Avengers: Time travel at the end of the game: attempt to explain the complicated plot

By Scott Collura

Updated with new (and contradictory) information from filmmakers! Also be sure to read what will follow for the casting of the Endgame, a recap of the people who have lived and who has passed away, and our breakdown of the end. FULL SPOILERS IN THE BEFORE!

As we suspected for a long time, yes, the Avengers use the time travel to cancel the attack of Thanos heard in the universe. And while the circumstances of this time travel may be different from what many fans theorized, the end result is the same: the Mad Titan is defeated and all those who have been lost in the Decimation are fired, although After five years of non-life. -existence.

But how exactly does the journey in time in Avengers: Endgame? Basically, it's very confusing – no, we're not going to start explaining what a Mobius strip is – and it seems like the filmmakers purposely avoid explaining it completely in the movie, preferring instead to indicate how is not job. That said, let's put on our Quantum Realm Suit suit, adjust our GPS time, and hold on!

The quantum realm

The key to time travel is revealed once Scott Lang escaped from the quantum realm, where he has been stuck for five years since the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp. Here, time works differently and, for Scott, it seemed only five hours ago. He passes this information to the Avengers because he is better at the "hold-up" game than once, and he needs a big brain to understand the "time" part of things.

At first, Tony Stark is not interested in the case, thinking it's a crazy chance that Scott managed to break out of the quantum realm. So Captain America and Black Widow invite Ant-Man to go to Hulk, who agrees to try it … even if it's not exactly his area of ​​expertise.

Time travel does not work like this!

Finally, "Professor" Hulk steps in to help understand how to use Scott's discovery to refer the Avengers back to the past. And while everyone has their own idea of ​​how to carry out their mission, Banner reminds the group that time travel does not really work like it does in movies such as Back to the Future or The Terminator (or Time After). Time or Somewhere in Time or Timecop …). War Machine suggests going back in time and killing Baby Thanos, a variation of the old Baby Hitler concept, but again, it's a "cinematic journey back in time". Or at least, they say.

According to Banner, you can not just go back in time and change the past to change the future. Because the future is already Your past! You can not change the future, because if you did, you would not be the same version of yourself as you traveled back in time to make that change. You see, it's confusing.

Instead, any changes to the history will create an alternate or divergent timeline. Say you killed baby Thanos. This will not affect the Thanos in the timeline of the MCU that has already seen it cause decimation. Instead, it would only create a parallel reality in which Thanos would have died baby. But the world of our heroes would remain unchanged. So what to do then?

Time Heist!

This is where we get to the allotted time, because Tony Stark can not help but understand how the trip works over time if he has a few hours of free time one night. He joins his former teammates, who have already arrived there a bit, although Scott Lang increasingly avoids becoming permanently a child / baby / old man, and gets wet permanently along the way. The Hulk is smart, but Stark is necessary for this one.

Soon, the plan is designed to return three teams at different times in time to recover each Infinity Stone dating from an earlier era than Thanos. The Avengers will take them back to their time in 2023 (five years after the break) and use them to cancel the Decimation with a new break. But as Ancient Ancient explained to Banner at the Battle of New York in 2012, removing one of the stones from their timeline would result in a split of the timeline into the aforementioned divergent realities. The fact that the stones are together, probably at the same time, if they are not in the same specific place, keeps the chronology intact. That's why, once the Avengers finish decommissioning in 2023, they'll have to give back to the Stones the exact moment they took it. In this way, the stones will not really leave their respective past points and will not change the chronology.

And that's what Captain America apparently does with each of the Stones at the end of the movie, bringing them back to their rightful place in the past. Although it makes a break of about 70 years along the way. Talking about that …

Exploded timeline

Despite the goal of not altering the story, it seems that this is what happens anyway, the nebula of the spirit and the memories of the present mingling with those of the nebula of the past. This allows the Thanos of the Guardians of the Galaxy 1 (in 2014) to see the future, including his own death at the start of Endgame and the Avengers' poisoning plan. And so, he travels into the future for Endgame's "present" in 2023, which leads to the film's final confrontation and the death of Iron Man as he destroys Thanos and his army.

But! How could the Thanos of the past be killed in Endgame, since he will never be able to find the Infinity Stones again, place them in the glove of the infinite and erase half of all life in Infinity War, which will lead the Avengers to the planned time accordingly? Unless this Thanos is of one divergent chronology, created by the fact that the story was changed when the Avengers traveled in the past (and that Nebula inadvertently revealed the future to Thanos). In the end, Endgame told us that this should not happen until the Infinity Stones leave their place in the timeline. Either that, or the dialogue of the Old for this purpose was just too vague or unclear on the possibility of creating divergent deadlines …

The same question applies to the Gamora of the past, who did not die on Vormir and seems to be still alive at the end of Endgame, while Star-Lord was preparing to fetch her in space (Guardians plot). Vol 3?). If she lives in the present, how could her future self be dead in the past when Thanos sacrificed her for the Stone of Souls? Divergent chronology, it's like that.

The Loki that escapes with the Tesseract just after the Battle of New York is another big question that stems from the Avengers' time-travel shenanigans. him. That's why Cap and Iron Man had to go back even further in the 1970s to find another example of the Tesseract they could fly. But at the end of the film, when Captain America brings all the stones back to their place (off camera), he would have no chance to find the one that Loki had removed. We may learn more about it in the Disney + Loki show, but it looks like it's another different timeline.

And then there's Cape, who ends up living life with Peggy Carter in the past. This contradicts what we know to be Peggy's story in the MCU, because she married a man Cap saved during the Second World War, a man she had children with. If Cape and Peggy met in the past, this aspect of her story should be changed … creating a different timeline. (Although, yes, it can be said that Steve Rogers has always been the type with which she married, and that Peggy and he have in principle kept this information hidden for 70 years. stretching.)

Update n ° 1: Avengers filmmakers: Endgame, Joe and Anthony Russo, took a trip back in time while talking to EW. According to the couple, Captain America actually lived his days with Peggy in another scenario. "If Cape Town were to go back to the past and live there, it would create a diverse reality," said Joe Russo at the site. "The question then becomes, how is he back in this reality to give the shield [to Falcon at the end of the film]? "

The brothers insinuate that Cape history may not have been revealed yet. "Maybe there's a story out there," said Joe, "There are a lot of layers built into this movie and we spent three years thinking about it, so it's fun to talk about this and, hopefully, fill in the gaps so that people understand what we're thinking. "

It should also be asked how Cap Aged found his "main" timeline at the end of the film when he lived his years in a different reality. Has it somehow stumbled on the technology that allows it to cross realities as well as time?

The Russo also confirmed that Bucky knew what Cape would do before leaving for his time travel in search of Peggy. And the hawk do not have know. EW also raises the question of where the shield he gave the Falcon comes from when he passes the Captain America torch (remember that the Cape Shield was destroyed by Thanos). Could it be that he knew a hawk become Captain America in the reality where he lived all his life with Peggy, and that's where the shield comes from? Of course, there's a Falcon and Winter Soldier show (let's just call Captain America and Bucky) that comes on the Disney + cast. It seems that clues have been left here that will be picked up there …

Update # 2: The writers of Russos and Endgame, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, do not seem to be on the same page. In a recent separate interview with Fandango, the authors rejected the theory proposed by the Russos. IGN has contacted Disney for clarification on which party has the last word and the last word in the matter.

The final result

So, what can we say definitively about the journey back in time in Endgame? As Hulk pointed out, it is clear now that changing the past will not change the future of the characters. But beyond that, it seems that despite all the efforts of the team, at least some divergent calendars have been formed. All this brings us back to the beginning, when we said that traveling back in time in the MCU was confusing. But apart from what might well be an unnecessarily misleading dialogue of the Old, and thanks now to a confirmation of the Russos, everything fits perfectly … while leaving the door open to be explored further in future properties of the MCU. Make me the multiverse!

What do you think of MCUs on time travel? Let's discuss in the comments!

Talk to Scott Collura, Editor, on Twitter at @ScottColluraor listen to his Star Trek Podcast, Transport Room 3. Or do both!