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Now that I've had time to process everything.
My initial posts on Endgame were generally positive, I think; it's one incredibly impressive callback to all the things we loved about the MCU.
After a while, though, the bad shit seeps through, like, well, a rotting corpse set out for a showing.
Probably four key things that bugged me. Except that the Tony thing doesn't really bug me; I just figured that people would want to know.
0. I like time-travel as a rule. I love Back to the Future. I love Twelve Monkeys (original Bruce Willis flavour). I love Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Multiverses are incredibly enjoyable to play with in Buffy, and the Stargates, and Eureka, and so forth.
But...I hate what they did in Endgame. They start off saying there's one timeline and they can't fuck it up, then they fuck it up nine ways to Yggdrasil and then Loki takes the Tesseract and Steve goes back to a timeline in which he did stick with Peggy but still manages to turn up in the original timeline where he didn't and wait, no, what, ARGH!?!?
Yes, I know, multiverses, etc. But they said they had to be careful not to fuck up the timeline, implying that it was a bad thing - and then they went all out and fucked it up. Pick a line and stick to it, ffs!
If your flavour of time travel involves changing the timeline (Back to the Future) then sure, go for it. If your flavour of time travel is 'what has happened has happened' (Twelve Monkeys), then absolutely fabulous, give it to me hard. If you're going to have alternate alternate universes (in the immortal emphasis of Jack O'Neill with Two Ls) then just swing with it. Don't tell us one thing and then change your mind halfway through!
And that is how I feel about the time travel in Endgame. *sigh*
1. I think it's shit that Nat got the short end of the death stick, particularly after Gamora already got stuck with dead in IW. That said, while contextually, it's a seriously problematic death (the only woman in both original teams dies, and they both die in the same circumstances? And Nat is specifically listed as childless, the man she loves more than anything in the universe - and who apparently loves her back since her sacrifice at Vormir actually produces the Soul stone - has a children with another woman with whom he's a family), at least it's a meaningful one in the immediate context of the story.
2. I'm actually okay with Tony's death. I mean, it's heartbreaking but it's a fitting end, if you know what I mean. It has meaning. It does BIG things. And he had more screentime than absolutely anyone else in the series except possibly Steve and even that's pretty debatable because Cap3 was half Tony.
3. Steve's ending. Sorry, but America's ass ain't so attractive after he's been sitting on it for 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years and doing sweet fuck-all while the world burned, rights were fought for and activists died, and Bucky whiled his years away as a HYDRA stooge. SORRY. DO NOT WANT.
Also, the confusion about 'single timeline' vs 'multiverse timelines' means that, yes, if Steve got old with Peggy, then he didn't do anything because in the timeline that we've watched through the 22 movies, all those things happened in spite of Steve growing old with Peggy which...no. Just. No.
That's not a happy ending. That's not heroic. That's not worthy of picking up the Hammer. It just isn't.
--
Infinity War was a mill that just chewed everything up into little pieces of dust and tosses them everywhere.
Endgame gathers the bits of dust together, stuffs it all into its cinematic maw, masticates it, and then spews it out and thinks this is pretty neat - hey, look, some chunks are still recognisable, after all, and didn't you like that bit of corn back when it was fresh on the cob?
Let's put it this way. I can appreciate what they were trying to do; but it wasn't the ending that I wanted for the MCU.
My initial posts on Endgame were generally positive, I think; it's one incredibly impressive callback to all the things we loved about the MCU.
After a while, though, the bad shit seeps through, like, well, a rotting corpse set out for a showing.
Probably four key things that bugged me. Except that the Tony thing doesn't really bug me; I just figured that people would want to know.
0. I like time-travel as a rule. I love Back to the Future. I love Twelve Monkeys (original Bruce Willis flavour). I love Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Multiverses are incredibly enjoyable to play with in Buffy, and the Stargates, and Eureka, and so forth.
But...I hate what they did in Endgame. They start off saying there's one timeline and they can't fuck it up, then they fuck it up nine ways to Yggdrasil and then Loki takes the Tesseract and Steve goes back to a timeline in which he did stick with Peggy but still manages to turn up in the original timeline where he didn't and wait, no, what, ARGH!?!?
Yes, I know, multiverses, etc. But they said they had to be careful not to fuck up the timeline, implying that it was a bad thing - and then they went all out and fucked it up. Pick a line and stick to it, ffs!
If your flavour of time travel involves changing the timeline (Back to the Future) then sure, go for it. If your flavour of time travel is 'what has happened has happened' (Twelve Monkeys), then absolutely fabulous, give it to me hard. If you're going to have alternate alternate universes (in the immortal emphasis of Jack O'Neill with Two Ls) then just swing with it. Don't tell us one thing and then change your mind halfway through!
And that is how I feel about the time travel in Endgame. *sigh*
1. I think it's shit that Nat got the short end of the death stick, particularly after Gamora already got stuck with dead in IW. That said, while contextually, it's a seriously problematic death (the only woman in both original teams dies, and they both die in the same circumstances? And Nat is specifically listed as childless, the man she loves more than anything in the universe - and who apparently loves her back since her sacrifice at Vormir actually produces the Soul stone - has a children with another woman with whom he's a family), at least it's a meaningful one in the immediate context of the story.
2. I'm actually okay with Tony's death. I mean, it's heartbreaking but it's a fitting end, if you know what I mean. It has meaning. It does BIG things. And he had more screentime than absolutely anyone else in the series except possibly Steve and even that's pretty debatable because Cap3 was half Tony.
3. Steve's ending. Sorry, but America's ass ain't so attractive after he's been sitting on it for 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years and doing sweet fuck-all while the world burned, rights were fought for and activists died, and Bucky whiled his years away as a HYDRA stooge. SORRY. DO NOT WANT.
Also, the confusion about 'single timeline' vs 'multiverse timelines' means that, yes, if Steve got old with Peggy, then he didn't do anything because in the timeline that we've watched through the 22 movies, all those things happened in spite of Steve growing old with Peggy which...no. Just. No.
That's not a happy ending. That's not heroic. That's not worthy of picking up the Hammer. It just isn't.
--
Infinity War was a mill that just chewed everything up into little pieces of dust and tosses them everywhere.
Endgame gathers the bits of dust together, stuffs it all into its cinematic maw, masticates it, and then spews it out and thinks this is pretty neat - hey, look, some chunks are still recognisable, after all, and didn't you like that bit of corn back when it was fresh on the cob?
Let's put it this way. I can appreciate what they were trying to do; but it wasn't the ending that I wanted for the MCU.
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STEVE: I think we both need to get a life.
NAT: You first.
NAT: //dies
STEVE: //gets to warp the time travel rules of the movie to go off and be with Peggy
STEVE: Decided to get that life that Stark was always telling me about. Hey we got a time machine and de-aging, I could still totally make some cameos!
NAT: //still dead
BONUS
WORD OF GOD: How did Steve get that shield? That is very interesting! That story could be told!
ALSO WORD OF GOD: Black Widow is gone for good, sry