Avengers: Endgame Spoilers

[AJBopp]

What did Msrkus and Mcfeely say about it? The Russos explanation is the only one that follows the rules they set out. Changing anything makes a new timeline you cant change your past just make another branch in time.

I dunno what they said about it, but I would certainly give more credibility to the writers than the directors. It's their story, they create the rules. The directors tell it.

[JKtheMac]

I dunno what they said about it, but I would certainly give more credibility to the writers than the directors. It's their story, they create the rules. The directors tell it.

Indeed, the writers are taking notes from various people including the director, but let’s not forget this is effectively a studio system. The directors are encouraged to be bold and to put their stamp on these properties, but they don’t have the final say on continuity. The writers are being vague, the directors are being contradictory. We would be naive to take any interviews as canonical when we know the very next movie will be addressing some of the issues and the upcoming TV shows will be covering other aspects.

We shouldn’t forget that those that really know how the next phase will be shaped are not going to tell us. Some of the questions that this movie makes us ask are going to be deliberate. How is a writer or director supposed to answer a question that could potentially spoil things when even hinting we will get answers is breaking the silence on future projects.

For all we know the Russo interviews are just a smoke screen to hide the fact that Phase Four will be developing a multiverse and building to something entirely new.

[CliffHanger2]

It’s really no big deal. An alternate reality means an alternate Tony and Scott who can create a time jump. But even without them, the GPS device Steve left with means he can travel back to his own reality from any point in any time stream. Tony and Steve don’t need the platform to travel back to 1970, just the temporal coordinates.

If they don't need the platform why are they using it?. Like I said man too many questions and the directors and writers can't even agree on what's going on here. So I quit lol.

[AJBopp]

Indeed, the writers are taking notes from various people including the director, but let’s not forget this is effectively a studio system. The directors are encouraged to be bold and to put their stamp on these properties, but they don’t have the final say on continuity. The writers are being vague, the directors are being contradictory.

One of the things the writers specifically tell us in their script is that time travel doesn't work like Back To The Future so just get that out of your head, yet the directors, and a good chunk of this thread make statements predicated on Back To The Future rules being immutable.

[Username taken]

What did Msrkus and Mcfeely say about it? The Russos explanation is the only one that follows the rules they set out. Changing anything makes a new timeline you cant change your past just make another branch in time.

Fandango: So people are asking… Does this mean an old Captain America was hanging out this whole time while another Captain America was saving the day?

Christopher Markus: That is our theory. We are not experts on time travel, but the Ancient One specifically states that when you take an Infinity Stone out of a timeline, it creates a new timeline. So Steve going back and just being there would not create a new timeline. So I reject the “Steve is in an alternate reality” theory.

I do believe that there is simply a period in world history from about ’48 to now where there are two Steve Rogers. And anyway, for a large chunk of that one of them is frozen in ice. So it’s not like they’d be running into each other.

https://bgr.com/2019/05/06/spider-ma...after-endgame/

According to the writers of the movie, there could be two (2) Captain America(s) running around in the main timeline.

Which is just bizarre.

[Midvillian1322]

I dunno what they said about it, but I would certainly give more credibility to the writers than the directors. It's their story, they create the rules. The directors tell it.

K looked it up they said he went back in time and just lived his life with Peggy and let his past self continue on as planned and didnt interfere in anything. But they say that's they're Theory. So makes me wonder if they didnt doo 100% of the writing. The Russos seems to be the only Directors who arent also writer on theyrr films lol but maybe they do help with the outline and then Marcus and Mcfeely turn it into a script. I'm aslo sure Fiegie has some input in the big picture stuff. So maybe that's why they're say they're thoery is that. Or they just they're theory as to not step on anyones toes.

But to be clear they said "That's our Theory, but were not experts on Time travel" the Russos gave they're answer with certainty and they're answer lines up better with the movie. Cap cant change anything in the main timeline where the hell did he get a new Sheild without changing anything or alerting anyone. If he came from an alternate timeline he coulda changed alot and got THAT Sheild mutiple ways.

I would like them to be asked in an interview to explain what the Ancient one said cleared. Alot of the arguing seems to be over what she meant. Some people seem to think anything big you change creates a new timeline, and she was using the time stone as an example how that can go bad. Others think she was saying that the only way to branch out into a new time line is to remove a stone from where its suppsoe to be in the main timeline. It sounded like she was saying the latter at face value but I feel like that doesnt make sense. They showed they can clearly change stuff in the past that would have to create a new branch in time. Like what happened to the 2014 Thanos crew. I mean you cant change your past so killing Young Nebula doesnt kill present Nebula. But without creating a new timeline I dont see how that works and that doesnt involve taking a stone to start the new timeline so putting the stones back doesnt stop it. Unless the explanation is Magic Space stones"Hand wavy gesture".

I was trying to further think this all through and literaly gave myself a headache. Ugh hate time travel logic, it's why I stopped watching the flash

Edit: while I was writing this Username posted the whole interview with Marcus and Mcfeely so ignore that part of my long rant.

[brettc1]

If they don't need the platform why are they using it?. Like I said man too many questions and the directors and writers can't even agree on what's going on here. So I quit lol.

I would say the platform is acting as an anchor point. That was the intention of the device in the back of the van from Ant-Man and the Wasp, was it not? To be a way to travel in and out of the quantum realm without getting lost in it as Janet Van Dyne did. Anyone can enter the quantum realm simply by getting small enough, but you need a sure way to get back to where you started.

A better question might be why all the effort to get the second gauntlet to the van. Much easier to just shrink it down to microscopic level. Certainly the gems are not immune to size manipulation, because they have to skrink them in order to travel back to the present with them.

[JKtheMac]

Based on the time travel mechanics established within the movie, the end must mean one of 2 things:

1- Old Man Steve was always in the MCU Prime timeline. This would mean that Steve from 2023 returning to Peggy sometime in the 20th century while the OG Cap is stuck in the ice has always been a part of the sequence of events that make up the timeline.

2- Steve returning to Peggy created an alternate branch. This means he found another way home to his reality that didn’t require the beacon. Or maybe he just returned to the OG pad somewhere between the time the team returns from the time heist but before Thanos destroyed it.

Knowing which of the 2 it is does nothing for me. I’m perfectly ok with them not explaining how he got back because by that point time travel mechanics had already been established & demonstrated so I don’t see a need for them to do it again. At best it would just be useless exposition about something that doesn’t really matter within that specific moment and the scene itself is better off without it (imo of course).

For the umpteenth time, these are not the only two options. You might not like that time might not be governed by clear cut scientific rules, but the movie clearly hints that this is another option. That time is mystical in nature and governed by the Infinity Stones. This is a poetic interpretation. One that is happy to have vague and elastic rules.

[brettc1]

Based on the time travel mechanics established within the movie, the end must mean one of 2 things:

1- Old Man Steve was always in the MCU Prime timeline. This would mean that Steve from 2023 returning to Peggy sometime in the 20th century while the OG Cap is stuck in the ice has always been a part of the sequence of events that make up the timeline.

2- Steve returning to Peggy created an alternate branch. This means he found another way home to his reality that didn’t require the beacon. Or maybe he just returned to the OG pad somewhere between the time the team returns from the time heist but before Thanos destroyed it.

Knowing which of the 2 it is does nothing for me. I’m perfectly ok with them not explaining how he got back because by that point time travel mechanics had already been established & demonstrated so I don’t see a need for them to do it again. At best it would just be useless exposition about something that doesn’t really matter within that specific moment and the scene itself is better off without it (imo of course).

It's the second one

[JKtheMac]

One of the things the writers specifically tell us in their script is that time travel doesn't work like Back To The Future so just get that out of your head, yet the directors, and a good chunk of this thread make statements predicated on Back To The Future rules being immutable.

It is wise not to read these interviews too literally. The writers shy away from anything definitive. They actually hint that they didn’t want a timeline that messed things up, and they say that the notes they got from scientists were along the lines of what Banner says. At no point do they say that what Banner says is representative of the rules that they are conforming to. Indeed they could have said this in the interview but they don’t.

[JKtheMac]

Fandango: So people are asking… Does this mean an old Captain America was hanging out this whole time while another Captain America was saving the day?

Christopher Markus: That is our theory. We are not experts on time travel, but the Ancient One specifically states that when you take an Infinity Stone out of a timeline, it creates a new timeline. So Steve going back and just being there would not create a new timeline. So I reject the “Steve is in an alternate reality” theory.

I do believe that there is simply a period in world history from about ’48 to now where there are two Steve Rogers. And anyway, for a large chunk of that one of them is frozen in ice. So it’s not like they’d be running into each other.

https://bgr.com/2019/05/06/spider-ma...after-endgame/

According to the writers of the movie, there could be two (2) Captain America(s) running around in the main timeline.

Which is just bizarre.

You will note this is what I was saying the writing and the final cut of the movie was apparently saying. That a branch can’t form unless a stone is moved. But again this is not definitive, the only way it will become definitive is when another story addresses these specific issues.

[AJBopp]

According to the writers of the movie, there could be two (2) Captain America(s) running around in the main timeline.

Which is just bizarre.

I am curious why this seems bizarre when the film specifically showed us two Captain Americas fighting each other in the main timeline (which means, of course, that for awhile there are three Captain Americas in the main timeline).

[sunofdarkchild]

Looking back at the fights between Thanos and the Avengers in Infinity War, Thanos was overly reliant on the Infinity Gauntlet both on Titan and in Wakanda instead of using his own power, which had previously been enough to beat the Hulk and Thor at the start of the movie. Maybe he was souped up by the stones he already had then, but the difference between Thanos in the climax of each movie is that in Endgame he wasn't relying on any crutches, fighting with pure brute force, his regular fighting skills, and his double-bladed sword instead of the fight being about whether he could close his fist.

[JKtheMac]

The more I read about the upcoming projects and the more I think about how things might go in the future the more I suspect that the various people doing the rounds for the Endgame promotion know something we don’t and can’t tell us.

My theory is that at some point we will get some kind of ‘Infinity Stone Legacy’ movie. Something that will address the fact that we no longer have the stones. There might even be a number of them. Who exactly is Doctor Strange without the Time Stone for example?

Spoiler for the Spider-Man trailer:
spoilers:

We know from the Spider-Man trailer that the multiverse is at least being mentioned. I suspect it is a bit of a red herring at this stage.

end of spoilers

If, as I suspect, the stones have kept a branching multiverse from forming until Thanos snapped them out of existence, then where does that leave us now that they are gone? Have the rules of reality irreparably changed? Can they be manipulated in other ways? Will the next few phases of the MCU slowly build a multiverse? Is this how we begin the move to integrate the X-Men for example. Will the Fantastic Four be multiversal explorers?

The thing is, if this is the next big plan for a three or more year arc, nobody will be telling us. When asked about branching reality nobody would be allowed to say “Ah... what you don’t know is how the Infinity Stones actually work” instead they will have to answer questions in couched terms like “well the way I was thinking about it is this...” or “my theory is this”, and not “well Feige wants us to stay quiet about the Infinity Stones because that’s an underlying plot arc”.

[Username taken]

I am curious why this seems bizarre when the film specifically showed us two Captain Americas fighting each other in the main timeline (which means, of course, that for awhile there are three Captain Americas in the main timeline).

Funny enough, I completely forgot about that for some reason (i.e the two Captain Americas fighting).