Massive Marvel Movie Mania: Avengers Endgame
So, a while back I talked about Avengers: Infinity War, and how it was the culmination of a decade of Marvel movies that led up to the ultimate cliffhanger. So, how does said cliffhanger get resolved?
Let's find out!
CUE SPOILERS UNDER CUT, SO, YOU KNOW, FOREWARNED.
NO SERIOUSLY, I'M TELLING THE WHOLE STORY, IT'S FULL OF SPOILERS, DON'T DO IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW
...OK, YOU WERE WARNED.
When we last left half of our heroes, they were exactly that: half. Thanos won. He snapped his fingers and poof, half of all life in the universe turned to dust. Much sad. The remaining heroes are scattered, demoralized, traumatized. Briefly:
Hawkeye - just hanging out with his family, being cool, and then suddenly his entire family goes poof
Iron Man and Nebula - lost in space until Captain Marvel finds them and flies them to Earth
Ant Man - trapped in the Quantum Realm
Everyone else - hanging out at Avengers HQ being all mopey
Nebula and Rocket help the team figure out where Thanos has gone. Captain Marvel, their new powerhouse, guides them in to where Thanos is just chilling in his garden harvesting giant dragonfruits and making a stew. He's wearing a XXXXXL t-shirt, like really, where'd he get that? Oh yeah, he can probably infinity stone up a whole wardrobe if he wants. Anyway, the team shows up, beats his ass, and realizes he doesn't have the stones anymore. Why? Because he's brilliant. Once he got himself settled, he destroyed the stones so that what he did could never be undone or redone. Thor promptly cuts off his head and calls it good enough. Everyone else is all "Well, shit."
FIVE YEARS LATER
Life sucks. Captain America is a grief counsellor. Hawkeye is murdering criminals because he's good at it. Iron Man and Pepper have a family and live in the country. Everyone else is out there doing whatever they can to help. And then Ant Man emerges from the quantum realm with a proposal: TIME TRAVEL.
Tony says NO WAY, NOT GONNA DO IT
Hulk (who is now Smart BannerHulk, and totally cool) says NO WAY OK MAYBE
Tony says OK FINE I AM SO SMART I DID IT ALSO HERE SHIELD
Ant Man pees his suit
With the successful invention of time travel, they pull a Blues Brothers montage to get the team back together. This mostly involves discovering Thor has gone into a tremendous downward depressive spiral over his collective failures. We do get to see Korg and Mieks and Valkyrie again, though, so woohoo!
The Avengers build a time machine. Objective: Go back in time and space to where the stones are, based on their collective knowledge of the stones' history. Get stones, bring them back to present, use stones to undo The Big Snap, and then return the stones to their place in time. Simple. TEAMWORK!
Team 1a: Nebula and War Machine, off to steal the Power Stone before Star Lord gets it in GotG1
Team 1b: Hawkeye and Black Widow, old buddies, off to visit Vormyr to get the Soul Stone
Team 2: Rocket and Thor, going to Asgard to collect the Ether (Reality Stone) before the Dark Elves strike in Thor2
Team 3: Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, and Ant Man, going to NYC because, during the invasion of New York in Avengers1, all three remaining stones can be found there (Mind, Time, Space)
Sounds like a great plan! How could anything possibly go wrong?
Surprise: Everything goes wrong.
Team 1a: Nebula and War Machine succeed, oddly enough, but Thanos and Nebula and Gamora are also in the area looking for the stone. OldNebula and NewNebula malfunction by being in the same time together, and Thanos tracks NewNebula down and captures her before she can return to the future. After studying her, Thanos replaces NewNebula with OldNebula and sends her back to the future as a double agent.
Team 1b: The Soul Stone requires sacrifice, as we saw in Avengers3. Hawkeye and Black Widow fight each other because each believes they deserve to be the sacrifice. Black Widow 'wins'. Black Widow, consequently, dies. Hawkeye gets the stone.
Team 2: Thor completely breaks down in Asgard, but his mother finds him and understands who, what, and when he really is. They talk, and Thor unloads all his guilt and angst and failure on her. She helps him get over that. Meanwhile Rocket is not a complete fuckup and gets the Reality Stone. Thor also summons Mjolnir and it comes to him. Neat!
Team 3a: Hulk heads downtown to get the Time Stone from Dr. Strange... except that Dr. Strange is not yet the Sorcerer Supreme. The Ancient One stops Hulk, and only through his negotiation and revelation of the future does he get her to relent and give up the stone. Hulk, like Rocket, does not fuck anything up.
Team 3b: Iron Man, Ant Man, and Captain America go into Stark Tower as Loki is defeated. They arrange to steal both the Tesseract (Space Stone) and the Sceptre (Mind Stone). In a series of amazing and hilarious fuckups, a captive Loki ends up with the Tesseract and uses it to escape while NewCaptain America encounters OldCaptain America and gets into the fight of his life for the Sceptre. Ant Man, oddly enough, does not fuck anything up. So Iron Man and Captain America gamble on a new plan: Go back more in time to collect the Tesseract and more time travel particles. Captain America sees his old flame, Peggy Carter, while Iron Man runs into his father, Howard Stark. They succeed and return to the future.
Everyone is sad that Black Widow has left the game.
Everyone then focuses on making a new Infinity Gauntlet with Stark Technology. They succeed. Hulk is the strongest of them and agrees to use the new gauntlet. Meanwhile OldNebula messes with the time machine.
Hulk snaps his fingers and brings everyone back. His arm is nearly burned to a crisp.
Nebula summons Thanos's flagship from the past into their reality. Thanos promptly blasts Avengers HQ into the ground, burying the team in rubble. Ouch.
A lot starts happening from this point.
Thanos beams down to the rubble and sends OldNebula to find the gauntlet and bring it to him. OldGamora and NewNebula remain on his flagship and make an alliance.
Hawkeye finds the gauntlet. You go, Hawkeye. Unfortunately, some of Thanos's alien doggies find him and he's on the run in the sewers.
Hulk, Rocket, and War Machine are buried alive and their air pocket is flooding until Ant Man comes in to save them.
Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor see Thanos sitting around being a chill bro. They know that he is not, in fact, a chill bro. Thor summons Mjolnir and Stormbreaker because hot damn. They go in with the intent of beating his ass. This is truly the climactic fight scene of the film, not the later climactic fight scene which is good but not as good as this one. Thanos proves that even without a single infinity stone he is still a colossal badass and delivers an impressive beatdown to our three great heroes.
BUT HERE! This is, to me, the ultimate spoiler. This is why this scene is the best scene in the movie, arguably. This is where I teared up, not from sadness, but from exaltation. Observe:
1. Thanos is, as I mentioned, beating tremendous ass.
2. Iron Man is down. Thor is going one on one with Thanos with Stormbreaker the axe.
3. Thanos is pushing the axe down into Thor's chest. Thor is not winning this battle.
4. Mjolnir whacks Thanos in the head and knocks him off.
5. Mjolnir hovers in midair, and then returns to CAPTAIN AMERICA'S HAND.
6. MOTHERFUCK YEAH
Captain America promptly delivers a significant amount of smack to Thanos, but even that victory is short-lived as Thanos brute forces his way back and destroys Cap's shield. Cap is beaten up, but is the last man standing. Thanos lands his armies and declares that he is going to destroy the Earth and will enjoy every last second of it...
...and then the cavalry arrives, as Doctor Strange opens portals to all corners of the globe, summoning the armies of Wakanda with Black Panther, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man, the sorcerers under his command, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Winter Soldier, Groot, Valkyrie, and so much more.
Cue the second climactic battle, which is far grander in scope, with thousands upon thousands called into the fray. The destruction! The carnage! The massive scale of battle!
OldGamora and NewNebula beam down to rescue Hawkeye from OldNebula. Hawkeye is noticeably confused.
Cue Hawkeye carrying the new Infinity Gauntlet. Poor Hawkeye. They have to get the stones back in time. But their time machine is busted. But a second quantum machine exists... Ant Man's van. Can he get across the field of battle to the van?
Nope. But maybe Black Panther can.
Nope. But maybe Spider-Man can.
Thanos sees his prize moving across the field and moves to intercept. But there are a handful of beings that can give him a run for his money, and a very very very angry Scarlet Witch is one of them. She very nearly tears him apart until he orders his ship to fire indiscriminately upon the battlefield. Scarlet Witch is knocked down. Spider-Man has the ride of his life and screams through about half of it. Poor Spider-Man.
Suddenly Thanos's ship stops firing at the battlefield and focuses its guns on something in the atmosphere. The something in question promptly punches straight through the flagship and back up again. The something in question looks exactly like Captain Marvel.
Cue my second favorite scene in the movie.
Spider-Man is lying in a crater, covered in dust and clutching the Infinity Gauntlet. He tried his best and just could not go any further. Captain Marvel lands next to him.
SM: (in the most sad puppy-dog pitiful voice possible) Hi, I'm Peter Parker?
CM: Hello Peter Parker. You have something for me?
SM: (gives her Gauntlet) I don't know how you're going to get through all that...
This is immediately followed by maybe my fifth favorite scene in the movie:
Scarlet Witch: She has help.
Every female super character available: SHOWS UP TO HELP
Pepper Potts wearing an Iron Man suit (as Rescue?): ALSO SHOWS UP TO HELP
We don't know for sure that Peter Parker had a spontaneous second puberty at that moment, but we don't know that he didn't.
And yet, despite all our heroes' best efforts, Thanos gets the glove. Iron Man gets up and engages, attacking the glove itself. Thanos swats him away and then snaps his fingers.
Nothing happens.
SURPRISE! Iron Man stole the stones off the glove as he fought. Iron Man binds the stones to his Extremis Armor and snaps his fingers instead.
Thanos's army is reduced to dust before our very eyes. Thanos himself concedes defeat, has a seat on the battlefield, and waits for his obliteration.
Iron Man, however, has sustained fatal damage from the overwhelming power of the glove. He dies in Pepper's arms as Peter Parker (and maybe a bunch of theatregoers) cries.
Cue funeral for Tony Stark, attended by the heroes and other relevant characters.
Cue Thor turning New Asgard over to Valkyrie, Queen of the Asgardians. Thor promptly joins the Guardians of the Galaxy. Cue future hilarity.
Cue Captain America going back in time to return the stones to their proper places. Captain America is supposed to come back in a few seconds. He does not, and chooses to stay in the past and live a life with Peggy Carter. We see him appear nearby, old and grey, and he turns the shield of Captain America (fresh and shiny from the past) over to Falcon to continue his legacy.
Cue end credits. Cue NO FINAL AFTER-CREDITS SCENE because this is the end.
Is this the greatest movie ever made? Probably not. But is it an awesome movie and a great end to a 22-movie series? Yes. End of story.
Let's find out!
CUE SPOILERS UNDER CUT, SO, YOU KNOW, FOREWARNED.
NO SERIOUSLY, I'M TELLING THE WHOLE STORY, IT'S FULL OF SPOILERS, DON'T DO IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW
...OK, YOU WERE WARNED.
When we last left half of our heroes, they were exactly that: half. Thanos won. He snapped his fingers and poof, half of all life in the universe turned to dust. Much sad. The remaining heroes are scattered, demoralized, traumatized. Briefly:
Hawkeye - just hanging out with his family, being cool, and then suddenly his entire family goes poof
Iron Man and Nebula - lost in space until Captain Marvel finds them and flies them to Earth
Ant Man - trapped in the Quantum Realm
Everyone else - hanging out at Avengers HQ being all mopey
Nebula and Rocket help the team figure out where Thanos has gone. Captain Marvel, their new powerhouse, guides them in to where Thanos is just chilling in his garden harvesting giant dragonfruits and making a stew. He's wearing a XXXXXL t-shirt, like really, where'd he get that? Oh yeah, he can probably infinity stone up a whole wardrobe if he wants. Anyway, the team shows up, beats his ass, and realizes he doesn't have the stones anymore. Why? Because he's brilliant. Once he got himself settled, he destroyed the stones so that what he did could never be undone or redone. Thor promptly cuts off his head and calls it good enough. Everyone else is all "Well, shit."
FIVE YEARS LATER
Life sucks. Captain America is a grief counsellor. Hawkeye is murdering criminals because he's good at it. Iron Man and Pepper have a family and live in the country. Everyone else is out there doing whatever they can to help. And then Ant Man emerges from the quantum realm with a proposal: TIME TRAVEL.
Tony says NO WAY, NOT GONNA DO IT
Hulk (who is now Smart BannerHulk, and totally cool) says NO WAY OK MAYBE
Tony says OK FINE I AM SO SMART I DID IT ALSO HERE SHIELD
Ant Man pees his suit
With the successful invention of time travel, they pull a Blues Brothers montage to get the team back together. This mostly involves discovering Thor has gone into a tremendous downward depressive spiral over his collective failures. We do get to see Korg and Mieks and Valkyrie again, though, so woohoo!
The Avengers build a time machine. Objective: Go back in time and space to where the stones are, based on their collective knowledge of the stones' history. Get stones, bring them back to present, use stones to undo The Big Snap, and then return the stones to their place in time. Simple. TEAMWORK!
Team 1a: Nebula and War Machine, off to steal the Power Stone before Star Lord gets it in GotG1
Team 1b: Hawkeye and Black Widow, old buddies, off to visit Vormyr to get the Soul Stone
Team 2: Rocket and Thor, going to Asgard to collect the Ether (Reality Stone) before the Dark Elves strike in Thor2
Team 3: Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, and Ant Man, going to NYC because, during the invasion of New York in Avengers1, all three remaining stones can be found there (Mind, Time, Space)
Sounds like a great plan! How could anything possibly go wrong?
Surprise: Everything goes wrong.
Team 1a: Nebula and War Machine succeed, oddly enough, but Thanos and Nebula and Gamora are also in the area looking for the stone. OldNebula and NewNebula malfunction by being in the same time together, and Thanos tracks NewNebula down and captures her before she can return to the future. After studying her, Thanos replaces NewNebula with OldNebula and sends her back to the future as a double agent.
Team 1b: The Soul Stone requires sacrifice, as we saw in Avengers3. Hawkeye and Black Widow fight each other because each believes they deserve to be the sacrifice. Black Widow 'wins'. Black Widow, consequently, dies. Hawkeye gets the stone.
Team 2: Thor completely breaks down in Asgard, but his mother finds him and understands who, what, and when he really is. They talk, and Thor unloads all his guilt and angst and failure on her. She helps him get over that. Meanwhile Rocket is not a complete fuckup and gets the Reality Stone. Thor also summons Mjolnir and it comes to him. Neat!
Team 3a: Hulk heads downtown to get the Time Stone from Dr. Strange... except that Dr. Strange is not yet the Sorcerer Supreme. The Ancient One stops Hulk, and only through his negotiation and revelation of the future does he get her to relent and give up the stone. Hulk, like Rocket, does not fuck anything up.
Team 3b: Iron Man, Ant Man, and Captain America go into Stark Tower as Loki is defeated. They arrange to steal both the Tesseract (Space Stone) and the Sceptre (Mind Stone). In a series of amazing and hilarious fuckups, a captive Loki ends up with the Tesseract and uses it to escape while NewCaptain America encounters OldCaptain America and gets into the fight of his life for the Sceptre. Ant Man, oddly enough, does not fuck anything up. So Iron Man and Captain America gamble on a new plan: Go back more in time to collect the Tesseract and more time travel particles. Captain America sees his old flame, Peggy Carter, while Iron Man runs into his father, Howard Stark. They succeed and return to the future.
Everyone is sad that Black Widow has left the game.
Everyone then focuses on making a new Infinity Gauntlet with Stark Technology. They succeed. Hulk is the strongest of them and agrees to use the new gauntlet. Meanwhile OldNebula messes with the time machine.
Hulk snaps his fingers and brings everyone back. His arm is nearly burned to a crisp.
Nebula summons Thanos's flagship from the past into their reality. Thanos promptly blasts Avengers HQ into the ground, burying the team in rubble. Ouch.
A lot starts happening from this point.
Thanos beams down to the rubble and sends OldNebula to find the gauntlet and bring it to him. OldGamora and NewNebula remain on his flagship and make an alliance.
Hawkeye finds the gauntlet. You go, Hawkeye. Unfortunately, some of Thanos's alien doggies find him and he's on the run in the sewers.
Hulk, Rocket, and War Machine are buried alive and their air pocket is flooding until Ant Man comes in to save them.
Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor see Thanos sitting around being a chill bro. They know that he is not, in fact, a chill bro. Thor summons Mjolnir and Stormbreaker because hot damn. They go in with the intent of beating his ass. This is truly the climactic fight scene of the film, not the later climactic fight scene which is good but not as good as this one. Thanos proves that even without a single infinity stone he is still a colossal badass and delivers an impressive beatdown to our three great heroes.
BUT HERE! This is, to me, the ultimate spoiler. This is why this scene is the best scene in the movie, arguably. This is where I teared up, not from sadness, but from exaltation. Observe:
1. Thanos is, as I mentioned, beating tremendous ass.
2. Iron Man is down. Thor is going one on one with Thanos with Stormbreaker the axe.
3. Thanos is pushing the axe down into Thor's chest. Thor is not winning this battle.
4. Mjolnir whacks Thanos in the head and knocks him off.
5. Mjolnir hovers in midair, and then returns to CAPTAIN AMERICA'S HAND.
6. MOTHERFUCK YEAH
Captain America promptly delivers a significant amount of smack to Thanos, but even that victory is short-lived as Thanos brute forces his way back and destroys Cap's shield. Cap is beaten up, but is the last man standing. Thanos lands his armies and declares that he is going to destroy the Earth and will enjoy every last second of it...
...and then the cavalry arrives, as Doctor Strange opens portals to all corners of the globe, summoning the armies of Wakanda with Black Panther, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man, the sorcerers under his command, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Winter Soldier, Groot, Valkyrie, and so much more.
Cue the second climactic battle, which is far grander in scope, with thousands upon thousands called into the fray. The destruction! The carnage! The massive scale of battle!
OldGamora and NewNebula beam down to rescue Hawkeye from OldNebula. Hawkeye is noticeably confused.
Cue Hawkeye carrying the new Infinity Gauntlet. Poor Hawkeye. They have to get the stones back in time. But their time machine is busted. But a second quantum machine exists... Ant Man's van. Can he get across the field of battle to the van?
Nope. But maybe Black Panther can.
Nope. But maybe Spider-Man can.
Thanos sees his prize moving across the field and moves to intercept. But there are a handful of beings that can give him a run for his money, and a very very very angry Scarlet Witch is one of them. She very nearly tears him apart until he orders his ship to fire indiscriminately upon the battlefield. Scarlet Witch is knocked down. Spider-Man has the ride of his life and screams through about half of it. Poor Spider-Man.
Suddenly Thanos's ship stops firing at the battlefield and focuses its guns on something in the atmosphere. The something in question promptly punches straight through the flagship and back up again. The something in question looks exactly like Captain Marvel.
Cue my second favorite scene in the movie.
Spider-Man is lying in a crater, covered in dust and clutching the Infinity Gauntlet. He tried his best and just could not go any further. Captain Marvel lands next to him.
SM: (in the most sad puppy-dog pitiful voice possible) Hi, I'm Peter Parker?
CM: Hello Peter Parker. You have something for me?
SM: (gives her Gauntlet) I don't know how you're going to get through all that...
This is immediately followed by maybe my fifth favorite scene in the movie:
Scarlet Witch: She has help.
Every female super character available: SHOWS UP TO HELP
Pepper Potts wearing an Iron Man suit (as Rescue?): ALSO SHOWS UP TO HELP
We don't know for sure that Peter Parker had a spontaneous second puberty at that moment, but we don't know that he didn't.
And yet, despite all our heroes' best efforts, Thanos gets the glove. Iron Man gets up and engages, attacking the glove itself. Thanos swats him away and then snaps his fingers.
Nothing happens.
SURPRISE! Iron Man stole the stones off the glove as he fought. Iron Man binds the stones to his Extremis Armor and snaps his fingers instead.
Thanos's army is reduced to dust before our very eyes. Thanos himself concedes defeat, has a seat on the battlefield, and waits for his obliteration.
Iron Man, however, has sustained fatal damage from the overwhelming power of the glove. He dies in Pepper's arms as Peter Parker (and maybe a bunch of theatregoers) cries.
Cue funeral for Tony Stark, attended by the heroes and other relevant characters.
Cue Thor turning New Asgard over to Valkyrie, Queen of the Asgardians. Thor promptly joins the Guardians of the Galaxy. Cue future hilarity.
Cue Captain America going back in time to return the stones to their proper places. Captain America is supposed to come back in a few seconds. He does not, and chooses to stay in the past and live a life with Peggy Carter. We see him appear nearby, old and grey, and he turns the shield of Captain America (fresh and shiny from the past) over to Falcon to continue his legacy.
Cue end credits. Cue NO FINAL AFTER-CREDITS SCENE because this is the end.
Is this the greatest movie ever made? Probably not. But is it an awesome movie and a great end to a 22-movie series? Yes. End of story.