Avengers: Endgame Review, Part 2
Apr. 28th, 2019 12:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iaria+ Still sad about Tony. :( I keep telling myself that this is a comic book movie and they can bring him back anytime they want.
+ The timeline/time travel stuff is confusing. I walked out of the theatre very confused and I've been thinking about it ever since. I can accept the Thanos and his army that died came from an alternate past timeline, created when they took the Stones and it created a divergent timeline, and that when the Stones were returned it erased that timeline including that version of the past, and thus didn't affect the original past of the main timeline. Same with Nebula killing her past self. That version of Thanos and Nebula were were copies and would have been erased anyway when they took the Stones back. Fine. It's not what we see when the Ancient One shows Bruce the timeline which makes everything confusing but it works with Bruce's insistence that you can't change the past and this is the only way I can make sense of it in my head.
Except, regardless of how they tried not to change anything they still did! Several kind of big things. Loki disappeared with the Tesseract, Hydra thinks Captain America is one of them, Steve knows Bucky is alive and fought himself. Like, what? Are we supposed to accept that those are also an erased divergent past even though they all happen before the timelines diverged with the taking of the Stones?
- And of course this returns back to Steve staying in the past to live a life with Peggy - what, how, ???? That makes no sense! It should have created a divergent timeline! This actually bothers me a lot more now than it did yesterday. Yesterday I was still mostly distracted by Tony feels and thought it was a sweet ending even if it didn't make much sense, now I'm mostly left going IT MAKES NO SENSE and it bothers me so much. Steve going into the past and then living through an alternate timeline where he and Peggy get together and change things, sure! I would have been down for that. Him going back, somehow not changing anything either purposefully or accidentally, so he can appear at the end and pass on his legacy? No. If he went into the past then it has to be another timeline, in which case he can't return/be there to pass on his SHIELD. Right? It doesn't work at all for what we've been told about time travel in this verse.
Also thinking about the various character issues which I mentioned last night but that I'm actually thinking about more now it seriously makes no sense for either Steve or Peggy as characters. Unless she left SHIELD and they moved away how did no one ever learn of his existence? But they can't do that because Peggy was an essential part of SHIELD's existence. Did he not tell her about Hydra? I'm having a hard time seeing either of them not wanting to nip that in the bud. Or Steve being hands off about the Winter Soldier. Or even something 'smaller' like Steve not reuniting with Howard and them letting him grieve and go out every year searching for Steve's body? Ouch.
- This makes me wonder about Loki, actually. I took his disappearance as a sign that his post-Ragnarok self had some plan in place because that happened in his past, somehow. But are we actually suppose to assume that 2012 Loki is alive out there and post-Ragnarok Loki actually died? Because :( do not want. All that character growth and learning to understand himself better and coming to peace with his father, and the changes in his relationship with Thor all gone???! I find that really upsetting, to be honest.
- Also - Gamora. I lost track of 2014 Gamora after that one scene with Peter and Nebula. It was a confusing battle and a lot happened. But we don't see her again after Thanos and army turn to dust, and I was very 'did Gamora turn to dust too?' It was the only thing that made sense to me. She was technically one of Thanos's people even if she ended up fighting against him and was from the alternate past. Except as I was writing this post and going through the movie I remember Peter searching for Gamora in his final scene which... is that supposed to imply that 2014 Gamora survived and took off? What? That makes no sense to me on any level.
- ALSO - the Ancient One states that she/they need the Infinity Stones in order to keep the timeline unbranched/keep back the darkness but the current timeline we end on (Prime) doesn't have Infinity Stones. Thanos 'destroyed' them and Steve returned the ones they had to the past they borrowed them from. So... what does this mean for the future of the Prime timeline? I'll absolutely believe that Thanos didn't actually destroy them and they've reformed in random spots to someday be re-found but it isn't addressed either way.
So, yeah. The timeline... ugh. Just use alternate dimensions and split timelines! Frankly that would have made most people happy.
+ Loved the Tony/Nebula bits at the beginning - him teaching her to have fun, working together, her pushing the food to him and especially her picking him up and gently placing him in the seat before leaving him with a final touch to his shoulder. I'm just sad that the movie didn't really give us anything between them after that.
+ I love Tony and Natasha's low-key friendship so I was disappointed that they didn't get a scene or even moment between just them.
+ Pepper was so good as Rescue - too good. She knew exactly how to use that armour, she didn't falter or stumble once. Which means she's used it before, used it enough to be comfortable in it. I love that. I'm choosing to believe that post-snap Tony makes her Rescue armour (at her request) so that she can physically help him with the rebuilding/helping people.
+ I was disappointed that we didn't get more Pepper. I really loved her showing up at the end even if it was a little random. [Why did she suit up and arrive then?] I loved getting to see her in action as Rescue and she was great during the fight. But I would have liked a little more of her especially at the beginning. As always it would be super easy to add her in. For example. it was a little weird that she didn't come out when Nat/Steve/Bruce showed up. Give that scene a minute or two more and have Pepper come out and greet the others before taking Morgan away. It bothered me that we never got to see Tony/Pepper/Morgan together, interacting as a family.
+ I found it a little strange that Tony and Pepper moved out to the country. Is she still CEO of Stark Industries? Is there still a Stark Industries? Are they involved either way with trying to rebuild or did they simply retreat into their own happy little family life? The movie doesn't really give us answers and I wish it had. Like it would have been great (and easy) if Pepper had been at that Natasha led meeting, giving her own rundown as head of SI. I'm choosing to believe that they were still involved - he still had his suit, his work table, he made her a suit. Why do that if they weren't actively helping?
+ I was sad that we didn't get JARVIS during their infiltration of Avengers tower in the past. He absolutely would have noticed them and it would have been a great little moment to have a final Tony/JARVIS conversation and JARVIS choosing to not impede them.
+ I wish we'd seen Tony and Pepper fighting together more during the final battle. I remember one great moment of them firing back to back but I wanted more. When she initially landed it would have been great if we'd gotten a quick moment between them, even just an exchange of looks.
+ I actually really liked Tony going off on Steve after his rescue. He'd watched Strange die, had Peter die in his arms, spent 21 days slowly starving to death and him throwing Steve's "we'll do that together too" line back in his face was very fair.
+ I'm glad that Tony was able to have that exchange with his father, and that he got to hear how his father loved him. It definitely felt like it was bringing that part of Tony's story full circle. I also liked Tony's new understanding of his father now that he was a father himself.
+ I loved that it was Peter, seeing the picture of Peter and him, that was Tony's final push to look into the possibility of time travel.
+ I liked that Harley was at the funeral and the implication in that that he and Tony had maintained their relationship.
+ We could have done with a little more Tony/Rhodey but they got a couple nice moments.
+ There also could have been more Rhodey in general. I liked that little moment where Carol wishes him good luck (in talking to Nat about Clint) and his bonding with Nebula was great.
+ I was actively annoyed that Rhodey wasn't with the original Avengers when they were mourning Nat after everyone returned to the present. He wasn't an original but he was an Avenger and he's worked with her for the last five years. He was her friend. He should have been there.
+ As with Gamora's death I wish that we'd seen Natasha's death more from her own pov than from Clint's. So after she lets go the camera stayed on Clint until cutting to her dead on the ground. Instead I would rather it had followed Natasha as she dropped, for a second, to see her reaction to her sacrifice, the peace she felt with it made. From there perhaps seeing Clint from her POV and then go into Clint's POV. The way it's shot annoyed me a little.
+ Nat's hurt over Clint and what had happened to him, the way that she had clearly been looking the other way over his killing sprees because of that, was great. I loved their reunion. I loved that little moment of shared joy when they were flying through space to Vormir.
+ Nat/Steve's friendship is still one of my favourites in the series and while they didn't get a focus they were lovely. I like that they're still together five years later, being there for each other as they try to help the world.
+ I did love that little moment of shared grief between Clint and Wanda and the little side hug. Theirs has been a relationship I've enjoyed from the start so it was nice to get something for them.
+ The Wanda vs Thanos fight was excellent. I enjoyed Wanda getting to work out some of her rage/grief at him and that she was actually doing so well against him he had to bring in literal big guns. Seriously - Wanda + Carol and he would have been toast. I want that AU.
+ The initial time travel test with Bruce in charge and Scott going through some age changes was super funny. Loved Nat and Steve's reactions.
+ Scott had a much bigger role in this movie than I was expecting and I really enjoyed him. I loved him saving Bruce/Rhodey/Rocket and him arguing with Tony that Steve's ass looks great, and him worrying over disconnecting Tony's arc reactor and the scene where he sees the memorial stones and desperately searches for Cassie's name.
+ Clint surviving the explosion of Avengers Headquarters was nonsense. He should have been dead. Frankly Scott and Rocket too. But it's one of those things that I'm left going 'no it doesn't make sense but whatever'.
+ I liked Thor heading off with the Guardians on the one hand. Mostly in that I'm excited to see him in GotG 3 and think it's going to be a lot fun. On the other hand, him turning New Asgard and kingship over to Valkyrie was very meh. She is the best choice absolutely and yet it also seems like him abandoning his responsibilities and people to run away and that bothered me a lot. It felt like a regression of Thor's character.
+ I thought it was a little weird that Thor doesn't even appear to consider using the Gauntlet to bring back all the Asgardian's killed by Ragnarok and Thanos. Even if he didn't manage it, at least him wanting to would have worked better for me. Honestly I would have loved if Thor had stolen a nano-suit glove to use the Stones to bring back the dead of Ragnarok/Thanos before the Snap. That would have saved the Asgardians (though planetless) and also the populations of planets like Xander and Nowhere, and especially Loki and Heimdell and the Warriors Three. This would have felt like a more satisfying ending for him, imo.
+ I loved that Thor was so pleased that Steve could wield Mjolnir and him giving Steve Mjolnir later in the battle was a nice moment but I hated his "here you take the small one" because no >:( Thor loves his hammer and that's a nonsense line. I'm offended on his behalf.
+ One of the humour moments that fell flat for me was Thor's long drunken ramble when giving the low-down on the Reality Stone. It went on far too long and wasn't that amusing.
+ That other humour fail for me was that whole sequence where Ant-Man asks if the kids want a picture with him and Bruce tries to convince everyone they do. It also failed to be funny and went on far too long.
+ Tony thinking Rocket was a 'build-a-bear' and Rocket shrugging it off, heh.
+ That moment when Carol is getting ready to make her final run for the quantum machine, and all the female characters show up around her to help was super cheesy and kind of made me roll my eyes but also I loved it. Yes, please, give me an entire movie of that.
+ Valkyrie randomly having a Pegasus again (how? where?) didn't make sense to me but I don't care because Pegasus!
+ Loved the scene where Carol and the Rhodey arrive as Scott is trying to eat lunch. Loved Rhodey's "average-size man" greeting and Bruce walking by and giving Scott his taco.
+ I liked that little moment when Ebony Maw called Nebula a traitor and wrapped the wire around her neck and Gamora reached for her weapons behind her back.
+ I liked the Bruce/Ancient One scene. I really loved her expression when he revealed that Strange gave up the Time Stone. It was a great little moment.
+ Loved Carol's new look after the five year jump.
+ I loved that little glimpse of Edwin Jarvis in 1970.
+ I was a little disappointed that Cassie was aged up because I really loved her younger actress. Also disappointed that Maggie and Jim didn't show up behind Cassie for them all to share a tearful group hug.
+ I thought the old age make-up for Steve was amazingly well done. Good job there.
+ The fact that Nakia didn't show up at the end - not for the final battle or for the happy ending moment with T'Challa and his family was kind of weird. Also the fact that there was no mention at all of Sharon Carter.
+ The timeline/time travel stuff is confusing. I walked out of the theatre very confused and I've been thinking about it ever since. I can accept the Thanos and his army that died came from an alternate past timeline, created when they took the Stones and it created a divergent timeline, and that when the Stones were returned it erased that timeline including that version of the past, and thus didn't affect the original past of the main timeline. Same with Nebula killing her past self. That version of Thanos and Nebula were were copies and would have been erased anyway when they took the Stones back. Fine. It's not what we see when the Ancient One shows Bruce the timeline which makes everything confusing but it works with Bruce's insistence that you can't change the past and this is the only way I can make sense of it in my head.
Except, regardless of how they tried not to change anything they still did! Several kind of big things. Loki disappeared with the Tesseract, Hydra thinks Captain America is one of them, Steve knows Bucky is alive and fought himself. Like, what? Are we supposed to accept that those are also an erased divergent past even though they all happen before the timelines diverged with the taking of the Stones?
- And of course this returns back to Steve staying in the past to live a life with Peggy - what, how, ???? That makes no sense! It should have created a divergent timeline! This actually bothers me a lot more now than it did yesterday. Yesterday I was still mostly distracted by Tony feels and thought it was a sweet ending even if it didn't make much sense, now I'm mostly left going IT MAKES NO SENSE and it bothers me so much. Steve going into the past and then living through an alternate timeline where he and Peggy get together and change things, sure! I would have been down for that. Him going back, somehow not changing anything either purposefully or accidentally, so he can appear at the end and pass on his legacy? No. If he went into the past then it has to be another timeline, in which case he can't return/be there to pass on his SHIELD. Right? It doesn't work at all for what we've been told about time travel in this verse.
Also thinking about the various character issues which I mentioned last night but that I'm actually thinking about more now it seriously makes no sense for either Steve or Peggy as characters. Unless she left SHIELD and they moved away how did no one ever learn of his existence? But they can't do that because Peggy was an essential part of SHIELD's existence. Did he not tell her about Hydra? I'm having a hard time seeing either of them not wanting to nip that in the bud. Or Steve being hands off about the Winter Soldier. Or even something 'smaller' like Steve not reuniting with Howard and them letting him grieve and go out every year searching for Steve's body? Ouch.
- This makes me wonder about Loki, actually. I took his disappearance as a sign that his post-Ragnarok self had some plan in place because that happened in his past, somehow. But are we actually suppose to assume that 2012 Loki is alive out there and post-Ragnarok Loki actually died? Because :( do not want. All that character growth and learning to understand himself better and coming to peace with his father, and the changes in his relationship with Thor all gone???! I find that really upsetting, to be honest.
- Also - Gamora. I lost track of 2014 Gamora after that one scene with Peter and Nebula. It was a confusing battle and a lot happened. But we don't see her again after Thanos and army turn to dust, and I was very 'did Gamora turn to dust too?' It was the only thing that made sense to me. She was technically one of Thanos's people even if she ended up fighting against him and was from the alternate past. Except as I was writing this post and going through the movie I remember Peter searching for Gamora in his final scene which... is that supposed to imply that 2014 Gamora survived and took off? What? That makes no sense to me on any level.
- ALSO - the Ancient One states that she/they need the Infinity Stones in order to keep the timeline unbranched/keep back the darkness but the current timeline we end on (Prime) doesn't have Infinity Stones. Thanos 'destroyed' them and Steve returned the ones they had to the past they borrowed them from. So... what does this mean for the future of the Prime timeline? I'll absolutely believe that Thanos didn't actually destroy them and they've reformed in random spots to someday be re-found but it isn't addressed either way.
So, yeah. The timeline... ugh. Just use alternate dimensions and split timelines! Frankly that would have made most people happy.
+ Loved the Tony/Nebula bits at the beginning - him teaching her to have fun, working together, her pushing the food to him and especially her picking him up and gently placing him in the seat before leaving him with a final touch to his shoulder. I'm just sad that the movie didn't really give us anything between them after that.
+ I love Tony and Natasha's low-key friendship so I was disappointed that they didn't get a scene or even moment between just them.
+ Pepper was so good as Rescue - too good. She knew exactly how to use that armour, she didn't falter or stumble once. Which means she's used it before, used it enough to be comfortable in it. I love that. I'm choosing to believe that post-snap Tony makes her Rescue armour (at her request) so that she can physically help him with the rebuilding/helping people.
+ I was disappointed that we didn't get more Pepper. I really loved her showing up at the end even if it was a little random. [Why did she suit up and arrive then?] I loved getting to see her in action as Rescue and she was great during the fight. But I would have liked a little more of her especially at the beginning. As always it would be super easy to add her in. For example. it was a little weird that she didn't come out when Nat/Steve/Bruce showed up. Give that scene a minute or two more and have Pepper come out and greet the others before taking Morgan away. It bothered me that we never got to see Tony/Pepper/Morgan together, interacting as a family.
+ I found it a little strange that Tony and Pepper moved out to the country. Is she still CEO of Stark Industries? Is there still a Stark Industries? Are they involved either way with trying to rebuild or did they simply retreat into their own happy little family life? The movie doesn't really give us answers and I wish it had. Like it would have been great (and easy) if Pepper had been at that Natasha led meeting, giving her own rundown as head of SI. I'm choosing to believe that they were still involved - he still had his suit, his work table, he made her a suit. Why do that if they weren't actively helping?
+ I was sad that we didn't get JARVIS during their infiltration of Avengers tower in the past. He absolutely would have noticed them and it would have been a great little moment to have a final Tony/JARVIS conversation and JARVIS choosing to not impede them.
+ I wish we'd seen Tony and Pepper fighting together more during the final battle. I remember one great moment of them firing back to back but I wanted more. When she initially landed it would have been great if we'd gotten a quick moment between them, even just an exchange of looks.
+ I actually really liked Tony going off on Steve after his rescue. He'd watched Strange die, had Peter die in his arms, spent 21 days slowly starving to death and him throwing Steve's "we'll do that together too" line back in his face was very fair.
+ I'm glad that Tony was able to have that exchange with his father, and that he got to hear how his father loved him. It definitely felt like it was bringing that part of Tony's story full circle. I also liked Tony's new understanding of his father now that he was a father himself.
+ I loved that it was Peter, seeing the picture of Peter and him, that was Tony's final push to look into the possibility of time travel.
+ I liked that Harley was at the funeral and the implication in that that he and Tony had maintained their relationship.
+ We could have done with a little more Tony/Rhodey but they got a couple nice moments.
+ There also could have been more Rhodey in general. I liked that little moment where Carol wishes him good luck (in talking to Nat about Clint) and his bonding with Nebula was great.
+ I was actively annoyed that Rhodey wasn't with the original Avengers when they were mourning Nat after everyone returned to the present. He wasn't an original but he was an Avenger and he's worked with her for the last five years. He was her friend. He should have been there.
+ As with Gamora's death I wish that we'd seen Natasha's death more from her own pov than from Clint's. So after she lets go the camera stayed on Clint until cutting to her dead on the ground. Instead I would rather it had followed Natasha as she dropped, for a second, to see her reaction to her sacrifice, the peace she felt with it made. From there perhaps seeing Clint from her POV and then go into Clint's POV. The way it's shot annoyed me a little.
+ Nat's hurt over Clint and what had happened to him, the way that she had clearly been looking the other way over his killing sprees because of that, was great. I loved their reunion. I loved that little moment of shared joy when they were flying through space to Vormir.
+ Nat/Steve's friendship is still one of my favourites in the series and while they didn't get a focus they were lovely. I like that they're still together five years later, being there for each other as they try to help the world.
+ I did love that little moment of shared grief between Clint and Wanda and the little side hug. Theirs has been a relationship I've enjoyed from the start so it was nice to get something for them.
+ The Wanda vs Thanos fight was excellent. I enjoyed Wanda getting to work out some of her rage/grief at him and that she was actually doing so well against him he had to bring in literal big guns. Seriously - Wanda + Carol and he would have been toast. I want that AU.
+ The initial time travel test with Bruce in charge and Scott going through some age changes was super funny. Loved Nat and Steve's reactions.
+ Scott had a much bigger role in this movie than I was expecting and I really enjoyed him. I loved him saving Bruce/Rhodey/Rocket and him arguing with Tony that Steve's ass looks great, and him worrying over disconnecting Tony's arc reactor and the scene where he sees the memorial stones and desperately searches for Cassie's name.
+ Clint surviving the explosion of Avengers Headquarters was nonsense. He should have been dead. Frankly Scott and Rocket too. But it's one of those things that I'm left going 'no it doesn't make sense but whatever'.
+ I liked Thor heading off with the Guardians on the one hand. Mostly in that I'm excited to see him in GotG 3 and think it's going to be a lot fun. On the other hand, him turning New Asgard and kingship over to Valkyrie was very meh. She is the best choice absolutely and yet it also seems like him abandoning his responsibilities and people to run away and that bothered me a lot. It felt like a regression of Thor's character.
+ I thought it was a little weird that Thor doesn't even appear to consider using the Gauntlet to bring back all the Asgardian's killed by Ragnarok and Thanos. Even if he didn't manage it, at least him wanting to would have worked better for me. Honestly I would have loved if Thor had stolen a nano-suit glove to use the Stones to bring back the dead of Ragnarok/Thanos before the Snap. That would have saved the Asgardians (though planetless) and also the populations of planets like Xander and Nowhere, and especially Loki and Heimdell and the Warriors Three. This would have felt like a more satisfying ending for him, imo.
+ I loved that Thor was so pleased that Steve could wield Mjolnir and him giving Steve Mjolnir later in the battle was a nice moment but I hated his "here you take the small one" because no >:( Thor loves his hammer and that's a nonsense line. I'm offended on his behalf.
+ One of the humour moments that fell flat for me was Thor's long drunken ramble when giving the low-down on the Reality Stone. It went on far too long and wasn't that amusing.
+ That other humour fail for me was that whole sequence where Ant-Man asks if the kids want a picture with him and Bruce tries to convince everyone they do. It also failed to be funny and went on far too long.
+ Tony thinking Rocket was a 'build-a-bear' and Rocket shrugging it off, heh.
+ That moment when Carol is getting ready to make her final run for the quantum machine, and all the female characters show up around her to help was super cheesy and kind of made me roll my eyes but also I loved it. Yes, please, give me an entire movie of that.
+ Valkyrie randomly having a Pegasus again (how? where?) didn't make sense to me but I don't care because Pegasus!
+ Loved the scene where Carol and the Rhodey arrive as Scott is trying to eat lunch. Loved Rhodey's "average-size man" greeting and Bruce walking by and giving Scott his taco.
+ I liked that little moment when Ebony Maw called Nebula a traitor and wrapped the wire around her neck and Gamora reached for her weapons behind her back.
+ I liked the Bruce/Ancient One scene. I really loved her expression when he revealed that Strange gave up the Time Stone. It was a great little moment.
+ Loved Carol's new look after the five year jump.
+ I loved that little glimpse of Edwin Jarvis in 1970.
+ I was a little disappointed that Cassie was aged up because I really loved her younger actress. Also disappointed that Maggie and Jim didn't show up behind Cassie for them all to share a tearful group hug.
+ I thought the old age make-up for Steve was amazingly well done. Good job there.
+ The fact that Nakia didn't show up at the end - not for the final battle or for the happy ending moment with T'Challa and his family was kind of weird. Also the fact that there was no mention at all of Sharon Carter.
