Avengers: Endgame (spoilers thread)

[Dogg Thang]

He returned the stones but that doesn’t undo what was done, because we’ve established that can’t happen - you can’t change the past and those events now all happened and are locked in each timeline. Those strands don’t cease to exist. Time is irreparably changed in all of them. They just continue on now as new strands. For example, they didn’t and couldn’t return Thanos to 2014 as if he never left. Same with Gamora and the now dead Nebula. Captain America still fought himself. All those things are still intact in their own timelines regardless of the stones being returned.

[randombs]

[MENTION=368]Mayhem[/MENTION];
The woman was Maria Hill. Not sure who the man was.

[Dogg Thang]

I will take this as confirmation that I have it right*. Avengers Endgame directors answer the question of Cap at the end: https://ew.com/movies/2019/04/30/ave...ptain-america/

*Note: no guarantee that I actually have it right. It just fits with my reading of it.

Edit: by the way, I found that by searching to see what the internet at large was saying about the time travel mechanics and it does seem like the intention was that it works the way I thought it did. It's pretty much exactly as Banner describes it and that means no Bill & Tedding and it also means multiple strands that aren't undone. And it makes sense because it's pretty much the only reading that doesn't lead to gaping holes.

[Arashikage]

Hmm so it sounds like they are going with the alternate timeline angle. So as long as the stones are returned they are in place to protect the main timeline but it's tough for all the alternate timelines. What I like though is that the Russo's are totally aware of the discrepancies caused by all this time hopping, especially the fate of Steve. I felt while watching it that there was another film's worth of content to cover Cap's adventure. Maybe it'll be told one day, like sowing the seeds of an idea further down the road and maybe have a route to bring him back at some point. At the very least it's got people talking and keeping it relevant.

[Neon Ignition]

The line they're taking seems fine, it just means there's no reason currently that they can't bring anyone back from the dead then or undo any mcguffin they need which they'll need to sort out by closing off time travel somehow in future

[Dogg Thang]

I had a job once for a major client. According to the contract, we had to report anything that came in under budget and basically return money if anything major cost less than we thought it would. They were great at paying. A really good client. But we ended up with one part going under budget and, like the honest fools we were, we sent them the paperwork and said we could reimburse them. Well their system was set up to spend money, not to receive it. It was an unholy mess and it actually took eight months and a lot of paperwork across different departments to return a very small amount of money.

Anyway, that’s what I imagine returning the soul stone must have been like.

[Neon Ignition]

To me, CA's action in the end wasn't the fact he wanted to change anything, it's more like me has made a choice. He chose to go back to past and lived with the one he loved for the rest of his life. The time travel in this movie created an alternate reality. He lived a completely different life in that world. We don't know how exactly his life turned out, but I'd like to believe he still helped many others when they were needed in that world. Yes, there were two CA in that reality, it's just like what Hulk said, what happened in the past has already happened. If you go back to past, you simply created a new reality. The characters in this movie created new timeline when they went back to the past, but it had no effect to the prime universe. What happened in the past 22 movies was still canon.

I think I get this now. So what they're saying is that you have 20+ movies of MCU timeline canon until you get to Endgame, then each time travel event to the past creates an alternate timeline. You can reset events to uncreate those alternate timelines that reflect massive change (such as if they hadn't returned the Infinity Stones) but any that you don't undo have their events folded into the existing events. So, when the Avengers go back in time it means that the present they return to isn't the one they left, it's one that reflects the fact they existed at some point in the past thereby meaning all events remain canon. Therefore, when Rogers goes back in time to be with Peggy he does quietly live with her through the decades until he's an old man and catches up with his departure, it's just that the main timeline they are in no longer matches what it was at the start of the film, it now incorporates and reflects all the events of the films time travel too.

That means for example, Thanos travels forward in time from a 2014 that is later undone by Rogers returning the Stone to the point Quill picks it up in the opening of Guardians Vol.1. Thanos, as killed in 2023, is a remnant of that aborted timeline which is what Gamora now is.

But it also means they could feasibly just go back to 2022 and pick up a past Tony again and bring him to 2023 because it wouldn't undo the one that died defeating Thanos.

[Neon Ignition]

. For example, the old Cap at the end movie, he lived his married life in a different universe from the main one. He had to make another jump back to the main universe at the end to give the shield to Sam

Or not, I feel like I'm going back to it just not working in its own logic. He grew old having changed the timeline to be with Peggy, unless he wouldn't live till present day it means he jumped forward just a year or two to hand over a shield as a favour? (and who fixed the shield?) and the inferred answer is that he hopped between alternate timelines which is bending the rules again as if he simply travelled forwards surely he'd travel forwards along the timeline he'd created where he was with Peggy and not hop to the one where he hadn't been?

This reminds me as well. Sam as the new Captain America? Terrible decision.

[Dogg Thang]

You keep Bill & Tedding it. It’s way simpler than this. No timeline is folded. Nothing is undone. There are no remnants. How would returning the stone stop Thanos coming? He returned the stone - he didn’t undo all the actions taken to get the stone. He can’t because (say it with me) you can’t change your past. Banner explains it really easily and the main point is that you can’t Bill and Ted it. So the future they return to is very clearly not affected by their actions in the past - that’s why they couldn’t go back and kill Thanos. There was a whole speech about it.

As for who fixed the shield, it’s not the same shield because it’s not from that timeline. Also, the implication is that the shield he has was already Sam’s.

[Neon Ignition]

The error with old Steve then is that he would use his time travel GPS thing they all use throughout the movie to jump back to when he left in order to see Sam and Bucky but by doing so should have instead appeared on the platform young Steve left from because that's how it worked for the rest of the film?

It also makes it somewhat ropey in that interview that they insinuate Bucky knew by more than intuition that Cap wasn't coming back. It seems to be done on EW's part rather than the Russo's but that would be Bill & Ted stuff. Really it comes back to the very last thing the MCU needing is time travel in it, with that option on the table they maintain a huge risk of undoing the careful and smart delivery of audiences (especially as they involve TV more and more into it as well).

One interesting thing I'll be curious to see as to whether it's true is the upcoming Agents of Shield Season 6. Rumour is that after S5 ended tying in with Infinity War, S6 completely breaks the shows canon to the events of Endgame and unless they pull of a major fix it will effectively sever the show from the continuity.

[Dogg Thang]

There is no error. This was the very first thing that struck me when I came into the thread after just walking out of the cinema and so was the first thing I commented on. He basically did (spoiler) an Ecco the Dolphin on it and, instead of coming home, went through time to live the life he wanted and then, on his own terms, found his own way back and he had a lifetime to do it.

And no, the Bucky thing isn’t Bill & Tedding it and you may have noticed I brought him up as part of Cap’s time travelling life because it did seem pretty clear that Bucky knew what was going on - he sends Sam rather than going to see Cap himself. We don’t know when Cap returned to our timeline and we also don’t know if it was his first trip back. That’s all unknown but it’s not a mistake.

I think people are just getting caught up because they’re having a hard time doing exactly what we’re asked to do: forget all those other time travel movies. In this movie, it’s fairly simple.

But yes, it’s now an all too easy device but, as you speculated, they might take it off the table very quickly. After using it to set up their TV shows with dead people in it, that is.

[Team Andromeda]

Watched it last night. It was a great film, but found the time travel a little silly and for me... Captin Marvel and Infinity War were better films.
I did like how it handled the retirment of same of main characters mind and Guardians of the galaxy 3 should be a riot, with Thor part of the mad team

[Neon Ignition]

The showrunners of Cloak and Dagger & Runaways must be really p***** this week

[Mayhem]

Okay, fair enough if the Russos are saying that... I was taking it that returning the stones to the prime line killed off each new timeline created by them being taken out, but evidently not. It just restores balance to the main line. So yes, Cap was an alternate line presumably, which leaves the question about how he got back to the prime line. Presumably he's taken the shield from that timeline to give to Sam. Still think it should have been Bucky, mind heh.

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah, the thing to remember with the returning of the stones is that the stones had nothing to do with the time travel. They weren't needed to travel back in time and weren't used to facilitate time travel (in spite of there being a time stone). So time travel was totally independent of the stones and the stones never needed to be returned as part of that process. The reason for returning the stones seemingly was that they would later be needed in the timelines they were taken from. For example, Dr Strange would have been left without a time stone during the events of his movie in the new timeline because Banner took it.

The flip side is that, in that timeline, Thanos wouldn't have been able to complete the Infinity Stone set and do what he did. That's if there was a Thanos later on - we don't know if we saw one alternate timeline or, as I imagine was probably the case with the logic of the movie, a separate timeline for each journey into the past (again complicating Rogers' returning of the stones).