The Times says that “Apple has removed or restricted at least 11 of the 17 most downloaded screen-time and parental-control apps,” as well as a number of others. The report cites users who point out that Apple’s Screen Time app has some drawbacks that the popular third-party apps came with, like the ability to shut down certain apps, less-granular scheduling, and that children were able to work around Apple’s web-filtering tools. They also pointed out that...
Avengers: Endgame is finally out and most people seem to be pretty pleased with it. It’s no mean feat for a movie (even a three hour one) to satisfyingly conclude a decade of storytelling told over 21 films. But to do it while telling its own story and being fun as hell is a plate-spinning exercise that all involved executed to perfection. However, there’s one big element of the ending that has some fans claiming it retroactively ‘ruins’ the movie.
We’re talking about the conclusion to Steve Rogers/Captain America’s story. For much of the finale, it seems that he’s going to go down in battle against Thanos, but ends up unexpectedly surviving. We then see him volunteering to take the Infinity Stones back to their various timelines, and he steps into the time machine and vanishes. He then reappears, but as an old man who explains that he used the opportunity to live out a ‘normal’ life with Peggy Carter. Cue sappy music and the credits. There’s not a dry eye in the house.
But fans are arguing that this decision goes against both time travel logic and Steve Rogers’ character. Meg Downey at GameSpot says that Rogers shouldn’t have been able to create a new timeline and that he must’ve changed the present by his choice to remain with Peggy. This would’ve meant he was essentially sitting on the sidelines throughout the entire MCU to date, and it’s admittedly difficult to imagine Rogers idly sitting by as Bucky’s turned into a brainwashed assassin and Hydra takes over S.H.I.E.L.D.
Here’s how they put it:
In the process of closing off all the potential branches, Steve apparently made a new one. Or, rather, he should have made a new one, but somehow didn’t. Steve changed his own past, and the past of Peggy Carter, by being present for those 70 years he originally spent frozen and marrying her–which, for whatever reason, allowed him to still exist as an old man in the main timeline he left–our present.
If Steve had actually created a branched timeline, he wouldn’t have been an old man in our present. His reformed existence in the past should have changed events to the point that the movie’s present day would be different not only for Steve but for everyone. We’d be seeing a different timeline all together.
However, GameSpot also looks at the other side of the fence and examines what if he did somehow create an alternate timeline. Admittedly, it’s a bit confusing to think about, but here’s how they break it down, arguing that whether he did or didn’t create another timeline, the whole thing still doesn’t make sense.
Possibility 1 is that Steve did create an alternate timeline that we just never got to see where he and Peggy were married, possibly went off and were superheroes together, stopped HYDRA from infiltrating SHIELD, rescued Bucky, prevented Howard Stark’s assassination, and negated the need for the Avengers entirely. In the process, he erased the entire life that he knew Peggy had without him, including her husband and the kids she had while he was in the ice. Poof, gone.
Then, happy and old, Steve miraculously jumped back to our timeline unassisted, which ought to be impossible, and for no real reason, just in time to pass the shield on to Sam. Seriously, why would he bother coming back at all if he was so confident that the present day world didn’t need him anymore? Why leave the timeline he made, especially if it really were so much better? What incentive does he have to go through the trouble?
Possibility 2 is that Steve did not create a branched timeline by going back, just lived his life as quietly as possible through the post-war years. That would make him complicit in the knowledge of all the horrific things happening to the people he loves during those years.
This would also mean, in order for the timeline not to be fundamentally broken, that our version of Steve would have always been married to Peggy, even if he didn’t know it until this exact moment. This not only contradicts the entirety of the Agent Carter TV show and various parts of the MCU up to now (like Steve’s meeting with dying Peggy after he dethaws), it also means that Steve would be Sharon Carter’s uncle–and, uh, that’s pretty gross, even if he didn’t know it at the time.
Revisit The Latest Avengers: Endgame TV Spot With These Hi-Res Screenshots
Have you got all that straight? We sure hope so, because GameSpot’s article then dives into another major potential issue with Steve’s conclusion, as Meg Downey writes:
Even discounting the potential for unwitting incest, there are some other major problems here. Remember when Steve said when he sees a situation headed south, he can’t turn his back? Remember how Steve’s entire origin story revolves around his inability to sit back and let a conflict run its course without him? How he doesn’t like bullies no matter where they’re from? How he literally submitted himself to a potentially lethal science experiment rather than not fight in a war? How he jumped into German occupied territory without an army backing him up just on the off chance that there was something he could do to help his friend? How he can “do this all day?” Started a war to clear the name of his ex-assassin bestie? Still acted as a hero even while he was an international fugitive?
In what world does Steve Rogers, even a beaten down and jaded Steve Rogers, just sit on his hands and let the future deal with its own problems?
Personally, my take on all this was that Rogers isn’t living secretly in the main MCU timeline. Rather, he’s in one of the parallel dimensions. I understood him to have just teleported back to where the other characters are. I mean, he still has the time travel technology, and it is strange that he just ‘appears’ on a bench out of nowhere. And in this alternate dimension, who’s to say that he didn’t fix things to ensure that his new world is better? After all, he’s still a super soldier.
Avengers: Endgameis finally here and Marvel fans around the world are fleeing to theaters this weekend to witness the grand finale of the MCU as we know it. In more ways than you would expect, though, Endgame doesn’t conclude the last chapter with a definitive period as much as a series of question marks.
Obviously, this isn’t the end of the franchise as a whole, just the Infinity Saga and Phase Three, so it leaves a lot of clues and ambiguities to be picked up by future movies. Due to the complex nature of its time travel plot, it also creates a lot of questions about plot logic and the internal consistency of the Marvel universe that aren’t easily answered. Not to mention that we really want to know if we’ll see many of our favorite characters again.
So, with all that in mind, here are eight of the most pressing, burning questions that’ve been keeping us awake since we saw Avengers: Endgame. If you have some of your own that we haven’t listed – and I’m sure you do – let us know in the comments.
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Avengers:Endgame is finally out and, in my humble opinion, it’s absolutely brilliant. I had some skepticism going in that they could tie up so many loose ends, but the movie essentially ended a decade of storytelling and did it in style. Plus, despite having written extensively about the film for the best part of a year, it was still full of surprising moments I absolutely didn’t see coming. But was one of these moments really necessary?
I’m talking about Black Widow’s decision to sacrifice herself in order for Hawkeye to get the Soul Stone. This was a strange scene to watch, with both Nat and Clint trying their best to incapacitate the other so they could be the one to make the jump. In the end, despite Hawkeye’s best efforts, Black Widow plunges to her death and dies. And, as the characters soon point out, this is the kind of dead that there’s no coming back from.
The reaction to this has been mixed so far and some fans have convincingly argued that it was a waste of Nat’s character development. As Nobelle Borines says over at EpicStream, the scene “cut her arc short” and “gave Nat the short end of the story by becoming the one character that was dispensable.”
She also says that:
“Nat’s absence was also sorely felt in the awesome all-woman team up in the final battle. Here were all the powerful women in the MCU but the woman who started it all was nowhere to be found.”
Revisit The Latest Avengers: Endgame TV Spot With These Hi-Res Screenshots
I can see her point and, to be honest, I was secretly hoping it’d be Hawkeye going over the edge because he’s simply less interesting (and Scarlett Johansson’s performance in the film was better than ever). But, I do disagree that it’s an unworthy ending for the character. After all, we see her struggling to find meaning in life throughout the movie. She obviously cares a lot for Hawkeye and, knowing that he has a family, she knows that it has to be her who goes over.
That said, it’s a tiny bit galling to see such an interesting female character sacrificing herself for a somewhat dull male one. But while Nat won’t be back after Avengers: Endgame, she’ll still be appearing in the solo Black Widow movieat some point in the near future. That’s going to have to be a prequel now, but at least there’s more of the character in the pipeline.
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There are many things in Avengers: Endgamethat grab your attention, so it might have passed you by that the movie features an important milestone for the MCU.
Yes, in case you haven’t heard, Endgame is notable for featuring the franchise’s first openly gay character. When Cap chats to his support group, one member (played by co-director Joe Russo) opens up about how he recently went on a date for the first time since the Decimation. As he talks, it becomes clear that his date was another man. It’s so casually done though that it’s easy to miss how significant this moment is.
Deadline were able to catch up with the Russo brothers to get their perspective on why this character was included and Joe explained that they very much wanted to improve the diversity of their Marvel movies so that more of the franchise’s global audience can see themselves on screen. He also said that it was no fluke that he ended up playing the character, as the Russos wanted to send a message to their fellow filmmakers.
“Representation is really important. It was important to us as we did four of these films, we wanted a gay character somewhere in them. We felt it was important that one of us play him, to ensure the integrity and show it is so important to the filmmakers that one of us is representing that. It is a perfect time, because one of the things that is compelling about the Marvel Universe moving forward is its focus on diversity… We wanted it to be casual, with the fact that the character is gay tied into the fabric of the storytelling and representing what everyday life is. We’re trying to represent everyone in everyday life. These are global movies that reach a lot of people. They are important to a lot of people and everyone has the right to see themselves on the screen and identify somewhere.”
Earth's Mightiest Heroes Are In A Bad Mood In New Avengers: Endgame Images
Anthony Russo went on to reveal that, for them, the inclusion of a gay character wasn’t the sole purpose of the scene, as it started from the need to have an everyman figure to give the audience a taste of how Thanos’ epic actions have affected the average person.
“The fact that the character is gay will get attention but it isn’t where the scene started. When you have a story point that includes killing half of all humans on Earth, you’re telling a bigger story than The Avengers. So that scene was important to us in telling the story of the larger world. We wanted to have a voice that was talking about the experience of people that went beyond The Avengers. That’s why we felt we really needed it in the movie. Otherwise, it just became too hermetic and insular. That character that Joe is playing really came from that point of view, him being an everyman who has suffered from Thanos’ act.”
As the Russos promise here, this unnamed character is set to be just the first in a long line of LGBT figures in the franchise, as Kevin Feige has stated his intention to ensure there’s more diversity across the board in the MCU. Spider-Man: Far From Home, for example, will feature the series’ first trans actors. The Eternals is then reportedly due to feature Marvel’s first openly gay superhero on the big screen.
The directors also told Deadline that they’re proud to have this scene play around the world, as it shares a message of inclusivity.
“We’ve seen it now even in countries where people countries where homosexuality isn’t as free as it is here. It’s actually one of those elements of these movies that I think resonates in challenged places in the world as well. As filmmakers of a massive franchise we’re saying, we support you.”
Be sure to catch Avengers: Endgamein cinemas in order to see this groundbreaking scene in an altogether groundbreaking movie.
from Movies – We Got This Covered http://bit.ly/2XQWMkQ
