There is far too much to write about this film, so this post will keep growing bit by bit. No plans to split it into part 1 and part 2 for now.
*Warning: Analysis and predictions ahead. Spoilers for the rest of the MCU as well.
This one is worth a look too
One year on…. and it is finally here!!!
The Avengers theme really is the best!!
Bought it on the spot lol
And then the cinema programme!!! Packed with interviews and articles, and the quality was insane. Well worth getting hold of one.
Ahh… so Tony and Cap have finally retired… genuinely cried at that… Tony has a kid now and looks so happy, and what he really wants is to live with them, but he is a hero right down to the bone, so he ends up the one who makes the sacrifice… I cried. So cool, and yet the funeral scene, and the faces of Pepper and his daughter and Happy while the hologram reads out his last words — it gets so sad… From Civil War onwards Tony’s humanity kept getting deeper. Always messing about, and underneath it that delicate side, and that was the charm of him. The thought of never seeing Tony again is really, really lonely. Such a good film… Tony could not possibly have been better than this… thank you, Tony…
Cap has retired too… old age in the end… but apparently he got to live happily with Peggy, so what a relief…!!! All that torment from Civil War gone as well… such a relief!!! With Cap it has to be “Avengers Assemble” at the final battle!!! Chills, and tears lol And it was lovely how much of this one he spent working alongside Tony~!! Come to think of it, is this not the film in the whole series where those two are together the most? Or maybe not? Either way, handing the shield to Falcon and plenty more besides — Cap had no shortage of moments!!! Thank you, Steve….
“You trust me…”
“I do”
Love those two 3001…
The first MCU film, Iron Man, closes on Tony saying
“I am Iron Man ”
That is how it ends. The line that announced the arrival of the MCU, and famous for it.
In this film Thanos has
“I am inevitable”
and the answer to it is
“I am…Iron Man”
— and with that, Tony beat them.
That exchange is the greatest in the history of cinema. Over ten years of build-up, plus everything that makes Tony the character he is, and it turns into a genuinely wonderful scene.
The brilliant part is that here Tony does not say
“I am…Tony Stark”
— he chose Iron Man instead. He travels back to 1970 and meets his father Howard. And Howard tells him it is fine to put your own happiness first. Early on there is a flicker of doubt with Pepper as well — rather than throwing himself into the fight, maybe the three of them could stay as they are, happy, living a life where he can sleep soundly.
But Tony did not pick “Tony” the man. He picked the “hero”, Iron Man. And it seems he had been hunting for a way to time travel for the whole five years since Infinity War. Seems he never stopped wanting to save Peter. Things had moved on with Pepper too. Not the marriage — what matters is that the two of them both understood that Tony is a hero. That early conversation with Pepper at the Stark house is a real favourite. It hints at how the film ends, and everything about who Tony is comes out of it. The old Pepper would have asked him to stop the hero work, for their daughter’s sake if nothing else. And the old Tony would have been searching for a way to time travel behind Pepper’s back. Here, with Tony agonising over whether to put himself in danger, Pepper says “but would you be able to rest?”. And Tony had apparently already told Pepper that time travel might bring everyone back. That sense of two people who understand each other completely is just wonderful.
The exchange with Howard was lovely too. In Civil War, Tony says that never having told his father Howard “I love you, thank you for everything” is his trauma, the thing left unfinished. Here he gets to say it properly, which may be why he can forgive the Winter Soldier as well. The film never spells any of this out, but watch it a few times and everything starts joining up. Wonderful.
Here is the thing: “Avengers Assemble”, as familiar as it is from the comics, had never once been said out loud in an MCU film! (Apologies if that is wrong)
And this time, finally!! Finally!! There it was! And the delivery of it—
“Avengers!!!!… Assemble…!”
— that second half, so low and so cool!!! Honestly unbeatable. The vanished teammates arriving one after another made me cry! This is what Avengers means!! The culmination of the whole MCU!!
There is actually a reason Sam tells him to look left — it is an homage to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, to the moment Sam and Cap first meet.
And when Cap sets off to return the Infinity Stones, the exchange with Bucky — don’t do anything stupid, and the rest of it — is an homage to Captain America: The First Avenger. The best.
So Cap finishes the job of putting the stones back, and takes the option of spending the rest of his life with Peggy. Read it as a mirror of what came before — Tony chose the “hero” over the “man”. Which means Cap chose personal happiness. A wonderful choice too. Neither Tony’s choice nor Cap’s is wrong. And it is the difference between the two of them that gives the film so much extra depth.
Going by The Winter Soldier, Civil War and this film, Cap may have got somewhere with Peggy’s niece Agent 13, but he has never got over Peggy at all. It is especially obvious here. At the support group in New York the other attendees are moving on and he cheers them for it, but he tells Natasha that he cannot move on himself. He keeps looking at that photo of Peggy as well. He knows he has to move forward, though. In every film so far Cap has wrestled with choosing the personal, and every time he ends up choosing the hero. Because no method on earth would let him be with Peggy. Cap is a man who takes the hero’s road as long as being with Peggy is off the table. This time, though, a new option appeared: time travel. So he chose Peggy.
Peggy tells him “the world has changed, none of us can go back” — and in this film he goes back… good, good… Watching the older films now, it starts to feel like this ending was decided all along.
And handing the shield to Sam at the end rather than Bucky… lovely~ You feel the friendship with Bucky in that.
And the dance!!
This scene in Captain America: The First Avenger is so good… an absolute favourite.
As everyone will have worked out, the promise of a dance is the bond between Cap and Peggy.
The Winter Soldier touches on it too… ahh, it makes you cry…
In The First Avenger, Cap says he would like a slow song. And in The Winter Soldier you can see that Cap has a record of “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” at home. This is the song.
Such a good song. And having it play over the credits and the dance with Peggy in this film… lovely… genuinely lovely…
Which moment in the past do Cap and Peggy meet again in? Best guess: the Stork Club, eight o’clock on a Saturday. Exactly as promised in The First Avenger. Peggy goes to the club after The First Avenger to remember him, and then… that sort of thing. Ridiculously romantic…
Short version: watch the older films and this gets so much better lol
And just like the comics, she becomes “Rescue”!! Fighting alongside Tony in the back half was so good!!! Wrote plenty about Pepper and Tony’s relationship up in the Tony section, so skipping it here.
The daughter was so cute~~ really. Maybe she takes over as Iron Man one day… that would be great! And Pepper should be back as the voice of experience!!
To be written later
To be written later
That metallic clanging right at the end is the sound of Tony building the first Iron Man suit in the first film. Full of respect for Iron Man, and lovely for it. It works as a requiem as well.
And the music over the Cap and Peggy dance, the piece playing just before that sound, is “It’s Been a Long, Long Time”. You can listen to it below.
The song plays in The Winter Soldier as well. A Japanese translation of the lyrics is at the URL below.
https://ameblo.jp/chaco-jazz/entry-10674368536.html
A song for a lover home from the war. Which makes it exactly Cap and Peggy’s song.
So there it is — from beginning to end, this was Tony and Cap’s film.
There are prediction posts for this too, and the ones for this film go back more than a year! Time to mark them. The three posts below.
Surprisingly, none of these turned up: higher beings like Eternity (the god-tier entities), the Heart of the Universe, time travel by way of the Time Stone, Nebula working the Gauntlet, Kang appearing lol
A few predictions did land, though, so here they are.
In The Infinity Gauntlet, the comic all of this comes from, Thanos kills a great many heroes and other characters. So how do they win? Nebula seizes an opening, puts on Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet, and uses the power of the Time Gem to wind time back to before all those deaths.
https://movie-paradise-blog.com/2018/03/%E3%80%90%E4%BA%88%E6%83%B3%E3%80%91%E3%80%8Emcu%E3%81%AE%E4%BB%8A%E5%BE%8C%E3%81%A8%E3%83%95%E3%82%A7%E3%82%A4%E3%82%BA4%E3%80%8F%E3%80%90%E3%83%9E%E3%83%BC%E3%83%99%E3%83%ABmarvel%E3%80%91-2/
So the chances of the MCU turning time back as well are extremely high.
The thing to pay attention to is what Janet says before Scott dives into the quantum tunnel: don’t get pulled into a time vortex.
@ Notes on Janet
· Even inside the quantum realm her body has aged thirty years
· She may have moved around over those thirty years, but the quantum realm’s idea of coordinates is different from ours
· Adapt to the quantum realm and you evolve, though what that ability is is unknown
Put that together with the time vortex, and here is a fun idea for Avengers 4: Scott somehow claws his way out of the quantum realm, and pops out on Titan where Tony Stark and Nebula are. Then he tells Tony about the time vortex and off they go time travelling… lol
https://movie-paradise-blog.com/2018/09/%e3%80%90%e8%80%83%e5%af%9f%e3%83%bb%e3%83%ac%e3%83%93%e3%83%a5%e3%83%bc%e3%80%91%e3%80%8e%e3%82%a2%e3%83%b3%e3%83%88%e3%83%9e%e3%83%b3%e3%83%af%e3%82%b9%e3%83%97%e3%80%8f%e5%8e%9f%e9%a1%8c-ant-man/#4
Or Scott dives into the time vortex under his own steam and time travels…
Either way, this line of Janet’s feels very important.
Time travel: correct! Mind you, anyone who knows the comics would have found that an easy call lol
Right up until Ant-Man and the Wasp the method looked like it would be the Time Stone, but after watching Wasp it was obvious the quantum realm was the key.
Marvel may well kill off some of the heroes who retire, but some of them will surely retire alive.
https://movie-paradise-blog.com/2018/03/%e3%80%90%e4%ba%88%e6%83%b3%e3%80%91%e3%80%8emcu%e3%81%ae%e4%bb%8a%e5%be%8c%e3%81%a8%e3%83%95%e3%82%a7%e3%82%a4%e3%82%ba4%e3%80%8f%e3%80%90%e3%83%9e%e3%83%bc%e3%83%99%e3%83%abmarvel%e3%80%91-2
Which raises the question of why, being alive, they never come running when the heroes are in trouble in later films. Some franchises do not care about that, but the MCU builds a very carefully made world, so it will definitely be taken into account.
So the way Captain America retires is probably that the power of the Time Stone pushes him to his real age, past ninety.
Cap’s retirement was old age after all. That turn is in the comics too, so it was an easy one to call, but the cause of the ageing was simply him living out the years, so that part missed lol
The best turn of all: the film keeps saying it never goes as smoothly as it does in sci-fi movies, and then Cap goes back into the past and lives out his life with the woman he loves — the most classic sci-fi move there is. What a stylish thing for the directors to do!
Tony Stark has a girlfriend, Pepper Potts. These two have been together since the first film, and honestly it would be nice to see them happily married and Tony retiring from the hero business on good terms. But as said above, there needs to be a reason he does not show up in later films, so maybe Tony and Pepper get thrown off into another dimension together. That way the two of them get their happy ending and the reason is taken care of lol
https://movie-paradise-blog.com/2018/03/%E3%80%90%E4%BA%88%E6%83%B3%E3%80%91%E3%80%8Emcu%E3%81%AE%E4%BB%8A%E5%BE%8C%E3%81%A8%E3%83%95%E3%82%A7%E3%82%A4%E3%82%BA4%E3%80%8F%E3%80%90%E3%83%9E%E3%83%BC%E3%83%99%E3%83%ABmarvel%E3%80%91-2/
Never expected the five-year jump lol The film went one step past the prediction. Still, the concept of Tony and Pepper living happily was very much on the money. This is how it had to be~
https://movie-paradise-blog.com/en/2018/04/%e3%80%90%e8%80%83%e5%af%9f%e3%83%bb%e3%83%ac%e3%83%93%e3%83%a5%e3%83%bc%e3%80%91%e3%80%8e%e3%82%a2%e3%83%99%e3%83%b3%e3%82%b8%e3%83%a3%e3%83%bc%e3%82%ba-%e3%82%a4%e3%83%b3%e3%83%95%e3%82%a3%e3%83%8b/
Doctor Strange’s last words
“There was no other way”
At a glance it sounds like an excuse aimed at Tony Stark, but think it through — he had said only one of fourteen million outcomes ends in victory — and it can be read as “cruel as it looks, handing over the Time Stone is the key to beating Thanos”.
Had Doctor Strange not handed the stone over at that moment, Tony Stark would certainly have been killed.
So: hand over the Time Stone → Tony Stark survives → that becomes the key to beating Thanos
is close to certain.
And yet Doctor Strange looked terribly sorry about it.
That look has to be genuine pity, because the one winning path is achieved by Tony dying.
To put it plainly, by handing over the Time Stone, Doctor Strange
hand over the Time Stone → Tony Stark survives → Tony fights Thanos and beats him, but Tony dies too
put this film onto that route, I think.
Full marks on this one!! Reading the emotional logic that closely is not bad at all lol
That moment near the end where he holds up one finger was great. Instantly clear that this is the single winning future out of fourteen million. And Tony’s face and Strange’s face right then… both of them understood, and both looked so sad…
It would be fun if Avengers 4 followed the comics and had him farming
https://movie-paradise-blog.com/en/2018/04/%e3%80%90%e8%80%83%e5%af%9f%e3%83%bb%e3%83%ac%e3%83%93%e3%83%a5%e3%83%bc%e3%80%91%e3%80%8e%e3%82%a2%e3%83%99%e3%83%b3%e3%82%b8%e3%83%a3%e3%83%bc%e3%82%ba-%e3%82%a4%e3%83%b3%e3%83%95%e3%82%a3%e3%83%8b/
Thanos turning farmer was straight out of the comics as well~ over there it happens after he uses an item called the Heart of the Universe, mind lol
The Infinity Stones got broken down to the atomic level this time — wonder whether that turns into the Heart of the Universe?? Hopes are high.
To be written later
There are some seriously cool images on Marvel’s official Instagram, so here they are!!
Still plenty more to write, so stay tuned!! It will be finished by 2 May 2019!
This one is worth a look too
On July 24, 202…