The thing that bothered me the most surprised me. It had to do with Nebula. She realizes Thanos is coming. Instead of going to the future, she runs to a ship to try and contact people from the past, even though that makes no sense. She gets captured because...of course she does. Past Nebula is like, "Oh. I have your time travel device. And what's this? This part of your head is different. I will wear this part of your head and pretend to be you in order to trick the Avengers!" But I think the movie was edited incorrectly because...this never happens. Past Nebula is suddenly in the future. She sabotages their defense (even though it looked like the defense wouldn't have mattered anyway), and then goes back to Thanos and gives him the headpiece she was wearing while saying, "They never suspected a thing." And I'm confused at this point, because I was like, "What are you talking about? You never even ran into anyone? And nobody ever questioned, not even for a second, that Nebula had not returned with Warmachine. Even Warmachine was unperturbed by it." Then, when Past Nebula DOES run into someone for the FIRST time, it's Hawkeye. And she doesn't have the bronze plate on her head. And Hawkeye is all, "Oh, I know you. Here's the Infinity Gauntlet."

I also hated the time travel because they tried to explain it away while also poking fun at other movies which handled time travel MUCH better. (Those jokes WERE funny, but the problem is that the time travel in this movie was a joke). Endgame half-asses it and doesn't even follow it's own rules. "We're not changing our current future. Because it's in the past when we go back. So we can't change this. We can't just go back into the past and then come back here, it doesn't work that way." Except...it does? Unless they were suddenly in an alternate timeline, which is also horrible because it meant they just all ditched their own timeline leaving the people in it without superheroes. It also really, REALLY upset me that Thor took Mjolnir from the past into the future. Well...screw you past Thor. Guess you don't have a weapon?

I think Cap, Thor, or Iron Man could have taken down Thanos and it would have worked thematically. I think those three deserve it. But this movie kept showing that Thor NEEDED redemption of some sort. And it kept denying it to him. I was not a big fan of the moral lesson that they were trying to push through Thor, either. "I have to be who I am and not who I'm supposed to be." Gosh, I hated that. It was really confusing and didn't seem like it had any foundation to work with.

To give an example of the same moral, though, and having it presented better, we can look to the animated movie, "The Iron Giant." In that movie, a kid finds a robot. The robot doesn't remember who he is or why he's on Earth, but the kid is so excited to have a giant robot friend. Over time, the robot figured out that he's a gun--a machine meant for war. At the very, very end, and after attacking in a blind fury when his kid friend is hurt, the robot goes against his programming and decides to help and save all of the people from destruction. The message is that we can become more than what we are. We can be better. It's hard work, but we can work at becoming something greater. To me, this is the same message but presented competently.

The Western Superhero genre has stagnated horribly for me, as have most forms of hollywood entertainment. I've had a problem with the comics for a while because the suspension of disbelief with death is completely destroyed. Nobody can die and have it mean anything because they always get brought back. Why? Marketing. Toys. Production line. Incompetent writers that can't continue a story without a character and try to renew investment for people that enjoyed that character only to drive the comic and the story into the ground. And thus lies my biggest problem with Endgame. The deaths meant absolutely nothing. Who cares that half of the universe was gone? Everyone's back! Tony died at the end so feel sad. Guess what? Time travel exists! So I don't care! Not to mention that Hulk had another functioning arm. Pretty sure he could bring Tony back. There's an argument to be made that because Tony used the stones and their power killed him that he couldn't come back, however; comics have given us far worse BS, and this movie couldn't follow it's own rules half of the time. I felt like the story was flying by the seat of its pants most of the time rather than having any sort of logical coherency.

So this is my problem with Endgame. I enjoyed what I watched, but I wouldn't see it again. And it did nothing to renew my love for a stagnating genre that needs an extreme shake-up in how it's handled or needs to go the way of the dinosaur. Thank goodness I can look to other superhero forms of Media like One Punch Man and My Hero Academia. They are so much better than anything coming out of the west right now as far as superheroes are concerned. And I have my problems with MHA, but I love that show for how absolutely creative it is with the characters, their powers, and their teamwork, and I have seen how that show has sparked creativity in others. It is a breath of fresh air compared to how horribly stale things have been.