The Big Picture - ‘Avengers: Endgame’: Emergency Deep Dive (SPOILERS) | Exit Survey

Episode Date: April 26, 2019

‘Avengers: Endgame,’ the culmination of more than a decade of Marvel Cinematic Universe films, is finally here. We discuss how the long-running arcs of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and many others have been strung together and resolved in ‘Endgame.’ Plus, we break down the movie’s complex ideas about time travel, character deaths, and, ultimately, its stakes. Finally, we take stock of where this leaves the MCU, and what could be in store for Phase 4 and beyond. Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Mallory Rubin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and test drive the all-new BMW 3 Series for yourself. The all-new BMW 3 Series. Don't be driven by technology, drive it. BMW, the ultimate driving machine. I'm Sean Fennessy, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation about the endgame. We've been subject to the Great Snapshot, and we have returned from oblivion. I am joined by my time-traveling, quantum-realm-conquering, infinity-gem- gem hoarding pal colleague co-host of binge mode mother of dragons marvel cinematic universe fan and ringer executive editor mallory rubin hello mal big picture assemble mal i'm so glad you're here i've been

talking about marvel movies for the past month and also seemingly for years 11 years in fact if we go all the way back to Marvel, when they first started with Iron Man. And we're at a conclusion point. We're here, of course, to talk about Avengers Endgame, which is the, I think it's the movie event of the year. Does that seem fair to say to you? What about Detective Pikachu? I saw that too. And man, I'm going to talk about that a little bit in this podcast because it's changed my feelings somewhat on some of this stuff. But you know, I think Endgame is an interesting moment in the history of movies in a lot of ways, because if you have been following movies closely in this 10 or 11 years

since they started this series, it has reshaped the way that we experience going to the movies. So you and I saw this movie at Disney in Burbank on a Tuesday morning. What a treat. It was a very exciting time. And I think we had a genuine and sincere excitement anticipation. Oh, absolutely. Would you say that the movie lived up to that anticipation? Actually, you know what? Let me say this. We're going to spoil the shit out of this movie. So if you don't want this movie ruined for you and you just want to hear Mal's general takes on the movie, we'll do those in the first five minutes. And then from there, I will be telling everybody what happens here and we'll be analyzing why it

happened. So let's go back. Okay. Did you enjoy the movie? I did enjoy the movie. Okay, that's great. I'm so glad you're here with me doing this podcast then. I did. That's probably the most I can say without actually spoiling anything. I'm not sure I can get five minutes of spoiler-free assessing out there, but I will say that in general, a struggle that I have as a consumer and as an earnest consumer of pop culture that I love is that I can sometimes set the bar really high for myself and then experience a little bit of a letdown, not because the thing isn't good, but because my hype and anticipation so outpaced anything that was possible. And an experience that I often have is that when I return to something for the second viewing, I enjoy it more than I did the first time around. I suspect that will happen for me

with Endgame. All that said, I had a lot of fun. I certainly had some questions. I definitely didn't drink enough coffee before seeing a three-hour movie at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday. But I really liked it. I don't think it was as good of a movie as Infinity War, which I'm sure we'll talk about today. But as a culmination of an era and a movie that simultaneously needed to work on its own for quite a long span of time and engage you and sustain its singular mission and also knit together a decade plus of cinema and storytelling, I thought it was not only really effective, but pretty emotionally resonant as, you know, in essence, a love letter to these particular characters in this particular moment in Marvel. A lot of the conversation on the movie thus far from people who have seen it has said that this movie is ultimately satisfying, that people are looking to be satisfied, which is not really a word that I have seen used in the context of any Marvel movie in the past. And the reason for that is very clear. Every other Marvel movie that happened before this was leading to something, was building to something. And we've never had a movie experience like that before. We've never

had. Now, you obviously have been doggedly covering Game of Thrones and Harry Potter as well. And those were long tale stories. Those were stories that were told over a long period of time. I think of Harry Potter as a little bit different because the books existed before the movies came. And Game of Thrones, of course, we are still waiting to find out what is ultimately going to happen, but that's a TV show. And even though it often feels like you're watching a movie, you don't go to the movie theater to watch it. This movie, the idea of satisfying is so key because it really does end something. And this is kind of where we're going to start spoiling things. I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves,

but I will say right at the top, there's no post-credit sequence in this movie. Right. And that is a fascinating choice to me. We'll talk about it a little bit more going forward. In general, you mentioned that this is quite a long film, but there's a lot of time invested, three hours and two minutes.

I can recall fondly when some of our colleagues saw the runtime of this movie a couple of weeks ago and it was announced and they were not pleased. I actually quite dug the three-hour runtime and didn't really feel the lag. Did you feel comfortable sitting for that long a period of time? Yeah, again, other than the starvation and caffeine deprivation, which I think is more just about how I personally manage my own day in life, I thought it flowed well. I thought it had a relatively brisk pace for the sheer amount of time that it was covering. And because of the pace at which certain characters

enter the film or exit the film, it felt less like a series of vignettes than Infinity War, but it still ultimately felt like many, many movies, much like the first three phases of the MCU in general, that were stitched together to give you the totality of the thing. And you know, the final act, the final battle, and the very emotionally stirring pieces of fallout from that. That could have been its own movie and sort of felt like it, but everything that led up to it,

it worked pretty well and sustained itself ultimately. I wasn't at any point like, oh my God, when are we going to get to X? Which I think is interesting because of how long it actually took for certain key figures to return. Way, way, way longer

than I think we anticipated when we went into the movie. Yeah, I think I put my bet in an hour and 15 minutes before we get sort of the undoing of the the snapcher and it's more like two hours and 10 minutes. Yeah. So that that raises an interesting question which is do you want to spend two hours and 10 minutes with what I would say is not necessarily the B team because of course the people who survived include Tony Stark who we sort of open the film on and we see his survival on a spaceship with Nebula and also Captain America, who are key core members of the team.

And then there is Black Widow and Hawkeye, who are our core Avengers, but maybe not our favorite Avengers. And then there is the aforementioned Nebula. And then there is War Machine. And then Ant-Man returns, which is nice. And then we discover a extremely fat Thor. I loved it. Fantastic. But in general, I think that this, this was not what I have come to love about Marvel, which is interesting because a lot of these characters are sort of getting a send off in this movie. those people that we open with. And we knew that. We knew that at the end of Infinity War, that they okie-doked us. They vanished Black Panther and Spider-Man and these

figures that we knew were going to be important going forward. And they kept the people we've been seeing for 10 or 11 years, which I thought was clever. But then I spent the next year of my life being like, man, when are we just going to get rid of Iron Man and go to the next thing? How did you feel just spending all that time with these figures that we've already spent a lot of time with? So I think that there are two clusters, maybe even more than that, but ultimately two clusters within the group of people that we spend the bulk of the film with. The OGs, you know, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the people that we're really invested in and that ultimately

in many ways the movie is about saying goodbye to or saying goodbye to a certain version of because you know fat Thor going off with the Guardians is very different than can Thor sustain his own series of movies throughout this entire enterprise uh we're in spoiler territory now truly spoiling Bobby very sorry Iron Man dies. He truly dies. And Captain America does not, which is really surprising. But obviously Captain America ages and changes and gives over his shield to Sam. And I thought getting to really, really luxuriate in spending a couple hours with those people, particularly with Tony Stark.

Like, in many ways, it's a Tony Stark send-off movie. Felt really appropriate and more potent than I was expecting. And I'm a person who, like, cries a lot watching movies and TV shows and reading books. The other group of people, that second cluster, it's basically just characters we don't care about as much as either the originals or the people we're about to embrace and spend this whole new span of time with.

Yeah, I don't really have a problem with, say, Rocket Raccoon. Rocket Raccoon is a great addition to the franchise. Wonderful. It's Bradley Cooper, the effort that Bradley Cooper puts into creating this machine gun toting maniacal raccoon, which is a real thing that is happening in movies in 2019, is actually quite admirable and fun and weird. It's just when you remove him from the Guardians

and you place him alongside Captain Marvel and War Machine, it isn't just ragtag. It's just sort of like, I just don't want to be with these people. Thor is not yet with the team at that point of the movie. And you're sort of like, can we at least get Thor back? Like what is going on here? And there's a long,

a long period of the film is spent sort of determining the plan to save the rest of the figures. And, you know, this is, this is maybe an opportunity to talk about, I think the key complication and also one of the most clever aspects of the movie, which is time travel is right at the heart of this story. Yes. And time travel is a really hard thing to do in movies. And it is the all-time nitpicky storytelling device.

And I think it was really fun to see the movie with you because I know that you love these movies, but I know the first question you had for me was sort of like, I'm not sure if the magic checks out. Yeah. And, you know, obviously you not sure if the magic checks out. And obviously, you are a fantasy enthusiast and expert. And so let's try to explain. Can you explain at all how any of the time travel in this movie works? So I pride myself on being able to answer a question like that, just in general, right? You are a logician. Yes. One of the things that I think about a lot when I'm reading a fantasy story or any story where something other than the rules of our actual universe

exist, do the rules of that universe make sense? And I think it's hard to fully invest in a story and to buy in not only to what you're watching as it's happening, but to where it ultimately leads you. If the answer to that is no, the rules of the universe don't make sense. Now, I want to to buy in not only to what you're watching as it's happening, but to where it ultimately leads you? If the answer to that is no, the rules of the universe don't make sense. Now, I want to own freely that I don't have the canonical expertise about how the quantum realm and time travel works in the Marvel universe. And I'm sure that, or I suspect that what they do in the film on the time travel front aligns with established canon from the comics. I would think it had to because it is such a deliberate effort to say everything you think you understand about time travel from other movies and other stories is

wrong. It would have been very easy to just do whether or not you think it makes sense a traditional time travel story. But they went out of their way to say, no, no, no, no, no. Back to the Future fucking lied to you. Right? There are overt references to other movies. We know now for sure that in the MCU, Back to the Future and Time After Time and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure exist. Yes.

Hot Tub Time Machine. Hot Tub Time Machine. That's a call exist. Yes. Hot tub time machine. Hot tub time machine. That's a call out. Yes. And that is one of the charms, I think, of the MCU is that these are sort of like clever, quippy movies that make you feel like you're with your friends who happen to have superpowers. Right. But inevitably, when you are so self-referential as to subvert your own story logic, I think

it leaves us a little bit uneasy. Let's step back for one second. So obviously, at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp, for those of you who are watching every single Marvel movie, Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, goes into the quantum realm, I think on the roof of a building in a van, and that is being controlled by Michael Douglas' character, Hank Pym, and Evangeline Lilly, who is the Wasp. And then while he's in the quantum realm, the snap-ture happens. Michael Douglas disappears, Evangeline Lilly disappears, Michelle Pfeiffer disappears, everybody in Ant-Man's universe is gone, and Scott is stuck in the quantum realm, the snapcher happens. Michael Douglas disappears. Evangeline Lilly disappears.

Michelle Pfeiffer disappears. Everybody in Ant-Man's universe is gone. And Scott is stuck in the quantum realm. We see what happens at the top of the movie. We see Hawkeye's family disappear. We realize that- Very gutting. Very gutting.

It's actually very well told. I think the first five minutes of the movie are really well done. There's a great needle drop, this traffic song that I wrote about on the site. And then we go five years into the future. And five years into the future, a rat crawls across, I guess, somewhere in the van and triggers the quantum rail machine. And it sends Scott back to our universe. And so what we have is the makings of a time travel machine. Scott figures out quickly what happens. He re-engages with his daughter five years later. Also a very touching machine. Scott figures out quickly what happens. He re-engages with his daughter

five years later. Also a very touching moment. Yeah. The movie is pretty good I would say at balancing that high, high, high drama even though it's

ridiculous circumstances and the comedy. And I think that's kind of the hallmark of the most successful of these movies. Would you agree with that? I would, though I think that

that's actually part of where I had questions about the way they executed the time travel because I said this to you after we left the screening. I thought one of the moments of inevitable tension in the movie was going to be Tony Stark having to choose between bringing back the vanished and protecting the present day timeline that had come to exist in which he has a daughter now. That's right but that didn't happen because the nature of time travel in the movie hinges on the understanding that what you

do when you go back into the past cannot change your future self because that future self let me take a deep hit of my bong here, is a version of your past. Yes. Once you go. There's a moment when Iron Man, I believe, and maybe Bruce Banner slash the Hulk are explaining how this actually works. And they're clearly explaining it,

not just for someone like Hawkeye who doesn't understand science, but also for the audience. And it was easily the most confusing part of the movie. And this is a movie that features like a Pegasus and a walking tree and like just a series of things that don't make any sense. And that is by far the most confusing aspect of it. And in some ways, it's very easy to just kind of check your brain at the door with that stuff and say like, whatever. They figured out time travel.

But what looks like a portal to the quantum realm somehow just becomes a time machine portal and those are not the same thing and we never really understand how they did that yeah they call it time heist right which is that's clever hysterical i enjoyed that but also a little nod i think to okay we're sort of just hoping that you're gonna accept. And there's just a little bit of a dissonance there because they do actually work really hard to establish what the rules are. It's just not, there's almost just too much else going on to allow yourself as a viewer, the moment of time that you need to process that and think about it. And I think it would be okay. And it is ultimately fine because enough else is happening in the movie that you're focusing on instead that you sort of accept the, you know,

Deus Ex time heist aspect of it. But it really matters, not only in bringing the people back, but then in, you know, the Steve Rogers arc, which I have like 50 questions about. It's confusing. Let's wait to unpack too much of Iron Man and Captain America's kind of closing chapter

which I think is really profoundly important to the story but also slightly confusing I guess is it okay for you

in a movie like this if you're left with logic gnawing at your nipping at your heels I guess you know

it doesn't even if it doesn't ruin the movie but you're like I just can't quite figure this out because even in Infinity War which you and I both liked I love Infinity War I do too

and I think it feels a lot more like the Empire Strikes Back of this series having seen this movie and in Empire Strikes Back it doesn't have you know

you don't have to solve anything it's okay to be left with a cliffhanger in this movie it has to solve things and so I feel like there will be a little bit of a gnawing

like did they really get this perfect you know they made us feel good a gnawing like did did they did they really get this right perfect you know they made us feel good they made us feel excited but did they get a perfect will that affect your long-term uh feeling about the movie so mostly no but with a slight caveat i think mostly no because ultimately the trade-off worked in the film's favor which is if you're willing to um it's not even suspending disbelief, you're just willing to suspend the instinct to ask a question, then you can benefit fully from what that

storytelling tactic allows them to achieve, which is literally a stroll through memory lane. We go back to previous Marvel movies. They're not just going back to the moment when Thanos snapped his fingers, which I think a lot of people predicted would be the time travel aspect of it. Maybe it would involve the quantum realm, maybe it would involve the time stone, but that that was the thing they needed to undo. What the film ultimately hinges on plot-wise is going back to prevent him from getting the stones in the first place. And the idea that each stone has to be retrieved from a specific moment in time so that it can then ultimately be returned to that exact moment in time thus preserving the timelines you just did an amazing job of describing what happens

and i think until you said that i didn't even totally understand what had happened uh that that is that's that's weighty stuff that's not that's imagine the literally millions of people that are going to see this movie this weekend. Yeah. Trying to figure out what's going on there. So I have spent like a mortifying amount of time in recent weeks and months thinking about whether Bran could be the Night King, which involves like at the expense of relationships in my life, you know, which involves. Mal, we love and support you. Thank you. in my life you know which involves now we love and support you thank you a lot of time thinking about well what happens if the three-eyed raven goes back to the long night tries to figure out what happened and gets trapped in another consciousness basically and i still was like

i don't really understand what's going on here even with a moment in the film where there is literally a visual representation of the timelines when bruce banner is meeting meeting with the ancient one having a chat on the roof and we get this visual of what our primary timeline looks like and what it would look like if you pulled a stone out and a timeline i don't know why i'm gesticulating with my hands like this people can't see me but another time like you'd get a like okay picture the trunk of a tree or a road and then you have an off ramp and that's your new timeline and so if you return the stone to the exact moment then you don't have the ramp you like close off construction on the ramp and preserve something even with a visual aid with like that i just found myself thinking

over and over again but how because i i think they think that no matter what version of time travel you see in a given story, you know, I like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is one of my favorite works of fiction that involves time travel. The idea of consequences is elemental to time travel as a philosophical and practical enterprise. That is what Back to the Future does so well. The vanishing image in the photograph in Back to the Future is one of the most crushing images in science fiction storytelling. So if you can't change anything about your future self, this is a slight oversimplification, but basically, what is everyone so afraid of? So I'll make a significant part of the conversation

about this movie, which is deeply related to time travel, which is when the figures in the film, I think it's six figures team up to go back into time, maybe eight figures go back into time at various stages, not just in their history, but in the history of the MCU. Now, this is one of the most self-reflexive things I've ever seen in a movie. But what you have essentially is, I believe you have Iron Man and Captain America and Bruce Banner travel back in time to the Avengers movie. You have Nebula and War Machine travel back in time to the 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy movie. I can't wait to talk about nebula with you you have thor and rocket raccoon traveling back in time to thor's the dark world iconic duo uh i mean sure they fit together and then you you kind of sort of have

a trip to avengers infinity war in fact the timeline in which something is happening is before Avengers Infinity War, but Hawkeye and Black Widow go to Vormir. Yes. To get the Soul Stone. And each of these characters has gone back into this time to get these stones. Now, there are three stones

in New York City. There's one stone on Vormir. There's one stone on Morag. And there's one stone on Asgard. This is really cool, but also imagine being like a run-of-the-mill human being who's never seen a Marvel movie and then just feeling like, oh, I heard Endgame is like a big deal. Maybe I'll give it a shot. And then going into that movie, it must be the most confounding

experience ever. And I found myself feeling like the best possible version of Stockholm Syndrome when I was watching it. I was like, wow, they definitely did just take up so much of my life and time that I feel totally comfortable with this story choice. What did you make of the idea to just go inside of these other movies? I loved it. It was really cool. Honestly. It works really well.

That's where I'm willing to say, okay, I did my due diligence by asking a handful of questions about the rules of the universe and the canon. And now I'm like, okay, I'm good with it. Because we've spent so much time with, not just with these characters, but with this version of these characters. Because obviously these characters have existed in many forms for many people for much longer than the phases of the MCU. That's right. Literally 80 years.

Yeah. I was thinking this morning about the fact that the first movie in phase one, Iron Man, came out in the first week of May of 2008, which is a week before I graduated college. So like my entire adult life, the MCU has been churning out movies. I saw Iron Man, Carousel Mall in Syracuse, New York when I was still in college. And then everything that's happened in the MCU since I've been like a person in the world and it was just fast it was just interesting to think about that and how much like space of my life the movies have occupied and I'm sure every person seeing them has their version of that experience or not I think to your point if it's an or not it might

be like a pretty alienating experience but if you do have your version of that whether you binged all of these in the last year you've been consuming them from the beginning or anything in between, it felt like a way of almost like honoring your time and honoring the commitment that we, the movie, actually, despite how long it took for the new Avengers, basically, to come into it and how limited the setup was for the future. You know, you noted the lack of an end credit scene that we do get the sound. It was mostly about saying goodbye to this moment in time while also still keeping you hyped for what's next, what's to come. And it's not like we return to necessarily iconic moments or the moments that people cherish the most, though in some cases we did. But it was just like a reminder of how much of our lives we've invested in watching this happen. And I really enjoyed that. Yeah, I wasn't bothered by it either. I had a slightly different context for what was happening when Iron Man came out. And that's the, and I wrote about this, George W. Bush was the president of the United States,

which feels like quite a long time ago. And in fact, was a long time ago. And in fact, Iron Man, regardless of your political affiliation, is a very Bush era movie. You know, that's a movie about arms trading and arms dealing and international conflict in the Middle East and who has power by dint of weaponry. And in some ways, these movies are about that, but we're pretty far afield from the modest concerns of billionaire Tony Stark and whether or not the right person bought his weapons that he designs. And I nevertheless felt like it's a lot to ask. It's a lot to ask that

your common moviegoer, not people like you and I, who are not just completists, but like kind of unnervingly passionate about these things. And I really quite like the Marvel movies. I wouldn't have devoted as much time as I have to them on this show if I didn't. If you just happen to miss Thor, the Dark World,

I think that there are just parts of the scenes in that movie are just going to seem confusing. Like we know that Rene Russo's character dies, Thor's mother, but there's something emotionally more resonant if you have seen The Dark World. You quite infamously are a big fan of The Dark World. I ride for that movie. It's like my least popular dig, but I ride for it. The only people I know who ride for the movie are the hosts of the Blank Check podcast, great movie podcast, and Mel. Those are the only people I know who ride for the movie are the hosts of the Blank Check podcast, great movie podcast, and Mel.

Those are the only people I know that like that movie. Okay. So I'm going to attempt some logistical gymnastics here to connect riding for Dark World with why I think the thing that you're describing is maybe okay. Okay. You don't actually have to care about all of the people and all of the relationships for the movie to completely grab you and pull you into its grasp. I don't really remember, or I didn't before refreshing on it for this, all of the plot specifics of Dark World. You know, I remember Natalieman like suspended in the middle

of the air as forces coursed through her which is i know how you feel when you look at natalie portman but my long island queen shout out to natalie portman but who appears in this movie and does not speak an incredible thing what a flex there are a lot of flexes of people showing up in the movie and not talking. Hers might be the biggest because I don't even think her eyes are ever open. Well, the first time you see the back of her head and fat Thor is like, it's Jane. And I was like, oh my God, they couldn't get her. And it's just a person with brown hair.

But then you end up seeing her face. You do. But, you know, you can apply this to the question you just raised about, okay, well, if you don't know about Thor and his mom, can you invest in what's happening there? Or just the fact that, like, not everybody who's seeing this maybe saw Captain Marvel. Or the fact that not everybody is invested in War Machine or Hawkeye or Black Widow as characters and you spend a ton of the first two-thirds of the movie with them the things that you are invested in the friendship between captain america and iron man thor's incredibly organic comedic energy with the guardians those things just pulse so fully throughout the rest of the movie that everything else kind of like it's almost like the shadow of the hulk over anything he's standing by it doesn't mean the things under him

aren't there it just means that you don't have to look at them if you don't want to i think that's really well put i do think that in many ways the thor guardians thing is the most exciting thing about it and what's happening in these movies it's amazing it's really really fun and the way that the movie ends clearly sets us up for a kind of shared universe in a lot of ways. Of the three sort of journeys that these characters go on, which was the one that you thought was the best? Because the core Avengers one, the one in New York City during the Avengers, is certainly the biggest. They're in pursuit of the most stones. It's the most complex.

I would say it also has the most kind of winky-winky self-referential moments. I got my Frank Grillo fix there. The Guardians moment is I think a little bit it's a part of what is confusing to me about some of the

time travel stuff because that is where Thanos becomes aware of the plot. Yes. The reconstituted Thanos I guess from the past. Right.

We haven't said that. So they kill our Thanos basically immediately. In the first six minutes of the movie. Thanos is dead. And then he comes back. In the first six minutes of the movie, Thanos is dead. And then he comes back. Yes, because he's in the past.

We'll unpack a lot of that going forward. But that Guardians moment is important and it makes Nebula sort of the central figure of the story ultimately in a lot of ways, which is a lot of flex. Can we just share a quick behind the curtain moment? Yeah. We arrived at the screening, you know, promptly, i must say we were on time we were and because we were on time we got to look up at the screen for a long time and on the screen there was a giant projection of a poster for the movie and obviously they can't show you the characters who you don't know for sure are coming back even though you know and so we were basically asking each other who of those people up there are you most invested in

and in order to make what i thought was the most absurd joke i could make i said to you i'm a real nebula head never once considering that like 80 of the plot would hinge on nebula it's it's fascinating i mean you know again this is sort of part of what makes marvel as good at what they do as they are. They made a character that, like, I don't even really know anything about. I don't know how canonical that character is at all. And I've read a lot of Marvel comic books. I'm not as strong on the space Marvel comics.

But Nebula is a turning point figure. And so she is key to that Guardians moment. And also the 2014 version of Nebula in particular because they have a kind of shared Obi-Wan Kenobi into R2-D2 kind of projection thing going on. And then there's the Vormir stuff. Yeah. Which do you want to talk about first, the Avengers or Vormir? You pick. Okay, we'll talk about the Avengers because there's a lot to unpack there.

The Captain America stuff is incredible. It's great. Captain America is the only character that really truly has a showdown with another version of himself yeah and that's America's ass there's a lot of commentary about Chris Evans' ass

amazing it's one of the better battle sequences I would say it's one of the few kind of one-on-one fight scenes and I was struck

I re-watched Infinity War a second time last night and in re-watching that I was struck by just how much fighting there is in that movie this movie doesn't have a lot of fighting. It doesn't have,

there's of course, an epic battle sequence. One of the better battle sequences I think you'll see in a movie that has like a lot of chill-inducing moments. But as far as your like hand-to-hand combat stuff, you don't have it. Now, in that sequence,

we are reintroduced to Frank Grillo's crossbones. I was thrilled. Yeah, and Maximiliano Hernandez's shield agent, aka Hydra double agent. And we're reminded of that great elevator fight sequence from the captain america film but then they don't fight in that elevator he exits the elevator he's holding the scepter he's got the stone he needs and then he encounters 2013 steve rogers um just great stuff ant-Man popping the pin in Tony's hardware. All of that. That was maybe the best sequence actually for showing how much thought and care they had put into the logistics of the fact that they're all standing there with past versions of themselves and what happens if you risk short-circuiting original Iron Man and

new Iron Man is standing there watching and what happens if someone just kicks a briefcase at the wrong moment you've put every every bit of your intellect and planning prowess into this and then just a thing slides in the wrong direction and that's all that matters i i really enjoyed also just like getting to see loki for example and though though counterpoint to my own praise here loki vanishes himself of the scepter which then opens up a question tesseract with the tesseract so where'd that one go yeah i know where's that loki and if that that loki is supposed to eventually go on to become the loki who dies does that not happen or does it happen because our understanding is that the future is preserved so could that new loki who vanished

himself come back into the story let's do a little behind the curtain Ringer editorial. After I saw the movie, I was talking with Andrew Gredadaro, our culture editor, about what to do with some of this stuff. And the time travel stuff is so confounding that Andrew very wisely landed on the right solution, which is let's have Ben Lindbergh figure this out. Hopefully Ben will figure it out

on the ringer.com at some point soon because there are a lot of these wormhole ideas. It's actually more of a rabbit hole. And if you start going down it, you can get confused from what is the core of the story. Because if you think about Loki in that moment, when the briefcase pops open, Loki picks up the Tesseract and he disappears.

And you're like, oh shit, they failed. They failed again. Their plan failed. And then Cap and Iron Man have the brilliant idea to go back even further to another time, which also would be okay, apparently, and would not disrupt

the long-term time construct of these characters' lives. Right. Which is, I believe, 1970. They need more Pym particles. They need more Pym particles. Because they only had enough initially to do the jump

once per person. Plus the initial trial runs, which is a great comedic moment when you instantly blow one of the trial runs. I a great comedic moment when instantly blow one of the trial runs I do think I will say I think everything

with Ant-Man in this movie is fabulous it's great Paul Rudd is so good I completely agree he is much needed too

because I think a lot of the first 90 minutes or so would feel a little too weighty without him and he is our avatar in a lot of ways he's the guy who's like

I can't believe I'm here yes he's not really an Avenger all of his reactions are authentic there's that great moment where the ship lands and then Hulk appears when he's out on the tarmac and he's just trying to eat a taco. And you know, you feel like, that's amazing. You know, there's something common man about Paul Rudd, which is great.

But when we go back to 1970, again, this is just really confusing. They've gone back even further. And so we get the opportunity to see Peggy Carter again and we get the chance to see Howard Stark again those moments are great it's really cool to see Tony Stark have a conversation with his father the adult version of his father which is a trope we've seen before

in time travel movies it's really great to see Captain America look longingly at Agent Carter and think about what could have been which of course pays off at the end of the movie

boy does it they get a chance to acquire more Pym particles and we get a chance to see Michael Douglas circa 1970 with his China Syndrome haircut. Phenomenal. But if you try to unpack what they're really doing there, it's just wild confusing.

It's a fun storytelling trick. It doesn't necessarily hold up to the logic of the thing that we're talking about. Nevertheless, I think that that Avengers whole sequence, the acquisition of those three stones, the reacquisition of more Pym particles, all that stuff is a huge success. Yeah, I actually really enjoyed the Time Stone aspect of that because I thought that was the area where they did the best job of knitting together what had happened in Infinity War and what ultimately happens in this movie because the you know bruce is not able he's losing he's losing this conversation he's losing this exchange you you do not see a way forward for him convincing the ancient one to hand this over because of course this is before stephen strange became the sorcerer supreme this is before he became the guardian of the time stone she has it and it's the moment where in essence bruce says a version of well i like don't understand why strange would have

handed over the stone if he didn't think that that that doing so was going to bring us to the 1 in 14 million endgame scenario that we were going to win. And it's hearing that, that the person who was entrusted above all else to protect this thing had willingly handed it over that convinces her to then give it to Bruce because she understands that it means it's a part of a plan. One of my favorite things in stories is this dissonance between choice and destiny. If something is predetermined, do the decisions that you make matter? And if they don't, then what's the point of all of it? And I liked a moment like that because I thought it navigated the abyss between those ideas quite well and

showed that there actually can be a bridge. Somebody else made a decision that set everybody on the course that they're on but the things that they do along the way still have to happen or the ultimate outcome won't be the same and so i thought that whole sequence conveyed the philosophy behind this actually quite well that was a very sophisticated reading of a key theme in the movie that being said i want to ask you about hulk um we get we get a new version of Hulk here and when I was

re-watching Infinity War I was reminded of the true blue balls moment of Infinity War which is no Hulk you know we just don't get Banner does not

can't become Hulk and we are teased and he's just you know he fights in the Hulkbuster and all that stuff and you and I did mention

before Endgame began that we're a little out on Ruffalo's performance in Infinity War he's the one guy who's kind of acting like he's in a comic book movie. And that's why it doesn't really work all the time. Is that fair to say? Yeah.

Yeah, I think so. And so in this movie, we're introduced to a new Hulk, Banner Hulk, which is that is canonical. That is a version of the Hulk, which is that he has the brain and disposition of Bruce Banner, but he has the body and power of the Incredible Hulk. Yeah. What a boon for his dating life. He seems to be quite a social media star in this film. People are looking to get selfies with him left and right. He seems to be kind of a master of the selfie in a lot of ways.

His cheese is green. I can't say I love this, though. This was one of the few things that I found a little bit confusing. And one of the reasons why I think that Ancient One sequence that you're describing works so well is because the Ancient One essentially rocks Banner out of the Hulk body. Yes. And it's the one time when we see Ruffalo as himself. Right.

And, you know, the Hulk is an interesting character. I think he is like a chaos agent in a lot of these Marvel movies. And that's part of what's so appealing about him. And making him so controlled vanquishes a little bit of his power and unpredictability. I don't know. Does that make sense yeah i think it does especially because you know one of the themes not only of this movie but of all superhero stories on some level is like the goodness within which ends up being particularly relevant in this movie when Captain America wields Thor's hammer, proving himself worthy. Another massive spoiler for Bobby.

I'll say plainly that that to me was both the most exciting and most confusing moment of the movie. Right. And it underscores a little bit of the tension of the conversation we're having, which is this movie, I think in many ways, rules. Like there are just moments in it where I was like, yes, this is extremely fun. And then there are other moments where I was like, what's going on here? Because of course, we know that the hammer can only be lifted by Thor. We have seen in Avengers Age of Ultron that no one can lift the hammer in the Avengers

with the slight wiggle that Cap gets on it. And that's one of the great sight gags in the Marvel movies, is no one being able to lift that hammer in the Avengers with the slight wiggle that Cap gets on it. And that's one of the great sight gags in the Marvel movies is no one being able to lift that hammer. But then Cap not only lifts the hammer, but he wields the hammer. He channels the electricity of the God of Thunder. Right. So this is comic book canon that Captain America can and has wielded the hammer. And the thing that I found myself confused by and thinking about a

lot is that captain america in many ways is supposed to be like the embodiment of good intention so obviously he possesses the strength and then if the other factor is worth was why wasn't he worthy in ultron and then you know you factor in something like vision wielding it to basically convince people the fact that he can convince his people that he's on the side of good. So why wasn't he worthy in Ultron? This is why we bring you on the big picture. It's this kind of content. preview posts for the movie people anticipating that this might happen as a key moment at the end of the this um chris evans captain america arc is that he hadn't told tony at that point that bucky had killed his parents and so that he had this little bit of like rotten toxicity inside of him and that once he purged himself of that he was then worthy, not to keep getting to the time stuff

and the potential problems that it creates. By that point, he hadn't. Well, the hammer doesn't exist anymore in the present timeline, right? Because it's destroyed in Ragnarok. So they get it. Thor gets it back when he goes into the past.

And that version of the hammer was before he had told him. But, and also then, does he not have it anymore this is so confusing like in all the other thor movies will he not have it i don't know we could really talk ourselves into into a blue streak the reason i brought all that up in answer to your your hulk query though was because the thing that makes hulk so interesting is that he's not always in control of his good intentions. And the fact that the person at the heart of him possesses this nobility and this honor in many moments doesn't matter. And that's a pretty effective commentary on life. You know, you can want to do the right thing and sometimes you're just not able to for various reasons.

The context around you, that's something else that's powering you in a given moment. And so for him to be fully in control of his faculties is ultimately less, just makes him a less compelling character. I did think it led to like numerous highly amusing gags in the movie.

The selfie thing that you referenced earlier was hysterical and then Ant-Man's like, do you want one with me? And the kids are basically like, who are you? That was just great.

It's great. It was sort of the Jon Snow is short version that sort of nobody knows who Ant-Man is and you know Hulk having to basically feign the interest in smashing cars so that he could pretend

when they were back in New York that he was proper Hulk stuff like that is great let's transition from the Hulk to Black Widow because I think the simmering tension between Hulk and Black Widow has been a key element of the Avengers movies over the years. Amanda Dobbins and I

have shipped their potential sex session which is alluded to in this movie and then never actually pays off. And the reason it doesn't

pay off because of course Hawkeye and Black Widow go to Vormir and in order to acquire the Soul Stone you have to make a grave sacrifice. Someone has to die.

So two people go to Vormir one comes back. The person who dies is Black Widow. Yep. And I was shocked. I really thought Hawkeye was going to die so two people go to vormir one comes back the person who dies is black widow yep and i was shocked i really thought hawkeye was gonna die this is one of the best parts of the movie i think it's probably the most one of the most emotionally resonant parts of the movie i found the vormir stuff in infinity war to be fine i don't totally understand why red skull was the keeper of that stone or the keeper of that that quest in this movie it works a little bit better because he just kind of shows up, says stuff, and then goes away.

And it just becomes a conversation about two characters, neither of whom had any powers. I would say two characters who, beside Thor and the Hulk and Captain America and even the incredible technology of Iron Man, just seem like weak. And it's kind of a running gag of like, this guy has arrows. You know, there's a big joke about it in Ultron where

he's like, I just have arrows and I'm fighting an alien invasion. And I don't know why. I mean, there's a clear reason why I thought Black Widow would survive, which is we know there's a Black Widow movie coming. And one of the confusing chessboard aspects of these movies is they have to build anticipation for these movies years in advance. Right. And Marvel has been expert at this. And the anticipation machine gets us going two, three, even four years in advance of some stuff. And maybe right at the end of this pod, we'll talk about kind of what comes next for the MCU. Right.

But knowing that there's a Black Widow movie, I was like, well, see you later, Hawkeye. And then Black Widow dies. It's very shocking. It's a very elegantly composed, kind of balletic action sequence between the two of them. What did you make of that scene? Even now, I'm shocked by how much I loved it. Because I have, and I mean this sincerely,

and no shade at anybody who feels differently, zero emotional investment in either of these characters. And I was riveted, absolutely riveted watching this. You said to me afterwards that you were always confused why they never let Jeremy Renner act in these movies. Yeah, this is one of my favorite things to hear, you know, you and Chris and Andy talk about. Like, not only is Jeremy Renner a very gifted house flipper, but he's a very gifted practitioner of the theatrical arts and it was really really wonderful to get to watch him act in this movie it's interesting i was i was sure that she would

be the one to die once they were in that situation because the movie opens with hawkeye watching his family vanish around him his wife his children And then he breaks bad and he goes on this vengeance quest that she then has to pull him out of. And I think just basically the morality of these movies seem to be heading toward him seeking redemption after that. And if he had just died, I mean, I guess he could have achieved it just by being there in the first place and opting back in, but. I thought the sacrifice was going to be the thing. I thought that was going to be the thing that was going to redeem him. I just felt like he had to reunite with his family after the way the movie had opened.

Whereas we have, other than the fact that her father's name is mentioned in this sequence, no connection to other parts of her life at all. I thought that the visuals of the sequence, you know, that balletic nature that you described, the choreography of it was just like absolutely mesmerizing. And I think that this, you could hold up this sequence as being really emblematic of what maybe the most impressive thing that any of these movies do. And it's really make you invest in something that you don't think you care about. You know, watching these two people literally pull each other back

from the chasm of death and crawl and shoot and run and jump to the point where, you know, it's not subtle. They are hanging over an open pit that represents the end, and they're both so eager to jump into it. I just thought that was incredible to get us to care about either of them making it out of that alive. And I think also the soul stone and the magic of it is one of the more interesting things to me i agree i ultimately agree with you about the way that played out in infinity war but i liked what it made us think about which is

you know in that moment gomorrah basically thinks that thanos has lost because the idea of sacrifice means that you actually are invested in something you know like you can only you can't feel remorse if you're not capable of actually being sorry about something or loving something or caring about it in the first place. You can't make a sacrifice if you don't love anything. And the fact that he ultimately did love something was weirdly humanizing. And it's important to humanize your villains. I would love, by the way, at some point to talk about proof that Thanos's plan was bad based on how shitty Earth looked, but I'll save that for later so thinking about sacrifice it's like if the other person has to lose something but the person they're losing is

choosing to be lost does that count i just think that's fascinating to think about and ultimately the answer is obviously yes because it's a soul for a soul and then the stakes of that are so high when we realize later that she can't bring her back. That's it. That death of all these deaths is final because the nature of what you have to pay, the price that you have to pay to retrieve that magic and to channel and to harness it is forever. And I like thinking about that. There is a little bit of retconning that goes into that. And let's use this as an opportunity to talk about not just more deaths, but the Thanos of it all. Of course, Gamora does come back in this movie.

It is the 2014 version of Gamora that comes back. But that sacrifice. Angry Gamora. Nemo Gamora. Yes, yes. An unresolved, unaware of Peter Quill Gamora. Great moment later when she meets him and is like, this is the guy. It's good stuff.

Shout out to my wife who when I asked her and I ran down the list of all of the male Marvel superheroes who she was into, she said, Chris Evans, no.

Robert Downey Jr., no. Mark Ruffalo, no. This guy, no. Chris Hemsworth, no. And then she said, Chris Pratt. Yeah. Fat Pratt.

That's who she's into. I love it. You too. Thanos dies very early on in this movie, as we mentioned. Thor cuts his head off. Quite angrily takes Stormbreaker. I went for the head. He goes for

the head. That's great. This is a diminished Thanos who is, I guess, living in some sort of a tree house. This is the paradise that he said he would go see. I weirdly found myself thinking about the end of battlestar galactica never seen it oh my god tempted to get up and walk out of the room okay please stay and i won't spoil battlestar galactica on this podcast for people but there is

a moment where a character basically finds himself in this place of peace that that was always the goal to just get to this little house on a hill where you could just look out and watch the sunset and the thing is that the person he was supposed to be there with isn't there and it's like devastatingly sad and really beautiful all at the same time and I myself thinking about this moment that's like really important to me one of the most important things in culture to me and associating with Thanos who's the bad guy and just the fact that the movie could get me to make a connection like that at all for somebody who is a monster who just wiped out half of life in the universe I thought was pretty impressive testament to Brolin testament to the archaeology of the movie he's just out there

collecting fruit and veggies in his sack like Like literally carrying around a sack, picking crops, and then going into his hut. Yeah, and so soon he dies. And so we get that okie doke of we've been waiting for 11, 12, 13 movies since we became aware of Thanos, I guess since the original Avengers movie

for someone to kill him. He dies. That doesn't end the story at all. No. In fact, it begins the story. And then, you know, we see Black Widow die. We see the acquisition of all of these stones. But because of that and because of that nebula thing that

we're talking about, 2014 nebula becomes aware of what 2024 nebula is up to. And so then Thanos becomes aware of it. And then so then Thanos realizes he needs to go into the future so that he can acquire the new stones that have been pulled from the past right and Thanos and his children return and this is the most significant thing that happens in the movie from a storytelling perspective because not only does it instigate some incredible fight sequences especially one between Cap and and Thanos which is the moment when he uses Thor's hammer as we described but it then also leads to the return of the key figures. Now, I want to talk about the battle, and I want to talk about all the people who return.

Before we do that, let's just talk about the idea of bringing Thanos and his army and his children back into the movie. Because we already saw the Avengers fight Thanos and his army. Yep. And then they fight him again. Yep. Did that work for you it did ultimately because i guess i didn't ever consider any other outcome like it's ultimately this this infinity saga is about this villain and this quest to stop him it's about a lot of other things within that

but whether they were going to bring the people back first or after, take the stones from him, stop him from getting them, use the stones, it still ultimately had to be about facing him and beating him. And as convoluted as it is, I actually like the commentary of basically saying, well, okay, just cutting his head off. That's not really winning. You head off that's not really winning you know that's not really what victory looks like for these heroes it's preserving something about the sanctity of life in the universe that they're charged with protecting and so to watch

this is actually another plot logistics question that i have i don't i'm sure there's something that explains this i don't understand how iron man is able to use the stones and Hulk before him basically to do exactly what they want. Whereas when Thanos snapped his fingers, the whole point was that it's impartial. You know, I don't really get how that worked. And there's not, unless I missed it, not an effort made to explain how it works. I mean, I think. But ultimately he's undone by the thing that he, by his own pursuit.

You know, he vanishes and all of his minions do too. And that's, like, poetry. It is. I think that you could, I guess, somewhat logically make the case that

Hulk and Iron Man, when they snap their fingers, have intentionality about who should disappear. And Thanos is purposefully trying to have an objective vagueness. Right.

Yeah, I guess... I don't know enough about it. These are very powerful stones, Mallory. I guess, like, the reality stone gives you the. Yeah, I guess. I don't know. These are very powerful stones, Mallory. I guess like the reality stone gives you the reality you want. Perhaps. That seems like a reasonable expectation. But so, you know, like you said,

Iron Man builds a new infinity gauntlet of his own. Hulk puts it on. He snaps his fingers. Unfortunately, he doesn't snap them quick enough to eliminate 2014 Thanos, who comes back from the quantum realm, same way that the Avengers got back into the present day he

fires a series of missiles that destroys the Avengers home base and yet they all live they all survived I noticed that too including the human beings

who don't have powers a little suspicious there I mean there's a meteor sized hole in the earth from the force of these missiles and they all live

and are in peak fighting shape yes very quickly the dog alien monsters come for the rubble from the force of these missiles. And they all live and are in peak fighting shape. Yes. Very quickly, the dog alien monsters come for the rubble. They pursue the Infinity Gauntlet. They pursue Hawkeye.

They pursue all of the surviving Avengers. We get this showdown with Cap and Thor and Thanos, which is very, very... Great. Very exciting. Honestly, great.

It's just very good. It's just sort of like, this is why I invested my time in this. They have a vicious battle. And then, of course, because Hulk has snapped his fingers wearing the Infinity Gauntlet, everybody starts to return.

And it's right at the peak moment when we feel like Cap is going to die. And there's an expectation that Cap is going to die in these movies. Yes. I compared it to you after the film to John's solo stand in the Battle of the Bastards. It's like actually almost a mirror shot.

You're one hero who is willing to do anything, including giving his own life, finding the courage somehow to stand there in the face of literal doom. And that was amazing and then just like davos and torment and the cavalry all eventually send the forces forward and rush in just in time to be there for john all the portal we hear sam we hear sam in his earpiece first cap and it's like people in the theater screamed you know and that's one of the really fun moments that a marvel movie can give you yes and then all of the portals open and i i really like dr strange and i really like um all of that magic

and thinking about how it works one of my favorite moments is in infinity war is the dude you're embarrassing me in front of the wizards exchange which is iconic and it's just it's a perfect visual representation of all of these people coming together, basically of what this entire saga was all about. These portals open, all of our heroes return through them, people we maybe didn't even think we would see.

You know, obviously Valkyrie comes in earlier in the film when we see Thor, Fat Thor and New Asgard, but Valkyrie there, Pepper? We get Iron Gwyneth. Incredible. Iron Man, Gwyneth Paltrow everyone is there obviously the

return of spider-man is like incredibly emotional and awesome was that the loudest cheer that you heard the return of spider-man i don't think it was really close actually i mean i think that's very notable yeah black panther got a huge scream but and sir i mean certainly when when cap wields the the hammer that was like people were losing their minds but i think that i think the spider-man scream was the loudest people seem extremely and that was also the most like notable um audible collective sniffle i think when he and iron man are reunited um it's amazing what they've done with that you know i just did an episode of this show with adam neiman about spider-man homecoming and we talked a lot about how they made an iron man and spider-man father-son relationship seem authentic and that really pays off in this movie

in a in an honest way yeah i mean especially given how much of the beginning of the film is tony with his actual child and getting you to invest in that relationship and the you know the the hesitance that he has to help them figure out the time heist is because he's not very reasonably by the way like not willing to risk this new thing that he's built and found and to get you to buy in so fully to his relationship with his actual daughter's precious little child, Morgan. Loves him 3,000. And to also invest that fully still in the relationship that he has with Peter and to not feel in any way like one diminishes the others is really miraculous. So when I wrote about this, I wrote about it as Marvel's splash page moment. So if you are a reader of comic books or perhaps a reader of Playboy magazine

or a reader of newspapers, there is something called the splash page. Now in comic books, it's typically one standalone page, full illustration of a single image.

The best splash pages in comics history are two pages. And the very best ones are at the center. They're where the staple meets the binding. And that's where you can see

a full image. There's a very famous shot of all of the Marvel heroes in the Secret Wars story from 1984 that signifies that this is a true team-up. And team-ups are like a core theme, a core eventizing of comic book storytelling. I've not seen a movie iteration of this in any meaningful way until this movie it reminds me I think the closest

that we get is probably The Lord of the Rings in terms of like a battle where you're like oh everybody is here to battle there are a couple of Star Wars moments maybe

particularly in the prequels which are not very good but you do see a lot of like showdowns or with battles against armies of droids but this movie has that like

oh there's that guy and then there's that woman and then there's that person and then there's that person and then there's that person. And you're sort of picking people out from the frame. And, you know, we can attest to this because we sat through the entire credits of this movie and we saw just how many digital artists work on this movie. I mean, it's literally hundreds and hundreds of people who are basically painting this movie. And this entire sequence is one big painting.

It's like it's a very fanboy version a raphael painting you'd find in the sistine chapel i was literally just thinking exactly that because it feels like it spans across the sky you know you're looking at it and it's it is one of the i i haven't you know i i don't like leaving my home as you know and i like you know having a nice tv good speakers so i very rarely feel compelled to leave my home this was one of those rare moments where i'm like oh my god movies so glad i'm in a theater i'm so glad that the screen is as wide as it can be for human eyeballs to perceive what it is showing me. And the Avengers assemble cap moment when he's at the head of that was just so cool.

And one of the things I really loved was that you can, as the portals are opening and everybody gets their own little moment, you know, you get to celebrate seeing T'Challa and Shuri and you get to celebrate everybody individually, but then you pan out and you can see through the portals into the cities that they're all coming from and it's this like beautiful embodiment of the idea that that you know like the realms of men not to keep quoting

game of thrones but there's obviously a lot of commonality with this stuff they're in this one place this avengers headquarters location like ground zero for the thing that they do but they're connected to all aspects not only of their world but of the universe and it's all coursing through into this same moment in space and time even though part of the point of the enterprise and captain marvel reminds us of this many times over the course of the enterprise and captain marvel reminds us of this many times over the course of the movie is that it's all happening everywhere like the narcissism of the human being is to think that it's only about us and the movie i think effectively navigates that reminding us that these same problems are occurring in all these different

places although thanos is particularly eager to wipe out humanity. I just loved it. And the way that they show you that all in just a second on the screen is incredible. If you're looking for a reason to see this movie, if you're modestly interested in Marvel movies, this is the reason. This is like the payoff in a significant way. Now we can use it to talk about sort of what happens in that battle sequence

and then what the aftermath of that is. I think the reason is pizza and beer with Fat Thor, but it's fine. Maybe we should just do a standalone Fat Thor pod. I'm very curious about some of the sort of makeup and prosthetic

technology used because there's no chance that Chris Hemsworth got fat. He's certainly wearing some sort of bodysuit, Eddie Murphy in the Nutty Professor situation. The commitment to the

bit, though, is extraordinary. I spent the whole entire movie thinking okay this is the moment where some sort of thunder courses through him and he gets like unbelievably buff again or you see him drinking some sort of elixir when he's back with his mom oh this is the thing no he's fat the entire time and it's an it's amazing and there's also that he's also drunk wasted he is hammered literally yes there's also that. He's also drunk. Wasted. He is hammered.

Literally. Yes. There's the great moment where his beard braids itself. It's great. As he readies for battle. Loved it. Marvel figuring out what to do with Thor over the course of the Thor story is kind of one of the great accomplishments of what they've done. And it's a sign that no matter how out you are on something, there's been a lot of talk about like DC, for example, the first three or four movies in the

DCEU are just not very good. And there's way too serious and they're kind of ill-considered and they just made a lot of mistakes. And now what they're doing is they're taking some of that learned behavior from Marvel movies, which is like, just chill out a little bit, have more fun, be a little bit more self-referential and they're taking it to heart. And there's no better example than the Thor stuff which just works really well. Nevertheless, let's get back to the serious of this movie.

It takes Iron Man to ultimately defeat Thanos. Yes. And he again has to put that same Infinity Gauntlet on after stealing it off of Thanos' hands. We do see Thanos

very briefly get the Infinity Gems back. Iron Man gets it back from him in a very clever turn of play. He gets the stones. Yes, he gets the stones. That's right. He has a very clever turn of play he gets the stones yes he gets the stones that's right he does not he had but he has a he has a gauntlet of his own snaps his fingers all of the thanos's family and that whole crew is gone yep then the weight is too much to bear the power is too strong yep tony stark dead he dies he actually dies uh it's really sad

robert downey jr is definitely the most important person that has been in these movies. He is the star of the first movie in the series. He is the person that they have used to most effectively tell the story of other characters. I don't think Captain America works as a character if he is not in opposition to Iron Man. Interesting. I don't think Spider-Man is effectively reintroduced after getting five Spider-Man movies this century. And then we got what felt like the right Spider-Man movie because of Tony Stark. Tony Stark is a representation not just of wealth and

power, but also of the sort of difficulty to find decency. And he is a certain person who is searching for his own evenness throughout the movies. He dies. It's extremely emotional. It really was. It honestly really was. It's been funny to read a lot of the criticism in the first few days since the film's been released because, you know, a lot of the people who are film critics are middle-aged and cynical and people who write about movies are cranks. And I'm one of them. I can be a crank about a lot of things. You've heard me be a crank on this podcast. Oh, I think a lot of them were like, I cried. I cried when tony stark died

i definitely cried uh it's it's it's very well handled that in particular is okay this is the instant where this thing ends this entire thing that they've built and it becomes something else and and of course the symmetry of that you know the book end of it with him being the one that they started it all around and you know the the end credits the absence of the the the stinger the thing that we do get is this hammer sound and some you could theorize about whether that indicates you know the arrival of a new villain or a new iron man but it is i think undeniably the sound of him building the iron man suit for the first time and it's this like really beautiful emotional tribute at the end Pepper's there with him to kiss him goodbye

it's just like so sad and then Peter's with him I'm getting emotional I can see the tears are appearing in your eyes it's just really lovely And you see the look on Cap's face. And the thing is, ultimately, Infinity War, the main conversation after it was like, well, what are the stakes, right? That is what I wrote about when the movie ended. And this moment, this death, undeniably had stakes. And I personally, you know, my feeling on the whole Infinity War stakes conversation was, well, I think stakes can come in many forms and emotional investment in these people is a real thing, even if they ultimately come back and, you know, frankly, being reminded that it's worth emotionally investing in something either for us as viewers

or the other characters in the story is a worthwhile pursuit. But when you see half of Tony's body fried from this gamma power coursing through him and you know there's the whole exchange earlier in the film about how only hulk can be the one to do it because we we just we know that a human being cannot handle this power and we've seen even thanos fried from using it but the original than Thanos, who they chop his head off from the force of using it, it basically broke even him. So you know what this is going to cost. It's setting this up the entire time. And I think one of the best moments in the movie and the smartest choices is having Tony ask Doctor Strange after he comes back,

is this the one? You said that of the 14 million scenarios, there was one that we won. Is this it? And Dr. Strange basically says, I can't tell you that. And that, so before Tony even does this and dies, I think you know that that's what that means. He can't tell him because if he does, it's like, will he have the strength to make that choice then? You know, it has to be a pure sacrifice sacrifice and yet right before you get that moment of acknowledgement between them where he looks over at him and he holds up the finger one this is it this is it i like that moment it's great uh it's in stark contrast i think not just to captain america but to chris evans chris evans as a public figure has been a little bit agonized as his role as a superhero figure.

And he's always talking about the burden of playing Captain America, not necessarily in a complaining way, but I think he clearly was done with this. He was ready to be over. And so there was this expectation, as we mentioned earlier, that he was going to die. Robert Downey Jr. has been a little bit more cagey about it. And Robert Downey Jr. has been a loyal soldier of the MCU.

And so his death feels significant. What happens to Captain america is um interesting the way that they choose to sort of wrap up his story and wrap up this movie which is that captain america has survived thanos's invasion from 2014 into 2024 real twist and at in this sort of coda sort of the sort of false ending at the end of the battle, Captain America decides he's going to go back into the past. Right. We have the funeral. We say our farewells.

Say our farewells to Tony. And then Captain America wants to go back into the past. Now, I think, is it just to reunite with Peggy Carter? Do we know what he's planning to do beforehand? Did you have a sense of what his plan was? So he's taking the stones back. That's right. That's what it is.

Yes. He has to go take the stones back and return them to their original locations and then this idea is that as much time you have as much time as you need but in the current moment in our timeline no time passes at all and so they're bringing him back and you know bucky and sam the two characters who everyone was like which of them will be the next captain america are there and they bring up they call him back in the moment when they're supposed to and he's he doesn't appear he's not there and then they see him in the distance this shriveled old man sitting on a bench yes and so i guess he just stayed and went back and found peggy after he

did the thing that he was supposed to do which was return of the stones right the implication being and then we ultimately do see it in the very last frames of the film that he was supposed to do, which was return of the stones. Right, the implication being, and then we ultimately do see it in the very last frames of the film, that he has spent his life with Peggy Carter. He's got a wedding ring on. We see them dancing, having that dance at last. It's beautiful. I'm glad that Steve Rogers is no longer a virgin.

That was my main takeaway from the movie. It's good for him. Maybe he should have put a sex scene right at the end of this movie, like a really graphic Agent Carter, Captain America sex scene. Unfortunately unfortunately they don't do that what I wrote down here is Captain America is old AF and um

a question that you had walking out of the movie is can Captain America age I've done a little research it turns out he can age he ages at a significantly slower pace than most humans cell regeneration but nevertheless if he were to get from if he were 20

at the beginning of Captain America, which I guess is about 1942, 1943, something around there. And then we go to 2024, he's still only about 100 years old, right? Yeah, I guess. I thought he looked way too old. I was confused by this. I thought that the makeup was very good. Yeah, it was great. It was great.

Nevertheless, what I read is that he should live to about 120 to 140 right and if he's 100 he looks like he's about 80 so maybe that checks out i guess yeah maybe i guess so here's can i can i ask 50 questions about this yes so everything else still happens which means that steve rogers in his domestic bliss just sits it all out that version of him like he's watching all these horrors unfold around him does nothing incredible discipline we don't know but i think we're supposed to believe that that happened right because those timelines are preserved per your metaphor this could be an on-ramp to a captain america prequel if chris evans decides to get back in the game though what about chris evans in 1958 what about chris evans in 1984 this is one of my other questions what about agent carter though because there's an agent carter show and she's definitely single well that show was

canceled i enjoyed it while i was on we don't have to worry about necessarily what happens in the extended agent carter universe um i think we're left with a lot of questions i don't think we're gonna be able to answer an old peggy finding him you know when he's discovered in the ice it's very confusing the time logic is just not going to be resolved. And attempting to resolve it will make us crazy. Not that we're not already crazy based on the intensity of this podcast. I have a couple of more things for you as we wrap up this conversation. One, I want to know what your five favorite Marvel movies are now.

Because this is truly the end of this. Okay. And I've been thinking about this a lot. I think you asked me on the way into the screening. And I wasn't quite sure where this sits this movie would not make my top five

same though I do think that that battle would make probably my top three of like I'm glad I'm watching these I agree with that

reverse order five to one yeah please number five Captain America the Winter Soldier which I love just think Bucky

is like insanely hot if we're being honest Bucky who will not be Captain America Sam will be the new Captain America I just I really love

the Winter Soldier I think that's a really fun movie I like rewatching that and I actually like all of the Captain America movies but that's that's my pick

from those I do too and I will just use that as a moment to say we have not talked about the Russo brothers who directed this movie.

I talk to directors on this podcast all the time. I'd be remiss if I did not point out. You know, I think they really set the course in the last five to six years for all of these movies. They directed the last two Captain America movies and they of course directed Infinity War and Endgame. Right. They've done a pretty darn good job.

Amazing. And those four movies are going to be 20 of the highest grossing movies of all time. Pretty impressive. Anyway, continue. Number four four number four uh thor ragnarok great movie which i love me too uh short hair thor is the best thing that's ever happened to the mcu and thor having long hair in this movie was a tragedy um ragnarok is just such a delightful tonal shift and it is the embodiment of two hours of fun at the movies

three Guardians of the Galaxy wonderful film delightful, I enjoyed the musical cues in Endgame I felt like it was a way of injecting a little bit of the Guardians' DNA before Star-Lord comes back into the movie to Black Panther and one Infinity War.

So that's- Wow. Infinity War number one. Yeah. On the one hand, it's like, is this recency bias? But on the other hand, I just think that they've figured a lot out and phase three was really good so that's yeah that's three phase three movies and two from phase two my list is very similar i have infinity war at five spider-man homecoming at four thor ragnarok at three guardians of the galaxy at two and black panther at one now i think these are conventionally understood to be the best movies in this franchise homecoming too you know they're the best reviewed movies. Winter Soldier is also among the best reviewed movies.

And there is a little bit of recency bias at play, but it's at play because like you say, they just kind of figured something out both tonally and in a storytelling way in the last five years that is like genuinely exciting. And it doesn't, it makes me excited about what they're doing. You know, if you heard me talking

about some of the earlier films in the series on the show, you could sense that I was kind of like, the first Avenger is not that great. It has a lot of problems. And that's okay. That was true because they needed to work through it. And most movies and most movie franchises don't get the chance to do that. I would say it's honestly only action franchises, James Bond, The Fast and the Furious, Mission Impossible, movies that are not bound by mythologies that tend to be able to figure out how to be the best version of themselves, the most self-actualized version of themselves. This is one of the rare big-time movie franchises that is telling one long story that actually figured it out in real time.

So that's kind of a reflection of my top five and yours, I think. Let's look ahead really quickly. Okay. We mentioned that there was no end credit sequence, that there was this homage to the Iron Man building the suit, which is a great call on something I did not realize walking out of the movie theater. We said Sam is Cap. Thor, it seems like, is basically a guardian.

He just ends up on the guardian's ship at the end of the movie. Yeah. Amazing. It's an amazing dynamic between the Chris's there there him and pratt are just wonderful together the way that they have injected the meta commentary on the chris wars into these movies is really really absolute chef's kiss emoji great and that whole back and forth about like we know who's in charge we know who's in charge we i i just love it it was very fun really wonderful poor chris pine on the outside looking in, you know? He died so long ago.

I also like the way that when Sam picks up the shield and, you know, Steve asks him how it feels. He's like, like it belongs to someone else. I like that as, yeah, kind of ushering in the new, but also honoring the past. We haven't talked about Valkyrie at all, though she's pretty significant in this story. Tessa Thompson returns,

and at the end of the movie, we learn that she, I guess, is going to be the new king of the new Asgard? That's correct. Which is cool. I wonder if they'll make a Valkyrie movie. The old king only drank beer. That was what Fat Thor was doing,

so it's time for new leadership. Someone with a vision. I think it's obvious that Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel are the centerpieces of this going forward. In addition to the Guardians. Yeah. We're a long way away from that next Guardians movie, though.

Yes, in part because James Gunn was fired and rehired. I'm happy he's back. I'm happy that they're going to be doing something with him. And I'm hopeful that Thor is a part of that story. I think that that makes a lot more sense than a new Thor movie. So do you think they're done making standalone Thor movies? It's hard to say. I think part of the contingency

with Hemsworth's desire to continue making these movies, and he has never said fully that he is out, but I think that he doesn't necessarily want to have to make another Dark World. So this seems like a good idea.

And I think, honestly, the future of these movies and the future of these Disney Plus shows is the team up. You know, we know for instance that WandaVision is going to be one of the shows that they're making.

So that's a great way to get Scarlet Witch. We also haven't mentioned Envision, who does not appear in this movie, back together and back on screen and tell their stories together. So I think that that will be a way forward for some of this stuff. I'm still like at a loss with Captain Marvel. I just don't think it works. I don't think that Brie Larson fits in. She does get a haircut.

I think that she has a little bit of a power problem which you can read about on TheRinger.com. Zach wrote about this really well. In some ways, it's just, that also is a recency thing

where she's just a little late to the game so we're not as invested in her. And she, of course, leads this very notable charge in the battle sequence of all female superheroes which is...

That was cool. It's on the nose but it all female superheroes, which is, that was cool. It's, it's on the nose, but it works. It really works. And that was great. But like the idea of being like, well,

she is, she and black Panther and Spider-Man are the future. I'm like, I definitely just want to watch Spider-Man black Marvel. We'll see if they figure out the Captain Marvel thing. And then there's all these other movies that they, that they have planned. And all of these movies,

even by the terms of like guardians of the galaxy, being a weird choice to make a movie about are are unusual Chloe Zhao who's made two extraordinarily small films including last year's

The Rider which is a great movie is making The Immortals I don't know anything about The Immortals apparently Angelina Jolie is going to star in it oh my goodness

and Kumail Nanjiani wonderful sounds good these The Immortals are the people who essentially created the heroes so like Game of Thrones is doing the Age of Heroes prequel.

This is sort of the Age of Heroes prequel. These are like interstellar beings who grant beings across the universe the power to be good or evil. Will I finally learn the Night King's motivation? Perhaps. Perhaps Chloe Zhao knows. And then Shang-Chi, or Shang-Chi, I'm not sure the pronunciation, Master of Kung Fu. Which, you know, Marvel notably got this stuff wrong with Iron Fist. Oh, yeah.

And they're going to try to correct it. So they're making Master of Kung Fu at some point in the near future. That's really all we know about. If we want to really forecast, if I had to guess as a comics nerd, now that Fox is in the fold, they're going to reboot the X-Men, certainly. They're going to recast all the X-Men. There's going to be X-Men movies. No question.

I think Fantastic Four will come back. Right. We'll definitely see the Fantastic Four again. With Fantastic Four comes two things. One, Silver Surfer. There will be a Silver Surfer movie. There has to be a good Silver Surfer movie. Silver Surfer, famously, how I won the Ringer superhero draft. But it's fine. We don't have to talk about that here. Silver Surfer is one of the better characters in all of Marvel. And with Silver Surfer comes Galactus.

Yes. And Galactus is the only super villain that we've never seen because Galactus is almost too powerful, more powerful than Thanos. He is a devourer of worlds. And if they're not going to Galactus for the next 10 years, I don't know where they're going to go. Right. So, okay. I have a question for you. The next Spider-Man movie is actually the end of Phase 3. That is what Kevin Feige says. Okay, so do you think that we're going to get something,

I mean, it stands to reason that we have to, the end or somewhere in that movie that then gives us a clear answer here to what's next on the villain front? I assume so. We know that Mysterio is the villain of that movie.

Mysterio, one of the cooler Spider-Man villains, though if you're having a conversation about Thanos and Galactus, he seems a bit small by comparison. He's the guy who just makes it look like things are happening that aren't actually happening. Sort of a living reality stone.

But yeah, I would presume. I would presume that, and there's going to be a lot of anticipation for the Spider-Man movie that we'll get some sort of tease as to what's coming in the future. And I think all of this intergalactic stuff, Master of Kung Fu,

but particularly the Immortals, indicates how they're going to start telling the story. That will put Guardians and Thor at the forefront. That will put Captain Marvel at the forefront. This has a chance to become

a kind of Battlestar Galactica, an intergalactic story going forward. Chris Ryan has long suspected that that was where the future of these stories was going to go. We'll see.

I don't know. If it means a great Silver Surfer movie, I'm excited about that. Me too. It does seem like bringing the Fantastic Four in can open up a lot of villain possibilities. I agree with you that Galactus is the best and also most obvious choice for the next super supreme villain, but we could try to do Doom right. That would be cool. Cross my mind. They really scotched Doom on the last Fantastic Four.

That was a really bad Doctor Doom. There's also one other character who is Mephisto. Mephisto is Satan. Marvel has Satan as a canonical figure. He's a slightly more of a trickster version of Satan than the real Satan, but I could see that being a thing. And Mephisto and Thanos and death,

this sort of the female embodiment of death, which is the figure that Thanos in the comics is in love with. And that is why he does all the things that he does is, is an act of love. Oh, wow. It is not an act of political genocide. Again,

I would just like to note that Thanos, this whole thing was, you know, it'll be a paradise after we get rid of half the people. Let the resources flourish. Live off the land. Earth looked like a fucking dung heap. Yeah, he was wrong.

And you know, he reconstitutes his vision to just kill everybody by the end of the movie, which I thought was, maybe he should have started there. It would have made things a little bit easier. Nevertheless, where Marvel goes, we'll see. They're going to make a lot of money. What about a Nihilus? You have a Fantastic Four and Captain Marvel connection there? No.

I mean, could that work? I don't know. There's some possibilities. It's really hard to do space stories, though. Stick with time travel? Give us Kang the Conqueror? That could work. Just do time loops every five minutes?

Yeah. As we noted throughout this show, time travel is a challenge. It's truly a challenge. Mal, any closing thoughts? Anything that you loved more than anything that you want to point out before we go away? I'm intrigued by the shot of Quill on his ship near the end looking at his monitor. And we see a picture of Gamora and the word searching, dot, dot, dot. So she is not with them uh and I assume that the pursuit to find her will be the big part of what comes next I'm

I just really love spending time with the guardians so I'm interested to see that and I I just am as all in on Thor as I possibly could be and really really hope that I don't have to wait until 2022 to see him do something cool in a movie or say families are tough to somebody again. You know, I just want that sooner. I think that the only real mistake when we look back at this, it won't be complex time travel. It won't be, you know,

devoting 65% of the screen time to Black Widow and Hawkeye and War Machine. It will be Chris Evans shaving his beard. That's unforgivable. That's my final thought. I can't imagine a better place to end this podcast. Chris Evans, please grow your beard back. Thank you for listening to The Big Picture. Thank you to Mallory. You are the greatest. you