Avengers: Endgame |Spoiler OT2| Changing the past doesn't change the future

[UnderSiege]

Having two Steves in our main MCU timeline devalues a lot of scenes in the MCU, mainly the one in Winter Soldier between Peggy and Steve. I prefer it if every time you into the past you go to or create another timeline (which doesn't mean Steve bringing the stones back creates new timelines, because he could go to the timelines where they took them from, a second after they left when taking the stones). Both solutions have their own problems though. But I have to prefer the Russos' take on it.

 

[Blader]

It wasn't important when cap and Tony had to do an emergency jump to the 1970.

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Right, which is why I was just talking about returning to the present/2023. The time GPSes can seemingly make jumps into the past on their own (if they couldn't then Steve wouldn't be able to do his trip at all; or he'd have to come back to the present to do each trip separately). But coming back to 2023 always happens through the portal. So that's clearly important, otherwise it wouldn't be in the movie!

They have a machine dedicated to go to exact points in space-time. He travel TO the already branched reality so it doesn't become a doomed one.

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Not sure how that addresses what I said? My point is, if the underlying argument is just the act of traveling to the past creates an alternate timeline, then Steve's time traveling at the end just creates more timelines. He couldn't actually fix anything because any changes he makes to other timelines just splinter off into new timelines. Obviously that's not the movie's intention so the idea that just traveling to another time period creates a new alternate reality can't be right.

 

[Cth]

It's simple. The whole concept revolves around perspective, or to put it in simpler terms, Schroedinger's Cat.

BECAUSE we never saw Peggy's husband to be shown as Cap it doesn't matter UNTIL it's explicitly shown to be true, in which case it was ALWAYS true.

The thing is, it's based on perspective. For the PRIME timeline, we follow the Avengers from that timeline and see things from their perspective. Nebula killing herself is her present. From 2014's Nebula it's her present but she's in another timeline. We see things from the PRIME perspective, and thus Nebula PRIME's POV is what we see.

As far as Cap letting things unfold as before.. two things. 1) Remember he's told changing the past doesn't work 2) He says early in the film, "I keep telling everybody they should move on and grow. Some do. But not us." This is why when fate keeps reminding him of Peggy and he's given the chance to live that life with her, he takes it on faith that that's how it's always been and he shouldn't "move on" like he's been trying. Also, recall Cap has always shown he's willing to "[..] make the sacrifice play. To lay down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you " He knows what's at stake, half the universe. He was willing to die in the ocean to keep the cube out of play. He can deal with Bucky/JFK/etc. He knows how it turns out in the end.

 

[8byte]

I think you're doing yourself a huge disservice if you're still trying to make sense of time travel in any piece of fiction. If you can't accept that there will be exceptions to the rules in works of fiction, then why watch fiction at all? Even the laws of physics have exceptions in real life.

Not trying to shut down any discussion, just saying...it's okay to just let some things slide, haha.

 

[Halbrand]

The relationship with Sharon was written just for Bucky and Falcon's reaction shot.

 

[DeltaRed]

He can deal with Bucky/JFK/etc. He knows how it turns out in the end.

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lol what a guy, letting Tony's parents be murdered like that.

 

[LL_Decitrig]

Cap didn't change the past by time travelling. He was always supposed to go back. In the main MCU timeline a second Cap from the future appeared and married Peggy. We just didn't know about it until now. In the 70s Peggy had a picture of Steve on her desk.



Yup.



He didn't alter the timeline. The main MCU timeline isthe one in which future Cap appeared in the 40s. He's been here the whole time. There may be a reality put there in which he didn't stay back but that's not our main timeline.

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In thinking about this, I suspect the term "main timeline" may be the most misleading term here. All you know about the timeline you're in is that it's a succession of quantum waveform collapses that you can observe. That's your past. Some of those collapses (or events, as they're called in normal life) may be due to people from some possible future going back in time to change the past. Not their past, your past.

In returning the items to the places and times when they were removed, Steve effectively repairs all these timelines so they more or less converge with the one in which the events of Infinity War and Endgame up to the final defeat of Thanos occur.

Then Steve, who has noticed how peculiarly quiet Peggy is about her husband (her desk only has pictures of pre-supersoldier Steve and her children) realises there is wiggle room here. He knows he was invited to a dance by Peggy, and he'd like to see her again and see how things work out.

The key here is silence. Peggy is a talented intelligence agent, she knows how to separate her life from her work. Steve knows that any good he has done could only be jeopardised by his overt involvement in Peggy's life with Shield. So he goes back to the late 1940s and reacquaints himself with Peggy. Technically this may be a subtly different past from the one he came from, but in Many Worlds interpretation that's already baked in. The best you can hope for is that your meddling will reproduce something resembling the timeline you came from.

Douglas Adams used to tell a story about the bloke who started eating from his packet of biscuits on the train. It's an amusing story in itself (Google it) but I also think it has relevance here. Adams said the really funny thing was that somewhere there was another guy with the exact same story, except they didn't have the punchline. In the timeline we see here, Steve has the punchline. I suspect there are timelines to which Steve never returns. They don't have the punchline. For narrative reasons the timeline with the punchline is privileged over the one that some may think of as the "prime" timeline, with the "original" Steve.

 

[RSTEIN]

lol what a guy, letting Tony's parents be murdered like that.

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Yeah the issue I have with cap secretly living in the MCU timeline is he knows that Bucky is getting tortured plus other horrific world events that he could have prevented or tried to prevent.

Maybe mentally he just says that's the timeline he grew up in and he did his best. This is his free life and all about his happiness. I don't know how you reconcile that.

 

[LL_Decitrig]

It's simple. The whole concept revolves around perspective, or to put it in simpler terms, Schroedinger's Cat.

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That's an excellent insight. As far as Steve is aware the identity of Peggy's husband is effectively an uncollapsed quantum waveform. He goes back and collapses the waveform in his own favour.

 

[Crushed]

"time to collapse the waveform" mutters a 98 year old Steve as he runs into a bar to grab some beers. It's Peggy's funeral but, ah, don't want to mess with anything

 

[ZattMurdock]

Alright fam, let's try to settle this once and for all: I asked Kevin Feige himself about the whole time travel theory on his AMA that he will be doing on /r/marvelstudios later today. I made two questions, if you all could upvote it so it'd get noticed easily I think it could help for him to answer it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstud.../enn799p/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstud.../enn8wu3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

It's a long shot but...

 

[LL_Decitrig]

Yeah the issue I have with cap secretly living in the MCU timeline is he knows that Bucky is getting tortured plus other horrific world events that he could have prevented or tried to prevent.

Maybe mentally he just says that's the timeline he grew up in and he did his best. This is his free life and all about his happiness. I don't know how you reconcile that.

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He knows it turns out well in the end, which is a pretty good starting point. If the choice is between taking action that deviates from the timeline with the happy ending, and inaction that leaves your earlier self playing a key role in saving half of life in the universe, and you're Captain America the ultimate battlefield tactician, you'll stay the course. You can, after all, keep this up all day.

 

[Trup1aya]

Yes, there are 14 million futures in IW, and they only won in one. What happens if they don't win? The end of the universe, Thanos says so. So if Stark doesn't sacrifice himself, the time loop never happens, because the universe ceases to exist. But they do, and Cap completes the time loop.

Like I've said on my post above, Russos explanation breaks the film, because the only way for that to work is to Cap to create an alternate reality in the MCU by the end as well.

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Russo's explanation didn't break anything.
He lived through time, in the alternate, past the main time stamp, then travelled "back" to the current time of the main.

No alternate is created, because he didn't go to the past of the main timeline, he went to the present.

Steve going back to 1948 to be with Peggy isn't changing his past. Steve's 1948-2011 past is spent in the ice. That isn't changed by time travel.

Again, if just the act of traveling backward in time is enough to automatically branch off new timelines, then that means when Steve returns the stones and Mjolnir to their years he's not really saving those realities, he's creating new ones that have stones vs. timelines that remain without stones. Which I'm pretty sure is the exact opposite point of having him go back in the first place.


The platform is pretty plainly important, it's how anyone travels to 2023 at all. It's used in every single instance of coming to the present.

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No. Returning the stones and Mjolnr doesn't create new timelines, because Cap is returning to the PRESENT of those timelines. In those realities, no time passes from the moment the stones were taken and the moment they are returned. So he's not changing the past of those time lines he's arriving as those timelines are progressing into uncharted time.

The platform is only ever used for traveling FORWARD through time, back to the main timeline. That's not what Cap did in the end. He was old as hell. the year he left his alternate was beyond the year of the main timeline. He traveled BACKWARD, from that time line to the PRESENT of the main.

 

[MikeProtagonist]

I think there are just missing pieces here, y'all. They played it real cagey, like Cap was hiding the details. I don't think we're supposed to be able to put it together with the information we have. It's presented as "obviously inconsistent" because there were some kind of shenanigans we just aren't privy to. I see it as a set-up for future explanation, not something we're supposed to necessarily reason out right now.

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Or maybe - and this is a crazy idea, I know - they didn't bother explaining everything because ultimately IT DOES NOT MATTER. What matters is a) Steve decided to spend his life with Peggy and b) hands the shield to Sam.

This is storytelling, not a scientific theory. It doesn't have to hold up to peer review.

 

[ZattMurdock]

Russo's explanation didn't break anything.
He lived through time, in the alternate, past the main time stamp, then travelled "back" to the current time of the main.

No alternate is created, because he didn't go to the past of the main timeline, he went to the present.

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If he goes back in time, and that's what people that adhere to the Russos theory says he did, he instantly alters the timeline by just showing up there, let alone with a shield with it.

 

[Serpens007]

Cap wasn't originally in 2013 and 2014 time heist missions. That would also create an alternate branch according with the Russos explanation.

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It might, but what it accomplishes is that instead of having one doomed alternate 2013, one doomed alternate 2014, etc. makes an alternate not doomed 2013, 2012, 2014, 1970. Even if a possible doomed one still exists.

But the movie solves it by having them jumping into the specific timeline. That's how it works. That's how 2014 jumps into our 2023 and not his 2023.

dragon ball z handled all of this 20 years ago

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Yep. It's exactly like Trunks. Kid Trunks don't have to travel to the past after Future Trunks helped fixing things. It's not a loop, and neither this is.

Cap didn't change the past by time travelling. He was always supposed to go back. In the main MCU timeline a second Cap from the future appeared and married Peggy. We just didn't know about it until now. In the 70s Peggy had a picture of Steve on her desk.


He didn't alter the timeline. The main MCU timeline isthe one in which future Cap appeared in the 40s. He's been here the whole time. There may be a reality put there in which he didn't stay back but that's not our main timeline.

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You can't change your own past. For that to happen, there must be at least one Cap who's reality never had two caps.

Right, which is why I was just talking about returning to the present/2023. The time GPSes can seemingly make jumps into the past on their own (if they couldn't then Steve wouldn't be able to do his trip at all; or he'd have to come back to the present to do each trip separately). But coming back to 2023 always happens through the portal. So that's clearly important, otherwise it wouldn't be in the movie!


Not sure how that addresses what I said? My point is, if the underlying argument is just the act of traveling to the past creates an alternate timeline, then Steve's time traveling at the end just creates more timelines. He couldn't actually fix anything because any changes he makes to other timelines just splinter off into new timelines. Obviously that's not the movie's intention so the idea that just traveling to another time period creates a new alternate reality can't be right.

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Because using the device they make sure they don't come out in a point they don't want to be in. For example, jumping from the 2012 where Loki escapes, to 1970, and then to 2023 where Loki never escaped. So Steve jumps into the already alternate realities to prevent them from becoming "the dark ones" avoiding creating another branch.

When they jumped into 2012, it created a new flow of time for that reality. Returning the stone prevents that new flow from being doomed.

 

[Halbrand]

lol what a guy, letting Tony's parents be murdered like that.

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There's possibly no Iron Man then

 

[Trup1aya]

If he goes back in time, and that's what people that adhere to the Russos theory says he did, he instantly alters the timeline by just showing up there, let alone with a shield with it.

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When you travel to a moment that has already been lived, you create a branch- because you can't change the past.

If you return to the present of that new branch, you aren't creating yet another branch because you are entering at a moment that hasn't been Lived yet.

Cap is returning the items to the present of these alternate timelines. Literally moments after these items were taken.

 

[Serpens007]

When you travel to a moment that has already been lived, you create a branch- because you can't change the past.

If you return to the present of that new branch, you aren't creating yet another branch because you are entering at a moment that hasn't been Lived yet.

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Thank you

 

[ZattMurdock]

I,

When you travel to a moment that has already been lived, you create a branch- because you can't change the past.

If you return to the present of that new branch, you aren't creating yet another branch because you are entering at a moment that hasn't been Lived yet.

Cap is returning the items to the present of these alternate timelines. Literally moments after these items were taken.

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The only way Cap has to go back without going back to that platform is if he is in the future compared with that moment. Even the Russos said so. So the moment he goes back in the end, if the Russos are right, he creates a branch in the timeline.

 

[CosmicGP]

Russo's explanation didn't break anything.
He lived through time, in the alternate, past the main time stamp, then travelled "back" to the current time of the main.

No alternate is created, because he didn't go to the past of the main timeline, he went to the present.



No. Returning the stones and Mjolnr doesn't create new timelines, because Cap is returning to the PRESENT of those timelines. In those realities, no time passes from the moment the stones were taken and the moment they are returned. So he's not changing the past of those time lines he's arriving as those timelines are progressing into uncharted time.

The platform is only ever used for traveling FORWARD through time, back to the main timeline. That's not what Cap did in the end. He was old as hell. the year he left his alternate was beyond the year of the main timeline. He traveled BACKWARD, from that time line to the PRESENT of the main.

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Yep this is my favorite explanation, nice and neat. Don't need to try and mash a closed loop time travel theory with a multi dimension theory and give yourself a headache. The past will happen and cannot be changed no matter what.

In his alternate timeline with Peggy, all he had to do was live even 5 minutes past the point when his young self uses the platform, then he could use his watch to jump back to that main timeline.

 

[Trup1aya]

I,

The only way Cap has to go back without going back to that platform is if he is in the future compared with that moment. Even the Russos said so. So the moment he goes back in the end, if the Russos are right, he creates a branch in the timeline.

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Everything you said is correct except for the last line.

Cap is returning to THE PRESENT of the main timeline. ie, He's returning to a moment beyond which the main timeline had not lived . Therefore there's nothing to branch off of. He's landing in uncharted time, not landing in a past moment of the main timeline. It's the exact same principle that allows him to return the stones without creating branches- and the exact same principle that guides every other instance of time travel in this movie.

If he were returning to a moment that the main timeline had already passed, he'd make a new timeline. But that's not what he did.

This explains why he's not on the pad, why Banner said "he flew right passed his timestamp", why he Return mjolnir (if returning stones erased alternate timelines they could have just kept the hammer), why they couldn't just go back and grab alternates of Tony and Natasha without consequence, and doesn't require the assumption of some unexplained phenomenon that applies only to Steve.

Time travel works in this same consistent way the whole time...

 

[Alexandros]

You can't change your own past. For that to happen, there must be at least one Cap who's reality never had two caps.

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I agree, but no Cap's past has changed according to this theory.

 

[Crushed]

Avengers 5 starts with old captain america saying "it sure was great in my alternate timeline, but the one problem was that without thanos's snap, which was a good plan that made sense and worked, we got overpopulated" and then he shits himself and dies of a massive stroke and the title card appears

 

[ZattMurdock]

Everything you said is correct except for the last line.

Cap is returning to THE PRESENT of the main timeline. ie, He's returning to a moment beyond which has not been lived. Therefore there's nothing to branch off of. He's landing in uncharted time, not landing in a past moment of the main timeline. It's the exact same principle that allows him to return the stones without creating branches- and the exact same principle that guides every other instance of time travel in this movie.

If he were returning to a moment that the main timeline had already past, he'd make a new timeline. But that's not what he did.

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He can't go to the future with just the Pym particles and the quantum gps. The moment was not "lived" in your moviegoer perspective, but not according with the time travel logic of the film. The only way he can comeback to the present without going through the platform is if that moment was in the past, that's throughly explained in the film and Russo Bros interviews.

 

[RSTEIN]

He knows it turns out well in the end, which is a pretty good starting point. If the choice is between taking action that deviates from the timeline with the happy ending, and inaction that leaves your earlier self playing a key role in saving half of life in the universe, and you're Captain America the ultimate battlefield tactician, you'll stay the course. You can, after all, keep this up all day.

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Yes, he knows half the universe won't get dusted. That is ultimately the end game. But what about small scale stuff. Like Rwanda, Chernobyl, Congo, 9/11, Vietnam, Khmer Rouge, etc.

Or what about the fact that he knows his mailman or 3rd cousin or something will die in a car accident on X date?

He just sits back and fucks Peggy all day?

 

[Blader]

No. Returning the stones and Mjolnr doesn't create new timelines, because Cap is returning to the PRESENT of those timelines. In those realities, no time passes from the moment the stones were taken and the moment they are returned. So he's not changing the past of those time lines he's arriving as those timelines are progressing into uncharted time.

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I mean it's all in the past. You can't travel to 'present 2014' because all of 2014 is in the past. The present is 2023.

Here's what I'm saying: just time traveling to a previous year does not by itself create a new timeline. If it did, then this movie is just constantly creating new timelines out of every little thing. It would defeat the whole purpose of Steve's mission at the end, because a new trip through time would just mean new timelines, and obviously the movie is not intending for us to believe that he created more branches rather than less.

So as long as that's the case, then traveling to 1948 to marry Peggy wouldn't automatically create a new timeline because it's not actually changing any established history and it's certainly not changing Steve's past (past Steve is still in the ice). When the Avengers go to 2012 to take the mind and time stones and accidentally spring Loki free, and reveal the HYDRA and Bucky conspiracies a couple years early, that would create a new timeline because that's dramatically changing the past. But in 1948, as long as that year's Steve Rogers is still in the ice, and as long as a Captain America isn't running around fighting bad guys, and as long as Peggy's original husband hasn't been wiped out of existence because 2023 Steve Rogers married her first (and as the writers make clear, Peggy's husband was always kept unidentified because he was meant to be Steve from 2023), then the past hasn't actually changed. And if the past hasn't changed, then there's no alternate future to stem from that altered past.

The platform is only ever used for traveling FORWARD through time, back to the main timeline. That's not what Cap did in the end. He was old as hell. the year he left his alternate was beyond the year of the main timeline. He traveled BACKWARD, from that time line to the PRESENT of the main.

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He's old as hell at the end because 1948 -> 2023 is 75 years and that's what a 100-year-old guy looks like, not because he's traveling back from a year beyond 2023. There's absolutely no way that was the implication of that ending. Did anyone in the theater, watching that scene unfold, think to themselves "Oh I get it, he's so old because he traveled to here from the future"? I really doubt it.

 

[Trup1aya]

He can't go to the future with just the Pym particles and the quantum gps. The moment was not "lived" in your moviegoer perspective, but not according with the time travel logic of the film. The only way he can comeback to the present without going through the platform is if that moment was in the past, that's throughly explained in the film and Russo Bros interviews.

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He didn't go into the future with Pym particles. He lived to some date in 2023 of his alternate timeline. This date was atleast 1 instant ahead of the PRESENT of the main timeline. He then used the Pym particles to travel BACK in time, to the PRESENT of the main timeline. And since it's the PRESENT of the MCU, not a previously lived moment, no branch is needed.

This works perfectly inline with the logic of the film which immediately establishes that the flow of time is relative to the experience of those traveling in the quantum realm. This is what allows our hero's to go back in time for "as long as they need" according to Banner, whilst only a few seconds pass in the maintimeline.

 

[Blader]

Yes, he knows half the universe won't get dusted. That is ultimately the end game. But what about small scale stuff. Like Rwanda, Chernobyl, Congo, 9/11, Vietnam, Khmer Rouge, etc.

Or what about the fact that he knows his mailman or 3rd cousin or something will die in a car accident on X date?

He just sits back and fucks Peggy all day?

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This is already the case, unless Steve is using the infinity stones and Mjolnir to prevent a multiverse of WWIIs from happening.

 

[Trup1aya]

I mean it's all in the past. You can't travel to 'present 2014' because all of 2014 is in the past. The present is 2023.

Here's what I'm saying: just time traveling to a previous year does not by itself create a new timeline. If it did, then this movie is just constantly creating new timelines out of every little thing. It would defeat the whole purpose of Steve's mission at the end, because a new trip through time would just mean new timelines, and obviously the movie is not intending for us to believe that he created more branches rather than less.

So as long as that's the case, then traveling to 1948 to marry Peggy wouldn't automatically create a new timeline because it's not actually changing any established history and it's certainly not changing Steve's past (past Steve is still in the ice). When the Avengers go to 2012 to take the mind and time stones and accidentally spring Loki free, and reveal the HYDRA and Bucky conspiracies a couple years early, that would create a new timeline because that's dramatically changing the past. But in 1948, as long as that year's Steve Rogers is still in the ice, and as long as a Captain America isn't running around fighting bad guys, and as long as Peggy's original husband hasn't been wiped out of existence because 2023 Steve Rogers married her first (and as the writers make clear, Peggy's husband was always kept unidentified because he was meant to be Steve from 2023), then the past hasn't actually changed. And if the past hasn't changed, then there's no alternate future to stem from that altered past.


He's old as hell at the end because 1948 -> 2023 is 75 years and that's what a 100-year-old guy looks like, not because he's traveling back from a year beyond 2023. There's absolutely no way that was the implication of that ending. Did anyone in the theater, watching that scene unfold, think to themselves "Oh I get it, he's so old because he traveled to here from the future"? I really doubt it.

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The term past is relative.

The year 2014 is past relative to the main timeline which is 2023. So leaving 2023 to visit 2014 creates a NEW TIMELINE.

In this NEW TIMELINE, 2014 is the present. Everything after the instant this timeline is created is uncharted territory. If someone visits the uncharted territory they aren't creating a new branch.

Someone entering the reality from the future is a dramatic change in and of itself. Beings who weren't in the original timeline are existing where they didn't, talking to people they didn't, and physically interacting with things. So the moment they show up, they create a branch. How far this branch deviates from the original, will vary depending on their actions and the actions of those they interact with.

I can't really bother to address the specifics of the rest of your post because it's based on false pretense.

Edit: as far as Cap. You misinterpret me.
Cap is old as hell, because he lived from the 1940s to ATLEAST 2023 - in an alternate timeline. This point in time is at least 1 moment beyond the point in time he returned to at the end of the movie. So if he lived until Aug21 2023 5:00pm in the alternate, he could travel back in time to Aug21 2023 4:59pm of the main timeline without landing on a pad and w/o creating a new timeline, so long as the main timeline hadn't yet progressed Beyond 4:59pm.

 

[ZattMurdock]

He didn't go into the future with Pym particles. He lived to some date in 2023 of his alternate timeline. This date was atleast 1 instant ahead of the PRESENT of the main timeline. He then used the Pym particles to travel BACK in time, to the PRESENT of the main timeline. And since it's the PRESENT of the MCU, not a previously lived moment, no branch is needed.

This works perfectly inline with the logic of the film which immediately establishes that the flow of time is relative to the experience of those traveling in the quantum realm. This is what allows our hero's to go back in time for "as long as they need" according to Banner, whilst only a few seconds pass in the maintimeline.

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The "present" of the MCU timeline CAN create an alternate branch. It happens when Thanos does a second time right earlier in the film. The "present" of the MCU timeline isn't any less or more vulnerable to alternative timeline branches because it's the "present". This doesn't even makes sense.

 

[Serpens007]

I agree, but no Cap's past has changed according to this theory.

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Precisesly. No one changed their own past, they changed another's timeline

 

[StallionDan]

Here it is explained.

They decided on one set of time travel rules so they couldn't prevent the snap ever happening and so the movie happens like it does.

But they wanted that old Cap ending so ignored them because they wanted to.

 

[ckareset]

Time travel is a dumb plot device

 

[ckareset]

Here it is explained.

They decided on one set of time travel rules so they couldn't prevent the snap ever happening and so the movie happens like it does.

But they wanted that old Cap ending so ignored them because they wanted to.

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This is exactly what happened. They were so obessed with giving Cap that ending the said fuck it to their own rules. And they refuse to have Peggy married to someone else which makes sense because she claims she lived her life.

They shouldn't have spent all that time bad mouthing other time control movies

 

[Cth]

Yes, he knows half the universe won't get dusted. That is ultimately the end game. But what about small scale stuff. Like Rwanda, Chernobyl, Congo, 9/11, Vietnam, Khmer Rouge, etc.

Or what about the fact that he knows his mailman or 3rd cousin or something will die in a car accident on X date?

He just sits back and fucks Peggy all day?

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If you start thinking like that, then you have to ask would Cap give the Soul Stone back to the Red Skull knowing everything he's done in the past? If he can do that do a genocidal Nazi....?

 

[Trup1aya]

The "present" of the MCU timeline CAN create an alternate branch. It happens when Thanos does a second time right earlier in the film. The "present" of the MCU timeline isn't any less or more vulnerable to alternative timeline branches because it's the "present". This doesn't even makes sense.

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It makes perfect sense when you understand that branches are the result of changing something that already occurred. Since the present isn't something that previously occurred, why would it branch?

Thanos didn't do anything to time or create any branches Early in the movie. He just destroyed the stones. In fact, he didn't create any branches at all.

A branch is created when the presence of a time traveler creates a different scenario at a moment that was already lived. If you are traveling to the present you are not creating a new scenario within a preexisting moment, because the moment itself is new.

 

[Serpens007]

Time travel is a dumb plot device

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True but...

This is exactly what happened. They were so obessed with giving Cap that ending the said fuck it to their own rules. And they refuse to have Peggy married to someone else which makes sense because she claims she lived her life.

They shouldn't have spent all that time bad mouthing other time control movies

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The movie explained everything perfectly, and then the Russos and Screenwriters came to explain things the movie already explained, and they didn't have a better idea than to give different takes and now here we are.


When the movie started going the Time Travel route I said "god no, this always overcomplicates stuff". Then as the movie went and explained things I was like "ok, that makes sense". Then Old Steve shows and I says "ok, this is weird but it's either explained in a silly way or there something bigger going on (the MCU is alternate to an original one)".

Then I got into this OT

 

[Kalentan]

https://ew.com/tv/2019/05/15/russo-brothers-loki-series-captain-america/

Russo brothers once again said he created a new timeline in which he stayed with Peggy and that...

The brothers also reiterate that they believe that when Captain America stayed behind to live his life with Peggy Carter, he did so in a separate timeline from the one Marvel Cinematic Universe fans have been following.

"Correct, so he would have to come back to this timeline in order to hand off the shield," Joe said.

"There's a question of, how did this separate timeline Cap come to reappear in this timeline and why?" Anthony added.

Both filmmakers said those would be resolved in future storytelling from Marvel.

Click to shrink...

 

[Serpens007]

If you start thinking like that, then you have to ask would Cap give the Soul Stone back to the Red Skull knowing everything he's done in the past? If he can do that do a genocidal Nazi....?

Click to shrink...

Red Skull never had the stone though. He just leads people to something he could never posses.

It would have been cool to see that moment though.

https://ew.com/tv/2019/05/15/russo-brothers-loki-series-captain-america/

Russo brothers once again said he created a new timeline in which he stayed with Peggy and that...

Click to shrink...

That's what I thought. They are keeping people in the cinema and making the road to something something multiverse clusterfuck in the future

 

[NHarmonic.]

But, we don't even know if Cap stayed low all those years. We literally got only one scene of him dancing with Peggy. Nothing else.

He could've saved Bucky, among other stuff.

 

[RSTEIN]

If you start thinking like that, then you have to ask would Cap give the Soul Stone back to the Red Skull knowing everything he's done in the past? If he can do that do a genocidal Nazi....?

Click to shrink...

Yeah... actually I think Captain America would be driven mad knowing all the bad shit that's about to happen and he has chosen a life with Peggy over millions of lives.

To be honest not sure the whole live my life peacefully thing makes sense.

 

[Trup1aya]

https://ew.com/tv/2019/05/15/russo-brothers-loki-series-captain-america/

Russo brothers once again said he created a new timeline in which he stayed with Peggy and that...

Click to shrink...

In a new interview with Travis Clark of Business Insider, the brothers add a new tease: Catching Loki may be part of Captain America's mission when he ventures into the disrupted timelines to restore the borrowed Infinity Stones and return Thor's Mjölnir hammer. That implies we may see that pursuit become part of the new show.

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I can't wait to see heads explode as captain wastes his time restoring order and returning Mjolnir in timelines that don't even matter because they've been "clipped".

 

[excelsiorlef]

Cap wasn't originally in 2013 and 2014 time heist missions. That would also create an alternate branch according with the Russos explanation.

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No because it'd be the future of that timeline.... And Cap returning to that timeline would be because Hulk said he would thus it's not a split it's a continuation.

 

[Trup1aya]

Yeah... actually I think Captain America would be driven mad knowing all the bad shit that's about to happen and he has chosen a life with Peggy over millions of lives.

To be honest not sure the whole live my life peacefully thing makes sense.

Click to shrink...

I doubt Captain laid "completely low" he probably helped Peggy run shield and affected change in this alternate timeline.

 

[Halbrand]

https://ew.com/tv/2019/05/15/russo-brothers-loki-series-captain-america/

Russo brothers once again said he created a new timeline in which he stayed with Peggy and that...

Click to shrink...

Maybe they should all talk to each other about this

 

[ckareset]

https://ew.com/tv/2019/05/15/russo-brothers-loki-series-captain-america/

Russo brothers once again said he created a new timeline in which he stayed with Peggy and that...

Click to shrink...

This is the ending I'll accept. But it was a mistake to have Captain America not just show up on the platform.

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

Finally got to see this movie.

Spoiler

Not gonna lie, I mainly went to see it, because I wanted to watch the new Spider-Man trailer, and I heard it contained massive spoilers

I really like that Captain Marvel basically goes toe-to-toe with SIX STONE Thanos, and only gets knocked away because of a power stone sucker punch. Whoever is the next big bad definitely needs to scale up, because her introduction to the battlefield single-handedly tipped the scales, lol.

 

[ZattMurdock]

No because it'd be the future of that timeline.... And Cap returning to that timeline would be because Hulk said he would thus it's not a split it's a continuation.

Click to shrink...

I agree with you. I'm just pointing out that the Russo Bros theory doesn't make sense: Cap going there doesn't create an alternative timeline just for him doing so. He would need to alter things significantly to do so.

Now I'm confident that we'll be seeing the answer to that in Loki, so whatever Russos are saying doesn't matter, because it's becoming clear that they are protecting a story that we haven't seen all of it yet. And we know how far they would lie for stuff like that.

 

[excelsiorlef]

I agree with you. I'm just pointing out that the Russo Bros theory doesn't make sense: Cap going there doesn't create an alternative timeline just for him doing so. He would need to alter things significantly to do so.

Now I'm confident that we'll be seeing the answer to that in Loki, so whatever Russos are saying doesn't matter, because it's becoming clear that they are protecting a story that we haven't seen all of it yet. And we know how far they would lie for stuff like that.

Click to shrink...

Everyone's explanation works


Russos' works

The Writers' work.

Neither are incompatible