Avengers: Endgame – My Thoughts AND SPOILER ALERTS! #AvengersEndgame
Let me just start this post off with saying…if you don’t want spoilers, DON’T READ FURTHER!
Today I had the chance to attend an advanced screening of Avengers: Endgame and I left the theater with more questions than answers. If you have ever watched a Marvel movie, you know that you don’t leave your seat until the last end credit has rolled out and you get a glimpse, or Easter Egg, so to speak, of what is to come.
Likewise, if you have ever attended a private screening, you know that Marvel always withholds this Easter Egg until the movie opens in theaters. Just a little holdout for everyone, right to the very end. Well, this movie was just like that, but…does that mean there is no Easter Egg after endgame or is there more to see that meets the eye? I shall find out this Friday when it opens in theaters, April 26th….NATIONWIDE!
What do we see come to an end? What is finalized?
I will admit, from the first scene, to about 45 minutes into the movie, I was thinking “WTH, MCU?” As the movie progressed, I got it…it had to play the timeline the way it did to bring the story to a finality.
We see the return of Hawkeye, who loses his entire at the snap of Thanos’ gauntlet. Stark is grieving heavily over the loss of “The kid, Spiderman” and the others.
Fast forward five years, we see a more subdued Stark with his wife and now young daughter, Morgan. Captain America seems to have transitioned to becoming a grief counselor to help those deal with the loss of the loved ones who disappeared during the snap and Black Widow seems to now be the head of Avengers HQ with members including War Machine, Rocket, Nebula and Captain Marvel.
We also see a very comically made overweight, unhealthy Thor who is hanging out with some of his buddies from his Ragnarok days. Valkyrie is with Thor in New Asgard. Hulk has accepted his position and surprisingly comes into his own this movie.
We see the return of Scott Lang as Antman and really dive into the Quantum Realm, which helps the Avengers try to undo what Thanos has done. Scott returns at the accident of a storage rat and tries to find out what has happened since he has been gone. We learn that time in the Quantum Realm is significantly different than Earthly time.
Thanos has used the Infinity Stones only one other time, to destroy them and annihilate them into atomic dust. This proves to be a fatal mistake, as it leads to his ultimate demise. This second use of the stones helps the Avengers track him to his Garden and easily destroy his, as he is extremely vulnerable and injured from the stones usage.
With the help of Hank Pim’s Pim Particles, the team is able to do extreme time travel back into various points in time from 1970 (Tony Stark gets to reconnect with his father) to 2014 on Morag, Vormeer Asgard and NYC to regain the stones in their original forms. This is where we get the nostalgic feel of the last 11 years with cameos from The Ancient One, Jane Foster, Frigga, Alexander Pierce and more.
There are many hiccups along this plan that seem to change the course of the retrieval of the Infinity Stones, but ultimately our heroes end up back at headquarters with all six stones in their original forms, but with a twist…Old Nebula has returned from the past with the help of Ebony Maw, Thanos and Gamora! Oh yeah, and remember that “soul for a stone deal” from Infinity War? Let’s just say the ultimate sacrifice and hear of the part is Black Widow and Hawkeye is the one that returns solo with a soul stone in hand.
With a well-constructed “Iron Man Style” Gauntlet, our favorite green, gamma guy takes the reigns, completes the “snap” and all seems to be restored…for a moment at least. Time travel has proven that not only can they travel backwards, but Thanos and the entire Children of Thanos crew including Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive and Cull Obsidian, along with those creepy creatures that were sent to NYC in Marvel’s The Avengers in 2012.
This, for me, is the pinnacle of the movie, or so I thought. We see our fearsome, threesome, Thor, Cap and Stark battle past-present Thanos. Thor using his Hammer AND Stormbreaker! Who else is worthy? CAP, that’s who! We see Cap grab the hammer, we see action, we see suspense…ultimately we see the glorious return of ALL our beloved heroes as they enter through Doctor Strange’s Fire Portals…it is the battle of battles!
We have them all…
- Ironman
- Captain America
- Hulk
- Thor
- Hawkeye
- Falcon
- Captain Marvel
- Nebula
- Valkyrie
- The Wasp
- Mantis
- Spider-Man
- Ant-Man
- Rocket
- Scarlet Witch
- Drax
- Bucky Barnes
- Shuri
- Iron Woman (Pepper Potts)
- Black Panther
- Okoye
- M’Baku
- Wong
- Teenage Groot
The battle is on for the new Gauntlet…strong players in this war are Spider-Man, Black Panther and Captain Marvel…man she can really hold her own against Thanos. Who ultimately saves the day and braves that final “Snap” to rid the world of Thanos and his army of misfits…Iron Man of course…but at a huge cost…his own life!
I know, I know, I cried too. I had to fight the tears as much as I could, because you just cannot miss a moment of this movie. Poetically, Tony Stark, and proof he had a heart, are laid to rest and we see the most heartwarming scene of all of the survivors, Pepper, young Morgan Stark and the return of Nick Fury.
Does it end there? Is that the end of the game? Nope. The Stones must be returned to the timeline to which they were taken to restore balance. The final surprise? We see Captain America has decided to “live that life” that Stark told him to find. We see an older, married Captain America return to present day and handing off his shield to none other than…Falcon. The end scene shows an young Steve Rogers dancing happily with his new wife, Margaret Carter.
Well…there you go, all the highlights and points I picked up on the first screening. I know there are things I am forgetting, things I missed and will pick up on when I see it again this Friday. I left speechless…at a loss for words. I cried, I cannot believe the loss, I cannot believe the end result…is there an Easter Egg? Is there more to come? Finally…Why is Gamora?
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ugh ugh ugh ugh!!!