Avengers: Endgame

Death is inevitable.

He did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out.. ...fifty percent of all living creatures.

—Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow

Avengers: Endgame is a 2019 superhero film and the twenty-second film entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, and written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely — the team behind the second and third Captain America films. This team also worked on the previous film in the series, Avengers: Infinity War, which directly set up the events of this one. It is the final film in Phase 3 of the setting.

Starting three weeks after the cataclysmic events of Thanos's victory, half of the universe's sentient life is gone, and the completed Infinity Gauntlet has disappeared with the Mad Titan to a faraway world. However, even in this seemingly hopeless situation, the surviving heroes of the universe (Avengers, Guardians, and anyone else who is brave enough to fight on) are left to pick up the pieces. With a bit of hope, they intend to revive their friends and allies and the untold trillions of living beings that Thanos killed, and find a way to defeat him once and for all. But it won't be easy, and devastating sacrifices will have to be made in order to restore reality to a normal state.

While this is not expected to be the final Avengers movie, particularly in light of Disney's looming acquisition of Marvel assets from 21st Century Fox potentially opening the door for new characters to join the team, it is expected to be the last one with the original six characters serving as the focus of the film. The few details known at this writing about Marvel's slate after 2019 suggest that the MCU will take a break from this team-up franchise in favor of building out other stand-alone films.

Avengers: Infinity War and this film collectively serve as the culmination of everything that has happened in the Marvel Cinematic Universe up until the end of Phase 3, filmed back-to-back (with reshoots) between 2017 and 2018. As such, the cast for these movies is quite substantial.

Tropes used in Avengers: Endgame include:

• Achilles Heel: Likes its predecessor, the second Infinity Gauntlet has to be clenched to allow the power of the Stones to be accessed. 
• Adult Fear: When Scott learns about the snap, he's desperately searching the memorial monuments, praying that Cassie survived. 
• All for Nothing: Essentially the film's take on the events of Captain America: Civil War. Thanos is such a powerful Enemy Mine that the ideological differences of the Avengers don't matter. 
• After the End: This movie takes place after Thanos wiped out half the population of Earth (and everywhere else) with a snap of his fingers. 
• Adaptation Expansion: The movie actually shows the fallout of Thanos's victory following the Snap. In the Infinity Gauntlet storyline, it was largely glossed over in favor of showing the surviving heroes take on Thanos.
• Advertised Extra: Though Carol "Captain Marvel" Danvers was hyped up in promos, her actual plot contributions are negligible. Much like T'Challa in Infinity War, her prominence in the promos seemed to be the result of her solo film having been the last one released.
• Anticlimax Boss: A generous way of describing the battle on Titan II. An early hint that there's more to come.
• Badass Beard: While Cap shaved his, Thor's Beard of Sorrow takes on a Viking flare in the finale.
• Badass Finger-Snap: Turns out there's a cost however. Whatever side you snap with gets ravaged by the Infinity Stones' energy. When the heroes find Thanos on Titan II, his whole left side is crippled. He even says he nearly died from the effort of destroying the Stones.
• Beard of Sorrow: Inverted. Following the events of Infinity War, Captain America has shaved the beard he had grown.
• Big Bad: Thanos, once again, is the villain the heroes need to defeat in order to bring back half of the universe.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: There is a massive action scene involving 40 characters, all of whom have names and backstories. It's been hyped as one of the movie's selling points.
• Blunt Yes: Cap's response to Banner asking if they're going to steal the Infinity Stones and undo Thanos' snap "just like that."
• Brick Joke: Thor went for the head.
• But for Me It Was Tuesday: Zig-zagged. Wanda tells Thanos that he took everything from her, but she's telling it to Past!Thanos who's never met her.
• Butt Monkey: Scott Lang as always, though to a much lesser extent here.
• Call Back:
  • Thanos does not lie.
  • The Infinity Stones emit gamma radiation. It's why Bruce volunteers to undo the snap.
  • Morgan wants a cheeseburger.
  • When Past!Thanos grips the Power Stone, his hand starts to break up like the Guardians' in their first film.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Natasha in the second act. It gets to the point that she has to be talked out of doing rescue operations for an underwater earthquake... that will harm absolutely no one. 
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • When the heroes arrive at Titan II, there's no words, no quips, just a brutal, remorseless attack. 
  • Seeing that he's deadlocked with his past self, Cap just uses the Mind Stone to knock him out.
• Composite Character:
  • Most of the traits of "Ronin" (a black-clad vigilante brutally murdering criminals due to the death of his wife and kids) are drawn from The Punisher.
  • Professor Hulk fills Nebula's role in Infinity Gauntlet in bringing everyone Back From the Dead.
  • Morgan Stark is Tony Stark's daughter, just like Howard Stark III, but has the name of Tony's cousin.
• Crazy Prepared: Tony himself still fits the bill, even taking into consideration the Infinity Gauntlet used to snap people back to existence could fall into Thanos' hands and making sure that, even if he had the Gauntlet, he wouldn't have the Gems. He manages to pull a Hoist by His Own Petard at its finest on Thanos.
• Darker and Edgier: Like its predecessor, this film is significantly darker than the other films in the setting. The mere backstory involves a universal-scale genocide with potentially wide-reaching collateral damage, and those heroes who didn't die in Infinity War are facing their Darkest Hour. Though see Lighter and Softer below.
• Darkest Hour: Let's see... Most of our heroes are dead, along with half of all life in the universe, and the most obvious means to fix everything — the Infinity Gauntlet — is still with Thanos. To say that our heroes have their work cut out for them is a massive understatement.
• Deader Than Dead: Natasha. Bruce confirms that he tried to bring her back, but the Soul Stone doesn't work that way.
• Earn Your Happy Ending:
  • Tony is convinced he's done this which is why he initially opts out of the time machine plot.
  • After all the trials and tribulations, the snap finally gets undone and everyone who was dusted is brought back to life. 
  • At the end, Steve goes back to live out his life in the '40s with Peggy.
• Eleventh-Hour Ranger:
  • Captain Marvel. After being absent from Earth's events throughout the MCU timeline, she returns to assist the other survivors of Thanos' finger snap.
  • Scott Lang, who managed to escape the Quantum Realm after the snap stuck him there.
• Exact Words: Well, exact thoughts in this case. Tony tells Bruce to bring back everyone who died five years ago. Not make everything as it was five years ago. 
• Famous Last Words:
  • “Thank you, daughter. Perhaps I treated you too harshly.” Thanos
  • “I am inevitable.” 2014!Thanos
  • “And I... am...Iron Man. Tony Stark/Iron Man
• Fire-Forged Friends: The Avengers essentially reforge their bonds here after Civil War. 
• Foregone Conclusion: The snap will be undone. This is so much this trope that the trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home openly shows Spider-Man, Nick Fury, and humanity as a whole having been brought back to life.
• Grand Finale: The completion of the two-part culmination of the entire MCU up to this point started with Avengers: Infinity War.
• Hand Wave: Essentially how Carol Danvers explains where she's been since The Nineties. While the sheer size of the universe (and her own mission to take the Skrulls somewhere where they could never be found) makes it more than likely that she never ran across the Asgardians or the Guardians, it doesn't explain why Fury didn't call her back to Earth for the world ending threats of Loki's invasion, Malekith's invasion, Ultron's near-extinction attack, or the Black Order's invasion in the last film.
• He's Back:
  • Miek and Korg return.
  • Hawkeye joins the rest of the Original Six Avengers after sitting out Infinity War.
• Heroic BSOD: Thor has gone depressed after failing to stop Thanos in the last movie.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Natasha jumps off the altar at Vormir so Clint can get the Soul Stone.
  • Tony steals the Infinity Stones from Thanos, assimilates them into his armor, and snaps his fingers, the energy wave killing him, but stopping the invasion and saving the Earth.
• Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: Discussed. Rhodes proposes going back in time and killing Thanos as a baby, only for Banner to refute that idea. First on the grounds that killing a baby is just so morally wrong, and second in that that's not how time travel works and they'd just end up creating an alternate timeline with no bearing on their own.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: All the secrecy involved in HYDRA's infiltration of SHIELD makes it so that they can't really question or verify orders. All Cap has to do is say "Hail HYDRA" and Sitwell folds.
• Hope Spot:
  • Thanos is quickly ambushed and restrained on Titan II with Thor lobbing off the Gauntlet. Rocket then flips it over only to find the Stones missing.
  • Once Bruce undoes Thanos' snap, everyone cheers, pats themselves on the back, and is ready to take it slow... then Past!Thanos starts a bombardment.
• I Hate Past Me: When the group time travels back to 2012, Bruce is pretty embarrassed by how unnecessarily violent the Hulk of that time was.
• I Warned You: In the first act and a half, Tony is merciless in pointing this out to Steve, again justifying Ultron's creation as a way of planning against the Chitauri's master. For his part, Steve concedes the point and that he should have listened to Tony.
• Irony: Tony is trying to convince himself to not take part in the Avengers' time travel while Pepper is encouraging that he join them. They even lampshade it.
• It's Personal: Past!Thanos admits planetary conquest is a desk job for him. But after the fight the Avengers just put up? He's going to take great pleasure in ripping Earth to pieces.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Cap notes that with half of humanity gone, Earth's biosphere is healing itself, with wildlife on the rise again.
• Kill'Em All: Past!Thanos "realizes" that the Avengers weren't grateful about the Decimation because they remembered a time from before it. His new plan is to utterly destroy the universe and build a new, perfectly balanced, one.
• Killed Off for Real: Natasha, Thanos, and Iron Man. Poor Vision is also dead and gone without the Mind Stone.
• Lesser Star: Brie Larson/Captain Marvel is much less prominent in the film than the pre-release information would lead you to believe.
• Lighter and Softer: The approach to this movie, compared to Infinity War, is described as this by the writers. The Avengers finally reassemble, Comic Relief characters like Scott "Ant-Man" Lang return, and the Avengers' plan to stop Thanos is more of a sci-fi adventure contrasting the previous film's theme of a war of attrition. As said by co-writer Christopher Markus, "We broke your heart. Now we're going to blow your mind!"
• Locked Out of the Loop: Owing to the Year Outside, Hour Inside effects of the Quantum Realm on him, Scott is a bit confused as to what's happened to the world.
• Logo Joke: The Marvel Studios logo is a victim of the snap in the trailer. It also has the "10" overlay for the tenth anniversary of the MCU.
• Magically-Binding Contract: Bruce Banner tries to resurrect Natasha alongside with Thanos' victims but the Soul Stone doesn't work that way. A soul for a Soul.
• Male Gaze: Tony, Scott, and Steve himself all comment on how nice 2012 Cap's ass is.

That is America's ass.

• Mundane Solution:
  • The heroes' initial plan to stop Thanos is simply to steal back the Infinity Gauntlet and use it to undo the snap.
  • How does Cap get the scepter from Rumlow's team? Lean in and whisper, "Hail HYDRA." The HYDRA agents are understandably confused.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: After Zemo tore the Avengers apart, Past!Thanos quite effectively brings them back together. 
• Not So Invincible After All:
  • Past!Thanos destroys Cap's shield. Yes, the shield made of one of the most indestructible materials known to man was destroyed just like that.
  • Thanos himself gets affected by this once Tony pulls his backup measure and snaps him out of existence.
• Not So Different: Tony and Thanos, continuing the theme from the previous film. After the snap, both retired to a country life. The key difference is what they use the Infinity Stones for.
• Obviously Evil: As Scott points out, the HYDRA agents within SHIELD don't exactly give off the impression of being paragons.
• One-Man Army: When the Benatar arrives at Titan II, Carol says the planet's only inhabitant is Thanos, with no army or defenses. Nebula grimly notes that that's sufficient deterrent.
• Other Me Annoys Me: When meeting his 2012 self, Cap actually seems annoyed by his own sheer determination.  
• Out of Focus: Perhaps unsurprising given that they were dead for three-quarters of the story but the snap's victims play a pretty minor role in the film.  
• Passing the Torch:
  • Thor decides he's not cut out to be a king and passes the mantle of leadership onto Valkyrie.  
  • As a very old man, Steve gives Sam his shield, telling him to become the new Captain America.  
• Pet the Dog: Thanos' last words are him thanking Nebula for defending his honor and saying he was too hard on her.  
• Puny Earthlings: When the Black Order of 2014 sees a hologram of the Avengers, they're pretty dismissive.  
• Reality Ensues:
  • The Benatar was on Titan during the fight between Thanos, the Avengers, and the Guardians. Given all the chaos of the battle, it suffered some damage, specifically its power distribution cells are cracked. And without access to a fresh supply of parts, Tony and Nebula can't fix it.
  • After the injuries he sustained on Titan, specifically having a moon dropped on him, Tony is too weak to join in the attack on Titan II.
  • The previous films established that the Infinity Stones give off a massive radiation signature. When all six were used at once, a massive wave of cosmic energy was let loose.
  • As Carol keeps reminding everyone, there's a whole galaxy beyond Earth, with countless inhabited worlds going through the same problems without local Avengers. Her responsibilities to those planets means that she can't keep stopping off at Earth every time someone gets a bloody nose.
  • A more minor and humorous one, the Avengers don't know the names of all the planets in the galaxy and sometimes mistake their names for those of people Rocket knows.
  • Given that there was Sanctum in New York, the Ancient One was defending it from the Chitauri who themselves seemed drawn to the Time Stone.
  • Alexander Pierce wasn't exactly eager to let Thor take both the Tesseract and Loki back to Asgard.
  • Tony and Steve aren't exactly super-spies. A secretary is pretty quick to figure out that they're not supposed to be in the S.H.I.E.L.D. base.
• Seen It All: Frigga's incredible non-reaction to meeting a future version of Thor.
• Sequel Episode: To Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Thor: Ragnarok, and Spider-Man: Homecoming.
• Series Fauxnale: It's the end of the story that started back in Iron Man but not the end of the MCU.
• Spanner in the Works: Past!Thanos learns of the Avengers' plan because the cybernetic implants of 2023 Nebula and 2014 Nebula are both using the same network to store their memories.  
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Rhodes outright asks Carol where the hell she's been since The Nineties. She's been traveling space, being a hero on other planets who don't have counterparts to the Avengers. Cue Stunned Silence from Rhodey.
• Takes One to Kill One: How Thanos destroyed the Infinity Stones.  
• Time Skip: The film starts three weeks after Infinity War. Then there's five years between the first and second acts.  
• Took a Level In Badass: Bruce Banner has now merged with the Hulk completely. Banner's mind is in charge but it's Hulk's body.  
• Two of Your Earth Minutes: While it makes sense for Nebula to use human time measurements among humans, Past!Ebony Maw outright says that the present Nebula is from nine years in their future. So much for time differential.  
• What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to Ghost? Scott entered the Quantum Realm to gather quantum energy to stabilize her condition, but this thread is never brought up. If she survived the snap, the Time Skip means she would have faded out of existence. Even if she's among the ones who got snapped and then unsnapped, Scott and Hope having to help fight against Past!Thanos means there was no time for them to return to the Quantum Realm and gather more energy. Either way it seems a pretty sad Shaggy Dog Story. 
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Why Past!Nebula jumps at the chance to infiltrate the Avengers. For once, Thanos is paying attention to her.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Rhodes worries that the Power Stone's temple on Morag has Indiana Jones style traps. Nope.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside: The exact ratio. It's been five hours for Scott since Infinity War, but five years for everyone else.