Right, so. I watched it at midnight on April 24, part two of a marathon that started with Infinity War at 9 pm on April 23. The earliest, firstest showing possible without a press pass. My hubby graciously agreed to come with me; we came home at 4 am but that was okay because I took the morning off. So far, so ... normal?

I walked out with my mind blown, and will stay on this thread and squee and weep and rejoice and gush for as long as you guys will have me.

A few random thoughts (incomplete because I need to see it again):

1. I was stunned by what happened to Natasha. Already, there are voices on the internet to the effect "why do they always kill off the females..." Well, statistically speaking and since Gamora comes back and one of the Nebulas survives, she's the only one, against a number of gone-for-good guys (Pietro, Heimdall, Loki, Vision, Tony...) But far more importantly, Natasha's death was no "killing off". This was the ultimate choice and an act of supreme agency, of someone who had become the center of her found family ("I had nothing, until I had this"), to the point where she gave herself to make them whole again. A soul for a soul. Let no one cheapen her journey, her sacrifice and its meaning by calling her death anything else.

2. And yes, I will write a fix it.

3. The little fannish Easter eggs! "That's a far cry from Budapest." (My husband snorted so loud, I missed the next bit of dialogue.) "I knew it." Korg lives!

4. The revisiting of scenes, or going behind them (what happened in between the "arrest" of Loki and his ascent with Thor; so THAT's how HYDRA got the sceptre...

5. The emotional punches just kept coming. Thor getting to see his Mom again. Tony and Howard talking about fatherhood... "Eventually, we become friends. And ... sisters." That phone call from Laura (*cough* good thing Ronin kept Hawkeye's mobile all those years... *cough*). Pepper's final acceptance of who Tony is, and always was: "You can rest now." Cap finally gets his dance. *sniffles*

6. And finally, those endearing, hand-wavy plot holes. How did Valkyrie's winged horse get to Earth??? How come all the time-warped Thanos gang gets dusted, but Gamora 2.0 gets to stay - does the Snap have a filter after all? How many divorces will the sudden return of 3.5 billion people after 5 years cause, and how many will die of hunger because food production has been scaled down by 50%?

I could go on, but there's way too much for one post. Final Verdict: TOTALLY WORTHY.




Edited 2019-04-25 07:42 pm (UTC)

I have only just seen it so I'm still digesting but even while watching it I was thinking I NEED TO TALK TO YOU. Because you said time travel and you were right. And you said Clint facing the soul stone and you were right. And you said Clint's family and...well, Nat is *sobs*.

Also I was kicking myself after because actually heroic self sacefice completely fits with the arc i've seeing for Nat since Avengers and it works but damn it hurts.

Such a good film and send off for the last ten years. Trips down memory lane and "I am Iron Man." With potential for young avengers to step up,asgardians of the galaxy,the spin off tv shows, and alternate realities/dimensions were brought up... And as you say, reverberations and consequences after half the galaxy returning after 5 years. But one of my twitches with time travel is that I hate complete fix its in canon with no consequences. So. Even bigger scale that SHIELD is Hydra post-winter solider.

Anyway. I need to digest. And watch it again tomorrow.

And wipe my eyes.

Yeah, I have to admit that when they headed for the Soul Stone I thought, jeez. Do these people REALLY read my fic ... (Because I called stuff before ...) But then it curved away somewhat from where I had gone in "Heart and Soul".

Kidlet and I are going on Saturday, so I catch some stuff I may have missed at 2 am. And then, yes, we should talk...

Also, totally agree. Perfect send-off, which most of the critics seem to concur as well. (Here's another prediction: I smell Oscars, a la Return of the King! Acting-wise, Renner deserves a nomination for best supporting, as does Downey for lead. Both have had two noms...)

Mostly I just wanted to flail at you because TIME TRAVEL, ha. But give me a heads up when you have free time after your second viewing. I watched it again last night to digest and of course I have to take my sister to see it next weekend as well, such a hardship!

I'm also really interesting to know what changes happened because of some of the choices that were made in the time-travel bits. And Cap staying in the past... game changer? or will it change anything because they're not doing the "Back to the Future version" of time travel?

Edited 2019-04-26 05:57 am (UTC)

Agreed!!! I’m so confused on the time travel and what it means. Because Loki took off with the tesseract at one point and then Steve messed with the timeline too.... also what did he say when little niece Sharon was born lol. But honestly I feel the most confused over Steve at the end bc.... he wasn’t supposed to do that. That was what the film kept telling us all along.

I read an interesting Nerdist article about this today (because I've been furiously looking at ALL THE THINGS about the movie since I couldn't talk about it with anyone except The Bar and one lady at work but we kept getting shushed every time we brought up anything in our whispering) that talked about how Cap has been a man out of time and he set everything right before finally doing this one little jaunt. My thought process has been since reading it that, in a way, he sets things right with getting back into his time line. He just had to keep away when all the good bits were happening that Original Cap was involved in.

I also really liked getting to see that the Avengers had help in the Battle of New York when we see The Ancient One doing their bit to help out. It makes me think that maybe this Old Cap was there, doing a bit to help out when he could, watching out for his friends.

But Old Cap would have known about Bucky the whole time. How could he have set on that bit of information for this long? But there's also a part of me that thinks that Bucky wasn't surprised by Old Cap being there so maybe Old Cap insinuated himself into the Bucky timeline.

Ack. I'm rambling!

I read a bit on tumblr about aging!Steve watching TV during the Kennedy assassination, and going "Oh, that Bucky..."

I have been twisting my brain in knots with my cinema buddy trying to understand how time travel works in the film. (I mean, I also watch doctor who so I can go with wibley wobbley timey wimey if that's the answer, ha.)

So. Bruce says that whenever you travel to the past or future your present becomes your past and cannot be altered. Negating all other time travel film theories lol. Meaning Nebula can shoot her past self and still be alive. Okay.

The Ancient One tells Bruce that if he takes the stones to his timeline then hers will be impacted. Badly. (Although side note that Strange said 1 in 14 however many chances to beat Thanos so any other timeline presumably ends badly, sorry guys.) So Loki escaping with the Tesseract and Cap knowing Bucky is alive (because I agree with you that he wouldn't have just sat on that info) must spin off into seperate timelines. Meaning when the Time Hesit crew return to their present with the stones nothing that happened in THEIR past timeline has changed. Is how I think that works.

When Cap takes the stones back he says about 'clipping the branches' so there are no 'alternate realities'. Recalling how the Ancient One's golden path of time thingy merged back together when the stones are returned I THINK that means any alternate timelines cease to exist. (BUT. My brain twists here because if you can't change anything that's in your past then you can't change there being extra timelines now...???)

But okay, so Steve then stays in the past in the Thanos destroyed timeline. Which has to be the case if he ends up on the bench at the end. Otherwise old!Steve would have arrived in the time machine using pym particles to travel from his new timeline. (I think???) In order for that timeline to stay as it is Steve would have had to live a VERY quiet life. (If he did cause a ripple he can't change the 'past' so would he end up in a different timeline???) Do I believe that STEVE ROGERS wouldn't cause a single ripple? Part of me is HELL NO. Part of me is yes if he knew he had to, for that 1 in 14 whatever chance to work. And that maybe finally for him the war was over and he got his rest.

I like your idea of Steve being perpetually this man out of time and maybe putting himself back into the timeline. I mean he was in ice for 70 odd years so.

My other brain twister is: if Scott spends 5 hours in the quantum realm and that's 5 years then in Ant Man shouldn't Jan's 30 years in the quantum relam be 30 hours? But then there's that scene where Scott comes back at different ages. And they talk about luck for when you get pulled out and not being able tk navigate the quantum realm (before this film) so I can handwave it. Although I would love tk read a fic where a younger Jan gets pulled out in Ant-Man and the Wasp, to see how that wpuld change things and having a women out of time.

I thought Gamora was a goner, too. But it was an intelligent snap so maybe it was "only the bad guys who worked for Thanos" and not just a general "everyone with his DNA has got to go" sort of thing. And I liked that, even at the beginning we see for her here, she was already starting to pull at the strings of her association with Thanos!

We see Star Lord with a 'searching for Gamora' screen at the end. I looked but I couldn't see her being dusted on a second watch so I think she's still alive. I hope so, because I love consequences and having a Gamora from the past is really interesting.

I just watched a YouTube video where this guy also thought she was dusted and thinks in Guardians 3 they will try to figure out the soul stone and how to get her back from it.....

That is my own personal theory. And they can get Natasha out, while they're at it...

I think that the voices that complain about the killing off of females are maybe based on the fact that we watched a very emotional funeral scene for Tony Stark, with everyone from the MCU present to honor him, but there was no such thing for Natasha. Not even her sacrifice being somehow recognized by the rest of the world, who also got to live thanks to her. Not even -say- a memorial at the Barton farm, as an act of remembrance by that family she died to help bring back.


Totally agree for the plot holes! Also, while I'm happy for Steve etc, what about the whole Agent Carter storyline? The mind boggles.

The Tony send off was more than she got, that's true - but when Natasha died they were still in mid-battle for survival and had to move on pdq. I did note the Barton family off in one very far corner during the Tony thing and thought at the time that they were probably mourning for someone else...

But as for the complaints - no, the ones I've seen have been just the visceral "women are killed just for man pain" responses. Which to me is right up there with "women shouldn't be allowed in combat because they might get killed."

My take on Nat (*sobs*) was that yes they were still in the middle of the action. But also her life wasn't as public as Tony and I would be happy for her legacy to be quieter. I read it as, or I like to think, that the scene by the lake with the remaining original Avengers were they say Nat died for the stone, placed her bet on them succeeding with this plan so they need to do this for her, echoes how Nat brought everyone together in Avengers. And kept them together after.

And then there's that kickass ladies moment in the big battle, where Okoye says of Carol 'she has help' that echoes the moment in Infinity War when Nat with Okoye backing her up says that Wanda is not alone. To me that feels kind of like Okoye has picked up the batton from Nat. And like Tony's funeral, where you see all the people and films thar were possible because of Iron Man, here are all these ladies and Nat was a big, if not THE, reason we get to have them. Legacy.

And I will bet real, hard earned money that there is something in the Hawkeye series that somehow demonstrates her legacy even more in the Young Avengers because I can't imagine Clint not somehow turning her sacrifice into something tangible that helps the universe. A sort of "don't be like me. be like her. be the heart of the group." pep talk.

what about the whole Agent Carter storyline?

Steve was around 20 years old when he went into the ice. It’s been 10 years since he was thawed out. And End Game covers another 5 years. So if you sent 35 year old Steve back to 1970 to return the stone, he’d be 84 years old by the time we get back to the time of the Final Battle. My head canon is that Carter married Daniel Sousa back in the 1940s, had a couple of kids, and then was widowed. So she's free to marry Steve in 1970 without upsetting her past timeline. And he's free to live quietly with Peggy until he shows up to give Sam the shield.

Edited 2019-04-28 03:12 am (UTC)

Headcanon accepted :)

That works for me! Although Steve was born in 1918 so was more like 26 when he went under in 1944/5, so add 6 years to your calculation. Which would work a bit better with Peggy, who'd be in her mid-40s by 1970 when he goes back to her (assuming he went to her right after dropping off the tesseract in the same time line where he and Tony got it from.)

Ah! I hadn't checked his birthdate. He seems so much younger than that in The First Avenger.

The only issue is that the scene with them dancing in the house pans in from street level and all the cars are 1940s models, so that would mean he went back to the 40s to start a life with her instead of the 70s.

DAMN IT TIME TRAVEL ARGH ;)

I need to see the movie again and check out the cars in the last scene.

HOWEVER car production during the 40s was completely devoted to the war effort, so folks held onto their vehicles. And not everyone drives a new car (my current car is 10 years old, my previous car made it 18 years) so if I'm not totally sold on the car date = date of the scene theory. (Not that they'd be driving 1940s cars in 1970, but it does get us into the 50s....)

Edited 2019-05-06 03:26 am (UTC)

we watched a very emotional funeral scene for Tony Stark, with everyone from the MCU present to honor him, but there was no such thing for Natasha. Not even her sacrifice being somehow recognized by the rest of the world, who also got to live thanks to her. Not even -say- a memorial at the Barton farm

+100

By that point I would have been happy with just a joint memorial for her and Tony. Or even a photo of her there as well. Clint and Wanda exchanging two sentences without mentioning her name did not work for me.