for her. If she lived, you'd need to explain why she wasn't still helping and saving the world. She just fades into the background like Fury, which is awkward. But she can't find love and retire (like Cap) or live out her days with her family (like Hawkeye) and you only need one climactic end sacrifice. It's a weakness of the film (and the preceding two films with her) that she doesn't have satisfactory "win" condition. But she's never been a stand out character in the comics either, so there's far less to draw from or use as inspiration: Black Widow has always just been there and seldom a starring character.
In theory they could have left her alive and trusted the solo film to give her an end. But I don't think that film was entirely solidified in 2017 when they were planning and filming Endgame.

Thor....
, did I hate what they did with Thor.
Okay, having him be depressed and suffering PTSD and survivor's guilt works. Falling into depression and loss of confidence is fine, and having his arc be rediscovering himself is okay. If circular. It doesn't really lead to an "end" for him. But the route they took where he was a walking punchline was inappropriate. It was several hours of body shaming and laughing AT Thor. It should have been a sad examination of alcoholism and depression, but instead it was endless fat jokes. So the final words his doomed mother say to him are "eat a salad". And even after he gets the pep talk from her and finds his confidence, he's still a pathetic mess begging to commit suicide by snap.
And then he runs away. Abandons his people and responsibility to wander with the Guardians, hiding from his duty as much as if he were still getting drunk and playing video games.

Captain Marvel was underused. Okay, this makes sense as they were filming her movie at the same time, so she was likely pretty busy. And they didn't have a clear idea of her character.
But they also have a Superman problem with her now. She's too powerful. She took out his ship without breaking a sweat, took a blow from Thanos without flinching. She's stronger and tougher than the Hulk and Thor but can fly and shoot energy.
How do they challenge her in her sequel?
And given she's meant to be the "Iron Man" of the next phase where the team forms around her... why does she need a team? Do you need an Avengers when you have Captain Marvel?


It will be interesting to see where Marvel goes from here. We have Spider-man coming later this year and then... nothing. This is almost the end. We've had a firm idea of everything up to Avengers 4 since 2014. And we've known Far From Home was coming since 2018 when that filmed. They were talking about sequels to Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and an Eternals movie, (plus Asguardians of the Galaxy) but with them not filming this year, 2020 might be the first Marvel-less movie since 2009

 

[Umbran]

If what the characters in the film described was the complete truth, then I disagree to a point.

I have only seen it the once, and I was a bit busy experiencing to remember all the statements in their entirety. But, I'm still of the opinion that my interpretation is consistent with what is seen.

Of course, it's time travel so there's probably no objective truth.

It is a *movie*, so there's probably no clear truth. The fact that time travel is involved isn't the determiner, but how much the storytellers stick to their logic.

There's a second question as to whether there's sufficient information in the movie to determine what that truth is, without having to assume some things on our part.

What I got was that there was one timeline and every time time travel caused a change then it caused a split and there was the original timeline and the new timeline. Who know how many times this has already happened in the past, from never any time travel (unlikely with the Time Stone being controlled) to very large but finite numbers of them.

I would want to review *exactly* what the Ancient One said, but again, I'm still of the opinion that what I said was consistent with their exposition. Specifically, I think she already references her timeline as different from the Hulk's, when no notable changes have been made, yet. In any case, we have the "you cannot change your own past" line from several folks before that. If you cannot change your own past, that pretty strongly argues for at least the idea that every act of time travelling backwards creates an alternate timeline. That means they created at least... five?

Alternate 1: Hulk, Ant Man, Iron Man, and Cap all go back to the Battle of New York.
Alternate 2: Rocket and Thor go to Asgard
Alternate 3: Nebula, War Machine, Hawkeye, Black Widow go to Spaaaaaace!
Alternate 4: Iron Man and Cap go back to the Army Base in 1970.
Alternate 5: Captain America goes back to be with Peggy Carter.

What this means in terms of Old Steve. Either Old Steve caused a time stream split by going back in the past

The film makers have said that Cap spent his life in an alternate timeline, my #5, above. I believe the quotes for that can be found upthread.

In fact, this *has* to be true, because he comes up with an unbroken Shield. That can't be our Cap's original. It must be from an alternate timeline. Or he had a second one made while back in the past? That doesn't make a lot of sense.

(As a side note, they had already worked out how to run time through someone to de-age them, and they kept the memories because Scott Lang remembered being an old man. So hypothetically they could de-age him.)

Well, they did that once, in uncontrolled circumstances, before they had Tony's input on time travel. They didn't "work it out" so much as it happened on one of their experiments. That doesn't mean they can replicate that in a controlled manner.... But yeah, they could use time shenanigans to de-age him... but that brings up a question of why anyone ever ages in the universe ever again, and the ethics of withholding de-aging from the general populace. Don't go there.

They could also invoke the Super Soldier Serum, since in normal comic continuity that keeps him nigh-immune to aging (and he has lost it once or twice in the comics, and aged as a result). Give him another shot of Vita Rays, and he's good to go! They could also invoke what I said, above - that the Old Cap comes from an alternate timeline, and our Cap eventually comes back from his trip through the portal, just later than planned.

I'm guessing both Evans and Downey are done, though, and unlikely to show up except in flashbacks and recordings.

The crowning moment for that for me was not that kids felt safe to come up to him for pictures only a couple years after he went rampaging though a city and needing the hulkbuster armor to take down (though that was close), it was him just casually walking by Scott Lang and giving him his own tacos because Scott's was ruined.

I loved that moment. Just plain old fashioned empathy, at its finest!

Also, I am a nigh-unabashed Cap fan. The moment of him getting Mjollnir in the big fight (and, Thor's reaction - when Cap first almost moved the hammer in Age of Ultron, Thor looked worried. In this one it was a joyful, "I knew it!!!1!") Growth of both Cap (now worthy) and Thor. I was happy that I didn't twig to that possibility when Thor came back with the alternate hammer.

I also appreciated that they also put some goals other than "kill them all" into the fight. The Great Game of Keep Away gave a flow to the big fight that would have otherwise been extremely hard to follow.

And, the trading of places: In Infinity War, Tony with Parker as he dusts, and now, Parker with Tony as he's in his final moments.... They must have sewed the actor's mouth shut to keep him from blurting out that spoiler.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I feel like they did a very poor job of explaining that in the movie. They talk about how movies like the Back To The Future trilogy - which does involve time travel creating alternate timelines - always get it wrong, and they make it very clear that the Infinity Stones must be returned back to their original point in time in order to prevent a disruption to the timeline. The whole reason why they bring back the Snapped people five years later instead of just reversing the entire Snap via time travel is to prevent a paradox. And when they first go back to New York, they seem to be doing their utmost not to disrupt existing events so as to avoid rewriting their own past.

Even when Hulk debates with The Ancient One about how taking the stone will create another, darker timeline, he wins her over partially by demonstrating that its return will prevent that timeline from ever existing.

So, are those alternate timelines still out there? Did they get nipped off when Captain America went back in time to return the stones? Since the things that happened in those timelines are now part of these characters' pasts, how can they be unmade without causing a paradox? If they'd simply gone back in time and prevented the Snap, wouldn't that have created a timeline in which everybody lived, without so much hassle?

I can only say how I understood it, and it made sense to me:

The different timelines are essentially different universes. What you do there can't affect the timeline you're from, e.g. what ever happened already there will always happen. So you can't go back to undo the snap, because that wouldn't be in your timeline, but someone else's.

If you take something from the timeline you visit, it is gone there. That can have minor to major effects. For example, Thanos leaving that timeline to get into "ours" means there is no Thanos to ever do a big snap in the other timeline. That doesn't help you in your timeline, but at least Thanos leaving that timeline and the Avengers defeating him in "ours" means that they basically saved two different universes.

It is however a bit different for the infinity stones. Because they are intimately tied to the universe they are from, removing them is bad for the respective timeline. That's what the Ancient One discusses with the Hulk. So if you don't give them infinity stones back to where you took them, you're screwing that universe over. If it wasn't for that, it would probably be a very good idea to actually keep the infinity stones and not give them back, because it means no Thanos or Thanos-wannabe can get the full set (unless he figures out how to cross to the other timelines) and you save a few extra universes along the way. But since the removal of a stone or a few more is harmful for that universe, you got to bring it back to where you took it. And if you're nice, also any other useful tools you got.

Captain America stayed in one of the other timelines to live with Peggy. He didn't live his long life with the Peggy from this timeline. What he did in that timeline we don't know. Maybe it meant Bucky was in Russian captivity for decades, or he got him out and gave him a chance for a good life, we don't know, it is an untold (and maybe never to be told) story.
He returns somehow to our timeline to hand over a shield for Sam - it can't be his original one, because that's destroyed, it might be from the timeline he stayed with Peggy, or it's a new shield (Wakanda still has plenty of Vibranium)


---

Edit: Just read Umbran's previous posts, and it could be that the infinity stones aren't as special for the "safety" of a universe as I thought - it might really just be the role they would normally have to play in the future is sometimes very important. The Infinity Stones are bad for their abusal potential, but without Dr.Strange wielding the Time Stone, there seems to be no way to avert Earth being consumed by that other dimensional timeless being whose name I forgot. And I suppose several of the stones have important roles later on, and not just negative ones. For example, if Quill never gets the stone he's after, Gamora will never go after him and the Guardians of the Galaxy will never form. There might never be a Snap, but Quill's father would probably also not be stopped and murder all life, which is not exactly better. So that are at least two infinity stones that are still important for the future of the respective timelines.

 

[Umbran]

Edit: Just read Umbran's previous posts, and it could be that the infinity stones aren't as special for the "safety" of a universe as I thought

Well, we need to hope not. Because in Earth-199999, they are now *gone*. Thanos destroyed them.

So, like, if you were looking or Adam Warlock in Guardians 3... he can't have the Soul Stone in his forehead. Unless they have something like, "Thanos thought he could destroy billions-of-year-old singularities, permanently?!? That's rich! Nope, they reconstitute themselves, and off we go again!"

Cap was sent to put back all the stones they borrowed. We can perhaps presume he succeeded - none of the timelines end up lacking stones they need in what we think of as the past. Going forward, however, if they are necessary for something, there's a problem.

 

[MarkB]

Well, we need to hope not. Because in Earth-199999, they are now *gone*. Thanos destroyed them.

So, like, if you were looking or Adam Warlock in Guardians 3... he can't have the Soul Stone in his forehead. Unless they have something like, "Thanos thought he could destroy billions-of-year-old singularities, permanently?!? That's rich! Nope, they reconstitute themselves, and off we go again!"

Cap was sent to put back all the stones they borrowed. We can perhaps presume he succeeded - none of the timelines end up lacking stones they need in what we think of as the past. Going forward, however, if they are necessary for something, there's a problem.

I seem to recall Thanos saying that he "atomised" them. So maybe, rather than being destroyed per se, their power is simply dispersed and distributed across the universe. Their special properties aren't lost from the universe, but they can't be brought together again to perform cosmic-scale renovations.

Notably, Captain Marvel's power is derived from the Space stone, so if it were gone from the universe there's some question whether her powers would still function.

 

[Umbran]

Thor....

Okay, having him be depressed and suffering PTSD and survivor's guilt works. Falling into depression and loss of confidence is fine, and having his arc be rediscovering himself is okay. If circular. It doesn't really lead to an "end" for him.

Correct. But, the only true ends in the movie are Black Widow, Tony Stark, and Cap. Everyone else has ways forwards as heroes.

It was several hours of body shaming and laughing AT Thor.

With respect, he gets minutes of screen time, not hours.

And then he runs away. Abandons his people and responsibility to wander with the Guardians, hiding from his duty as much as if he were still getting drunk and playing video games.

Here, I disagree strongly. For most of his movies, Thor has been saying that the doesn't want to be king. Odin remarks upon it, that he has one son that wants the throne to much, and another that doesn't want it at all. He reluctantly takes it on at the end of Ragnarok, and then... immediately fails to protect his people (against an overwhelming force, but still) before they can even reach a planet!

How long does he have to go on before he is allowed to realize that "duty" or not (duty by right of birth, really?) he isn't really suited to the job of ruling? That he is doing his people a *service* by being the action hero he's really built to be, instead of an administrator?