Marvel's WHAT IF?

[ShadowX81]

That's similar to how Thanos reversed time to bring back Vision to get the stone too good point. My head canon here is that it is not "time travel" in the sense you move to a different point in time, but more like a reversal in the flow of time where you make time move backwards.

Fair enough. I do see a distinction there. So in that case would all that Doctor Strange have to do is dig her up and reverse her time over her corpse?

 

[e30ernest]

Fair enough. I do see a distinction there. So in that case would all that Doctor Strange have to do is dig her up and reverse her time over her corpse?

It's a can of worms isn't it?

 

[ShadowX81]

It's a can of worms isn't it?

Lol, both metaphorically; and in this case literally.

 

[Otomofan]

I know people loved the "feel good" moments of Endgame like the big battle at the end.

But I've been saying it all along, it was a ****** movie, not just cause I'm a curmudgeon and I hate everything. I thought Infinity War was the best MCU movie, hands down. I really enjoyed it.

But Endgame always was, and always will be, nothing but a big cheat. There's not a shred of the plot that can hold up to the slightest scrutiny. You have to just "turn your brain off" and accept what they tell you. I hate movies that require viewers to make themselves intentionally stupid in order to enjoy.

Or, as a much wiser man than me put it:

If you pull even a strand of the "sweater" of Endgame, the entire thing unravels and you have nothing. So you have to just ignore all logic and "realism" and just accept that "some magic works, but other magic doesn't work, and some characters can do anything but sometimes they can't do stuff even though that doesn't really make sense, but just trust us on it, OK?"

 

[darth dennis]

I know people loved the "feel good" moments of Endgame like the big battle at the end.

But I've been saying it all along, it was a ****** movie, not just cause I'm a curmudgeon and I hate everything. I thought Infinity War was the best MCU movie, hands down. I really enjoyed it.

But Endgame always was, and always will be, nothing but a big cheat. There's not a shred of the plot that can hold up to the slightest scrutiny. You have to just "turn your brain off" and accept what they tell you. I hate movies that require viewers to make themselves intentionally stupid in order to enjoy.

Or, as a much wiser man than me put it:

If you pull even a strand of the "sweater" of Endgame, the entire thing unravels and you have nothing. So you have to just ignore all logic and "realism" and just accept that "some magic works, but other magic doesn't work, and some characters can do anything but sometimes they can't do stuff even though that doesn't really make sense, but just trust us on it, OK?"

Isn't that whole "suspension of belief" a tenant of comic books though? We are generally talking about meta humans, mutants, borderline gods, actual gods, supernatural beings and elements, etc.

I personally liked Endgame because it was fun and while I agree that there's a whole bunch of "huh?" moments in it, the pay off was pretty cool to me.

I do agree that Infinity War was the best MCU movie though...and that you are indeed a curmudgeon, but I dig your perspectives

 

[Otomofan]

Well of course there's suspension of disbelief. But the point of all the movies leading up to Endgame was that there were still "rules." Most of the bad guys died....a few heroes died along the way. But for the most part, it's grounded in reality.

The minute you introduce magic and time travel and "multiverses" then there are ZERO stakes for anything. There's no death, there's no consequences, and there's no emotional weight to anything.

It's why Batman should never interact with most of the rest of the DCU. There are magicians and time travelers all over the place. The first thing he'd do is go back in time and save his parents and then there'd be no Batman.

The time travel in the MCU is as big a cheat as the time travel in "Bill and Ted" when they basically use it as magic to steal his dad's keys and drop the garbage can and all that stuff.

(Fun fact about Bill and Ted.....Rufus never introduces himself to Bill and Ted, but when their future selves show up, they say "Listen to this dude, Rufus, he knows what he's talking about!" That's a paradox.)

Anyway. I'm clearly overthinking things.

 

[darth dennis]

Well of course there's suspension of disbelief. But the point of all the movies leading up to Endgame was that there were still "rules." Most of the bad guys died....a few heroes died along the way. But for the most part, it's grounded in reality.

The minute you introduce magic and time travel and "multiverses" then there are ZERO stakes for anything. There's no death, there's no consequences, and there's no emotional weight to anything.

It's why Batman should never interact with most of the rest of the DCU. There are magicians and time travelers all over the place. The first thing he'd do is go back in time and save his parents and then there'd be no Batman.

The time travel in the MCU is as big a cheat as the time travel in "Bill and Ted" when they basically use it as magic to steal his dad's keys and drop the garbage can and all that stuff.

(Fun fact about Bill and Ted.....Rufus never introduces himself to Bill and Ted, but when their future selves show up, they say "Listen to this dude, Rufus, he knows what he's talking about!" That's a paradox.)

Anyway. I'm clearly overthinking things.

I draw the line at you attacking the accuracy of the original Bill and Ted! LOL

 

[matticus]

Well of course there's suspension of disbelief. But the point of all the movies leading up to Endgame was that there were still "rules." Most of the bad guys died....a few heroes died along the way. But for the most part, it's grounded in reality.

The minute you introduce magic and time travel and "multiverses" then there are ZERO stakes for anything. There's no death, there's no consequences, and there's no emotional weight to anything.

It's why Batman should never interact with most of the rest of the DCU. There are magicians and time travelers all over the place. The first thing he'd do is go back in time and save his parents and then there'd be no Batman.

The time travel in the MCU is as big a cheat as the time travel in "Bill and Ted" when they basically use it as magic to steal his dad's keys and drop the garbage can and all that stuff.

(Fun fact about Bill and Ted.....Rufus never introduces himself to Bill and Ted, but when their future selves show up, they say "Listen to this dude, Rufus, he knows what he's talking about!" That's a paradox.)

Anyway. I'm clearly overthinking things.

Called money, bro. Risk the integrity of your property in order to drive sales. You like SW right? Let's make these books. It resurrected SW from the 80's! No, that was just a platform to make more movies. Like the movies? You get Clone Wars for 15 years! Disney buys SW. We need to make that money back, SW movies every year now!

Marvel is in that zone now. Like Marvel movies? Here is a show every quarter of the year now! We only have so much content, so let's introduce a multiverse where anything is possible! It brings us properties we didn't have access to before and opens the door for any character, any event at any point!

I fear people will continually refer back to Endgame and Loki to compare what their rules were to what is being created today. Not sure if you can keep the integrity of that going. But you can always use that multiverse excuse or that it doesn't impact the timeline enough to worry about. Ugh.

 

[TurdFurgusonsHat]

Multiverse sucks!

 

[jodl73]

The “Back to the Future“ and “Terminator” franchises, in my opinion, handled time travel so much better. They were simpler.

 

[e30ernest]

Lol, both metaphorically; and in this case literally.

Ok, so ScreenCrush did a good Easter Egg breakdown on this episode. They cane to the same conclusion re: the differences of traveling in time (like in Endgame) vs time manipulation via the Time Stone:



So Dr. Strange wasn't moving back in time, instead was making time move backwards around him. This explains how his actions in the "past" was affecting the reality of the other Dr. Strange. They are still in the same timeline. I guess the other Dr. Strange's universe started to breakdown because the evil Dr. Strange already beat him in the past.

I guess he couldn't reverse Christine's time because she will also eventually die (he needs to change her fate).

 

[a-dev]

Damn, even Elizabeth Olsen's weird faces are just cute AF (see above youtube thumbnail)

 

[ZE_501]

Isn't that whole "suspension of belief" a tenant of comic books though?

As @Otomofan points out, there have to be rules.

In any fantasy narrative we take as given that certain impossible things are allowable, but then build a scaffolding of internal logic to create stakes and suspense. And that needs to be consistent, which the MCU seems to be getting sloppy with these days.

Regarding Endgame, on the one hand I thought it was a great conclusion and very entertaining, but there were some baffling decisions and as for time travel -- as soon as that gets introduced in any story I just stop thinking about it because there's no point trying to make sense of it.

 

[xipotec]

I thought the episode was very well done. Good emotional punch at the end.

 

[matticus]

Ok, so ScreenCrush did a good Easter Egg breakdown on this episode. They cane to the same conclusion re: the differences of traveling in time (like in Endgame) vs time manipulation via the Time Stone:



So Dr. Strange wasn't moving back in time, instead was making time move backwards around him. This explains how his actions in the "past" was affecting the reality of the other Dr. Strange. They are still in the same timeline. I guess the other Dr. Strange's universe started to breakdown because the evil Dr. Strange already beat him in the past.

I guess he couldn't reverse Christine's time because she will also eventually die (he needs to change her fate).

 

[a-dev]

Steve Martin looks a bit like Harrison Ford there^

 

[matticus]

Zombies next:

https://www.comicbookmovie.com/tv/m...en-exactly-the-story-is-set-a187842#gs.au6wux
https://www.comicbookmovie.com/tv/m...ure-more-zombified-avengers-a187845#gs.aufe15

 

[a-dev]

Watched the first two. Not my thing really, I'll skip the rest.

 

[jye4ever]

Watched the first two. Not my thing really, I'll skip the rest.

Same

This will all be forgotten rather quickly.

 

[a-dev]

Same

This will all be forgotten rather quickly.

I think it's attractive animation, I'll give it that. I just don't care about anything that's happening.