Series Complete- The Avengers (Engame)

Twenty-two movies, 11 years. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been a wild experiment in cinema storytelling. I doubt anyone really expected it to work as well as it did and to culminate in such a massive movie. But it did.

“Endgame” may not, objectively, be the best movie. But, subjectively, it was definitely the best conclusion to the MCU saga. Despite having something like a million characters, each got a moment in the final battle, if brief. Each movie series character played a role in the conclusion. And the original six Avengers had their stories reach a satisfying conclusion, ended the movie in a way that feels like a real “end” while still leaving the door open for more stories to be told that don’t feel forced.

To keep from rambling while trying to tie everything together, I’m just going to discuss some random thoughts.

MCU TV

My only real complaint about the movie is the fact that the MCU TV and movies teams couldn’t play nice with each other. A few shots of the Defenders from the Netflix shows and the Agents of SHIELD during the final battle would have been nice. Hell, having the Helicarrier come out of one of the wizard portals would have been quite badass. They did have the actor who played Jarvis in the “Agent Carter” show in the movie which was nice. But they killed Coulson (again) in the show which means the other characters could have showed up without needing to explain anything to the audience.

I am now quite interested in what happens in SHIELD’s new season. Is it a 5yr time jump to after everyone is restored? Or do they survive and are dealing with the aftermath?

It looks like they may be doing a better job of this integration in the future now that Disney+ is coming. They have several shows planned in the works. Some of which reveal the resurrection of some characters, namely Vision and Loki. There’s a chance the Loki show will follow one of the alternate universes, such as where Loki escaped with the Tesseract.

Captain America’s Fate

I wonder how planned this was. Following their own rules of time travel, Steve Rogers always went back in time and had been married to Peggy Carter and hiding in the background throughout the entire movie run. On one hand, probably not very. They had Sharon Carter all the way back in “Winter Soldier” not recognize him. Nor anyone at Peggy’s funeral. Nor was he, as her husband, at the funeral.

But on the other hand, they went out of their way to never reveal anything about her husband or immediate family. Hell, when Steve hides in her office in 1970, there’s no picture of her family on her desk. There’s a picture of Steve Rogers. Sharon Carter was her niece, not her (and presumably Steve’s) daughter. Hawkeye had a whole secret family no one knew about so it’s not impossible Steve was hiding on the sidelines.

It would have taken Captain America levels of dedication to go back in time and stay out of history’s way. He knew about Hydra. He had caught up on world history and knew all the bad things that were going to happen. He also knew that they would all work out for the most part.

Unrelated to Steve’s endpoint, that scene with him and Mjolnir was quite badass. They’d teased it and its apparently a big thing in the comics. But after Mjolnir was destroyed in “Ragnarok” it didn’t look like it would ever happen. Even when Thor steals it from his past self I didn’t even consider that option during the movie. Maybe obvious to some but it was a nice surprise.

AsGuardians of the Galaxy

I was ready to hang up the towel for future Marvel movies with Endgame. I would definitely see future ones but it was no longer going to be a “must-see-ASAP” thing. But Thor and the Guardians could be a fun movie. Which got me thinking about all the other characters who still have movies planned. So maybe I’m not quite done yet.

Speaking of Thor, him moping, playing video games and hanging out with Korg and Meek was fun and a realistic portrayal. Thor had lost everything, found his power, thought he had saved his people and lost everything again. And then lost again. Turning things over to Valkyrie at the end was also nice and shows growth. He’s not a leader and he’s learned that.

Moving on to Gamora, bringing her back did not feel forced even though the idea of replacing a person with different copy of themselves who doesn’t know anyone is kind of a trope. A lot depends on what they do with it in Guardians 3.

As for Nebula, wow, who would have thought she’d play such a pivotal roll after Guardians 1. She was kind of generic in that movie. And they didn’t undermine her growth by having her switch sides either. It took awhile for Nebula to come around to working with Gamora.

Girl Power

That one shot where all the female heroes pop up next to each other to get the gauntlet to the van already has people complaining. It was over the top and hamfisted. But so was the 360 spin on the Avengers in New York. And the Avengers flying toward Hydra at the beginning of Ultron. And everyone magically coming out of portals right as Captain America needs them too. These are superhero movies. They’re full of cheese and over the top. The only reason to complain about this moment in isolation is because some people are bothered when women are portrayed as anything other than eye-candy.