I get it was a cool way to revisit the franchise etc, but I think it is a problematic development.
Plus Tony Stark just 'invents time-travel' while chillin at home. Even for a CBM it's a bit much.
Now they have the ability to travel through time and do whatever ...
Totally agree on that it just made a joke parody out of the other films this way and itself
sharenot really...traveling through time will not change the future so time travel will not always be a solution to their problems
shareI'm actually surprised just how good of an idea it was. They laid out a framework so that time travel is really only necessary to borrow an infinity stone. And even then they know they have to return it back when they are done with it.
Considering we are most likely done with the Infinity saga then there really is no need to travel back in time. With the one exception that they need Cap's help. In that event it makes it even more interesting how Cap's life actually went and how many adventures he had with time-traveling Avengers calling for his assistance.
Now perhaps when Galactus does show up they come to the conclusion that there just aren't enough Avengers and that they could go back in time to collect doubles of themselves. But to me the idea of simply bumping up their numbers so they can have more bodies punching the bad guy just doesn't sound like an idea the Avengers would find feasible. There are always ways to find more heroes to throw punches and kicks at the bad guy. Time travel seems like the hard way to get them.
Except that it's literally universe breaking technology ...
shareMight as well complain about the infinity gauntlet then since it is even more universe breaking.
shareThe power to travel through time is clearly more powerful than the infinity gauntlet ... they could theoretically have INFINITE INFINITY GAUNTLETS by abusing the technology for example.
shareWHILE ALSO SPLITTING AND BREAKING TIME INTO A THOUSAND FRAGMENTS AND PRETTY MUCH JACKING EVERYTHING UP.
shareIts just a prime example of whats known as power creeping. When the opposition increases in power so do the heroes in order to match the villain. In the future movies we'll see more examples of enemies getting stronger. Take Dormammu for example. He exists outside of time and you can't use that little trick on him. Even though it may feel like it cheapens the universe this has all been dealt with in the comics and there are things that counter it.
shareThe Time Heist was the best part of the movie though. And if anyone's gonna invent it, it would be Tony Stark.
share
Good point about Tony perfecting the process - especially since it sounds like something Hank Pym would refuse to develop even if he had the know-how.
So there's your "period" at the end of the time-travel plot device.
Besides, at this point, I've got a lot of faith in Feige & co. going forward. Words can't express how indifferent I was to a GotG movie (who?) and how impossible I thought an Ant-Man movie would be to take seriously (admittedly, they didn't actually take it seriously). I've rarely been so happy to have been proven so wrong.
Didn't Tony invent something to locate where they were in time and how to navigate the Time Vortex? He didn't really invent time travel or did I mis-understand what happened?
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No you're right. That's why I said he "perfected" the process.
In the MCU, no one "invented" time travel - it has always been an option via the quantum realm (and the time stone). And maybe, without Tony to guide things, it's now no longer an option.
It does make me wonder what Dr. Strange will wear around his neck going forward.
When I heard of it ( the Time travel idea) I was like ughh no I don’t want that but once I watched it I really enjoyed that part very much. It was like watching oceans 11 but with a team of superheroes.
It was full of nice winks to past movies and great fan service plus it’s when the film got into the more lighthearted tone of the three parts film and yet very touching when Thor saw his mom again and Tony reconciling in some way with his father. He finally listened from his dad that he loved him.
I think time travel cheapened the film
They didn't have to do time travel. The gauntlet is one of the most powerful items in the universe. They could have put everything back the way it was. Is everyone forgetting about the reality stone?? Lots of you probably have never read the comics or any comics for that matter.
shareI have boxes of comics, but the comics version is irrelevant to the movies. They're two different story lines with different characters. Sure, they're similar, but not the same.
In this movie version Thanos reveals he destroyed the Infinity Stones in order to prevent further use; so the Avengers & Co. have to go back in time to apprehend them to reverse Thanos' actions in the present.
Yeah I get that. But Tony could have altered time with the reality stone. Instead we have a five year time jump....
shareMaybe I'm missing something here but, as I understand it, the Reality Stone was one of the six Infinity Stones, which were destroyed by Thanos. So for Stark to do what you say he'd still have to go back in time to retrieve it.
shareYeah but he reveals he destroyed it in the same movie that time travel is needed. Its not like at the beginning of writing the movie they were stuck with Time Travel as the only way to fix it. Not saying I disagree with your primary point, just saying that the movie had choices.
I personally thought they handled time travel about as well as they could have, but I was also skeptical of the movies going that route. Personally I thought they should have included something where the heroes were stripped of their ability to use the quantum realm going forward. Without that the technology used would have been worthless and time travel would have been dead moving forward.
I think there were more than two options, weren't there? Though "magic" is a bit broad, and may cover a lot of territory.
My thoughts before seeing the film, in terms of ways to undo the snap:
1. Take the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos and perform a reverse snap
2. Travel in time to somehow tilt the balance of the fight they lost
3. The dusted people weren't dead, but trapped in the Soul Stone, from which they could be rescued
4. The snap didn't work-- we saw the destroyed Gauntlet, which perhaps meant that some actions taken in Endgame served to cause it to backfire, and what we thought we saw at the end of Infinity War was not what it seemed
5. Perhaps closest to "magic," perhaps Death is a tangible being as she is in the comics, and some bargain is worked with her to release those she got via the snap.
6. Gamora's soul plagues Thanos, and either convinces or dupes him into undoing the snap himself.
I probably thought of more, but those come to mind now.
Nice list; well done.
#2 obviously fits into the time travel category while the other five could arguably fit under magic. For instance, anything to do with the Infinity Stones, like the reverse snap, could be construed as magic since the stones themselves are in essence magical.
I suppose the stones do have elements of magic to them, though strictly speaking by the rules of the MCU they are founded in science, just really preposterous science in real world terms. However, wielding one in the MCU would be akin to, say, harnessing the power of a black hole in ours.
Funny thing, for all the possibilities I conjured, I didn't come up with
7. Travel back in time to acquire a full set of Infinity Stones without altering the present.
I took for granted that if they went back and acquired a Stone, that would preclude Thanos from acquiring it and would shift the future, a la Back to the Future. Kudos to Marvel for creating the only time travel film I've ever seen that avoided the grandfather paradox.
I wasn't sure how to convey my previous post because, as you point out, the movie makes the Infinity Stones seem scientific in the MCU, but they're clearly magical from our standpoint. The idea that the six stones together (with the gauntlet) can alter the entire Universe with a mere thought (snap of the fingers) is decidedly magical.
Also, consider the fact that in the Marvel Universe Doctor Strange is a magician or sorcerer and so uses magical items like the Eye of Agamotto, which -- in the MCU -- contains the Time Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones.
That's why I say anything done involving the Infinity Stones could be construed as magic.
Really nice list! I was thinking it would have also been interesting if they had gone the route of collapsing dimensions. If Tony, Banner, or Pym found out that an alternate time line existed where the snap never happened, and they become the "villain" in the movie as they attempt to merge the 2 timelines. It could almost deliver us a Civil War like environment. 1/2 the heroes are willing to take the chance to bring back loved ones, and 1/2 believe that its not worth the risk. I think the right writers could really give us some compelling motives on each side.
I assume in this case the "villain" would win and you would get a world that brings back the other heroes, but also has some consequences that would have to be addressed moving forward in the next phase of movies.
The reality is the infinity story was a bad idea to begin with. If they had never done the stupid infinity stone story they would not have had to have used time travel with while the lesser of the evils the writers had to choose from it was still a dumb solution. Time travel always begs the question of why it isn't used to simply go back and kill the baby version of whoever the bad guy is, or kill one of the parents, or destroy the whole planet of the evil person. Instead the writes used other made up reasons for what they did which never really made any sense beyond them being required to make the story what it was.
shareDon't they have to be as careful as possible with the changes they make in the past? For instance, if they make an extreme change in the past (like kill the baby version of the villain or destroy an entire planet) some of them might never be born. This explains why in "Star Trek Generations" Picard entered back into time from the Nexus a mere MINUTE before Soran launches his rocket even though he could have gone "anywhere any time" from the Nexus. He did this on the grounds that he didn't want to risk the dangerous and unexpected consequences that can occur when tampering with the timeline.
I realize that Star Trek is a different universe -- and both universes are fantasy -- but the same principles would presumably apply.
That is always the theory they use for why they can't change much in the past... But the same logic behind it would also mean that even that one minor change results in a different future which centuries down the road might be far worse than it would have been had the minor change never happened. Who is to say the universe wouldn't have been better if half the people hadn't been eliminated. At the very least the insufferable Spiderman would have been gone.
shareAre you really going to doubt the creative prowess of the man who invented the arc reactor IN A CAVE WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!!!
It's not that much of a stretch to believe that if someone handed him all of the puzzle pieces for time travel, that he could put them together in a weekend.
I'd also weigh in favor of time travel in this movie, because they laid out very specific ground rules that avoided the most common cinematic time-travel tropes (predestination, changing the present, etc.).