{"id":6678,"date":"2019-04-30T19:54:43","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T19:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog-proxy.atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/?p=6678"},"modified":"2019-05-01T20:46:04","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T20:46:04","slug":"avengers-endgame-time-travel-makes-no-sense-but-it-doesnt-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/avengers-endgame-time-travel\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Avengers: Endgame’ Time Travel Makes No Sense, But It Doesn’t Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back to the Future<\/em> is horsesh**.<\/p>\n

That’s essentially what Tony Stark tells Steve Rogers, Scott Lang, and Natasha Romanoff when they show up to his log cabin with an offer to go back and repair the damage Thanos has done. Tony dismisses the rules of time travel put forth by Robert Zemeckis’ classic sci-fi comedy, as well as other time travel movies when compared to the actual quantum physics that apply to the Avengers’ time heist that makes up Avengers: Endgame<\/em><\/a>‘s\u00a0second act.\u00a0Endgame <\/em>puts forth its own unique time travel logic by saying “forget what movies like\u00a0BTTF<\/em>, Star Trek<\/em> or\u00a0Somewhere In Time<\/em>\u00a0say about how time travel works” and go with how\u00a0we<\/em> say it does. In doing so,\u00a0Endgame<\/em>\u00a0sets up less-than-ironclad rules that its story seems to follow as loosely or strictly as the plot requires. Here, the ambitious superhero epic tries to have its cake and eat it too, telling audiences to throw away what Marty McFly and Doc Brown have taught them but then unfolds its own version of\u00a0Back to the Future Part II<\/em> when Captain America and Iron Man revisit the first Avengers movie in 2012.<\/p>\n

To acknowledge all that came before\u00a0then say “that’s not how time travel works at all,” while pushing your new take on the genre that works because of\u00a0and<\/em> despite of all the other movies you’re referencing in the process… that is not something easy to pull off but\u00a0Endgame<\/em> makes it look effortless.<\/p>\n

The main reason why Marvel’s record-breaking blockbuster gets away with its detours to the past — especially the unplanned side-mission to 1970 for more Pym Particles and Tony’s tangental, sentimental visit with his dad — is because of the characters. Their dynamic over the last 11 years of Marvel Cinematic Universe adventures have earned this; their witty banter and interpersonal relationships help smooth over any logic gaps in the storytelling or convenient plot contrivances that may not gel with the rules established therein on a first watch. Who cares how Steve Rogers went back in time to return all the Infinity Stones without seemingly having a spaceship with him to return the Soul Stone to Vormir? Or how did he end up with Peggy in the ’40s if he already returned the Time Stone to 2012? We just want him to finally have his dance with his “best girl.”<\/p>\n

The emotional stakes have never been higher for our heroes, and that’s one thing\u00a0(other than violating physics to save the day) that the Avengers have in common with\u00a0Back to the Future<\/em>. Hulk may dismiss the science behind Marty McFly’s first trip through time, but he can’t ignore the personal motivations governing it. There’s not one person who can’t relate to the idea of righting that wrong that keeps you up at night. Or, in Marty’s case, ensuring an event in your parents’ past happens so that you can have a future at all.<\/p>\n

Endgame\u00a0<\/em>uses time travel to ask some very hard, very painful questions about regret, and loss, and how moving on isn’t the same as learning to live with them. What if you could change your past? Fix the mistake that you’ve let define you? What if that didn’t have to be who you are?<\/p>\n

Unlike most time travel movies,\u00a0Endgame<\/em> uses time travel to explore thematically-rich questions like these and isn’t afraid to break the laws of real or movie physics to get the answers. Sure, it wraps those answers around inventive, action-packed set pieces, but it only works because of the genuine emotional stakes. As fun as it is to watch Steve “America’s Ass” Rogers fist fight his past self — we’re invested because we’ve seen the toll every choice that led to this science-be-damned solution has taken on Steve. And Nat. Ditto Thor, and especially Tony.<\/p>\n

This isn’t to nitpick at\u00a0Endgame<\/em>‘s time travel — even though the movie sets up rules only to occasionally abandon them. I’m just trying to meet the movie where it’s at. Listen to what it is saying. And what it’s saying is that, as important as it is to ground an adventure that reaches back in time and creates alternate realities that branch off the prime timeline (hi, 2014 Gamora and Nebula!) on in-story rules and logic, its all less important than servicing the emotional stakes driving that story. That’s what keeps audiences coming back to these movies for over a decade. What helped drive\u00a0Endgame<\/em> to a record-breaking $356 million domestic opening weekend.<\/p>\n

“Part of the journey is the end,” Tony tells us late in\u00a0Endgame<\/em>‘s final moments. He and his teammates were given a second chance and told there was only one outcome to fix what they believed was beyond repair. And even though the hows and whys of pulling off that second chance don’t always add up, our investment in the characters doing it all never wavers.<\/p>\n

Making the journey all the more worth taking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back to the Future is horsesh**. That’s essentially what Tony Stark tells Steve Rogers, Scott Lang, and Natasha Romanoff when they show up to his log cabin with an offer to go back and repair the damage Thanos has done. Tony dismisses the rules of time travel put forth by Robert Zemeckis’ classic sci-fi comedy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":5887,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[60,50],"tags":[40,37],"class_list":["post-6678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avengers-endgame","category-editorial","tag-featuredpage","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6678"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6806,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6678\/revisions\/6806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}