Marvel Fans Keep Spotting Annoying Mistakes in ‘Avengers: Endgame’
No matter how hard filmmakers try, no matter how many times they go over their footage with a fine-tooth comb, mistakes are going to happen in movies. It’s inevitable. And Avengers: Endgame is certainly no exception. In part, because Avengers: Endgame is the biggest box office hit of all time worldwide and because the movie is now available for home viewing with handy-dandy pause and rewind buttons.
‘Avengers: Endgame’ mistakes that aren’t really errors
Some of the mistakes various sites point out aren’t really mistakes per se but are plot holes where fans question logic. Sometimes Marvel explains these legitimately, and sometimes fans make a valid point.
For instance, many fans wondered how past Thanos could not only travel forward in time but also take his thousands of minions with him when the Avengers were out of Pym particles that are necessary for time travel. Anthony and Joe Russo, the directors, explained that Thanos’ henchman helped reverse engineer their own Pym particles. Fair enough.
On the other hand, one mistake pointed out by the Hindustan Times stated: “Gamora died to get the soul stone in Infinity War, but she is replaced with old-Gamora in Endgame and continues to live in that time line. If that’s possible, the Avengers could also get Black Widow, Vision and Tony Stark back.”
The elasticity of death is a legitimate concern in Marvel movies. If the Avengers, or whoever can contrive various ways to resurrect people willy-nilly, then death has no meaning. There’s an old joke that the only people who stay dead in the comics are Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben and Bruce Wayne’s parents. Now, we could see Spider-Man get drawn and quartered by a team of wild horses, and a fan could just say: “Won’t stick. Doctor Strange will bring him back.”
The time travel story arch multiplies the mistakes
Movies get in real trouble when time travel is thrown into the mix, and Avengers: Endgame winks at this by saying essentially that Back to the Future‘s logic was BS, leaving them free to make and break their own rules. Even then, mistakes still happen.
MovieWeb pointed out this one involving Ant-Man, who returned to Avengers: Endgame after sitting out Avengers: Infinity War.
“At around the 2:22:00 mark, Ant-Man and Wasp head back to try and get the Quantum tunnel up and running again and when they arrive, they find out the van needs to be hotwired, which is going to take some time. It’s at this time Scott Lang specifically says he’ll need ten minutes to complete the task. However, one can clearly see Black Panther taking down Thanos’ army with the gigantic version of Ant-Man in the distance right after Lang says he needs 10 minutes.”
Sometimes mistakes are just mistakes
Movies have people on the set called script supervisors, who are supposed to keep an eye out for continuity errors and make sure that shots match or that some anachronism isn’t there. Sometimes there are mistakes that are caught but left in on purpose because that was the best take.
Other times, script supervisors probably pull their hair out when the Internet goes wild over that coffee cup on Game of Thrones. Well, it turns out Avengers: Endgame had one too. When Thor and Rocket are in the past, a disposable coffee cup with a lid can be seen next to Rocket while he is standing on a pillar. No Starbucks for anybody from now on!
Half the fun of these movie mistakes is making up some reason that the mistake happened. Marvel Comics used to give out “No-Prizes” to readers who not only spotted goofs but came up with a reason that there wasn’t really a goof. For instance: How can Spider-Man be swinging above the Empire State building when it was the tallest building in New York at the time? Easy! He attached to a plane that swooped by.
We’d love to hear the no-prizes for those coffee cups. The coffee would explain why Rocket seems so wired all the time. Or maybe it’s Loki’s doing.
