Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase Three and BEYOOOOONND

[Lord Liaden]

 

Implication of this scene is that when Captain America returned the stones, the Time Stone came back into the possession of the Sorcerer Supreme, so Strange should have it, just as the Soul Stone should be back on Vormir watched over by the Red Skull. Someone can (and I'm sure will) argue that that doesn't make sense, but MCU time travel, like most time travel stories, is usually one big plot convenience.

[archer]

2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Be a really old artifact worth a lot of money in auction.  Its not magical without the stone.  Which, while I kinda understand why they did it, was an annoying way to go with the eye.  Its one of his defining things as a character, destroying the Eye was as bad as taking away Captain America's shield or destroying Mjolnir -- oh wait.

 

If a GM ran their game like MCU runs their movies, players would have revolted and left long ago.

 

It was a really annoying way to depict the eye. (Almost as bad as having an Infinity Stone animating the Vision.)

 

We don't know that the Eye isn't magical without the Time Stone. It is apparently an ancient non-technological artifact and it's been heavily implied that it was created by a mystic in order to hold an Infinity Stone.

 

We know that something like the Cube would just melt through ordinary material like steel (as seen at the end of the first Captain America movie) rather than being held by it.

 

The Eye could easily have multiple enchantments upon it which have nothing to do with time manipulation. (For example, I could see it being already being designed to be unbreakable and undetectable without stretching my imagination. The storage space inside could perhaps be larger than it appears so if nothing else, it might have an oxygen supply.)

 

Maybe it could be newly enchanted to do something else powerful since it no longer has to use its magic to contain the power of the Time Stone.

 

Or perhaps it could have picked up some of the properties of the Infinity Stone because it was the repository for one apparently for a very long time.

[Old Man]

IIRC the comics eye had many powers that had nothing to do with time or stones, and often had to do with seeing or detecting. 

[Bazza]

The All-Seeing Eye of Agamotto. 

[archer]

4 minutes ago, Old Man said:

IIRC the comics eye had many powers that had nothing to do with time or stones, and often had to do with seeing or detecting. 

 

I'd really like them to work something like that into the storyline. Make it more of "well, that was a really convenient place to hide the Stone because it was inside of one of the Sorcerer Supreme's most powerful tools that he'd never leave behind anyway".  

 

No one would question why he had the Eye (secretly the stone) with him all the time: it's too useful to leave behind. 

 

And few people would think of looking inside a mystical tool for an Infinity Stone. 

[Lord Liaden]

13 minutes ago, Old Man said:

IIRC the comics eye had many powers that had nothing to do with time or stones, and often had to do with seeing or detecting. 

 

If the MCU had followed the comics precedent more closely, I would say the Soul Stone would be a closer match for what the Eye was shown to do than the Time Stone. Its light hurts and weakens creatures and forces of evil and/or darkness, banishes illusions, reveals hidden things. When Strange causes the Eye to levitate out of the amulet and affix itself to his forehead he can see someone's deepest thoughts. I'm sure I'm overlooking other things it's been shown to do.

 

I'm not sure why they chose to make MCU Strange's amulet the Time Stone, but IMO they worked it into his movie pretty cleverly.

[Grailknight]

Wouldn't that be more what the Mind Stone does in many cases? I'm sure there's quite a bit of overlap though.

[Lord Liaden]

7 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

Wouldn't that be more what the Mind Stone does in many cases? I'm sure there's quite a bit of overlap though.

 

You could consider the ethical/moral dimension of the Eye's power to be an expression of "soul" rather than "mind." Or just join the very long list of philosophers who have debated the difference.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

It was a really annoying way to depict the eye. (Almost as bad as having an Infinity Stone animating the Vision.)

 

I agree, but each of the individual post-Iron Man movies were actually about the infinity stones and the big Thanos war.  The other characters and the story were dressing around that set up.

[slikmar]

53 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Implication of this scene is that when Captain America returned the stones, the Time Stone came back into the possession of the Sorcerer Supreme, so Strange should have it, just as the Soul Stone should be back on Vormir watched over by the Red Skull.

Actually, the implication of Cap returning the stones was that they were then available for Thanos to find/steal and ultimately destroy, hence why they had to go back to the past to retrieve them, use them and replace them, to keep the timeline basically intact. So, following that, the stones are still destroyed, provided they can be, and I can see an argument that their energy was merely scattered and would regenerate themselves until next time.

I did not see Wandavision, but did Vision have the mind stone (and I don't mean did Wanda create a version of it)?

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

So, following that, the stones are still destroyed, provided they can be, and I can see an argument that their energy was merely scattered and would regenerate themselves until next time.

 

Yeah although there is that alternate time line thing going on as well, because why not mess up everything with alternate worlds?

[Lord Liaden]

Hey, I'm just pointing out what the scene said. Like I said, I expected the point to be argued. Of course you can argue that the time line of the MCU that they're all living in now has changed, because the Thanos who came forward from the past and was killed in Endgame never got all the stones in the first place.

 

Yeah, I think I'm going to lie down 'til the headache thinking about this gave me goes away. 😣

 

EDIT: The plot of the Loki miniseries appears to be based on repairing fractured time, so maybe it will all make sense after that.

[Greywind]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

Implication of this scene is that when Captain America returned the stones, the Time Stone came back into the possession of the Sorcerer Supreme, so Strange should have it, just as the Soul Stone should be back on Vormir watched over by the Red Skull. Someone can (and I'm sure will) argue that that doesn't make sense, but MCU time travel, like most time travel stories, is usually one big plot convenience.

 

The stones were returned to when they were taken, so, yes, Cap returned the Time Stone to the Ancient One. And then, 5 years later, Strange gave it to Thanos, who later destroyed it.

[Lord Liaden]

  

2 hours ago, Greywind said:

 

The stones were returned to when they were taken, so, yes, Cap returned the Time Stone to the Ancient One. And then, 5 years later, Strange gave it to Thanos, who later destroyed it.

 

And I agree that's logical. Except that it doesn't match what the Ancient One said. And Thanos from the past died during Endgame before he destroyed the stones.

 

MCU time post-Endgame is a mess. We'll see what they do with it in upcoming movies and TV.

 

[Greywind]

Both Thanos' died. It balanced his scales. Or would have if the dust would stay on its side.

[csyphrett]

marvel's Time Travel has always worked like the movie shows. Whenever you travel into the past, you are traveling to a past. Whatever changes you do, changes the future for them, not you. Every time you go back to kill Hitler, you kill a Hitler, but Hitler stills starts WW2 in your timeline. It's the whole basis of What If? All those stories from the Watcher are different timelines where the event we saw in the comic was changed and the future changed too. 

 

The implication that you guys should take away is that 2014 Thanos left another timeline to attack our timeline and failed and did not go back. That means there are a branch of timelines where Ronan doesn't have his backing, that the snap never happens unless someone else does it, and Gamora isn't on the Guardians team if there is a team since she was the brains of the outfit.

CES     

[Greywind]

Going to have to disagree with that. Cap lived his life with Peggy and was at the park shortly after his time hop. Rewatch The Winter Soldier and listen to her when she's in bed. "Steve, you came back." Which was probably part of his impetus to go back.

[dmjalund]

3 minutes ago, Greywind said:

Going to have to disagree with that. Cap lived his life with Peggy and was at the park shortly after his time hop. Rewatch The Winter Soldier and listen to her when she's in bed. "Steve, you came back." Which was probably part of his impetus to go back.

I believe the time stone can break these laws of time travel, and it is my belief that the time stone was the last one Steve returned, and then he asked the Ancient One a favour

[Normthebarman]

31 minutes ago, dmjalund said:

I believe the time stone can break these laws of time travel, and it is my belief that the time stone was the last one Steve returned, and then he asked the Ancient One a favour

I suppose if the Time stone gives you complete control over time, as it did in the comics if I remember correctly, it would also make sense that it would allow you to re-write the rules and structures of it as you wish. 

 

I'm not sure the MCU Time stone is as powerful as the comic one however. 

[csyphrett]

6 hours ago, Greywind said:

Going to have to disagree with that. Cap lived his life with Peggy and was at the park shortly after his time hop. Rewatch The Winter Soldier and listen to her when she's in bed. "Steve, you came back." Which was probably part of his impetus to go back.

I'll have to disagree with that. She's saying he came back because everyone thought he was dead, not because he suddenly got younger. Steve went back in time, lived in another timeline until Peggy died and then returned with that Universe's version of his shield. Otherwise where did the shield come from?

CES 

[zslane]

Trying to make sense of time travel plots is a waste of time. They never hold up to scrutiny, and most of them don't even hold up to casual consideration, which is why I hate them.

[Christopher R Taylor]

What's even worse is when someone tries to make it all sciency and explain everything as if it can make sense.

[Greywind]

4 hours ago, csyphrett said:

I'll have to disagree with that. She's saying he came back because everyone thought he was dead, not because he suddenly got younger. Steve went back in time, lived in another timeline until Peggy died and then returned with that Universe's version of his shield. Otherwise where did the shield come from?

CES 

 

1: There weren't supposed to be any other timelines

2: Wakanda

[csyphrett]

I just told you how time travel works in the MCU. You don't go to your past. You go to another timeline that resembles the past. That is why Cyclops has all these kids running around. There's two different versions of Cable. It clearly states in the movie that is how time travel works.

 

Most time travel stories work that if you change the past, you change the future. Back to the future, Terminator, TImecop.

 

Marvel time travel creates alternate branches from the event changed so Steve going back in the past to be with Peggy means he went to the past and changed somebody else's history, not his. Whether he went to a timeline where his past self died, or he unfroze his past self earlier, or left him in the ice to be unfrozen. Anything he did changed that timeline, not his.

 

This is all spelled out in the movie, and the comic books this method is based on.  

CES     

[slikmar]

So, the Trousers of Time theory.