Endgame. Beware, here be spoilers.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Cap picking up the hammer hit me far more emotionally.

 

The fact that they could make these characters resonate with all of us so strongly is a real testament to what Feige and the guys at Marvel created here.  I have no problem proclaiming this the best movie franchise ever.  I'm not sure it's particularly close.

Neither am I, and I'm a HUGE Star Wars bobo. I know the trash compactor number. I've read all the books. Once, my friends challenged me to repeat every line from A New Hope live as the movie played. I made it 33 minutes before missing a beat.

 

But this Marvel series is... wow.

 

One of the least-talked about points of Cap holding the hammer is Thor yelling "YES! I KNEW IT!"

 

It made an amazing moment even better.

[TheLeviathan]

What's really amazing about that Brock, and this plays to your FF4 love, is that you could argue Marvel isn't even playing with characters that have ever carried their brand.

 

Cap and Hulk certainly were noteworthy, but as a property the Avengers have rarely been Marvel's flagship title.  The FF4 had it for a long time, the X-men had it, Spiderman had it, but did the Avengers ever have it?

 

Imagine what they can do with those characters!  They've only tapped the surface of their options.  And they kicked all of our asses emotionally for the better part of two decades.  Pun intended - that's a marvel.

[Brock Beauchamp]

What's really amazing about that Brock, and this plays to your FF4 love, is that you could argue Marvel isn't even playing with characters that have ever carried their brand.

 

Cap and Hulk certainly were noteworthy, but as a property the Avengers have rarely been Marvel's flagship title. The FF4 had it for a long time, the X-men had it, Spiderman had it, but did the Avengers ever have it?

 

Imagine what they can do with those characters! They've only tapped the surface of their options. And they kicked all of our asses emotionally for the better part of two decades. Pun intended - that's a marvel.

Absolutely. Marvel did all of this without use of their marquee franchises until they got the rights to Spidey back from Sony.

[Badsmerf]

Wow, you guys liked it that much? I thought it was boring and predictable. It is nice they tied things together, and thoroughly impressive they had the stamina and forethought to string all these movies together.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Wow, you guys liked it that much? I thought it was boring and predictable.

It was predictable that five years passed, the heroes lost, and the second act became a heist film weaving together 20 other movies?

 

Sure, you can argue the final act was predictable but it's also what audiences wanted after 21 films of leading up to this point.

 

But I do not understand how you can say the first two hours of the film were predictable. I thought the writers did a fantastic job of not being predictable in a film that could have easily phoned it in and still made a billion and a half dollars.

[Badsmerf]

You didn't see that coming? I couldn't have plotted out the movie before I went, but the time heist was really the only surprising part. Tying all the movies together was a nice feat, but doesn't make much difference to me on the quality.

 

Maybe it's just me, but I didn't think it was all that great. Just like I thought black Panther was terrible. I really like some of the characters. Tony Stark was great, even though the first iron man was the best. Quill is awesome, but I just life Chris Pratt. Actually, the whole guardians crew is great, minus mantis. Thor is a great character too.

 

It is hard fitting them all in a movie, so props to them for not being terrible.

[TheLeviathan]

 

You didn't see that coming? I couldn't have plotted out the movie before I went, but the time heist was really the only surprising part. 

 

Wasn't the time heist most of the first two hours?

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Wasn't the time heist most of the first two hours?

Yes.

[Badsmerf]

Wasn't the time heist most of the first two hours?

No. As soon as ant man came back, I thought the plot was easy to see.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

No. As soon as ant man came back, I thought the plot was easy to see.

You're using the argument "once this surprise plot mechanism revealed how it was going to play out during the rest of the movie, I totally saw what was coming next".

 

Uh, man, I hate to break it to you but that was kind of the point of Scott Lang's exposition about where he had been for the past five years.

[TheLeviathan]

 

No. As soon as ant man came back, I thought the plot was easy to see.

 

I guess I'm not sure what you mean.  It's totally cool that you didn't love it, I've never known anything that everyone loved.

 

You're just terribly wrong is all,

[Brock Beauchamp]

It's fine not to love anything, really... but saying that film was predictable defies what was actually put on screen. Sure, the ending was predictable, maybe the beginning was predictable... but the entire middle was this unexpected romp through the MCU that no one saw coming.

 

Say you don't like the film. That's cool. I seriously disagree (and you didn't like Black Panther?!?!?!)... but this movie's course was not predictable. It walked a very delicate line of getting to where audiences wanted while feeding into hardcore fans' desires (obnoxiously so with all those references and character callbacks!), yet remaining accessible to those who just wanted a popcorn flick, all the while taking twists and turns no one expected.

 

As a person who has written and sold comic stories for years, I was flabbergasted that the writers pulled off all that they did. It *should* have been an unmanageable task, yet they pulled it off delightfully.

 

Name another movie that worked in 30 characters in a meaningful way and didn't fall on its face by getting caught up in itself.

[TheLeviathan]

For the record, I've found Black Panther a bit overrated.  Seriously good, but not quite up to the hype.  

 

This movie exceeded my insane level of hype.  And satisfyingly completed character arcs started almost two decades ago.  Wedged that all in with spine-tingling action scenes and fan service that didn't feel gimmicky....no popcorn summer movie can boast doing even a couple of these well.  Avengers Endgame hit all the notes.  

[Brock Beauchamp]

For the record, I've found Black Panther a bit overrated. Seriously good, but not quite up to the hype.

 

This movie exceeded my insane level of hype. And satisfyingly completed character arcs started almost two decades ago. Wedged that all in with spine-tingling action scenes and fan service that didn't feel gimmicky....no popcorn summer movie can boast doing even a couple of these well. Avengers Endgame hit all the notes.

I agree with all of this. I liked BP a lot but found its 102% rating on Rotten Tomatoes a bit excessive (only slightly exaggerating).

[Badsmerf]

When the the entire plot is given away in 5 minutes, yes, it's predictable. Waving the characters in was done well. I was never into comics, so don't really care about the fanboy stuff. If that is what everyone wanted, and everyone else loved it, I digress.

[Mike Sixel]

Wow, you guys liked it that much? I thought it was boring and predictable. It is nice they tied things together, and thoroughly impressive they had the stamina and forethought to string all these movies together.

I found it underwhelming. Not one person died when a space ship blew up a building to rubble?

 

Help me understand how Thanos with no stones can survive fights like that? Help me understand why they even fought, and didn't just keep shooting from the ship.

[Mike Sixel]

A huge battle, and not one good guy was killed in action. I just don't see any stakes.

 

The grrrrl power scene was too over the top for me.

 

Scarlet witch can control so much, she can't break a limb?

 

Thor couldn't hardly hurt Thanos?

 

I loved the way they handled time travel, and Thanos finding out. I utterly hated the final battle.

[gunnarthor]

 

The grrrrl power scene was too over the top for me.

 

My daughter loved it. Frankly, we need more of them. Why shouldn't those heroic women have that moment? It was great. Was it any less odd than that only Iron Man, Cap and Thor (the main three avengers) first took on Thanos? 

[Mike Sixel]

 

My daughter loved it. Frankly, we need more of them. Why shouldn't those heroic women have that moment? It was great. Was it any less odd than that only Iron Man, Cap and Thor (the main three avengers) first took on Thanos? 

 

It was less odd, yes, because there was no good reason for only women to show up to help each other.  It just wasn't "realistic" within the confines of the story. I'm all for more powerful women in movies, but that scene did nothing for me (but I get how it would for others, especially girls wanting strong role models)

 

The whole final battle was full of stupid, imo, and fan service. Blech. I really think I'd have liked that movie a lot more with a better final battle.

 

As for compared to fighting Thanos, several others did fight him, it just so happens those three are the stars of the show.....but ya, why not everyone team up on Thanos at once? All that power, and Thanos can stand up to the Scarlet Witch, a God, Iron Man and his tech? Or Captain Marvel? No chance, not w/o the stones. Why didn't Thanos have his guards with him? Why the arrogance?

[biggentleben]

 

My daughter loved it. Frankly, we need more of them. Why shouldn't those heroic women have that moment? It was great. Was it any less odd than that only Iron Man, Cap and Thor (the main three avengers) first took on Thanos? 

 

Yeah, that scene was not for story line. It was 100% for a fan base - one that is so seldom represented in movies like this.

[Brock Beauchamp]

A huge battle, and not one good guy was killed in action. I just don't see any stakes.

 

The grrrrl power scene was too over the top for me.

 

Scarlet witch can control so much, she can't break a limb?

 

Thor couldn't hardly hurt Thanos?

 

I loved the way they handled time travel, and Thanos finding out. I utterly hated the final battle.

Without the stones, Thanos could handle Thor without too much difficulty. He can square off against the Hulk and win.

 

One small nit to pick is that the movies didn’t really emphasize how powerful he is without the stones, which is why he can use the stones at all.

[TheLeviathan]

 

Without the stones, Thanos could handle Thor without too much difficulty. He can square off against the Hulk and win.

One small nit to pick is that the movies didn’t really emphasize how powerful he is without the stones, which is why he can use the stones at all.

 

Right, they had Thanos beat down Hulk for "fun" in the first movie.  So it's not like he didn't have legit cred stones or not.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Right, they had Thanos beat down Hulk for "fun" in the first movie. So it's not like he didn't have legit cred stones or not.

He already had the power stone at that point, which is the reason I bring up why they didn’t do a very good job of showing just how powerful he is without a stone.

 

When it came around to End Game, audience members may have thought Thanos was just a dude. He’s not. He took on the Avengers and other groups multiple times in the comics before Infinity Gauntlet came around in 1991 or so. He’s super powerful. Again, that’s why he can hold the stones at all.

[TheLeviathan]

 

He already had the power stone at that point, which is the reason I bring up why they didn’t do a very good job of showing just how powerful he is without a stone.

When it came around to End Game, audience members may have thought Thanos was just a dude. He’s not. He took on the Avengers and other groups multiple times in the comics before Infinity Gauntlet came around in 1991 or so. He’s super powerful. Again, that’s why he can hold the stones at all.

 

He didn't use the power stone in that fight though.  I guess you could argue people see just possessing it as a sort of power-up, but that's not how they showed the stones in use.  At least that's not how I interpreted them.

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

He didn't use the power stone in that fight though.  I guess you could argue people see just possessing it as a sort of power-up, but that's not how they showed the stones in use.  At least that's not how I interpreted them.

In the comics (and the movies from what I remember), the power stone is basically a power-up stone that doesn't need to be activated. It's just... there. To whoop ass. That's basically what it does.

[Mike Sixel]

Again, just one part of a battle that was illogical with no real consequences to the good guys. It should be obvious from my thrones posts, I'm not into stupid battles with no consequences, and really don't like plot armor.

[Mike Sixel]

A friend on Facebook posted something I agree with, the movie started great, and got progressively less so as it went on.

[TheLeviathan]

 

Again, just one part of a battle that was illogical with no real consequences to the good guys. It should be obvious from my thrones posts, I'm not into stupid battles with no consequences, and really don't like plot armor.

 

The battle had potential consequences, a lot of it was fight and keep the stones away from Thanos.

 

And they very nearly failed but for a sacrifice.

[Mike Sixel]

 

The battle had potential consequences, a lot of it was fight and keep the stones away from Thanos.

 

And they very nearly failed but for a sacrifice.

 

enemy space ships, huge monsters, thousands of combatants.....who died? Why didn't Thanos just shoot from space the whole time? Hell, blow up the planet, the stones survive. 

 

Why didn't the Scarlet Witch break Thanos' weapon, if she somehow can't just break his bones?

 

[TheLeviathan]

 

enemy space ships, huge monsters, thousands of combatants.....who died? Why didn't Thanos just shoot from space the whole time? Hell, blow up the planet, the stones survive. 

 

Why didn't the Scarlet Witch break Thanos' weapon, if she somehow can't just break his bones?

 

Mike, in the movie one of his lead combatants said it would destroy his own troops.  Why would that be his first option?

 

It's cool not to like that fight, I'm just struggling with your reasons.