PLEASE BE WARNED, AS THE SPOILER EMBARGO HAS NOW BEEN LIFTED, I WON’T BE HOLDING BACK. SO IF YOU’RE YET TO SEE THE FILM AND DON’T WANT ANY OF THE MAJOR PLOT POINTS COMPLETELY RUINED, TURN BACK NOW.

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Anyone who knows anything about the entertainment world has heard of Avengers, Marvel, Iron Man, Spider-Man or Captain America, right? And judging by the box office takings, most of those people have now been to see the latest and final instalment of the current MCU, Avengers Endgame. This week has seen the blockbuster take over $2 billion dollars putting it, quite comfortably, in second place amid the highest grossing films of all time. All it needs is roughly another $0.2 billion and it will over take Avatar and simply make it number 1.

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I feel a bit like this film is all I’ve spoken about for the last few weeks, Avengers Infinity War was a big enough blow to get over but nothing could have prepared me for the Endgame. Everyone I know that has seen it has had different opinions about the plot (mostly being that they loved it and cried like a baby, or was that just me?) but more than anything this film, albeit the end of a cinematic era, seems to have presented the world with endless questions.

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NOW, GIVEN THAT I OBVIOUSLY DON’T WORK FOR MARVEL, NOR HAVE I READ ALL THE COMICS (DISCLAIMER; I HAVE READ SOME OF THEM SO DON’T GET JUDGEY ON ME) THE ANSWERS TO THE BELOW QUESTIONS ARE JUST MY OPINIONS AND THEORIES. I JUST WANTED TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS FOR FUN AND IF I HAVE ANY FACTS WRONG PLEASE JUST TELL ME OR BUGGER OFF.

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QUESTION NUMBER 1:

WHERE IS GAMORA NOW?

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I think it’s safe to say we’re all excited for the inevitable ‘Asguardians of the Galaxy’ film, especially now James Gunn is back on board. The scene featuring said Asguardians at the end of Endgame heavily implies the upcoming Guardians sequel will feature Peter Quill‘s hunt for Gamora.

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My biggest question regarding this predicted storyline has been; but is Gamora even still alive?

Think about it, right, in the original time line (the one that existed before they started jumping around in time) Gamora was thrown over the edge of Mount Vormir in Infinity War to her impending doom allowing Thanos to receive the Soul Stone.  So she’s dead in that timeline which gets rid of that version of her completely from this equation, because as Clint says in Endgame there is no coming back from Vormir. But then she comes back into the new present in Endgame when Nebula and Roadie go back to 2014 Morag. She is then on Thanos‘ ship when he uses the Pym Particles to come back to 2023 (the new present).

Time passes, Avengers have assembled, Tony and Peter are reunited and Gamora is somewhere in amongst the fallen Avengers HQ building with two different Nebulas.

Long story short, Tony gets the infinity stones, snaps his fingers and much like at the end of Infinity War, Thanos and his crew dust into nothingness – the Avengers have won.

But where is Gamora now? My original theory was that she had dusted too, because she was still working for Thanos up until this point but has her allegiance changed? We do see her in the kick-ass “girl power” moment when all the women of the MCU fight together but has her allegiance completely changed? Also doesn’t it completely depend on the exact wording of Tony‘s thoughts when he snapped his fingers?

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My theory is she is still alive, because it’ll make for a good story in Asguardians of the Galaxy but where the F is she? Because she wasn’t anywhere to be seen after the battle and she wasn’t at Tony‘s funeral. And if she had completely switched allegiance to be on the “good” side then wouldn’t she have stuck with the only familiar face and ended up on the Milano with Nebula? So actually maybe my theory is that she is dead.

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Obviously we’re not going to find out until the next volume of Guardians is released what has really happened to Gamora but it’s fun to guess isn’t it?

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OK THAT WAS QUITE A LENGTHY ANSWER SO NOW LETS TRY A COUPLE OF EASIER ONES.

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As established, yes, Tony Stark dies at the end of Endgame and no, we were not emotionally prepared for it. But if that wasn’t sad enough, the icing on the cake was Tony’s funeral scene, from the heartbreaking video message stored inside Tony’s Iron Man helmet to the adorable conversation between Morgan and Happy, Tony’s funeral will go down as one of the saddest scenes in MCU history. 

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During the funeral we see a beautiful panning shot of all the surviving characters; we see Steve Rogers, Peter Parker, Dr Strange, Bucky and Sam, the Barton’s, all the Guardians and many, many more and at the end of the scene we see Nick Fury finally make his appearance.

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Amongst all these much beloved characters we see an unfamiliar face, and of course the question on most peoples minds when they came out of the cinema was “who was that random teenager at Tony’s funeral?”.

so…

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QUESTION NUMBER 2

WHO WAS THAT RANDOM TEENAGER AT TONY’S FUNERAL?

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It’s a simple answer, the teenager at Tony’s funeral is Harley Keener, the young boy from Iron Man 3. Not only did Harley come back to bid a final farewell to Tony but Marvel also managed to get the same actor, Ty Simpkins, back for the scene.

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Question number 2a

Who was missing from the funeral?

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This is just my opinion but I wanted to get it in there, I think Agent Coulson should have been at Tony’s funeral. We all know he didn’t die in Avengers Assemble because he is a prominent character in Agents of Shield and he loved Tony and all the Avengers so why he wasn’t at the funeral is beyond me. They could get Harley Keener in there but they couldn’t have just stood Coulson next to Maria Hill? Shame.

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QUESTION NUMBER 3

Where was Katherine Langford?

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As some of you may remember there was a big casting announcement made shortly before the films release featuring 13 Reasons Why star Katherine Langford. Her character was never revealed and a lot of people speculated that she would be coming in to play the teenage version of Cassie, Scott Lang‘s daughter. But, once Emma Fuhrmann was announced for that role, speculation began again.

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It turns out Katherine Langford was cast as an older version of Tony and Peppers daughter Morgan. In the original draft of the script there was an extra scene after Tony snaps his fingers with the nano-tech infinity gauntlet, not dissimilar to the scene in Infinity War where Thanos faces young Gamora – “at what cost”. The scene was going to feature an emotional scene between Tony and Morgan where he explains why he did what he did. Joe and Anthony Russo recently said in an interview that the reason this was taken out was because it seemed too nostalgic and took the attention away from the loss of all the Avengers in losing Tony as apposed to the loss Tony was feeling with loosing Morgan.

I personally think it was a smart move to take this scene out, it would have become too complex as we hadn’t already been introduced to the older version of Morgan and it might have fallen a bit flat, which is why the corresponding scene in Infinity War worked so well as we already knew young Gamora. Also – why would you want to take that character away from the incomparable Lexi Rabe who played Morgan with such honesty? She was perfect.

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QUESTION NUMBER 4

(This is not actually a question and more just something I wanted to talk about.)

Thors “Dad bod”:

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One of the biggest talking points of the entire film (which shocks me because the film has so many more amazing things we could be talking about) is how the directors decided to dramatically change Thor’s appearance.
We find Thor suffering in silence, after his failed attempt to defeat Thanos back in Infinity War, in a small seaside town (believed to be located in Scotland) with his friends Korg and Meek. He has gained weight and completely neglected his appearance. It’s a shame to see him like this, but for a lot of people it has become far too big of a deal. He is clearly suffering with PTSD or similar, he’s struggling to admit that he has failed because all his life he was told that he had to be the best, be the strongest, be a god.

People seem to have a problem with this character development, whether it’s because he’s now less appealing to look at or because he’s become a comedic element to the film.

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I happen to disagree (shocking!) yes they have used him as a slight comic relief to all the intense drama going on throughout the film, but for me it just proves you don’t need to have a six-pack to still be a hero. I know it sounds cheesy but he’s still the hero he always was and due to this breakdown he was able to go out and achieve, his pain and suffering as his motivation. Mental health is important to talk about and the fact that the Russo brothers managed to include it in this film on more than one occasion is an achievement worth celebrating.

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I like Thor’s Dad bod.

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QUESTION NUMBER 5

Was Black Widows death justified? 

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There’s been a bit of debate about whether or not Natasha Romanoff was the right character to be killed off in the middle of the film. It’s a brutal scene on the planet of Vormir, where one has to sacrifice something they love above all else in order to retrieve the Soul Stone. This is the moment in Infinity War when Thanos sacrificed Gamora in exchange for the stone.

Hawkeye and Widow are sent back in time to retrieve the stone before Thanos has a chance, little do they know what task lies ahead.

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Red Skull now inhabits Vormir and when they arrive he explains what needs to happen. After a short, but intense, discussion about what they should do Clint makes the decision to sacrifice himself so Natasha can take the stone back and they can stop Thanos.

In a beautiful sequence of ‘who beats who’ Natasha ends up being the one to make the ultimate sacrifice in her brutal and untimely death.

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Clint goes back to the Avengers HQ in present time with the Soul Stone in tow and breaks down when the rest of the team ask where Natasha is.

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So, was Natasha the right character to die? 

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Although it was very sad, and I may be a tad bias as Hawkeye is my favourite character, I think it was right for the film. There was no way all of the original six were going to survive and losing Natasha had a huge emotional impact on the rest of the team. We all know how close a friendship she had with Clint and his family but she was also close with Steve and Bruce, if Clint had been the one to die we wouldn’t have had as much emotion impact from the rest of the team, it wouldn’t have meant as much to them or the audience.

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Although she didn’t get a conventional funeral, there is a beautiful moment at the lake when the 5 remaining original Avengers get a chance to mourn and discuss what had happened. There’s tensions in the air around whether or not they can go back and stop it from happening but it also gives each of the characters a moment of mourning.

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Her death was painful to watch and heartbreaking but I believe it gave them all the last burst of motivation they needed to achieve what needed to be achieved.

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And on that note, that’s it, my top 5 questions answered!

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I know it’s not on everyones mind anymore (especially as Game of Thrones is now coming to an end) but it was everything I could have asked for and more and I am still thinking about it. I wouldn’t change anything about it for the world and I want to thank the Russo brothers for achieving what they did. 

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Now I’m off to watch it for the sixth time…