Warning: Spoilers!
Avengers: Endgame is was released April 26th, 2019, and is the 22nd movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). After the Thanos’ decimation, the Avengers try to find a way to reverse the snap and all of its casualties from Infinity War (2018). And just as the title suggests, this is the end of an era, and especially the end of our original 6 Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, and Hawkeye.) Not all of them meet their demise, but the ones that remain eventually go their separate ways.
Endgame is the product of meticulous planning and over 11 years of storytelling. Truly it is the event of the year. Some would even go as far to say that this is the cinematic event of the decade, due to the fact that it was nearly impossible to get a ticket for opening weekend, let alone opening day. On April 2nd, 2019, tickets went on sale, and thousands of people across the country were able to crash hundreds of online ticketing websites including AMC, Fandango, and Cinemark. Within 6 hours, Endgame had already sold 5 times more presale tickets than Avengers: Infinity War within the same time period last year. It wasn’t long until hundreds of theaters were sold out for opening day across the country. And with almost every theater packed, there were several reports of the movie possibly earning $300 million domestically within its first weekend.
When the actual results came, it shocked everyone. Domestically, Avengers: Endgame had earned $350 million, and $850 million worldwide, making the grand total for just one weekend over $1.2 billion dollars. This made Endgame the 17th highest grossing film ever- just based on its first-weekend stats.
As far as what happened in the movie itself, the majority of people left theaters with broken hearts, tears in eyes, and jaws on the floor; all fitting reactions for the events that occurred.
The main plot of the film is that the remaining Avengers plan to go back in time and retrieve all the Infinity Stones after the ones in their timeline were destroyed by Thanos after the Snap. But one of the main problems that is addressed all throughout, is that if a stone is taken from its timeline, then an alternate and possibly worse timeline could manifest from the action. So, the Avengers, after figuring out how to time jump through the help of the Quantum Realm, Pym Particles, and a Mobius strip (a surface with one continuous side), devise a plan to take the stones to make their own gauntlet, use them to bring back everyone who died in Infinity War, and then safely return them back to the exact time and place at which they were taken. This way, no new alternate timelines can be created.
Some of the amazing things that happened in the 3-hour film included, but not limited to:
– Time Travel
– Thor in a humanized depressive state
– Tony getting married and having a daughter
– An insightful Nebula story arc including her homicidal past self
– The first openly gay character in the MCU
– Natasha sacrificing herself for the Soul Stone
– Bruce Banner and the Hulk merging into one entity (Professor Hulk)
– Tony meeting his father and receiving closure
– Steve and Peggy finally being able to share the rest of their lives together
– One of the best final fight scenes in the MCU
One of the most surprising outcomes of the story was the sacrificial death of one of the most famous faces in the Marvel anthology, Iron Man. While Professor Hulk was the one who took significant damage to snap everyone back into existence, Tony took it a step further by decimating every villain from the final battle. This included the Chitauri, the Black order, past Gamora, and even Thanos himself.
And even though the final runtime was a few minutes over 3 hours, there are still hours of unused footage. One of the biggest scenes that was cut was one where Tony uses the stones, then has a vision similar to the one Thanos had when he used them. The scene was going to have Robert Downey Jr. and Katherine Langford, star of the controversial Netflix show “Thirteen Reasons Why.”
Langford was announced on the cast list for Endgame months ago and never appeared. She was going to be a much older version of Tony’s daughter, Morgan, and the vision was of her forgiving him for his actions. The directors, Anthony and Joe Russo, said that it was to give Tony more closure before he died. But when it was shown to test audiences, many said that it was too confusing, and that Langford didn’t seem like the right choice to play Iron Man’s daughter.
So what does the future hold for the heroes that survived? Well, on July 5th, a Spider-Man: Homecoming sequel is expected to release. Spider-Man: Far From Home is going to follow a newly resurrected Peter Parker as he goes on a school field trip to Europe. And as it was shown in the second trailer, Tony Stark’s sacrifice is anything but forgotten. From Peter’s motivation to the main villains’ entry, Iron Man might be gone, but he will forever live on in the MCU and in our hearts. This trend of having the events of Endgame ripple into other movies will more than likely continue.
There are currently no more Marvel movies that have been announced, but that should change when San Diego Comic Con rolls around in late July. SDCC has been a popular place in the past to announce future Marvel movies, and this year should be no exception.
But for now, we have to say goodbye to all the heroes that made our lives brighter and our smiles wider.