Huge Plot Holes In ‘Avengers: Endgame’
Few could have imagined that 11 years and 22 movies after the first Iron Man was released, we’d get a movie as sprawling and epic as Avengers: Endgame. It’s a perfect conclusion to the MCU’s Infinity Saga and equal parts poignant and thrilling. Plenty of fans spent the opening weekend crying and cheering, proving they were more than moved enough to overlook the many Avengers: Endgame plot holes.
For all its strengths, Endgame is a time travel movie at its core. Avengers: Endgame plot holes crop up at nearly every turn because – spoiler alert – time travel isn’t really possible. Even if it was, it would be way more complex than could be conveyed in a single blockbuster. Even in a movie with a three-hour runtime, Avengers: Endgame inconsistencies still abound.
You probably missed a few gaps in logic while marveling at the massive action sequences, but we’ve got you covered. There will be spoilers ahead, but it’s only because we are so committed to doing “whatever it takes” to reveal these plot holes.
How Does Steve Rogers Turn The Space Stone Back Into A Tesseract?
When Steve Rogers and Tony Stark travel back in time to grab the Space Stone, it’s still in the form of the Tesseract. By the time it makes it to the present day, they’ve reduced it down to just the stone so it can fit on the new Infinity Gauntlet for Hulk.
But at the end of the movie, Rogers is supposed to return the Stones to the exact moment they were taken. That should be easy enough, except the Space Stone is still just a stone. How is he supposed to turn it back into a Tesseract? That seems like it’d make a pretty massive difference in the timelines if the Tesseract magically turned into a pure Space Stone for no apparent reason.
Wouldn’t Bringing That Many People Back Five Years Later Cause Society To Collapse?
For Tony Stark’s sake, it makes sense to simply bring everybody that disappeared into the current, five-years-later reality. That way, he gets to keep his daughter, and everything is fine. Except that actually, no, everything is about to be horrible.
Bringing these people back five years after they left would create profound problems across the entire planet and the rest of the galaxy. How would governments that were still recovering from the effects of the Snap suddenly handle this huge influx of citizens? Do people immediately get to reacquire all the property and money and jobs they left behind, or does it stay with whoever had it in 2023? How would the world document who’s returned? How would we go about reintroducing all these people back into society? What about people who were in airplanes when they were snapped? Did they reappear at 30,000 feet without parachutes? Ecologically, we know that the water is finally cleaner and whales are starting to enter the Hudson in 2023, but what’s the effect of doubling the wildlife population in an instant?
The whole situation is going to become a profound mess and not one easily fixed by a bolt of lightning from Thor or a Hulk in glasses.
How Did Thanos Manage To Jump A Spaceship And Thousands Of Soldiers Through The Quantum Realm?
Tony Stark realizes that time travel is basically impossible without a “GPS” of sorts. Bruce Banner was able to get time to move, but it basically only moved through Scott Lang instead of him moving through time (hence why he became a baby and an old man rather than going back to 1950). Tony solves that problem by making some sort of device to help guide them through the Quantum Realm to where they need to go.
When Thanos captures future-Nebula in 2014, he learns about the Avengers’ time travel antics and sends past-Nebula back in time – presumably using future-Nebula’s time device. Then, past-Nebula basically spends five minutes on the time machine console – a technology that no one has ever used before – and somehow finds a way to bring in a spaceship the size of a small country and thousands and thousands of alien soldiers through a tiny portal from 2014 to 2023.
How in the world did she manage that? How did she improve the technology so significantly and so quickly that she was able to push through that much firepower without Pym Particles or time watches? Thanos’s tech team must be absolute geniuses.
What Has Captain America Been Doing For The Last 70 Years?
The biggest issue with Captain America deciding to travel back in time to get some quality time with his sweetheart in the 1940s is that he apparently never decided to help out with the world’s problems again.
Think about it: from 1940-something to 2023, Captain America apparently does nothing except putter around the house during moments of crisis like Vietnam, 9/11, and basically every bad thing that’s happened since WWII. If he had intervened somehow, surely S.H.I.E.L.D. (who is actually HYDRA, remember) would know about it and would find a way to keep tabs on him. Instead, they still believe the “real” Captain America is frozen on ice or otherwise lost to time for decades.
Evidently, Steve Rogers manages to hang up the shield and “get a life” while watching the world go to hell around him.
Did People Really Just Put A Van In Storage With A Machine That Looks Like A Nuclear Device In It?
When Ant-Man returns from five years stuck in the Quantum Realm, he returns to van that has the Quantum Tunnel stored inside it. Of course, in the intervening time, the van has been moved to a storage facility in San Francisco.
But who the heck would impound a van with a massive machine in the backseat that looks like a straight-up nuclear device? It’s fenced in a section with a sign that says “Lang,” so either Cassie vouched for it or the authorities who impounded it knew it belonged to the known superhero Ant-Man. Somebody must have looked in the back, seen the weird machine, and at a bare minimum tried to strip the thing for parts. Maybe they could have notified the Avengers? You don’t just send a huge, glowing, unknown machine to a storage locker somewhere and just hope for the best.
Is Black Widow’s Demise Really A Sacrifice?
We learn in Avengers: Infinity War that the only way to acquire the Soul Stone is to sacrifice “that which you love,” meaning “a soul for a soul.” For Thanos, that means sacrificing Gamora, presumably the one person he loves the most. Later, when talking to young Gamora, he says he’s sacrificed “everything.”
Jump ahead to Endgame, when Black Widow and Hawkeye have to get the Soul Stone. They’re told again there must be a sacrifice. But the thing is, it feels like a bit of a stretch that sacrificing either of them would be a huge loss to the other. They’re best friends, but Black Widow has affection for a lot of people, including an obvious connection with Bruce Banner. Hawkeye has an entire family that we assume rank ahead of Black Widow in his heart – though, with them gone, maybe Natasha really is number one.
Beyond that, it’s quite a stretch to say Hawkeye “sacrifices” Black Widow. She tricks him and sacrifices herself, which doesn’t feel like how the Stone works. It’s a bit less impactful if somebody is willing to perish, rather than somebody being forced to choose to sacrifice someone. After all, Red Skull explains in Infinity War that “to ensure that whoever possesses it understands its power, the stone demands a sacrifice.” If anything, Black Widow should have gotten the Soul Stone because she was willing to sacrifice herself.
Shouldn’t Our World Now Be Overrun With Darkness?
When Bruce Banner attempts to convince the Ancient One to give up the Time Stone, she tells him that if they lose the Time Stone, Earth – and maybe all of existence – is basically screwed. She says if he takes the stone, it’ll create a new reality and “in this new branch reality… our world will be overrun, millions would suffer.” Bruce assures her that it’s fine, and they’ll bring the Time Stone right back, thereby preventing an alternate reality.
And that’s all well and good, but by the end of Endgame, Thanos (presumably) still wipes out all the Infinity Stones – including the Time Stone. This means that, at least according to the Ancient One, the future is doomed without the Time Stone. Just because it took an extra nine years for the Stone to be removed from reality doesn’t suddenly mean there are no more forces of darkness.
Why Did They Jump To 1970 For Pym Particles?
After losing the Space Stone in 2012, Steve Rogers and Tony Stark decide to travel back in time to a point when there’s both more Pym Particles (so they can jump through time again) and a less guarded Space Stone. To that end, they jump back to 1970.
But why would they need to go that far back? Pym Particles presumably exist from 1970 until Thanos’s snap in 2018. Pym’s alive that whole time, and surely he’s got particles with him in storage. There’s no time constraint to worry about since they already plan on jumping back to the moment in 2023 when all three teams leave. In fact, it’d probably be easiest to just jump back a few hours in 2012 to grab the briefcase again before Loki can get it and then go to San Francisco to ask Hank Pym for some help.
Did ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’ Star A HYDRA Super Soldier?
According to Endgame’s dialogue, Hot Tub Time Machine exists in the MCU as well – which means Sebastian Stan, who plays Bucky Barnes, is an actor in the MCU. But Hot Tub Time Machine came out several years before Bucky was deprogrammed in the MCU timeline, which means he would have been a part of that movie while still under HYDRA’s influence. Does that mean the movie itself was made by HYDRA-affiliated spies, and the movie was a component of a larger brainwashing operation coordinated by Arnim Zola?
Before Becoming A Supervillain, Was Obadiah Stane An Actor?
If The Big Lebowski exists in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Tony Stark calls Thor “Lebowski”), then that means Jeff Bridges exists in the MCU. Except we already know Jeff Bridges played the villain Obadiah Stane in the first Iron Man.
So, is “Jeff Bridges” really just the stage name for a brilliant but evil industrialist who works with Tony?
- Who Made Dc And Marvel - August 31, 2023
- How Tall Is The Hulk - August 31, 2023
- Who Plays Ronan In Captain Marvel - August 30, 2023
14,987 thoughts on “Huge Plot Holes In ‘Avengers: Endgame’”