Avengers: Endgame (2019)

[Danny Franks]

3 hours ago, Dandesun said:

I also remain infuriated as to what this did to Peggy's life. PEGGY MOVED ON! But then Steve decided he couldn't so he went back and took her life from her? That's so beyond bullshit that I can only ascribe this to some craptacular decision made by Hydra!Cap who took over somehow and let Bucky remain under Hydra's control, kept Peggy preoccupied while the 'beautiful parasite' Zola was growing within SHIELD and did nothing when the Soldier was sent to kill the Starks. SURE! WHY NOT?!

And I don't care what Markus and McFeely are trying to sell now, there is no way in hell that Steve was Peggy's husband all along. Nor was there any way in hell Peggy had a picture of Skinny!Steve on her desk IN THE 70'S and no pictures of... oh, I don't know... HER KIDS?! Or the abject stupidity of them trying to sell Steve 'I Can't Walk Away When A Situation is Going South' Rogers would go back in time and sit on his ass while Bucky was being tortured and brainwashed for 70 years.

Dude. The writers were wrong. That's all it is. They liked the time loop explanation but somehow forgot it contradicted the established logic of time travel in the movie. The Russos were right - Steve went back and started a divergent timeline. One where Peggy didn't move on and meet someone else because it hadn't happened yet. In that timeline, Steve went to Peggy at some point and they rekindled their relationship, and then whatever happened after that is completely unknown to us, and can only be speculated on. We don't know that he didn't rescue Bucky, expose Hydra, and help build a utopian vision of society, aided by Peggy and Howard.

[Wynterwolf]

1 hour ago, scriggle said:

I read a fix-it fanfic with that basic premise.

There were so many great fix-it fic!  Some were actually able to make that mess make sense!  I just wish we could have gotten something on screen that actually made sense.  

[cambridgeguy]

3 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

Dude. The writers were wrong. That's all it is. They liked the time loop explanation but somehow forgot it contradicted the established logic of time travel in the movie. The Russos were right - Steve went back and started a divergent timeline. One where Peggy didn't move on and meet someone else because it hadn't happened yet. In that timeline, Steve went to Peggy at some point and they rekindled their relationship, and then whatever happened after that is completely unknown to us, and can only be speculated on. We don't know that he didn't rescue Bucky, expose Hydra, and help build a utopian vision of society, aided by Peggy and Howard.

Exactly - whatever the writers/fans think happened, the movie laid down some very firm rules about time travel that can't be ignored just for the sake of a preferred ending.  Maybe in this alternate timeline Steve was a slacker who stayed home and watched daytime TV while Peggy actually helped found SHIELD - that means he's a selfish jerk who allowed many people to suffer.  Or maybe he changed the world with his knowledge - you could argue he's an egomaniac with a god complex to change people's destinies like that.  We won't know the canon truth but that's practically irrelevant since anyone can think of whatever outcome they want.

[ChromaKelly]

OK I feel like I keep leaving the room, only to come back and open the door and go "And another thing!" on this Steve topic. But I thought of something else.
The whole reason Steve was returning the stones was to 'clip the branches' of the divergent timelines, as The Ancient One said. So, Steve staying in the past is creating a new timeline, which is the exact thing that he was on a mission to prevent. This is so stupid, Steve wouldn't do that.
I liked Tony's ending better, and he fucking died. At least he got to go out a hero. 

[morakot]

29 minutes ago, ChromaKelly said:

This is so stupid, Steve wouldn't do that.

And Steve is definitely not stupid.

[Wynterwolf]

26 minutes ago, ChromaKelly said:

OK I feel like I keep leaving the room, only to come back and open the door and go "And another thing!" on this Steve topic. But I thought of something else.

IKR?  It's like whichever scenario you choose, there's so many different things that are a problem.  It's like whack-a-mole!  

[Jeebus Cripes]

1 hour ago, ChromaKelly said:

OK I feel like I keep leaving the room, only to come back and open the door and go "And another thing!" on this Steve topic. 

I am aggravating the crap out of everyone around me because of this and probably a lot of people on the boards, but damn it... shit needs to be said. LOL.

[Danny Franks]

7 hours ago, ChromaKelly said:

OK I feel like I keep leaving the room, only to come back and open the door and go "And another thing!" on this Steve topic. But I thought of something else.
The whole reason Steve was returning the stones was to 'clip the branches' of the divergent timelines, as The Ancient One said. So, Steve staying in the past is creating a new timeline, which is the exact thing that he was on a mission to prevent. This is so stupid, Steve wouldn't do that.
I liked Tony's ending better, and he fucking died. At least he got to go out a hero. 

I remember her saying that taking the Time Stone would ruin her timeline, and that's why she was against it. Nothing about needing to avoid divergent timelines. 

Strange said he'd looked at over fourteen million different timelines, seems like one more wouldn't make a difference.

[Raja]

The way that remember the Ancient One's scene it wasn't to snip a timeline but to return the stones to protect it, the (any) timeline .  So if it were gone and not returned it wouldn't be there when Dr. Strange needed it in his origin movie.

Which brings us to Spider-Man and a possible multiverse there's a five year gap for the things that  go bad to have gotten loose with no Sorcerer Supreme or intact stone providing supernatural protection 

[ChromaKelly]

5 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

I remember her saying that taking the Time Stone would ruin her timeline, and that's why she was against it. Nothing about needing to avoid divergent timelines. 

Strange said he'd looked at over fourteen million different timelines, seems like one more wouldn't make a difference.

I thought she, or was it Bruce? said the line about "clip the branches" by returning the stones to the exact time they were taken, and that would eliminate the divergent timelines. Which, we now have one where Loki has the Tesseract, and there was no discussion of cleaning up that timeline.

Another time question - They explicitly state in the movie that their version of time travel is not Back to the Future. They can't do something in the past to "fix" the present. If that's the case, then how can Steve be Peggy's husband all along? Wouldn't that have to be an alternate timeline? 

[Danny Franks]

9 minutes ago, ChromaKelly said:

I thought she, or was it Bruce? said the line about "clip the branches" by returning the stones to the exact time they were taken, and that would eliminate the divergent timelines. Which, we now have one where Loki has the Tesseract, and there was no discussion of cleaning up that timeline.

Another time question - They explicitly state in the movie that their version of time travel is not Back to the Future. They can't do something in the past to "fix" the present. If that's the case, then how can Steve be Peggy's husband all along? Wouldn't that have to be an alternate timeline? 

They needed to clip out the divergent timeline that Bruce was creating because that was what Tilda Swinton made him promise to do. She didn't want a timeline created that didn't have the Stones in it, specifically the Stone that she knew Strange would need to use.

And Steve wasn't Peggy's husband all along. The only people who claimed that were the writers, but it's clear they forgot their own rules when they said that.

[VCRTracking]

[Guest]

31 minutes ago, ChromaKelly said:

I thought she, or was it Bruce? said the line about "clip the branches" by returning the stones to the exact time they were taken, and that would eliminate the divergent timelines. Which, we now have one where Loki has the Tesseract, and there was no discussion of cleaning up that timeline.

It was Steve’s line just before he went back with the stones.

BRUCE: Remember... You have to return the stones at the exact moment you got them. Or you're gonna open up a bunch of nasty alternative realities. 

STEVE: Don't worry, Bruce. Clip all the branches.

34 minutes ago, ChromaKelly said:

Another time question - They explicitly state in the movie that their version of time travel is not Back to the Future. They can't do something in the past to "fix" the present. If that's the case, then how can Steve be Peggy's husband all along? Wouldn't that have to be an alternate timeline? 

The Russo’s have said that the time travel not being like Back to the Future scene was added after test audiences found the time travel confusing.

The time loop was the writers intention but their time travel theory seems to be whatever they wanted it to be without any regard for logic. 

[Perfect Xero]

To quote Time Travel expert Professor Hubert Farnsworth:

"Your grandfather? Stay away from him, you dim-witted monkey! You mustn't interfere with the past. Don't do anything that affects anything, unless it turns out you were supposed to do it. In which case, for the love of God, don't not do it!"

[Dandesun]

3 hours ago, Dani said:

The Russo’s have said that the time travel not being like Back to the Future scene was added after test audiences found the time travel confusing.

The time loop was the writers intention but their time travel theory seems to be whatever they wanted it to be without any regard for logic. 

Timey-wimey is confusing period. And I'm with Scott Lang being really disappointed that 'Back to the Future' was 'bullshit' because... come on! And wasn't there a line from Bruce talking about going back into your past doesn't change your future? I feel that was to explain how Nebula could kill her past self and not have it result in her immediate disappearance and maybe also explain how Steve could go back into the past and... not do anything?

But they did all of this stuff with Past!Nebula and Past!Thanos and all of the Past!Dark Riders (or whatever they're called) coming to the Avengers present, post-Snapture, and wanting to take said Snapture even further with the Infinity Stones of the past... and killing Past!Thanos in the present didn't do anything to erase his involvement in the Battle of New York (with the Chitauri and Loki) or the Guardians of the Galaxy and that is even more confusing for me because they went back before GotG at the very least since Gamora was still with Thanos and had maybe only just started to waver...

**sigh** 

It gives me a headache. But everyone tells time travel stories differently and has their own set of rules (or not) to explain shit. I mean, John Connor sent Kyle Reese back in time to protect his mother from the Terminator and that's how John Connor came to be in the first place, right? (No judgement, Sarah, Michael Biehn was fucking hot.) And, sure, that makes an interesting twist to the story but would killing Reese before he went back in time basically do the same thing in preventing the existence of John Connor or was there an explanation for that? (It's been a long time since I've seen the Terminator.)

Hell, by the same token, you've got Marty McFly who returns from his meddling in the past with a successful family living in the same house and he's the only one who knows what it was like before and, even weirder, he didn't change at all... so was he living outside of the timeline or what?

Time Travel is Confusing!!!

Edited May 31, 2019 by Dandesun

[Jeebus Cripes]

8 hours ago, Dandesun said:

But they did all of this stuff with Past!Nebula and Past!Thanos and all of the Past!Dark Riders (or whatever they're called) coming to the Avengers present, post-Snapture, and wanting to take said Snapture even further with the Infinity Stones of the past... and killing Past!Thanos in the present didn't do anything to erase his involvement in the Battle of New York (with the Chitauri and Loki) or the Guardians of the Galaxy and that is even more confusing for me because they went back before GotG at the very least since Gamora was still with Thanos and had maybe only just started to waver...

Killing past Thanos in the present opened up an alternate timeline where Thanos is gone after 2014 (it was 2014 Thanos, right?). So, the Battle of New York did happen in 2012 (?), but the original snap didn't in that alternate timeline. Loki, Vision, Heimdall, anyone who Thanos killed post 2014 is still alive in that timeline. It upsets the GotG lineup dramatically, but otherwise, sounds like a cool universe.

[ICantDoThatDave]

That's why they should have had everyone realize they couldn't kill Thanos in the present & HAD to send him & Gamora back to 2014. Then Nebula tragically realizes she has to wipe her memories & take her past self's place. All to preserve the timeline.

[cambridgeguy]

1 hour ago, ICantDoThatDave said:

That's why they should have had everyone realize they couldn't kill Thanos in the present & HAD to send him & Gamora back to 2014. Then Nebula tragically realizes she has to wipe her memories & take her past self's place. All to preserve the timeline.

????  This only applies if the whole "if you kill your grandfather you cease to exist" paradox applies.  That's not what the movie's rules say.  There's now a timeline where Thanos and his forces vanished after 2014, which means that's a universe where no snap happened. The prime universe was never in danger of ceasing to exist because killing 2014 Thanos would create a paradox - the danger was the alternate 2014 Thanos wiping out all life with a snap. 

[Danny Franks]

1 hour ago, ICantDoThatDave said:

That's why they should have had everyone realize they couldn't kill Thanos in the present & HAD to send him & Gamora back to 2014. Then Nebula tragically realizes she has to wipe her memories & take her past self's place. All to preserve the timeline.

But they didn't have to. Thanos, despite what he claimed, wasn't inevitable. There was no need to preserve him in any timeline, like there was a need to preserve the Infinity Stones.

The timeline where Thanos jumps from, into 2023, will be a very different place. Possibly a better place, but possibly a worse (if the usual time travel theory of 'get rid of one threat and a different one will emerge proves true). In his timeline, Ronan the Accuser will wonder 'why can't I get in touch with my boss any more? Quill will wake up on Morag and should find the Stone/orb back in place. He may still meet Rocket and Groot, if Yondu puts out the bounty on him. And if they end up being caught on  Zandar, they may meet Drax, although the likelihood is that he'd take no interest in them without Gamora being present.

There are three basic theories of time travel in movies and books, that I'm aware of:

1. The Back to the Future theory, where everything you change in the past will be reflected in the future, but you'll know things are different, so you can keep going back to try and 'fix' events.

2. A variation on that, but the things you've changed become your past as well, so you never know they were different. The Twelve Monkeys TV show used this (sort of). Both 1. and 2. fall victim to paradoxes and causal loops, where things become inevitable and you can end up wiping out existence.

3. Divergent timelines, where anything you change doesn't affect your own present day at all. This is the theory that Avengers: Endgame follows. And it's by far the simplest one to display on screen and in books, unless you're interested in showing those divergent timelines.

Edited June 1, 2019 by Danny Franks

[ICantDoThatDave]

Oh, I know that's how they explained it in the movie. I just think it would've been "cleaner" to stick with "what happened happened & still has to happen", keeping one timeline. Trimming the branches.

Edited June 1, 2019 by ICantDoThatDave

[Perfect Xero]

8 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

But they didn't have to. Thanos, despite what he claimed, wasn't inevitable. There was no need to preserve him in any timeline, like there was a need to preserve the Infinity Stones.

The timeline where Thanos jumps from, into 2023, will be a very different place. Possibly a better place, but possibly a worse (if the usual time travel theory of 'get rid of one threat and a different one will emerge proves true). In his timeline, Ronan the Accuser will wonder 'why can't I get in touch with my boss any more? Quill will wake up on Morag and should find the Stone/orb back in place. He may still meet Rocket and Groot, if Yondu puts out the bounty on him. And if they end up being caught on  Zandar, they may meet Drax, although the likelihood is that he'd take no interest in them without Gamora being present.

There are three basic theories of time travel in movies and books, that I'm aware of:

1. The Back to the Future theory, where everything you change in the past will be reflected in the future, but you'll know things are different, so you can keep going back to try and 'fix' events.

2. A variation on that, but the things you've changed become your past as well, so you never know they were different. The Twelve Monkeys TV show used this (sort of). Both 1. and 2. fall victim to paradoxes and causal loops, where things become inevitable and you can end up wiping out existence.

3. Divergent timelines, where anything you change doesn't affect your own present day at all. This is the theory that Avengers: Endgame follows. And it's by far the simplest one to display on screen and in books, unless you're interested in showing those divergent timelines.

There's also the predetermination theory. Time travel changes nothing because the time travel was always destined to happened and there's no version of the timeline where it did not. The third Harry Potter uses this version of time travel where certain events that happen earlier in the book/film are revealed to have been caused by future versions of Harry and Hermione secretly traveling back in time.

This film tries to mesh together Divergent Timelines with Predetermination, so that if you don't actually change anything then no new timeline is formed so it's possible for Steve to have always been Peggy's Husband (at least according to the writers) and that's how he ends up on the bench at the end of the film.

[Lantern7]

I forget to mention that I went to a comic con a few weeks ago, and I got two Endgame-related sketches: Thanos by Simon Bisley and Cap/Steve with Mjolnir by JP Buzio. Oh and I got Nebula a few weeks before that by Alyssa Spector

.

[GodsBeloved]

On 5/31/2019 at 5:17 PM, Dandesun said:

It gives me a headache. But everyone tells time travel stories differently and has their own set of rules (or not) to explain shit. I mean, John Connor sent Kyle Reese back in time to protect his mother from the Terminator and that's how John Connor came to be in the first place, right? (No judgement, Sarah, Michael Biehn was fucking hot.) And, sure, that makes an interesting twist to the story but would killing Reese before he went back in time basically do the same thing in preventing the existence of John Connor or was there an explanation for that? (It's been a long time since I've seen the Terminator.)

The idea of killing Reese didn't come up in the first movie because it was stated that the only thing Skynet knew was John's mother's name.

Back to regular programming 😄

[Dee]

[ChromaKelly]

I think for my own sanity, I'm going to ignore anything the Russos or M&M say about the timeline and stick with what was on screen. That way I'm free to interpret what may have happened off screen in what I believe is in keeping with the character of Cap. Did he actually marry Peggy? IDK, we didn't see it.
(Part of me still thinks they wanted to kill Stucky though)

Edited June 4, 2019 by ChromaKelly

[TVSpectator]

It's been almost a month since I saw this movie and I am settling on that I liked it but it does have some flaws. I think that the most that I hated from the movie were the fact that they wanted to either keep the timeline intact and/or can't change the timeline. To me personally, if they were going to time travel then they should've just traveled back to when Thanos was attacking New York City than trying to fight him 5 years later. Overall, not a bad movie but also I am wondering what was the point of The Ancient One if nothing will come from her warning?

[Dee]

[morakot]

17 hours ago, ChromaKelly said:

I think for my own sanity, I'm going to ignore anything the Russos or M&M say about the timeline and stick with what was on screen. That way I'm free to interpret what may have happened off screen in what I believe is in keeping with the character of Cap. Did he actually marry Peggy? IDK, we didn't see it.
(Part of me still thinks they wanted to kill Stucky though)

I have been la-la-la-ing about this myself, and have decided that Steve went back to fulfill a promise to dance with Peggy, wished her well, picked up an intact shield, returned to present day, handed off the shield and retired to go paint and train young mutants. 

[cambridgeguy]

8 hours ago, TVSpectator said:

I think that the most that I hated from the movie were the fact that they wanted to either keep the timeline intact and/or can't change the timeline.

They (the writers) were in a no win situation here once they decided to let 5 years pass.   Travel back in time and undo everything?  Well screw you writers, way to create a story where there are absolutely no real stakes since you can just go back and take a do over.  Also, who the hell are the Avengers to unilaterally decide that the people born and relationships formed post-snap are less valuable than the pre-snap ones?  For every Hawkeye who lost everything there's a Tony Stark who ended up with a pretty happy life, all things considered. 

Of course, the problem with the route they took is a sudden reappearance of the dusted.  That's fine if an entire family was wiped out, but imagine the awkwardness if you've found a new spouse and your old one suddenly reappears,  Heck, even if you're still single one person has gone through five traumatic years.  I imagine Hawkeye will have quite the conversation with his wife about what he did in that time.

[Danny Franks]

7 hours ago, morakot said:

I have been la-la-la-ing about this myself, and have decided that Steve went back to fulfill a promise to dance with Peggy, wished her well, picked up an intact shield, returned to present day, handed off the shield and retired to go paint and train young mutants. 

That seems like an unnecessarily cruel thing to do to a woman who lost the man she loved. "Hey, I'm alive and I know you loved me and mourned me for years. But I'm okay so... chin up, girl. See you!"

Unless Steve told her where to find and unfreeze her timeline's Steve... which would then change the timeline and cause the same problems that everyone keeps thinking up.

[Raja]

1 hour ago, Danny Franks said:

That seems like an unnecessarily cruel thing to do to a woman who lost the man she loved. "Hey, I'm alive and I know you loved me and mourned me for years. But I'm okay so... chin up, girl. See you!"

Unless Steve told her where to find and unfreeze her timeline's Steve... which would then change the timeline and cause the same problems that everyone keeps thinking up.

Actually if the only difference was Howard Stark had a smaller more accurate search grid would be Steve before the Avengers in that timeline. Bucky remains a Soviet Hydra slave and Hydra continues to grow inside of S.H.I.E.L.D 

[morakot]

4 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

That seems like an unnecessarily cruel thing to do to a woman who lost the man she loved. "Hey, I'm alive and I know you loved me and mourned me for years. But I'm okay so... chin up, girl. See you!"

It also depends on when he went back to. We know from Agent Carter that she was working in Manhattan after the war and living in the boarding house.  If he went back then, he's 10-15 years older than he was before - which could change the balance of the relationship.

Going by the cars (and I am NOT a car expert), it seemed like he visited about 4 or 5 years later at which point she was already moving on.

[Danny Franks]

5 hours ago, Raja said:

Actually if the only difference was Howard Stark had a smaller more accurate search grid would be Steve before the Avengers in that timeline. Bucky remains a Soviet Hydra slave and Hydra continues to grow inside of S.H.I.E.L.D 

That's discounting the ripple effect of Steve Rogers being active in Shield for potentially decades, as Hydra were embedding themselves, as the Winter Soldier was active and as all other world events took place.

2 hours ago, morakot said:

It also depends on when he went back to. We know from Agent Carter that she was working in Manhattan after the war and living in the boarding house.  If he went back then, he's 10-15 years older than he was before - which could change the balance of the relationship.

Going by the cars (and I am NOT a car expert), it seemed like he visited about 4 or 5 years later at which point she was already moving on.

What's the point of doing it at all, then? If she hasn't moved on, it's cruel and painful to her and if she has moved on, it's Steve inflicting pointless pain on himself. We also don't know if that scene of them at the end was their immediate reunion or a snippet from several years after their reunion.

[TVSpectator]

13 hours ago, cambridgeguy said:

They (the writers) were in a no win situation here once they decided to let 5 years pass.   Travel back in time and undo everything?  Well screw you writers, way to create a story where there are absolutely no real stakes since you can just go back and take a do over.  Also, who the hell are the Avengers to unilaterally decide that the people born and relationships formed post-snap are less valuable than the pre-snap ones?  For every Hawkeye who lost everything there's a Tony Stark who ended up with a pretty happy life, all things considered. 

Of course, the problem with the route they took is a sudden reappearance of the dusted.  That's fine if an entire family was wiped out, but imagine the awkwardness if you've found a new spouse and your old one suddenly reappears,  Heck, even if you're still single one person has gone through five traumatic years.  I imagine Hawkeye will have quite the conversation with his wife about what he did in that time.

If the time jump of 5 years was the case then I would say don't do it. They wrote that Thanos somehow was able to destroy the Infinity Stones (off-screen and I thought they mentioned that you can't destroy any Infinity Stones native to their universe?) and then they created the issue of the whole, "5 years have passed" thing because that would cause issues- as you have said. I know that a lot of people wanted to see the effects of the Snap and we were only given little snippets of it (like the support group that Cap was in and Cap telling Black Widow he saw some whales in the Hudson River, etc...) but overall they spent way too much time on the time travel aspect (and I am person who loves a good time travel story. I love Star Trek's mess up time travel stories the most), in my opinion, without any clear rules. It felt like they wanted to have to both ways. Like you said they wanted to keep things the same because who are they to fuck up another person's life but it also felt like they wanted to bring back the Infinity Stones (that they destroyed in the same movie) without any real repercussions to deal with. 

But according to the movie they couldn't change the past anyway because the rule of time travel, for this franchise now seems to be,  you can't change the past (well this was something they all believed in any way) but they decided to have The Ancient One say that if you remove one Infinity Stone you run the risk of creating an alternative timeline filled with monsters. Which okay, why do that if you can't change the past (and The Ancient One was talking about time branching off into another, very bad, timeline, btw)? Also if you can't change the past then how did all of the Loki scenes from after the Battle of New York actually happened? It was cool and a bit funny to see Loki take back the Space Stone, but overall I am thinking did they actually lose Loki in the original timeline or is this an actual new timeline or what?

Overall what I liked the best was Cap's ending. Call me a softie for his romance with Peggy (which they never forgot, cough Betty Ross/Bruce Banner, cough) nor acted like it was nothing to Steve nor the times we saw Peggy (assuming that Agent Carter IS MCU canon). Or even retcon out of existence (cough, Betty Ross/Bruce Banner, cough) and I can understand what they did there. I have assumed that Steve just went back in time and returned all of the Infinity Stones and then traveled back to the later 1940s and/or early 1950s and "retired" with Peggy. Becoming her secret husband (that we were kind of introduced in The Winter Soldier, but they never said who she married and was a big mystery) and fathered 2 or 3 kids with her. I like to think that this was more or less what he was supposed to have done and not creating a new timeline but something that was supposed to have happened. Although, that also implies that when Steve kissed Sharon he was either kissing his (now) great-niece and/or possible granddaughter (and I am aware of the fan theory that Peggy's "niece/nephew" could actually be her kids and a few things do kind of line up with it in Civil War. Like how Sharon said that Peggy was the first one to buy her a gun holster when her parents weren't too happy about. That to me screams more like a grandmother than grand-aunt defiance, in my opinion. Not to mention that in the show Agent Carter, it was stated that Peggy's only sibling died in WWII presumably without leaving behind any kids)

Edited June 6, 2019 by TVSpectator

[Raja]

1 hour ago, TVSpectator said:

If the time jump of 5 years was the case then I would say don't do it. They wrote that Thanos somehow was able to destroy the Infinity Stones (off-screen and I thought they mentioned that you can't destroy any Infinity Stones native to their universe?) and then they created the issue of the whole, "5 years have passed" thing because that would cause issues- as you have said. I know that a lot of people wanted to see the effects of the Snap and we were only given little snippets of it (like the support group that Cap was in and Cap telling Black Widow he saw some whales in the Hudson River, etc...) but overall they spent way too much time on the time travel aspect (and I am person who loves a good time travel story. I love Star Trek's mess up time travel stories the most), in my opinion, without any clear rules. It felt like they wanted to have to both ways. Like you said they wanted to keep things the same because who are they to fuck up another person's life but it also felt like they wanted to bring back the Infinity Stones (that they destroyed in the same movie) without any real repercussions to deal with. 

But according to the movie they couldn't change the past anyway because the rule of time travel, for this franchise now seems to be,  you can't change the past (well this was something they all believed in any way) but they decided to have The Ancient One say that if you remove one Infinity Stone you run the risk of creating an alternative timeline filled with monsters. Which okay, why do that if you can't change the past (and The Ancient One was talking about time branching off into another, very bad, timeline, btw)? Also if you can't change the past then how did all of the Loki scenes from after the Battle of New York actually happened? It was cool and a bit funny to see Loki take back the Space Stone, but overall I am thinking did they actually lose Loki in the original timeline or is this an actual new timeline or what?

Overall what I liked the best was Cap's ending. Call me a softie for his romance with Peggy (which they never forgot, cough Betty Ross/Bruce Banner, cough) nor acted like it was nothing to Steve nor the times we saw Peggy (assuming that Agent Carter IS MCU canon). Or even retcon out of existence (cough, Betty Ross/Bruce Banner, cough) and I can understand what they did there. I have assumed that Steve just went back in time and returned all of the Infinity Stones and then traveled back to the later 1940s and/or early 1950s and "retired" with Peggy. Becoming her secret husband (that we were kind of introduced in The Winter Soldier, but they never said who she married and was a big mystery) and fathered 2 or 3 kids with her. I like to think that this was more or less what he was supposed to have done and not creating a new timeline but something that was supposed to have happened. Although, that also implies that when Steve kissed Sharon he was either kissing his (now) great-niece and/or possible granddaughter (and I am aware of the fan theory that Peggy's "niece/nephew" could actually be her kids and a few things do kind of line up with it in Civil War. Like how Sharon said that Peggy was the first one to buy her a gun holster when her parents weren't too happy about. That to me screams more like a grandmother than grand-aunt defiance, in my opinion. Not to mention that in the show Agent Carter, it was stated that Peggy's only sibling died in WWII presumably without leaving behind any kids)

The problem with Steve retires is that Steve is no longer a superhero. He has absolute knowledge of Hydra growing inside of SHIELD and an American soldier, Bucky Barnes being enslaved by Soviet Union's Hydra and doing nothing about it. However if he split off into another timeline then the hero Steve does something, But we only get to see it if Chris Evans can be lured back or a middle aged Steve is recast for a Disney+ What If? show.

[TVSpectator]

1 minute ago, Raja said:

The problem with Steve retires is that Steve is no longer a superhero. He has absolute knowledge of Hydra growing inside of SHIELD and an American soldier, Bucky Barnes being enslaved by Soviet Union's Hydra and doing nothing about it. However if he split off into another timeline then the hero Steve does something, But we only get to see it if Chris Evans can be lured back or a middle aged Steve is recast for a Disney+ What If? show.

But if Steve can't change the past...

But yeah I do agree that it leaves a massive plot hole. Pretty much the reason why kind of hate how they stated how time travel works. 

[Raja]

1 minute ago, TVSpectator said:

But if Steve can't change the past...

But yeah I do agree that it leaves a massive plot hole. Pretty much the reason why kind of hate how they stated how time travel works. 

By "can't change" I thought they meant they can't make a future person disappear. Which is true if a different timeline is created. In Steve's future from 2023 to say 1950 and living the next couple of decades how can he be silent or just dismissed so that around 2014 everybody is shocked when the Alexander Pierce wing of Hydra comes out of the shadows?

[ChromaKelly]

15 hours ago, cambridgeguy said:

They (the writers) were in a no win situation here once they decided to let 5 years pass.   Travel back in time and undo everything?  Well screw you writers, way to create a story where there are absolutely no real stakes since you can just go back and take a do over.  Also, who the hell are the Avengers to unilaterally decide that the people born and relationships formed post-snap are less valuable than the pre-snap ones?  For every Hawkeye who lost everything there's a Tony Stark who ended up with a pretty happy life, all things considered. 

Of course, the problem with the route they took is a sudden reappearance of the dusted.  That's fine if an entire family was wiped out, but imagine the awkwardness if you've found a new spouse and your old one suddenly reappears,  Heck, even if you're still single one person has gone through five traumatic years.  I imagine Hawkeye will have quite the conversation with his wife about what he did in that time.

Yep. I just can't think about the 5 year jump and the implications of bringing everyone, not just the missing Avengers and adjacent people, back after that long. Five years is a long time. People move on. Fall in love again, start new lives. Heck, people who survived the snap have died in the five year period. So what if someone comes back from the snap, only to find their loved one has died? What if a parent committed suicide over the loss of their child and then the child comes back with no mom or dad? And everyone comes back? Even criminals, assholes, abusers? It would have been better if it was an undoing the snap, not bringing them all back with the five years passing. Although, I'm guessing the implications of all this might be explored in Far From Home.

[TVSpectator]

Just now, Raja said:

By "can't change" I thought they meant they can't make a future person disappear. Which is true if a different timeline is created. In Steve's future from 2023 to say 1950 and living the next couple of decades how can he be silent or just dismissed so that around 2014 everybody is shocked when the Alexander Pierce wing of Hydra comes out of the shadows?

No, I thought that they said that they can't change events from the past. So if that is true then how was Steve Rogers able to marry Peggy Carter? Unless he was really her husband in the original timeline.

My issue is that maybe Steve really did create another timeline (which again, the movie hammered in that you can't because of science. They even dissed on Back to the Future, The Terminator, Hot Tub Time Machine, and Star Trek time traveling rules over this, in the film. Basically saying that they can't change the past no matter what) but somehow he was able to return to the same timeline he disappeared from so he can give Falcon his shield. 

Again, some major plot holes are present here and I doubt that they will address. Maybe they will or maybe they will not (given the track record for a few other things). 

[ChromaKelly]

11 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

That seems like an unnecessarily cruel thing to do to a woman who lost the man she loved. "Hey, I'm alive and I know you loved me and mourned me for years. But I'm okay so... chin up, girl. See you!"

Unless Steve told her where to find and unfreeze her timeline's Steve... which would then change the timeline and cause the same problems that everyone keeps thinking up.

OMG I read the best fix-it fic that cleans everything up. Yes, it involved messing with time but it was good. Why can random people on the internet write better stories that are more in keeping with the characters we've known for years than the actual writers? Sometimes I still can't believe Endgame was written and directed by the same people who did TWS. 

[Perfect Xero]

40 minutes ago, TVSpectator said:

But according to the movie they couldn't change the past anyway because the rule of time travel, for this franchise now seems to be,  you can't change the past (well this was something they all believed in any way) but they decided to have The Ancient One say that if you remove one Infinity Stone you run the risk of creating an alternative timeline filled with monsters. Which okay, why do that if you can't change the past (and The Ancient One was talking about time branching off into another, very bad, timeline, btw)? Also if you can't change the past then how did all of the Loki scenes from after the Battle of New York actually happened? It was cool and a bit funny to see Loki take back the Space Stone, but overall I am thinking did they actually lose Loki in the original timeline or is this an actual new timeline or what?

You can change the past as much as you want, the issue is that nothing you change in the past will have any affect on you or your future that you traveled to the past from, because changing the past creates a new timeline that branches off at the moment you changed whatever you changed.

If the Avengers went back to Wakanda 5 years ago and killed Thanos before he could snap it would not change the fact that he snapped away half the life in the universe in the future the Avengers came from. Those people would still be gone, there would just now be a new timeline where the Snap never happened, if the 2023 Avengers returned to the moment they left their time, they'd find that nothing had changed. Both of those timelines would exist. This is why they had to find a way to undo the Snap in their present rather than just preventing it from happening.

If Hulk takes the Time Stone he creates a new timeline where Doctor Strange doesn't have the time stone to face Dormammu, Dormammu would win and everyone in that timeline would end up in the Dark Dimension. This would change nothing in the mainstream MCU future they came from, but it would create a new timeline where everyone is doomed to a fate worse than death. This is why they have to return the Time Stone at the end of the movie to stop the new timeline from branching off, because otherwise they'd just be killing one Universe to save half the people from their universe, and that's just as evil as anything Thanos did.

Likewise when Loki takes the Space Stone and escapes in 2012 it creates a branch timeline where Loki escaped, this, again having no impact on the main MCU timeline that they came from. Though it's certainly possible that part of Steve's pruning mission at the end was capturing Loki and returning him and the time stone to the moments right after he escaped. (Though given that a Loki TV series is happening, this is probably not the case).

Quote

Overall what I liked the best was Cap's ending. Call me a softie for his romance with Peggy (which they never forgot, cough Betty Ross/Bruce Banner, cough) nor acted like it was nothing to Steve nor the times we saw Peggy (assuming that Agent Carter IS MCU canon). Or even retcon out of existence (cough, Betty Ross/Bruce Banner, cough) and I can understand what they did there. I have assumed that Steve just went back in time and returned all of the Infinity Stones and then traveled back to the later 1940s and/or early 1950s and "retired" with Peggy. Becoming her secret husband (that we were kind of introduced in The Winter Soldier, but they never said who she married and was a big mystery) and fathered 2 or 3 kids with her. I like to think that this was more or less what he was supposed to have done and not creating a new timeline but something that was supposed to have happened. Although, that also implies that when Steve kissed Sharon he was either kissing his (now) great-niece and/or possible granddaughter (and I am aware of the fan theory that Peggy's "niece/nephew" could actually be her kids and a few things do kind of line up with it in Civil War. Like how Sharon said that Peggy was the first one to buy her a gun holster when her parents weren't too happy about. That to me screams more like a grandmother than grand-aunt defiance, in my opinion. Not to mention that in the show Agent Carter, it was stated that Peggy's only sibling died in WWII presumably without leaving behind any kids)

The redacted M. Carter case file in Season 2 of Agent Carter and Thompson being shot over it at the end of the season, implies that Peggy's brother might still be alive after his apparent death and it probably would have been the main story in Season 3.

[blugirlami21]

The more that is said and thought about Steve's ending the worse it gets.

I'm so glad that his ending is a part if the movie I can ignore and happily never watch again. I'm gonna pretend that he did what he set out to do, had his dance with Peggy, came back to the present gave Sam the shield and got a real life with the real friends he had left. 

There was nothing for him in the past besides Peggy. Why would he abandon his new family for a might have been? It makes no sense.

[Raja]

3 minutes ago, blugirlami21 said:

The more that is said and thought about Steve's ending the worse it gets.

I'm so glad that his ending is a part if the movie I can ignore and happily never watch again. I'm gonna pretend that he did what he set out to do, had his dance with Peggy, came back to the present gave Sam the shield and got a real life with the real friends he had left. 

There was nothing for him in the past besides Peggy. Why would he abandon his new family for a might have been? It makes no sense.

In the past Captain Rogers would have been like any other soldier returned after being MIA, most of those actually being a POW.  Steve would have had everything except one childhood friend Bucky Barnes, who was also assumed dead, but now they had a chance to force Stalin's and Hydra to hand him back.

[TVSpectator]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8

12 minutes ago, Perfect Xero said:

You can change the past as much as you want, the issue is that nothing you change in the past will have any affect on you or your future that you traveled to the past from, because changing the past creates a new timeline that branches off at the moment you changed whatever you changed.

If the Avengers went back to Wakanda 5 years ago and killed Thanos before he could snap it would not change the fact that he snapped away half the life in the universe in the future the Avengers came from. Those people would still be gone, there would just now be a new timeline where the Snap never happened, if the 2023 Avengers returned to the moment they left their time, they'd find that nothing had changed. Both of those timelines would exist. This is why they had to find a way to undo the Snap in their present rather than just preventing it from happening.

If Hulk takes the Time Stone he creates a new timeline where Doctor Strange doesn't have the time stone to face Dormammu, Dormammu would win and everyone in that timeline would end up in the Dark Dimension. This would change nothing in the mainstream MCU future they came from, but it would create a new timeline where everyone is doomed to a fate worse than death. This is why they have to return the Time Stone at the end of the movie to stop the new timeline from branching off, because otherwise they'd just be killing one Universe to save half the people from their universe, and that's just as evil as anything Thanos did.

Likewise when Loki takes the Space Stone and escapes in 2012 it creates a branch timeline where Loki escaped, this, again having no impact on the main MCU timeline that they came from. Though it's certainly possible that part of Steve's pruning mission at the end was capturing Loki and returning him and the time stone to the moments right after he escaped. (Though given that a Loki TV series is happening, this is probably not the case).

Okay so again, all they stated is that you can't change your past. So if they are building the time machine in like 2022/2023 and we can all Timeline 1. According to Tony all of what pop-culture states about going to the past to changed the future amounts to it being all false (so the line, "Back to the Future lied to me" implies that you can't change your past because the outcome will be the same). So you can't change the past. So we are still in Timeline 1 when the Avengers came back to bring everyone back and Tony Snapped Thanos and his army. So when Steve went to bring the Stones back (and their back-up plan was to bring back the Stones the moment they took the Stones out of TImeline 1). So Steve is still in Timeline 1 and believes you can't change things. What happens is what is supposed to happen and he goes back to Peggy and has a life with her. He later comes back to Falcon (as an old man) to give him his shield. Implying again that they were all in the same timeline. 

[blugirlami21]

I meant personally. Steve didn't have any family left except Bucky depending on when he went back. The howlies and or Howard but the whole movie beat us over the head with the fact that Steve considered the avengers family. That was the whole point of undoing the snap. That was the whole point of Natasha sacrificing herself so that their family could be whole again.

To me, ymmv, going back to the past for Peggy, who he wasn't even ever really with over his found family was a stretch and it was completely ooc.

Edited June 6, 2019 by blugirlami21

[Raja]

Almost any combat unit soldier would call his mates brothers, but there is still blood family and his world around. Steve Rogers time and his world is the 1940s even if he lived 10 years as a combatant in the 2010s

[Jeebus Cripes]

2 hours ago, Perfect Xero said:

You can change the past as much as you want, the issue is that nothing you change in the past will have any affect on you or your future that you traveled to the past from, because changing the past creates a new timeline that branches off at the moment you changed whatever you changed.

If the Avengers went back to Wakanda 5 years ago and killed Thanos before he could snap it would not change the fact that he snapped away half the life in the universe in the future the Avengers came from. Those people would still be gone, there would just now be a new timeline where the Snap never happened, if the 2023 Avengers returned to the moment they left their time, they'd find that nothing had changed. Both of those timelines would exist. This is why they had to find a way to undo the Snap in their present rather than just preventing it from happening.

Was the Time Stone really utilized properly in this film? Having watched what Dr. Strange was able to do with it in his movie, could they not have used that stone in conjunction with the gauntlet to literally change time? When Thanos unkilled Vision, we watched that unfold in the current timeline. Seems like the Time Stone used with the Reality Stone could just undo the past 5 years and reverse the snap like it never happened at all. No branching off into an alternate timeline, just manipulate the prime one with the stones.

I don't know if I'm making sense... it's late. It makes sense in my head, though. LOL.

[Perfect Xero]

17 hours ago, TVSpectator said:

Okay so again, all they stated is that you can't change your past. So if they are building the time machine in like 2022/2023 and we can all Timeline 1. According to Tony all of what pop-culture states about going to the past to changed the future amounts to it being all false (so the line, "Back to the Future lied to me" implies that you can't change your past because the outcome will be the same). So you can't change the past. So we are still in Timeline 1 when the Avengers came back to bring everyone back and Tony Snapped Thanos and his army. So when Steve went to bring the Stones back (and their back-up plan was to bring back the Stones the moment they took the Stones out of TImeline 1). So Steve is still in Timeline 1 and believes you can't change things. What happens is what is supposed to happen and he goes back to Peggy and has a life with her. He later comes back to Falcon (as an old man) to give him his shield. Implying again that they were all in the same timeline. 

I think it's the opposite, Steve would believe that he can change anything, Steve should believe that his going back in time to Peggy has already created another timeline based on what is shown in the film, and, as such, should not feel particularly bound to try to preserve the many horrible events he knows are happening (such as Bucky being enslaved, Hydra growing inside Shield, and Howard's murder). That Steve is able to go back in time and be Peggy's husband and still end up on that bench in Timeline 1 is an oddity within the Time Travel rules of the film.

[TVSpectator]

48 minutes ago, Perfect Xero said:

I think it's the opposite, Steve would believe that he can change anything, Steve should believe that his going back in time to Peggy has already created another timeline based on what is shown in the film, and, as such, should not feel particularly bound to try to preserve the many horrible events he knows are happening (such as Bucky being enslaved, Hydra growing inside Shield, and Howard's murder). That Steve is able to go back in time and be Peggy's husband and still end up on that bench in Timeline 1 is an oddity within the Time Travel rules of the film.

Well, that is the thing. He ended up on the bench in Timeline 1 and not Timeline 2. I guess it would make sense if he just gave up on everything and just settle with Peggy. But that would be totally out of character. Also, I would imagine that he would tell Peggy everything that had happened to him. Like being on ice for 70+ years, Hyrda hiding in SHIELD, Bucky being alive and being brainwash/torture. Bucky killing Howard, Star Trek, Thanos, and the Infinity Stones, The Snap, Tony dying saving everyone and bringing back the lost, etc....

[Zuleikha]

Seems like the Time Stone used with the Reality Stone could just undo the past 5 years and reverse the snap like it never happened at all. No branching off into an alternate timeline, just manipulate the prime one with the stones.

Tony's condition was that he would help as long as they not do anything that would erase what he found in the last 5 years. So he would be unwilling to use the Time Stone and Reality Stone like that, even if possible. I think Tony's condition was good because there would be other people like him who had good things happen during the 5 years. It's not just to erase their positive things to undo other people's negatives.

. So you can't change the past. So we are still in Timeline 1 when the Avengers came back to bring everyone back and Tony Snapped Thanos and his army. So when Steve went to bring the Stones back (and their back-up plan was to bring back the Stones the moment they took the Stones out of TImeline 1). So Steve is still in Timeline 1 and believes you can't change things.

It's not that Steve believes you can't change things--it's that any changes he makes will lead to a branched timeline. So the real question that the movie doesn't answer is how does Steve get to Timeline 1's branch? If he just let time pass forward, then he couldn't do any changes to Timeline 1's past. That sounds like that's the intention of the directors, which is why they say it was a time loop. Steve was always Peggy's husband so him being there causes no changes because he was always there. 

This doesn't bother me the way it bothers everyone else because I don't see why Steve couldn't retire. He's lost a lot and done a lot. He knew any changes he made wouldn't affect Timeline 1 (and thus wouldn't affect the people he knew and loved). He also knew that Timeline 1 would mostly be okay. So IMHO, it's not really bad that he retired and had his own life. 

But the alternative possibility is that he went back, created a branched universe, and did lots of changes in that branched universe. Then he got help from someone to travel between branches back to Timeline 1 (could have been any of Shuri, Tony, Hank/Janet, Bruce, the Ancient One, Strange, Wong... loads of possibilities). Nothing we saw in the movie contradicts that possibility. It would also let them do a Captain America/Agent Carter alternate universe movie if the MCU ever wanted to. In that version, he presumably rescues Bucky, prevents the Hydra takeover of S.H.I.E.L.D., rescues his past self, and makes lots of changes. Some of them would probably have exciting unintended consequences.