MovieChat Forums > Avengers: Endgame (2019) Discussion > What Do We Think Captain America Did Abo...

What Do We Think Captain America Did About Frozen Captain America?

posted 6 years ago by FilmBuff (7436)
41 replies | jump to latest

After defeating Thanos, Captain America is tasked with returning the Infinity Stones to their original points on the timeline. Once he's done so, he travels to 1945 and lives out his life as it was meant to be, in his own time, but in an alternate timeline he has created by arriving, with Sharon.

I think it is very, very safe to assume the following:

1. Upon returning to 1945, he immediately went to the Soviet Union and rescued Bucky before he could be turned into the Winter Soldier.

2. He spent the rest of his life being Captain America, and used what he'd learned in the future to prevent whatever tragedies he could.

3. After Peggy died, he returned to his original timeline, and made his way to the park bench where he reunites with his modern-day friends.

When he gets to 1945, he knows that he has created a split in the timeline, so there are now two of everyone and everything, including himself and his shield. He obviously went and found the shield. What did he do about the frozen Steve Rogers? Did he decide that he'd rather remain frozen? It's him, after all, so he should be the one to decide. He could have revived him in 1945 and let that version of himself live happily ever after with that version of Peggy, but we know he didn't. He could have revived him and sent him to his original timeline so the Avengers as we know them would have a young Captain America, but he didn't.

I believe it a near certainty that Cap did everything enumerated above, but what do we think he did about his frozen double?

[–] fc31 (6121) 6 years ago

Don't think about time travel too much because it is a can of worms.

According to Marvel setting each time you time travel you create a new timeline because you only travel through time, then when you come back, you can't just come back, in theory you created yet another time line. Because what if you traveled back to right before you traveled back? Now there would be two of you in your supposed "original" time line. What if you stopped yourself from traveling back?

And to answer your original question. Judging from the simile on his face he obviously let his frozen double stay frozen. Or you think they had threesome? See, a can of worms.

This is not a movie for smart people.

[–] FilmBuff (7436) 6 years ago

Alternatively, it's a very smart movie, and the less intelligent audience members are too confused to understand it...

If I understand your less-than-clear prose, in your example, the split occurs when you stop yourself. I'm not sure what you mean by "your supposed "original" time line" or why you think it's problematic for there to be two of you.

[–] fc31 (6121) 6 years ago

No, I am saying no matter how you travel back you will create a new timeline. Because in the example I gave you, you can alter your original timeline, You don't have to alter it, just the possibility of altering it (or the fact there are two of you) means you already created a new timeline.

To travel back to original timeline, when would be the entry point to make sure it is original? As I demonstrated before the wrong entry point clearly shows a new timeline, but the right entry point (just when you left it, or 1 second after you left, or 2,3?) means you created a new timeline but you just don't know it.

Can you understand that?

[–] FilmBuff (7436) 6 years ago

I really don't understand what you are trying to get at. When you write "travel back," I think you mean returning from a trip backwards in time. As time travel is explained in the film, a person returns to the point in time from which they originated, and nothing they did in the past will have changed their own present. If you visualize the passage of time as a point moving along a line, traveling back to a previous point on the line causes a new line to branch out from that point, but returning to the present places you back on the first line.

[–] ATG6 (3000) 6 years ago

In real time travel you can't go back in time before the point where the first time travel machine was invented. That timeline is cast in cement. After time travel is invented, everything is flexible.

[–] FilmBuff (7436) 6 years ago

Where did you hear that rule? That doesn't make sense. Not that time machines make sense to begin with, but why would that be a mitigating factor?

[–] ExTechOp (2770) 6 years ago

“Primer” would be my guess

It’s the only time-travel film with that restriction AFAIK

[–] FilmBuff (7436) 6 years ago

According to Quantum Leap, you can only travel through time within your own lifetime.

[–] ExTechOp (2770) 6 years ago

Riiiight, that's true - but Sam COULD at least travel back further than the invention of time travel

[–] FilmBuff (7436) 6 years ago

Bill and Ted needed a phone booth to travel through time. I guess there are all sorts of rules that must be followed.

[–] fc31 (6121) 6 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Buttholio (198) 6 years ago

I had a topic about this a while back... Yeah it's pretty much a can of worms whichever way you go with it.

If you want it explained away you could just go with Cap never actually knew where he was frozen, so he was never able to find his other self, but maybe the other Cap finally gets found once Cap has grown old with Peggy... Then the other Cap could have Sharon Carter as a consolation prize for losing the love of his life.... LOL. Sucks to be that Cap!

I had some other explanations worked out but they were way more convoluted.

[–] FilmBuff (7436) 6 years ago

It could be the start of a perpetual loop... Cap grows old, new Cap wakes up, goes back to 1945, marries Peggy, grows old, etc. Finally, in some timeline there is a freakier Cap, and he revives frozen Cap in '45 and the two Caps and Peggy have a polyamorous marriage, thus ending the cycle.

[–] Buttholio (198) 6 years ago

The thing about the infinite loop is that with all the changes Cap makes to the timeline there's no reason to assume the Cap of that timeline would even have a reason to go back... Wouldn't one of Cap's priorities be to prepare for the inevitable coming of Thanos, which he would know about way in advance of anyone in that timeline? If they could prevent Thanos from getting the Stones and ever doing the Snap there'd be no reason for anyone to go back in time anymore. Then Cap would bascially just be going back to steal Peggy from the other Cap, which seems kind of un-Cap...

I suppose Cap could take back some extra Pym particles, then he could take the other Cap aside and explain "Hey buddy I'm gonna steal your Peggy but here's some Pym particles, now you can go back and steal your own Peggy, just be sure to give these Pym particles to the next Cap in line so he can keep it going..."

[–] FilmBuff (7436) 6 years ago

I definitely think he'd prevent Thanos from doing his thing, a la number two in my list above.

[–] Buttholio (198) 6 years ago

Another idea was if we assume he could get more Pym particles maybe he could find a timeline that was doomed to be destroyed and kidnap the Peggy from that timeline (thus dodging the "but he's stealing her from his other self/original husband" issue) and then take her to the Thanos-less timeline which was left when the Thanos in Endgame time traveled and then got killed. There they could safely live happy ever after without the threat of Thanos...

[–] EvilPinata (1186) 6 years ago

I believe that the current timeline is already the alternate timeline Cap created by going back in time to be with Peggy. Throughout all the movies we never see Peggy's husband, so I think it was always Cap from Engame.

To the question though, I don't think Cap changed anything and just let events unfold the way they did previously.

[–] ExTechOp (2770) 6 years ago

I agree with EvilPinata, but it's still a problematic explanation.

Could Cap deliberately let all the bad stuff happen without interfering? I say yes, because he's older and wiser and knows, if he stays out of history's way, things will all work out. Plus that, we know this was the writers' intent.

But the directors say he created an alternate timeline and only returned to the MCU "prime" timeline to give Sam the shield.

To me, this raises an even bigger problem: in the alternate timeline, he either STILL doesn't interfere, in which case why even call it an alternate timeline. Or, he DOES interfere, saves Bucky, prevents HYDRA from taking over SHIELD, etc.

But there's one problem that he can never solve: whether he thaws out that timeline's frozen Steve early or ever, MCU-Prime Steve would be stealing Peggy away from the Steve Rogers of that alternate timeline. Even though he knows alternate-Peggy is the love of alternate-Steve's life.

I can imagine him staying out of history's way in the MCU prime timeline.

I cannot imagine him stealing Peggy away from the Steve Rogers who's actually indigenous to that timeline.

[–] chrisjdel (2714) 6 years ago

I think after he saw his picture on Peggy's desk in 1970, it occurred to him that either she never married (somebody else's picture would've been there) or she married him. He has time travel. If he later goes back in time ... so maybe he already did/always has.

After the defeat of Thanos the future could get along without him. He's done his part for country and planet and now it's time to live his own life. So he went back to the end of the war, probably told Peggy everything and made sure she understood that she could never repeat a word of it to anyone. History has to play out the way it's meant to. So the day he was in her office watching her through the window an older version of him was somewhere else. Maybe she even knew the younger Steve was there and was careful not to look in his direction - because she knows she didn't.

[–] EvilPinata (1186) 6 years ago

He couldn't steal Peggy away from another version of himself if she never married in the "prime timelime" it the first place. That's why though that I think the prime MCU timeline has been an alternate timeline the whole time. An alternate timeline created by Steve being with am unmarried Carter.

[–] FilmBuff (7436) 6 years ago

I don't think that's the case, for a number of reasons. For starters, we've seen in Agent Carter that Captain America was believed to be dead. That alone disproves the theory, but beyond that-- if Steve really went back and married Peggy Carter, how would they have hid that fact from the world? Everyone believed he was dead until he was found frozen. Steve would never go back to 1945 and stop being Captain America, let Bucky become the Winter Soldier, and decide not to do what he could to make the world a better place. We're supposed to believe he knew exactly when and where Bucky would assassinate Tony's parents and he just let it happen? Not to mention JFK's assassination, 9/11, the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn, and whatever other awful things he learned about after he was revived.

[–] ExTechOp (2770) 6 years ago

All addressed here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBmj4rs1KrI

[–] fc31 (6121) 6 years ago

Hilarious!

[–] EvilPinata (1186) 6 years ago

I don't consider the shows canon. The movies have been canon within the shows, but the shows have never been referenced in the movies. I chalk all the shows up to multiverse stuff.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

[deleted]

[–] millsey72 (10939) 6 years ago

Everything is very silly about what you posted. There was no movie made about what Captain America did after he returned back to 1945. And its fiction on top of that. How do you not understand this?

[–] FilmBuff (7436) 6 years ago

Maybe you didn't understand my post? I'm referencing what was in the movie, and wondering about a key element that was left unexplained.

[–] asom (6894) 6 years ago

And HOW exactly did he travel in time back to 1945?

Did he rebuild the time machine in 1970 by himself? We know that he is not the smartest of them all.

And if he was living all this time in an alternate timeline ... how did he come back to the original one to be there at the end of the movie?

And how come there are 2 shields?

[–] FilmBuff (7436) 6 years ago

Did you watch the film?

At the end, they sent Cap with all 6 Infinity Stones and a large supply of Pym Particles back in time using the already assembled machine. When they expected him to return they remarked that he blew right past them, or something to that effect, and we saw him go to 1945.

If you're asking how he returned to his original timeline in the present, he most certainly used the particles to return a little while before they sent him in the first place. He'd have known when the machine was ready, but not in use or being observed, and the implication of the film is that he came back and hung out for a bit until after he originally left.

As for the shield, that was part of my original post. I assume he went and located his shield in the water, but it's equally possible he had a new one built somewhere, probably Wakanda.

[–] asom (6894) 6 years ago

Have YOU seen the movie?

He cannot go back at whatever time he chooses, he gets back EXACTLY when he is pulled back by the machine. So he cannot "blew right past them" - he is cap, not Flash, and we don't see him going to 1945. He just doesn't return. We only see him dancing with Peggy in 1945.

I just re-watched the scene.

Plus: the device needs someone to PULL you back from time, so he cannot just "blow past them" in time (again, it's impossible, the machine pulls you exactly when it pulls you) then use the machine to go back and use the machine to pull himself back. Remember how Ant Man waited 5 years for someone (a rat) to activate the machine and pull him back? And then Cap did another trip back in time just to meet them at that exact moment?

And they did a jump without the machine between New York and 1970, which breaks their own rules, that you NEED the machine to do the jump ... no machine no jump. but sometime they need the machine sometime they don't. Makes no sense. Just to "push" the story forward. They establish at some point that it is a "round trip". Then they start to make random jumps without the machine.

And by jumping to 1970 (which again shouldn't be possible without the machine) and stealing the case with the Pym particles didn't they just created another timeline? Plus the timeline from which they pulled Thanos.

The picture with him on Peggy's desk? Was an old picture, from the 40', before he gained his strength and when he was skinny. Why would Peggy keep a 30 years old photo of him if he is alive and married her? She would have a more recent photo. And HOW Peggy having a photo of him in OUR timeline justifies her being married wit him in ANOTHER timeline and NOT in our timeline?

As for the shield: so he basically fucked up a timeline that he created just to be with peggy, quite selfish and un-characteristic for Cap.

Neah, it's too convoluted and illogic.

[–] FilmBuff (7436) 6 years ago

They make it very clear in the film-- with his suit and enough Pym Particles Cap can travel anywhere he wants while on the mission. They can see when he is, so to speak, but aren't controlling his travel. You point out your misunderstanding in your own post when you reference the jump they do to 1970. If you pay attention you'll learn that while you need to use the machine to initially send yourself into the Quantum Realm, once there you can go when and where you want to go, as long as you have a suit and particles.

As for the rest of your post--

Jumping to 1970-- yes, they created another timeline. So what? They created many. It was an unavoidable byproduct of their mission.

The picture-- Peggy was not married to Steve in that timeline. The only timeline we know about where Peggy and Steve are married is the one Steve creates at the very end of the film when he jumps back to 1945 and stays.

The shield-- I don't understand why you think he ruined that timeline. If anything, he created the best timeline of all. He went back to 1945, married Peggy, and the world had a Captain America from 1945 until whenever he retired. At that point he returned to his own timeline and gave Sam the shield.

[–] ATG6 (3000) 6 years ago

I hope he at least went to Dallas and saved President Kennedy.

[–] Strazdas (2472) 5 years ago

He did nothing. To do anything about it would mean to deviate its future, meaning he would not have been there to travel back in time. Not that this movie has any respect for the actual mechanics. Even ones it sets up itself.

[–] FilmBuff (7436) 5 years ago

You don't seem to understand the mechanics they set up in the film. By traveling back to the '40s to marry Peggy, he created an alternate timeline. Everything after that is simply a part of the new timeline, so he's free to act in any way he sees fit.

[–] Strazdas (2472) 5 years ago

If that was true then people in the original timeline would not be able to see him at the bench afterwards.

[–] FilmBuff (7436) 5 years ago

He returned to his original timeline, just like in the original plan. The only difference being that he remained in the past for a lot longer than planned.