We have hit the end of an era in the MCU. This was my most anticipated movie ever since I saw the end of Avengers Infinity War, I mean seriously, I wasn't the only one in that boat. I was hoping for a time machine to get to the future to watch this, but I waited for the movie the way of the natural course, watching videos of theories of what could happen, and enjoyed a couple of new really good MCU movies beforehand. But we finally got here, and it was amazing. I was blown away.
Now before I continue forward, I must give a SPOILER WARNING, as there are many that have still not seen it yet. So if you have not seen the movie, please don't read ahead.
Last chance.
Okay, now what I want to do is share my favorite moments from the movie, so I will do a top 10 of what my favorite moments from the movie were.
10.
Roadey and Nebula watch Starlord dancing to "Come and Get Your Love" - The opening sequence of Guardians of the Galaxy with Starlord dance to "Come and Get Your Love" playing on his Walkman was a ton of fun to watch, but this takes it to the point that, what if someone was watching him dance without hearing the music, and that's what happens here, and the best part was the comment made by Roadey, "So....he's an idiot." and Nebula simply replies, "Yes". It took a favorite moment and gave us a different viewpoint and it gave us a hilarious moment.
9.
Professor Hulk brings everyone back - This wasn't an expected part for me, I was expecting something to go wrong during this moment, so this was kind of tense in that way, plus of how it was built up. There is a great call back to the first Captain America movie that was nice, and also the comment from Hulk that he was made for this, how the many choices beforehand prepared him for this. I also like how after the snap, everything felt peaceful realizing that it worked after not being very sure, a big pay off for the heroes that only got bigger, but of course we have the insanity occur after the nice peaceful moment.
8.
Thor talks about the Reality Stone when trying to get the stones back in time - I got to admit, I was shocked at the appearance of fat Thor, but I got a kick out of him in the movie. His funniest scene was when he was trying to talk about the reality stone back during the events of Thor The Dark World, and when he brought up the dark elves and his old girlfriend Jane, and just how he reacted to all of it, and everyone's reaction to his telling of the events as if they knew the train was about to crash, that was priceless.
7.
Nebula gets Tony Stark on the chair when he falls asleep -This is a very small and quick moment, but something I appreciated and something I didn't think I would see from a character like Nebula. Nebula wasn't really one of my favorite characters when the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie debuted back in 2014, but over time, she became more intriguing, but I really liked when her and Tony bonded while on the Benatar, but that moment when she sees Tony on the floor sleeping, so she picks him up and sets him on the chair, just seeing her grow to that point was great.
6.
Hawkeye gives the Time Travel device a test run - We have hit that moment where Hawkeye has lost hope, and refuses to think there is any left for him. At this moment, they need to test the time machine to see if it will work for the Avengers big journey to retrieve the stones from the past. Hawkeye agrees to test the machine, I don't know if he was expecting it to work or not. I put this on for two reasons, first because the visual of traveling through time for the first time was pretty cool, but also, to see Hawkeye in one sense be taken from a place of hopelessness and despair that occurred moments prior when he killed the Yakuza to being transported back to his home in the past where there is that warm feeling of home. It is a very brief moment but it helps establish hope back into his life. This place has a nice feeling of warmth and comfort since we were introduced to it back in Avengers Age of Ultron, so making that return (even though we were at it at the beginning of the movie) was very comforting, plus it was cool to see the time machine officially work for the first time and see how the Avengers would travel in time.
5.
"I am....Iron Man" - This is a line that shocked me the most in the first Iron Man movie, the one that started the whole MCU. The one line that blew my expectations away and really got me interested in the sequel. Anyway, it was clever to use this line when Tony Stark uses the Infinity Stones to snap away the army of Thanos. It was a nice call back to the first movie, and it showed how much of a hero that Tony Stark has grown into throughout the series. If you remember in the first Avengers movie, Captain America made the comment that Tony wasn't the hero that would make the sacrifice play, and at that moment he really wasn't the type of hero that would, he kind of did at the end of that movie, but there was chances of survival then, at that moment when he put the Infinity Stones on his hand getting ready to snap, he knew right then and there that there would be no chance of him surviving, but he realized he had to make the sacrifice for his family and friends. Tony is a character that has really grown and it was great to see this, though him dying was still very sad.
4.
Thor with his Mom - If any hero in the movie that really had a ton of guilt for what happened, it was Thor, he chose to spend time making Thanos suffer for killing his friend and brother instead of just killing him off by going for the head or even just cutting off his arm. Realizing his failure and his many losses and his guilt, Thor made the biggest change within the 5 year time jump, and it made sense. Thor returns to 2013 where him and Rocket retrieve the Reality Stone (aka liquid). This is where Thor runs into his mom and has a nice conversation with her. This conversation has a nice impact on Thor who has lost his way and helped bring him back on the path. She has a nice quote that says, "A measure of a person, of a hero, is how well they succeed at being who they are." This was a nice little moment, how heroes have someone that they turn to for help and that we aren't all on our own and need to work together and need to help one another.
3.
Captain America gets his happy ending - Captain America at the end of the movies goes on a journey to return the Infinity Stones, and Mjoinir back to their proper places. After completing the mission, he decides to return to his time to be with Peggy Carter. Yes, as the directors explained, this created a new branch in time (alternate reality) where he needed to jump from that alternate reality back to the original time line to meet with Falcon, but I want to focus on the payoff and not the science behind the ending, there are discussions where they talk about the science and how it works here, and I can share some of those later on. However, what really matters here is that Captain America got his big payoff, his happy ending by being with Peggy Carter, he always carried that compass with Peggy's picture in it throughout the series, this was his moral compass, one that would help keep him on the right path, we even see him with it at the beginning of Avengers Endgame as they are getting ready to fight Thanos and take back the gauntlet, the one where they fail, and you can tell it has a ton of meaning for him, and this kept him on the path of helping people, someone that he truly admired, his supposed lost hope, until the way for him to go back in time arrived. Also, this was a moment where they passed on the shield to Falcon which was a nice passing of the torch.
2.
Captain America wields Thor's hammer Mjoinir - This moment was kind of hinted back in Avengers Age of Ultron, when everyone was trying to lift Mjoinir and were unable to move it in any way. When it comes to Captain America lifting the hammer, he is able to budge it slightly, and the shot then focuses on Thor who has a very worried look on his face. Could have Captain America lifted Mjoinir at that moment? I don't really know, I have heard discussions where he wasn't completely worthy because of hiding the truth of Bucky from Tony, to where he could have but chose not to lift it up completely. He stops pretty early so who knows, but if he could, Thor would not have been ready for the idea that someone either than him could lift it, but I think some of his experiences, like Hela crushing Mjoinir in Thor Ragnarok, probably helped to prepare him to accept the fact that Captain America was worthy. This was one moment that really got me cheering and it was so great to see this moment happen, and it was a great moment to rewatch each time. This was a great payoff moment and so great to see Captain America really use the power of Thor to knock down Thanos. This would be my top moment if it wasn't for one other that was so grand.
So before I give my favorite moment, I am going to give a few more favorites that didn't make my top 10 but were still awesome:
-Hulk seeing his past self in 2012
-Scott Lang talk about the idea of Time Travel to Steve and Natasha.
-Tony Stark cracks the code of Time Travel and his moment with his daughter after that
-Scott Lang blows one of the test runs for time travel
-Tony Stark and Scott Lang fail getting the tesseract from 2012
1.
The gathering of everyone for the big battle - The moment was kind of set up not too long before, but you have the beginning of the battle where Thanos is fighting between Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America. After Thanos knocked them down, he sends in his massive army to take out the three Avengers and to wipe out the planet. You get Captain America with his broken shield ready to fight them on till his last breathe, and then you get Falcon on Cap's radio, "on your left" (nice callback to Winter Soldier), and slowly the portals open and a bunch of the heroes that were gone start to come back and everyone walks in, everyone from Black Panther to the Guardians of the Galaxy to the Wasp, to even Howard the Duck. The massive scope of this one shot was just amazing and it was great to see everyone come together. I went into the movie thinking that there was no way they could top the battles in Infinity War, and I was blown away at that moment and realized that they were going to top that battle in a very massive way. I reflect on that one line from Nick Fury in the first Iron Man end credit scene where he says, "You have become part of a bigger universe, you just don't know it yet." I didn't know how massive things would get but it was great to see all that happen, all that build up really paying off in a way I didn't think would occur. Seeing everyone battle and take down Thanos's army was awesome, to see everyone use their abilities and just that entire battle was amazing, but the coming together is what really stood out for me.
So those are my top 10 favorite moments. It was really hard to narrow it to 10 as this movie has a lot of amazing moments. This movie was worth the hype and as you can see by the box office numbers, it was worth it. I will update my personal ranking of the MCU movies soon.
