The closest thing we got was an explanation from Red Skull and the fact that he was trapped there.
That said, I was fine with the time travel stuff. My biggest issue was the last act completely ignored the rules that the previous movies set on the stones.
1. Previous movies had established that a mere mortal could not directly handle the stones (The collector's slave girl died, Quinn later pulls it off as its revealed he's only half human).
2. Infiinty War mentioned Thanos needed a special gauntlet forged by dwarves from a star to chanel the insane power.
3. Infinity war also established that by the time Thanos had 4 stones he could casually walk through the Avenders in order to get to vision and grab the final stone. He was beyond even approaching. He was a force of nature.
The last act pretty much threw all of that out the window. Stark just built a glove, Capatin Marvel could sucessfully fight him when he had all 5 stones, and pulling the stones off the glove directly? Its like the infinity stones suddenly depowered so the battle could play out. It was a great fight, dont get me wrong, but I dont care much when a movie/movies establishes rules for a "thing" then just tosses it all out.
Still entertaining ... but a bit lazy IMO to run the course that way.
I amend my earlier statement ... the biggest miss to me and one I was genuinely disapointed over:
No mid/post credit scene that was a straight dedication to Stan Lee. What a huge miss. This was the closing of a huge 10 year act. The big finale. They already mentioned it was Stan's last cameo, and it was among his shortest as well. They really should have had a dedication to him. I was really bummed they didn't. Ideal they could have done a mid shoutout to Kirby and a post to Stan ... but really ... I was genuinely bummed that a movie dripping in fans service couldn't contain a thank you.
I always thought when he said he was cursed with knowledge it was a way of saying just like Tony hes a futurist. He knows what's coming and he tried to warn his people and they didnt listein. So now hes saving the universe from that fate. As far as knowing Tony he knew all the Avengers since 2012. What did 2014 Thanos call them in Endgame unruly somethings.
I have a question about Mjonir.
I know it got returned, but if Future Thor went to the past and took the hammer and used it to fight in the future. How was the Thor of the past able to fight?
Soul Stone:
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For all intents and purposes, what's the difference between an "alternate time" and an "alternate reality"?
The way I understand it as explained in Marvel Two-In-One 50 and elsewhere is that an alternate reality gets created at a point in time when someone goes back and changes established history.
Therefore, an alternate time and an alternate reality are the same thing except that the alt-time wasn't created at the Big Bang per se, but at a point in history where that history was changed. Alternate realities are created as a result of changing time. Therefore, alt-time and alt-reality are often the same thing.
They're only different when the alt-reality is a parallel universe that was created with the main universe at the Big Bang. In Steve's case, the alternate reality was an alternate timeline, but that doesn't make that Peg Carter any less a different Peggy than if she had been from a pre-existing parallel universe. Either way, Steve was NOT with our timeline's Peggy Carter.
Also, if in the new timeline Steve survived his last mission, there would be TWO Steves in that timeline. If he didn't survive, but our Steve just SAID he survived in order to explain his presence in the alt-time, that THAT would have been Steve changing time AGAIN and maybe creating another alt-time that diverged from the first alt-time.
This is why I said that since time travel and alternate timelines don't make sense to begin with, don't spend screen time trying to debunk another movie's nonsensical time travel theories (i.e. Back to the Future) just to postulate your own nonsensical time travel theories.
Just explain how time travel works within the MCU without confusing things further by contrasting it to Back to the Future.
So, I guess Dr. Strange can open portals between interstellar distances. I thought it might just be restricted to Earth. Interesting, because Infinity War he asked Tony if he could pilot the ship back. Maybe he has to be on a planet.