Sunday 28 April 2019

The Time Travel Problem In Avengers: Endgame II

See The Time Travel Problem In Avengers: Endgame I, here.

Just before V, Thanos detects the activities of one of the superhero teams that have traveled from 6 AV to times before V in order to extract the Stones;

following this clue, Thanos travels to 6 AV, arriving shortly after the teams have returned;

all those who had been dissolved at V are restored;

Thanos and all his forces are dissolved.

Therefore, in this timeline, Thanos, having been dissolved in 6 AV:

does not travel back to just before V;

does not cause V;

does not live on another planet from V until 5 AV;

is not killed on that planet by Thor.

Yet these events have happened in this timeline in which Thanos arrives in 6 AV.

Contradiction.

The Time Travel Problem In Avengers: Endgame 1

At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos uses the Stones to cause 50% of living beings throughout the universe to dissolve into dust. For convenience, let us call this mass dissolution the "Vanishment"(V), let us call years after V "AV" and let us call events immediately before V "just before V."

In Avengers: Endgame (I might not have all of these events in exactly the right order):

five years elapse so we get to 5 AV;
surviving superheroes find Thanos on another planet and Thor kills Thanos;
Ant Man, who had not dissolved but had been trapped in the quantum realm for five objective years but five subjective hours (?), returns to the macrocosm;
he suggests -

superhero teams travel to times before V when it would be possible for each team to extract one of the Stones and bring them to the present which is now some time after 5 AV, say 6 AV;
use the Stones to restore all the people who had been dissolved but do this in 6 AV;
return each Stone to the moment from which it had been extracted.

Thus, the past would not be changed: the history of each Stone would be uninterrupted and the six years between V and 6 AV would not be affected.

What is wrong with this plan?

Saturday 27 April 2019

Avengers: Endgame

An ultimate feel good film. Also, an ultimate snatching victory from the jaws of apparent defeat film.

A serious attempt is made to avoid time travel contradictions. However, if the stones had to be returned to the moments from which they had been taken, then surely the same should apply to Thanos? And his memory of his trip through time should have been erased?

I had to run in and out during the credits so I do not know whether there was a mid-credits scene but will ask. It was good to sit till the end of the credits even though there was no post-credits scene. All those people deserve to have their names seen and some of the information is interesting.

Clint loses Natasha but gets his family back. Contrast this with what happens to these characters in The Ultimates. (Scroll down.)

It feels like the interminable movieverse finally went somewhere. It had legs. We now know who we will not see again.