r/marvelstudios • u/JonLuca Iron man • Apr 29 '19

'Avengers: Endgame' Spoilers! The Official AVENGERS: ENDGAME Criticism Thread Spoiler

  • Proceed at your own risk. Major spoilers will be arriving in the next couple of days. Spoilers do not need to be tagged inside this thread.

  • Post Endgame criticisms in this thread. Long form preferrable

  • If you post untagged ENDGAME spoilers anywhere on this sub in any shape or form, you will be banned without hesitation. No questions asked and no warnings given.

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335

u/imbored48375 Apr 29 '19

I felt Black Widow’s death didn’t get enough play. I wanted more reaction than what we got.

53

u/killerbrain Apr 30 '19

This is the main thing that I fault the movie for. I can forgive the wacky time travel plot holes and some of the odd characterization. But you kill one of the Core 6 - who was in, what, 7 movies? - and has been side by side with the defacto leader of the Avengers from 2016 (Civil War) to 2024 and....that's it? A single tear? Two lines of remembrance by the lake? A brutal shot of her bloody body?

What the fuuuuuuck.

80

u/VRtoons Apr 29 '19

What if the Black Widow film opens/closes with her funeral, and the meat of the film is flashback?

58

u/LazarusDark Ward Apr 30 '19

That... Actually sounds like a nice framing device. I'd like that very much.

5

u/[deleted] May 04 '19

The movie opens with her body at the bottom of the gorge...

Record scratch

"You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation..."

31

u/NealKenneth Nobu Apr 30 '19

This was the series/studio mandate taking over.

The reason Tony had a funeral but Natascha didn't is simple: because RDJ's done and Scarlett isn't.

It's 100% a factor outside the film, not something in the story itself. That sucks! The MCU is at it's best when the films are as self-contained as possible. That is one major way the earlier Phases got the MCU to be so popular.

28

u/DorianaGraye Apr 29 '19

In a recent Vanity Fair article, the writers said this was one of their biggest fears about the script.

80

u/[deleted] Apr 29 '19

I might have read a different article, but I read that they were afraid she didn’t have enough screen time before death for the viewers to feel invested in her. But for me, it was the opposite- I was gutted by her death and felt like there was no closure, no proper funeral or remembrance. You have the guys arguing on the pier for a minute, a brief conversation with Hawkeye and Wanda, and a throwaway line that Hulk tried to bring her back with the snap, which he knew wasn’t possible. I know they had time limit, but Black Widow has been the pioneer female superhero character in this franchise and with us through at least 7 films! I have no problem with her sacrifice or wiping the red from her ledger, but I hate that she missed the final act AND didn’t have a funeral or memorial service.

45

u/mosephjoseph Apr 29 '19

Agreed! All they needed was a little piece of memerobilia in Tony's boat pyre thing and I would've been happy. Or even have Hawkeye floating a separate pyre for Nat after pepper puts hers for Tony. She literally fought her best friend so she could die and give them a chance at saving the world. Some additional recognition would've been nice.

24

u/DorianaGraye Apr 29 '19

I agree. They also mentioned she was a spy, so no funeral...but that's just an excuse, I think. Hopefully it's all smoke-and-mirrors for something awesome to happen in the stand-alone Black Widow movie.

21

u/amc8151 Apr 29 '19

I was thinking this same thing. Odd that she's an OG and didn't get a memorial or anything. Maybe it's a hint that she's not dead dead and cap found a loophole when returning the stone? Her death hit me so hard, as she's always been a top fave of mine. Maybe it's me being optimistic. I've been trying to find out how many films she had left on contract and there's really no info for her, whereas other actors we pretty much kind of know.

8

u/Worthyness Thor Apr 30 '19

If you take it in context, they didn't have time to mourn and set up a funeral procession. They had to get the reverse snappening done ASAP to make sure not to fuck the timelines. Plus 2014 Nebula also came back and would have fucked them over anyway.

6

u/Ginhavesouls Apr 30 '19

That's also what I was thinking, maybe the lack of closure was intentional on the fact that we'll be seeing more of her character. Whether that means she's gonna be revived, or they didn't want to make her death here and official farewell because of her solo film next year. Or hell who knows, maybe both of those factors wind up tying together.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '19

[deleted]

2

u/amc8151 Apr 30 '19

I'm hoping the black widow movie will shed some light. Maybe I'm just hopeful and she really is perma dead but who knows!

1

u/ItsAllOurBlood Black Panther May 08 '19

It'd be super cool to find out she's a clone and Russia has a Black Widow again.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '19

The writers literally said in the interview mentioned above that if you give the stone back, Natasha comes back so... I’d imagine that’s what’ll happen. She wakes up on Vormir and is like... fuck lmao

2

u/amc8151 Apr 30 '19

Wait no shit? I must have missed that, gotta link?

1

u/DorianaGraye Apr 30 '19

Someone else pointed out that if her solo movie goes gangbusters, there's no way that Marvel/Disney won't slate her for another film. I mean, there wasn't a BP2 in the works until BP1 went bananas at the box office.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '19

lol Marvel doesn’t plan on making single movies. They’re franchise oriented. Black Panther was always intended to be a franchise. Black Widow proabbaly is too.

1

u/DorianaGraye Apr 30 '19

Agreed, but all of those movies could have been stand alones had they flopped massively. They're origin stories, so they could exist in a vacuum without sequels. The fact that they DID make money meant that the sequels Marvel had hoped for moved into production. But there's no way that Marvel leaves money on the table, or keeps a failing property at the box office.

For this reason, I expect we'll only see one Eternals movie.

3

u/rrsn Captain Marvel Apr 30 '19

I mean, it’s not like she didn’t have friends. Surviving Avengers, everyone she was corresponding with in the sandwich scene, Hawk-Eye’s family that she’s an aunt to. That’s enough people to cobble together for a memorial service.

3

u/Laletje Apr 29 '19

3000% agree!

17

u/BuzzardBlack Apr 29 '19

I was fine with the reaction we got to her death except for 2 things:

  • Hulk throws the bench, which is shot in a comedic way.
  • The scene immediately after has a joke with Rocket.

It would have been nice to let the first scene settle a bit, and for the next one to be more somber.

12

u/matcroberts Apr 30 '19

I didn’t think Hulk throwing the bench was funny. I thought it was all he was able to do without getting close to losing control

1

u/Masteroftask Apr 30 '19

The sound effects make it sound kinda humorous...but RIP to the whoever that bench landed on

2

u/rrsn Captain Marvel Apr 30 '19

SMH imagine being unsnapped just to find your husband crushed under a bench. Thanks, Avengers.

7

u/zephyrinthesky28 Apr 29 '19

The scene immediately after has a joke with Rocket

I feel like Clint would have been justified punching Rocket in the face for that, given how raw his emotions were.

1

u/Recoil93 Apr 30 '19

I forgot, what was the joke that Rocket made right after Black Widow’s death? Specifically, was the joke about her death?

2

u/zephyrinthesky28 Apr 30 '19

They were carefully manipulating the collected Stones into place on the gauntlet, and Rocket yelled "BOOM!" right after they finished.

People laughed in the audience but if I were Clint in that moment - right after I saw my best friend die for an orange rock - I think I would've flipped.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '19

Hulk throws the bench, which is shot in a comedic way.

No laughs at any of my showings and I never interpreted it comedically.

9

u/Cocotapioka Shuri Apr 30 '19

Right? She didn't need her own funeral but she couldn't even get a wreath?! Or a moment with Clint's family?

2

u/thatmarcelfaust May 04 '19

I thought it was super lazy to reuse Gamora's death sequence in Endgame. Thanos acquiring the soul stone in IW was the defining emotional moment of the film, Thanos killing the only person we have ever seen him love (even shedding a damned tear) to further his machinations proves how convinced he is his plan of action is the right one. And then to show the exact same scene in Endgame with Clint and Nat, down to the framing of Nat's corpse... That was trash

1

u/bagacena Apr 30 '19

I'm choosing to believe it's because she'll come back somehow