MovieChat Forums > Avengers: Endgame (2019) Discussion > Spoiler-Filled Thoughts

Spoiler-Filled Thoughts

posted 6 years ago by FilmBuff (7235)
10 replies | jump to latest

1. Captain America-- I don't think he grew old in the current timeline. The film specifically laid out the impossibility of that. He went back to 1945 and lived out his life. When the time came he traveled back to the original timeline (let's call it the OT) to hand over the shield and, presumably, to live out his remaining life.

2. The above opens up an interesting possibility. One assumes that Cap's new timeline went very differently. He didn't just marry Peggy and retire. He no doubt rescued Bucky in '45, took steps to prevent Thanos from winning in that timeline, etc. Maybe he even found a way to keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn. However, that means that there is still a frozen Captain America in that timeline that those in the OT could go get and bring back so they still have a young, healthy Cap. They won't do that, but it's "a thing."

3. If I understand it correctly, when Hulk borrows the time stone from the Ancient One, he creates a divergent timeline. He returns to the O.T. with the stone, stuff happens, then Cap has to return the stone. Their time travel device has to do more than travel in time. It has to allow him to select among likely infinite timelines, because if he went back to that moment in his own timeline, the Ancient One would still have the Time Stone. So Cap journeys to numerous points in time, on numerous timelines.

4. If 3 is accurate, does the OT still have to worry about Thanos? There are infinite Thanoses on infinite timelines. Could one of them collect all six stones and somehow learn about his defeat in the OT? Or perhaps more broadly, realize that he may have been defeated in some timelines, and go to the OT to finish the job? It seems the OT is the only 1 of the 14,000,605 timelines Dr. Strange viewed where Thanos failed, but it stands to reason with infinite timelines there may be infinite defeats of Thanos, which is a lot of traveling for someone who just wants to farm, so maybe this isn't an issue?

5. Where does Cap return the Soul Stone? Does he get a reverse prize from the Red Skull? Maybe that's how he ended up in 1945? He is the first person to bring back a Soul Stone, so he gets to reclaim the thing he lost that he most loved? What do you suppose Skull and Cap said to one another?

6. Could Iron Man have done something less extreme to win the battle and save his own life? I get that in the heat of the moment, he wanted to snap, too, but had he taken a moment to ponder, could he have frozen time with the time stone? Or is that something beyond his scope as a human? Perhaps he did what he knew would work despite the potential cost?

[–] FilmBuff (7235) 6 years ago

7. Overall, props to the Russos for creating what is probably the most logical, paradox-free take on time travel I've ever seen in a film.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

It's a bit of a cop-out though.

It means we can create multiple timelines but nothing we do when we go back in time affects our own.

Although Back to the Future doesn't make any sense once you scrutinise it, at least there were consequences for interfering with the space-time continuum. By contrast, Captain America could go back in time and kill himself (as a younger man) and apparently it wouldn't matter.

[–] FilmBuff (7235) 6 years ago

While you cannot change your own past, your actions certainly have consequence because you are creating a second reality. If Captain America goes back in time and kills himself, he creates a new reality in which there is no longer a Captain America. All the lives he would have saved from that point on are no longer saved, and that world becomes a very different, and likely far less safe, place.

[–] movienchill31 (223) 6 years ago

If that's the case then why was future Nebula still alive when she killed her past self? She should have vanished after her past self was killed.

[–] FilmBuff (7235) 6 years ago

No, that's precisely what I'm saying. When Nebula kills her past self, she is not affecting her own past. She is only affecting the future of the past from which that Nebula came.

By the rules of the MCU, which honestly seem like the most logical of any time travel film/story I know, time is linear, and it is impossible to change anything in your own past. When you travel into your past, you arrive at some previous point on that line. Time continues to move forward, but you are moving forward along a new line that begins at the point where you arrived in the past. So the line now has a fork in it at that point.

2014 Nebula travels to 2023, where she is shot and killed by 2023 Nebula. So now the timeline that branched out from the point in 2014 where the Avengers arrived no longer has a Nebula. She died. The "main" timeline, i.e. the one we've been following in the MCU films still has their Nebula.

Maybe an easier one to understand is Captain America's timeline.

In 2023 he travels back to 1945, creating a split. We now have a second timeline, which is identical to the original one from the dawn of time until 1945. In 1945 it branches out on its own. In that timeline, Cap marries Peggy, probably saves Bucky, and the world has a Captain America in the '40s, '50s, maybe '60s and '70s depending on if/when he retires. It also has a Captain America frozen in the Arctic, who may or may not be found and revived in the 21st Century. We don't know anything for sure other than Cap went back and married Peggy. At some point on that timeline, when Cap was quite old, he traveled back to the original timeline to 2023 and gave his Shield to Sam. The end result is one long line, from year 0 to the present day, with a new branch extending from 1945. Two timelines/ realities exist.

[–] movienchill31 (223) 6 years ago

Yeah Cap's timeline I can understand. Old Cap was more than likely sitting on that bench all along(even before Young Cap went back to return the stones). I think it's safe to assume Cap did everything from all the films until maybe after Civil war and then retired because he had to meet Sam/Falcon in order to hand the shield over to him and he didn't meet him until around 2014.

[–] Soulreaper (5) 6 years ago

for 3 and 6 when that thanos got dusted was the thanos from the past so he can't go after the stones as he's dead, so iron man had to dust all his army. Or thats the way i understood it

[–] FilmBuff (7235) 6 years ago

That's exactly right. By going back in time, the Avengers created an alternate reality in which Thanos learned of their plan. Because of this, Thanos adopted a similar plan, and he traveled into the future. So now two timelines exist:

1. The one we've been following, where Thanos is now dead (killed on his farm by Thor) and the snap has ben reversed

2. One that does not have Thanos or his army because they jumped timelines to the one I just described.

If Tony doesn't defeat Thanos, it is not clear exactly how Thanos will do it, but it is clear that Thanos will destroy both above Timelines. He will likely kill everyone in the main timeline (the one we've been following), and rebuild it from scratch as he described. Presumably, he'll then return to his own timeline and do the same. So Tony is saving TWO realities by defeating Thanos at the end of the film. My only question is-- could he have used the power of the Infinity Gauntlet to accomplish this without an act so drastic as a snap?

[–] footballhead (80) 6 years ago

6. Strange said in the 14 million scenarios, they only won in one of them. Tony knew he had to end it then and there. When he saw Strange lift his finger, he knew this was it. This was the one chance. We can assume if Tony had done anything else, froze time or whatever, Thanos somehow still wins.

[–] cyberbob (3488) 6 years ago

If you start getting into the idea of infinite timelines then you can come up with infinite scenarios where Thanos could come back, or this or that or any crazy shit can happen

Even the best physicists today only postulate about multiverses and time-travel. They are ideas hinted at by the most abstract of theories, not actual observed scientific phenomena. There is no concrete information on these ideas, so it is impossible to say with any certainty how it would work