The biggest let down with Endgame was not Fat Thor. (Spoilers)

[Powerboy]

They didn't change their past they didn't stop the snap they just brought everyone back.

I would say the one thing that did change if we are going with the idea that it's one reality and not alternate time lines is that Cap stayed in the past with Peggy Carter. That is undeniably a change if it is not an alternate timeline.

[Jokerz79]

I would say the one thing that did change if we are going with the idea that it's one reality and not alternate time lines is that Cap stayed in the past with Peggy Carter. That is undeniably a change if it is not an alternate timeline.

There is debate there the Russo's say Cap created another reality and came back as a old man to give the Shield to Sam. The writers say Cap was always Perry's husband living in secret which begs to ask how Sharon never realized Steve was her Uncle.

[Donald]

They didn't change their past they didn't stop the snap they just brought everyone back.

I think you're right, I see where I was mis-remembering/thinking now.

In fact, the Avengers may have saved the alternate time line from Thanos. If the "time heist" happened in one time line, the Thanos they fought would have been snapped before he collected the stones and did his own snap.

But saying there is no alternate time lines is just plain wrong. Loki escaping with the Tesseract is an alternate time line. Cap telling Cap about Bucky changes things. Thanos dying changes things. Gamora jumping time lines changes things. The butterfly effect get more pronounced when the butterflies are gamma powered or have arc reactor wings.

[WebLurker]

Having seen the film 5 times, I'm positive in what I'm saying. The AO refers to only being concerned about preserving "her timeline" in that conversation with Hulk. The branch that would be clipped is the dark one where she didn't have the stone.

Difference without any difference?

Exactly. The movie had characters explaining how time travel "really works" in detail specifically to clarify that they were actually changing the past, not creating an alternate timeline...The Avengers took a point of view that there is one reality or at least only one that is accessible and it can be rewritten.

No, that's the exact opposite of what we're info-dumped:

War Machine: "Wait, wait, wait a second. Let me ask you something. If we can do this, you know…go back in time, why don't we just find baby Thanos, you know, and… [makes strangling sounds]
Hulk: "First of all, that's horrible."
War Machine: "It's Thanos."
Hulk: "And secondly, time doesn't work that way. Changing the past doesn't change the future."
Ant-Man: "Look, we go back, we get the stones before Thanos gets them? Thanos doesn't have the stones. Problem solved."
Hawkeye: "Bingo."
Nebula: "That's not how it works."
Hawkeye: "Well, that's what I heard."
Hulk: "Wait, but who? Who told you that?"
War Machine: "Star Trek, Terminator, Timecop, Time After Time…"
Ant-Man: "…Quantum Leap…"
War Machine: "Wrinkle in Time, Somewhere in Time…"
Ant-Man: "Hot Tub Time Machine..."
War Machine: "Hot Tub Time Machine, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, basically, any movie that deals with time travel."
Ant-Man: "Die Hard? No, that's not one."
War Machine: "This is known."
Hulk: "I don't know why everyone believes that, but that isn't true. Think about it. If you travel to the past, that past becomes your future. And your former present becomes the past, which can't now be changed by your new future…"
Nebula: "Exactly."
Ant-Man: "So, Back to the Future is a bunch of bullshit?"

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

If the past can't be changed, how did it not happen?

They created alternate timelines by stealing the stones. By placing them back they fixed it because it was effectively close enough. Hulk explains it to the Sorceress. That’s why he promises her that they’ll return the stones.

[Beaddle]

I am not kicking Endgame for the outcome of time travel, it's time travel there will be many outcomes. Even what I consider the greatest time travel story of all time (Star Trek: Next Generation's Yesterday's Enterprise.) had many questions unanswered and branch offs. I am going to watch Legion season 3 after skipping season 2 , First because Xavier is going to be in season 3 and I like Time Travel stories. From what I have read, Legion uses it as is expected for a series that has no connection with MCU. Treat time itself as another character.

https://www.inverse.com/article/5702...engers-endgame.

''In Legion Season 3, time is a weapon. Time is a problem. Time is a solution. Time is a source of confusion. Time is also the means through which we can to watch violent, super-powered battles to the death over and over again. We want to see David get his arm lopped off and for Syd to shoot him to death. It’s satisfying to watch yet safe for the show to do when time travel can easily reverse such a dire event.

Twice in the Legion Season 3 premiere, we see horrifying scenes of epic violence meant to deliberately riff on X-Men: Days of Future Past — the comics story, but much more recently the 2014 live-action movie. Legion emulates Days of Future Past rather than Endgame when it comes to time travel, and it’s that much better for it''.

And that is how you construct a less cliche Time travel plot. Disney should have dug further with Endgame.

[80sbaby]

Difference without any difference?

I have no idea what you mean by this?

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

I have no idea what you mean by this?

Basically the idea is it is theoretically possible that a new timeline was created but because the stones were returned it didn’t really make a difference. Like now there’s the original timeline and then there is the the 2nd one where the Avengers stole the stones and replaced them. Thus everything was preserved.

Basically a fluid alternate timeline where it only branches from the correct one insofar as you change it so events can’t progress.

I still think it’s one timeline.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Anyways the biggest issue with the time travel isn’t the mechanics of how they used it. The biggest issue is that they ended up trying to be bold by creating an insurmountable obstacle and then had no choice but to time travel around it. Any bravery of where they went with the plot was fundamentally undone by going there..

[MarkRodriguez09]

Doesn't the Time Stone fix things though? Before the Hulk Snap, Tony wanted to make sure they change everything except the last 5 years, to make sure they bring back all the snap victims but don't accidentally un-exist his daughter. Pretty sure that snap fixed any timeline inconsistencies.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Doesn't the Time Stone fix things though? Before the Hulk Snap, Tony wanted to make sure they change everything except the last 5 years, to make sure they bring back all the snap victims but don't accidentally un-exist his daughter. Pretty sure that snap fixed any timeline inconsistencies.

No the second snap was just a Dragonball mass resurrection. They didn’t want to fuck with time because people had lives and children were born. Basically everyone in the snap got a Captain America style 5 year freezing

Now that I think about it, anybody who died as a result of the snap is still dead. So if you were on a plane and the snap killed your pilot.....

[80sbaby]

Basically the idea is it is theoretically possible that a new timeline was created but because the stones were returned it didn’t really make a difference. Like now there’s the original timeline and then there is the the 2nd one where the Avengers stole the stones and replaced them. Thus everything was preserved.

Basically a fluid alternate timeline where it only branches from the correct one insofar as you change it so events can’t progress.

I still think it’s one timeline.

Well that's impossible considering Loki still stole the Space Stone in 2012 and they never went after him. So there has to be alternate timelines.

That's not taking into consideration the other anomalies/paradoxes that would occur AND the fact that they said time travel doesn't work that way. I'm not sure why people are disregarding that part?

[Scott Taylor]

They created alternate timelines by stealing the stones. By placing them back they fixed it because it was effectively close enough. Hulk explains it to the Sorceress. That’s why he promises her that they’ll return the stones.

Yep. The explanation was very clear. And very confusing.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Well that's impossible considering Loki still stole the Space Stone in 2012 and they never went after him. So there has to be alternate timelines.

That's not taking into consideration the other anomalies/paradoxes that would occur AND the fact that they said time travel doesn't work that way. I'm not sure why people are disregarding that part?

I think that’s just going to make Loki a time paradox so he can return from the dead the same way Gamora is

[AJBopp]

AND the fact that they said time travel doesn't work that way. I'm not sure why people are disregarding that part?

I'm not sure why some are disregarding that Banner and the Ancient One specifically said that removing the stones is what creates alternate timelines, and putting them back eliminates them. This is exactly what they did. Yes, they created alternate timelines but they erased them all when they returned them. What part of "I'll clip all the branches" said by Cap wasn't clear?

And although alternate timelines were for awhile created, the movie never explored any of them. Everything that happened in the film happened in one timeline.

There are a few remaining paradoxes. People like to talk about Thanos being killed too soon, or Nebula killing her younger self but still existing. Those seem weird but they are consistent with the internal logic of the film.

The one thing left unresolved is that they had one space stone to return, but it was taken from two different places. There's either an alternate timeline starting in the 70s, or in 2012.