Wynterwolf

I would hope for that too, and it seems like it might be possible: (the tweet that Spellman apparently 'liked' said: "i trust u.. give us buddy cop shenanigans without forced het romance.. please it's all i ask.."). So... maybe.

Except they're "joking" that it wasn't "respectable" for a man to have long hair, so it had to go. Even as a "joke", that's problematic as fuck. And they seem to be conflating "starting over" after trauma, with 'ignoring it ever happened and going back to the '40s (literally in Steve's case, figuratively in Bucky's) or in Wanda's case (mentally) to the '50's'. I hope they take a MUCH more nuanced approach than that, but after what they did in Endgame, I am highly skeptical.

Right? Some people have just chosen to be selfish jerks. There will always be selfish jerks, I just want to see them stopped.

Here is some info on 355. It is filming right now (and based on some bts photos, Sebastian Stan seems to be playing a love interest for Jessica Chastain's character).

Monday! (also, DAYUM this photo is ON FIRE!!) IS IT MONDAY YET???!!?!!?!?!?

Feige doesn't care about story either (side-eye's EG like whoa), it's all only about money, and who gets it.

Eh, with how good Into the Spiderverse was, I think Sony has reason to think they are on the right track. But I also have zero investment in Peter Parker being included in the MCU.

Heh, "fandom old" here too, but... I will never not be salty about this. Everything about this was big (meaningful and impactful), and they fucked up big (and for really terrible and easily avoidable reasons, IMO). I can imagine numerous scenarios that 'fix it', but... probably 10 years from now, someone's going to mention Endgame around me and end up being very, very sorry. 😄

Both of those scenes kill me. Every. Single. Time. His eyes are just so dead in that first scene, and so... shocked in that second. So good.

The Russos or the writers? Who said this foolishness? I'll cut them a tiny bit of slack in this instance, though it was a poorly articulated joke... apparently they just meant because the character was being played by a different actor (though with the makeup, it obviously would have been easy to extrapolate).

But... it's also important to interrogate and examine who is being left out of these epic narratives and why, and what the underlying messages are that we might not consciously be aware of. Particularly as they relate to historically marginalized identities. This movie was a cis het white dude's fantasy. It's not in the least bit surprising that a lot of people felt not only betrayed, but also harmed by what was portrayed on screen.

And they could have EASILY SHOWN THAT, by giving a glimpse of a suit under the bench in a hold-all, or hidden in a nearby trash can, or something. Which makes me think that it wasn't what they originally had in mind... because I could see everything playing out in exactly this way if you revolve your whole storyline around a time loop, and then realize at the very last minute (like at the preview screening?), that it was actually a really terrible idea. But I could actually handle that, IF the Old!Steve that showed up was the Steve that had been under the ice in that alternate timeline. And that our Steve is still... somewhere, doing something. And I can actually imagine that our Steve purposely creating that alternate timeline might help 'the multiverse', if the people from that verse can go to other verses to help out (like this Steve did with getting Sam a new shield). Also, polyamory is totally a thing in that alternate timeline... 😉

That personal is a literal genius with videos. This is just extraordinary.

Right? And obviously, Young!Steve would have had no interest at all in meeting Peggy's husband and paying his respects, and it wouldn't have seemed weird at all if he wasn't there with the rest of Peggy's family. And yeah, I have no problem with him not knowing about Sharon, because she was extended family... but he would have been curious as hell about Peggy's 'husband', particularly after him watching that video of Peggy talking about Steve 'saving' him. And the idea that Steve Rogers (who's face was everywhere during the war) could hide, and yet still be part of Peggy's life after 1945 is just ludicrous. Yeah, I could fairly easily roll my eyes and handwave the time travel fiasco, but the (continued!!!) disrespect to the character(s) is what doesn’t go away. They can’t even keep track of their own excuses anymore. This is apparently from the commentary track (from here) : I felt from the beginning that this was true. That they had predetermined endings they were trying to get to (regardless of where any of the previous storytelling had actually led them, "culmination" of 10 years of storytelling be damned), and that's why the storytelling was so poorly done, because there just wasn't enough screen time left to set it up properly. But I don't believe them when they say that they knew what Steve's ending was going to be prior to when IW was released (and I wonder if that was because there were still ongoing negotiation happening with CE, that eventually fell through). And the thing is, if this is true... if they did know as early as before IW was finished, then they did truly, epically fail in the storytelling. They did NOTHING in IW to set up Steve and Peggy (they actually did more to potentially set up Steve and Nat). And if this was going to be Steve's grand exit, Peggy should have been in EG... they should have had a fucking conversation, we should have been able to watch the characters emotionally reconnect and she should have been part of the action, not just have Steve stare longingly at a picture a few times. But in any scenario, there is simply no excuse for having him choose to go back to the past. And yeah, I still would have liked to have seen him reappear with Nat on the platform (have that be the 'surprise' at the end, because him being able to get Nat back would have required so much less handwaving than what they did), and then have the two of them decide to go planet hopping to help with the restoration after the un-snap.

TBH, I am torn... literally any time anyone opens their mouth now, they make it worse. I think I might prefer that they just leave it alone. I don't trust them to not make it even worse than they already have.

Yeah, they seem really definitive about that: Just because they say that, doesn't mean that's what ended up on screen. No matter how you slice it, what ended up on screen was crap storytelling. And as far as I know, the Russos still have a different 'interpretation'? Or have they contradicted themselves on that now too? They all screwed up one of the most important aspects of this film, and no amount them them trying to talk around it now is going to change that. So nah... for all the myriad reasons several people have already presented.

All I need is the basic DVD, but me too... I want to be able to gif the hell out of Steve and Mjölnir.

LOLOLOL, right??!?!?!? This was literally the reason Erskine chose Steve, there was a whole scene about it where Steve asked him to explain why he chose him. And Steve's innate inner strength and integrity are what attracted Peggy to him. I wonder if this was them trying to cover their ass after basically using Peggy as a prop in EG.

It would be much easier to move on if the Russos and the other PTB would stop. talking. Is it any wonder that Steve's whole storyline felt like it was just slapped together at the last minute, with the express goal to hook him up with a woman regardless of whether it made any sense for his character arc or not? **sigh**

Or did you mean 'not a new timeline' as in the time loop scenario, where he stays in the same timeline? If that's the case, and he was still going to do supersoldier stuff, why go back and stay in the past at all when there was plenty of work to be done rebuilding after Thanos? The sudden 'enduring fixation' on Peggy was invented specifically for Endgame & it ignores significant character evolution from the prior movies. But even putting that aside, if he did try to still do any superhero stuff after 1948, when he apparently went back for his dance, that would never have stayed unknown, and would have created speculation that there were additional rogue supersoldiers around and someone would have wanted them for their own purposes and would have hunted him down. Or if he had used the shield, that would have created speculation that Steve Rogers was still alive, which also would have likely created a manhunt for him. Even with Steve just being around Peggy, Howard would have had to know and probably others. Logistically that creates a whole host of other problems. Plus, he would have had to have been able to ignore that Bucky was alive and being tortured, that Howard was going to be killed, that Hydra was growing like a malignant tumor, and all the other atrocities that occurred during that time that Steve would have known about, but would have been powerless to stop. How could that not eat at him knowing all that was happening while he and Peggy were sitting down to Sunday dinner? And anything he did do, how could he ever really know he wasn't maybe creating some sort of Butterfly Effect, where changing even a small thing could have created a time branch and messed up the future for the people he'd abandoned (which is why time loops in fiction are generally of very short duration)? So, yeah... a whole host of other issues crop up for me with that scenario, but mileage obviously varies widely.

Absolutely agree, and the end of Endgame wasn't a 'time for soldiering' anymore, he didn't have to run away to a different time to escape that, and his urge to 'soldier' has always been more in his own head, than in his environment. But at the end of Endgame, it was finally a time for rebuilding and moving forward to help create a better future, that could have easily given him the (in character) purpose he needed to 'stop soldiering', the purpose he spoke to Sam about trying to find.

Exactly! It's basically Steve running away to hide, wrapping himself in cotton wool. Where Steve's entire character history was built around doing the opposite. And if it's an alternate universe, then he decided to ditch all his friends and create his own personal Sims community, which is still basically him running away to hide somewhere safe, while others are left to rebuild the mess he was part of creating (I'm not saying he was responsible, but as a participant I just can't see how he wouldn't have willingly taken on the obligations to help rebuild and move forward, because I think stubbornly moving forward no matter what has always been central to his character in pretty much any iteration. And they could have easily done that by having him pull a Carol and go off to other planets to see where he could help out, especially after Carol's comment to Rhodey.). It's still striking to me how similar Steve's actions (the context is obviously different) are to a Twilight Zone ep (it's a really good ep and it can be watched for free at this link) where an autistic man wills himself into a dollhouse in a museum, ostensibly to be with an idealized woman (a doll in the dollhouse) who, like Peggy in Endgame, doesn't ever speak in the ep,. In the ep, the man's actions are also sort of presented as a 'happy ending', and you feel good for him for succeeding in escaping the situation he's in and you assume he's finally happy, but if you look at the actual context of what happened to the man and how it's filmed, it clear that it's really about the man committing suicide. And with the title release of Dr. Strange 2, and also the premise of the Loki TV series... apparently Steve just totally blew off the mission he had agreed to perform and left the universe in chaos in order to have that 'ending' with Peggy.

@scriggle You might find this article somewhat cathartic. It breaks down how the Russos/M&M basically broke their own character arc that they had been building for Steve from the prior movies, in order to take that weird tangent for Steve in Endgame.

All the casting notices for the queer character that I saw were for an Asian male actor, but who knows what might have changed as the production process has progressed. It's one of those 'I'll believe it when I see it' things, no matter what KF says. Because it could end up just being something like 'Gay Joe Russo'. eta (this was from here) : So it could be one of those non-comic book new superheros they've also talked about. Which would be a way to avoid any comparisons to comic history for the character. I'll still believe it when I see it on screen. (it also might be something they're saving for D23)

From here: So... it sounds like they're basically doing what Cap 3 could have been, just without Steve/CE (what it should have been without shoehorning Tony and the Accords bullshit into it). It will probably be quite a few more years before I can watch this, but I'll be interested to see the gif sets that come out of it. And I'm sure there will be much fodder for fic writers to incorporate Steve, and I'll look forward to that too.