{"id":881,"date":"2019-05-05T10:04:43","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T17:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jamesgillen3.com\/?p=881"},"modified":"2019-05-05T10:04:48","modified_gmt":"2019-05-05T17:04:48","slug":"review-avengers-endgame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jamesgillen3.com\/?p=881","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: Avengers: Endgame"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“I have often said that if knowing what happens actually spoils a movie, that movie probably sucks.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Robert Bridson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only real spoiler I got from\nAvengers: Endgame<\/em> before seeing it was a very minor but very\ntelling one: There are no after-credits scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quite a few non-Marvel movies had\nscenes during or after the credits, including of course Ferris\nBueller’s Day Off.<\/em> But it wasn’t until Nick Fury showed up at\nTony Stark’s house at the very end of Iron Man<\/em> to discuss “the\nAvengers Initiative” that the idea became a running premise,\nlinking together the various movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe\nand teasing the next one in the series. The fact that such a scene\ndoesn’t happen this time only emphasizes that while there will of\ncourse be other Marvel projects, for the Avengers story arc, this is\nit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finality is the main theme of this\nmovie. More than once, Thanos says, “I am inevitable.”\nThanos, of course, is taken from Thanatos, the Greek word for death.\nIn the original Marvel Comics, Jim Starlin’s Thanos was romantically\nobsessed with Death (since Death is a personality in Marvel Comics).\nIn the more “realistic” movies, this obsession was turned\ninto a Malthusian sociology. In Infinity War<\/em>, Thanos told\neveryone that the populations he decimated (or rather, bisected)\nbefore getting the Infinity Gauntlet were happier and better off for\nhis work. That is clearly not the case after the “snap.” On\nEarth, world governments have collapsed and cities are hollowed out,\nwith sullen, scattered survivors. The cosmic hero Captain Marvel has\nher hands full dealing with similar crises on other worlds. But then\nScott Lang (Ant-Man) returns from the Quantum Realm and discusses a\nway to reverse the events, in what he calls a “time heist.”\nAnd while some deaths are unavoidable, there are a lot of appearances\nfrom almost every other Marvel movie up to this point (although in\nsome cases these characters appear VERY briefly) and this leads to\nsome happy reunions, demonstrating to Scott’s surprise, time travel\ndoesn’t work like in Back To The Future<\/em>, Bill & Ted, or\nany other examples of time travel, which, like in this movie, are\nentirely fictional and speculative, because time travel isn’t real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the movie, my best friend and I\nbriefly discussed it and he said that the premise created plot holes\nbig enough to drive a truck through. And I start to think about them\nmore and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like….<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Endgame was five years after Infinity War, and the Avengers brought back all the people who got ‘snapped’ without going backwards in time, why is Peter Parker still in high school with Ned?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And….<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all know who guards the Soul Stone, right? So what happened when Steve had to give it back?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But again, the result creates a true\nnarrative finality- as with The Long Night at Winterfell, the\ncasualty count of principal characters was very light, though the\nlosses were a lot more substantial. But most characters had at least\na satisfying ending, and one in particular had the happy ending that\nshould have happened all along. And instead of an after-credits scene\nwe got a big production ending with each of the original Avengers\nactors pictured with their autographs on the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can’t help but think that the\nproducers were inspired by the final scene of Star Trek VI: The\nUndiscovered Country<\/em>, where the senior crew of the Enterprise\nhave just returned to the ship after stopping a military conspiracy\nand saving the galaxy from a general war \u2013 only to be given orders\nto turn the Enterprise in to be decommissioned. And Captain Kirk-\nlike Tony Stark, an example of Peter Pan masculinity if ever there\nwas one- just said “second star to the right, and straight on\ntil morning.” And the Enterprise sailed toward the nearest star\nand disappeared into the light. And the screen showed the autographs\nof the seven principals of the original cast, one by one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that was indeed the last time that\nall seven members of the original cast appeared in the same movie\ntogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RIP The Avengers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They Saved The World<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Lot<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I have often said that if knowing what happens actually spoils a movie, that movie probably sucks.” -Robert Bridson The only real spoiler I got from Avengers: Endgame before seeing it was a very minor but very telling one: There are no after-credits scenes. Quite a few non-Marvel movies had scenes during or after the … Continue reading REVIEW: Avengers: Endgame<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","category-superheroes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7z47x-ed","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesgillen3.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesgillen3.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesgillen3.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesgillen3.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesgillen3.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=881"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesgillen3.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":884,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesgillen3.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions\/884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesgillen3.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesgillen3.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesgillen3.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}