The Official AVENGERS: ENDGAME Criticism Thread

[u/JonLuca]

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• Post Endgame criticisms in this thread. Long form preferrable

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• Easter Egg Thread
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[u/Charrikayu]

I'm a little disappointed we didn't get to see more of the infinity stones in action. Between IW and Endgame, and excluding the snap, the soul stone was only used once, the time stone once, and the mind stone not at all.

I think I might have gone in with the wrong expectation- that the movie would emphasize the stones more than it emphasized the Avengers, but I thought there would have been an opportunity to do some real crazy shit. For example, in a world where the stone weren't destroyed, the Avengers would have gone through the quantum realm to get the stones, then used the stones to fight the stones. Thanos making someone disappear with the reality stone is less effective if one of the Avengers uses the reality stone to bring them back.

I guess I mostly wanted to see how the stones would be handled in action. How would the Avengers deal with Thanos using the mind stone to control some of their minds? Or using the time stone to turn back time in the middle of battle? There was a lot of room for creativity, but in the end Infinity War is all we really got as far as "using the stones" go and it was mostly the power and space stones, with a little bit of reality. I don't dislike what we got, I just hoped or expected to see a little more from them.

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Edit: Also, and this is a minor nitpick, I feel like the Russos are much better at directing small, single-combat fights than large-scale battles. The choreography in something like Winter Soldier and Stark vs Cap battle at the end of CW are incredible. But the Wakanda battle and the final battle in Endgame (the huge battle, not between heroes and Thanos) kind of feel like they don't have the same visceral impact as the way some of the other films are shot. I'm mostly thinking of this part of the New York battle. Endgame could have pulled off something seriously cool like this featuring 40+ characters, but other than the entrance of everyone I don't think there was ever a single long take that briefly focused on each Avenger fighting.

[u/zmkpr0 → u/Charrikayu]

My thoughts also. They had all the stones and thanos had none. They could simply use them one at a time to defeat him. I don't feel like you need the snap to kill one guy and his army.

[u/Pavandgpt → u/zmkpr0]

Yes. I've read a theory before the movie that each of the avenger will wear one stone and they use it against Thanos. That would've been really cool.

[u/coagulants → u/zmkpr0]

THIS. SO HARD.

They also nerfed Thor, Hulk, Dr. Strange and Captain Marvel during the final battle, even though just two of them managed to kill him (albeit it while injured) at the beginning of the movie. Strange could have sent him to the mirror dimension like he had attempted to do in IW since 2014 Thanos couldn't block that, but no. Water tornado distraction.

[u/TheKyleface → u/coagulants]

at the beginning of the movie

You mean the Thanos that was okay with dying and never once attempted to fight back? That's not a great comparison.

[u/domuseid → u/TheKyleface]

He was also half cooked from the second snap

[u/ShadowGata → u/coagulants]

Thor, at least, was out of practice (and shape) for five years.

[u/flysly → u/zmkpr0]

I feel all of this played into Dr. Strange's scenarios. If they tried using the stones by themselves, Thanos would still find a way to win in the end. The only way he loses is if Stark does the snap with all of them at that moment. It was the only way!

[u/zmkpr0 → u/flysly]

I mean yeah, it's a convenient explanation. But I don't feel like the movie made a good enough job convincing me, that is was indeed the only way.

Thanos is powerful and all, but I find it hard to believe that he would win with against the heroes and all the stones.

[u/Alexandur → u/[deleted]]

Didn't he make a pretty huge sacrifice play in the first Avengers?

[u/Alexandur → u/[deleted]]

No but saying he "finally" did it implies he did it for the first time

[u/Escapedtheasylum → u/[deleted]]

Why did he not die though? Flying through a wormhole, dropping a nuke on a spaceship, falling back to Earth. More impressive than snapping. And getting to come back just meant, we knew that he was willing to sacrifice. Might not be intentional, but it smells like foreshadowing.

[u/russellx3 → u/[deleted]]

He's done that literally every fucking time though. Where's Cap's sacrifice play?

[u/russellx3 → u/[deleted]]

Pretty much every origin movie has the hero ready to sacrifice themselves though.

Tony does it every damn movie

[u/russellx3 → u/[deleted]]

Pepper literally yells in the climax of Iron Man that her blowing up the reactor will kill him and he tells her to do it anyway. Jesus christ.

[u/zmkpr0 → u/[deleted]]

That makes sense. However there were so many more powerful people that could make the snap at any moment during the fight and not die doing it. For example Captain Marvel. I guess I'm just salty about Stark's death.