AVENGERS: ENDGAME Writers Q&A

Interesting stuff.

nytimes.com/2019/04/29/movies/avengers-endgame-questions-and-answers.html

>Real life physicists consulted on the movie’s time travel elements and they are in agreement that the Back to the Future is wrong.

>Smart Hulk was supposed to happen during the Battle of Wakanda in Infinity War, but it did not feel right to have Banner have an up when everybody else was down. They really struggled with how to present it in Endgame and wrote several drafts with “lab scenes” showing how Bruce did before ultimately deciding to just jump right into and use Ant-Man as an audience surrogate in “WTF is going on?”

>They left Hawkeye out of Infinity War because they felt “leaving his family to fight” was too much of a retread of his Civil War arc. The scene of his family being dusted was also planned for Infinity War to show the global effect of the snap, but the Russos decided it undermined the urgency of what was going on in Wakanda.

>They originally planned for Thor to be on a “mssion of vengeance” in Endgame, but felt that was just retreading old ground and decided to instead completely drive Thor up the wall by making him a fat drunk. They consider the post-snap state of all survivors a worst-case-scenario type of “What If…?” story.

>The Living Tribunal was going to appear during the Battle of Titan in Infinity War but everyone thought he was too out there without proper context.

>They were reluctant to revisit The Avengers because it seemed “too pander-y”. There were drafts where they would get both the Aether and the Tesseract from The Dark World-era Asgard. Stark would go there in a stealth suit that makes him invisible, but Heimdall would be able to see him and they would fight; Thor and Jane Foster would have a long conversation.

>There were drafts where they would go to The Winter Soldier-era Triskelion, and then someone would steal a car to go to the Sanctum Sanctorum.

Attached: Avengers.jpg (600x458, 60K)

>There were drafts where they would go to Morag prior to Guardians of the Galaxy and the planet would be underwater and swept by thunderstorms, but that was too big a setpiece and didn’t serve much narrative purpose because 2014 Thanos couldn’t find out about them.

>Some versions had the 2012 Avengers butting heads with either Nick Fury or Maria Hill over Loki’s jurisdiction, in case Robert Redford couldn’t return.

>The final battle was originally much longer, with its own three-act structure.

>They considered having Pym and Janet join the fight in their own OG Ant-Man and Wasp suits, but that fell by the wayside.

>They envisioned a scene where the battle briefly gets paused for whatever reason, and an assorted of roughly 18 random characters from all corners of the MCU end up together in this trench awkwardly trying to figure out what their next battle move should be, but even they felt it sucked and wasn’t funny.

>Some drafts had Hawkeye die and Black Widow survive.

>They always planned to kill Stark, since he already got to enjoy the retired life he always wanted with Pepper and their daughter during the time skip, and it was thematically fitting to close that chapter of the MCU.

>They always planned to retire Cap rather than kill him, and let him have his dance with Peggy, but him actually going back in time to do it came a little later, and they were concerned it was too fanservice-y.

>The view Cap’s and Tony’s endgames as a reversal of who they started out as: Cap was selfless and self-sacrificial, and learned to put himself first a little. Tony was selfish and self-centered, and learned to be truly selfless.

Attached: Endgame.jpg (1200x675, 196K)

KINO

Neat.

They considered having Pym and Janet join the fight in their own OG Ant-Man and Wasp suits, but that fell by the wayside.

Dang, they should've done that.

>The final battle was originally much longer, with its own three-act structure.
I'm disappointed in hearing this and knowing that there probably won't be an extended cut with all this shit in it.

Even though I loved it, even while sitting in the theater, I felt like the final battle was a tad short. Definitely needed 10-20 more minutes of stuff there.

Agree!

I would have been fine with an extra 5 minutes for the battle with EVERYONE there.

>They always planned to retire Cap rather than kill him, and let him have his dance with Peggy, but him actually going back in time to do it came a little later, and they were concerned it was too fanservice-y

Well what the hell was the alternative to time travel? Necrophilia?

Oh shit
So Steve being a little selfish was an explicit writing decision. Not just meant to give him a break but show that he’s become a little more willing to enjoy life the way Tony did
That’s fucking beautiful

Was their version of Living Tribunal supposed to be in the position of Eternity or something?

He means Cap would probably just have his dance and retire in the present rather than go back to live a life with Peggy.

I sort of wish we got the three act final battle but I guess we kind of did

Bump.

>>There were drafts where they would go to Morag prior to Guardians of the Galaxy and the planet would be underwater and swept by thunderstorms, but that was too big a setpiece and didn’t serve much narrative purpose because 2014 Thanos couldn’t find out about them.
Huh...I like that for mainly the worldbuilding aspect.

Hell, I wouldn't mind the final battle being longer and they could have squeezed in Kraglin, Sif, Sharon Carter, Ghost, and hell, why not the Agents of SHIELD and Defenders?

>Sif

Her and my warriors three forever disrespected ),,,:

>Introduction of Smart Hulk in Endgame

Actually a good choice. Also lends to the idea of everyone changing after 5 years. It also helps make Scott identify with us as being people who had missed out on the time lapse.

>Hawkeye

Starting with Hawkeye's family getting snapped. Another good decision.

>Thor

I'm a little bummed Thor got fat for Endgame, but, the Russos made the right call. Thor's arc ended when he finally chopped Thanos's head off, and my boy has been through a lot. It does make me hopeful for his future with both the Asguardians, and with the next Waititi movie. Also, the fact that Hemsworth likes the Thor character now hopefully means Thor will get better missions in the future

>Living Tribunal

This was the most disappointing. They could tease a Celestial for 5 seconds in Guardians of the Galaxy, why not tease the Living Tribunal proper?

>Robert Redford returned

Based Redford

With everything happening, they could have added another 20-40 minutes easily to decompress stuff and I think most of us would happily watch, but at 3 hours long they were already pushing their luck probably.

Makes you wonder if there was a point if they thought these two movies should have been three.

Hank and Janet are old, it made sense to leave them out.

While I agree with many anons that the battle sequence should have been longer, the movie was already 3 hours long. THREE hours. Thats the kind of length reserved for movies like Titanic, Avatar, Ben-Hur, Lord of the Rings and so on. Its the current crescendo of the MCU, yes, but Marvel must have been concerned if people were able to keep watching.

I hope they can do some directors cut with a longer battle. But right now, while its still in cinemas, the battle we got is the perfect ending to what was a pretty good time heist movie

I feel like LT would've been "too much" for this movie, let alone the MCU. I know that sounds retarded since it is a comicbook film, but think about it. LT is supposed to be the same throughout the multiverse and having him show up in a universe where everything (including the Infinity Stones/Gauntlet) is dramically weaker than their alt-media counterparts would be overkill and would create a plot problem in which people would ask "why didn't LT just stop Thanos?".

>"why didn't LT just stop Thanos?"

Actually that is a good point. Perhaps featuring Uatu would have been a better option, but GotG vol. 2 already did that with the Watchers