#I mean a lot of Anthony's quotes fit Loki's personality

[frzntrx]

Okay but hear me out:

KAnthony, but make it Frozentricks

[moonstruckbucky]

My Thoughts on Endgame

I went to see Endgame last night and have had all day up in my office all alone to compile my thoughts and feelings, of which there are numerous, about the movie while it’s all still fresh. Major spoilers below the cut, so if you haven’t seen it, back away!

Warning: Super long post ahead.

First, I’d like to say I am a Tony/Nebula stan, wholeheartedly. Somehow, the Russos managed to lighten up a very dark reality where Tony and Nebula are floating listlessly in space and running out of oxygen. The dark mood is made a little lighter by a noticeably very thin Tony teaching Nebula about paper footballs, and her innocence of Earthly activities gave her a human depth that only made me fall even deeper in love with her character. And the way she pushes Tony’s (probably last) bag of food towards him, knowing he needs it more than she does. (Does she even eat? Do cyborgs eat?)

Second, Clint’s family disappearing was the first time I cried. Honestly, I didn’t have a dry eye the entire movie, but it progressively got harder and harder for me to not sob. We’ll get to that.

Carol popping out of literal space to come cart Tony’s ass home was admittedly a little cheesy, but I didn’t hate it. What I really loved was Tony’s reunion with both Steve and Pepper, and the fight that ensued, mostly on Tony’s end, was emotional and so very Tony that I still had a hard time keeping it together. And I’m really glad that the Russos didn’t just skip over Civil War in favor of uniting everyone to take down Thanos for good. And it showed how broken up over it Tony still was because we all know Tony does have a heart and Steve Rogers broke it.

An appropriate time skip 5 years into the future and Scott Fucking Lang and that goddamn rat busts out of the Quantum Realm only to discover almost his entire family has been dusted. Ouch. And once he finds his daughter, instead of moping and falling into a pit of depression and grief, he hauls ass to the compound to talk to the Avengers about time travel and undoing everything.

Here’s where Meg really loses her mind. The teams. The effort to get the stones back. Natasha Fucking Romanoff schooling the Science Bros in figuring out there are three stones in New York all at once. Fucking Captain Sassypants fighting his 2012 self and Mr. Stark Scott Lang (i’ve been corrected) perfectly coining the term “America’s Ass” and Steve just going with it. I can’t with these two, honestly. Steve swearing. Talk about sticking it to Joss Whedon for that pathetic little joke we all thought was funny until we knew better. That whole sequence was perfect, especially because it didn’t go off without a hitch. Which means Loki is still alive somewhere in another reality. Yahoo!

Thor. Poor alcoholic, out of shape, PTSD-stricken Thor. My baby angel. It hurt to see him so lost and broken, but Korg and Meike playing Fortnite about killed me. The balance of humor to sadness was utterly perfect through this whole movie and it was all comprised of jokes that made sense. The fat suit made me cry of laughter because it looks so goddamn unnatural on someone who’s as cut as Hemsworth, and Tony’s Lebowski dig was wholly appropriate.

This is where Meg realizes she is not going to be okay for the eightieth time. When Nat and Hawkeye are delegated to retrieve the Soul Stone, because we know while they don’t what needs to be done in order to get the stone. I had a feeling Nat might be one of the ones we lost, but I have to say I never saw it coming like this. I was inconsolable through the entire sequence as she and Clint are fighting over who’s going to be the one to die. I had my sweatshirt over my nose to stifle my sobbing and my boyfriend’s looking over at me wondering if I’m going to be okay. Y’all should see my eyes today, no lie.

And the fact that they played the same music for Nat that they did Gamora in IW was the knife through my heart followed by that heart-wrenching shot of her lying dead at the bottom. She’s gotten rid of the red in her ledger. Natasha, my beautiful, intelligent, bad-ass, super spy, we love you. So much.

Steve in mourning for Nat deserved more screen time than just a quick shot of him crying while Banner pitches a bench across the lake. Steve and Nat were one of the powerhouse friendships of the MCU, and this is one of the few shortcomings of Endgame. I wanted to see Steve angry, and heartbroken, something on par with Clint’s outburst that it should have been him. Steve and Nat were best friends, he deserved a little more screen time to mourn such a powerful relationship.

The epic battle scene that follows after this is nothing short of incredible. The entire theater erupted in cheers when Steve wielded Mjolnir like he was meant to, so at least Joss Whedon got some foreshadowing right! At first I thought it was lifting by itself but nope! Steve is worthy, and he knows he’s worthy. There’s an incredible theory out there that Mjolnir can detect someone’s perceived self-worth, and I fully believe that theory after watching this movie. And the little humor in there when Steve ends up with Stormbreaker and Thor gets Mjolnir and says, “No, no, give me that. You get the little one.” Kill me. The fact that Thor is doing all this badass fighting with a beer gut leaves me in stitches just thinking about it.

That epic entrance of all those who fell to the Snap emerging in a beautifully shot sequence gives me life, okay? It was perfect. I even looked to my boyfriend and said, “Where are the others? If it worked, where are they?” and BOOM! There they all are. Bucky with his long-ass hair is such a fucking look, I can’t even. AND STEVE FINALLY SAID THE THING. I swear the entire theater cheered again for this!! Also Rocket wearing Bucky’s goggles that he probably stole? Epic. Even if they aren’t his, but you can’t really convince me they’re not because they’re too similar. So Rocket hasn’t lost his penchant for stealing things.

Okoye, fierce queen, we see you taking out Corvus Glave all on your own. We also see that amazing, powerful female battle squad who cut through Thanos’s army like it was fucking tissue paper. Wanda, the Strongest Avenger (fight me on that, I dare you), taking on Thanos and stripping him of his armor like the fucking boss she is. Say it with me again: Strongest Avenger. 

I also really really loved the game of Hot Potato with the gauntlet. Which brings us to...Mr. Anthony Edward Stark. The OG, the Big Guy. These next two paragraphs will be dedicated to him. The man who, 7 years ago, told us he would just “cut the wire” rather than lay his life on the line to save the other guy. When Dr. Strange said to Tony, “If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen,” I really, truly believed that Strange didn’t think Tony would go through with sacrificing himself in order to stop Thanos. He’d try to find another way. And yet I, along with a lot of others, knew he would do just that. Because Tony is nothing if not determined to prove everyone wrong about who they think he is, including Steve Rogers. Especially Steve Rogers. 

Tony gets to interact with his father and learns that while Howard was incredibly flawed, he was still wholly dedicated to his family. Proven by his nervousness about fatherhood because all he’s ever known is technology, and he knows a child does not work the same way tech does. He’s terrified. And he hides, buries himself in his work because he doesn’t know what to do. But he loves his family, I know he does. A lot of other people know he does. I was a mess for that whole thing, too.

Tony’s funeral was absolutely perfect, a perfect sendoff to this legendary man who basically built the MCU. RDJ, we love you 3000. Thank you for giving us Iron Man. Thank you for carrying us through this journey of hilarity, sadness, darkness, anger, grief, all of it. I have a ton of emotions over RDJ’s exit from the MCU but I can’t properly formulate words.

ALSO: HARLEY WAS AT TONY’S FUNERAL. HE WAS THE LONE OLDER TEENAGER. CUE MORE CRYING FROM MEG.

And the final bit that seems to cause a lot of dissatisfaction: Steve’s final decision.

I personally loved it. I don’t like the misstep in jumping over Steve and Bucky’s bond, because that was a driving force for an entire movie, Russo brothers. So I feel a little cheated with their relationship taking a backseat to Sam receiving the shield to take up the Captain America mantle. But aside from that, Steve’s decision was very, very fitting. He’s given so much of himself to wars and other people that he deserves to be selfish. And maybe he had that quote in AOU that someone else came out of the ice, but A4 Steve knew he could have that life, and he chose it. Bucky knew, almost instantly, when Steve was about to bring the stones back, which was why he was so relaxed and calm when he didn’t come back.

Bucky, I feel, is relieved above all to see Steve reach old age, since he probably never expected him to, at least before he became Captain America. He’s lived his life as Cap, and now he gets to live another as the man who finally got the girl. I just wish we could have seen more of the bond between the two of them, unless they had some kind of heart to heart off-screen which, again, a waste of one of the quintessential relationships in Steve Rogers’s life. 

And Bucky and Sam having some kind of mutual understanding, I know for a fact there was some reconciliation in the Soul World that we may or may not get to see in the new series coming out. I would love to see the two of them struggle with coming to grips with the fact that they were dead, and came back because their friends put themselves on the line at an incredible risk to try and bring everyone back. I think they could really create a bond similar to Steve and Bucky’s that was built on being “men out of time” and instead create a bond that’s men who survived the Snap and now are living a life without Steve Rogers (assuming he won’t take up the mantle again and will succumb to old age, like he goddamn deserves). Bucky is all for Sam taking that mantle, and that second of understanding between the two of them sent me off into another cry fest because I really love their dynamic, and Seb and Mackie both just have amazing on-screen chemistry. I am so excited to see what they bring to the new series coming out.

I would also like to say that while I was very emotional over Steve hearing Sam’s voice over comms saying, “On your left,” I really feel that Bucky should’ve had something. That’s really where Endgame’s biggest shortcoming is. They’ve built up the relationship between Bucky and Steve through CTFA, CATWS, and CACW, especially Civil War, and all you’re going to give them is four minutes of screen time together? Outta here with that. You dedicated an entire movie to Steve going to war for Bucky and y’all are gonna disrespect them like that? Even not shipping Stucky romantically, I can see the loving bond between the two of them that’s held up for 8 years. They deserved more than just a one-off line from CATFA, though that really set me off on another crying spree. I’m really not joking when I said there wasn’t a minute of that movie that I was dry-eyed.

Overall, I give this movie a 10/10. For what it was meant to be, it was everything I had expected and so much more. This movie made me roar with laughter, broke my heart more than once, and gave me an overall feeling of closure all at once. I am forever grateful to the cast, the crew, and the amazing characters created. The incredible late Stan Lee with his final cameo, to which the theater, again, erupted in applause. I’m just so overwhelmed by the work everyone at Marvel has put in to these characters and this world to give us these amazing stories. I’m tearing up as I write this because this is the end of an era for a lot of people who grew up with Iron Man, Hulk, Cap, Thor.... Black Widow. I just want to extend the biggest of thank yous to all of those people who made this world possible and brought so many people together.