Avengers: Endgame



"He did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out.. ...fifty percent of all living creatures."

- Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow

Avengers: Endgame is a 2019 superhero film and the twenty-second film entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, and written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely — the team behind the second and third Captain America films. This team also worked on the previous film in the series, Avengers: Infinity War, which directly set up the events of this one. It is the final film in Phase 3 of the setting.

Starting three weeks after the cataclysmic events of Thanos's victory, half of the universe's sentient life is gone, and the completed Infinity Gauntlet has disappeared with the Mad Titan to a faraway world. However, even in this seemingly hopeless situation, the surviving heroes of the universe (Avengers, Guardians, and anyone else who is brave enough to fight on) are left to pick up the pieces. With a bit of hope, they intend to revive their friends and allies and the untold trillions of living beings that Thanos killed, and find a way to defeat him once and for all. But it won't be easy, and devastating sacrifices will have to be made in order to restore reality to a normal state.

While this is not the final Avengers movie, particularly in light of Disney's acquisition of Marvel assets from 21st Century Fox opening the door for new characters to join the team, it is expected to be the last one with the original six characters serving as the focus of the film. The few details known at this writing about Marvel's slate after 2021 suggest that the MCU will take a break from this team-up franchise in favor of building out other stand-alone films.

Avengers: Infinity War and this film collectively serve as the culmination of everything that has happened in the Marvel Cinematic Universe up until the end of Phase 3, filmed back-to-back (with reshoots) between 2017 and 2018. As such, the cast for these movies is quite substantial.

"That is America's ass."
 * Achilles' Heel: Likes its predecessor, the second Infinity Gauntlet has to be clenched to allow the power of the Stones to be accessed.
 * Adult Fear:
 * When Scott learns about the Snap, he's desperately searching the memorial monuments, praying that Cassie survived. They proceed to have this mutual reaction when she answers the door to her mother and stepfather's house, five years older. It takes Scott a moment to realize that the sad teenager in front of him, softly asking, "Dad?" is the cheerful preteen that he hugged just a few hours ago. Cassie starts crying, revealing silently that she thought she had lost her father. It's implied she'd been orphaned given neither Maggie nor Paxton are in sight, meaning she had to raise herself alone.
 * Tony has a great fear that he'll be a terrible father to Morgan, because his father wasn't a prize and as a result he dotes on her. He feels a little better when meeting a younger Howard in the past, who expresses to a "Mr. Potts" that he is scared that he won't know how to be a role model for his child. Tony gives him advice about what being a father is like, forgiving Howard for his emotional distance.
 * All for Nothing: Essentially the film's take on the events of Captain America: Civil War. Thanos is such a powerful Enemy Mine that the ideological differences of the Avengers don't matter. Zemo in Falcon and the Winter Soldier takes note of the bitter irony when Bucky and Sam are forced to recruit him, though he also affirms that he never had anything against Steve or Bucky personally.
 * After the End: This movie takes place after Thanos wiped out half the population of Earth (and everywhere else) with a snap of his fingers.
 * Adaptation Expansion: The movie actually shows the fallout of Thanos's victory following the Snap. In the Infinity Gauntlet storyline, it was largely glossed over in favor of showing the surviving heroes take on Thanos.
 * Advertised Extra: Though Carol "Captain Marvel" Danvers was hyped up in promos, her actual plot contributions are negligible. Much like T'Challa in Infinity War, her prominence in the promos seemed to be the result of her solo film having been the last one released.
 * Anticlimax Boss: A generous way of describing the battle on Titan II. An early hint that there's more to come.
 * Badass Beard: While Cap shaved his, Thor's Beard of Sorrow takes on a Viking flair in the finale.
 * Badass Finger-Snap: Turns out there's a cost however. Whatever side you snap with gets ravaged by the Infinity Stones' energy. When the heroes find Thanos on Titan II, his whole left side is crippled. He even says he nearly died from the effort of destroying the Stones. After the Avengers manage to find and gather the stones, Thor volunteers to be the Snap tester on the grounds that it was his fault that Thanos was able to wipe out half the universe, and he's probably the most likely to survive it. Tony vetoes this and has Bruce do it instead, because Thor is in no emotional shape to be taking a possibly suicidal move. Indeed, Professor Hulk survives doing the Snap, but his arm ends up in sling. That hampers him in the final battle.
 * Beard of Sorrow:
 * Inverted. Following the events of Infinity War, Captain America has shaved the beard he had grown.
 * Played straight with Thor. One of the signs of how badly he's taking things is that he's grown out an unkempt beard.
 * Big Bad: Thanos, once again, is the villain the heroes need to defeat in order to bring back half of the universe.
 * Big Badass Battle Sequence: There is a massive action scene involving 40 characters, all of whom have names and backstories. It's been hyped as one of the movie's selling points.
 * Blunt Yes: Cap's response to Banner asking if they're going to steal the Infinity Stones and undo Thanos' snap "just like that."
 * Brick Joke: Thor went for the head.
 * But for Me It Was Tuesday: Zig-zagged.
 * Butt Monkey: Scott Lang as always, though to a much lesser extent here.
 * Call Back:
 * Thanos does not lie.
 * For a third time, Natasha and Clint end up fighting. Unlike the other two times where it ended amicably,.
 * The Infinity Stones emit gamma radiation. It's why Bruce volunteers to undo the snap.
 * Morgan wants a cheeseburger.
 * Character Development:
 * One of the contentions that Pepper had with Tony in the past is that he would never tell her about his plans, which would often lead to him risking his life recklessly, or creating Ultron. In fact, he and Pepper took a break because she called him out for this following the near-destruction of Sokovia. Five years later, with a toddler, Pepper notices he's up late after putting Morgan to bed, and they talk about if he should reveal to the surviving Avengers that he discovered how to perfect time travel. Tony is worried that if he does this, it could mean that he'll toss away their idyllic life and endanger her and Morgan. Pepper tells him she knows, but she also knows Tony would never live with himself if he refused to try.
 * Five years being an Avenger has mellowed Nebula greatly. She's best friends with Tony, treats Rocket as a surrogate brother when they comfort each other about who they lost in the snap, and attempts to.
 * Chronic Hero Syndrome: Natasha in the second act. It gets to the point that she has to be talked out of doing rescue operations for an underwater earthquake... that will harm absolutely no one.
 * Combat Pragmatist:
 * When the heroes arrive at Titan II, there's no words, no quips, just a brutal, remorseless attack.
 * Seeing that he's deadlocked with his past self, Cap just uses the Mind Stone to knock him out.
 * Composite Character:
 * Most of the traits of "Ronin" (a black-clad vigilante brutally murdering criminals due to the death of his wife and kids) are drawn from The Punisher.
 * Professor Hulk fills Nebula's role in Infinity Gauntlet in
 * Morgan Stark is Tony Stark's daughter, just like Howard Stark III, but has the name of Tony's cousin.
 * Crazy Prepared: Tony himself still fits the bill,
 * Darker and Edgier: Like its predecessor, this film is significantly darker than the other films in the setting. The mere backstory involves a universal-scale genocide with potentially wide-reaching collateral damage, and those heroes who didn't die in Infinity War are facing their Darkest Hour. Though see Lighter and Softer below.
 * Darkest Hour: Let's see... Most of our heroes are dead, along with half of all life in the universe, and the most obvious means to fix everything — the Infinity Gauntlet — is still with Thanos. To say that our heroes have their work cut out for them is a massive understatement.
 * Deader Than Dead:
 * Earn Your Happy Ending:
 * Tony is convinced he's done this which is why he initially opts out of the time machine plot.
 * Eleventh-Hour Ranger:
 * Captain Marvel. After being absent from Earth's events throughout the MCU timeline, she returns to assist the other survivors of Thanos' finger snap.
 * Scott Lang, who managed to escape the Quantum Realm after the snap stuck him there.
 * Exact Words: Well, exact thoughts in this case.
 * Famous Last Words:
 * “Thank you, daughter. Perhaps I treated you too harshly.”
 * “I am inevitable.”
 * “And I... am...
 * Fire-Forged Friends: The Avengers essentially reforge their bonds here after Civil War.
 * Foregone Conclusion: The snap will be undone. This is so much this trope that the trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home openly shows Spider-Man, Nick Fury, and humanity as a whole having been brought back to life.
 * Grand Finale: The completion of the two-part culmination of the entire MCU up to this point started with Avengers: Infinity War.
 * Hand Wave: Essentially how Carol Danvers explains where she's been since The Nineties. While the sheer size of the universe (and her own mission to take the Skrulls somewhere where they could never be found) makes it more than likely that she never ran across the Asgardians or the Guardians, it doesn't explain why Fury didn't call her back to Earth for the world ending threats of Loki's invasion, Malekith's invasion, Ultron's near-extinction attack, or the Black Order's invasion in the last film.
 * Heel Face Door Slam: Maybe. Prime Thanos has spent days in his garden pondering that he got what he wanted, to create a better world, but he sacrificed one daughter and alienated another to do it. Then the Avengers corner him demanding the stones. Thanos weakly reveals he destroyed them, to ensure no one else could use this power. Realizing he's a dead ruler walking, as Nebula says with horror that her father is many things but not a liar, he uses his last moments to apologize to Nebula for how he treated her. Thor proceeds to behead him, to get some sort of catharsis.
 * He's Back:
 * Miek and Korg return.
 * Hawkeye joins the rest of the Original Six Avengers after sitting out Infinity War doing house arrest.
 * Heroic BSOD: Thor has gone depressed after failing to stop Thanos in the last movie.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: Discussed. Rhodes proposes going back in time and killing Thanos as a baby, only for Banner to refute that idea. First on the grounds that killing a baby is just so morally wrong, and second in that that's not how time travel works and they'd just end up creating an alternate timeline with no bearing on their own.
 * Hoist by His Own Petard: All the secrecy involved in HYDRA's infiltration of SHIELD makes it so that they can't really question or verify orders. All Cap has to do is say "Hail HYDRA" and Sitwell folds.
 * Hope Spot:
 * Thanos is quickly ambushed and restrained on Titan II with Thor lopping off the Gauntlet. Rocket then flips it over only to find the Stones missing.
 * A tiny one. The.
 * I Hate Past Me: When the group time travels back to 2012, Bruce is pretty embarrassed by how unnecessarily violent the Hulk of that time was.
 * I Warned You: In the first act and a half, Tony is merciless in pointing this out to Steve, again justifying Ultron's creation as a way of planning against the Chitauri's master. For his part, Steve concedes the point and that he should have listened to Tony.
 * Irony: Tony is trying to convince himself to not take part in the Avengers' time travel while Pepper is encouraging that he join them. They even lampshade it.
 * Its All My Fault: Thor beats himself up for five years not going for Thanos's head in Wakanda. He insists that he has to be the one to undo the Snap, not caring if it kills him or not.
 * It Has Been An Honor: Natasha and Clint tell each other this when they learn about the cost of the Soul Stone. They give each other a hug realizing that one of them has to die..
 * It's Personal:
 * Jerkass Has a Point: Cap notes that with half of humanity gone, Earth's biosphere is healing itself, with wildlife on the rise again.
 * Kill'Em All:.
 * Killed Off for Real:, , and . Poor Vision is also dead and gone without the Mind Stone.
 * Lesser Star: Brie Larson/Captain Marvel is much less prominent in the film than the pre-release information would lead you to believe.
 * Lighter and Softer: The approach to this movie, compared to Infinity War, is described as this by the writers. The Avengers finally reassemble, Comic Relief characters like Scott "Ant-Man" Lang return, and the Avengers' plan to stop Thanos is more of a sci-fi adventure contrasting the previous film's theme of a war of attrition. As said by co-writer Christopher Markus, "We broke your heart. Now we're going to blow your mind!"
 * Locked Out of the Loop: Owing to the Year Outside, Hour Inside effects of the Quantum Realm on him, Scott is a bit confused as to what's happened to the world.
 * Logo Joke: The Marvel Studios logo is a victim of the snap in the trailer. It also has the "10" overlay for the tenth anniversary of the MCU.
 * Magically-Binding Contract: Bruce Banner tries to A soul for a Soul.
 * Male Gaze: Tony, Scott, and Steve himself all comment on how nice 2012 Cap's ass is.
 * Lesser Star: Brie Larson/Captain Marvel is much less prominent in the film than the pre-release information would lead you to believe.
 * Lighter and Softer: The approach to this movie, compared to Infinity War, is described as this by the writers. The Avengers finally reassemble, Comic Relief characters like Scott "Ant-Man" Lang return, and the Avengers' plan to stop Thanos is more of a sci-fi adventure contrasting the previous film's theme of a war of attrition. As said by co-writer Christopher Markus, "We broke your heart. Now we're going to blow your mind!"
 * Locked Out of the Loop: Owing to the Year Outside, Hour Inside effects of the Quantum Realm on him, Scott is a bit confused as to what's happened to the world.
 * Logo Joke: The Marvel Studios logo is a victim of the snap in the trailer. It also has the "10" overlay for the tenth anniversary of the MCU.
 * Magically-Binding Contract: Bruce Banner tries to A soul for a Soul.
 * Male Gaze: Tony, Scott, and Steve himself all comment on how nice 2012 Cap's ass is.


 * Mundane Solution:
 * The heroes' initial plan to stop Thanos is simply to steal back the Infinity Gauntlet and use it to undo the snap.
 * How does Cap get the scepter from Rumlow's team? The HYDRA agents are understandably confused.
 * Nice Guy: The security guard, played by Ken Jeong, sees Scott Lang reappear in the impounding garage. When Scott calls for help, he returns the things that he could find in the van and sends him on his way with wishes of luck.
 * Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: After Zemo tore the Avengers apart,.
 * Not So Invincible After All:
 * Not So Different: Tony and Thanos, continuing the theme from the previous film. After the snap, both retired to a country life.
 * Obviously Evil: As Scott points out, the HYDRA agents within SHIELD don't exactly give off the impression of being paragons.
 * One-Man Army: When the Benatar arrives at Titan II, Carol says the planet's only inhabitant is Thanos, with no army or defenses. Nebula grimly notes that that's sufficient deterrent.
 * Other Me Annoys Me: When meeting his 2012 self, Cap actually seems annoyed by his own sheer determination.
 * Out of Focus:
 * Passing the Torch:
 * Pet the Dog: Thanos' last words are him thanking Nebula for defending his honor and saying he was too hard on her.
 * Please Wake Up: Peter has this reaction when . He removes his Spider-Man mask, approaches him and tells him that he did it:.
 * Precision F-Strike:
 * Played for laughs when Tony says "Shit" after he's realized he solved time travel. Cue a squeaky voice behind him repeating, "Shit." He turns around and sees Morgan sitting on the steps with a trollish grin. Tony has to try and convince her not to make a habit of saying it since "It's Mommy's word", bribing her to go to bed with juice pops. He snarks that the word "extortion" is a better one for her to learn than "shit".
 * Cap says, "You've got to be shitting me" when he encounters his past self, just as he bluffed his way past Hydra agents. He tries to say that he's not Loki posing as Cap but knows that he's carrying the Mind Stone and it doesn't look good.
 * Puny Earthlings: When the Black Order of 2014 sees a hologram of the Avengers, they're pretty dismissive.
 * Reality Ensues:
 * The Benatar was on Titan during the fight between Thanos, the Avengers, and the Guardians. Given all the chaos of the battle, it suffered some damage, specifically its power distribution cells are cracked. And without access to a fresh supply of parts, Tony and Nebula can't fix it.
 * After the injuries he sustained on Titan, specifically having a moon dropped on him, Tony is too weak to join in the attack on Titan II.
 * The previous films established that the Infinity Stones give off a massive radiation signature. When all six were used at once, a massive wave of cosmic energy was let loose.
 * As Carol keeps reminding everyone, there's a whole galaxy beyond Earth, with countless inhabited worlds going through the same problems without local Avengers. Her responsibilities to those planets means that she can't keep stopping off at Earth every time someone gets a bloody nose.
 * A more minor and humorous one, the Avengers don't know the names of all the planets in the galaxy and sometimes mistake their names for those of people Rocket knows.
 * Given that there was Sanctum in New York, the Ancient One was defending it from the Chitauri who themselves seemed drawn to the Time Stone.
 * Alexander Pierce wasn't exactly eager to let Thor take both the Tesseract and Loki back to Asgard.
 * Tony and Steve aren't exactly super-spies. A secretary is pretty quick to figure out that they're not supposed to be in the S.H.I.E.L.D. base.
 * Seen It All: Frigga's incredible non-reaction to meeting a future version of Thor.
 * Sequel Episode: To Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Thor: Ragnarok, and Spider-Man: Homecoming.
 * Series Fauxnale: It's the end of the story that started back in Iron Man but not the end of the MCU.
 * Someone Has to Die: As previously shown in Infinity War, the only way to retrieve the Soul Stone from the planet Vormir is to sacrifice someone you love. Clint and Natasha each fight the other to keep them from sacrificing themselves.
 * Spanner in the Works:
 * Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Rhodes outright asks Carol where the hell she's been since The Nineties. She's been traveling space, being a hero on other planets who don't have counterparts to the Avengers. Cue Stunned Silence from Rhodey.
 * Takes One to Kill One: How Thanos destroyed the Infinity Stones.
 * Time Skip: The film starts three weeks after Infinity War. Then there's five years between the first and second acts.
 * Took a Level In Badass: Bruce Banner has now merged with the Hulk completely. Banner's mind is in charge but it's Hulk's body.
 * Two of Your Earth Minutes: While it makes sense for Nebula to use human time measurements among humans, Past!Ebony Maw outright says that the present Nebula is from nine years in their future. So much for time differential.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to Ghost? Scott entered the Quantum Realm to gather quantum energy to stabilize her condition, but this thread is never brought up. If she survived the snap, the Time Skip means she would have faded out of existence. Even if she's among the ones who got snapped and then unsnapped, Scott and Hope having to means there was no time for them to return to the Quantum Realm and gather more energy. Either way it seems a pretty sad Shaggy Dog Story.
 * "Well Done, Son" Guy:.
 * Written by the Winners:
 * Wrong Genre Savvy: Rhodes worries that the Power Stone's temple on Morag has Indiana Jones style traps. Nope.
 * Year Outside, Hour Inside: The exact ratio. It's been five hours for Scott since Infinity War, but five years for everyone else.
 * "Well Done, Son" Guy:.
 * Written by the Winners:
 * Wrong Genre Savvy: Rhodes worries that the Power Stone's temple on Morag has Indiana Jones style traps. Nope.
 * Year Outside, Hour Inside: The exact ratio. It's been five hours for Scott since Infinity War, but five years for everyone else.