Avengers Endgame with spoilers

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

He said 70s, it was the time he was sent to in order to return the stone.  The house was old, but heck the one I live in was built in 1919.  Also, Bucky is the same age but the only thing that changed on him was the length of his hair.  Yeah he was on ice a lot, but that only slows aging, not suspends it, and he was active a lot, too.

 

Look at the cars on the street in that Cap/Peggy scene. Clearly '40s models. Music they were dancing to, same era. They even filmed the scene with a sepia filter. Steve took the stones back as far as the 1970s; but when he was done with that, he kept going.

 

Who's to say what being "on ice" is like for someone made into a super-soldier? Steve Rogers spent seven decades as a Capsicle, and he came out seeming not to have aged a day. We also don't know how often HYDRA actually used him, or how long his typical mission lasted.

[Bazza]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

Who's to say what being "on ice" is like for someone made into a super-soldier? Steve Rogers spent seven decades as a Capsicle, and he came out seeming not to have aged a day. We also don't know how often HYDRA actually used him, or how long his typical mission lasted.

 

Hydra used Steve while he was a Capsicle?  #HailHydra 

[Starlord]

For fun, let's do the math on Cap's age:

 

For the record, I've seen the movie twice and, for me, everything (the car outside, the house, their clothes, the music, general ambience and a still young Peggy - looked like she had grey streaks in 1970 when she'd be 50+) points to the fact that he used the "return Pym particles" (already established by Tony & Cap's trip to 1970) to jump further into the past to 1946-ish.

 

In approx. 2013 (Winter Soldier) he declares himself to be 95.

 

Out of ice

1918 - 1945 = 27

2011? - 2023 (2018 + 5yrs after snap) = 12

1946 - 2023 = 77

 

On ice

1945 - 2011? = 65ish (trying not to count some years twice

 

Physical age = 116 (approximately)

Actual age = 181 (approximately)

 

If, for some reason, you believe he stayed in 1970, just subtract 24 from both of the above.

[Hugh Neilson]

8 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

He said 70s, it was the time he was sent to in order to return the stone.  The house was old, but heck the one I live in was built in 1919.  Also, Bucky is the same age but the only thing that changed on him was the length of his hair.  Yeah he was on ice a lot, but that only slows aging, not suspends it, and he was active a lot, too.

 

 

He and Peggy would have been what, early 20's in WWII?  I don't think Steve was  born in 1918 and 24 years old when the US entered WW II.  His story is more champing at the bit to reach 18, outside the recruiting station door the night before his 18th B-day only to be told he is 4F.  So, call him 21 in 1945, Peggy might be a couple of years older, say 23.  Cap gets thawed out in 2010 or 2011, so tack on 14 years to Endgame and he's 35.  Peggy is 48 in 1970, so an age difference for sure.If Cap went back to the late 1950s, they'd be about the same age.

 

Who's to say he didn't go back to 1945, get his dance, then jump forward to equalize their ages?  We didn't get a ton of detail.  A jump to the later '50s would not invalidate the Peggy Carter TV shows.

 

To the whole "how could Cap just let Hydra infiltrate SHIELD and allow Bucky to remain on ice", I suggest he had to make that decision as soon as he was presented with time travel as a viable option.  Once he was not faced with a "one round trip only" supply of Pym Particles, he could try to alter history to his heart's content.  He made the call not to risk making history turn out worse instead of better.

 

To the whole "well, their own explanations of time travel don't jibe with what they did, can't alter the timeline, a billion alternate realities" - this assumes that their theories were 100% accurate.  They are theories.  They were, and remain, untested,  This is MCU, not What If?  It did not feel like every choice created branching timelines, only that something actually interfering, with the power of the Time Stone for example, could create a branch.  The person who seemed to know the most was the Ancient One, and she accepted that returning the stones would, in this instance, resolve any paradox or timeline issues.

[Hugh Neilson]

Two moments I have not seen mentioned that stood out for me:

 

Avengers...Assemble

 

Scarlet Witch confronting Thanos - and remembering that, for her, he tore the mind gem out of the Vision only a few minutes before.

 

And, while I got "depressed Thor", I could have done without "spare tire Thor".  Even accepting that MCU Thor only recently proved "worthy", and so is a younger, less experienced Thor than his comic book counterpart.  This feels like part of a trend to cheap laughs, much like "oh, the cat took Fury's eye", which I dislike.  MCU does not need to turn into nanananananananananananana - Antman!

 

I think the 5 year gap was a mistake.  It leaves too many holes, many already identified.  However, without it, Tony's arc would be very different (as is, that kid looked like she was on the way before Infinity War - she was not 2 or 3 years old).  We'll see how they deal with it going forward.

 

A challenge of Supers in general is reflecting the impact of huge events, changes from SuperTech and alien invasions, while keeping the world which is familiar to the reader/viewer intact.

 

One final issue they never did clear up - just why would Hulk not come out in Infinity War, and how was that resolved?  Perhaps fuel for a future movie involving Banner/Hulk - it's tough to develop the guest star who can't have his own book/movie.

[Starlord]

17 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

He and Peggy would have been what, early 20's in WWII?  I don't think Steve was  born in 1918 and 24 years old when the US entered WW II.  His story is more champing at the bit to reach 18, outside the recruiting station door the night before his 18th B-day only to be told he is 4F.  So, call him 21 in 1945, Peggy might be a couple of years older, say 23.  Cap gets thawed out in 2010 or 2011, so tack on 14 years to Endgame and he's 35.  Peggy is 48 in 1970, so an age difference for sure.If Cap went back to the late 1950s, they'd be about the same age.

 

 

- In 2013 (Winter Soldier), he definitively declares he's 95 = born in 1918

- In First Avenger it said he had already been previously rejected for duty many times.  His persistence is one of the reasons Dr. Erskine approached him.

-  The MCU wiki gives Peggy's birthdate as April 9, 1921 FWIW.

[Lord Liaden]

And Arnim Zola states Steve's birth date as 1918, in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

One final issue they never did clear up - just why would Hulk not come out in Infinity War, and how was that resolved?  Perhaps fuel for a future movie involving Banner/Hulk - it's tough to develop the guest star who can't have his own book/movie.

 

Most people have assumed Hulk was just frightened after being beaten down by Thanos.  But the Russo brothers have asserted in interviews it was because Hulk was fed up with Banner letting him out only to fight his enemies. Either way, the two sides of Banner's personality reconciling was played up majorly in the comics, and I was disappointed to see that glossed over in this movie. Also disappointed in not seeing Hulk smash anybody in Endgame -- I'm not even sure he was on the final battlefield.

As you probably know, unless and until Marvel/Disney irons out the distribution-rights issue to a Hulk standalone movie with Universal Studios, said movie won't happen.

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Scarlet Witch confronting Thanos - and remembering that, for her, he tore the mind gem out of the Vision only a few minutes before.

 

MCU Scarlet Witch is terrifyingly powerful. I wouldn't be surprised if she proved as strong as Captain Marvel. Put those two alongside Dr. Strange and an in-shape Thor, and I doubt anything this side of Galactus could withstand them.

[Ternaugh]

9 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Wow... it’s amazing how a fairly enjoyable movie falls apart so... quickly under you guys’. Scalpel and microscopes. The cynic in me thinks, that this “clearing of the decks” is going to cut future box office anyway. The sad thing to me, is there is 50 plus years of lore and stories they could still mine from for movies, but I don’t think Marvel and Disney have it in them any more. I could be wrong, but then I look at what Star Wars became. 

 

Star Wars became a merchandising platform which occasionally released media tie-ins. I ate it up when I saw the original in 1977, and bought the action figures, books, records, comics, and lunch box. Of course, I was 8 years old at the time. By the time that Ewoks: Caravan of Courage hit TV screens, I was pretty much done with Star Wars, and I had essentially grown out of its marketing demographic.

 

The Prequels weren't really aimed at me, but were developed for the crop of pre-teens that weren't even born when ROTJ came out in 1983. And almost 20 years after Episode 1, we got this generation's marketing pitch, in the form of The Force Awakens.That's, of course, for the kids who weren't around for Episode 3. And since I didn't have the 8-year-old's filter anymore, none of these movies were particularly enthralling to me.

 

Star Wars has slid back in popularity twice before, and it's about to do so again. I think that Disney realizes that, and that's why it's developing "maintenance mode" projects like the park expansions and TV shows. They've already made back what they paid for Lucasfilm, and they seem to be making great use of both ILM and Skywalker Sound with various Disney productions. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

This feels like part of a trend to cheap laughs, much like "oh, the cat took Fury's eye", which I dislike.

 

Why did Hulk wear glasses?  Its part of a trend toward that yeah.  I get that Hemsworth prefers to play that kind of role rather than a godlike heroic figure, but that's his damned character, stop whining.  You shouldn't have signed the 7-film contract and taken the dumptruck full of money if you didn't want the job, idiot.

 

Quote

MCU Scarlet Witch is terrifyingly powerful

 

She is in the comics as well.  She literally manipulates reality, the only thing holding her back is that she doesn't really understand what she's doing very well.  Not super fond of her arc of power in the movies, she went from "I can barely control this one object" to "I can do 8 things at once!" pretty fast without any apparent training, but hey, comics.

 

Dr Strange could have handled Thanos solo, at least the guy in the comics could have.  Instead he's a bus who makes predictions in the movies.  Lots of stuff not handled very well because then it wouldn't be the conflict they have in mind.  Instead of telling the stories the characters provide, they're telling stories then shoehorning in characters.  Its increasingly annoying.

[Starlord]

To be fair, playing Thor 'straight' has proven far less popular with the mainstream and critics, as well less financially rewarding than 'eccentric' Thor.  This was not just Hemsworth's decision as it's been reported everyone was in agreement at the studio that something different needed to be done with Ragnarok.  'Idiot' seems unnecessarily harsh.

 

Comics Thor is one of my top 10 heroes but I also like MCU Thor as a character.

[Pariah]

It's worth noting that in the comics, Scarlet Witch wished Hawkeye right out of existence and depowered the large majority of Earth's mutants. And she didn't need the Infinity Stones to do it.

 

How would people feel about an ersatz Defenders team featuring Dr. Strange, Hulk, Scarlet Witch, and a revived Vision?

[Starlord]

I was disappointed we didn't get a return of the Vision somehow with Endgame.  He is one of the most unique MCU characters with regards to his origin, personality and powerset.

[zslane]

Cap's shield behaves however the writers need/want it to behave. It defies all known physics and we just have to accept that. If it absorbed all kinetic impacts then it would never bounce off targets and return to Cap. If a dramatic moment requires it be shredded--not unlike a dramatic moment that requires Mjolnir be shattered--then that's what will happen. It will never behave in a consistent manner because that restricts the writers too much.

 

As for Shuri, when she "fought" at the end of Black Panther, she went out originally to try and help take out Killmonger, and that's about it. She didn't set out to fight side-by-side with the warriors on the ground. In a battle like we see at the end of Endgame, her talents would have been far better utilized remotely piloting--from a nice safe distance--a Wakandan strike flyer through some fancy wearable VR rig. But the writers apparently forgot all about Wakandan technology, and the fact that Shuri's greatest value in a conflict is that technology (and I guarantee you that a Wakandan strike flyer has far, far more firepower and utility as an airborne asset than a pair of energy gauntlets). Their priority was merely to get her on camera for a disposable moment of fan service, and it wasn't even very good fan service.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I missed the Vision too, but they picked an exact, specific point to reset and anyone who died before that, too bad.

 

A lot of the complaints I have with the movies are just comic book stuff.  Tony Stark apparently has more wealth than the treasury of every nation on the planet combined in all of history, for example.  How many trillion-dollar suits did he build??  Why is Pepper Potts an expert in a suit that took Tony weeks to get used to?  That kinda stuff just comes with comics.

[Bazza]

10 hours ago, Starlord said:

I was disappointed we didn't get a return of the Vision somehow with Endgame.  He is one of the most unique MCU characters with regards to his origin, personality and powerset.

 

 

[Bazza]

[Lord Liaden]

Yeah, that meme's been around a while now.

 

[Starlord]

The wife mentioned that one thing she liked about new Thor is that he finally looks like a Viking God and not a cover model.

[zslane]

Yeah, it reminded me of Thor from Gaiman's Sandman.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I do like that, yeah.  He has a beard now which he always was supposed to (he's supposed to have red hair too, but that's too much to ask from Marvel).

[Lord Liaden]

Well, MCU Thor always had a beard (although in the first Avengers movie it was more like stubble). But now? Now he has a BEARD!

Does anyone else think Banner-Hulk in this movie looked smaller than previous Hulk? I mean, slimmer, maybe even shorter?

[zslane]

Yeah, MCU Professor Hulk seemed smaller to me as well, at least in the sense that he wasn't nearly as big and "swole" as full-on Rage Hulk.

[Bazza]

Prof Hulk, isn't as angry, so I guess that affects his appearance. 

[Lord Liaden]

Probably hasn't done much smash... er, exercise over the past five years, either.