MovieChat Forums > Avengers: Endgame (2019) Discussion > Discussing Timelines (spoilers)

Discussing Timelines (spoilers)

posted 5 years ago by Eleazar (251)
8 replies | jump to latest

The Ancient One tells Banner that he has to bring the Time-Stone back, so that her reality isn't doomed - not because the timeline gets branched - I think - but without the Time-Stone Dormammu would win and this (her) timeline branch would be doomed.

So - the MCU-Timeline will never be changed - but new branches of Timelines/Realities will be born every time somebody time travels and changes things - doesn't matter if the Infinity Stones are brought back or not.

Bringing them back only helps the branches/realities to be safe - may not have worked for all of them.

New Time-Line Branches:

- A Timeline where Loki escapes with an Infinity Stone - so Thanos may never get all 6 of them.
(or do they team up and everything gets worse)

- A Timeline where Thanos vanishes and doesn't come back (because he died in the future)
(The lucky Timeline for everybody ;)

- A Timeline where Cap lives next to everything that happens as an older version - crazy in love with Mrs Cap. (it is open if he changed anything here) (could be the same Time-Line as MAIN if he went undercover and Peggy lied on here dying bed to his younger self)

(wouldn't it have been genius if throughout all films the Superheroes received help from an unkown Mr X - which in the End would have been Older-Cap?

- A Timeline in which Tony meets his father in the 70s? Maybe they didn't change to much to create a new branch - except for being responsible for his own name.

- A Timeline where Thors Mothers met her Future-Son and Jane Foster looses the Infinity Stone for moments(?). Would have loved to see Cap meet Jane Foster. (could stay MAIN because the mother didn't want to know her future and Jane may have not noticed what happened - if she was unconscious)

But all of this cannot be one timeline - even if the stones are brought back.

[–] EvilPinata (1186) 5 years ago

It's definitely not part of the main timeline, but unless something in one of the alternate timelines you mentioned directly affects another one of the alternate timelines, I don't know how they couldn't be a part of the same timeline.

Where they get the tesseract in 1970 could still be in the same timeline as 2012 where Loki takes it later on since they'd be bringing it back to that exact moment in 1970 when they originally took it. That also wouldn't have any bearing on the reality stone being taken in 2014, Cap living with Peggy, or Thanos vanishing from that timeline.

I feel it's possible that it could be linear.

[–] FootOfDavros (7283) 5 years ago

The "putting the stone back in exactly the same place doesn't create a new timeline" rule is nonsense as per the multiverse theory Bruce spells out in the film.

The Ancient One Bruce talks to is already on a new timeline distinct from the main MCU timeline. It has already been branched by them coming back and existing there and taking the time stone. Cap then creates a subsequent branch to this timeline where the time stone now exists again.

You cannot change the past and that middle timeline were the stone was removed must exist otherwise Cap has nowhere to go back to in the first place to return the stone.

[–] TMC-4 (19569) 5 years ago

According to this article:
https://www.cbr.com/avengers-endgame-plot-holes/#leave-comment

- Cap fighting himself is a "plot hole" since a basic rule of time travel is you're not allowed to interact with yourself
- Cap pretending to be a member of Hydra in order to steal the scepter is a "plot hole" because then Hydra wouldn't have fought against him in Age of Ultron since he was "one of them"
- Cap remaining in the past with Peggy is a "plot hole" because it would affect the start of the Avengers Initiative and everything that came after it
- Black Widow and Hawkeye not knowing one of them would have to be sacrificed on Vormir to retrieve the Soul Stone is a "plot hole" because Nebula knew Thanos killed Gamora there (but did not know how or why he did it)
- killing alternate Thanos & Co is a "plot hole" because Guardians of the Galaxy would not have happened, so everything after it also wouldn't have happened, and therefore the snap never took place, so they wouldn't be trying to bring everyone back
- present Nebula killing alternate Nebula is a "plot hole" because not only would she have ceased to exist right then and there, but the movie wouldn't be taking place since she died in 2014, and therefore wouldn't have been alive to travel back in time
- Thanos wearing the nanotech gauntlet Iron Man created is a "plot hole" because the first rule of Tony's nanotech is "Avengers only. No Thanos allowed!" so it wouldn't be able to resize to fit him (which ever if that were true, the last Avenger to wield it was the Hulk, who has a similarly sized hand as Thanos)
- Thanos trying to do the snap while wearing a gauntlet is a "plot hole" because when he does it he has the front of his hand facing him, and therefore he would've been able to look straight through both the gauntlet and his hand to see that the stones weren't there on the back of the gauntlet

[–] UncleRuckis (2596) 5 years ago

Wow! An entire article written by someone who didn't understand the time travel in this movie not one bit.

Did they take their bathroom breaks when Hulk explicitly explained how it works or something?

[–] ExTechOp (2770) 5 years ago

"Did they take their bathroom breaks when Hulk explicitly explained how it works or something?"

Looks like that stubborn poster on THIS board that insisted the infinity stones work the way HE thought they should work, instead of how the movie SHOWS us they work

For that matter, a number of the movies mentioned by Rhodes and Lang also "violate the basic rules" and/or show that the past can't be changed.

Specifically, "Time After Time," "Somewhere in Time" and "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" all involve the time travelers preserving history, sometimes by accident, without changing anything. Bill and Ted actually exploit this plot point by imagining what they WOULD do, and it turns out they DID do it.

And did "Wrinkle in Time" even involve time travel? I haven't been able to sit through the whole thing without getting bored so I don't know.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

That's the problem with most movies that introduce time travel. The scriptwriters mix and match The Butterfly Effect (parallel timelines) model and the 12 Monkeys (one consistent timeline) model as needed for the story.

This movie also tries to have it both ways, but at least they make an effort to overcome the contradictions.

The Dr. Strange movie already introduced the idea of parallel timelines. Banner's plan didn't deny the possibility of parallel timelines... the idea was to make sure that the Stones were returned to the exact time they were taken so that any parallel timelines generated would be indistinguishable from the original. That's the point he makes to The Ancient One... sort of.

The gate was there to make sure that the various teams returned back to their exact timeline and not another one that may or may not have resembled the original. This was the way the writers tried to overcome the conundrum of an infinite number of future timelines emanating from each time travel trip.

In fact, things go wrong as we see and all sorts of alternate timelines are created. TMC-4's article ain't wrong, but just like Back to the Future, The Terminator, etc. the scriptwriters are hoping fans don't look too hard.

No science required to figure it out... just a pen, paper and a flowchart.

[–] TMC-4 (19569) 5 years ago

The entire MCU timeline explained

https://www.looper.com/154274/the-entire-mcu-timeline-explained/

[–] ExTechOp (2770) 5 years ago

It's not actually stated that changing the past creates a new timeline. That's a fair assumption, especially since it's the explicit case in ALL other time travel movies that DON'T deal rely on predestination/self-consistency. But it's not explicitly spelled out in THIS movie.

Instead, the ancient one showed her "reality" branching off with the removal of the time stone, not with any other interference in the past.

To make matters worse, errata outside the movie isn't even consistent. The directors tell us alternate timelines exist, but the writers insist there's only one timeline.

So what if removing the stones creates alternate realities, but replacing them "fixes" the time stream? Alternate actions in the past just get erased once the time-traveler leaves, UNLESS the traveler takes a stone.

That way, everything that went differently in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 1970 gets erased. Old Steve has always been in the MCU's prime timeline (as Markus & McFeely intended). Loki never escaped with the Tesseract. No "rabbit" pulled the aether out of Jane. It all gets undone by the return of the stones.

Problem is Natasha should also return were that the case.