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Dalek

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,090
EDIT: This is a better link and interview done by EW
In the end, Steve Rogers goes on a solo trip to restore the Infinity Stones from the other time dimensions to the moment they were taken, thereby bringing them back into alignment with the main timeline.

He also takes Thor's Mjölnir hammer, though not necessarily as his own weapon. That has to be taken back to The Dark World era to set the timelines straight, too.

But then …he doesn't come back. At least, not as we know him. He finds Peggy Carter and stays with her.

So, has Cap been living in the past this whole time — or did he go and live in another dimension?

The directors say it's the latter.

"If Cap were to go back into the past and live there, he would create a branched reality," Joe explained. "The question then becomes, how is he back in this reality to give the shield away?"

The brothers smile.

"Interesting question, right?" Joe said. "Maybe there's a story there. There's a lot of layers built into this movie and we spent three years thinking through it, so it's fun to talk about it and hopefully fill in holes for people so they understand what we're thinking."

There are other questions in this sequence that set up this future story…

Bucky's Foresight
The Russos confirm — Bucky knew. When Cap was preparing to for the trip, which is only supposed to last a few seconds in the main timeline, his old friend from Brooklyn gives him a surprisingly heavy farewell.

Somehow, he was aware that Cap was going to live in the past, and it's probably more than just intuition. "Especially when he says goodbye," Joe explained. "He says, 'I'll miss you.' Clearly he knows something."

But how? Has Winter Soldier already met with Old Cap at some previous point? It seems the answer is yes.

On the other hand, Joe adds, "Sam doesn't know something." Falcon has no idea about Old Cap, which is why The Winter Soldier urges him to go up and talk to the now-elderly Steve Rogers. Bucky already has the answer to the questions Sam is going to ask.

Maybe we'll get our own answered in the streaming series called Falcon and Winter Soldier which is in the works for the Disney+ service.

"How does it feel?"
That's what Old Cap asks Falcon after he gives him the vibranium shield.

"Like it's someone else's," Falcon answers.

"It isn't," Cap tells him.

Does Rogers mean this as in, "it is yours now," or is he telling the literal truth? After all, his own shield was shredded by Thanos in the final battle of Endgame.

Let's spitball the possibilities: Maybe in the timeline where Old Cap has been living the shield he gave Sam actually belonged to that dimension's Sam Wilson. Based on the chronology, by the time that Sam would have been fighting age, Steve Rogers would already be elderly and probably ready to hand off the mantle.

If so, what became of that Sam, since the shield has now been brought to this timeline?

These are all valid questions, according to the Russos, but we don't have answers to them yet. All we can tell now is that it seems like the Marvel Studios braintrust have a plan to resolve them down the road.

The Captain's Wife
Falcon notices the wedding band on Old Cap's finger and asks if he'll tell him about her. "No… no, I don't think I will," the old man replies.

We know from the final shot of the movie that Cap went back and found Peggy Carter, and we know the Russo brothers say he went to live in a branch timeline, not the prime one.

Still, many fans wonder if this is a misdirect (the Russos are known for that.) Could Steve Rogers have found a way to make the timelines realign? If so, that would allow him to live in the shadows as Peggy's "secret husband" who has been acknowledged but gone unidentified so far in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This seems unlikely based on the fact that the Russos said one of the outlying questions is "how is he back in this reality?"

Having him live quietly for decades in the prime reality also creates a lot of paradoxes: Why doesn't he disrupt Hyrdra's infiltration of SHIELD sooner? Why doesn't he warn the Avengers about the coming alien invasion in 2012? Why doesn't he interfere in all the major tragedies and conflicts that we know about?

Maybe he does do those things, but it would be in the alternate universe. When he politely declines to tell Sam about his wife, it may be a nod to the audience: You don't get to know any of it either.

Still, maybe we will. Marvel Studios has already broken new ground with interlocked storytelling, so perhaps the next experiment is tiered storytelling — alternate versions of familiar tales.

For instance, the whole "where did Cap go?" question could very well be answered in the animated What If series that Marvel is developing for Disney+, based on something it's been doing in comics for a while.

The first announced title explores what would happen if Peggy Carter got the super-soldier injection. So … what if that What If world of this show happens to be the one our Steve Rogers from the prime timeline came to inhabit?

MARVEL
What if, what if, what if …

At this point, unfortunately, all we can say about What If is "it's possible" and "who knows?"

Making Old Cap
Another question some moviegoers have about this final scene is — was that really Chris Evans as Old Man Cap, or a lookalike who was actually elderly?

It was all Evans, created through a mix of prosthetics on his face and digital touchups to thin it all down.

"Obviously, if it doesn't work perfectly, it can undermine the emotional intention of the scene," says Anthony Russo. "We did a lot of practical effects, so it was a very elaborate makeup job that was then augmented with CG, because there's certain things that you can't do with makeup in order to make Cap credibly that age."

For example, he added: "You can't shrink Chris Evans' neck on set, you know what I mean? He's still got that yoke neck."

"He's still a muscular man," Joe added.

"Yeah, so [CG helps] things that you can't achieve, like the way the face drops," Anthony said. "It's a balance we want to always strike between making him feel credibly aged, but also not compromising the performance."

Evans even managed to change his voice into a hushed rasp without any audio adjustments.

"We didn't alter his voice at all," Joe explained.

"We always say this about Chris — he's so technically sophisticated as an actor and you can see it in that scene when he plays an old man," Anthony added.

"Everything you're seeing is exactly his performance, just with his face aged. That's it," Joe said. "We didn't change anything about it."

Just like the past, you can't alter it too much or it becomes unrecognizable.


This is from a Chinese site: https://ent.qq.com/a/20190429/007983.htm

Here's a translation from Reddit:
Q: Why Ironman has to be the one to do the final snap, couldn't the people like Thor, Starlord or Captain Marvel whom all previously have handled the power of Infinity Stones done it instead?

A: Thor in this movie couldn't do it, only Hulk was strong enough to do the snap without dying. We are still not sure whether Captain Marvel can also withstand all the power of Infinity Stones at once. The reason we choose to let Ironman do it in the end was because he was the closest one to Thanos at the time. In all the futures Doctor Strange foresee, Ironman was the only one who could get close to Thanos and do the snap. People usually think the death of a hero is a horrible tragedy. But we think this is different. When his death was able to bring back hope, to save half of the universe, then his death was powerful and meaningful. We shouldn't feel too sad or anger about it.

Q:Peggy Carter was probably already married and in her mid 40s in 1970, in that case what year was it that Captain America went back to dance with her?

A:We can't answer it for now, this is a story that happened in an alternate reality. Maybe it will be revealed in the future.

Q: Did Captain America's action at the end affect the timeline? Does that mean there was a time where two CA existed in a same universe?

A: To me, CA's action in the end wasn't the fact he wanted to change anything, it's more like me has made a choice. He chose to go back to past and lived with the one he loved for the rest of his life. The time travel in this movie created an alternate reality. He lived a completely different life in that world. We don't know how exactly his life turned out, but I'd like to believe he still helped many others when they were needed in that world. Yes, there were two CA in that reality, it's just like what Hulk said, what happened in the past has already happened. If you go back to past, you simply created a new reality. The characters in this movie created new timeline when they went back to the past, but it had no effect to the prime universe. What happened in the past 22 movies was still canon.

Q: In both IW and EG, the heroes tried their back to take the glove away from Thanos, so why didn't Doctor Strange just cut off Thanos' hand with his ability?

A: Thanos' skin is almost impenetrable, we don't know whether Doctor Strange had the capability to do it. If he failed to cut it on time, Thanos would still able to do the snap. Doctor Strange realized this issue during his millions test runs.

Q: Why did you make Thor fat? Did Chris also become fat for the roll or it was done throug CG?

A: It was mostly CGed. Thor suffered more loss than anyone else, he has been living in constant pain and regret.

Q: Was old Cap played Evans using make up? Or it was also post production CG?

A: 95%CG, 5% make up. But the voice was 100% Evans, no modification for that.

Q: Can you get the soul your sacrficed for the Soul Stone back when you return it?

A: No, the process is irreversible. Even if you have returned it to its original location, you wouldn't be able to get the person back. In fact, it's not really returning the stone, more like put it back properly. The tribute soul for the soul stone will forever be sealed in that place, therefore Black Widow is gone forever.

Q: How would Cap react when he encounter Red Skull when he returned the stone?

A: Red Skull would probably put the soul stone back to its location, and wait for the next unfortunate stone seeker to make sacrifice. Cap and Red Skull probably won't fight. It's because it's his mission to return the stone to its original place. The Red Skull is also no longer the same Red Skull from FA. He is more like a ghost, you could almost say he's a completely different entity now. He only exist to guard the stone, his past conscious may or may not exist anymore.

Q: In IW, Thanos used the time stone to reverse the time so he could the already dead Vision, and it didn't cause any time parallax. Why did no one use time stone to save Ironman's life in EG?

A: It's because even if you save Ironman, it will still not change the fact that Thanos will eventually win the war. Among the 14million possibilities that Doctor Strange has seen, Ironman's sacrifice is a must for that one win scenario. This answer is pretty confusing and doesn't make much sense.

Q: How did Thanos bring his army to the future?

A: There is a guy called Maw in his army, he was a great wizard. Thanos himself was a brilliant genius as well. Those two easily reverse engineered and mass produced Pym Particles.

Q: What about those people who got dusted? What did those five years mean to them? Why didn't they grow older when undusted?

A: Yes, those people whom was lucky to survive the snap are 5 years older than the people who just got back. The reason Spider Man saw his friend again in high school at the end was simply because his friends was unfortunately also dusted like Spider Man was. Of course, there are people in his grade whom didn't die and they are probably already in colleges by now. To those dusted people, they had no conscious in these past 5 years. They didn't know what happened. It's as if they had just woke up from a long sleep. The only one who was aware about how many years has passed was Doctor Strange, because he has already seen that when he was time mediating on Titan. Parker's reunion with Nat was a touching moment. There are also people whom indeed moved on but suddenly was reunited with their lost ones. Yeah it's kind a complicated world now.

Q: What if the mouse didn't press the button to turn on the quantum machine, wouldn't that stop EG from happening? Isn't this a bit too much a coincidence?

A: Yes, the MOUSE SAVED UNIVERSE. Among the many realities in those 14millions possible futures Doctor Strange foresee, the mouse failed to press button and thus the heroes failed in those futures.

Q: EG's plot, is it a parallel universe or a closed time loop?

A: Nope, not a time loop. Both Ancinet One and Hulk were right. You can't change the future by simply going back to past. But it's possible to create a different alternate future. It's not butterfly effect. Every decision you made in the past could potentially create a new timeline. For example, the old Cap at the end movie, he lived his married life in a different universe from the main one. He had to make another jump back to the main universe at the end to give the shield to Sam.

Q: There were some metal smashing sound when the movie ended. Was that easter egg? or just a tribute to Ironman, or maybe an implication that Ironman will return?

A: It was our way to say goodbye to him.

Q: Why there was no Ironman's body in his funeral, only his arc reactor? And is there any secret messages for bring back that kid from Ironman3?

A: We just feel that he should participate in Ironman's funeral. As for whether he will appear again in future, who knows.

Q: Why didn't Black Widow get a funeral as well?

A: Did you forget when the heroes where mourning for her after when they returned from past? Maybe her funeral happened off screen. Maybe it will be shown in future installment, because there are still tons of stories in MCU that are waiting to be tell.
 
Last edited:

Teh_Lurv

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,107
A: Nope, not a time loop. Both Ancinet One and Hulk were right. You can't change the future by simply going back to past. But it's possible to create a different alternate future. It's not butterfly effect. Every decision you made in the past could potentially create a new timeline. For example, the old Cap at the end movie, he lived his married life in a different universe from the main one. He had to make another jump back to the main universe at the end to give the shield to Sam.

Hopefully this will end the arguments over on the main Endgame thread on how time travel worked in this movie.
 

MattyG

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,031
So alternate realities because of them messing around in Endgame is going to be how they explain the What If? D+ series (and probably Wandavision), isn't it?
 

MadLaughter

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
13,134
I'm overall okay with Cap in an alternate timeline but I kind of liked the idea of him existing in the main timeline all along secretly. It's not without problems but I thought Peggy's stuff was JUST vague enough.
 

tsampikos

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,613
Most of these me and I friends already talked about/ figured out was the reasoning.

Yeah it's awkward that these things weren't explicitly stated but we concluded that the movie was long enough already without explaining every little bit.
 

Duffking

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,753
So if Cap lived that life in a different reality did he switch realities somehow to have the scene at the end, somehow finding the correct one?
 

ZeoVGM

Member
Oct 25, 2017
76,248
Providence, RI
Q:Peggy Carter was probably already married and in her mid 40s in 1970, in that case what year was it that Captain America went back to dance with her?

A:We can't answer it for now, this is a story that happened in an alternate reality. Maybe it will be revealed in the future.

I'm tempted to put together a wall of shame for all the people in the Endgame OT who acted like I was crazy for stating the obvious (that it was not the current timeline where Steve was with Peggy).

But I won't.
 
Apr 9, 2019
552
CLT
I guess this clarifies the ending scene a bit. The more I think about it the more I realize I just shouldn't.

The way Cap appears on the bench rather than leaping back through the time machine implies that he's been living in the "main" timeline and just showed up there one day because he knew that's where the Avengers would be. So to imply that he was living in an alternate timeline, but didn't come back through the time machine, makes very little sense to me.

But ya know. It's a comic book movie.
 

Kinthey

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
22,462
To me, CA's action in the end wasn't the fact he wanted to change anything, it's more like me has made a choice. He chose to go back to past and lived with the one he loved for the rest of his life. The time travel in this movie created an alternate reality. He lived a completely different life in that world.
Wait, so old man cap actually jumped backed into the timeline? In that case it might have been more clear if he had arrived back on the platform instead of sitting on a bench
 

Christian

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,637
I guarantee it won't.

Hahaha, of course it won't. They explain it in the movie, and now they're confirming it after the fact because people were too dense to understand the explanation. And people still won't accept it!

I'm overall okay with Cap in an alternate timeline but I kind of liked the idea of him existing in the main timeline all along secretly. It's not without problems but I thought Peggy's stuff was JUST vague enough.

Except he made out with his grand niece, in this instance.
 
Oct 27, 2017
13,464
If time passes much faster in real life than in the Quantum Realm (5 years in real life = 5 hours in the QR), how come Scott was able to have a normal conversation with Pym at the very end of Ant-Man 2, while the former was in the Quantum realm?
 

Deleted member 2145

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
29,223
Hopefully this will end the arguments over on the main Endgame thread on how time travel worked in this movie.

the next marvel phases will end those arguments

getting some multiverse fuckery going on was likely all part of the plan

for how well Endgame wraps up the MCU to this point it actually has a lot of set up for the future of the series
 

Poltergust

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,873
Orlando, FL
Wait, so old man cap actually jumped backed into the timeline? In that case it might have been more clear if he had arrived back on the platform instead of sitting on a bench
Depending on when that machine was set up, old Cap probably jumped into the MCU timeline when no one was around. He still had his Pym Particle on hand that he could use anytime, after all.
 

Mendrox

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
9,439
Too long; Didn't want to answer/Didn't have a good answer

Enjoy the movie for what it is.
 

Deleted member 35011

User requested account closure
Banned
Dec 1, 2017
2,185
Q: What if the mouse didn't press the button to turn on the quantum machine, wouldn't that stop EG from happening? Isn't this a bit too much a coincidence?

A: Yes, the MOUSE SAVED UNIVERSE. Among the many realities in those 14millions possible futures Doctor Strange foresee, the mouse failed to press button and thus the heroes failed in those futures.

Mickey Mouse confirmed for strongest avenger
 

Kernel

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,951
Q: In IW, Thanos used the time stone to reverse the time so he could the already dead Vision, and it didn't cause any time parallax. Why did no one use time stone to save Ironman's life in EG?

A: It's because even if you save Ironman, it will still not change the fact that Thanos will eventually win the war. Among the 14million possibilities that Doctor Strange has seen, Ironman's sacrifice is a must for that one win scenario. This answer is pretty confusing and doesn't make much sense

This one is odd.

Could they not just use the time stone to rewind time on Tony and not Thanos as well.
 

Auros01

Avenger
Nov 17, 2017
5,522
Thanks for sharing this. It's really helpful in processing the end of the movie.

My original understanding of the movie was that there was only a single timeline (and thus there were always 2 Captain America's, etc.) but it seems like traveling back in time simply creates new branches or realities.

So, when they travel back in time, create a branched reality due to changing things, and then take an infinity stone, does that create an unstable/dangerous timeline like the Ancient One was talking about? Therefore, when Steve takes the stones back at the end of the movie, is he returning them to the branched timelines or the main/prime timeline?
 

RestEerie

Banned
Aug 20, 2018
13,618
The time traveling concept is just a writer's convenience. Just accept it and move on. There's no point arguing about the semantics of it because it's not the point.
 

MadLaughter

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
13,134
And Cap doesn't have to return onto the platform if he lived his life PAST the day of the funeral, and then timejumps both back and into the main universe.

Going from Avengers to 1970 shows you don't need a platform to go backwards, only to 'return forwards'.
 

Johnny Blaze

Avenger
Oct 29, 2017
4,204
DE
A: Yes, the MOUSE SAVED UNIVERSE. Among the many realities in those 14millions possible futures Doctor Strange foresee, the mouse failed to press button and thus the heroes failed in those futures.
D78pz2M_d.jpg
 

Enilced2

Member
Oct 25, 2017
115
Q:Peggy Carter was probably already married and in her mid 40s in 1970, in that case what year was it that Captain America went back to dance with her?

A:We can't answer it for now, this is a story that happened in an alternate reality. Maybe it will be revealed in the future.

Based on just the vehicles outside it's late 40s early 50s which means he probably just went back to either during the war or shortly after.
 
Oct 25, 2017
8,628
A lot of these were explained in the movie I guess some people really need stuff spelled out for them to understand it huh.
 

Cubo

Member
May 14, 2018
506
The Cap answer is the correct one, yas! I also liked their answer to how Thanos' army jumped in time, which was also what I had thought was the only possibility. Actually excited to see more of these little teases in Disney+ and next films now.
 

Poltergust

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,873
Orlando, FL
This also makes me feel better about Cap going back in time and staying there. There is still his young self trapped in the ice in that timeline, so the events of the MCU would still be preserved. And, he knows the world will live on until he awakes at the end of TFA, so he can live a peaceful life with Peggy.
 

DeltaRed

Member
Apr 27, 2018
5,746
It never made sense that Cap had always been living in the MCU in secret till he was old. This was the only scenario that worked. It is also the only scenario that doesn't ruin his character, living in secret while he knows Bucky is killing Tony's parents just so he can get a dance? Him going to another reality and saving Bucky and stopping Shield allows him to continue to be a hero.

They did answer how they came up with Pym Particles to get Thanos and his army through though which is good as that was an obvious question mark. Thanos is a super-genius level character in the comics beyond the Earth geniuses so it makes sense he could reverse engineer something they have done.
 

Kinthey

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
22,462
This one is odd.

Could they not just use the time stone to rewind time on Tony and not Thanos as well.
I guess you could say that rewinding him might also rewind the snap? But yeah, this sounds more like something that the writers ignored because it would ruin the point of his sacrifice.