Avengers: Endgame

[The Buffinator]

Watched this for the 2nd time last night, and... it's really kind of slow. All that down time being sad in the post-snap world... the time travel stuff was only moderately engaging, with so much time spent on schmaltzy "talk with loved ones"... then finally, the big battle.

Question: how far back in time did Cap go to be with Peggy? Clearly looks like the 50's. Where'd he get the extra juice to get there? Did he NOT replace the PIM juice like he said he would? So he lied? Cap lied?

Also, if he went back to the 50's (let's say 1955) and the current time in Endgame is 2026 (is that right?), then for him its been 71 years when they find him on that bench... PLUS add his age when he went back in time (say 35)... so he's at least around 106 years old on that bench?

Well, Hank Pym is alive again after Tony's snap, so making more Pym particles should have no longer been a problem. I think we are to assume that they provided Cap with more than enough vials to make all the jumps required (and then some JIC) before he left.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Yes, but doesn't anyone ask "why so much juice, Cap? Going somewhere?..."

Anyway, the Pym juice is no longer a concern of mine... now it's the whole idea of returning the stones that bothers me.

 

[The Buffinator]

That seems a little convenient. No wait -- it IS convenient. You should have to replace it in the exact place where it was when it was taken, otherwise the entire conceit breaks down.

So Cap just goes to NY and drops the time stone anywhere and it goes right back to The Ancient One's necklace? So why go to New York, why not China... and why that year then, why not any time prior? Why do you have to go to Earth even, why not anywhere in the Universe... they're Infinity Stones for crying out loud.

If you set up a rule, you have to carry it through. I assumed Cap had to go back to all the places where he "upset" the timeline to return and correct. Otherwise, just toss the stones into the Quantum Zone and let them find their way home.

That's what I've assumed, especially when it came to his time with Peggy. By holding off on returning the Tesseract to where Tony stole it from, his life with Peggy existed in an alternate timeline. Once she died, he replaced it and poof that timeline never happened, but he still aged those 70+ years or whatever. Plus that way their time together didn't negate anything in Peggy's subsequent life, so he's not related to Sharon and that kiss they had in CW isn't retroactively creepy.

 

[Wor-Gar]

That makes sense.

 

[The Buffinator]

Yes, but doesn't anyone ask "why so much juice, Cap? Going somewhere?..."

Anyway, the Pym juice is no longer a concern of mine... now it's the whole idea of returning the stones that bothers me.


And if Cap is holding all the stones in his pocket, won't the stones electrocute him with those rainbow colors? Or does actual action from the stones require that silly gold glove?

He had them all in that little case, right? Since Tony was dead at that point, I'm assuming Professor Hulk designed it to contain them safely. Considering what a bang-up job he did on the time travel without Tony's help, I'm sure Cap had nothing to worry about.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Yeah, I remembered the case after I typed that, hence the deletion.

They sure know a lot about stones they only just discovered.

 

[e30ernest]

Yeah, I remembered the case after I typed that, hence the deletion.

They sure know a lot about stones they only just discovered.

They probably knew just enough.

Tony would have kept telemetry records from his encounter with Thanos for sure. Thor knows a bit too and so does Nebula. The rest of the data probably came from directly studying the stones (we don't know how much time transpired between their return and the gauntlet being built).

 

[BeefEaster]

I dunno why they needed to return the stones at all. Cap could have gone back and just told everyone to not bother taking the stones because they already succeeded.

I mean, why wait til everyone took the stones and then replace them when you could just stop them from taking them in the first place.

 

[e30ernest]

I dunno why they needed to return the stones at all. Cap could have gone back and just told everyone to not bother taking the stones because they already succeeded.

I mean, why wait til everyone took the stones and then replace them when you could just stop them from taking them in the first place.

Because that's not how time travel works in this universe. Telling their other past selves not to take the stones will just create a new branch while the time they took the stones from will create another branch (they will still be missing their stones).

 

[Buttmunch]

I feel like there’s a missing film about Cap returning the stones. Not all of them would have been simple to return. Plus I’d really like to see the Red Skull and Cap meet again. Can the soul stone even be returned? I wish they could have filled in what happened with this mission. They could possibly even explain how Cap could have gotten back in our timeline by using the stones. Otherwise the ending completely disregards all the time travel rules they set up. I don’t buy Marvel being that lazy.

 

[BeefEaster]

Because that's not how time travel works in this universe. Telling their other past selves not to take the stones will just create a new branch while the time they took the stones from will create another branch (they will still be missing their stones).

But the ancient one said that only taking a stone creates an alternate timeline so if cap told them to never take the stones then no alternate timelines would ever be created then cap would go back to the present and everthing would be just like he left it since they established that changing the past won't change the future so they'd just have a duplicate set of the stones.

 

[e30ernest]

But the ancient one said that only taking a stone creates an alternate timeline so if cap told them to never take the stones then no alternate timelines would ever be created then cap would go back to the present and everthing would be just like he left it since they established that changing the past won't change the future so they'd just have a duplicate set of the stones.

It goes back to how they cannot change their own pasts, so they cannot change how their past selves did not get the stones. It's how Nebula is still here even after killing her past self. The past Avengers would have always gotten the stones.

 

[BeefEaster]

Their own rules contradict themselves though since they said that taking the stones in the past created branch realities yet they also said that when you go back in time that past becomes your future so you can't change anything so there would never be any branching realities to begin with since they didn't actually change the past and cap traveling back to replace the stones wouldn't fix the branching realities anyways because he can't go back and change the past which is exactly what replacing the stones would do, but that's not possible according to their own rules.

 

[e30ernest]

Their own rules contradict themselves though since they said that taking the stones in the past created branch realities yet they also said that when you go back in time that past becomes your future so you can't change anything so there would never be any branching realities to begin with since they didn't actually change the past and cap traveling back to replace the stones would fix the branching patchs anyways because he can't go back and change the past which is exactly what replacing the stones would do, but that's not possible accoring to their own rules.

It doesn't contradict it if:

• Removing the stones creates a branching timeline.
• Returning the stones at the point they removed the stones (i.e., after, and not before) closes that branch.

They aren't fixing their past. Their fixing the future of that timeline branch by closing it with the return of the stones.

 

[BeefEaster]

But they can't replace the stones since according to their own rules they can't change anything that's already happened.

Like if they go back and cause a car wreck it wouldn't matter since they didn't actually change the past so it would be pointless to go back to prevent the wreck since the wreck would have never happened regardless.

If taking the stones creates branching realities then wouldn't everything else they do in the past create them too?

For instance loki took a stone in 2012 but then they went back and got the stone from 1970 so even if they took the stone back to 1970 loki would have already taken it in 2012 so without loki returning the stone he took they couldn't close that branch.

 

[e30ernest]

But they can't replace the stones since according to their own rules they can't change anything that's already happened.

Like if they go back and cause a car wreck it wouldn't matter since they didn't actually change the past so it would be pointless to go back to prevent the wreck since the wreck would have never happened regardless.

If taking the stones creates branching realities then wouldn't everything else they do in the past create them too?

For instance loki took a stone in 2012 but then they went back and got the stone from 1970 so even if they took the stone back to 1970 loki would have already taken it in 2012 so without loki returning the stone he took they couldn't close that branch.

They are not trying to change what already happened. Using your analogy of a car wreck, taking the stones away is analogous to removing the brakes of a car which can result in a car wreck (car wreck = branching timeline). The went back to return the brakes before the car leaves and wrecks itself. So they are not changing the past.

Loki never took the stone out of that timeline. It's still in 2012, hence the Avengers don't need to chase that down.

 

[BeefEaster]

None of that makes sense to me, why would they need to fix the timelines where they took the stones so nothing terrible happens but not the timeline where loki takes the stone? A timeline where loki has a stone cound end up just as terrible as a timeline missing the stone entirely. Do they just not care what happens in that reality?

 

[e30ernest]

None of that makes sense to me, why would they need to fix the timelines where they took the stones so nothing terrible happens but not the timeline where loki takes the stone? A timeline where loki has a stone cound end up just as terrible as a timeline missing the stone entirely. Do they just not care what happens in that reality?

The Ancient One's explanation states that the stone needs to leave the timeline to create a branching timeline. Loki never left that timeline. He just went off to a different point in space. Since Loki never left that timeline, the stone never left that timeline either.

 

[BeefEaster]

And that makes even less sense, why would only removing stones create branching paths?

If that's true then why did cap need to return thor's hammer?

 

[The Buffinator]

And that makes even less sense, why would only removing stones create branching paths?

Because that's what it said in the script.

If that's true then why did cap need to return thor's hammer?

I'm guessing because Thor asked him nicely.