The summer started off with one of the biggest movie openings of all time!!! Avengers: Endgame! A culmination of over ten years and over 20 movies to tell one massive story arc. Did Marvel pull it off? Were they able to live up to the hype after the snap heard round the MCU? A movie this big requires more than one episode. Sit back and enjoy part one of Cinematic Brotastic's Avengers: Endgame Podcast. The Spoiler Ban has been lifted!!!! Spoilers ahead!!
Avengers: Endgame sets the stage for the emotional ride you are about to embark on right out of the gate. The film opens on Hawkeye and his family enjoying a picnic. You just know it’s before the Snap that wiped out half of all life in the universe… and you know what is about to happen. You see the train coming, you’re stuck on the tracks, and there is nothing you can do.
In the end tag of Captain Marvel, Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers shows up asking, “Where’s Fury?” This does afford the opportunity for the characters to have already met and introduced themselves, however, Andrew was in the mindset that the end tag was a scene from within Endgame and not a stand alone element. This made the start of the film a little confusing.
It was no surprise that a franchise that contains an infinity stone that controls time, that time would be played with eventually. What was surprising is that Endgame changed some of the rules of time travel. The general understanding of time travel is that if you change the past, you alter the future. Back to the Future’s entire plot line depends on this understanding. Marty McFly’s parents don’t kiss at the formal dance, that would eventually lead to marriage and having kids, therefore Marty will erase from existence unless he fixes history. The Terminator relies on the same concept; kill Sara or John Connor when they’re young to prevent the greatest leader against the machine uprising. Rather Endgame points out that although the heroes are traveling to the past, it is still their specific future. Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow and the rest of the Avengers are still moving forward in time from their perspective, even though their destination is in the past. Because of this, changing the past won’s fix the future. The Avengers have to get the stones and Alter reality itself to fix what Thanos has done. In the film, this all makes perfect sense, however thinking about this new approach to time travel story telling, leaves a lot of possible paradoxes that mess with the stories continuity. It will require multiple viewings possibly to get a better understanding of the rules of time travel as the Russo Brothers and the screen writers have interpreted.
An unexpected thread that gets explored in Endgame is the use of a younger villain. Thanos was revealed to be looming in the background of all the MCU movies to date. We don’t get to see him, with a few exceptions, until Guardians Volume 1. Even then, however, his character is not really explored until Infinity War. In infinity war his plan is crazy, but there is a logic to it. He, in his mind, is doing what is needed for the universe to thrive. We see this in Endgame; Stark has a kid, the water is cleaner. For Endgame though, the Thanos we are introduced to is one who has yet to retrieve the infinity stones. By the end, Thanos’ mission for the stones is personal. He plans to reimagine the universe altogether. Doing so would leave no-one behind to long for what was; a more sinister plan than before. The Thanos from infinity war is compassionate in a way, but the Thanos from Endgame is much more sinister.
With an impressive 3 hour and 2 minute runtime, it is impossible to include everything in one podcast. Check back in next week for part 2!
Until next time, we’ll see you at the movies.
And don’t forget to check your ticket stubs.
