Endgame Question

OK, saw Endgame yesterday. Question to people much more into MCU than me. In the final battle, there’s a very angry woman who comes at Thanos with two fiery swords. It looked like Natasha to me, but I suspect not, because, you know? If not, who was it?

[Update a few minutes later]

Never mind, someone on Twitter told me it was Wanda (the Scarlet Witch, a character with which I was unfamiliar, or had forgotten from Infinity War).

[Update a while later]

Question in comments: Sure, it’s been out long enough to have a spoiler discussion there. Have at it. No one has to read comments except me.

I’ll start with my curiosity about how they got all the stones back when and where they belong. That could have easily added another hour to the movie. And what are the societal implications of bringing back half the population from the missing five years later, when they haven’t aged?

12 thoughts on “Endgame Question”

  1. That was probably the Scarlet Witch. Those weren’t swords, just manifestations of her power. In Infinity War, Thanos killed her lover, the Vision, by ripping the Mind Stone from his head.

  2. Well, with that settled; I finally watched it last week as well. Is it time for spoiler discussions yet?

    1. I hope so!

      *Slight spoilers*

      I found the whole thing horrifying. You see, after Thanos wiped out half the galaxy, I was one of the survivors. Sadly, my wife was not. At this point we all know the numbers. 25% of married couples made it through unscathed, except for perhaps missing children. But those children would be fairly easy to replace from the pool of new orphans, since 25% of families lost both parents. But I was in that middle 50% of couples that lost either the husband or the wife, but not both.

      So, you know, we grieved, we leaned on each other for support at all the memorials. We helped each other out. My wife’s sister lost her husband to the ordeal, and she also had a kid, and we were really all each other had during those dark days. And, well, it just seemed kind of natural that she’d move in with me, and that we’d get married and try to get on with our lives. That happened to literally billions of couples around the globe. Some married their bosses, some went back and married their high school sweethearts, some married in-laws. We were more than surviving, we were living new lives.

      And then a few weeks ago, my dear departed just reappeared in our bathroom, waltzed into our bedroom, with no idea that anything at all had happened since I last saw her, mind you, and there I was, in bed with her sister. To say that it did not go over well is a gross understatement. And couples like us were the norm! Dr. Phil is probably booked up for the next 50,000 years. They’re going to have to add 500 more cable channels just to carry all the new clones of the Jerry Springer show.

      Now some say it was all some cosmic accident, or temporal field, or some other natural phenomenon, but others say that it was the Avengers that did this to us, intentionally inflicting more personal pain on us common folks than any people has ever suffered. If that is the case, I am going to devote the rest of my now doubly-divorced life to hunting down each and every one of them and slowly grinding them to death with a belt sander. Not only that, I’m going to film it all and sell the movie rights, at least if I’m not beaten to it by the billions of other people looking to do the same. And then we’re all going to dance a jig on the graves of those spandex wearing weirdos, because now my life has a purpose, and that purpose is revenge.

      I suppose I should come up with a name for myself. I certainly can’t use the any of the names my first wife called me that night, but something will come to mind. “Doctor Alimony.” No. “Pain Soufflé.” No. “Captain Bigamist.” No.

      Anyway, the name isn’t as important as getting payback. Hrm… And I’ve just thought of the best payback of all. First off, I’m gonna get on Tinder and set Thor up with my ex’s, and then I’m gonna Photoshop Captain America with a bunch of naked old ladies, and then…

      Yes.. I’ve got it! Bwuha! Bwuhahahaha!!!!

      *Coming soon to a theater near you.*

      1. It did seem the only rational people were the members of organized crime that went on living life as normal until the Thanos like arbiter, Hawkeye, came along.

  3. To address your other question, I’m betting that returning the stones hit a snag and they didn’t have enough screen time to cover it.

    After the funeral they sent Steve Rogers back in time to return to the stones, which he couldn’t accomplish without running into their pre-battle team that was collecting the stones. And so he ran into Tony Stark, who immediately realized that the sad-looking Captain America was returning the stones, and that the plan worked, otherwise Rogers wouldn’t be in the post-mission stone-return phase.

    Stark: “So how’d it go?”
    Rogers: “Thanos showed up, stole the stones you’re collecting, and tried to wipe out the rest of life in the universe.”
    Stark: “So how’d we stop him?”
    Rogers: “At the last second, you stole the stones from his glove, put them on your own glove and activated them, almost as planned.”
    Stark: “So it went well!”
    Rogers: “No, you died from the radiation burst when you activated the stones.”
    Stark: “So not so well.”
    Rogers: “No, not well at all. You had a very nice funeral though. Everybody misses you.”
    Stark: “Why didn’t I just rematerialize myself later, as long as I’m bringing people back? They are, after all, infinity stones.”
    Rogers: “Banner had already brought everybody back. You were getting rid of Thanos and his army.”
    Stark: “Still, I should have saved myself.”
    Rogers: “Maybe it doesn’t work that way. I mean, Thanos got pretty burned up, too, after he used them.”
    Stark: “Yes, but Thanos is also a moron who can’t understand population dynamics.”
    Rogers: “Then I guess you didn’t think of that in time.”
    Stark: “Well I’ve thought of it now.”
    Rogers: “Yeah, but that’s because I came back in time and warned you.”
    Stark: “Hrm… You are correct. I can’t rematerialize before you go on this return mission or you wouldn’t be here telling me that I’m dead. Time loop problem.”
    Rogers: “So come back sometime after I go on this return mission.”
    Stark: “Yeah, but when? I suppose I could time-jump forward into the future and see if there’s been some critical fight we lost, one where I could unexpectedly pop in and make a difference, such as some situation where the Marvel writing team is completely out of ideas.”
    Rogers: “That would be ideal!”
    Stark: “But you can’t let anyone suspect a thing or it will change the timeline.”
    Rogers: “That’s a big ask.”
    Stark: “Not if you hang out here, in the past.”
    Rogers: “Wouldn’t that also risk changing things?”
    Stark: “Not if you go back to being Steve Rogers instead of Captain America. For all we know, that’s what you ended up doing after the battle. Just stay here in the past. Marry that girl you like.”
    Rogers: “That works for me.”
    Stark: “Well, thanks for the heads up. See ya around, Captain.”
    Rogers: “No, no you won’t.”
    Stark: “Just because you’re laying low in the past doesn’t mean you won’t be conducting mission in the future. We have time travel now. Just saying.”
    Rogers: “Reporting for duty.” *salutes*

    A page somewhat like that is probably sitting in Robert Downey Jr.s desk drawer, because he makes a ridiculous amount of money off these movies.

  4. It was kind of a stupid movie but do you grade it based off being a popcorn flick or being a time travel movie. Time travel movies are notorious for being horrible. How does it stack up? Mediocre. As a popcorn flick? Just a bit above average.

    It is nice they tried to do some character development, hard to do with such a big cast.

    The femvengers scene was predictable because being a gender supremacist is now obligatory. And they tipped their hand with Captain Marvel’s new haircut because nothing says you respect a group of people than portraying them as a stereotype.

    Guardians 3 looks like it may be worth watching though.

    1. I read that Brie Larson was an egotistical nightmare to work with, and I noticed the writers decided that she, being a super-important super hero, would be just too busy elsewhere to get much screen time in Endgame. How convenient for the rest of the cast and crew!

      I enjoyed the movie’s call backs, but I think Shazam! might have been more fun.

    1. I guess what is being discussed is that as Americans, we have so much surplus wealth along with a large amount of time on our hands that billions of dollars are exchanged in what is called the Entertainment Industry.

      That and Brie Larson is a woman who appears in a movie wearing a skin-tight suit in the American national colors. Many of the men participating on Rand’s fine Web site find watching such a movie entertaining and worth handing some money over to the Entertainment Industry. Surely, that much of the discussion you can at least understand, even if you don’t approve?

      1. I’m not sure it’s that, though.

        We’re all aerospace people, and we have to figure out how to occupy ourselves while we wait for the first SLS mission. Movies are one way to do it, but there are all sorts of other activities.

        Just last week I watched Masterclass: Gordan Ramsey Teaches Cooking, which was I think about five hours, and Masterclass: Werner Herzog Teaches Filmmaking, which was six hours.

        Herzog’s course covered everything from script writing, directing, camera work, lighting, cinematography, casting, location scouting, budgeting, financing, self-financing, contract negotiations, crew size, making documentaries, to when to threaten (with death) a lead actor who is abandoning the project in a huff. Among other interesting points, he said that nowadays you could make a feature length film for about $10,000 with a crew of two, if you know what your doing.

        *checks NASA’s launch schedule*

        I’ve also started watching David Lynch Teaches Film Making, and next is Ron Howard Teaches Directing and Martin Scorsese Teaches Filmmaking.

        If there’s another schedule slip, which is probably inevitable, I’ll watch Wolfgang Puck Teaches Cooking and Neil Gaiman Teaches Storytelling. Carlos Santana has a class on the guitar, but I figure nobody will want to suffer through that because I have no musical ability whatsoever.

        We do what we must to pass the time between project milestones. Maybe I’ll join a bridge club.

        I’m just glad I’m following the SLS instead of SpaceX. Those SpaceX fanatics can hardly find time to go to the bathroom in between launches. I laugh at them as I cue up another hour of instruction on making a perfect poached egg on toast and mushrooms with a sprinkling of truffle, or get tips on dealing with actors who are almost completely insane.

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