Spoilers ahead – consider yourself
warned.
Far and away, Endgame’s best quality is the time it takes to honor the past. Whether it’s the return of past characters,
iconic callbacks, or emotional parallels to classic scenes, this film is a
feast for long-time fans, jam-packed with nuggets of continuity goodness. Here are my favorites.
Jarvis!!!
Quite simply, Jarvis!!!
I really love it when franchises that maintain more loose connections get
bigger references (like when new Who gives a shoutout to something
that’s only ever appeared on Torchwood or The Sarah Jane Adventures,)
and with Marvel, while the TV shows are clearly in the same universe as the
movies, the movies don’t often acknowledge that. So, seeing that tiny
cameo from James D’Arcy’s Jarvis was good for my Agent Carter-loving
heart – so happy to see him, still plugging away at Howard’s side
(albeit with John Slattery instead of Dominic Cooper.)
Thor and Frigga
I have mixed feelings
about how Endgame handles Thor’s story, but I really love this scene.
Frigga (raised by sorceresses, you know) immediately cops that Thor is
from the future and that he’s clearly been struggling. After everyone and
everything Thor has lost and how he’s abused himself over it, this final chance
to see his mother and speak with her one more time is so important/healing for
him. A lovely scene, knocked out of the park by both Chris Hemsworth and
Renee Russo.
“On your left.”
Okay, so normally, I
find it a little cheesy when characters repeat lines from earlier in the story
in a significant way, but this one is too good to pass up. First, “On
your left,” is short enough and was enough of a recurring thing when it was
first introduced in The Winter Soldier that it makes sense as something
both Steve and Sam would remember (not to mention, it’s directly tied to how
they met, which gives it greater significance.) As such, it doesn’t have
the usual “let me flip back through the script to make sure I get the exact
quote” feel to it. And man, that moment…
Steve is battered and bruised, hauling himself up to face down Thanos’s army
all on his own. And then, those words in his ear piece, “On your left,”
and the floodgates/portals open, bringing in Sam and all the other dusted
characters to have Steve’s back. It’s
both emotional/intimate and a total fist-pump moment – awesome!
Elevator Scene 2.0
Another Winter
Soldier callback. The original elevator scene is a classic, and here,
with Cap having traveled back in time to the events of The Avengers, his
task of retrieving Loki’s scepter/the Mind Stone brings him into a
paradoxically-foreshadowing echo of that scene (because, for Rumlow and
company, this is several years before The Winter Soldier, but for Steve,
he knows in hindsight that they’re all secretly Hydra.) Parallel shots to
the original elevator scene prime us for an epic fight, but instead, Cap plays
smart, using what he learned in The Winter Soldier to get what he needs.
When Rumlow doesn’t buy his claim that Secretary Pierce ordered him to
take the scepter, Cap sidles up to him and whispers, “Hail Hydra,” letting
Rumlow think they’re on the same side.
“Come and Get Your Love”
We all remember Peter
Quill’s exuberant dance while collecting the Power Stone, listening to “Come
and Get Your Love” on his Walkman. Well, good old time travel… Nebula and
Rhodey get to drop in on this moment, allowing us to revisit it from their outside
perspective, the one where Peter is grooving around with his headphones,
dancing wildly and singing along to music only he can hear. A fun scene,
perfectly capped by Rhodey’s deadpan, “So he’s an idiot?”
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