Avengers: Endgame PLOTHOLES!

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Here's a place to condense the conversation about real or perceived plotholes in Avengers: Endgame. Talk about the things that either didn't make sense to you or the things that you think Endgame done goofed and see if others can make it all make sense!

I'm creating this now because CBR just put up an article listing the biggest plotholes in the movie. Do you agree with what CBR is saying, or can you earn your No-Prize by explaining how any of these things were NOT mistakes?

https://www.cbr.com/avengers-endgame-plot-holes/

(1) THE TIME HEIST

When Hulk meets the Ancient One in 2012's Battle of New York, the plan shifts a bit, which results in the Avengers borrowing the Infinity Stones on the condition they return them to their timelines at the same moment they were taken. This is the only way to leave the timestream unaffected and not create alternate realities.

However, on multiple missions, people constantly break the rules and tinker with the past. In 2012, Steve Rogers fights himself right after Loki escapes with the Tesseract, not to mention he changes Hydra's actions in Avengers: Age of Ultron when he pretends to be one of them. Steve also chooses to remain in the past with Peggy Carter in the finale, which affects how the Avengers initiative kicked off, as well as the wars they fought after. This ripple would have affected everything downstream, including the snap.

(2) THE VORMIR SACRIFICE

Just before the Avengers go on their temporal mission, they divide into teams and do a breakdown of where to find all the Infinity Stones. They detail how to extract them, because they know they shouldn't do anything to alter the timestream. Yet, when they get to Vormir, Hawkeye and Black Widow somehow don't know they need a sacrifice for the Soul Stone.

It's a pretty dumb moment because Nebula knew Thanos killed Gamora to obtain it in Infinity War, so she should have given the duo a heads up. It appears Nebula forgot to tell them for the sake of plot convenience, all so the Avengers could dramatically duke it out to see who draws the short straw.

(3) TEAM THANOS' TRIP TO THE FUTURE

The first plot hole here revolves around evil Nebula infiltrating the Avengers in the present. When the Avengers snap the "dusted" back to life, evil Nebula uses the time machine to open a portal allowing Thanos' legion to come to the future. However, the quantum tunnel Tony Stark created doesn't work like that: He made it clear the only objects they could pull from the timestream must have the mysterious wrist devices, which are basically temporal GPS locators or tags for his time machine to pull.

The second plot hole arises in the finale, when Tony uses his tech gauntlet to snap Thanos' army away. Killing them here means they don't exist in the 2014 timeline anymore, thus nullifying everything from Guardians of the Galaxy onwards. Once more, without Thanos and his forces there, history's changed drastically and the snap wouldn't ever happen. The main timeline is further affected when Gamora is also taken from 2014 and doesn't return to her timeline.

(4) NEBULA'S PARADOXICAL DEATH

When evil Nebula tries to steal the Stark Gauntlet for the Mad Titan, she's confronted by the redeemed Nebula and Gamora in the present. However, in a very emotional standoff, the good Nebula shoots her past self in the chest, killing her.

It's a basic time travel rule being broken here, because by killing her past self, future Nebula shouldn't exist. Yet, once again for plot convenience, future Nebula's alive and well and goes on to help take down the rest of Thanos' troops. Also, killing Nebula from 2014 affects everything that leads to the snap, thus adding to the series of paradoxes, wherein the very thing Endgame is based on wouldn't happen at all.

(5) THANOS USING THE STARK GAUNTLET

In the finale, after winning a brawl with Captain Marvel, Thanos puts on the Stark Gauntlet, but the Russo brothers apparently forgot the rules they created for this. This gauntlet isn't designed to fit the Mad Titan, it's nanotech is programmed to fit Avengers only. That's why the Hulk wields it to snap the deceased back to life and also why Tony dons it to snap away Thanos' forces. Thanos shouldn't be able to force his hand into it or else it'd break

Another plot hole arises when Thanos wears it and snaps his fingers, not realizing the stones are missing. Upon rewatching the scene, Thanos looks at the gauntlet before he snaps, so he should have seen the stones absent. More importantly, his mind and body are connected to them, so once Stark took them back, the Mad Titan should have felt the link being severed and knew he couldn't perform another snap.

So, can any of this be explained away, or are they all really plot holes? What other plot holes did YOU find?

[CRaymond]

2 is an offscreen conversation between Nebula and Widow. Probably corroborated with Tony. Cutting room floor.

5 is a Reality Stone wish. Thanos could get one stone to bend the rules of the Stark Glove, and then slide his hand in.

4 is a cyborg repair job. It only looks like Nebula 2014 died.

[Kusanagi]

Regarding Vormir's sacrifice.

Did Nebula know that Thanos sacrificed Gamora for the stone? Or did she just know Thanos killed Gamora there? I honestly can't remember what she said to Quil in infinity war, if it confirmed it one way or another.

If it's the latter. Gamora didn't know you needed to make a sacrifice, and she was the one that found the location so how would Nebula know. What she does know is that Gamora took Thanos there, and that Gamora was desperate to stop Thanos. It's not a stretch that Nebula assumed that Gamora tried one last time to stop him and was killed.

If it's the former. Still not necessarily a plot hole, Nebula isn't the purest of souls. If she felt the only way to get the stone was a sacrifice she might have deemed it necessary.


Regarding time parodoxes, they created alternate timelines. The movie is pretty blunt that you can't change the present no matter what you do in the past and that conventional movie time rules are bullshit.

[Arsenal]

1. Not a plot hole. A new time line was created which has no impact on the prime timeline

2. Not a plot hole. Nebula knew Thanos killed Gamora on Vormir but there was no way she could’ve known it was a necessary piece to obtain the stone.

3a. Not a plot hole. Thanos and his army clearly has access to technology far more advanced than anybody on Earth. They easily could’ve copied and recreated it before sending Nebula back.

3B. Not a plot hole. A new time line was created which has no impact on the prime timeline

4. Not a plot hole because that’s now how time travel in the MCU works. At this point, it’s clear person who wrote this article didn’t bother to pay attention to the movie.

5a. The Gauntlet is clearly designed to adjust its size to fit the person attempting to wear it. Not once did anybody say the gauntlet was specifically designed for only the team to wear.

5b. Not a plot hole. Not only does Thanos not look at the side of the gauntlet that has the stones on it before his second snap, the movie leaves the rules of the gauntlet vague so it’s unclear how in-tune somebody is with the stones once they wear them. Nobody has ever tried to use a stone they didn’t have / have it unknowingly stolen from them so it doesn’t break any previously established rules.

[Star_Jammer]

I knew what I’d be posting before I even opened the thread:

[Elmo]

speed force

[AJBopp]

The whole article seems based on the insistence to apply Back To The Future time travel rules to a movie that made a huge point of establishing time doesn't work that way.

[AJBopp]

Regarding time parodoxes, they created alternate timelines. The movie is pretty blunt that you can't change the present no matter what you do in the past and that conventional movie time rules are bullshit.

Creating alternate timelines is precisely what conventional time travel movies do (see back to the future, especially 2)

[Starfish]

Regarding Vormir's sacrifice.

Did Nebula know that Thanos sacrificed Gamora for the stone? Or did she just know Thanos killed Gamora there? I honestly can't remember what she said to Quil in infinity war, if it confirmed it one way or another.

If it's the latter. Gamora didn't know you needed to make a sacrifice, and she was the one that found the location so how would Nebula know. What she does know is that Gamora took Thanos there, and that Gamora was desperate to stop Thanos. It's not a stretch that Nebula assumed that Gamora tried one last time to stop him and was killed.

If it's the former. Still not necessarily a plot hole, Nebula isn't the purest of souls. If she felt the only way to get the stone was a sacrifice she might have deemed it necessary.


Regarding time parodoxes, they created alternate timelines. The movie is pretty blunt that you can't change the present no matter what you do in the past and that conventional movie time rules are bullshit.

Nothing in IW indicated Nebula could have known about the sacrifice. She and Quill kept asking Thanos where Gamora was, and only conluded that he must have killed her when Mantis sensed his guilt. Considering none of the other stones had any conditions to be collected once located, there's no reason for Nebula to believe the soul stone would have been any different and came with these very specific requirements. She most likely believed Thanos killed her sister because Gamora attempted to stop him from collecting it.

(Related sidenote: it would have been nice if we had gotten to see Nebula find out about Nat's fate on screen after the final battle, not only because they had known each other for five years and Nat's death felt overshadowed by Tony's, but also because she would have finally found out what really happened to her sister.)

[Jabare]

Captain America staying in the past and not creating an alternate timeline pretty much pokes a big hole in everyone's "time travel rules were explained without any inconsistencies"

[Comic-Reader Lad]

The problem I had with Endgame was that The Ancient One really made it clear that unless the stones were returned to their rightful places, alternate timelines would be created.

The subtext of that, to me, was "DON'T CREATE ALTERNATE TIMELINES!!!"

So, if a whole bunch of alternate timelines were created anyway, and it doesn't seem to matter, then why give such a portentous warning about ATs?

You can say it only matters in regard to anything Infinity Stone related, but how do you know?

Once an AT is established, it's just as real as the regular timeline. Alternate timelines are basically indistinguishable from parallel universes, as I said in another thread.

How does Captain America know that by living in the past (thereby creating an AT), he's not setting into motion some other event that might spell doom for this AT? It didn't seem to given that old-Steve returned to the prime-timeline (how, exactly?) having lived a good life, but he could not have known that.

By the way, once an AT is created, doesn't that mean that those ATs have their own Infinity Stones? Their own Thanosi? How come none of those other Thanosi do the snap-thing? Or did they in certain ATs, which means that the Avengers saved their prime-timeline at the potential expense of all the other ATs that they, or Loki, created.

[EsotericFailures]

Most of these aren't plot holes, they establish that going back in time creates another timeline different to the present. That's why they can't kill baby Thanos. How did someone who paid so much intention to the mechanics of the gauntlet totally missed this?!? They then break this rule to give Cap his sendoff but that makes the final scene a plothole, not the rest of the movie. The rest is perfectly consistent. We're never told Nebula knows about the rules of Volmir and even if she did it's not a "plothole" for her to hide it. Maybe you could say its inconsistent characterisation (but that's debatable) but not a plothole because plotholes aren't when a character acts in a way you think you wouldn't! The Thanos gauntlet/time travel ones are just so tiresome and meaningless.

Plothole discourse is always terrible anyway, it's the simplest and most unimaginative form of film criticism possible (and calling it film criticism is generous).

[Arsenal]

The problem I had with Endgame was that The Ancient One really made it clear that unless the stones were returned to their rightful places, alternate timelines would be created.

The subtext of that, to me, was "DON'T CREATE ALTERNATE TIMELINES!!!"

So, if a whole bunch of alternate timelines were created anyway, and it doesn't seem to matter, then why give such a portentous warning about ATs?

Because if you remove the mind stone, you end up with an alternate reality where Ultron kills everybody on Earth.
or if you take the time stone, you end up with an alternate reality where Dorm kills everybody.
or if you take the space stone, you end up with no Cap Marvel which means the Kree-Skull war goes on much longer.
and so on and so.

You can say it only matters in regard to anything Infinity Stone related, but how do you know?

Once an AT is established, it's just as real as the regular timeline. Alternate timelines are basically indistinguishable from parallel universes, as I said in another thread.

The Infinity stones are the only thing that matter because they are the significant, intentional change being made to those timelines.

How does Captain America know that by living in the past (thereby creating an AT), he's not setting into motion some other event that might spell doom for this AT? It didn't seem to given that old-Steve returned to the prime-timeline (how, exactly?) having lived a good life, but he could not have known that.

He doesn't, but it's incredibly unlikely that Steve marrying Peggy instead of whatever chump (everybody is a chump compared to Cap, don't kid yourself) she settled for would lead to such an end. Especially since Steve went into this knowing what's coming and how the future is supposed to look like.

By the way, once an AT is created, doesn't that mean that those ATs have their own Infinity Stones? Their own Thanosi? How come none of those other Thanosi do the snap-thing? Or did they in certain ATs, which means that the Avengers saved their prime-timeline at the potential expense of all the other ATs that they, or Loki, created.

All of the ATs are exactly the same as the prime timeline up until the point the change was made. Some are big (Loki escapes in 2012, No Thanos in 2014), some are small (Thor waits 10 extra seconds for his hammer, The space stone is gone for 10 seconds and nobody was aware of it). That means all of them have a Thanos (Except 2), all of them have stones (except the prime) and all of the Thanosi want to snap.

The entire point of returning the stones to the point in time they were removed from is to make sure they were in the places they needed to be to ensure Ultron, Dorm, or whoever doesn't kill everybody because a stone was needed to stop them yet none was available.
The point of returning the stones was so that those timeline would have the stones available when they were needed.

[CliffHanger2]

Captain America staying in the past and not creating an alternate timeline pretty much pokes a big hole in everyone's "time travel rules were explained without any inconsistencies"

Yeah pretty much but then the Russos disagree he was in the prime timeline which is crazy that the writers and directors disagree about time travel in this movie lol. I think when the sentimentality wears off ppl will admit some problems the movie had.

[Kusanagi]

Creating alternate timelines is precisely what conventional time travel movies do (see back to the future, especially 2)

The difference is when Marty changed something in the past it directly impacted what his present would be, and directly interfering with his parents actually put his existence in peril. Quite the opposite in Endgame, where Nebula literally kills herself with no repercussions.