I have seen Endgame!

[sholio]

Rarely has my opinion on a movie been so thoroughly mixed.

As a movie-watcher wanting to be entertained, I really enjoyed it! Despite being very much not on board with some of its narrative choices (mainly Natasha's death and the way Thor was handled as a character), I really enjoyed 90% of the movie. It was much more character-focused than I thought they would be able to get from a movie with so many arcs to tie up. I particularly was not expecting Nebula to have such a great arc; that was a lovely surprise. I knew the movie would involve time travel but was not expecting the tour-de-previous-movie, which was a fun nostalgia trip and a nice way to tie a bow on this phase of the MCU. Characters time-traveling and then having to avoid their past selves while running around in a previous installment of canon is a ridiculous trope that I wholeheartedly love, and the Battle of New York sequence was especially fun. I did not expect all the cameos from canonically dead characters, from Jarvis to Alexander Pierce, and that was incredibly fun as well.

Taken on its own as a movie, it was - I felt - a really enjoyable movie with a few flaws, if you like big bombastic superhero movies. Which I do. If it weren't for the fact that I'm currently quite invested in a fandom way, I think this movie would be kind of like most of the Star Wars or Star Trek movies are for me: splashy big-budget sci-fi movies that I enjoy being entertained by, and mostly ignore the parts that don't work for me, and enjoy being wowed and/or made to feel things by the parts that do work.

However, as a fan who is (or was) actively writing fanfic in several areas of the MCU, and someone who is very emotionally invested in certain groups of characters, I ... uhm. So they managed to completely and totally break literally EVERYTHING I read and/or write fanfic for, from the Netflix MCU shows existing in a miserable dystopia for the next 5 years, to the entirety of Agent Carter and all my fic being jossed, to Loki and Gamora being perma-dead. (I realize we still have *a* Gamora and *a* Loki, but the canonical ones who had all that character development over several movies are still gone. I was so convinced their deaths were going to be fixed that I'm still upset and processing over that.) Just about every ship in the fandom has been completely destroyed, along with the ability of any of the spinoff/TV-verse canons to remain MCU-compliant. (Which I think probably means any chance of the Netflix shows or AC being resurrected at this point is completely dead in the water. Not that there was much chance of it anyway.)

So yeah, I'm still processing how I feel about this. On the one hand, this movie provided a bunch of new story ideas based off the new canon -- which is something you don't usually get for closed canons; I think it's going to be fun to write 5-years-later presumed-dead/post-Snap reunion fic for the Defenders characters, and fic incorporating Steve into the AC universe. I look forward to checking out all the fic and writing some myself. But it did end up doing the thing I feared most from a fandom perspective: it broke all my canons. My choices at this point are essentially to ignore canon and write AUs, or scrap everything I'm working on and write new and different fic that's compliant with the new canon. On a fandom level, I am torn between "I really enjoyed the movie and it gave me new story ideas, which is nice!" and HOW DARE YOU BREAK ALL MY BEAUTIFUL CLOSED CANONS. >:|

Comments

[chelseagirl]

I just posted a long Peggy based ramble in my journal; I just can't see how this doesn't erase Agent Carter and *argh*. (Also deeply grateful that neither of my SSR Confidential assignments involves, well, Peggy . . . )

[sholio]

Yeah, this WOULD happen in the middle of SSR Confidential. SIGH. I hope people don't end up being too terribly jossed and/or scared off to finish their assignments. I guess the early May check-in is even more important than I was expecting when I decided to do that this year ...

[yalumesse]

Same, basically. I ranted more about how they treated Thor and their logic fails re: time travel, but OH MY GOD there was so much about this movie I loved.

I've had an unfortunately large amount of practice ignoring dumb additions to canon so I'll probably go down the road of denial, fixits and flatly ignoring it. They gave us such an easy (and badly explained) "but alternate universes!" toy that you could alllllmost argue that all AUs are canon because multiple timelines! Which I will. Even if holes are poked in it.

[kore]

I'll probably go down the road of denial, fixits and flatly ignoring it. They gave us such an easy (and badly explained) "but alternate universes!" toy that you could alllllmost argue that all AUs are canon because multiple timelines! Which I will. Even if holes are poked in it.

I really do think it's a multiverse story but they framed it as time travel AND THEN there was that ending. I totally don't think Steve was Peggy's husband all that time but I get the strong impression they want us to think that. It'l be interesting to hear if the filmmakers ever clear it up, or what they say on the DVD commentary. (I have the strong suspicion they will want it to be ~AMBIGUOUS, like "did Quentin really off himself?" on the Magicians. It just makes me feel Hollywood writers shouldn't be allowed to touch ambiguity.)

But IDK. It feels very strange like this movie ALMOST really gets there for me, except for some massive fails, but the fails are so big it's hard to focus on the fun stuff.

[sholio]

Yeah, I think ignoring canon is the only way to proceed - in pretty much ANY part of the universe, I've realized thinking about it, because even the corners of the 'verse like Black Panther or Ant-Man where everyone survived are still having to deal with a canonical 5-years-of-dystopia time-skip.

[sheron]

Yeah, I feel you, but Steve changes nothing about AC or MCU! At least that's how I'm understanding it now. Here's some meta I reblogged on Tumblr as well:

https://sheronwrites.tumblr.com/post/184473359129/time-loops-and-alternate-timelines

[sholio]

I'll have to think about it! I'm not at all convinced that the timelines didn't collapse back to the main one or dead-end when they returned the stones, is the thing. (I got that impression from the Ancient One's talk with Bruce, that returning the stone resets the timeline.) Steve clearly lived through a whole other timeline and seems to have gotten back to "our" time naturally (rather than using the suit), and therefore was presumably in ours the whole time; at least that's my interpretation.

On the other hand, there are always AUs for fanfic; fanfic is always a multiverse full of fixits. XD

[xparrot]

Yeah, I saw it and then...haven't put up any reactions because while I really enjoyed a lot of the movie, the stuff I didn't like, I really, really didn't like (as a Thor fan...and a Thor fan who freaking loved Thor: Ragnarok even/especially...) And I'm sort of worried that if I let myself rant about it I'll tip myself over into not liking the movie entirely.

...and I was thinking about you and Agent Carter fandom, because, yeah...while the show itself is fine as Steve doesn't turn up for years, it's still closing off the whole future.

I am most curious about GotG. (Though I'm hoping Thor isn't part of it?) In most cases I'd just be upset but with James Gunn back on board, he might be able to do something interesting with the Gamora story. (Really she's less an AU version and more like an amnesiac version -- she basically lost the last five years of her life, but until that point she was the same person? So...if they can get those memories back somehow...?)(and the Nebula and Nebula & Gamora stuff in this was amazing, so...)

(and for Loki I have a completely absurd crack headcanon to content me! :P)

[kore]

They seemed to be indicating that she wasn't Evil, too, because she believes Nebula (one lovely piece of meta I saw was that if Nebula says they were like sisters, Gamora is going to really believe that) and offers her hand to the Old Nebula, a la the end of GOTG1. (And Old Nebula won't take it, just like she does in GOTG1.) I'm dreading that what they are resetting is her feelings re Quill, so the focus will be a replay of them getting together all over again. I'm really hoping we get more Nebula and Gamora in GOTG3, to build on Endgame and what we got in GOTG2.

But they also completely wiped out all Gamora's character work in IW, even if I loathed most of it. *HANDS*

[sheron]

Nebula and Gamora was such a highlight of the movie for me! As much as it sucks that this Gamora never met GoTG and shared all that history, I feel like at least they caught Gamora right on the cusp of meeting them -- so characterization wise she was already the Gamora of 2014 GoTG1 movie, and that means she was ready to stand against Thanos and save the infinity stone from him then. She just needed a push. When she travels from 2014 to 2023 it's Nebula who gives her that push instead of the other way around, Gamora being the push for her. It's kind of lovely.

(I'm also headcanoning Nebula showing her some recordings from her memory)

[sholio]

.... actually, thinking of it as both Gamora and Loki being amnesiac versions of themselves (which is true!) makes me a little more okay with that side of it, at least for fanfic, because getting their memories back would actually fix it, and it's plausible for both of them - at least in terms of fanfic, even if this is in no way what the creators have in mind. Loki could easily have save-stated himself into the Tesseract and then merge with past!Loki somehow.

The Thor side of the fandom got so badly screwed by this movie. I was really Not Happy about that and I'm less happy about it the more I think about it.

But now I want fanfic about Loki getting his future memories back, and having to contend with that (and Thor getting his brother back, just not in the way he expected!). That'd be a mostly-canon-compliant fixit that I would really adore.

[sovay]

(I realize we still have *a* Gamora and *a* Loki, but the canonical ones who had all that character development over several movies are still gone. I was so convinced their deaths were going to be fixed that I'm still upset and processing over that.)

I hate character growth resets! What a weird choice.

[kore]

2012 Loki escapes and runs off with the Tesseract, so now the speculation about his Disney+ show is it's going to be him in multiverses, especially since an earlier description was about him affecting human history throughout time.

Elizabeth Olsen also just said that the WandaVision (no really that's the name, it just reminds me of WonkaVision) show is going to be set in the fifties. IDEFK.

[sholio]

Yeah, narratively speaking, they killed off the characters while keeping other versions of them from earlier in the timeline. I do like the above point made by xparrot, that it is effectively like having amnesiac versions of the characters around. That makes me feel a little better about it.

I think if I weren't invested in this universe in a strongly emotional way, I would have liked the movie a lot, in the same way that I've liked a number of flawed-but-fun big-budget action movies and been able to ignore the "what were you thinking!!" aspects of the plot for enjoyment purposes. Unfortunately in this case, the "what were you thinking!" aspects broke a lot of what I like to write about. But that's the peril of doing fandom for an open canon, I guess!

[kore]

Rarely has my opinion on a movie been so thoroughly mixed.

OH MY FUCKING GOD, I KNOW. I complain about all the stuff that broke my heat, and then I'm like, "But it was really good! So much better than IW!" (low fucking bar) I think it's probably the best of the team movies, after Avengers. (still a low fucking bar) I have to admit, if they hadn't killed Nat, I would be willing to handwave so much else.

(mainly Natasha's death and the way Thor was handled as a character)

OMFG SERIOUSLY

I particularly was not expecting Nebula to have such a great arc; that was a lovely surprise

It was great to see Gillan do such good work! ....altho I wanted her and Gamora to kill Thanos, not Nebula 1.0. What the fuck. There's a possibility for some really interesting Nebula-Gamora dynamics now, though. It was neat to see that spotlit especially when there was virtually no connection between other female characters (see there I go again).

Characters time-traveling and then having to avoid their past selves while running around in a previous installment of canon is a ridiculous trope that I wholeheartedly love, and the Battle of New York sequence was especially fun

The montage where they were all kind of trying to sum up each others' movies was fun, too, and altho all the references to time travel movies were a LITTLE on the nose, Scott's dismayed "Wait, Back to the Future is bullshit?" was the one time I laughed at his comedy. (BUT WHERE WAS MY LUIS, MARVEL. DAMN.)

splashy big-budget sci-fi movies that I enjoy being entertained by, and mostly ignore the parts that don't work for me, and enjoy being wowed and/or made to feel things by the parts that do work

Yeah, this movie underlined the difference for me re being fannish about something and just kind of enthusiastically participating, if that makes sense. Same thing happened with the Magicians finale.

So they managed to completely and totally break literally EVERYTHING I read and/or write fanfic for, from the Netflix MCU shows existing in a miserable dystopia for the next 5 years, to the entirety of Agent Carter and all my fic being jossed, to Loki and Gamora being perma-dead

Ohhh dude, thought I remembered you saying something like, you hoped that Endgame didn't mess with Agent Carter, and I think I'd heard spoilers by that time and I was just DDDD:

Just about every ship in the fandom has been completely destroyed, along with the ability of any of the spinoff/TV-verse canons to remain MCU-compliant. (Which I think probably means any chance of the Netflix shows or AC being resurrected at this point is completely dead in the water. Not that there was much chance of it anyway.)

I was kinda shocked by that, since James D'Arcy had a cameo and they're supposedly going to do a What If? episode with Peggy Cap and Steve in a suit Howard builds, supposedly with Evans and Atwell doing the voice acting. Maybe. But yeah, it sounds like they're going to just dump the Netflix shows, and if they do bring the characters back after two years it'll be a reboot. If they try to integrate Peggy into the MCU with a "Steve was her husband all the time she was at SHIELD" thing....IDK.

I look forward to checking out all the fic and writing some myself.

I LOVE multiverse stuff and What Ifs? and canon divergent AUs, so I'm really hoping fandom is inspired to produce a lot more of those. (And fix-its!)

But it did end up doing the thing I feared most from a fandom perspective: it broke all my canons. My choices at this point are essentially to ignore canon and write AUs, or scrap everything I'm working on and write new and different fic that's compliant with the new canon.

Yyyyyyyyeah. I also have difficulty with how very final the end of the film feels -- Nat and Tony are dead, Thor has fucked off to space, Bruce is going to....keep on being folksy IDEFK, Clint has retired, Steve has fucked off to the past. Paltrow is done with the MCU, too, so we're not going to get Rescue (we might still get Cheadle as War Machine?). I really, really hope they're lining up a Sam Cap movie, but it seems like they responded to the criticisms that the team movies have less characterization by....putting the characterization in the walled garden D+ shows. IDK. It felt like we only really got them as a team in Avengers, and then even in this movie they were mostly split up into separate teams (AND THEN NAT IS MISSING FROM THE FINAL BATTLE. I am so pissed about that. I feel like I will be pissed about it forever). I don't even expect Avengers Movie Nights in the MCU! (altho like you pointed out, it happens constantly in the comics....) But just more of them HAVING BEEN A TEAM would have been nice.

But....I just loved that with Peggy there was such a great heroine who went on and had a real life and love after Steve, and her show really underlined the message that her great Steve love wasn't the pinnacle of her life. But then Steve was her secret husband all along?? Either that, or it basically all took place in some kind of pocket universe, which as people pointed out on Tumblr already has a Steve, and means our Steve is kind of vacationing in other peoples' lives. Gahhh.

[sholio]

I just loved that with Peggy there was such a great heroine who went on and had a real life and love after Steve, and her show really underlined the message that her great Steve love wasn't the pinnacle of her life.

AAARGH, SAME. I think as a casual fan (that is, someone who watches the movies but doesn't think too much about it, the way I am with something like Star Wars or the DC movies), I would have appreciated the symmetry of Steve finally getting his dance and getting to live out the life he didn't have with Peggy. There's some alternate timeline out there where alt-me never saw the Agent Carter show or didn't really care for it, and got invested in other things, and loved the dance scene because all I really remembered about Steve and Peggy at that point is that they didn't get their dance and they should have. XD

But as someone who is way too invested in these characters, it frustrates the absolute hell out of me, because Peggy and Steve's storylines were both all about moving on and rebuilding a life after terrible loss, and I really loved those storylines. On a meta level I get that they had to take Steve out of the movies because Evans was done, and as soon as it became clear he was going back to return the stones, I figured he'd just fail to come back and end up vanishing in the timestream in a "maybe we'll see Steve again, maybe we won't" kind of situation.

... which I would have preferred 1000% to what we got, because as well as erasing AC, it also erases the aspects of both their storylines that I loved best, the "making a satisfying new life for yourself after losing the life you thought you'd have" arc. Resetting both of their storylines to give them the idealized happy ending that they'd both moved on from ... it's just so fundamentally frustrating to me. It's not precisely that I feel betrayed because, well, comics -- I have had comics retcon out things I loved in all kinds of ways, and have the most unsatisfying horrible endings to some of my otherwise favorite arcs. So I figured the movies were going to do it sooner or later. I just didn't expect it to happen quite this thoroughly.

All of that said, I did truly love large parts of this movie. It entertained me thoroughly, and I will be watching subsequent movies in the franchise. But I think for me everything goes AU as of IW. I expect I will write some Endgame-compliant fic because apocalypse AUs are fun to work with, but this is not canon for me anymore.

ETA: I also hadn't thought about Peggy already having a Steve in the past, aaaaaaaa. That actually takes it from general DNW to straight up nightmare fuel.

[snickfic]

But it did end up doing the thing I feared most from a fandom perspective: it broke all my canons. My choices at this point are essentially to ignore canon and write AUs, or scrap everything I'm working on and write new and different fic that's compliant with the new canon.

I just don't have any interest at all in that latter thing. Like, I will enjoy fic about characters meeting their AU selves and all that, but ultimately I just don't think the MCU as left to us at the end of Endgame is something I want to engage with.

On one hand, I've been merrily writing post-Ragnarok AUs for a year, so maybe I can just keep on being in denial? But otoh I did that holding my breath, waiting to see what happened in Endgame.

I feel like I'm in mourning for my canon, which sounds so overdramatic, especially for a canon that plays as fast and loose with characterization, plot continuity, etc as the MCU. But I'm really bummed. I'm hoping I'll be able to come out of it in a while and be fine just writing in the closed-off parts that I still love. Heck, I JUST wrote a post-TWS fic that was already way AU for those later movies, so it's not like I'm incapable of it! But ugh. :(

EDIT: Also, it's not really fun to write in the post-TWS era or whatever and imagine all this coming down the pipeline in their future.

[sholio]

Yeah, I agree 100% with this entire comment; I feel the same. It's entirely possible to ignore canon and keep writing, and I agree, I've been doing that with Infinity War for awhile now - but that was mostly staying in a holding pattern, assuming everything would be fixed (at least on a world level). But it wasn't fixed, and I agree with you, I don't really want to write about canon as they've given it to us, except on the level of "well, sometimes it is fun to write about the dystopian AU future". I enjoy a good dystopia AU now and then, and I think the current canon setup lends itself to a lot of interesting fixit and reunion fic - but those aren't things I wanted for the actual canon. I think I've hit the point where I'm just going to have to pretend IW and Endgame don't exist in order to keep writing in this fandom, even though there was a lot of character stuff I liked, in this movie especially. I can see myself writing the occasional AU in the Endgame universe, but it's going to be AU.

EDIT: Also, it's not really fun to write in the post-TWS era or whatever and imagine all this coming down the pipeline in their future.

OH MAN RIGHT?? I hate that too -- that rewatching GOTG or Ragnarok or any of the early movies is going to have this hanging over it. And even in the corners of canon that weren't devastated by loss (Black Panther, Ant-Man, Captain Marvel) there's still knowing that the characters went through 5 years of dystopia and are still having to deal with a world devastated by losing all those people, now having to deal with reintegrating all those people into the lives they rebuilt. It's a HUGE thing to just dump on everyone.

On the other hand, it is now definitively clear that this is not our world. I mean, I guess it was pretty clear already that it wasn't our world -- aliens attacking New York, etc -- but it still resembled our world closely enough in the broad strokes that you could think of it as a version of it. At this point it is very clearly not; it hardly even resembles it anymore. Which makes it a little easier to imagine different versions of them existing in various alternate universes.

[kore]

I feel like I'm in mourning for my canon, which sounds so overdramatic

I don't think it's that melodramatic, there were major deaths and injuries and retirements and the team is basically Over. I was reading an interview where Feige said they might not announce a full slate again, because he thought people wound up putting too much emphasis on the team movies (fucking LOL). In reality they're probably fucking exhausted from having pulled it all together....more or less. Nobody really knows what they're going to do until after FFH, but I think it's going to be different. ....I just really wish they'd been more of a team, dammit.

[leesa_perrie]

I really enjoyed the movie, and not being in the fandom side of it, it didn't affect me as badly as it could have - though killing off Tony broke my heart :( :(

But I knew fandom was going to explode, because it changes sooo many things, and I really feel for you and other fans. If something like this happened to, say, Stargate, I'd be struggling myself, so I get it *hugs*

I'm glad you mentioned Loki, I hadn't realised that his earlier self would be alive, but then time travel is confusing sometimes, lol!! And as I hadn't heard about the Disney+ show, I wasn't clued into him being alive (though very much hoping so, because, well, Loki, 'nuff said)! I mean, if they're going to kill my favourite Avenger off (TONY, NOOOOO!!!), they can at least keep the only villian I've ever kinda fallen for alive!!

Of course, I'm now sooo wishing I'd seen Captain Marvel at the cinema. Fortunately I had some idea from the trailer about her, but I have a feeling there may have been some things I didn't quite get. Like, the pegasus - is that from the Captain Marvel movie? But I knew this was a danger when seeing Endgame. I had been hoping for the Captain Marvel DVD to come out before Endgame, but *sigh* there you go. I wasn't waiting for Endgame to come out on DVD and risking spoilers for it, so risked spoilers for Captain Marvel and minor confusion in Endgame! I think I'll survive!! Even if Tony didn't :(

(I think I need a good gen (not too long) happy Tony Stark fic - any suggestions? I can't believe he's gone.)

[winter_elf]

Captain Marvel is still playing at some theaters around me... so maybe check and see if it is playing near you? I really enjoyed it - and wish Endgame had used her more.

The Pegasus wasn't in Captain Marvel - that's from Thor Ragnarok. (though Valkyrie didn't have a Pegasus there either - maybe she got it after the movie - or call 'call it'?)

[winter_elf]

Yep, yep, yep. I was entertained and enjoyed 90% - and was like NONONONONONO on the remaining 10%. I was thinking on you and SM who are HUGE Agent Carter fans and how upset you'd be on that. I didn't like it either.

Me and several others, who are fanfic types enjoyed but were more reserved in total liking (the Tony fan was especially upset). I was feeling very traumatized after the showing.

Another friend - who actually this month re-watched all the lead up movies - REALLY liked Endgame. A Lot. But he's not one who reads or enjoys fanfic.

So, I'm thinking that is the divide. Those of us who like to see branches/alternatives/fixes/AUs/missing bits expressed in stories are feeling upset with the finality (and OMG - the distopia!!!). Where as those who are just movie fans are excited and loved it.

and dang it - I don't have an MCU icon....

[kore]

Yeah, finality really does cover it for me. I know it's the end of a huge sequence and maybe of the way they did 1-2-3 solo movies and then combined them all in team films (sort-of team films, anyway) but it's just surprising how hard they shut the doors. It feels like a series finale, except there's still new canon they're going to do (which, if this is any sign, could even possibly affect previous movies?). It is not a happy combo.

[chouette]

That's it exactly! I liked the movie just fine; I thought it was a really fitting and fun tribute to the first ten years of MCU movies-- I'm also staring at the ruins of different past canons, aghast and sifting through debris for salvageable bits. And both mourning the scrappy, wonderful world that Agent Carter carved out for itself and also cheering for Steve and Peggy in the end.

Oh it's a lot of complicated emotions! But overall creatively positive, I think. It'll be a fun challenge, working with what Endgame has dropped on fandom.

[mithborien]

However, as a fan who is (or was) actively writing fanfic in several areas of the MCU, and someone who is very emotionally invested in certain groups of characters, I ... uhm. So they managed to completely and totally break literally EVERYTHING I read and/or write fanfic for

Yeah, I'm feeling pretty much the same way. Like I'm a huge Steggy fan and I hate that ending, there's just too many questions and bad narrative choices around it for me to enjoy it. Which is kinda how I feel about the movie itself, there was a lot of good stuff but the bad stuff is just overwhelming enough to ruin the experience for me.

[kore]

there was a lot of good stuff but the bad stuff is just overwhelming enough to ruin the experience for me

Yeah, that's really it.

[alessandriana]

Yeah, I fucking loved the movie up until the last 10 minutes.

The whole first half of the movie contained more character moments per capita than I think the entire rest of the Avengers movies. I really liked how it actually dealt with everything that happened instead of shoving all the pain under the rug for fight scenes, like most other superhero movies would have done. It felt like they actually made room for the characters to be people, if that makes sense? I don't like that Nat died permanently, or her lack of a funeral, but I *did* love the sacrifice-off with her and Clint. The final fight scene, where Strange brings everyone back in, is probably in my top five moments of the entire MCU. I was even okay with Tony dying, because honestly it was a really solid death scene, and didn't feel cheap or shoehorned in, which I had been worrying about.

Then, of course, we get them totally erasing Agent Carter, which pissed me right the hell off. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Her whole storyline is about getting over Steve, and growing as a person, and... argh. (I agree that if I hadn't seen AC it would have been a more satisfying ending.)

I think I'm going to treat AC (and other TV shows) like they happened off in their own little bubble, unconnected to the movieverse. The movie writers clearly don't give a rat's ass about the TV shows, so why should we care about keeping TV show fic compliant?