Avengers: Endgame Opinion Dump

[from the official iOS stickers]

📛 SPOILER ALERT 📛 SPOILER ALERT 📛 SPOILER ALERT 📛

Incoming thought vomit post on the biggest cinematic event of our generation. ✌️ Oh no, it got uncontrollably long; oh god it keeps growing AAAAAHHHH

What did I think overall? It was undeniably the ultimate, perfect, beautiful tribute to the original 6 Avengers and all of the phase 1 films. The overarching story progressed the way it should have and the endings were all appropriate. Many events were masterly weaved together and an incredible amount of characters were given moments to shine. It was a wonderful, thoughtful gift to those who passionately loved and followed the MCU. But I did not like my experience of seeing the movie. It's hard for me to exactly verbalize why right now—thus the long thought vomit post. ^^;;

I only saw Endgame once so I'm very curious to see how my views will change upon rewatches!! Eventually having captions will definitely help too as I missed some of the more quiet, mumbly dialogue. My favorite MCU films I definitely liked more/was more emotionally invested in the second time through, so I hope that since the shock factor will be gone I'll come to appreciate the film a lot more in the future and hopefully finally shed some tears for it haha.

Some things to preface my opinions:

• On my most recent rewatch of Infinity War, I decided that I think it is my favorite movie of all time. There's no other film that I can talk about and watch videos about endlessly like Infinity War. I love that I always want to revisit it—that I can continue to find new things to appreciate, that I will appreciate things that I already appreciated even more, that I ugly cry every time, that I laugh and can't shut up about the movie every time. It will always impress me that they pulled off this ambitious crossover; MY GOD it's just masterful storytelling to be able to consider all of these characters' qualities and worlds and mash them together in a way that doesn't feel unnatural, is entertaining, and drives the story forward without ever detracting from it. The pacing takes you on a perfectly balanced adventure between grim and fun. I love~ 💘💘💘
   
• I'm very critical about screenwriting and storytelling. Even if everything else were executed perfectly, if I take issue with dialogue and/or story progression, it strongly affects how I perceive a film. I was a film/tv major and now edit video stories for a living, so it's a little ingrained in me to be critical, just a little~
   
• I judge the MCU as movies and not "comic book movies." (For example, DC's Aquaman was said to be "exactly like the comics" which is awesome af for DC's comic fans, but it wasn't to my personal taste.)
  There's a huge difference in comic writing and screenwriting. The former has to be concise, easy to digest, snappy, emphasizes one-liners on epic full-page splashes, and forced or repeated dialogue is forgivable. Movies however are all about the feeling, delivery, interactions, timing, natural choices in diction. Hearing lines that are overused or predictable make me cringe. so. hard. That said, I love that MCU films generally hold up as well-written films! Going to talk about the writing at the bottom of the post /o/

~✨~✨~ "Something Good" ~✨~✨~

• Practically a given for most MCU films: I loved the acting, the VFX is insane, and the neither the editing or sound design stood out to me therefore they were good. :'D
   
• Infinity War impressed me for tying together a shitload of different characters and giving them interesting interactions—Endgame impresses me for tying together a shitload of situations from past films in brilliant, fun, tongue-in-cheek, unpredictable, and thoughtful ways!!!! Such satisfying callbacks for fans!!!
   
• Nearly the whole revisit to the Battle of New York I LOVED. Fanservice of the good sort!
• THE ENTIRE CAP VS CAP FIGHT. The fact that 2012 Cap doesn't have reason to freak out seeing himself because Loki had escaped and has precedence in imitating Cap before is such a good touch. "I can do this all day," "Yeah, I know, I got it," HAHAHA. Rather than physically beating him, unexpectedly mentally disarming 2012 Cap with "Bucky is alive" was brilliant!!
• THE. ELEVATOR. SCENE. The way that they rebuilt the Winter Soldier situation in a whole other context with the same characters and made us expect another elevator battle. BUT NO. BUT NO!!!! Nobody expected "Hail Hydra" which was effective AND meta as fuck. I was slain. I think I'll always be impressed by this scene. *^*
• The fact that they fail, so Steve and Tony put their heads together to come up with a brilliant other plan that transitions to even more brilliant callbacks and motivates Steve's ultimate decision. (Saw a review that called it useless fanservice BUT for the audience that may not know, it helps makes the connection that this is the time period in which the woman in his compass lives and this is where he sees all of his life regret.)
• Expert Exposition: Utilizing astral projection—which played a huge part in Doctor Strange—as a way to force Bruce to have a calm conversation with the Ancient One was in-character AND gave us exposition in a natural way. It's super important that this universe's time-travel rules get explained and I'm so so so happy that they were shown to us visually, in a context that's motivated. The Ancient One doesn't just start monologue explaining for no reason—she's desperately trying to persuade Bruce that she can't give up the stone. Thank you.
   
• Parental Problems: Tony finally coming to understand his dad makes a wonderful closed knot and finally humanizes Howard Stark. Thor's reunion with his mother helps him reconcile with her death, his own worries about failure and expectations, was a relatable and emotionally satisfying conversation, unexpected return of an underutilized minor character, and was a great motive to get Thor to open up about his true feelings and why he changed.
   
• Natasha's Virtual Meeting: I thought this scene was great because it served a ton of different purposes while also giving us cross-world interactions! Saw speculations that Okoye's earthquake report might be foreshadowing for Namor? I like that Carol joins their network in a way much better than paging LOL. Apparently Carol and Rhodey are a couple in the comics so that's a nice easter egg interaction! Good way to connect us and Natasha to Clint too. But mostly I loved that it showed us Natasha's state and how she hasn't moved on at all, worries about every little thing and is the most desperate to take action (her determination pays off later), how she's become this leader of galaxy-wide heroes that report to her. YES!! GIRL!!!
   
• Nebula and Tony's Game: Such a great character moment ;A; I'm so glad they didn't gloss over the fact these strangers would be stuck together and forced to interact. It helped depict Tony as likable and a good mentor figure, and humanized Nebula as an abused person trained to fight and never to have fun. ;v; Very glad she got nice human moments with Rocket and Rhodey too!
   
• "Mommy sent me to save you~" AWWW...! That's funny since he's a superhero... And she really did save him; she's literally his dream come true. ;___;
   
• Crash Course on the Infinity Stones: Ignoring how deplorable Thor's character has become, I very much liked these scenes! I was looking forward to worlds clashing and naive earthlings learning about space magic, so happy we got this! Loved when Nebula—how is it that I seem to like a lot of her scenes? never expected haha—explained things while everyone ate ice cream (hulk-a-hulk-a-burnin'-fudge) and couldn't distinguish the names between people and planets.
   
• Valkyrie.
   
• Ending with iconic phrases that now make us emotional: the very last "Avengers, Assemble" 😭 "On your left." And of course, the ultimate origin-saluting sendoff: "I am Iron Man." Thank you.

~✨~✨~ "Something Bad" ~✨~✨~

[Please do let me know if there's anything I should look out for on my rewatch that may change my mind on my negative takes; I would love that!]

• It's Not Infinity War: SUPER DUPER SUBJECTIVE because many people loved that it was different from its prequel, but I just kind of sort of selfishly wished that it were a little more like my all-time favorite movie, y'know? ;A;
• The tone is a huge departure from the rest of the MCU movies. Tragedies happen, deaths happen, you cry, but you just feel that things will be alright. This is actually a huge strength to the film and I'm just a dumb baby, but this time things felt very, very not alright. The first hour had long bleak scenes with no background music—this made it tense which is something Fome liked about this movie, but it made me extremely uncomfortable. For me, just a few choice silent scenes make an impact, but this was too much to sit through.
• The entire pre-Scott-at-the-front-gate portion of the film was honestly too long... It's billed as an epic adventure film, but there's significantly a lot more meaningless slow gloom than exciting, and it makes it hard for casual audiences to make it through this long 3 hour ride. Sure they needed to show how the world dealt with the loss but the pacing should've been less draggy. ;; You never want to give the audience time to feel like, "Why is this scene even in the movie? When will this be over?" I can pick out one-liners I'd cut from IW, but never conversations or whole scenes.
• It was very impressive to me that Infinity War worked both as a complex gift to hardcore Marvel fans and a film that probably anyone could jump into and enjoy without major issues understanding any of the characters or worlds—and while it heavily relies on this 22-film universe, it tells a comprehensive, digestible, complete story within itself. Endgame as a standalone film is certainly weaker.
• All of these things made Endgame not nearly as rewatchable or audience-friendly as Infinity War.
   
• Antman talks to a kid: Should've cut this; this scene had no impact. What was that kid's face even?
   
• Humor: I LOVE the humor in the MCU's recent films like Infinity War and Thor Ragnarok; I think the charm is that a lot of it is delivered in a serious/half dark/subtle manner, but it's the cleverness or situation that makes it hilariously brilliant. Endgame definitely has its moments but for a lot of it, I remember being disappointed by how the humor was rather more cheap and goofy honestly. Sorry.
   
• Heartwrenching Scenes...? I think it's telling that I didn't cry during this 3 hour movie even though I 100% expected to. ;; Upon rewatch, I might cry over Nat's death and maybe Tony's (if I'm not too distracted by the things that distracted me the first time) but.... I can't....think of....other scenes I should cry at....... Maybe this'll change. Disappointing because Infinity War always commands my tears.
    
• Gamora: Speaking of commanding my tears in Infinity War, ALL OF HER SCENES. T_____T Okay, I love that they found a way for her to return that made sense without reversing death! Perhaps I'll get it the second time, but it wasn't clear AT ALL until I watched explainer videos that Gamora had....run off..? And the "Asgardians of the Galaxy" were taking flight to find her.
• And why would she not be dusted when Tony snapped his fingers? She was also from 2014 and came as part of Thanos' army. I doubt that Tony had enough mental capacity in that moment to be like, "I wish, I wish, for Thanos and his army to disappear!!!! Except for... wait who is Gamora?" But I guess this is necessary for setting up GotG 3 sigh...
• You know what would've probably made me bawl? Star-Lord finding 2014 Gamora who's being dusted away, him swearing that he'll figure out a way to find her again and her being deeply moved for reasons that she can't figure out because she doesn't think she knows him yet he feels familiar. WAHH....
    
• Laughs because sometimes it's a huge plot point that only powerful beings can hold a bare Infinity Stone (it's even how Star-Lord's dad is able to locate him) yet Hawkeye, Professor Hulk, and Natalie Portman seem to be exceptions.
   
• "My father is many things, but he's not a liar" was a nice reference to how Thanos tells Gamora, "You're strong. Me. You're generous. Me. But I never taught you to lie. That's why you're so bad at it." (I loved that) Okay....so....how do you explain when Thanos told Eitri that he'd spare half of the dwarves if he'd make him the gauntlet, then ended up killing all of them except Eitri? He be a liar tho.
    
• Fortnite: Product placement sure but what the fuck, this did not need to be so long when it wasn't that funny.
   
• Professor Hulk: Speaking of "did not need to be so long when it wasn't that funny," the lunch scene lol. AND!!!!! I loveddddd that Infinity War put Bruce and Hulk on opposing sides as different people with different needs—I thought it was amazing characterization and a good step forward in development for them. I can't believe Endgame glossed over all of that................. Why did Hulk not want to come out? Professor Hulk is just gonna ambiguously tell us they "figured it out" over their stupid photo-op lunch without showing anything from how they conciliated? AAAAAAAHHHHH.
  
  [Edit: I just read this super insightful interview with the screenwriters where they discuss this among other things. Mrgh... Don't agree that the diner scene "generally works." ^^;;]
   
• Bruce x Natasha: They wrote a romance between two core Avengers that at one point was sorta'ish interesting, with Nat desiring to run away with Bruce only to have the Hulk run away by himself at the end of Ultron. When they meet again, they greet each other and...that's it... The only pathetic semblance of a "closure" they get is Professor Hulk saying he tried to bring her back from the dead. ok.jpg
    
• And none for Bucky: Poor guy was Steve's best friend for 80+ years and he lets Sam—a dude with very few distinctive qualities who volunteered to help because Steve and Nat don't care about confidentiality—go first? He doesn't get ANY sort of interaction with old Steve at all?? Sure the motive was for Sam to receive the Captain America mantle BUT. BUT BEST FRIENDS Q^Q WAS THERE A MOVIE CALLED CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FALCON HUH? Whose ship got a whole movie named after them ?!! The callback to their "you're taking all the stupid with you" exchange was cute though. BEST FRIENDS
   
• Speaking of best friends, NO NICK FURY AND CAROL REUNION.......? It could've been as freaking simple as him going up to her and putting his hand on her shoulder during the funeral scene—SO SIMPLE!!

~✨~✨~ "A Bit of Both" ~✨~✨~

                       - Star-Lord

• Killing Thanos from the start: It was the most genius plot twist and so uncomfortable I'm lowkey traumatized
  jk it's actually just good i'm being a dumb baby
   
• Thor: How did this movie demolish everything that I loved about Thor from Ragnarok and Infinity War...? I thought his body shape change was a good unexpected twist and kind of a funny jab after in IW, Gamora goes out of her way to point out "it's like his muscles are made of Cotati metal fibers." He doesn't have to be defined by his body. I liked that he didn't have to lose his weight to be worthy or to be badass at the end. But suddenly he's stupid and lazy...? His charming, clever brand of humor has suddenly become goofy and as dull as a weapon not of the Thanos-killing-kind. Maybe a rewatch will fix it, but I didn't see how Rocket managed to persuade him to join them—and I hated that "there's beer on the ship~" was the tipping point. In this whole film, Thor's defining characteristic was his love for beer. Even when on a time travel mission to save half the galaxy. Really? Thank god Rocket is competent. =A=;;
• I was also left confused as to why he chose to leave New Asgard for space adventures. Explainer videos told me that it's because his mother told him to be himself, but I was under the impression that he'd always wanted to rule Asgard and be a good king... In lieu of that Fortnite joke, they could've made some reference to his yearning for adventure? Dammit Fortnite.
  
  [Edit: I've been informed that Thor is going through PTSD. I definitely want to look more into this upon rewatch.]
   
• Natasha and Hawkeye on Vormir: Their fight was unexpected and SUCH A GOOD, CONTEXTUALLY SATISFYING, EMOTIONALLY CHARGED SCENE. T____T These two FINALLY got to shine after years and years of being on the back burner. At this point, I was so shocked that the writers chose Nat, of all of them, to die that I couldn't cry..... Can't believe they did that. I hate this... But it works. If they had to retire her, that was the most suitable way.. Otherwise, I would've been happy to keep her around as the leader for galaxy-wide conference calls and explore how she conciliates her old flame with Professor Hulk!! But sure, she's always felt haunted by her past and this is a way to redeem herself. ;^;
• Okay. Nebula totally tells them that Thanos retrieves the soul stone and Gamora doesn't come back. Were they expecting to march right onto this alien planet and just grab the stone? The others were letting them go just like that? Granted no one actually knew anything about Vormir, but I wish they could have executed some sort of plan/battled Red Skull, failed, and then became desperate enough to make the sacrifice. The only reason I felt some desperation was because these two characters harbor a lot of guilt and a long history with one another—not because of the situation. A casual audience would miss the gravity of the scene.
   
• Old Cap: Technically when Steve went back in time and decided to stay, there should exist two versions of him: 2023 Steve and the one that's stuck in the ice. I suppose his appearance means that S.H.I.E.L.D doesn't go looking for his frozen body... So how does he get his shield back? I think it's a wonderful ending for Steve though so I'll try to look past the plot holes. xD
• UNRELATED BUT I just read the speculation that since Peggy never specified who her husband was—just that he was in WWII and saved by Steve—it was actually Steve all along and she was a firm believer of #DontSpoilTheEndgame. THAT'S...PRETTY COOL IF TRUE!
     
• Captain Marvel: A very welcome new addition!! She didn't have much screentime but I thought that was perfectly appropriate. She didn't need to be in the entire middle chunk of the film—she even gets to explain that she won't be back for a while in that virtual meeting. But homegirl was used so dang poorly.
• I try to forgive it because they filmed this before Captain Marvel, but her characterization was incredibly...bland. It was kind of cool that there was a Carol-Thor interaction, serving to win Thor's trust followed by them all going to hunt Thanos together, but her interaction payoffs could've been better. I would've loved to have a shot of Carol and Thor fighting side-by-side with her choreographed in some way with Stormbreaker; how awesome would that be!!!
• Is she like....a plumber????? She just comes in and fixes everything up neatly, you exchange a few shallow words, and she disappears from your life? Contributing by being a magical solution that shows up and saves the day without obstacles doesn't feel like a satisfying contribution at all. It's like they wanted to recreate Thor's epic climactic appearance in Wakanda where he unexpectedly blasts in and changes the tide, but his triumph was well deserved and she didn't get any buildup.
   
• The Girl Power Shot: FUCK YEAAAAHHHHHHHHHH. I WANT TO SEE THIS AGAIN!!! I WANNA WATCH IT IN SUPER SLOW MOTION AND RELISH EVERY PIXEL OF IT. GIRLS HELPING GIRLS IS AWESOME.
• except Captain Marvel did not need the help, so the scene served no purpose other than being beautiful, beautiful fanservice.
• Instead of the equivalent of an epic full-page splash (or in addition to), I would've much preferred a left to right long shot with Carol flying through with the gauntlet and as every monster tries to attack her, each of the girls comes in to defeat it. Then it would show that they really do help clear Carol's path and we'd get to see everyone's powers at work together. That would be badass.... I would've loved that scene for the rest of my life........ I'm just gonna keep imagining it until I've convinced myself that it was part of the movie ;o;

~✨~✨~ The Writing ~✨~✨~

If I didn't know better, I would've thought that Endgame and Infinity War were written and directed by different people, but they're not. What happened?

Whenever I watch Infinity War, I think about how usually when I watch films, I take note of dialogue that I find well-written/clever/appropriate. But with IW and many other MCU films, I'm practically counting on my fingers how many lines stand out as cringy or unnatural—because most of it isn't. Since I generally really like it, I have high expectations for the writing and the humor in MCU films and usually the bar stays high! How did Endgame leave me with so much to criticize......?

My biggest complaint is Pepper's "But will you be able to rest?" because that one line gave away the ending of the movie to me immediately. ;; If she had used the word sleep instead of rest, it still would've given the ending away, but at least it sounds more like natural conversation. Symmetry and callbacks are great, but they're also very standard screenwriting. Comparing sleep with death is used all the time; it makes sense but it's no longer original, thus making the ending predictable and that's a terrible thing to do to a movie. When Tony dies, all I could think about was, "OH GOD PEPPER IS GONNA COME AND SAY 'YOU CAN FINALLY REST NOW' LIKE SHE'S PROGRAMMED TO BECAUSE WRITING RULES. GOD OF COURSE SHE SAID THAT EXACT THING. I'M TOO ANNOYED TO CRY I HATE THIS I WAS HERE FOR 3 HOURS FOR THIS."

One of my favorite scenes from Infinity War is when Thor and the Guardians discuss their family tragedies—it's like my personal golden standard of comedic screenwriting with lots of purpose LOL. It's so comically on point and delivery is very up my alley, with them discussing grave things and then, "Families can be tough," and Gamora's like wth and everything makes Star-Lord so jealous that he earnestly tries to one-up Thor with a story about killing his father while Thor loudly slurps his soup. In this discussion, every line of dialogue sheds a little light on each character's stories, which is awesome for viewers who may not know much about the characters. We get to learn about Gamora's hatred for her father which is super important, Thor is endearingly optimistic and immediately comforts her rather than scorn her, and Star-Lord's insecure rashness and relationship with Gamora are established. The conversation is totally motivated and necessary, since Thor is set up as the hero (some would even say antagonist) of the story so he needs to learn about Thanos some way or another. Exposition, characterization, comedy, cross-world interactions, all of it. SO BRILLIANT. None of the comedy is overly direct, tryhard, predictable, or in a template that's overly done—really the closest thing in this video to a dumb gag is "He's trying to copy me~" later on but I kind of give it a pass because it's very Chris Pratt haha.

Then come Endgame......

..........the Professor Hulk lunch scene and arguing over taking a selfie...... why

Also "No, it's not a time machine! It's....... okay, it's a time machine." was so not funny to me. :( It's overly direct, predictable, and overused—like most of Antman's dialogue in this movie; no bias against his character though as I quite enjoyed Antman and the Wasp. I would've found the joke maybe a little bit clever if it were something more like,
"No, it's not a time machine! It's.......a machine...that lets you travel through time!! They're very different."

Also looks towards Thor on the horizon. There were several scenes that I felt didn't contribute enough/made me cringe but I'll need to rewatch to recall in detail, so these were my most memorable first impressions!

I'm sorry I wrote a lot my 1 (one) braincell went unsupervised.