Avengers Endgame- SPOILERS

[Mexal]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I don’t know why though. I found it so politically motivated as to completely take me out of the movie. As I said i also found it pretty patronising, you wouldn’t do the same thing with any other group, why with all these great female characters do they need a hand up. It was pretty cringey 

My wife and the theater cheered. Politically motivated or not, I thought it was a cool moment.

[polishgenius]

The problem with the women assemble scene wasn't that it was politically motivated- that is a good thing so long as we need this kind of thing and anyone annoyed by the very premise can frankly piss right off.

But it was clumsy. IW did it much better with Widow, SW and Okoye, for example. I get the argument for pointing itself out also being a somewhat necessary and positive thing too, but... I'm sure it could have been done more elegantly.

But simultaneously it really was a very small part of a very big battle so...

[Caligula_K3]

I enjoyed Endgame - I thought it was a fun and very impressive "ending" to this stage of the franchise. Like most Marvel movies, I didn't think it was amazing; it's probably not the sort of thing I'll ever watch again. I found the first two acts to be better than the third; the first was pretty heavy for a Marvel movie, and the second, with all the time traveling, was just pure fun. As with pretty much every Marvel movie, the third act just turned into a giant, bloated, uninteresting CGIfest; the Avengers Assemble moment was cool, but after that my eyes glazed over and my brain turned off until Iron Man's death.  It didn't help that after his interesting and almost tragic portrayal in Infinity War, Thanos became yet another generic villain in this one: I WILL DESTROY THE UNIVERSE BLAH BLAH BLAH. For that reason alone, I think I enjoyed this less than Infinity War. In terms of action, that one did have the generic CGIfest in Wakanda, but it also had the great teamup on Titan, with the Guardians +Strange/Iron Man/Spiderman making creative use of their powers together.

I see much of the debate in this thread is about the time travel; I'm just trying not to think about it too much, like most time travel stories.  

The highlight of the movie for me was Thor; Hemsworth is just so good in a comic role, and he also got genuine moments of emotion as he dealt with his feelings of failure, especially in that great scene with his mother. But I'm just biased towards Thor at this point, because Ragnarok and Guardians I are the best things this giant franchise has ever done, imo. I am so excited for Guardians 3 now. 

As for audiences applauding... maybe I'm a killjoy/old fart, but it was a little much for me. I get doing it at big moments, but like, every time any character did anything or said anything vaguely resembling a joke, the audience at my theater burst into giant rounds of applause or laughed like it was the funniest thing they ever heard. Chillllll.

[sologdin]

yet another generic villain

hasn't he always been of the normal mold of fundamentalist-who-knows-better-and-kills-everyone-to-make-a-giant-omelet?  that's ronan, hydra in their own way, whatever galen erso was doing with young sherlock, ultron, loki sometimes?  the alternative stock marvel villain is just an evil copy of the protagonist, which can overlap with the fundy type: bridges, roth, stan; all of the netflix people gets copies to kill in aid of their enlightened falsely conscious contemplation of undemocratic vigilantism. 

the only great villain they've filmed is killmonger, and he's great because his principle is not only subversely correct but is openly embraced by the protagonist by film's end--in an important sense the antagonist won in black panther. 

can victorious villainy be claimed here?  though the substantive genocidal principle is defeated, purple nazi's procedural principles are victorious:  stark eschews governmental oversight of vigilantes and rogers embraces universal biopolitical administration by ultra vires executive fiat, an abandonment of their positions in civil war.  fair to say that thanos becomes unnecessary in the setting when his primary enemies subrogate to his philosophy--fair to say that he is destiny?

[Heartofice]

41 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

The problem with the women assemble scene wasn't that it was politically motivated- that is a good thing so long as we need this kind of thing and anyone annoyed by the very premise can frankly piss right off.

But it was clumsy. IW did it much better with Widow, SW and Okoye, for example. I get the argument for pointing itself out also being a somewhat necessary and positive thing too, but... I'm sure it could have been done more elegantly.

But simultaneously it really was a very small part of a very big battle so...

It was clumsy certainly, others have described it as 'on the nose', I think because it seemed like such an obvious statement in a movie that didn't allude to many obvious political statements, and one that also seemed rather out of context with not only the movie itself but all the other movies in which those female characters have appeared. It has zero purpose other than to make some bland statement about girl power, which is what I found so uncomfortable. Why do it at all, if you want to show that you have great powerful female characters, then treat them the same as the male characters (something the MCU is actually pretty good at), why give them special treatment. 

I'd compare it to Black Panthers arrival, which had far more impact on the audience I was with. But imagine if they had decided to have a scene where all the black characters in the MCU had to get together to make a statement, it would be ridiculous and would make even less sense. 

Anyway, yes, it was a small part of a big film, but it was one part that stood out like a sore thumb. I'm not surprised that some types of people would think it was inspirational or something, thats up to them. I found it to be the opposite.
 

[DaveSumm]

Just got back from seeing it a second time. Some thoughts:

I think playing Thor for laughs went on too long. Once he goes to Asgard, there’s not really any outstanding jokes but he’s still not taken seriously. I think it might have been better to have him snap out of it before going on the mission, maybe add in a mini arc of - OK, he’s worthy of wielding Mjolnir, but he can’t summon the lightning just yet ... until he lights up heading down to face Thanos (“let’s kill him properly this time”), it would have made that moment a little bit cooler. 

Now for the important time travel stuff : I paid close attention to the conversation Bruce has with the Ancient One. She says “taking the stone might be good for your reality, not so good for mine” and he replies “respectfully, the science doesn’t really back that up”. I didn’t realise till then but Bruce’s theory is that basically, time is your playground and you can do what you want and steal what you want. They never discuss the ethics of it, and they never discuss returning them. In fact, at that point, they can’t: they don’t have any more Pym particles.

Then, The Ancient One pulls up her PowerPoint presentation and says “the stones are responsible for what you perceive as the flow of time. Remove one of them, and everything falls to darkness. This is a crucial line; she doesn’t say ‘fuck something up, she doesn’t say ‘remove this one cos we need it’, just that removing  one of them leads to darkness. To which Bruce replies ‘but if we return it the moment it was taken, then chronologically, the stone never left’ and demonstrates this, with the ‘dark’ timeline fixing itself. 

Then later on, when he’s handing Cap the Infinity Briefcase to return them all, he says “make sure you return them all exactly as we found them, otherwise we’re gonna open up a bunch of nasty alternate timelines”. Implying that that’s all that’s needed, and as things stand, they’re closed. So that seals the deal for me: Bruce knows how time travel works (do what you like) but needs a lesson in Infinity Stones (put em back), so that’s what they do. Cap returns them, so there’s one timeline, so he ends up on the bench. 

Also, I thought some of the cooler moments might be dulled a second time: Cap picking up Mjolnir and then spinning it and uppercutting Thanos was actually cooler. 

[polishgenius]

20 minutes ago, sologdin said:

hasn't he always been of the normal mold of fundamentalist-who-knows-better-and-kills-everyone-to-make-a-giant-omelet?

Sorta, but in the first one (1) he was the protagonist which was interesting in itself but (2) he had a certain weary good humour about him and also an empathy towards the heroes that was missing here. I actually thought that made sense and was good character (retro)development but in himself the younger Thanos was less interesting a character.


 

 

21 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It was clumsy certainly, others have described it as 'on the nose',

Others being me.

 

But...

22 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Why do it at all, if you want to show that you have great powerful female characters, then treat them the same as the male characters (something the MCU is actually pretty good at), why give them special treatment. 

I mean it is definitely fair to say that if it had been a bunch of men no-one would have batted an eyebrow or even noticed, that's kinda why this kind of thing is warranted. Like I say, it was purely the narrative clumsiness of the moment that bothered me, not the fact that it existed at all.

Like how Wonder Woman was full of 'girl power' moments but none of them were a problem.

[The Mother of The Others]

Uhhhhhh, if the book really is closed on the stones and they're gone, and that's why this phase is over, then.....

That would give cosmic beings like galactus and the living tribunal something to do.  Our reality's autopilot is gone so these entities can now be shown steering the ship as more of a hands on duty.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

The problem with the women assemble scene wasn't that it was politically motivated- that is a good thing so long as we need this kind of thing and anyone annoyed by the very premise can frankly piss right off.

But it was clumsy. IW did it much better with Widow, SW and Okoye, for example. I get the argument for pointing itself out also being a somewhat necessary and positive thing too, but... I'm sure it could have been done more elegantly.

But simultaneously it really was a very small part of a very big battle so...

I think it was slightly undermined by the fact they were helping a woman who had just destroyed Thanos' mothership by flying straight through it twice. I don't think she really needed any help from anyone getting through a few aliens. But like the time travel, sometimes you just have to role with the erratic power level fluctuations and it was well intended even if a bit clumsy and heavy handed. I still have to ask myself would it even register if it had been six male characters in that scene and realise that's where we need to get to with female characters in (at least) superhero films.

It wouldn't be a bad line up of Avengers though. They could keep spidey around as the token male it would mirror the "unique gender team member has to be a spider" theme of the original avengers line-up

[polishgenius]

12 minutes ago, red snow said:

I think it was slightly undermined by the fact they were helping a woman who had just destroyed Thanos' mothership by flying straight through it twice.

It was that, and the fact that ultimately she failed at what she was doing anyway and the men ended up 'fixing' it with, iirc, no women involved once Marvel got Power Stone'd, that bothered me about it.

 

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

Now for the important time travel stuff : I paid close attention to the conversation Bruce has with the Ancient One. She says “taking the stone might be good for your reality, not so good for mine” and he replies “respectfully, the science doesn’t really back that up”. I didn’t realise till then but Bruce’s theory is that basically, time is your playground and you can do what you want and steal what you want. They never discuss the ethics of it, and they never discuss returning them. In fact, at that point, they can’t: they don’t have any more Pym particles.

Then, The Ancient One pulls up her PowerPoint presentation and says “the stones are responsible for what you perceive as the flow of time. Remove one of them, and everything falls to darkness. This is a crucial line; she doesn’t say ‘fuck something up, she doesn’t say ‘remove this one cos we need it’, just that removing  one of them leads to darkness. To which Bruce replies ‘but if we return it the moment it was taken, then chronologically, the stone never left’ and demonstrates this, with the ‘dark’ timeline fixing itself. 

Then later on, when he’s handing Cap the Infinity Briefcase to return them all, he says “make sure you return them all exactly as we found them, otherwise we’re gonna open up a bunch of nasty alternate timelines”. Implying that that’s all that’s needed, and as things stand, they’re closed. So that seals the deal for me: Bruce knows how time travel works (do what you like) but needs a lesson in Infinity Stones (put em back), so that’s what they do. Cap returns them, so there’s one timeline, so he ends up on the bench. 

 

Counterpoint: if only returning the infinity stones was important and their presence 'fixes' the current timeline in place with no alts spinning off, then why did Cap bother returning Mjolnir?

[Bastard of Boston]

36 minutes ago, red snow said:

I think it was slightly undermined by the fact they were helping a woman who had just destroyed Thanos' mothership by flying straight through it twice. I don't think she really needed any help from anyone getting through a few aliens.

Was that really the point, though? It didn't matter whether she needed the help. She got the help. It was a symbolic gesture. It's holding the door open for someone who can just open the door themself. It's camaraderie and goodwill. To me, that was the point of the scene -- look at this network of incredible female characters.

So much has been made of the fact that "Carol could've done this herself." She couldn't have because she didn't. Thanos managed to get the upper hand, regardless of how powerful she was, and without Stark, he would've snapped again.

[Bastard of Boston]

28 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Counterpoint: if only returning the infinity stones was important and their presence 'fixes' the current timeline in place with no alts spinning off, then why did Cap bother returning Mjolnir?

That was never the premise. You're not focusing on the descriptor used by Ancient One. She never said alternates can't/shouldn't spin off. She said nasty alternate universes would spin off without the stones present. The Avengers weren't trying to stop splinters. They were trying to stop negative splinters.

Cap returned Mjolnir because our Thor essentially stole it from that Thor. It would've been rude, otherwise.

[polishgenius]

Just now, Bastard of Boston said:

That was never the premise. You're not focusing on the descriptor used by Ancient One. She never said alternates can't/shouldn't spin off. She said nasty alternate universes would spin off without the stones present. The Avengers weren't trying to stop splinters. They were trying to stop negative splinters.

Sure, that's been my argument all along. I'm responding to DaveSumm's statement that returning the stones means no alternatives.

[Bastard of Boston]

2 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Sure, that's been my argument all along. I'm responding to DaveSumm's statement that returning the stones means no alternatives.

I don't think that was his point, though(?) He included "nasty" before alternate, which to me, specifically implicates that. But I could be wrong.

[The Mother of The Others]

Compromise?    If the gang had pulled off the time heist without a hitch, returning the stones would have then made it a victimless crime with no temporal footprint, like a successful ninja op.  But they weren't ninjas, and they banged the pooch in some ways, so we may have some bleeding through into altered timeline (s), and returning mjolner helps staunch that bleeding and limit the damage.  Loki is a god level precision instrument capable of hiding as Odin for example, he could monitor history and mask his footprint on it, maybe not fuck things up in the clumsy way you or I would blunder the timeline.  But of course his chaos is going to surface somewhere somehow, maybe just not in a way that shoots Timeflow in the foot. So... we lucked out with him being the main loose thread?  He'll at least be artful and well informed about how he re-emerges.

I'd be open to Guardians 3 saying our own timeline is altered a bit as part of the bleeding.   Like with new alternate history appearing to explain how things happened for new reasons in Thanos' absence.

[Corvinus85]

$1.2 Billion global opening for Endgame. That is insane.

[polishgenius]

1 minute ago, Bastard of Boston said:

I don't think that was his point, though(?) He included "nasty" before alternate, which to me, specifically implicates that. But I could be wrong.

 

 

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

Cap returns them, so there’s one timeline, so he ends up on the bench. 

 

[Mosi Mynn]

55 minutes ago, red snow said:

I think it was slightly undermined by the fact they were helping a woman who had just destroyed Thanos' mothership by flying straight through it twice. I don't think she really needed any help from anyone getting through a few aliens. 

I like that the ladies gathered round anyway. They didn't want her to be alone,  they're a team and they back each other up.

Does Thor really need help from Hawkeye or Natasha? They  would still always be there with him in a fight. 

[Bastard of Boston]

3 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

 

 

Okay, that's a gotcha.

[DaveSumm]

40 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Counterpoint: if only returning the infinity stones was important and their presence 'fixes' the current timeline in place with no alts spinning off, then why did Cap bother returning Mjolnir?

We don’t know that he returned it, maybe it’s just his weapon of choice now.

7 minutes ago, Bastard of Boston said:

I don't think that was his point, though(?) He included "nasty" before alternate, which to me, specifically implicates that. But I could be wrong.

The way the Ancient One says it’ll be bad for her, and Banner responds with ‘respectfully the science doesn’t support that’, it really seems he doesn’t give a shit. He acts as if none of this matters. I read it more as ‘nasty alternate universes’ rather than ‘nasty alternate universes’ but that’s open to interpretation. Plus him saying we’ll open other timelines implies he thinks of them as closed, provided Cap returns the stones.