How Avengers: Endgame Will End Up Being A Movie Fail
We’re only three months away now from the grand finale. Endgame releases April 27th of this year and will act as the culmination of ten years of cinematic work--ten years of movies that have brought both excitement and disappointment to fans and moviegoers around the world.
Although the disappointing aspect is rare, movies like Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor: The Dark World, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and even the Iron Man sequels are still considered lackluster. While Marvel seems to have fallen into a favorable grove since the start of phase 3, it’s not like they haven’t had debatable movies in the past.
Even Avengers: Age of Ultron was considered a let down in comparison to the original Avengers--what with it being weighed down with plot points like Ultron keeping Black Widow alive, and the handling of Quicksilver's death.
None of these movies even had the overwhelming burden that Avengers: Endgame does either. As the end of the first Marvel cinematic storyline, Endgame has a lot to accomplish, so is there a possibility that the movie might not live up to its expectations?
Over Hype
Avengers: Endgame is one of the most anticipated cinematic events of 2019. Heck--and for a good reason. Marvel has had more popular movies than dull ones, and even the ones that are considered lackluster have their own charm to them that fans can enjoy. But, as we said, nothing Marvel has released has the same burden as Endgame.
This movie will mark the end of an era--an era people have invested an entire decade into. As a result, there’s more hype around this movie than any Marvel movie that’s come before it. Infinity War is probably the only exception due to the massive cast, but Endgame looks like it’ll be shaping up to have the same volume of heroes on screen--if only on a smaller scale. The movie has a three-hour run time, and with Spider-Man Far from Home openly promoting itself now, there’s a good chance that everyone dusted in Infinity War will make a return.
Infinity War was the beginning of the end though, pretty much making it just another milestone on the journey, so it didn’t have the same levels of expectations behind that Endgame does. Endgame is the definitive ending, and an ending can make or break a property. If it doesn’t turn out well, the rest of the stories that came before it can be made to seem pointless, if albeit entertaining.
We’ve seen hype kill a movie before, especially one done under a Disney banner. Anyone remember Star Wars: The Last Jedi? Of course, you do. It was one of the most hyped-up and theorized movies of all time, and the hype surrounding it played a large role in why the film turned out to be a giant disappointment. Some will blame Disney for it, but Star Wars hasn’t had the best track record since the original trilogy, and a large part of that comes from overhyping.
We can even look outside of movies to find instances where overhype has killed a project. Remember how fun and exciting Half-Life 3 was? No? That's becasue the game doesn't exist. Half-Life 2’s success generated so much hype for a third installment that Valve, the game’s developer, decided the game’s legacy would be better off if they didn’t release a sequel.
Endgame, of course, won’t have this issue—there’s way too much on the line for Marvel not to release it: money, reputation, etc. but movies with high expectations rarely ever tend to meet them.
Too Much History
Avengers: Endgame isn’t really for the casual moviegoer. The film is a payoff for literally over 20 other movies. That’s a lot of content for someone to digest just to see one movie. The older films aren’t as important as the newer releases (as far as we know) but missing out on a previous release can make it hard to sit down and be in tune with characters and settings introduced in previous films. This is a pretty common issue most people find themselves running into as well. Work, school, sudden illnesses, etc. can keep someone from seeing a previous movie that Avengers hinges on.
Now, this isn’t to say that someone who’s missed out on the movies can’t still go see Avengers and enjoy it, but their definitely not going to be as invested in the movie as someone who did get to see the previous installments.
Let’s use Infinity War as an example.
Right before Avengers: Infinity War released, we got Black Panther’s first MCU movie. In this film, we were introduced to Wakanda, advanced Wakandan technology, the characters close to Black Panther, and even learned more about T’Challa himself.
Infinity War utilizes the Black Panther movie fully and doesn’t invest any time or attention into reintroducing elements from it.
Wakanda becomes the staging ground for Thanos’ invasion, and its technology and side characters play an important role in attempting to keep the Mind Stone out of Thanos’ hands. Bruce and his allies bring Vision to Wakanda because they believe the people of Wakanda are the only ones who can help them remove the Mind Stone from Vision without actually, you know, killing him.
Shuri--T’Challa’s sister and the primary inventor of Wakanda’s technology--is the one who heads up Vision’s procedure. She’s on a ticking clock, though, because Thanos’ “kids” are coming for Vision. If you haven’t seen Black Panther, however, this whole subplot probably doesn’t mean much to you when the movie calls attention to it.
You don’t know Shuri, and the movie doesn’t take any time out of its run to catch you up with her, so when Corvus Glaive invades her lab and takes her down, you might think she had just died without any concequences or lasting effects (Corvus defeating her is the last time we see her in Infinity War). Even T’Challa’s dusting scene doesn’t hold as much weight since it relies on Okoye’s reaction. Okoye is another important Blank Panther character who made her appearance in his movie. You wouldn't know that though if you didn't have the chance to see it.
You miss out on a lot of different subplots by just missing one installment. It wouldn’t be as bad if you maybe had the chance to catch Blank Panther on DVD before Infinity War came out, but the DVD didn't come out until after Infinity War left theaters.
Endgame is following this same trend. Captain Marvel is coming out right before it, and if the rumors and speculation surrounding the Captain Marvel movie are anything to go off of, she’s going to play a very vital role in what goes down in Endgame, and if her lore plays as big a part in the film’s plot as Black Panther’s did in Infinity War, then missing her movie will probably mean missing out on a lot of what’s going on, and as with Black Panther, you meet the same problem of not being able to see a DVD release until after Endgame has come and gone.
Too Predictable
There have been quite a few theories and even a potential plot leak that suggests Endgame will rely heavily on time travel. In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Jan Van Dyn informs Scott about time vortexes--anomalies in the quantum realm that will suck him in and throw him in into some unknown point in time. When Scott enters the quantum realm, Janet, Hope, and Hank are all promptly murdered by Thanos’ snap, leaving Scott stranded in the realm—his only way out is the time vortexes. We see him appear at the end of the Avengers: Endgame trailer, so he obviously used the vortexes in some way or another.
Samuel L. Jackson let something pretty significant about Captain Marvel slip here recently. In an interview, he said that Captain Marvel was currently the only character with the natural ability to time travel. She doesn’t have this ability in the comics, so that means we’re looking at an ability that was specifically added to her power set for the MCU. That’s a pretty big give away for both her movie and Endgame.
Of course, none of this tells us precisely that Endgame will use time travel to fix all of the heroes problems, but with the concept of it popping up so frequently, it’s hard to believe that this won’t be the case, and honestly, does anyone actually wanna see Endgame resolved through simply reversing time?
Yes, Doctor Strange used time manipulation to resolve all of his problems, but he used it in a very unpredictable way. Strange using the time stone to trap Dormammu in an endless time loop of him killing Strange over and over again solely so that Strange can run out the dark god’s patience was not only a good way to show Strange’s development as a character, but was a clever and entertaining way for him to defeat a villain as powerful as Dormammu.
Thanos using the time stone to reverse the destruction of the Mind Stone not only added a dramatic flair to his victory but made him seem even more intimidating as a villain. So it’s not as though Marvel doesn’t know how to make reversing time interesting, but with the current knowledge we have at the moment, it seems possible that Endgame may just rely on time travel to prevent Thanos’ from getting his snap off in the first place. Granted, this wouldn’t be too far off from the way the comics originally handled the snap.
In the comics, Thanos used the Infinity Gauntlet to torture Nebula when he found out that she had been lying to him about being his daughter. He left her toeing the line between life and death by basically turning her into a living corpse. Nebula--through some miracle--found an opportunity to snatch the Infinity Gauntlet away from Thanos and capitalized on it. One of the first acts she used the gauntlet for was rewinding time by a whole 24 hours. In doing so, she revived everyone in the universe that Thanos had killed as though it never happened.
The MCU reimaging of Infinity War has played out differently from the comics version, and Nebula’s characterization has also differed because of that, but she’s still similar enough to comics Nebula that it would make sense if she were the one to retrieve the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos. Her motivations for reversing time would just be different. Comics Nebula wanted to become a god. MCU Nebula probably just wants her sister back...and to maybe torture Thanos just a little bit.
Even putting the time traveling to the side for a moment, we already know most if not all the deaths from Infinity War are going to be reversed since Spider-Man: Far From Home has been confirmed to happen after Endgame, so one of Endgame’s biggest mysteries has already been put in jeopardy.
