OK, let's me start by making it clear that this blog post is going to be full of Avengers: Endgame spoilers. Because I intend to post a link to this blog post on Facebook, and Facebook usually shows a preview of the first few lines of any blog post, I'm going to include the next few lines to make sure nobody accidentally reads a spoiler.
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OK, so let's start with the question I asked in the title of this post. What's going on in the scene near the end when Ned sees Peter in the hallway of the high school? Ned is acting like he hasn't seen Peter in a long time, which implies that Ned did not get "dusted" when Thanos snapped his fingers ( I'll just call this "The Snap" going forward ). However, considering that 5 years had passed since The Snap, Ned would have already been in college if he had survived it. Assuming this isn't a giant plot hole, I guess we are supposed to assume that Ned was dusted by The Snap as well, and he's just a really friendly guy who greets his friends that way all the time. Though, I guess to be fair, it may have been more than a few days since Ned had seen Peter, even if Ned had been dusted. It is quite possible that the Midtown School of Science and Technology was operating with an entirely new student body ( and many new teachers ) 5 years after The Snap, and it could have taken weeks ( perhaps months, with Board of Ed bureaucracy ) for dusted students to be reinstated. Still, you would think Peter and Ned would have contacted each other before coming back to school. In any case, assuming we accept that Ned was dusted too, we also know from the Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer that MJ and Flash Thompson are also still in high school, and presumably were dusted by the Snap. It seems kind of convenient the the 3 most important characters in Peter's high school were also dusted, but I guess it is only a 1 in 8 chance that all three of them would be dusted, and that certainly would not be the most implausible thing to happen in the MCU.
I suppose one could argue that Bruce's snap just put everything back the way it was and wiped out the previous 5 years, but that argument doesn't make sense when you consider Tony's daughter still existed after Bruce's snap. Yes, I know Tony made it clear that he wasn't going to give up his daughter to get back everything that was lost, but I don't think Bruce was going to wipe out the existence of all the kids that had been born in the last 5 years. I believe that people were just "un-dusted" back into existence at the very moment Bruce snapped his fingers, which bring up the following questions ...
- How does Hawkeye's wife call Hawkeye right after the snap? She was almost certainly calling from a cell phone, and considering everybody's cell phone contracts last only 2 years, her cell phone account would have been deactivated in the 5 years between The Snap and Bruce's snap. Yes, I guess she could have been calling from the landline phone in the home that she shared with Hawkeye and their kids, but ...
---- That would assume that Hawkeye was still paying the landline phone bill for that house when he was traveling the world as an assassin.
---- I don't know about you, but the contact name on my cell phone for my landline phone is "Home", and the contact name for my wife's cell phone is her name. If Hawkeye's wife was really calling from the landline phone in their home ( assuming Hawkeye was still paying the bill for that phone while he was spending his time killing dudes in Tokyo ), I would think that the name that would appear on Hawkeye's phone would be something like "Home" rather than his wife's name.
She was clearly calling him from a cell phone, on an account that miraculously still existed 5 years after it was last used.
---- That would assume that Hawkeye was still paying the landline phone bill for that house when he was traveling the world as an assassin.
---- I don't know about you, but the contact name on my cell phone for my landline phone is "Home", and the contact name for my wife's cell phone is her name. If Hawkeye's wife was really calling from the landline phone in their home ( assuming Hawkeye was still paying the bill for that phone while he was spending his time killing dudes in Tokyo ), I would think that the name that would appear on Hawkeye's phone would be something like "Home" rather than his wife's name.
She was clearly calling him from a cell phone, on an account that miraculously still existed 5 years after it was last used.
- Where does a person appear when they get un-dusted? Do they appear where they last existed? If so, a lot of people who were dusted while they were in a plane would have just fallen out of the sky when Bruce snapped his fingers.
- Why don't the Mets exist anymore? Don't Mets fans have enough problems? I think they would have started major league baseball again 5 years after The Snap. Sure, half the players would be gone, but they could have restocked MLB with minor league players. Or is the movie trying to say that New York only need one MLB team after the snap, and the Yankees would naturally be that team? If that's the case, screw you MCU!
- Bruce's snap almost certainly doomed the world to mass starvation. If the population of the world suddenly dropped from 7 billion to 3.5 billion, there is no reason why the remaining farmers, ranchers, and farming/ranching corporations would have continued to produced enough food to feed 7 billion people. When Bruce's snap brings 3.5 billion people back into the world, he brings them into a world that only has a large enough food supply to feed the 3.5 billion people that were in the world prior to Bruce's snap. Sure, more crops would be planted at this point to help feed all these extra people, but I think billions would die before all those crops could be harvested. Nice job, Bruce.
- Why don't the Mets exist anymore? Don't Mets fans have enough problems? I think they would have started major league baseball again 5 years after The Snap. Sure, half the players would be gone, but they could have restocked MLB with minor league players. Or is the movie trying to say that New York only need one MLB team after the snap, and the Yankees would naturally be that team? If that's the case, screw you MCU!
- Bruce's snap almost certainly doomed the world to mass starvation. If the population of the world suddenly dropped from 7 billion to 3.5 billion, there is no reason why the remaining farmers, ranchers, and farming/ranching corporations would have continued to produced enough food to feed 7 billion people. When Bruce's snap brings 3.5 billion people back into the world, he brings them into a world that only has a large enough food supply to feed the 3.5 billion people that were in the world prior to Bruce's snap. Sure, more crops would be planted at this point to help feed all these extra people, but I think billions would die before all those crops could be harvested. Nice job, Bruce.
- I'd just like to remind everybody that if The Snap happened in 2018 when Infinity War came out ( the time travel segments in Endgame strongly implies that all the recent MCU movies are set in the years that movie is releases ), it is now 2023 in the MCU. I'm wondering future MCU movies will have any continuity errors that suggest the year is earlier than 2023.
- Speaking of 2023, if Steve Rogers was in his early 20's in World War II, he'd be about 100 in that scene at the end of the movie ( which presumably takes place in 2023 ). He doesn't look anywhere near 100, but I can accept that his enhanced physique has slowed down the aging process a bit.
However, what I can't accept is that old Steve Rogers is in our MCU timeline at all. When The Ancient One was talking to Bruce, she made it clear, the that changing something in the past would not affect the future, but would instead create an entirely new timeline. This was confirmed when Nebula killed the past version of herself and did not immediately cease to exist and disappear. ( It also worth noting that Thor did not wipe out his history with his hammer when he swiped the hammer from the timeline in the past, but he was bit of a dick to make the Thor in the other timeline go the rest of his life without his hammer. ). Thus, after Steve Rogers decided to stay with Peggy in the past, he would have created an entirely new timeline and would not have would up on that bench as an old man in our MCU at the end of the movie.
- Speaking of 2023, if Steve Rogers was in his early 20's in World War II, he'd be about 100 in that scene at the end of the movie ( which presumably takes place in 2023 ). He doesn't look anywhere near 100, but I can accept that his enhanced physique has slowed down the aging process a bit.
However, what I can't accept is that old Steve Rogers is in our MCU timeline at all. When The Ancient One was talking to Bruce, she made it clear, the that changing something in the past would not affect the future, but would instead create an entirely new timeline. This was confirmed when Nebula killed the past version of herself and did not immediately cease to exist and disappear. ( It also worth noting that Thor did not wipe out his history with his hammer when he swiped the hammer from the timeline in the past, but he was bit of a dick to make the Thor in the other timeline go the rest of his life without his hammer. ). Thus, after Steve Rogers decided to stay with Peggy in the past, he would have created an entirely new timeline and would not have would up on that bench as an old man in our MCU at the end of the movie.
A few more random notes ...
- I'm glad Valkyrie and Korg survived ( because they were great in Ragnarok and I was disappointed not to see either of them in Infinity War ) , but it doesn't really make a lot a sense that they ( and a large enough number of Asgardians to populate a seaside village ) would have survived what happened at the start of Infinity War. It seems like almost everybody on board that spaceship of Asgardians was dead when the movie started, and then Thanos blew up the ship. I could believe that a bunch of Asgardians ( and perhaps Korg ) could have fled the ship in escape pods of some kind ), but I can't believe that a conscious Valkyrie would not have fought against Thanos to the bitter end ( and if she has been unconscious when Thanos blew up the ship, she would have certainly died ( unless she was just as extremely lucky as Thor was after the ship was blown up ).
- I'm glad Valkyrie and Korg survived ( because they were great in Ragnarok and I was disappointed not to see either of them in Infinity War ) , but it doesn't really make a lot a sense that they ( and a large enough number of Asgardians to populate a seaside village ) would have survived what happened at the start of Infinity War. It seems like almost everybody on board that spaceship of Asgardians was dead when the movie started, and then Thanos blew up the ship. I could believe that a bunch of Asgardians ( and perhaps Korg ) could have fled the ship in escape pods of some kind ), but I can't believe that a conscious Valkyrie would not have fought against Thanos to the bitter end ( and if she has been unconscious when Thanos blew up the ship, she would have certainly died ( unless she was just as extremely lucky as Thor was after the ship was blown up ).
- Based on the explanations I've heard/read about Ant-Man's powers, I don't understand why he doesn't have the density and strength of sea foam when he turns into Giant-Man. I'm not the only one who feels this way. See this, and this.
- Finally, I understand what the filmmakers were going for when all the other female heroes decided to help Captain Marvel get across the battlefield with the Infinity Gauntlet. But let's face it, she didn't really need anybody's help. With perhaps the exception of Scarlet Witch, Captain Marvel is more powerful than all the heroes that tried to help her combined.
All that said, I really enjoyed this movie, and I'm probably going to see it again in one of the coming weekends. I do wish the MCU played a little less fast and loose with science, continuity, and common sense, but I guess I shouldn't expect that much about a cinematic universe that features walking trees and talking raccoons.
Rich
