He tried to convince Sitwell, Rumlow and the other goons that the Director (Robert Redford) wanted him to take the scepter. They started looking at him suspiciously, and for a second it looked like we were about to have a replay of the *Winter Soldier *elevator fight… and then Steve just leaned forward and whispered “Hail Hydra” into Stillwell’s ear. He nodded and handed him the scepter. It was hilarious.
(I think it was also a mocking reference to a recent highly controversial comic series, in which it turned out that Cap had been working for Hydra all along).
There’s obviously a certain amount of movie magic going on here. But given the setup of the Stones and the Snap there really has to be. It’s not as if Thanos made quadrillions of individual decisions about who lived and died, whether planes landed safely, how many bacteria were affected, etc. He just had an overall intent and the magic carried it out, and he didn’t care about the repercussions. I think it’s reasonable to assume the magic works the same way for Banner, only his intent is nobler, and he does care that people are preserved. So I’m fine believing that the genie of the stones carried out his wish in a way that didn’t end up with people phasing into solid stone or appearing in front of moving cars or what have you.
For dramatic purposes there has to be some lingering effect from the events of all of these movies. Having half the world’s population missing five years while the other half has five years of grief and rebuilding on their record seems like a nice world-spanning consequence that can be brought in as needed, but also more or less ignored if a particular upcoming movie doesn’t need that ingredient. I vastly prefer it to some global reset where we rewind back to the moment of Thanos’ snap and for some reason only the core Avengers remember that anything happened at all. That would feel much more like a cop-out.
As far as the time travel aspects, I think they actually did a great job of setting up a fun movie-believable set of time travel rules and then coloring inside the lines, for the most part. You can’t go back in time and change things in order to change your present reality. All they could do is sneak back, borrow the stones for an instant, and then sneak back and replace them so that those other realities don’t end up changed for the worse. The time travel seemed to require a return to the original destination, unless you choose to make it a one-way journey, like Cap did at the end. I thought that was a great set of rules to set up some neat nostalgia scenes and inserts into previous movies without making everything too hard or too easy dramatically.
I’m hazy on two parts, though. I’m not sure that they don’t work within these rules, but would need to think about it.
When Cap and Iron Man decide to improvise after losing the cube, they “sideways” jump back to Howard Stark’s lab. I’m not sure how they did that on the fly without returning to the big time jump machine. Maybe we just write this off to Tony Stark doing super-science when he needs to.
When Evil Nebula uses the time platform to pull Thanos and his ship to the present from the past it seems like it’s bending the rules in order to set up the final confrontation. There might be a good explanation there but it didn’t occur to me on first watching.
I wonder if the question of the identity of Peggy’s husband is now solved. The MCU has avoided answering that question. So if it was Thawed!Cap, then that makes sense.
ETA : Sad that the star of Avengers and our distinguished poster, Elendil’s Heir did not return. Pretty much everyone else did!
I thought all of the references to the Peggy Carter series in Endgame were great, but was wondering why there wasn’t at least a nod in the direction of Agents of SHIELD in the movie, unless I missed it. It could be that they’re going to leverage the events of the movie to finally just say “screw it, they’re off in their own continuity” and let them play for the rest of the show’s run. It would free them from having to constantly come up with reasons why more capable heroes aren’t getting called in to deal with world-shattering problems.
Called it! I so desperately wanted Cap to go back and marry Peggy I bet my assistant a day off! I win!
Some great moments, here. Cap and Mjolnir, all the women calling back to Infinity War “She’s not alone” and the black heroes making their entrance. Loads to cheer for, there.
Also, Loki’s alive. He’s got the stone back in 2012 and another opportunity to cause trouble - or have fun, depending on one’s point of view - so watch out world!
I thought that was exceptionally well done. Truly a satisfying conclusion. Two things I liked most where that they avoided introducing some new and improved even bigger Big Bad, and that they didn’t just hit the reset button. Oh, and that Dr Strange’s seeing the future and surrendering the time stone to Thanos actually paid off. (And by the way, did he tell Stark they were going to win? Because surely, that it doesn’t happen if he does only matters if they’re in fact going to win…)
But I thought Captain Marvel was curiously underused. I had been thinking that she would be absolutely critical for defeating Thanos, but all she did was tank the ship in the end. Which, don’t get me wrong, nice going, but it seems that could’ve been accomplished in other ways.
Oh, and I can finally say I have the physique of a norse God!
I’d say this is definitely a multi-viewer. The final battle alone qualifies it. I don’t think I’ll be able to wait until it comes to Netflix in two years, so I may have to return to the theater. Maybe I’ll catch it in 3D this time.
