Confused by the time travel in Avengers: Endgame? The director has advice
By Ariba Bhuvad
Avengers: Endgame involved a lot of time travel, and where there’s time travel, there’s confusion. How was Gamora resurrected? How could Nebula kill a past version of herself and have nothing happen to her in the present day? It all works onscreen, but if you ever found yourself scratching your head over some of the timey-wimey wonkiness, don’t feel bad.
Thankfully, Joe Russo (who directed the movie with his brother Anthony) and writer Stephen McFeely spoke to MTV News and tried to clear up any confusion. Russo’s solution: take a step back.
"Ultimately we realized that, look, time travel doesn’t exist, so it’s a ludicrous notion. It’s a construct of genre filmmaking and you know, I think when we all bought in on it was when we realized the emotional scenes that could take place between the characters and people that they loved who are no longer with them… So, ultimately, if you’re entertained by them coming up with the plan, executing the plan, and then you’re emotionally fulfilled by what they do while they’re executing the plan, it’s worth the construct."
I was a huge fan of Avengers: Endgame and loved everything about it, so niggles about time travel here and there weren’t bothering me. One qualm I have with discussing topics like this is that we’re talking about something that isn’t real. Like, we can’t actually time travel, so why are we so critical of plot holes resulting from when fake people do it? So long as the thing is internally consistent, can’t we just enjoy these movies for what they do well?
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At the end of the day, the story was about the characters repairing themselves and moving forward; whether the time travel mechanics make complete sense or not, they helped them do that effectively in a way we could understand. I’m game for that.
dark. Next. Watch this heartbreaking deleted scene from Avengers: Endgame
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h/t AV Club