Avengers Endgame- SPOILERS

[Werthead]

2 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

Man Loki's face when he noticed the case and picked up the Tesseract was absurdly satisfying, probably my favorite single non-dramatic moment. Professor Hulk watching Hulk Smash and saying "gratuitous" or whatever was superb. Korg being cyber bullied on Fortnite cracked me up far more than it should have, and I dislike that game and its popularity. Valkyrie was a fucking badass throughout and I cheerfully admit that Thompson is at the top of my list of impossibly attractive and charming on-screen women. The "That's America's ass" line was pretty fantastic, and then him looking down on his own butt. Oh man. I thought the Ladies Assemble moment was great, albeit futile in the battle.  

Disappointed by no "Thortnite" gag.

[Suzanna Stormborn]

The Ladies Assemble thing was beyond epic,  I was crying.  And I liked how they held off Captain Marvel til the end. It made her entrance that much better.  Also Scarlet Witch was about to kill Thanos on her own until he opened fire on everyone. She is really really powerful.

[polishgenius]

I feel like for pure offensive power Scarlet Witch is close to Marvel's level, she's just not the same physical tank and also gets flustered a bit more easily at this point. But she's a badass.

[Heartofice]

Yeah I think potentially Scarlet Witch could be ridiculously powerful, its a shame they haven't done much with her character, though I think she is getting her own show with Vision (how will that work?)

I'm also excited for the new Captain America! I'm not sure how it will work given there is no super serum involved and hes basically a regular dude, but him and the Winter Soldier having their own show could be pretty darn cool too.

...

The "Ladies Assemble" scene being described as 'a bit on the nose' is an understatement, it was really very silly and made zero sense. In many ways I find it kind of patronising that there was a moment like that, there should have been plenty of space and time to highlight these female characters rather than some odd Beyonce moment where they have to get their own scene and shove them altogether. To make it so totally forced was actually quite insulting to women I felt, like a pat on the head.

 But I guess how some people who think that sort of thing is empowering would think it was cool. 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

no matter how this is explained I dont understand how GOTG 1 and 2 could have happened normal. Nebula is dead in 2014 first of all so how could GOTG 1 or 2 happen?

Okay, let's start slow here.

In the main timeline - the one that we save - Guardians of the Galaxy happened, because (here's the really important thing here) you cannot change your past. Anything that breaks the timeline doesn't change your past (no Back to the Future or Terminator deals) - if it changes enough you create a separate, branching timeline. 

Now, here's where it gets weird. 

In 2012, the timeline may have been really, really changed. Loki escapes with the tesseract. That doesn't seem to be a problem at first, until you look at what happened with Dark World. The Dark Elves coming back get beat with Loki's help, who happens to be in prison at the time of Dark World. If he's not there, how does he help? I can fanwank it and say that Loki just comes back of his own volition to save the day, but we don't know, and that's been very altered. This is timeline alt-Loki from now on. 

The 2013 timeline is unchanged, fortunately. 

In the 2014 timeline, things are even more changed. Thanos is simply gone from that timeline, along with Gamora, Nebula, the black order, and most of Thanos' army. And this all happens before the events of GotG even start. So Quill, once he wakes up, is going to see that the stone is gone. Or maybe it gets put back in time? But Thanos isn't getting put back. Gamora isn't. The events of GotG can possibly run, save that Gamora will not be there at all. Note that this is not the same timeline as Alt-Loki, because again you cannot alter your past.  This is Alt-Thanos.

And then there's Old Cap, but I'm going to assume that this was part of the main canon all along, since that makes things way easier and doesn't change anything.

So at the end of Endgame, we have three different timelines:

Alt-Loki: free with the tesseract, Thanos exists in his universe,  all the stones are in this universe, and quite possibly Dark Elves destroyed everyone. Oops. But that universe at least has all its stones.

Alt-Thanos: Unclear if GotG saved the day or if Ronan blew up Xandar, but the events of Infinity War simply can't happen in this universe at all. This universe also has all its stones. 

Main: Gamora from the Alt-Thanos universe is somewhere here. All of the stones in our universe are gone. 

[Werthead]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

Okay, let's start slow here.

This is all true up until the point Cap replaces the Infinity Stones in each respective timeline, which caused the timelines' problems to abruptly disappear as per the Ancient One's statement and collapses the timelines down again.

I'm not keen on the amount of handwavium involved here, but it does solve a lot of the problems and explains how Cap grows to old age in a "changed" timeline etc. It does mean that alternate Gamora remains alive (because she's now in our present so what happens to her original timeline is moot) but it does put the alternative Loki in a funny spot. Following the story logically, Cap replacing the Time Stone and Mind Stone in 2012 New York means that the Stones should just fix everything, so Loki's vanishing act should be undone and he'll be a prisoner again as he always was. However, I get the impression that alt-Loki's vanishing act was to set things up to allow the MCU team to use Loki again in the future after the native timeline version's death in IW, so that's a tricky one. At the moment I don't think we have enough data to make a full assessment of what happened to him.

[Suzanna Stormborn]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Okay, let's start slow here.

In the main timeline - the one that we save - Guardians of the Galaxy happened, because (here's the really important thing here) you cannot change your past. Anything that breaks the timeline doesn't change your past (no Back to the Future or Terminator deals) - if it changes enough you create a separate, branching timeline. 

Now, here's where it gets weird. 

In 2012, the timeline may have been really, really changed. Loki escapes with the tesseract. That doesn't seem to be a problem at first, until you look at what happened with Dark World. The Dark Elves coming back get beat with Loki's help, who happens to be in prison at the time of Dark World. If he's not there, how does he help? I can fanwank it and say that Loki just comes back of his own volition to save the day, but we don't know, and that's been very altered. This is timeline alt-Loki from now on. 

The 2013 timeline is unchanged, fortunately. 

In the 2014 timeline, things are even more changed. Thanos is simply gone from that timeline, along with Gamora, Nebula, the black order, and most of Thanos' army. And this all happens before the events of GotG even start. So Quill, once he wakes up, is going to see that the stone is gone. Or maybe it gets put back in time? But Thanos isn't getting put back. Gamora isn't. The events of GotG can possibly run, save that Gamora will not be there at all. Note that this is not the same timeline as Alt-Loki, because again you cannot alter your past.  This is Alt-Thanos.

And then there's Old Cap, but I'm going to assume that this was part of the main canon all along, since that makes things way easier and doesn't change anything.

So at the end of Endgame, we have three different timelines:

Alt-Loki: free with the tesseract, Thanos exists in his universe,  all the stones are in this universe, and quite possibly Dark Elves destroyed everyone. Oops. But that universe at least has all its stones.

Alt-Thanos: Unclear if GotG saved the day or if Ronan blew up Xandar, but the events of Infinity War simply can't happen in this universe at all. This universe also has all its stones. 

Main: Gamora from the Alt-Thanos universe is somewhere here. All of the stones in our universe are gone. 

Yes so I am following this.

BUT

in the Main reality--the end of Endgame. How can all the characters be there given the changes to their past timeline? because yes you cannot change your past. But that's not what happened to Gamora. Her past didn't get changed it got skipped over. her 2014 self got pulled into 2023 which means that her 2014 present suddenly changed to 2023, so in her timeline she missed GOTG 1 and 2. and if you watch those movies she saves the lives of all the other Guardians at some point or other in both movies. so if she is not there to preform those acts the other guardians would not live through GOtg 1 and 2. If she was not there Quill would NEVER have been captured by Groot and Rocket on Xandar in the first place meaning that the Guardians never assemble and never form a team. also meaning that Quill never fell in love with her. so the second she came to 2013 from 2014 all of their memories should immediately change. much like Desmond on LOST. when something changed in his past (when the island was spinning and jumping around in time) and something new happened to him in the past--then his future (present) self would all of a sudden get a new memory.

 

Yet Quill did not experience anything like that, he was still in love with her, even though in the reality of the movie--he had never met her.

[Suzanna Stormborn]

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

This is all true up until the point Cap replaces the Infinity Stones in each respective timeline, which caused the timelines' problems to abruptly disappear as per the Ancient One's statement and collapses the timelines down again.

I'm not keen on the amount of handwavium involved here, but it does solve a lot of the problems and explains how Cap grows to old age in a "changed" timeline etc. It does mean that alternate Gamora remains alive (because she's now in our present so what happens to her original timeline is moot) but it does put the alternative Loki in a funny spot. Following the story logically, Cap replacing the Time Stone and Mind Stone in 2012 New York means that the Stones should just fix everything, so Loki's vanishing act should be undone and he'll be a prisoner again as he always was. However, I get the impression that alt-Loki's vanishing act was to set things up to allow the MCU team to use Loki again in the future after the native timeline version's death in IW, so that's a tricky one. At the moment I don't think we have enough data to make a full assessment of what happened to him.

This is what I cant wrap my head around.  Even if Cap replaced the Power stone in time for Quill to steal it in the opening scene of GOTG 1, Gamora would not be replaced in that movie, she left 2014 for good. and her not being there completely destroys GOTG 1 and 2

[polishgenius]

5 minutes ago, Werthead said:

This is all true up until the point Cap replaces the Infinity Stones in each respective timeline, which caused the timelines' problems to abruptly disappear as per the Ancient One's statement and collapses the timelines down again. 

I think you're leaning a bit too much on 'the stones fix everything' to be honest. The Ancient One was worried about specific problems caused by the stone not being there, but she never said that returning the stones negates any other changes.


 

 

3 minutes ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

in the Main reality--the end of Endgame. How can all the characters be there given the changes to their past timeline? because yes you cannot change your past. But that's not what happened to Gamora. Her past didn't get changed it got skipped over. her 2014 self got pulled into 2023 which means that her 2014 present suddenly changed to 2023, so in her timeline she missed GOTG 1 and 2.

It probably makes more sense to think of them being in an alternate timeline as soon as they arrive. The Gamora that was pulled wasn't 'our' Gamora.

[Corvinus85]

3 minutes ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

Yes so I am following this.

BUT

in the Main reality--the end of Endgame. How can all the characters be there given the changes to their past timeline? because yes you cannot change your past. But that's not what happened to Gamora. Her past didn't get changed it got skipped over. her 2014 self got pulled into 2023 which means that her 2014 present suddenly changed to 2023, so in her timeline she missed GOTG 1 and 2. and if you watch those movies she saves the lives of all the other Guardians at some point or other in both movies. so if she is not there to preform those acts the other guardians would not live through GOtg 1 and 2. If she was not there Quill would NEVER have been captured by Groot and Rocket on Xandar in the first place meaning that the Guardians never assemble and never form a team. also meaning that Quill never fell in love with her. so the second she came to 2013 from 2014 all of their memories should immediately change. much like Desmond on LOST. when something changed in his past (when the island was spinning and jumping around in time) and something new happened to him in the past--then his future (present) self would all of a sudden get a new memory.

 

Yet Quill did not experience anything like that, he was still in love with her, even though in the reality of the movie--he had never met her.

Because as explained before, the Quantum machine serves as an anchor to a specific timeline, the main one we see. This timeline doesn't go away, because this and that got changed sometime in the past, it's still ongoing, alongside, now alternate timelines. So the Avengers return to their main timeline thanks to the Quantum machine, but with stuff taken from alternate timelines, which are then returned to their proper place.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Werthead said:

This is all true up until the point Cap replaces the Infinity Stones in each respective timeline, which caused the timelines' problems to abruptly disappear as per the Ancient One's statement and collapses the timelines down again. 

I think that simply can't be true. And more accurately, I think that she was concerned that the stones being gone from their reality would cause it to irrevocably change - but that was simply in argument to taking the stones from theirs. All the other stuff appears to be accurate. 

1 minute ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

Yes so I am following this.

BUT

in the Main reality--the end of Endgame. How can all the characters be there given the changes to their past timeline?

Because you cannot change your past.

1 minute ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

because yes you cannot change your past. But that's not what happened to Gamora. Her past didn't get changed it got skipped over. her 2014 self got pulled into 2023 which means that her 2014 present suddenly changed to 2023, so in her timeline she missed GOTG 1 and 2. and if you watch those movies she saves the lives of all the other Guardians at some point or other in both movies. so if she is not there to preform those acts the other guardians would not live through GOtg 1 and 2. If she was not there Quill would NEVER have been captured by Groot and Rocket on Xandar in the first place meaning that the Guardians never assemble and never form a team. also meaning that Quill never fell in love with her.

Yep, this is all correct. In the 2014 Alt-Thanos timeline, all of this is true. Remember, you cannot change the past. 

1 minute ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

so the second she came to 2013 from 2014 all of their memories should immediately change. much like Desmond on LOST. when something changed in his past (when the island was spinning and jumping around in time) and something new happened to him in the past--then his future (present) self would all of a sudden get a new memory. 

Yeah, that's just not how it works. Memories don't change retroactively. For Quill, his version of GotG is what actually happened, and Gamora isn't his Gamora - its Alt-Thanos' Gamora.

1 minute ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

Yet Quill did not experience anything like that, he was still in love with her, even though in the reality of the movie--he had never met her.

He hadn't met Alt-Thanos Gamora. His Gamora is dead.

[Suzanna Stormborn]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I think that simply can't be true. And more accurately, I think that she was concerned that the stones being gone from their reality would cause it to irrevocably change - but that was simply in argument to taking the stones from theirs. All the other stuff appears to be accurate. 

Because you cannot change your past.

Yep, this is all correct. In the 2014 Alt-Thanos timeline, all of this is true. Remember, you cannot change the past. 

Yeah, that's just not how it works. Memories don't change retroactively. For Quill, his version of GotG is what actually happened, and Gamora isn't his Gamora - its Alt-Thanos' Gamora.

He hadn't met Alt-Thanos Gamora. His Gamora is dead.

yes but how can 1 person have 2 souls existing in the same plane? like in Southland Tales, the minute 2 bodies sharing the same soul exist near each other it can throw off the space-time continuum and unmake the universe. So I dont get how Nebula can shoot herself (even though that is classic answer in all time travel movies when there are 2 of someone, one of them dies to solve plot problems)

And then also, if 2014 Gamora is from an alternate timeline who gets pulled into 2023, then that alt-timeline gets erased by Cap putting the stone back then wouldnt she just disappear in 2023? IF she is Alt-Gamora how can she continue to exist when that Alt-world gets erased?

[Werthead]

5 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I think you're leaning a bit too much on 'the stones fix everything' to be honest. The Ancient One was worried about specific problems caused by the stone not being there, but she never said that returning the stones negates any other changes.

At the start of mystical PowerPoint presentation, she shows the branch going off created by changing the timeline. This branch turns dark and dies; I think she's thinking of what happens if Dormammu shows up and Strange doesn't have the Time Stone to stop him specifically, but you can read that as also being any timeline where huge changes are made and the Infinity Stones are removed.

Banner then shows what happens if you return the Infinity Stones to that point in time. The Ancient One states that the Infinity Stones keep reality, time etc all in balance (which is why them being blown up in the MCU timeline may cause problems going forwards). The divergent timeline re-merges with the primary one in its entirety. I mean, we literally see this happening in the same scene.

Remember that when Banner (earlier in the movie), Scott and Rhodey are talking about time travel, they've got movies on the brain. The Ancient One's demonstration comes from her experience of studying and using the Time Stone over 700 years of practical experience. I'm going with her on this one.

[DaveSumm]

Basically, everything except Cap showing up makes logical sense. The only question mark is how ethically shady it would be for the Avengers to leave a string of damaged timelines in their wake: if you’re happy with a universe where Loki is out there with the tesseract, and one where Thanos disappears, it works OK. In fact, they may end up being better depending on how bad you think not being alive for five years is.

But the Cap bit doesn’t make sense. Man, would’ve killed them to have an Old Cap come back on the platform? Unless he did a few hours earlier when no one was looking ... it’s unclear exactly what part Banner plays pressing the buttons if Cap has the same button thing to pull himself back. In lieu of this being the case, I defer to Wert’s merging theory. It’s the tidiest option.

[DaveSumm]

2 minutes ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

And then also, if 2014 Gamora is from an alternate timeline who gets pulled into 2023, then that alt-timeline gets erased by Cap putting the stone back then wouldnt she just disappear in 2023? IF she is Alt-Gamora how can she continue to exist when that Alt-world gets erased?

Again, these are all rules from other movies. In Endgame, if you go back and kill your grandfather, nothing happens to your future. If you pull a Gamora out of her universe then collapse it, nothing happens.

[Werthead]

Quote

 

yes but how can 1 person have 2 souls existing in the same plane? like in Southland Tales, the minute 2 bodies sharing the same soul exist near each other it can throw off the space-time continuum and unmake the universe. So I dont get how Nebula can shoot herself (even though that is classic answer in all time travel movies when there are 2 of someone, one of them dies to solve plot problems)

 

Some SF franchises do include this rule, that you can't touch yourself or interact with yourself or all hell breaks loose. The MCU isn't following this rule. Its rule instead is simply that you can't change your own unique past. You can go into alternate timelines and murder yourself or whatever, but that just impacts on that universe and timeline, not your own. You'd just return to your own timeline and be fine, and in some other timeline your alternate self will have been killed but otherwise everything would keep on trucking.

Quote

 

And then also, if 2014 Gamora is from an alternate timeline who gets pulled into 2023, then that alt-timeline gets erased by Cap putting the stone back then wouldnt she just disappear in 2023? IF she is Alt-Gamora how can she continue to exist when that Alt-world gets erased?

 

To be fair, we don't know that didn't happen; we last see Alt-Gamora some time before Stark's snap, so Alt-Gamora may have been dusted, destroyed or returned to 2014 with her memory erased. I don't think she did, though, because this is a mechanism that allows Gamora (a popular character played by a popular actress) to be in future movies without undoing her death in IW. The explanation is that Gamora's originating timeline has been reset, but because she originated from it and is now in 2023, that has no impact on her.

[Suzanna Stormborn]

4 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Some SF franchises do include this rule, that you can't touch yourself or interact with yourself or all hell breaks loose. The MCU isn't following this rule. Its rule instead is simply that you can't change your own unique past. You can go into alternate timelines and murder yourself or whatever, but that just impacts on that universe and timeline, not your own. You'd just return to your own timeline and be fine, and in some other timeline your alternate self will have been killed but otherwise everything would keep on trucking.

To be fair, we don't know that didn't happen; we last see Alt-Gamora some time before Stark's snap, so Alt-Gamora may have been dusted, destroyed or returned to 2014 with her memory erased. I don't think she did, though, because this is a mechanism that allows Gamora (a popular character played by a popular actress) to be in future movies without undoing her death in IW. The explanation is that Gamora's originating timeline has been reset, but because she originated from it and is now in 2023, that has no impact on her.

So then duh, Black Widow could be saved in this exact same way?

Also Vision, Heimdall, Thor's mother...I mean they could just go pull everyone back from alt timelines.

[Corvinus85]

I'm curious to know what happened on Vormir, when Cap returned the soul stone. 

[DaveSumm]

Just now, Suzanna Stormborn said:

So then duh, Black Widow could be saved in this exact same way?

I would posit no, because she traded her life for the soul stone. But to be fair I can’t really describe how that would actually play out, maybe the soul stone does play by your rules and you really would undo the repair job of unsnapping everyone.

[DaveSumm]

3 minutes ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

So then duh, Black Widow could be saved in this exact same way?

I saw someone on Reddit point out that the Red Skull probably thought for a few seconds that his tenure was finally over now that the soul stone was gone, he can pack his thing and go ho.... Captain America?! What are you doing here? 

Oh for fucks sake....