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 . . . )

[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.

[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

[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)

[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]

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.

[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.

[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]

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....

[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.

[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?