[Tom4784]

Originally Posted by James

Oh, I see... I think.

What happens if Cap changes a historical fact in the past then? (after returning the stones).

The timeline would probably split again but I'm guessing that, since Cap went back AFTER his past self was already in the ice, he couldn't interfere with his own history by being in the past. If Peggy Carter was still where she needed to be in all the events she played a role in then the timeline wouldn't split.

[James]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Well one theory is that he would just be careful and live a quiet life with Peggy, and she would keep it secret.

Second I guess is that The Ancient One implied that the Infinity Stones actively keep the timeline intact so it would be impossible to drastically change any "key moments", as a "fate" of sorts keeps everything more or less on track. They also confirm that predestiny / fate exists in the MCU as The Ancient One already knows who Stephen Strange is (and that he'll be the Sorcerer Supreme), long before he meets her.

Originally Posted by Dezzy

The timeline would probably split again but I'm guessing that, since Cap went back AFTER his past self was already in the ice, he couldn't interfere with his own history by being in the past. If Peggy Carter was still where she needed to be in all the events she played a role in then the timeline wouldn't split.

What the directors say.

Captain America’s closing scene in Avengers: Endgame has led to a lot of questions from moviegoers who aren’t exactly sure what it means.

The truth is, there are deliberate mysteries built into that sequence, which directors Joe and Anthony Russo suggested are setting up future stories.

Here’s what they can answer now …
***Spoilers Below***



In the end, Steve Rogers goes on a solo trip to restore the Infinity Stones from the other time dimensions to the moment they were taken, thereby bringing them back into alignment with the main timeline.

He also takes Thor’s Mjölnir hammer, though not necessarily as his own weapon. That has to be taken back to The Dark World era to set the timelines straight, too.

But then …he doesn’t come back. At least, not as we know him. He finds Peggy Carter and stays with her.

So, has Cap been living in the past this whole time — or did he go and live in another dimension?

The directors say it’s the latter.

“If Cap were to go back into the past and live there, he would create a branched reality,” Joe explained. “The question then becomes, how is he back in this reality to give the shield away?”

The brothers smile.

“Interesting question, right?” Joe said. “Maybe there’s a story there. There’s a lot of layers built into this movie and we spent three years thinking through it, so it’s fun to talk about it and hopefully fill in holes for people so they understand what we’re thinking.”


There are other questions in this sequence that set up this future story…
Bucky’s Foresight

The Russos confirm — Bucky knew. When Cap was preparing to for the trip, which is only supposed to last a few seconds in the main timeline, his old friend from Brooklyn gives him a surprisingly heavy farewell.

Somehow, he was aware that Cap was going to live in the past, and it’s probably more than just intuition. “Especially when he says goodbye,” Joe explained. “He says, ‘I’ll miss you.’ Clearly he knows something.”

But how? Has Winter Soldier already met with Old Cap at some previous point? It seems the answer is yes.

On the other hand, Joe adds, “Sam doesn’t know something.” Falcon has no idea about Old Cap, which is why The Winter Soldier urges him to go up and talk to the now-elderly Steve Rogers. Bucky already has the answer to the questions Sam is going to ask.

Maybe we’ll get our own answered in the streaming series called Falcon and Winter Soldier which is in the works for the Disney+ service.
“How does it feel?”

That’s what Old Cap asks Falcon after he gives him the vibranium shield.

“Like it’s someone else’s,” Falcon answers.

“It isn’t,” Cap tells him.

Does Rogers mean this as in, “it is yours now,” or is he telling the literal truth? After all, his own shield was shredded by Thanos in the final battle of Endgame.

Let’s spitball the possibilities: Maybe in the timeline where Old Cap has been living the shield he gave Sam actually belonged to that dimension’s Sam Wilson. Based on the chronology, by the time that Sam would have been fighting age, Steve Rogers would already be elderly and probably ready to hand off the mantle.

If so, what became of that Sam, since the shield has now been brought to this timeline?

These are all valid questions, according to the Russos, but we don’t have answers to them yet. All we can tell now is that it seems like the Marvel Studios braintrust have a plan to resolve them down the road.
The Captain’s Wife

Falcon notices the wedding band on Old Cap’s finger and asks if he’ll tell him about her. “No… no, I don’t think I will,” the old man replies.

We know from the final shot of the movie that Cap went back and found Peggy Carter, and we know the Russo brothers say he went to live in a branch timeline, not the prime one.

Still, many fans wonder if this is a misdirect (the Russos are known for that.) Could Steve Rogers have found a way to make the timelines realign? If so, that would allow him to live in the shadows as Peggy’s “secret husband” who has been acknowledged but gone unidentified so far in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This seems unlikely based on the fact that the Russos said one of the outlying questions is “how is he back in this reality?”

Having him live quietly for decades in the prime reality also creates a lot of paradoxes: Why doesn’t he disrupt Hyrdra’s infiltration of SHIELD sooner? Why doesn’t he warn the Avengers about the coming alien invasion in 2012? Why doesn’t he interfere in all the major tragedies and conflicts that we know about?

Maybe he does do those things, but it would be in the alternate universe. When he politely declines to tell Sam about his wife, it may be a nod to the audience: You don’t get to know any of it either.

Still, maybe we will. Marvel Studios has already broken new ground with interlocked storytelling, so perhaps the next experiment is tiered storytelling — alternate versions of familiar tales.

For instance, the whole “where did Cap go?” question could very well be answered in the animated What If series that Marvel is developing for Disney+, based on something it’s been doing in comics for a while.

The first announced title explores what would happen if Peggy Carter got the super-soldier injection. So … what if that What If world of this show happens to be the one our Steve Rogers from the prime timeline came to inhabit?

Marvel

What if, what if, what if …

At this point, unfortunately, all we can say about What If is “it’s possible” and “who knows?”

From https://ew.com/movies/2019/04/30/ave...ptain-america/

On the subject of nitpicking / plot-holes a question I had was after Hulk uses the Infinity Stones to bring back all the characters how were they able to organise themselves so quickly to come back as a group for the battle with Thanos. It was only about 15 minutes or so after they all came back into existence.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by James

On the subject of nitpicking / plot-holes a question I had was after Hulk uses the Infinity Stones to bring back all the characters how were they able to organise themselves so quickly to come back as a group for the battle with Thanos. It was only about 15 minutes or so after they all came back into existence.

They come into existence exactly where they were at the point of disappearing almost as though it never happened, so the armies of Wakanda etc. just reappear on the battlefield already geared up and mid-battle... Same for the characters who dusted like (most of) the guardians, Dr Strange, Spiderman etc.

From the various aerial shots of the battle (especially when bombardment starts) we can see that there are quite a few of Strange's people in the mix so really all that needed to happen was;

- They get undusted
- Strange portals his group back to earth
- He gathers his wizard army
- They portal to Wakanda / Asgard Village etc.
- They open portals between those places and Avengers HQ and shout "The battle's over here now let's go!"

So in theory it could be done pretty quickly. A lot of them are already geared up and ready to go...

MY main issues with the undusting are;

1) Wtf happens if you were in a plane or something when the snap happened?

2) It's been 5 years with a global population of 3.5 billion. Food production etc will have massively decreased... Houses will have been taken over or even demolished... Now the population is suddenly 7 billion again. Wtf are they going to do?