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filthyjanuary · 3 years

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ok well i watched tfatws finale and like the entire season that was absolutely incoherent in terms of politics and theme and messaging

first of all, it’s CRIMINAL that karli dies and walker lives. like i expected that because...marvel, but it makes me genuinely livid that to the END they committed to this ‘she’s just a misguided little girl’ thing and she had to die because a) she was going to shoot sam and b) she needed to die to preserve sharon’s secret but WALKER who murdered someone in BROAD DAYLIGHT last ep was like...somehow part of the team again??? working with sam and BANTERING WITH BUCKY???? ARE YOU JOKING???? his only consequence is he’s stripped of his military titles but otherwise is free to do whatever including signing on to work with val? what the shit? you KNOW they have plans for walker so they had to put him in a neat little anti-hero box for later, and they OBVIOUSLY never had any kind of coherent motivation for karli and her storyline so obviously she needs to die.

like was it nice and feel good-y that sam saves all these politicians and they finally give him the time of day and listen to what he has to say? sure! but you’re telling me we’re supposed to be like well maybe if karli tried talking that would’ve solved anything? what kind of messaging is that? the average marginalized person is never going to be in any kind of scenario where they can save their oppressors enough that their humanity is finally spelled out for them enough to give a shit about doing the right thing

like i get it, sam is worthy of the mantle of cap because he never stops reaching out to people, he leads with empathy, I GET IT, but whatever point they’re trying to make doesn’t work because REALISTICALLY BEING EMPATHETIC CAN ONLY GET YOU SO FAR

and they never answer any of the tough questions! if karli had never tried to take the prisoners hostage and thus they’d never been saved by sam, appealing to them to stop the vote through their shared humanity wouldn’t have done jack shit! by having SHARON kill karli, they take the choice of what to do with her out of sam’s hands entirely so he never has to ACTUALLY make any tough calls, including the call that steve makes in catws which is do i surrender and accept death instead of raising my hand against someone who is going to kill me who maybe doesn’t deserve it? it’s cowardly writing to ask all these tough questions and then sidestep around the answers. yes, in an ideal world empathy and dialogue and appealing to others solves every problem but WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN IT DOESN’T? karli isn’t going to stop, so sam’s response in the face of that was IMPORTANT and they just... don’t answer it? i’m not saying there’s a CORRECT answer, but they needed to answer it somehow and they just... don’t.

i called sharon as the power broker but her heel turn to villain was just like.... told to us? we needed to see it like how do you go from catws sharon to this sharon.... like off screen?????

sam’s gesture for isaiah w/ the statue very good and pure but REALISTICALLY you’d think he’d have some conflicting feelings about it. you’re telling me he goes from absolutely justified anger and mistrust of the government to like ‘uwu they acknowledged me’ because sam said some nice things on tv and he’s in the corner of an exhibit now???

they just were juggling WAY too many plot threads and then went ‘oh shit we need to wrap them up’ and consequently dedicated like... 35 minutes to fight scenes and like 10 to actually closing character threads as quickly as possible and setting up everything they need to set up for future mcu instalments (villain sharon! whatever is going on with val and us agent!walker, etc.)

there were a lot of very cool shots! a lot of the sam/karli fight was a very obvious call back to the steve/bucky fights in catws especially the last one in the helicarrier, and sam flying down with karli’s body was BEAUTIFUL but like... cool shots and actors carrying the shows on their back despite incoherent writing can only do so much of the work, you know?

EDIT: ALSO I COMPLETELY BLACKED OUT DURING THIS PART BUT IT WAS FUCKED UP AND EVIL FOR BUCKY AND WALKER TO CALL THE COPS ON A BUNCH OF POC FIGHTING FOR REFUGEES LMAO MARVEL GO TO HELL

#tfatws #tfatws spoilers #long post #what the fuck lol

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enchanted-lightning-aes · 4 years

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Brand New Suit

A/N: Welp, another Sam Wilson-centered ficlet because we can NEVER have too much of those! I think from the title, folks can expect how this is gonna go. Again, a bit of it is inspired by the sixth part of this post, XD. It presented itself as an opportunity, and I JUST HAD TO DO IT! Outfit is comics based, because we have no information of what the Cap suit would be like.

Word Count: 554

TW: None

Prompt: Day 19 - Stealth Suit

***

Capsule doors parted, revealing a deep blue suit with a white star at the chest plate and red and white stripes along the lower midsection. Crimson gloves and boots and a grey utility belt. On top, there was a pair of goggles with a deep shade of red. Behind the uniform, there was a bright red pair of mechanical wings that would help him in flight.

It appeared suitable for a person currently taking on the Captain America mantle.

"Here's the new suit, Wilson," Sharon told him, letting go of the control keys. "Thanks to Shuri, we managed to have the suit ready in no time.

Sam's jaw dropped at the design. "You mean this is all for me, Shar?"

"Yeah, it all is. Go kick some ass out there," Sharon said, patting him in the shoulder. "Show them who's worthy of that shield."

"I most definitely will," Sam replied, smiling at her.

He stared at the new suit with a combination of disbelief and awe. Ever since, he had shown the design to them, he had been hoping to have his own suit. No disrespect for Steve, but he couldn't see himself in his Cap outfit. So, he drew a design for his own and showed it to Steve, who was inclined to let it happen.

It didn't take much to convince Maria Hill that the suit needed some upgrading. And she eventually allowed him, only if someone could create it for him.

What he didn't expect was the Wakandan princess for taking interest in this. Sam never felt more grateful for her, and hoped to pay her back someday. Damn, for all he knew, she was such a bright young talent. He hoped that the world would soon see the princess's potential as an inventor and scientist.

His thoughts took into a different direction when he was reminded about a mission.

Time to get into that outfit then.

After Sam changed into the new Captain America stealth suit, he started humming a quick tune.

"Ain't nobody dope as me," Sam sung, checking himself in the nearby mirror. "I'm dressed so fresh so clean."

The suit fitted him just right– it covered almost every inch of skin like Steve's suit but it wasn't as restrictive as he expected. Hmm, he could get used to this new look.

When he stepped away from the mirror, he saw someone entering the room with a shocked expression.

And somewhat. . . dumbstruck.

"Holy shit, Wilson," Bucky murmured, sounding slightly out of breath. "That suit really suits ya, buddy."

"Don't you think I'm so sexy I'm dressed so fresh so clean?" Sam asked, casting his eyes at Bucky, whose stare slid up and down over his form.

"Well, you are. . . all those. . . things," Bucky replied, his voice almost close to cracking. "I can't deny that, can I?"

Sam chuckled, before nudging him in the shoulder and wiggling his brows.

Hmmm, he was being weirder than usual. Then again, everything had been weird for a long while so he got used to that.

"C'mon, Barnes," Sam said, raising his head high. "We got a mission to do."

"Right atcha, Cap," Bucky replied, already close to the doorway. "Meet me in the terrace."

As Sam placed on his goggles, he activated his wings before rushing out to the world as the new Captain America.

***

#sam wilson #captain america #falcon #sharon carter #bucky barnes #marvel #samtember 2020 #enchant: fanfics

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idkstark · 5 years

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ENDGAME SPOILERS

Please don’t read the following if you haven’t seen the movie, there will be major spoilers!

I just saw the movie and I just wanted to recap/jot down things that happened/stood out to me during the movie! Similar to what I did last year after seeing IW.

Right kiddos, let’s get into it

I honestly thought Tony was fuckign dead on that ship, the fact that Nebula was shaking him n shit?? I was scared outta my mind.

They really just ... killed Thanos within the first ten minutes lmao dfkhdsvgsjdhg. I was not expecting it at all. They cut his left arm off and then decapitated him, it was absolutely wild.

At least Thor aimed for the head

OH and Tony yelling at Steve when he’s back on earth? yo i was looking around at my friends like uh is he ok ?? he needs some milk

As soon as Thanos was like aha yea i destroyed the stones owo I KNEW they were gonna go back in time

Five year time jump? wack. BUT AHHHHHHHH

TONY HAS A DAUGHTER. i cried. Also his new house by the lake? its just to cute im happy for him

Scott’s daughter, Cassie, is a full-grown teen!!!

Thor plays fortnite with korg and miek

he also uhhhhh gained a bit of weight. he isnt doing too well in new Asgard :(

Professor Hulk! smthn that i wasn’t expecting so early on

AHH Carol’s new haircut? that’s some good shit

The time travel was pretty neat

Cap fighting himself, tricking hydra, using Loki’s staff on himself. wild y’all.

tony and steve going back to the 70′s honestly made me cry. peggy was right there in-front of steve, and tony was able to have a conversation with his dad. it was actually wholesome too??

anyway, they get three stones from 2012

nebula and rhodey go to get the power stone. 2014 peter quill is dancing along like he does in the movie, gets knocked out. its quite amusing.

rhodey jumps back but nebula cant bc uh oh!!!! thanos (from a different timeline or smthn) finds out what she’s doing!!

she gets captured

Evil nebula pretends to be future nebula and jumps back to the HQ using her gear

Thor goes back to asgard, talks to his mum, anddd he gets Mjolnir back! so he has both the hammer and Stormbreaker

the soul stone. omg. Nat and Clint were the only two there and they had a small fight over who should be sacrificed. it was like some lion king shit; natasha hanging onto clint whilst dangling from a cliff and letting go. i cried ?? i felt so bad for clint.

He goes back, avengers are like uh oh fuck. but they have all of the stones!

STARK GAUNTLET BABYYYY

banner uses it and snaps back those who were dusted. his arm gets a bit fucked up, but he tolerates it bc he’s in the form of the hulk.

it works! but then evil nebula uses the quantum realm thingy to bring Thanos’ ship to the HQ

immediately sends a bunch of missiles down, i really thought someone would die but thank god everyone was ok

this sets up the final battle ground!

Thor, Cap, and Tony all fight Thanos. They’re getting pretty fucked up. thor drops both of his weapons

dramatic music plays and Mjolnir hits Thanos and flies back around only to land in sTEVE’S HAND!!!!!!

HE’S WORTHY SAKDHSDKFS. The entire theatre cheered

just ???? seeing him wield Mjolnir and use the shield???? holy fuck

Thanos beats them up a bit more and then he calls on his army and like. they all form behind him and it looks like everyone is gonna get fucked up to be quite honest

BUT THEN you hear sam’s voice and u see dr stranges portal!!!

a bunch of portals form and everyone walks out; t’challa, shuri, okoye, their army. the guardians. PETER!! bucky, literally everyone. they all stand behind steve and he says ‘avengers....assemble’ and everyone starts running towards one-another.........poetic cinema

AHH and pepper is there!! she’s rescue!!!

the stark gauntlet is handed to t’challa (by clint) then handed to peter who hands it to carol.

also um. peter saw tony and he started rambling abt wht happened and tony just pulls him in for a hug. it made me cry again

all of the female heroes help carol bring the gauntlet towards Scott, who has his van, so tht they can destroy it or smthn. it had something to do with time travel and the quantum realm skfbsdg

uh oh they don’t get it there

Thanos sees them doing this and makes his army send more missiles down (which does deplete his own army by a large amount)

He’s right beside the gauntlet and so is tony

tony looks at strange who holds up one finger. the one in 14 million

thanos puts the gauntlet on and almost snaps his fingers but he’s stopped by carol.

he removes the power stone and uses it to blast her away, then he puts it back in.

tony grabs his arm before he can snap, thanos shoves him away

i fully thought that was it for the avengers BUT MY BOY TONY!!!!!

Thanos goes to snap but nothing happens. turns out tony somehow transferred them to his own, built-in/nano-tech gauntlet!!!!!!! everyone cheered again y’all.....

he says “I am Iron Man” before snapping his fingers

lmfao thanos and his army turn to dust. by bye purple man.

by this point i was like yall where the fuck is tony he better be ok

yea about that.

I started to sob.

Tony is leaning against some debris and he’s struggling to breathe, right arm all messed up. Everyone rushes over.

Peter starts saying smthn like “come on mr stark, we won. tony please” idk what he said exactly because i was sobbing.

Pepper comes up and says “we’ll be okay. you can rest now” and i, a fool, continued to sob.

he’s staring into the distance and his arc reactor dies.

i was SOBBIng

full on

i didn’t stop crying until the credits rolled

anyway, tony’s funeral.

his ‘proof that tony stark has a heart’ reactor is sitting on a bed of flowers that’s floating along the lake in front of his home

everyone is there. the guardians, black panther fam, avengers (minus nat), fury, etc etc.

even Harley from iron man three !! he’s so grown up now D:

Thor joins the guardians and leaves valkyrie to rule new asgard!!

Steve has to go back and return the stones to their rightful timelines but haha he stays there.

he grows old with peggy and they dance in their home. they were married yall!!!

Bucky, sam, and Bruce turn around and see him sitting on a bench a little while away.

same goes up and talks to him

i thought he was pre-serum steve but YIKES he’s old instead

he passes the captain america mantle to sam, i was so happy

there’s a lot i didnt mention but this is long enough as it is sdfgsdjhfg.

this movie just made me cry so much. it was the perfect end to this ten-year journey. i mean i would obviously love if they didnt kill off tony. he’s my favourite character so god damn was it hard to see him go. but it made it that much more emotional. marvel will always remain my favourite franchise of all time, this movie was absolutely everything i wanted yet so much more.

please dont be afraid to dm me about ur thoughts on the movie! cry abt everything with me!! ask questions!!

#avengers endgame #Avengers #avengers spoilers #endgame #endgame spoilers

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i-looktothe-stars · 5 years

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Why the ending of Avengers: Endgame isn’t as sad as I thought

I saw Endgame on Thursday 25th and holy fuck. Holy mother of fuck. I now have a new favourite movie (and a new least favourite movie because fuck you, Marvel). I’m not going to lie; I cried 2 times (one was happy, one was sad) watching the actual film and 6 times since just thinking about it. I think we can all agree that the film, especially the ending, physically hurt to watch, even if it fit perfectly as the ending of the first 10 years of the MCU. Spoilers under the cut.

Avengers: Endgame has a completely bittersweet ending. Tony and Nat are dead, Steve is old, etc. The original Avengers are basically no more. But thinking about it, it’s not all bad. They all got what they wanted in life.

Tony: He got to spend time with his wife and daughter, even if that wasn’t nearly as much time as he wanted. After all, Pepper could have been snapped as well. He also got to patch things up with Cap and his dad.

Steve: He got his dance and a life with Peggy. He also got to see his best friends again and pass on the Captain America mantle, so he was able to die knowing that his legacy would be passed on.

Thor: He got to see his mother again, and more importantly, was able to do what he wanted to do (help people with the Guardians) instead of what he was meant to do (be king of Asgard).

Bruce: He got to live in peace with being the Hulk. This one is basically stated outright in the film, but he’s so much happier now that Bruce and the Hulk are no longer separate entities, because he doesn’t have to live in fear of the rage monster destroying anything important.

Natasha: She got to spend time with the Avengers, who she considers her family, and work/die for the greater good, effectively clearing her name from her KGB days. Again, this one is pretty much said in the film when she and Clint are on Vormir.

Clint: He got his family back. This one is the most obvious, because Clint says multiple times that that’s what he wants and there is a scene showing him seeing his family again.

So yeah, while things could definitely have turned out better for them (Tony and Nat especially), things could have also turned out worse. Imagine if Pepper was snapped, Steve died while returning the stones, Thor was forced into a role he didn’t want and didn’t feel worthy of, Bruce lived forever in fear of the Hulk, Nat died alone and guilty, and Clint never saw his family again. That would suck. Every character completed their character arc and either died or ended the movie at their best point. It’s not all bad for the characters we came to know and love over 10 years. So even though I cried again writing this, I’m happy with the way the Infinity Saga has come to a close.

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lol-jackles · 5 years

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Hello. I have seen in your previous asks' answers that you are bitter about Endgame, and so am I. I just wanted to know what is your opinion on Steve Rogers' ending and how Steve's character arc was mostly butchered in this movie?

First let me say that I liked that Steve married Peggy and settled down with her (that explains her unknown husband, it was Cap all along), I’m actually okay that Steve got to live his life, he was always a man lost in time. And I’ll probably do the same as Steve because Peggy is EVERYTHING any self-respecting guy could possibly want to settle down with.

But.

I hate time travel retcon plots because it makes unncessary plot holes and messy uncohesive storylines. The whole point of returning the stones was to make sure that alternate timelines vanish and cease to exist. So, when did Steve return the stones? After living his life with Peggy? If that’s the case then the alternate timelines existed for years and for how long? And when he finally returns the stones he then can’t return to the wife-Peggy timeline because it no longer exists. Right? Or did he first return the stones and then go to Peggy? Then he lived there for about 50–70 years and knowingly let Hydra infiltrate Shields and his brainwashed friend assassinate Tony’s parents? Nope, I don’t accept it because Steve is Captain America, he’s the good guy. He isn’t the kind of person to abandon his mission because he’s always believed that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. He would have returned all the stones to erase the alternate timeline he created by being where he initially wasn’t. They didn’t quite think this through. And Peggy is just as honorable and selfless as Steve, if she married to Steve from the future, she wouldn't help create Shield knowing that eventually Shield gets taken over by Hydra. Either Steve would tell her or try to do something about it. That means there is no Shield. If there is no Shield, then there is no Director Fury there is no Avengers initiative and the whole story falls apart. That creates a parallel reality branching primary time line. Exactly what they were trying to avoid! *screaming into the void*

Finally, if Steve married Peggy and fathered her two children, then both the kids are bound to inherit some of his super-soldier genes because his abilities goes far deeper than a cellular lever. His entire genome was altered by the Serum-Vita ray combo. Going by that assumption, the kid would be as old as Steve was when he took the Mantle of Captain America around the time Endgame happened (Steve spend 70 Years frozen in ice). So wouldn’t his son be much more worthy of the shield than Sam Wilson since he has the abilities and was raised by Steve and Peggy ?!! I guess!??

Finally (I mean it this time), old Steve and Bucky doesn’t have a word? A strong tale of two friends deserved a better ending than that.

Oh and one last thing (really!), Sharon Carter. Ever since the Winter Solider, Sharon has been built up as Steve’s love interest. He had to move on, and while her lineage might give some pause, she was her own woman. She wasn’t just Peggy Carter’s niece, she was Agent Carter. So for them them to just casually toss her aside in Endgame so Steve could be with Peggy was a slap in the face. The Russos cheapened the characters of both Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter, who isn’t a MCU invention, there’s decades worth of material, and Steve once proclaimed her the love of his life - - - the exact same thing that was said of Peggy Carter in the support group meeting. There wasn’t even so much as a mention of Sharon in Endgames. That’s a little disgraceful IMO.

#Endgames #Steve Rogers #Captain America

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moonstruckbucky · 5 years

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My Thoughts on Endgame

I went to see Endgame last night and have had all day up in my office all alone to compile my thoughts and feelings, of which there are numerous, about the movie while it’s all still fresh. Major spoilers below the cut, so if you haven’t seen it, back away!

Warning: Super long post ahead.

First, I’d like to say I am a Tony/Nebula stan, wholeheartedly. Somehow, the Russos managed to lighten up a very dark reality where Tony and Nebula are floating listlessly in space and running out of oxygen. The dark mood is made a little lighter by a noticeably very thin Tony teaching Nebula about paper footballs, and her innocence of Earthly activities gave her a human depth that only made me fall even deeper in love with her character. And the way she pushes Tony’s (probably last) bag of food towards him, knowing he needs it more than she does. (Does she even eat? Do cyborgs eat?)

Second, Clint’s family disappearing was the first time I cried. Honestly, I didn’t have a dry eye the entire movie, but it progressively got harder and harder for me to not sob. We’ll get to that.

Carol popping out of literal space to come cart Tony’s ass home was admittedly a little cheesy, but I didn’t hate it. What I really loved was Tony’s reunion with both Steve and Pepper, and the fight that ensued, mostly on Tony’s end, was emotional and so very Tony that I still had a hard time keeping it together. And I’m really glad that the Russos didn’t just skip over Civil War in favor of uniting everyone to take down Thanos for good. And it showed how broken up over it Tony still was because we all know Tony does have a heart and Steve Rogers broke it.

An appropriate time skip 5 years into the future and Scott Fucking Lang and that goddamn rat busts out of the Quantum Realm only to discover almost his entire family has been dusted. Ouch. And once he finds his daughter, instead of moping and falling into a pit of depression and grief, he hauls ass to the compound to talk to the Avengers about time travel and undoing everything.

Here’s where Meg really loses her mind. The teams. The effort to get the stones back. Natasha Fucking Romanoff schooling the Science Bros in figuring out there are three stones in New York all at once. Fucking Captain Sassypants fighting his 2012 self and Mr. Stark Scott Lang (i’ve been corrected) perfectly coining the term “America’s Ass” and Steve just going with it. I can’t with these two, honestly. Steve swearing. Talk about sticking it to Joss Whedon for that pathetic little joke we all thought was funny until we knew better. That whole sequence was perfect, especially because it didn’t go off without a hitch. Which means Loki is still alive somewhere in another reality. Yahoo!

Thor. Poor alcoholic, out of shape, PTSD-stricken Thor. My baby angel. It hurt to see him so lost and broken, but Korg and Meike playing Fortnite about killed me. The balance of humor to sadness was utterly perfect through this whole movie and it was all comprised of jokes that made sense. The fat suit made me cry of laughter because it looks so goddamn unnatural on someone who’s as cut as Hemsworth, and Tony’s Lebowski dig was wholly appropriate.

This is where Meg realizes she is not going to be okay for the eightieth time. When Nat and Hawkeye are delegated to retrieve the Soul Stone, because we know while they don’t what needs to be done in order to get the stone. I had a feeling Nat might be one of the ones we lost, but I have to say I never saw it coming like this. I was inconsolable through the entire sequence as she and Clint are fighting over who’s going to be the one to die. I had my sweatshirt over my nose to stifle my sobbing and my boyfriend’s looking over at me wondering if I’m going to be okay. Y’all should see my eyes today, no lie.

And the fact that they played the same music for Nat that they did Gamora in IW was the knife through my heart followed by that heart-wrenching shot of her lying dead at the bottom. She’s gotten rid of the red in her ledger. Natasha, my beautiful, intelligent, bad-ass, super spy, we love you. So much.

Steve in mourning for Nat deserved more screen time than just a quick shot of him crying while Banner pitches a bench across the lake. Steve and Nat were one of the powerhouse friendships of the MCU, and this is one of the few shortcomings of Endgame. I wanted to see Steve angry, and heartbroken, something on par with Clint’s outburst that it should have been him. Steve and Nat were best friends, he deserved a little more screen time to mourn such a powerful relationship.

The epic battle scene that follows after this is nothing short of incredible. The entire theater erupted in cheers when Steve wielded Mjolnir like he was meant to, so at least Joss Whedon got some foreshadowing right! At first I thought it was lifting by itself but nope! Steve is worthy, and he knows he’s worthy. There’s an incredible theory out there that Mjolnir can detect someone’s perceived self-worth, and I fully believe that theory after watching this movie. And the little humor in there when Steve ends up with Stormbreaker and Thor gets Mjolnir and says, “No, no, give me that. You get the little one.” Kill me. The fact that Thor is doing all this badass fighting with a beer gut leaves me in stitches just thinking about it.

That epic entrance of all those who fell to the Snap emerging in a beautifully shot sequence gives me life, okay? It was perfect. I even looked to my boyfriend and said, “Where are the others? If it worked, where are they?” and BOOM! There they all are. Bucky with his long-ass hair is such a fucking look, I can’t even. AND STEVE FINALLY SAID THE THING. I swear the entire theater cheered again for this!! Also Rocket wearing Bucky’s goggles that he probably stole? Epic. Even if they aren’t his, but you can’t really convince me they’re not because they’re too similar. So Rocket hasn’t lost his penchant for stealing things.

Okoye, fierce queen, we see you taking out Corvus Glave all on your own. We also see that amazing, powerful female battle squad who cut through Thanos’s army like it was fucking tissue paper. Wanda, the Strongest Avenger (fight me on that, I dare you), taking on Thanos and stripping him of his armor like the fucking boss she is. Say it with me again: Strongest Avenger.

I also really really loved the game of Hot Potato with the gauntlet. Which brings us to...Mr. Anthony Edward Stark. The OG, the Big Guy. These next two paragraphs will be dedicated to him. The man who, 7 years ago, told us he would just “cut the wire” rather than lay his life on the line to save the other guy. When Dr. Strange said to Tony, “If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen,” I really, truly believed that Strange didn’t think Tony would go through with sacrificing himself in order to stop Thanos. He’d try to find another way. And yet I, along with a lot of others, knew he would do just that. Because Tony is nothing if not determined to prove everyone wrong about who they think he is, including Steve Rogers. Especially Steve Rogers.

Tony gets to interact with his father and learns that while Howard was incredibly flawed, he was still wholly dedicated to his family. Proven by his nervousness about fatherhood because all he’s ever known is technology, and he knows a child does not work the same way tech does. He’s terrified. And he hides, buries himself in his work because he doesn’t know what to do. But he loves his family, I know he does. A lot of other people know he does. I was a mess for that whole thing, too.

Tony’s funeral was absolutely perfect, a perfect sendoff to this legendary man who basically built the MCU. RDJ, we love you 3000. Thank you for giving us Iron Man. Thank you for carrying us through this journey of hilarity, sadness, darkness, anger, grief, all of it. I have a ton of emotions over RDJ’s exit from the MCU but I can’t properly formulate words.

ALSO: HARLEY WAS AT TONY’S FUNERAL. HE WAS THE LONE OLDER TEENAGER. CUE MORE CRYING FROM MEG.

And the final bit that seems to cause a lot of dissatisfaction: Steve’s final decision.

I personally loved it. I don’t like the misstep in jumping over Steve and Bucky’s bond, because that was a driving force for an entire movie, Russo brothers. So I feel a little cheated with their relationship taking a backseat to Sam receiving the shield to take up the Captain America mantle. But aside from that, Steve’s decision was very, very fitting. He’s given so much of himself to wars and other people that he deserves to be selfish. And maybe he had that quote in AOU that someone else came out of the ice, but A4 Steve knew he could have that life, and he chose it. Bucky knew, almost instantly, when Steve was about to bring the stones back, which was why he was so relaxed and calm when he didn’t come back.

Bucky, I feel, is relieved above all to see Steve reach old age, since he probably never expected him to, at least before he became Captain America. He’s lived his life as Cap, and now he gets to live another as the man who finally got the girl. I just wish we could have seen more of the bond between the two of them, unless they had some kind of heart to heart off-screen which, again, a waste of one of the quintessential relationships in Steve Rogers’s life.

And Bucky and Sam having some kind of mutual understanding, I know for a fact there was some reconciliation in the Soul World that we may or may not get to see in the new series coming out. I would love to see the two of them struggle with coming to grips with the fact that they were dead, and came back because their friends put themselves on the line at an incredible risk to try and bring everyone back. I think they could really create a bond similar to Steve and Bucky’s that was built on being “men out of time” and instead create a bond that’s men who survived the Snap and now are living a life without Steve Rogers (assuming he won’t take up the mantle again and will succumb to old age, like he goddamn deserves). Bucky is all for Sam taking that mantle, and that second of understanding between the two of them sent me off into another cry fest because I really love their dynamic, and Seb and Mackie both just have amazing on-screen chemistry. I am so excited to see what they bring to the new series coming out.

I would also like to say that while I was very emotional over Steve hearing Sam’s voice over comms saying, “On your left,” I really feel that Bucky should’ve had something. That’s really where Endgame’s biggest shortcoming is. They’ve built up the relationship between Bucky and Steve through CTFA, CATWS, and CACW, especially Civil War, and all you’re going to give them is four minutes of screen time together? Outta here with that. You dedicated an entire movie to Steve going to war for Bucky and y’all are gonna disrespect them like that? Even not shipping Stucky romantically, I can see the loving bond between the two of them that’s held up for 8 years. They deserved more than just a one-off line from CATFA, though that really set me off on another crying spree. I’m really not joking when I said there wasn’t a minute of that movie that I was dry-eyed.

Overall, I give this movie a 10/10. For what it was meant to be, it was everything I had expected and so much more. This movie made me roar with laughter, broke my heart more than once, and gave me an overall feeling of closure all at once. I am forever grateful to the cast, the crew, and the amazing characters created. The incredible late Stan Lee with his final cameo, to which the theater, again, erupted in applause. I’m just so overwhelmed by the work everyone at Marvel has put in to these characters and this world to give us these amazing stories. I’m tearing up as I write this because this is the end of an era for a lot of people who grew up with Iron Man, Hulk, Cap, Thor.... Black Widow. I just want to extend the biggest of thank yous to all of those people who made this world possible and brought so many people together.

#endgame #endgame spoilers #avengers: endgame #avengers endgame spoilers #a4 spoilers

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sergeant-angels-trashcan · 5 years

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anyway i finally saw endgame and surprisingly??? i did not hate it to the very primal core of my being???

but also i had like....the LOWEST standards for it, so that might be it more than how good the movie actually was.

really i just feel very “what a bizzare fanvid i just watched”

Onward!

The Good:

the whole Steve-in-the-Elevator scene. My little stuckate shipper heart was just like FUCK THEM UP BOO.

“that is America’s ass”

uh....

rocket!

and nebula! god i adore nebula more and more every day

and Valkyrie was soooo good and I’m glad Meiks and Korg were there

also Rescue fucking finally

and the whole a-force visual towards the end there, i appreciated that

also Carol’s lesbian haircut

STEVE BEING FUCKING WORTHY OF THE HAMMER FUCK YES

Sam getting the shield!

everyone coming out of their magical glowing portals

fucking. QUEEN BRUNNHILDE sorry KING BRUNNHILDE

find her a wife ffs

but also

fuck this movie

so like...it was REALLY slow for the first hour. at least. i was getting bored actually

Tony’s daughter was adorable and I love dad!tony but it’s also in line with Marvel giving men families to give them More Pain and I’m over that

also are you trying to tell me he wouldn’t have named her some derivative of peter? or carol, or nebula, since they’re the reason he is alive? i call bullshit

“marvel’s first openly gay character” you know what fuck you marvel

that woman in the support meeting might be kate in a future fic i’m just saying

for as much time as they spend tooling around this new universe they really didn’t give us much information--who is in charge? how are you getting electricity?

all i wanted was for gamora or nebula to kill thanos and i was denied this catharsis. fuck you. you can let an abuser kill the woman he abused but not vice versa? fuck. you.

who was that random boy kid at tony’s funeral?

bold of the russos to assume peggy wouldn’t notice someone staring at her

how is nebula not dead? she killed a past version of herself so????

holy plot holes batman

because...the soul stone...YOU are supposed to sacrifice what is most important to YOU so...how does Natasha killing herself fulfill that requirement? Clint did not sacrifice her. This implies that Natasha loves herself the most and that means she would have gotten the stone...i’m so confused about this

how did no one notice nebula’s hands were wrong? you’ve known her for five goddamn years gang. yeah i get she covered it up but rhodey saw it get mcfried while getting the stone....this seems like something rhodey would notice. because. he’s fucking rhodey.

i get why like...narratively tony ~had~ to die but also...what’s wrong with fucking retirement? why couldn’t he pass the mantle of iron man on? like in? the comics? was that kid supposed to be iron lad i mean for realz

and I get that Steve got to have his happy ending with his one true love and that’s so great, but idk fam...i didn’t like it. and i think i don’t like it because it places this huge focus on Never Moving On and I guess some people probably do have their one true love and they never love another, but i think there’s real value in stories where people find love again, where people go through trauma and can still be happy even after going through loss. this is viscerally important to me

also i firmly believe that peggy is married to angie

does this mean steve knew sharon? since she knew peggy really well? and she kisses him? does steve just hide every time she comes over? it wasn’t creepy in civil war but it’s sure creepy now

although peggy explaining to everyone that her husband doesn't look ANYTHING like steve rogers is sort of hilarious. how did they even explain this.

no it’s getting worse because peggy has Alzheimer's supposedly well no fucking wonder she was confused with young!steve showing up and presumably her old husband steve showing up as well like. what.

i mean. i’m glad steve got his happy ending

but i also feel like this was really insulting to bucky. Steve went back and never went out to find bucky? to stop him being tortured? the guy who is your best friend? you didn’t even say mcfucking goodbye? marvel was that “no homo” about their relationship in this movie???

chris and seb’s chemistry is just so strong they had to keep their shared dialogue to three lines?

i understand steve staying in the past. i get why they did it. i hate HOW they did it

wheremst the fuck is loki you fuckos

also all of Peter’s peers are 5 years older than he is

what on earth do the people who were dusted think of all the fucking ptsd all their loved ones have or the fact that THEY MISSED FIVE YEARS

was cassie living in that house all by herself?

also you know what it was really irritating when tony was blaming steve for not being around while completely ignoring any culpability he had in making it so that steve could not actually be around. and steve apparently made like the rest of us and blocked the events of civil war from his mind so he didn’t remember his valid fears

y’all fucked up your own timelines so bad like? sitwell is wandering around thinking cap is hydra, loki never spent time in asgard jail, or did the stones get replaced before those things happened? like immediately before? and if not i’m going to have to assume that loki went on the lam and then called noh to pick him up in earth airspace and noh becomes his unwitting getaway driver and eventually the ya get involved in interstellar crime shenanigans.

the fact that vision didn’t come back sort of implies that everyone who was killed before the snap didn’t come back, so that still leaves a shitton of asgardians dead, loki, and ???? who knows about gamora. right?

in conclusion, it was...okay. it had some really good moments but was mostly just “???????” for me. like, i’m not even mad. i’m going to erase it from my memory immediately except for Steve dating Kate in the five years and when Bucky comes back she’s just like “hey! I think we have the same boyfriend!” and they share custody of Steve until steve gets called in to consult on a mission and asks bucky to go on his date with kate and that’s how they become a triad

#endgame #avengers endgame #endgame spoilers #also i'm willing to consider kate getting dusted and tony naming his daughter after her #im like...very unimpressed

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cheesybadgers · 5 years

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Endgame Spoilers Ahead

Ok, so I don’t normally write many posts on here, but I need to write all of this down, otherwise I think I’ll go mad. This rambling post is more for my own sanity and therapy tbh.

If you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want spoilers, you have been warned!

Firstly, I enjoyed the experience of the film overall and didn’t hate it or anything. It was the most tense, emotional rollercoaster of a film I think I’ve ever seen and I felt absolutely, completely EXHAUSTED by the time I came out the cinema. I went to a gig a couple of hours later and honestly could have just fallen asleep before the band even came on stage. But I also think that experience will be diminished with multiple viewings, for me anyway. A lot of that experience came from not knowing what was coming and that’s such a fun element to it (again, for me personally).

Secondly, there were parts I really liked, there were some bits I was a bit meh about but let slide and tbh, the last 10 minutes or so didn’t massively upset me whilst I was sat in the cinema. It was only once I was out of there and started to think about it all a bit more that I became increasingly upset and a bit angry.

I was kinda surprised Sam got the shield, but with a bit more explanation I would have been happy with that. Personally, I’m choosing to believe that Steve offered the shield to Bucky first, but he said no, or Bucky just straight up told Steve to offer it to Sam because he didn’t want it. I can completely accept him saying no to it, because he never wanted to fight the world in the way Steve did. Bucky never had a choice in it the way Steve did (plus Sam voluntarily signed up for the military as well...the only bit I struggle with is the fact that Sam isn’t a super soldier in the way Steve and Bucky are, but that conversation is for another day and will hopefully be explored more in the Falcon and Winter Soldier series). He was forced to sign up to fight in WWII, he was forced to be an assassin, he was forced to fight for his own survival in Civil War, because everyone was trying to kill him, he felt obligated to fight in Infinity War/Endgame, because it was the right thing to do and he’s always been fiercely loyal to Steve. Plus he’s blatantly still going to be carrying guilt and trauma for everything he did as The Winter Soldier, to the point where I imagine he wouldn’t even feel worthy of taking up the Captain America mantle. But erm, it would have been nice to, I don’t know, actually see him and Steve have a conversation that explores some of this and consists of more than a couple of lines of dialogue and a brief hug.

Did the writers think the sexual chemistry between them was so strong that if they are even shown on screen together conversing as two long standing best friends would, that they would spontaneously start having sex all over the place??? I just don’t get it!! I’m not even talking about all of this from a shipping point of view, as I and most people never actually genuinely expected them to make Steve and Bucky a couple. But after everything that has happened in the three Cap films, after Steve put his life on the line, became a fugative of the government, broke up the Avengers and went on the run, DROPPED HIS SHIELD SEVERAL TIMES and almost killed Tony all to protect Bucky, they don’t even have the decency to give us satisfying closure on one of the most important and popular friendships in the entire MCU. I just....urgh...I could cry. Well, I have cried tbh. I’ve cried quite a lot, because it’s such a disservice to everyone involved.

I think the first inkling that this wasn’t going to be what I was expecting was the group therapy scene. I was surprised and gotta say disappointed that whilst everyone else in the group was talking about how hard it was to lose someone important to them in the snap, Steve just moped about Peggy. I couldn’t believe it!! The trailers seemed to hint that this was Steve not being able to move on from losing so many people important to him in the snap (not just Bucky and Sam), not because he never got to go on a date several decades ago. Don’t get me wrong, I love Peggy. Honestly, I do. She’s bad ass and a great character and her and Steve would have been great together, but I thought the poignancy of the lost love story was precisely that; a lost love. It was painful and sad, but that was the entire point. He had previously shown signs of moving on and we all know Peggy did move on. I was mildly irritated she had a photo of pre-serum Steve on her desk in the 70′s mind you, unless that was wibbly wobbly MCU timey wimey and her husband was actually Steve in that universe, who knows? I won’t even try get my head around the time travel rules in this post tbh, I’ll leave that for someone else to unpick. I don’t know, it all just felt too over-indulgent on the Steve/Peggy front and like I was being hit over the head with it all the time, when frankly, there were much more pressing issues to deal with.

Of course Steve deserved happiness and being able to put himself first for a change, of course he did. But I just wish they hadn’t done it like this at the expense of years of character development and friendships we’ve repeatedly been told and shown are hugely important to Steve. Part of me wonders why Peggy couldn’t have come to the future (after they’d fixed the stones, HYDRA and Bucky obviously) though? Steve could still have stepped away from being Cap and lived a domestic life with Peggy if he wanted to. She would have thrived in the 21st century and could have hung out with all of the other bad ass women at Avengers HQ (newly re-built of course). It’s not like Steve didn’t adapt to modern life (we use one example of that as a reaction gif all the god damn time :p). So I think it was more the execution of it all that pissed me off really. It had so much potential to be better than this.

So now I’m mostly just looking forward to Falcon and Winter Soldier. Seriously, I’m more excited about that than anything else related to the MCU at the moment. Both Sam and Bucky deserve way more screen time and character development. Imagine an entire episode, let alone a series, where Bucky is allowed dialogue that consists of more than the odd sentence or two? JUST IMAGINE. I’m so here for it. They might even let him be happy, WHO KNOWS?!

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astudyinsarcasm9 · 5 years

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Avengers: Endgame (2019) - Review - Spoilers Ahead

Later edit: I saw the movie again and Thanos says he destroyed the stones using the stones. First things first: Imma put a ”keep reading” below just in case someone stumbles upon this review and hasn’t seen the movie yet.

I was gonna wait until I saw it a second time, as I did with Infinity War, but because I am sick with a cold and low on money I am just gonna gather all my opinions and feelings about the movie and just get it over with.

Off the bat I have to say that I have been looking forward to this movie for a year (everyone has been), and while the constant news about it started to become quite annoying the hype was still there. So, naturally I went to see it as soon as it premiered in my country.

If i were to compare this to Infinity War, which, again, most people do, I’d say that Infinity War is more consistent when it comes to its plot and the rules it establishes or has established before in other MCU movies. BUT Endgame just feels like it has more stakes, that it is not as predictable as the first one. I mean, come on, we all knew part of our heroes were gonna be dusted and we knew they were gonna come back because it happens in the comics as well. Obviously they wouldn’t have killed a big character in IW because they needed them for Endgame. As such we were left with the OG Avengers plus a couple of other supporting cast members. I feel as if even though Endgame was, in part predictable, its stakes were higher. We knew they’d find a way to reverse the snap we just didn’t know how. We speculated it would be time travel months ago but again we weren’t sure how that’d go.

And while I appreciate that they tried to establish some rules prior to the time travel I feel that as soon as it was convenient they threw them out the window, more or less. More on that later.

What I liked about this movie?

I confess: I wanted the movie to start with this scene above. No music, no nothing just this scene that we also saw in the trailer. It just conveys so well how Infinity War ended, how our heroes feel. It’s tragic, no shred of hope. And yeah the trailers spoiled it because they also showed Tony back on Earth ( which I hated) it still would’ve been nice to start with this but I admit the scene with Clint and his family was heartbreaking but not surprising.

Ok so what did I like in Endgame?

Cap’s determination to move forward, his willingness to help others do so and adapt to the new world post snap. it really shows the core qualities of Cap and why Steve is truly worthy to be Cap.

I really liked Ant Man, Paul Rudd is just a delight to watch. I loved all of his reactions and I feel like he mirrored the audience pretty well. I mean he is a hero in his own right yet he is still an outsider reacting to everything around him and to the other more well known characters.

The way the movie brought many things full-circle, it was like an ongoing thing. Staring with Thor killing Thanos and saying that this time he aimed for the head to Tony ending 11 years of MCU with the same line that he started it.

Black Widow - she is not really one of my favourites. There’s nothing wrong with her it’s just I couldn’t invest in her as a character, but that’s a me problem not a problem with the character as is. But in this movie Black Widow was amazing and not because of the sacrifice she made but because she endured and basically took on Nick Fury’s mantle, so to speak, and tried to guide everyone and be that shinning light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Also, her friendship with Clint is amazing and I love that throughout all of the MCU the writers did not feel compelled to make them have a romantic relationship. There are other types of relationships in this world and I am glad Marvel understands that and showed us how beautiful her and Clint’s relationship is and how she supports him and loves him and vice versa.

Everything with Rocket is amazing because he is amazing.

I liked how they used time travel to give a nod to a lot of Marvel Movies, kinda paying homage to what was before while at the same time showing where we are now and how far our characters have evolved since this whole MCU started. It was beautifully done. And yes Tony talking to his father was nothing out of the ordinary, in terms of dialogue, the moment was heartfelt and it really caught me off guard. Steve seeing Peggy was a nice touch too even though we know it was there to kind of explain the ending but more on that later.

Clint being badass. He is one of my favourite MCU characters.

The fact that Thor had a panic attack and pretty much got depressed after the events of Infinity War. I know many consider his character development that he got during Ragnarok was ruined, but I think what happened to him was a normal response. Think about it: Thor was the closest to killing Thanos, and because he aimed for the chest Thanos snapped his fingers. It was a matter of seconds. Thanos even teases him about it in IW. ANYONE in Thor’s shoes would feel like crap, like a failure because to him it feels like the faith of everyone who got dusted was in his hands and he was sloppy and missed and so because of him half of everyone on the planet disappeared. It didn’t matter that it was a team effort to try to bring Thanos down. The fact that in the last seconds before the snap it was just Thor and Thanos looking at each other with the latter teasing the former about not aiming right was enough for Thor to send him into depression. We could still see that it is the same Thor from Ragnarok but Thor lost so much and bottled up so many emotions that it was only natural that he’đ either have a full outburst of anger, wich he did in Infinity War or go into depression, which he also did in Endgame. So, yeah, in my opinion Thor was written pretty good. Ok, the fat jokes were kinda on the nose, but it did give us one of the best jokes in the movie when Tony called him Lebowski.

The final battle was freaking amazing even though I wanted Doctor Strange to have more screen time, but I guess he had his time in IW. Yet the moment he raised his finger and looked at Tony to let him know that was the one chance where they win was heartbreaking and utterly beautiful. Like this is it no screwing up. Now or never.

CAPTAIN AMERICA WIELDING FREAKING MJOLNIR!

What I didn’t like or had doubts about:

When Thanos mentioned that he destroyed the Infinity stones he said that they were basically atoms at the point when the Avengers came to fight him about it on the farm planet. If I remember correctly 2 or 3 days passed between the snap and them going on the farm planet after Thanos so I really wanted the avengers to try and have Scott go into the quantum realm to have him reassemble the stones at an atom level. It would have been harder, sure, but it was an option. wasn’t it?I guess it could have taken longer.

I think it was already established in prior movies that the Gauntlet was the only item that could hold the infinity stones and harness their power. To me it was a bit off how Tony was able to make his own gauntlet, just because. It would have been a little bit better if they used the original gauntlet. It was still cool to see yet it took me out of the moment for a split second.

Steve’s ending. Thematically I don’t think it works. Now, don’t get me wrong I want Steve to be happy but we’ve spend so many movies establishing that Steve was, at least, partially ok with the fact that he couldn’t go back to his own time. Sure he hold on to Peggy and what she meant to him but he accepted that he had a duty, that he couldn’t live a normal life even if he wanted to and in Endgame he even was the one to urge people to move on in the post snap world. Steve is a selfless, kind person and he couldn’t and wouldn’t sit on the sidelines while others suffer. It’s just not him. He also kinda fucked up the timeline. As far as I understood (feel free to correct me on this) because he returned the stones to their original locations the timeline stayed the same, it didn��t branch like the Ancient One said it would if even one stone would be removed. So, that means that the Peggy he went back to is the Peggy from the main timeline but we were told they can’t change the past so how can he go back and be with her if it is the main timeline while also doing what he did post coming out of the ice? It boggles my mind. But putting that aside, it’s just not Steve. His whole ark was moving on. And sure when he went to the 70s with Tony he saw Peggy and maybe thought to himself that there was a chance to be with her BUT our Steve, present Steve is not the same with the one who just came out of the ice 70 years ago. Yes he’d long for and miss her and want to go back but ultimately he wouldn’t because he moved on. He had a reunion with Peggy when she was old and it was bittersweet but he had closure, in a sense.

The fact that he passed on his shield to Falcon. I know that is what happens in the comics but here we are talking about the MCU and in the MCU it does not make sense. Falcon had no ark in these movies (if I am not mistaken), and he does not have any powers of his own. He is just a guy with wings. in the comics he has powers so it makes sense to take on the mantle of Cap. In the MCU giving him the shield doesn’t mean added powers as well. Having a black captain america is an amazing concept and i’m 100% for it just not Falcon.

I found it hilarious yet awful how Banner first said that time travel is not his area of expertise only to have him later on explaining time travel to everyone. Like, you could have made Tony do it after he came back and cracked time travel. I get Banner could know some stuff but if you establish he doesn’t know then he doesn’t know.

While the CGi on Hulk was great for me it looked like uncanny valley for some reason. I know Professor Hulk is a thing in the comics but it looked so awkward and weird and it showed how the writers had no idea what to do with him like that. Banner shined when he was in his astral projection form while talking with the Ancient One but looked awkward for the rest of the movie.

Captain Marvel - yeah she had the cool cool scene at the end which I loved but I dislike her character a lot.

The plot point with Nebula being the means Thanos finds out about time travelling.

The joke at the end with Thor and Star Lord dragged on for so long and it really wasn’t funny. Except the Asgardians of the Galaxy part, that was hilarious.

Questions I had:

How did Steve return the soul stone?

If past Gamora came to the future and assuming it was the same timeline why couldn’t they go and grab Black Widow? Sure it would cheapen her sacrifice and I don’t want that to happen but it is a question that you have to wonder about.

Nebula kills her past self…and nothing happens? I mean I know Hulk said your past becomes your future and all that but it doesn’t make sense however you look at it. Except if that Nebula was from a different branch, a different reality.

If past Thanos came into the future and got killed there does that mean that the snap does not happen, assuming it is the same timeline? and if it’s not then does that mean there’s a timeline out there where the snap outright didn’t happen?

How did Thanos destroy the Infinity stones in the first place? He is the most powerful being in the MCU so far but you gotta wonder how did he accomplish such a thing.

The movie was incredibly enjoyable, it didn’t feel like 3 hours at all. It was darker than Infinity War but less solid than the former. At least in my opinion. It is truly emotional to see all of the MCU movies leading up to these 2 which are by all means masterpieces of the genre. I mean sure they have flaws but we’ve got to admit they did raise the bar a lot. Many of the MCU movies did. Some titles were bland, sure but most were not.

I’d give this movie a 9,5 out 10 which is almost perfect in my book. It was a perfect conclusion, all the time travel shenanigans and plot holes aside.

#endgame #avengers #avengers endgame #infinity war #spoilers #tony stark #steve rogers #iron man #thanos #captain america #black widow #doctor strange

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briangroth27 · 5 years

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Avengers Endgame Review

I absolutely loved Avengers Endgame! I was a little skeptical at first—there are still solo stories I want to see with some of the characters we're saying goodbye too and I'd prefer those to Avengers movies, honestly—but everyone behind this film really pulled it off. The pre-release hype did get to me eventually though and by the time the movie opened, I was absolutely pumped. I left the theater nearly completely satisfied and I definitely felt the weight of a decade of stories coming to an end with this film. Had this been the end of the MCU, it would’ve been a great one.

Full Spoilers...

I thought they did an excellent job of wrapping up the cliffhangers left by Infinity War as well as providing closure and a worthy conclusion to this era of the MCU. Trading the bombastic fights of Infinity War for really solid character work and interactions here (and swapping focus on Thanos (Josh Brolin) out for focus on the heroes themselves) was perfect. Done the other way around, I feel like this would've been exhausting. Instead, while it did feel full, it was always engaging and entertaining and didn’t feel like it was three hours long. The pacing worked really well to keep things moving briskly even with an insane amount of characters to service. The direction and action were solid, and the writing felt totally in-character for an enormous cast, which was a feat unto itself.

My favorite Avenger is Captain America (Chris Evans) and I was extremely satisfied with how his story ended. I do wish we’d gotten a Captain America 4 where Steve faces the rising Nazism among everyday American citizens we’re seeing in the real world: the last test for his resolve would be to see whether he still wanted to represent ideals that the American people now only use as excuses for their hate. Can he carry on if he’s seemingly the only one who believes we can be better? I feel like that could be Chris Evans’ Logan. However, I was surprisingly content with this end to his story, especially once I realized he’d get to end up with Peggy (Hayley Atwell) after all (though I thought he was going to drop into the 70s instead of his original time). In hindsight I wish they hadn’t had Steve and Sharon Carter kiss, but I’m more than willing to deal with that awkwardness and sacrifice that bit of comics canon for Steve getting a happy ending with his best gal. I’m satisfied with either interpretation of Cap’s story: knowing that things have to turn out a certain way, I can see him not saying anything about the future and always having been Peggy’s cryptic, never-named husband (his comment to Nat (Scarlett Johansson) at the beginning of the movie also signals that he’s ready to stop fighting), or, that he immediately decided to shape a better century by saving Bucky early and then proceeded to kick Hydra out of SHIELD & continue saving the world alongside Peggy and Bucky. I can buy either resolution to his character arc and I really liked that they didn’t kill him in the end. If they want to use him more, they can, but if this is the end for Evans then he got a happy one and that’s perfect. I’m hoping he’ll show up as a mentor to Sam (Anthony Mackie), now that he’s the new Captain America (also the result I was hoping for: the mantle of Cap as Steve wore it is about fighting for more than making up for your past mistakes. Sam embodies that much better than Bucky (Sebastian Stan) would (and his fight scenes will be a whole lot more unique given he can fly)). Steve standing up against Thanos’ entire army by himself was perfect, finally getting to say “Avengers Assemble!” was great, and getting to wield Mjolnir was an outrageously fun sequence! I can see both sides of the “Cap was/wasn’t truly worthy in Ultron” argument, but again, I’m cool with either explanation: either Steve was on the cusp of worthiness but hiding Bucky’s complicity in the murder of Tony’s (Robert Downey Jr.) parents held him back, or he realized he could always lift it and is such a decent guy that he didn’t want to upstage Thor (Chris Hemsworth). I also liked the quieter moments with Steve, like finally patching things up with Tony, trying to get Natasha back into the world (just like she had done for him back in Winter Soldier)—I’ve always loved their friendship—and running a support group for everyday citizens in the wake of the Snap to help them move forward, even if he couldn’t (that was also a nice way for him to pick up what Sam was doing for veterans). It was fun to let Steve have moments of levity about himself too, like the “America’s ass” joke and his reaction to hearing “I can do this all day.”

There's only one major plot point I was disappointed in: Black Widow's death to get the Soul Stone. I'm glad that they had her fight for it (clarifying that it was her choice, given the circumstances, rather than a fridging) and going out to save the universe does put a significant cap on her (so far underwritten) quest to clear her Red Ledger. However, I've always felt there was more story to cover with her (the details of that Ledger for one thing, as well as her attempts to overcome her past crimes and her mental conditioning) and she's my second-favorite of the original six Avengers, so it hurt a lot to lose her. I was sitting there thinking “now we’ve had to lose both Nat and Gamora (Zoe Saldana) to this dumb Stone?” That was a less-than-great look. It was also a bummer to have a cool moment where all the female heroes protected Spidey (Tom Holland)...except Natasha. At least her death wasn’t used to give the guys license to get violent. I liked that they gave the Avengers’ reaction to her death significant time to breathe, even if she didn’t get the grand funeral Tony did. She might be the one who was closest to all of them (except Thor) and she deserved that moment of silence from her friends (Banner’s distraught “I tried to bring her back” to Steve was another great beat). I’m very excited for Widow’s (finally!) upcoming solo film, and I wonder if it will focus on the Natasha from the alternate universe Steve created (if that is what he did), rather than the one who just died. The MCU doesn’t tend to do prequels unless they’re introducing new characters, so a random Black Widow film, while welcome, seems like an odd choice if it’s an origin story like the rumors say. Maybe it’s the origin of that timeline’s Natasha, who can continue on in new adventures should Johansson want to (and why wouldn’t the MCU, given she’s the only actor of the original six who can successfully open a non-Avengers movie)? Maybe Steve and Peggy (given Peggy’s dealings with the Black Widow program on her own show) rescued their timeline’s Romanoff from the KGB before her Red Ledger started filling up. If we could see Nat struggling between her programming and the better life Steve and Peggy could show her before she’s done the horrible things she’s hinted at, that could be a very cool arc. Regardless, Steve’s the one I thought I would leave this movie wanting more from the most, but it was Natasha that I feel like the filmmakers left a lot of cards off the table for.

I loved Tony’s moments with Nebula (Karen Gillan) at the start of the film and hated that he still blamed Steve for not letting him build his “suit of armor” around the planet. His Five Years Later family (Gwyneth Paltrow, Alexandra Rabe) was really sweet and I really enjoyed his interactions with and protectiveness of them, bringing me back around on liking his character to an extent I haven’t felt since the first Avengers movie. I totally understood why he wouldn’t want to change the past and erase all of that (and I was very relieved to hear that, as I didn’t want the Snap undone). Moments like meeting his father (John Slattery) just before his younger self was born were more great character bits, especially after the tumultuous relationship the two of them had. I would’ve liked a little more balance between the Pym science, Banner’s intelligence, and Stark’s input rather than Stark essentially inventing the working time machine on his own, but oh well. While I didn’t want to see Tony Stark Saves the Universe, this win over Thanos felt like enough of a team effort that it didn’t bother me, and his last line to Thanos—“I am Iron Man”—was perfect. I could easily see him coming back in future films as an AI, but I’d rather not. I feel like they’ve explored everything there is to with his character (though admittedly I’m not well-versed in Iron Man lore) and it feels like the MCU has moved on from him; even moved beyond his level of technology. It felt right that this era of the MCU would bookend Stark’s life as well, and the writers and directors made me feel for him and feel his loss, which is impressive given I haven’t liked him in the vast majority of his appearances.

Thor's depression worked really well for me and while I didn’t recognize it when I saw the film, after hearing the complaints about fat-shaming from the other characters I understand the offense some viewers felt. It wasn’t the fact that he got fat that was the problem, it was the other characters mocking him for it, and I wish more consideration had been given to that situation rather than going for easy jokes. Otherwise, Thor dealing with the guilt of not killing Thanos—leading to the death of half the universe—was really well done. The fact that he couldn’t change anything even when the team tracked down Thanos, only to realize that the Snap couldn’t be undone, was a huge moment for him and Hemsworth played his depression and resulting sedentary lifestyle very well. I loved most of his conversation with Frigga (Rene Russo) (minus the “eat better” jokes) and the tearful moment where he realized he was still worthy of Mjolnir was perfect. I also appreciated that (as others have pointed out) he didn't magically get his fit body back when he reclaimed all his power and status (according to Wikipedia, this was Hemsworth’s idea and it’s a brilliant one). I feel like that would’ve been another insulting development (an “only attractive people can be useful heroes” sensibility) that they thankfully avoided. Sending him off with the (As)Guardians of the Galaxy is a brilliant move (particularly given the turn in his solo franchise to a Guardians aesthetic) and I loved the argument between him and Quill about who would be leader. I really hope he’s in Guardians 3!

Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk finally embracing Banner’s intelligence (and Bruce embracing the Hulk in return) was a great move and I’m so glad they finally found somewhere new to take his character, rather than the constant push and pull of Hulk and Banner hating each other. I would’ve preferred Banner accepting that the Hulk was part of his psyche and he has serious anger issues rather than him being some separate “other guy,” but this works too. It was a nice of pace to see people excited to meet Hulk, rather than everyone being afraid of him. I also liked Bruce and Tony reuniting as Science Bros to figure out how to use the Pym Particles to create a time travel heist. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) is my least-favorite of the six original Avengers, and this didn’t do much to change my opinion. The Avengers have never been shy about killing their enemies, so Hawkeye going Ronin to kill criminals didn’t feel like such a huge a fall (though it is a troubling example of man-pain in the wake of the deaths of his wife (Linda Cardellini) and kids (Ava Russo, Cade Woodward, Ben Sakamoto), whose losses do feel like fridging. However, I do like the parallel of Nat going to retrieve him from his vendetta, just like he made the call not to kill her when they first met and she was the violent criminal. His moment with Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) at the end was also a nice addition to their friendship.

Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang made for an excellent addition to the Avengers (and a great way to introduce the time travel capability), bringing levity to the proceedings with his off-kilter and genuinely sweet personality. Pushing time through him was a great sequence and I will always be happy for as much of this Ant-Man as we can get; these movies have made him a favorite of mine! I liked that they also let him get some drama out of the reunion with his now-five-years-older-daughter Cassie (Emma Fuhrmann) and I can’t wait to see more of how that relationship develops in the next Ant-Man and the Wasp film. I would have liked for Rocket (Bradley Cooper, Sean Gunn) and Rhodey (Don Cheadle) to get meatier roles here, but I understand that there’s only so much screentime.

Nebula’s development into an Avenger was a great arc, especially as things got complicated with her past self, and I think she’s my favorite Guardian after this. After all the torment and literal torture Thanos has put her through, it was awesome to see her stand up to her past self and help defeat him. I do think she totally knew what she was doing by sending Natasha and Clint to Vormir, and that’s a character moment I wish they had let play out onscreen. I’m glad that it was past-Nebula who played the role of villain here, rather than Nebula getting the gauntlet from her father and becoming the story’s real villain, like what happened in The Infinity Gauntlet. I’m excited to see her search for Gamora and help continue turning her life around in the next Guardians!

I wish they had explained what was going on with Thanos “in” the Soul Stone at the end of Infinity War (I was really hoping it was punishment for not making a real trade of love to get the Stone, since what he felt for Gamora was not love and should not have been cosmically confirmed as such), but ultimately I didn’t need any more of him than we got here. It was cool that his younger self knew he would die to see his quest for the Stones fulfilled, and so was set in his determination to meet that destiny because it also meant he’d win. Thanos brought a very impressive battle and unforgettable scale to our heroes’ lives, but ultimately I feel like he could’ve been entirely dealt with in just this and Infinity War. Outside of the familial ties introduced in the Guardians movies, there was nothing relevant about Thanos that we couldn’t have learned from just these two Avengers films if he’d shown up for the first time at the beginning of Infinity War (his being behind the attack on New York could’ve been a reveal to all of us, not just Tony and Bruce). The Stones arc went on too long and Thanos never felt really menacing until these last two appearances, making me bored with the whole plot at least halfway through if not sooner (Guardians itself calls the Stones meaningless MacGuffins). I hope the MCU doesn’t try to build decade-long (or even 5-year) stories out of its other villains to try and match this, because they don’t need to. Galactus, for example, doesn’t need build-up; just let him appear in all of his planet-eating glory as a new problem for the Avengers to team up and stop.

I really liked the movie’s fresh take on time travel: you can go back and change the past, but not in your own timeline (since the future you came from is now your past), and any changes you do make will result in a new timeline. That’s a cool way to preserve the events of the MCU while letting them go back and muck around with their history at the same time. I left the theater thinking that it’s possible to play this all as one timeline that didn’t branch at all if Kevin Feige and the rest of the MCU’s architects decide to. As I said, I can see Steve finally retiring to have a life of his own, saying nothing and knowing that things will turn out OK (though I really want to see him meet Red Skull (Ross Marquand) when he returned the Soul Stone!). The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) could have helped him restore the Tesseract and Aether to their former states using the Time Stone (as someone else pointed out online). Loki’s (Tom Hiddleston) escape from Avengers Tower with the Tesseract and eventual recapture could be the entire basis of his upcoming Disney+ series, given we never knew SHIELD was even involved with his arrest at the end of the first Avengers. His brief escape could’ve always happened. Present-Nebula might not have killed Past-Nebula at all, given she’s an alien cyborg and her internal organs might work or even just be arranged differently than we’d expect. My initial read of the end of the battle was that Tony had sent Thanos’ army back in time and erased their memories via his Snap (since he didn’t want to change history), not that he killed them. I suppose Past-Gamora’s existence in the present after the battle is the only loose end that can’t be taken both ways. If they do want to create a whole lot of alternate timelines, that works too…especially since I feel like the next big event is going to be Secret Wars (the more recent one, not the original).

Regardless of the potential new Marvel Cinematic Multiverse, I hope they use the Snap to its fullest potential going forward. Not only would it be a global disaster to lose half the population, but bringing them all back would throw things into disarray all over again. Nations would have fallen, new regimes emerged (Latveria, anyone?), superheroes going to extremes to keep the peace, and super-villains turning over new leaves when they realized how petty their crimes were. The possibilities for interesting stories are endless! It should affect everything going forward, from Far From Home to the remaining TV shows and beyond. They’ve created a world where the events of the films can have a huge, undeniable impact on everything else, and they should honor that shared universe. The only thing the Snap shouldn’t result in is the creation of mutants, because that would remove their “we’re supposed to be here” argument and the connection to the real-world people they’re supposed to represent along with it.

There are too many awesome moments and character beats to list here, so here are a few off the top of my head that I loved. Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) getting to be the queen of New Asgard. Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) finally getting to team up with the Avengers. Wanda and Carol (Brie Larson) completely destroying Thanos at just about every turn. A much better use of Captain America saying “Hail Hydra” than in the comics. Time travel allowing them to not only revisit some of their greatest hits, but to bring back many of the actors who appeared later, forming a more tightly-knit world. Tony and Peter’s farewell. Black Widow becoming the leader of the Avengers. Hulk holding up the Avengers facility like the mountain in the original Secret Wars. James D’Arcy as Jarvis, finally getting to break the TV/movie barrier as the first TV-original MCU character to appear in the movies (go watch Agent Carter; it’s fantastic!). Stan Lee’s last cameo happening in this film, which just feels right. Cap/Iron Man/Thor vs. Thanos. Everyone vs. Thanos.

This was definitely a worthy conclusion to this era of the MCU. I’m really glad that they resisted the urge to tease what’s next by omitting any post-credit scenes or tags on the end of the film. The only thing at the end of the credits—the sound of Tony making the Iron Man suit from his first film—was the perfect touch. Let things rest for now. The massive credit sequence with all of the stars getting their own card was great, and I liked the page they took out of Star Trek VI's book (having the original six Avengers sign their names onscreen) too. That was classy.

There are a few lingering questions about just what timelines might have been created (or not), but nothing that hurt the experience of the movie for me. There are more stories I wish we could be seeing with Cap and Widow, but that would likely always be the case no matter when they retired. Regardless, the filmmakers had a lot to wrap up and to do so to the extent that they did is truly impressive. The actors were all at the top of their game with a lot of really good material to work with, making this an excellent and supremely emotionally satisfying movie! I can’t wait to watch it again when I get it on home video!

I'd give it an A(vengers)!

#avengers #endgame #avengers endgame #mcu

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lovedsammy · 5 years

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All right, ya’ll, I saw Endgame! Major spoilers will be under the cut so if you’re on mobile and it doesn’t work, SCROLL, SCROLL, SCROLL. Also, blacklist ‘a4 spoilers’ and ‘endgame spoilers’!

Overall? I loved it. There are a few things that REALLY bothered me/disappointed me, which I’ll talk about. As a star rating, I’d say 9/10.

First for the things that bothered me so I can get that out of the way...

Complaints:

- Thor & Loki: It’s no surprise to some of you that Loki is my favorite character (with Tony in 2nd place), and I adore the Thor & Loki bond. So I wasn’t happy at ALL that Loki remained dead, nor the fact that the Loki and Thor bond was completely erased/forgotten. Thor didn’t mention him ONCE, and instead focused only on the bond with his mother, which was, admittedly, beautiful. But the fact that he didn’t think of his deceased brother at all really felt like a disservice. I think it was supposed to be inferred that that what’s Thor’s so depressed about during the film, but it wasn’t TALKED about and instead was played for laughs. Thor’s PAIN was made to be humorous because he let himself go and had a beer belly. And yeah, I can see how at first that can be slightly funny, but it’s really not, if you think about it. Thor was so consumed by depression that all he did was drink himself almost to death. He was a wreck during the whole film and was made to look like a drunken idiot, except for the ending. Making him gain weight just to make him ‘funny’ also rubbed me the wrong way. Being ‘fat’ is nothing to be ashamed of, or funny. Thor’s characterization this movie was a big minus for me, which was disappointing. Him leaving at the end with the GotG made some sense, though, and I’m hoping this will lead him on a path to maybe trying to find Loki, in the past or otherwise. Quill trying to find past!Gamora... maybe it was a hint.

- Going back to Loki, he showed up in flashbacks from Avengers 2012 which really made my heart swell. Him rolling his eyes at the Avengers, waving ‘bye bye’ to the Hulk sarcastically when he had to take the stairs, taking the opportunity to snatch the Tesseract, not once but twice, and disappearing to God knows where? LOVED IT. It was so nice to see him again, no matter in what capacity. Though I still wish he’d come back for real, ESPECIALLY in that battle at the end. It wouldn’t have taken much more screen time, honestly. They could’ve just shown him arriving with the others at the return, have him fight side by side with Thor, and address Thanos. Maybe hint at some possible control, imprisonment, torture from Thanos? It could’ve paved way for the Loki series. Although, I guess this 2012!Loki disappearing with the Tesseract can achieve that, too, but it would erase all of the development Loki has achieved, and I loved the development. I loved his path to redemption. If they do this, I want a redeemed!Loki, who has a place among the Avengers, not a villain again.

- Gamora not coming back. I mean, I loved seeing her as her past self, but again... she died by being killed by her abusive father. It leaves a bad taste.

All right, on to everything else!

Things that I loved:

- Nebula and Tony’s friendship! I loved their dynamic a lot. Nebula taking care of Tony, and sitting him upright? My heart. <333

- Tony’s reunion with Steve. Omg their dynamic was FANTASTIC this movie. No leftover resentment from Civil War. It really made me love their friendship that much more.

- Tony’s reunion with Pepper!

- “I lost the kid. I lost the kid.” The first part I got choked up, of many.

- omg Scott coming home to see 5 years have passed and his daughter is a teen? omg I couldn’t even handle that. I loved older Cassie, though!

- THOR GETTING TO KILL THANOS FOR REAL. OMG I CHEERED. It didn’t help his vendetta, though, and once the revenge was complete, he had nothing left, which makes sense. His hate for Thanos was what drove him in Infinity War. He fell into a huge depression once that was taken from him. And why I wish, again, that this hadn’t been used for laughs!

- TONY AND HIS DAUGHTER!!! omg dad!tony was the CUTEST AND SO WAS MORGAN. Tony’s my 2nd fave character in the mcu, so seeing him happy, living life with his wife and daughter? perfection. The “shit” scene was both hilarious and sweet. “Go to bed or I’ll sell or all your toys” and Morgan laughing because she knows he won’t. <3333333333

- “I love you 3000″

- Clint and his family!

- Natasha saying that her family is the Avengers.

- the time travel was well utilized, even if it makes my head spin a little. XD

- LOKI LOKI LOKI

- “that is america’s ass” lmao

- steve saying ‘hail hydra’ and it WORKING

- tony and steve just KNOWING how each other thinks and using that to formulate the same plan, of going back to grab the tesseract? genius!

- There was so much foreshadowing in this movie at the beginning and middle of how this was going to end. Tony was unwilling to help at first because he didn’t want to lose what he had gained, and Steve kept saying he was over Peggy but by looking at her in the past, it was clear that he wasn’t, and that was where he wanted to go. I’ll touch on both those things more later.

- Tony getting to talk to his father, and finally come to terms with that relationship, and understanding/loving him... ow my heart. That hug was amazing.

- Thor getting to talk with his mother, getting that closure as well. This movie centered a lot on family.

- Clint willing to die to get the soul stone, but Natasha also willing to, and fighting over it, who had the strongest will to sacrifice themselves for everyone else. Their dynamic is also one of my favorites, and even though Clint is happily married with a family, part of me still ships them, and I loved those final moments together.

-”Let me go. It’s okay.” Natasha’s death was one of the first scenes that got me outright bawling. I adored her, and her death hit me hard because I was NOT expecting it. And for her to die as she did, willingly, with no restraint.... she wiped the red out of her ledger for sure. :( R.I.P Natasha. I’m so sad that they couldn’t even get her body to give her a proper burial. And everyone’s reactions after... devastating.

- I didn’t think Bruce using the Gauntlet was going to work at first. But once Clint’s phone started ringing, I breathed a sigh of relief and just waited. Then past!Nebula had to ruin everything by getting Thanos to blow up the Avengers HQ.

- Touching on this, btw: Thanos really is the Avengers strongest opponent. He was too clever using the two Nebulas (UGH) as he did, and he almost won again without even breaking a sweat.

- The. entire. fight. Literally, all of it. Thor using both of his weapons, Tony and Steve giving it their all... omg.

- The second Steve used Mjolnir, my entire theater screamed, and same, tbh. Thor’s “I KNEW IT!!” was everyone. It was nice continuity with AoU when Thor’s expression hinted that Cap was worthy. YES.

- It took me a minute to realize that Sam was back, and when it did, I sat there going “IS IT REALLY IS IT REALLY IST THIS HAPPENING OH SHIT”

- AND IT DID!

- Everyone coming out of that portal, focusing on each of them. Omg the theater erupted.

- “AVENGERS.... assemble.” cHILLS

- WANDA GETTING BACK AT THANOS’S CRAZY ASS, HELL YES! “I don’t even know who you are.” “You will.” YES, QUEEN.

- THE WOMEN TEAMING UP!

- Tony and Peter. The hug! The shock from Tony that this boy that he looks at as his own son, the relief that he’s alive, okay.. hi i’m crying again.

- The second Stephen raised that single finger, and Tony knew what it meant. And we all knew what it meant...

- “I am inevitable.” “I am... Iron... man.”

- Tony’s death hit me like a ton of bricks, and I was sobbing before he’d even collapsed to the floor. Watching the color drain from his face, and his body become so badly damaged.... I knew it was over for him.

- “We won, Mr. Stark. Come on, you did it, sir, you did. I’m sorry, Tony.” I CANT EVEN HANDLE THIS. PETER DIED IN FRONT OF TONY, AND NOW TONY DIES IN FRONT OF HIM. This surrogate father/son duo hurts me and I feel so much.

- PEPPER AND TONY. THEY DESERVED BETTER, DAMN IT. THEY DESERVED TO BE HAPPY AND TONY DESERVED TO WATCH HIS DAUGHTER GROW UP. ;A; “We’re going to be okay. You can rest now.” Rip out my heart. Just rip it out.

- As painful as Tony’s death was, it also felt.... perfect, in ways. He gave up his chance to keep things as they were to save everyone else. He did tHAT. He gave everyone else their families back. He died a hero, a true hero. I feel more at ease with Tony’s death, despite how unfair it was, because unlike Loki, Tony had achieved everything he meant to. He had a little girl who he loved so much and was an amazing father to. He had a son, who he taught to be a hero, too. He had a wife who will go on to keep Stark Enterprises alive. They’re Tony’s legacy.

- The funeral was SO heartbreaking, I was a crying mess. Happy and Morgan... :( </3

- ok so I’m 50/50 on Steve’s ending. He goes to return the stones to their proper time, and then stays behind to have a life with Peggy. Which, I mean... I’m not opposed to, and I think Steve deserves his happy ending too, but... it also hurt because not only was he leaving Bucky behind, he also left his friends behind. Friends that were already hurting from losing Natasha and Tony. And then to leave them like he did.... it felt... I don’t know, not wrong, but insensitive, considering what had just happened. Everyone had lost enough, and then they had to lose Steve, too. Although, I see his frame of mind. He’d lost so much as well. He wanted to have something for once, something happy, and he took it. I can’t blame him for that. I just wish his timing had been better.

-Bucky just knew that Steve wasn’t coming back as himself. He knows him so well. And his nod at Sam to let him take up the mantle... I knew it was going to happen, but I thought it’d be different. I’m fine with this, though. Steve’s retired. He can rest now.

- Tony’s voice over at the end was beautiful and perfect. That is all.

I loved this movie a lot, and can’t wait to see it again eventually! I had complaints and things I wish they’d done/fixed, but overall, the good outweighed the bad.

#marvel #avengers: endgame #endgame spoilers #a4 spoilers #avengers endgame

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elenafisher · 5 years

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chelsea watches (read: is agonized by) “avengers: endgame”

i just got home from endgame and i have a lot to say about it!

OVERALL:

i... liked it? i think? i can’t tell.

there’s probably going to be a lot of complaining in this post, yet i didn’t actually hate the movie. but there was a lot to digest, so i’m sure my feelings will change over the next couple of weeks.

this movie was edited weird and i think it gave me whiplash.

the tone was dramatic and desperate, then lighthearted and fun, and then back to dramatic and desperate before i could so much as blink. it was very jarring!

it also made me cry.

robert downey jr. has always been very earnest in his portrayal of tony stark, but he gave all he had in this one. i was on the edge of tears watching him the whole time, really. there’s definitely a sense of finality to his performance.

those last 20 minutes had me weeping a bit. when they put the arc reactor on the bundle of flowers... oh, my heart. :’(

THE GOOD:

(most of) our characters are back!

but was there ever any doubt? the stakes were made to feel high, but they never really were. you always came away with the feeling that they were all gonna make it.

no word on vision, though! pretty confused about that one. i know he was killed after the snap occurred, so i don’t think they actually can bring him back, but i always thought that he would, since they have this to film still.

it was very well made. i hope they keep bringing back the people who work on the sets, the cinematography, and the lighting, because it was all so well done.

we need to raise one for alan silvestri and his amazing soundtrack.

oh, did anyone else notice the emphasis on DAUGHTERS?

tony’s daughter morgan

scott’s daughter cassie

clint’s daughter lila

thanos’s "daughters”, nebula and gamora

to me, it felt like they were setting up these girls for potentially taking up their father’s mantles, which would actually be cool as fuck.

morgan stark is absolutely the cutest little bean i’ve ever seen in my life.

I LOVE YOU 3000!

her scenes with tony were so sweet.

that cheeseburger parallel... oh man.

really, every scene that every person shared with tony was really good. you can just feel that everybody was giving everything they had because they knew they only had so much time left to play these characters together, and they wanted to get these final performances right.

tom holland, you heartbreaker. the audience in my theater went absolutely nuts when he finally returned. but when he was crying as he was talking to tony for the last time, oh man.

“i lost the kid.” please...

THE BAD:

i still don’t really get what they’re doing with thor.

i don’t share this opinion much because this is tumblr and everyone loves this movie, but i didn’t like ragnarok, and i don’t like what’s become of thor or bruce. i wasn’t really checking on these two before, but now they’re just the comedy reliefs of the MCU.

chris hemsworth is funny, of course, and thor is a badass, of course, but they were just trying so hard with him.

it kind of feels like they’re just pulling him apart, like one group still wants him to be the noble leader of asgard and the other just wants him to be the court jester. so, rather than decide, they just mushed their ideas together.

captain marvel: i knew she wasn’t going to be in the movie much, because she would’ve done everything in, like, 30 minutes, but they really, really underutilized her. seriously, she was only in this one, at most, for five minutes.

but, in those five minutes, she got a new haircut and kicked all kinds of ass, which are both wins.

THE UGLY:

STEVE ROGERS, SIR, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

i can’t believe they hit the undo button on cap’s story.

rather than have him grow and develop in his new role in the future he never wanted or expected to receive, they just had him go back in time to marry the one that got away.

but don’t get me wrong y’all; steve and peggy hurt me so good. i live for their angst. but they weren’t supposed to get together like this!

it’s gross because peggy moved on. she was able to pick up the pieces and create something wonderful for herself by having a fulfilling career and a happy marriage with another man.

steve should’ve accepted her choice. if he loves her so much, he should’ve accepted that he lost her and, since she moved on without him, he has to move on without her.

i can almost get the poetic cinema that they were going for: after tony loses his chance at having a family and living his life, steve is woken up and realizes how much he’s been missing out on, so he decides to go out there and discover what he’s been running away from all this time.

but, rather than do those things, or literally anything else, steve goes back in time to... marry peggy.

like, he could’ve traveled the world with sam and bucky, or gone solo for a while, or even hit up sharon again.

sharon carter, what a waste. they really couldn’t commit to the idea of her and steve together, could they?

but as soon as they confirmed sharon to be peggy’s niece, there was just no way a romance could blossom. it’s kind of hilarious how in a cinematic universe where raccoons talk, characters time travel, and AIs can be 3D printed, kissing the niece of your former flame is still considered to be the weirdest thing about it.

seriously: i find it all so vulgar and manipulative.

the one good thing that came out of this was sam wilson, the only worthy captain america, receiving the shield.

i’ve read that some people are upset that sam got the shield instead of bucky. like, did y’all watch the last movie? let bucky have his plums and his goats. he’s done fighting other people’s wars.

THE EVEN UGLIER:

i got problems, y’all, and those problems have two names: natasha romanoff and clint barton.

i ship these two because everything in the avengers (2012) led me to believe that these super cool assassins who were fighting each other were actually in love with each other and it was them against the world (which doesn’t sound familiar at all, i know).

the characters had history and scarlett johansson and jeremy renner had chemistry. i saw it and i know all y’all saw it.

so, y’all can imagine how goddamn appalled i was when i first read that natasha and clint were not only not lovers, but that clint actually had a secret family, with a secret wife, on a secret farm, and that we were going to be told this with absolutely no build-up whatsoever.

but y’all could tell that the russos were as tired as i was when it came to accepting those facts!

they decided to throw caution to the wind and show some more intimacy between natasha and clint, which was delicious. finally, some good fucking food.

i mean, the necklace? she was wearing her necklace again!

to me, it seemed like natasha had fallen in love with him all those years ago, but he was either already married or had turned her down (or both?), and she was never able to act on her feelings for him. i think that clint was also in love... and perhaps knew that he could never be with her, because of their lifestyles and her past, and chose laura instead. or something agonizing and unfulfilling like that.

(i really hope her upcoming movie expands on this.)

and i do think that she loved him. like, romantically. she couldn’t stop touching him the whole movie (HER HANDS ON HIS FACE!!! she’s so worried for him i’m crying) and was shaking, she was so relieved, upon being reunited with him.

it is some consolation that no matter what, you are never able to deny that natasha and clint love each other: even when they’re not romantic partners, they are definitely platonic life partners. their mutual devotion to one another, in almost every universe in the comics and in these movies, is incredibly strong and moving.

so, rather than endure clint’s death, natasha chose to sacrifice herself so that he could get the stone and, ultimately, be reunited with his family. and, on paper, it sounds okay... except, it really isn’t.

y’all wanna know why it’s not okay?

it’s not okay because natasha was an original avenger, and we were never given the chance to spend time with her, or become emotionally invested in her journey, or to care about her reasons for making the ultimate sacrifice.

like, i cared about natasha, but i felt that i would’ve cared so much more (and that the audience could’ve, as well) had we’d been able to have a front row seat to her “atonement” arc.

because, as an audience, we sort of started in medias res: while she was not initially forthcoming with who she was or what she was doing, natasha came to be seen as a reliable and capable ally by the avengers, her second appearance onscreen. we are given no real reason to distrust her because she’s so desperate to find redemption, which she’s made apparent in almost every movie, and it’s hard to hate somebody working so strongly for another chance.

i mean, this journey would’ve been made so much more badass by us experiencing it firsthand, rather than relying on the hearsay from the directors, writers, and actors. we should’ve gotta a miniseries starring natasha romanoff as the black widow, so we could finally see what she did to become so disgusted with herself and so feared by everyone else.

this is (partially) why so many people adore bucky. we’ve seen him as the best friend, the fellow comrade, before he was forced to become a mindless killing machine. we’ve seen him kill and cause absolute mayhem. but now we’re watching bucky grow out from that and become something more (and, hopefully, something better).

basically, natasha romanoff should’ve received that same treatment. we needed to explore all of her facets, not just some of them.

tl;dr: we should’ve had more time with natasha.

it’s also not okay because natasha’s sacrifice, one that was both irreversible and absolutely pivotal to the fate of the final battle, was not given nearly the same amount of respect that tony received after his demise.

while we all owe a lot to robert downey jr. for his choice to portray, and continue portraying, tony stark / iron man, he is not the most important avenger.

it’s also worth noting that he did not have to be the one to snap his fingers. i mean, anyone could’ve been given what tony was wearing and then wielded the gauntlet. but, like natasha, he made a choice to sacrifice his life for the greater good.

yet, only tony was given an elaborate funeral. no matter how you slice it, it’s enormously disrespectful to a veteran team member. for this ultimate sacrifice to be made by the only woman on the original crew is doubly insulting.

AND ALL OF THIS IS MADE WORSE BY THE FACT that natasha’s death mirrors gamora’s. they’re identical, right down to the music that plays and how the camera focuses on their bloody bodies.

the russos were probably trying to invoke poetic cinema again here, but the scene comes across as somewhat lazy and insincere. like, they can’t even kill her right!

as terrible as this scene is, i want to give scarlett and jeremy a round of applause for it. you really got the sense that these characters were more than ready to die for each other, and that’s only because scarlett and jeremy were able to sell the emotional intimacy of the scene so well.

all of it is too little, too late, however.

allow me to conclude this rambling nonsense by stating that i also think they condensed her character arc too much. like, i know this branches off of what i was just talking about a dozen bullet points ago, but even if natasha were to receive this ending, i feel that she received it too soon, y’know?

there should’ve been more scenes in the previous films dedicated to her, and her feelings, and how she relates to any given situation, because another problem that drags this scene down is the lack of any information about natasha.

like, even when assembled with the other avengers, she feels remote.

perhaps that’s intentional, given that the character’s a spy and has been enigmatic about every other area of her life for so many years. but i think she’s been written to be too enigmatic.

#endgame spoilers #chelsea.txt #this is so long lmao kudos to anyone that reads it #and yeah i probably have more thoughts swimming around in my head #but i've been trying to write this post for three hours now and i can't think of anything else to write lol #i need to watch the movie again

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quiet-onset · 5 years

Text

Pâro - Prologue

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

A/N: Guess who’s posting another series? I’m literally so excited about this; I outlined this whole story and wrote the prologue in one night. I’ll post the first chapter on New Year’s Day, along with the series masterlist. I haven’t been this excited since Gætir, so I hope y’all like it. Enjoy!

Tag List: @thisisbullshytt , @here-for-your-bullshit (if you wanna be tagged, send me an ask or message)

“On your left!”

“I’m getting real tired of your shit, James.”

Steve chuckled as Bucky warned Sam of an incoming rocket aimed directly at his left wing. Quips like that had come easily once the team was reunited after Thanos’ snap. Bucky had joined the Avengers after they were welcomed back into the United States, all charges dropped. It was back to simple recon missions and taking out HYDRA bases.

And somehow, Steve felt like something was missing.

If he was honest, he knew what it was. He’d known for a few weeks but only spoke to Nat about it. They’d become close during their exile and the time after the snap. The public labeled them “superhero boyfriend and girlfriend”, but they thought that was childish. Natasha was grown, and Steve was just over one hundred years old. They were partners; they’d figure everything else out along the way.

Steve met Natasha at a corner just outside the computer room. He nodded to her, and she went in. There was no room for a relationship in the field; they had to focus. That was their agreement.

That is until Natasha waltzed straight into a room with explosives. “Uh, Steve?”

Steve turned around, eyes widen as the timer counted down: three, two, one. His heart hammered in a panic, but he gained his senses quickly. He placed his shield on his back and wrapped an arm around Natasha, pulling her to his chest. He grunted as the explosion hit the shield, throwing them down the hall but blocking them from the fire.

“We have to get out,” Steve says, pulling her up.

“Steve, focus.”

“I am focused, Natasha!” He snapped. “I have to get you out.”

“What happened to no relationship in the field?” She asked.

“You know what happened.”

The standoff only lasted for a few seconds before Steve called for the team to retreat. Tony’s brow scrunched, “Retreat? You alright there, Cap?”

“I’m fine. The computer room is destroyed. We can’t get any info from it anyways.” Steve said into the comms. “Retreat.”

“You heard the man.” Tony sighed. “Back to the quinjet.”

Ten minutes later, everyone was back on the quinjet. They all sat around awkwardly as Steve and Nat argued in the medbay. No one could understand them as their voices were muffled, but they knew it had to be bad for Steve to be shouting. Just as the quinjet docked, their voices quieted, and they emerged from the medbay. Steve’s hands hung low on his hips as he let out a huff, “Conference room, two minutes. Got an announcement.”

Once everyone was gathered, they waited with expectant eyes on their Captain. They noted the tired look in his eyes as he called for their attention. Bruce cleared his throat. “You said you had an announcement.”

“Yes.” Steve sighed, his fingertips splayed on the wooden table. “It’s the reason we had to retreat. Natasha walked into a room of explosives just before they went off. She barely escaped with her life.”

“Yeah, but why is that an announcement? That happens all the time.” Sam shrugged with a confused look.

Steve closed his eyes and heaved out another heavy sigh as he prepared to admit the truth to his teammates. “Natasha’s pregnant.”

The room was filled with gasps and surprised eyes. Everyone’s attention was given to Natasha as she shyly wrapped her arms around her middle. Steve cleared his throat and prepared to be fielded with questions.

“She’s pregnant? And you told nobody?” Bruce asked.

Tony raised a hand. “Hold up, she’s pregnant, and you let her go out in the field?”

“He doesn’t let me do anything.” Natasha corrected him with venom in her voice.

“Do you really think I could stop her?” Steve asked, looking at her fondly. “Look, the point is, Natasha can’t do this anymore. Not while she’s pregnant.”

“Of course.” Bruce nodded.

“And neither can I.”

The room fell silent as the announcement was finally made. Steve made it clear that his decision was final. He stood tall, head up, chest out, his coveted Captain stance. “Natasha and I will be stepping down. Indefinitely.”

There was immediately an uproar from the team, obviously not ready to give up their Captain yet. They all knew it would have to happen, but they didn’t expect it so soon. They’d just been reunited. The Soul Stone kept them all apart for what felt like forever, and now, Steve was leaving.

“I’ll still be here for emergencies. But I have to be there for Natasha and our child.”

“What are supposed to do without our Captain?” Peter asked in a quiet, sad voice.

“You’ll still have a Captain,” Steve said with a small smile. “Because I’m handing the mantle over to Bucky. If he’ll take it.”

Bucky looked up with wide eyes. He never expected much to come from being in the Avengers, so becoming Captain America was definitely not on his to-do list. Obviously, it’d be an honor, but Bucky wasn’t so sure he deserved something so sacred. Not anymore. “Steve, I can’t.”

“You can, Buck. You’re more than capable.”

“You know what I’ve done, man. Who I am. I can’t be Captain America.”

“You’re right,” Steve told him. “I do know who you are. You’re the same guy who always pulled a scrawny kid out of fights in the alley. You’ve been a hero since we were kids, Bucky. All that’s left to do is embrace it. Besides, the only other person I’d want to take it up is Sam, and he has said explicitly—”

“I’m not becoming Captain America just so everyone can ask why I’m black. No, sir.” Sam interrupted.

They both chuckled as Steve placed a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Please, Buck.”

A million thoughts ran around Bucky’s head, all of them telling him not to. That he wasn’t worthy, that he’d never be as good as Steve. But there was one voice. A small voice but a voice nonetheless that said yes. So Bucky listened to that voice.

Soon, everyone filed out of the room, leaving Bucky alone with Steve’s shield. With his metal hand, he ran his fingertips around the silver star, a look of pure wonder and anticipation in his eyes. Steve came back and looked at him from the doorway. He called for his best friend, “Hey, Cap?”

Bucky looked up.

“Coming?”

Bucky’s lips tugged upward as he looked at Steve, a small smirk forming, “Yeah.”

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #cap!bucky barnes x reader #cap!bucky x reader #marvel x reader #Pâro series

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skyefullofdaisies · 5 years

Text

Endgame review(ish) LOTS OF SPOILERS

I saw it 2 days ago but needed some time to wrap my head around this one. I have never described a movie as a masterpiece before but this definitely hits all my boxes.

What I liked/loved:

•Watching Thanos die twice in one movie was an honor and a damned privilege.

•Tony and Nebula having a friendship & Carol rescuing them

•Pepperony’s reunion ❤️

•After we jumped ahead 5 years and Scott gets reunited with teenage Cassie. That made me tear up. If they ever do another Ant Man movie it’ll be great to see Cassie old enough to have a bigger role

•Seeing Nat crying and showcasing how much Steve and her have such a great relationship plus Carol’s new bad ass ‘do.

•SEEING PEPPERONY’S NEW LIFE! MORGAN STARK! DAD TONY!

•Tony knowing in the end there’s no way he won’t help. It’s just not in his DNA and insisting nothing changes from the last 5 years

•Dad bod!Thor

•Fucking “Dr.” Hulk. Ffs, Bruce 🤣

•The whole going back in time deal. I’m a sucker for time travel and watching Scott get turned old/young and not knowing which one peed his pants, lmao, and Tony guessing right off the bat what happened

•The renewal of the Tony/Steve friendship and team. I missed the two of them being on good terms

• “Dr. Hulk” half heartedly trying to imitate his 2012 self destroying things. Again, for fuck SAKE, Bruce. 😂

•Cap saying “Hail Hydra” easter egg. Since all of us fans were sooo angry over them making Cap hydra in that comic. Steve being all smug as he walks out with the scepter. Tony having Scott give past!tony freaking arrythmia’s for a distraction then being all smug because he thinks he got away with it just to be mowed down by The Hulk who was angry he had to take the stairs & Tony teasing Steve about his ass and Scott admiring it. Same, dude. Same.

•The entire scene of Dr. Hulk going to get his stone

•Steve fighting himself. The whole thing was gold.

• “I can do this all day.” Annoyed future!steve “I know, I know” & “That really is America’s ass” And god bless that ass, my golden haired freedom baby.

•Steve and Tony teaming up and overruling Scott because damn do I miss Stony

•The entirety of Thor/Frigga & Tony/Howard

•MJOLNIR RETURNS

•Everyone finding out about Nat’s death and her mini funeral. Not that I “liked” it per say but I thought it was a beautifully acted scene on Scarlett’s part. Clint’s reaction had me bawling as well as everyone else. I’m not a Bruce/Natasha shipper at all but still. It was a very hard scene to sit through with the whole theater sniffling behind me since I was in the front row. (Side note: LOVED Natasha’s blond/red hair. It was really pretty on her)

•Dr. Hulk taking one for the team by wearing the infinity gauntlet. After Nat’s death I really think there may have been a small part of him that wouldn’t have minded joining her. I was happy to see him make it though

•Nebula getting through to past!Gamora and taking past!Neb down

•Tony finding Steve and calling him “my guy” GOD DAMN DID I MISS THAT FRIENDSHIP

•Thor doing that lightening clothing transformation thing and having both weapons

•Everyone teaming up to kill Thanos (again)

•STEVE BEING WORTHY & SUMMONING LIGHTNING MY GODDDDD THAT WAS HOT (the entire theatre erupted in cheers when he was standing there with his shield and Mjolnir. The scene was even cooler in 3D) Thor smiling when he saw all this and saying “I knew it”

•Steve preparing to face Thanos and his whole army by himself and then all these portals pop up and IT’S EVERYONE. Again the entire theatre were on our feet clapping, cheering and laughing with joy the second the Wakandians came into view. Best. Scene. Ever.

•Pepper! In! A! Suit! Again!

•Peter and Tony’s reunion! Peter talking a mile a minute and Tony being so emotional he just hugged him. Fuck, man. Right in the feels indeed

•All female heroes teaming up

•Wanda being enraged at Thanos and his royal grape ness being scared of her power as well as Carol’s when she showed up

•The Entire fucking battle. The mini reunions. I could sit here and go on for ages about it. This battle scene pretty much was one of the best ones I’ve ever seen in any movie/tv show ever.

•Tony realizing what Dr. Strange meant when he said “if I told you what had to happen it wouldn’t happen” and the look that passed between them. Stephen looking at him with sorrow.

•Tony, knowing it was gonna kill him, putting the gauntlet on anyway.

•Again watching Thanos lose everything he loved to disintegration like our heroes did and realize he’s lost to the Avengers again then die himself. I don’t think I’ve ever hated a movie villain more than him to date.

•Tony’s death. At this point I was back to trying not to sob out loud in front of a bunch of strangers. Peter’s reaction is what got me going. Pepper’s as well as the rest of the OG Avengers who had been with Tony the longest. Rhodey crying and pulling Peter away. Just writing this now I’ve got tears in my eyes.

•Pepper telling Tony it was okay to go and she and Morgan would be fine

•The funeral. The grown up kid from Iron Man 3 being there. Aunt May and Peter. Sending that wreath out onto the lake. It was a stunning scene. Happy talking to Morgan.

• “I love you 3000”

•Old man!Steve. Look, I do not care what plot holes it creates. This movie was too well done to let stupid technicalities bug me. As a loooong time Steggy shipper I’m so happy he got to live where he wanted to live back in the 40’s with the love of his life. I’m thrilled Peggy got the love of hers. I don’t care that it destroys the Agent Carter show. It got canceled anyway so I just do not care. Nor do I care about whoever Peggy’s husband ended up being (it was Daniel from AC, I think) getting erased. The two of them pined for each other for so long I think it was beautifully done in the end. I wish we’d gotten to know how many kids Steggy had but 🤷‍♀️. Bucky was still Bucky. No, Steve didn’t kiss his niece if you listened to Bruce’s explanation but people are being stupidly stubborn on that bit. Steve has been my ride or die hero since his original movie in the MCU. I was terrified he was gonna die in sacrifice. I hate, HATE that it was Tony but I’m a little relieved at the same time, I won’t lie. I’d like to think Steve and Peggy were around for baby!tony. Maybe they were Aunt Peggy and Uncle Steve to him.

•Scott, Hope and Cassie mini family

•Clint happily reuniting with his family

•Ned and Peter reuniting

•SAM! BEING! PASSED! THE! CAPTAIN! AMERICA! MANTLE! I cannot wait for Bucky & Sam’s tv series.

•The film closing out with dancing Steve and Peggy happily in love.

What I did not like/hated:

•Loki surviving. I just hate him. Obviously he was going to given he is getting his own show too but Christ on a cracker

•Both Tony and Natasha’s deaths. I know why they happened but it still really really sucks to lose any of the team for any reason. Seeing the Tony stans super upset has been very hard even if we all knew it was gonna be Steve or Tony dying. It’s one thing to know it and then another to actually see it play out

•Clint’s family dissolving? 😭😭 Yes, we knew it was gonna happen but watching it suuuucked

•Not showing the Aunt May/Peter reunion. She had to live 5 years without him after all.

•Not getting to see Carol and Nick interact or reunite.

•Not getting to see Maria’s reaction to Natasha’s death (I know there was only so much time and these reunions are just splitting hairs but I would have liked to see them)

•Not enough Pepperony!Parents scenes. (Again, splitting hairs here, lol)

Over all:

A++++++++

I didn’t go into this movie with expectations in case it was a disappointment. Needless to say it was NOT a disappointment in the least. It was a beautifully done film. The cinematography was stunning. I laughed, cheered, was kept in suspense and definitely cried. Which is not easy to get me to do. I will miss Tony and Pepperony every day but I also cannot wait to see Wanda get Vision back in their series. However that happens nor the Bucky/Sam team up. I think I hit all the major points (I hope). I intend to go see the movie again next week. The Russo Brothers did a wonderful job honoring 11 years worth of movies and the fans who have been here since 2008. A lot is storylines were paid off and the like. Just amazing. Thank you for reading this long word vomit.

#avengers endgame spoilers #endgame spoilers #avengers spoilers #captain america #tony stark #spoilers

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