Last time I wrote about Avengers: Endgame, and today I continue with more thoughts.

Hit the jump, and let’s discuss.

My Writer Mode was exploding when I saw the various parent-child scenes. Let’s dive in.

Quick Aside: “Fat Thor” (as my friends took to calling him) was…something I was not expecting. I can’t help but think that Chris Hemsworth and everyone behind the scenes were all having a good laugh at trolling the fans. Well played.

There’s a line that I read regarding writing movies as well as TV. It comes from a higher up that’s reading a theoretical script: “When do I cry?”

I think it serves as a good reminder to have solid, emotional dialogue and scenes in our scripts. For many, I imagine the scenes between Thor and his mother as well as between Tony and his father that were touching for people.

I loved the line where Thor’s mother / Frigga / Rene Russo said she knew that it was Thor from the future. “Come now, I grew up with witches.” Solid. It makes complete sense to me that the woman who birthed Thor and Loki as well as the queen of Odin would fully understand the situation. (Also, I loved how she could instantly ferret out someone sneaking around. Mother of Loki, after all.)

(For the record, yes, her name is actually listed as Frigga.)

It’s a beautiful scene and I didn’t expect it.

While I do not try to actively predict things in movies (I’ve seen it done, and all it does is ruin the movie for the guesser), I wasn’t too surprised by the Iron Man + Iron Man’s dad’s scene. Touching points.

It showed good growth on Tony’s part. He finally has a child of his own and I think there was a little more understanding of how hard being a parent could be. To put it mildly, I imagine being the father of a ‘boy genius’ must bring about its own happy as well as sad moments.

The little bit of humor helped as well when Tony hugs the man…and of course he has no idea who “Howard Potts” is.

From Sitcoms to Marvel Movies

Okay, writers, I often get the Jones to write a lot of different articles. This is one point that was screaming while I was watching Avengers: Endgame.

I can’t list exactly which shows did this, but it happened enough that I’m sure you all can follow along.

I think in Saved by the Bell it was an episode where they were working on a yearbook. In Family Guy it was an episode where they were stuck at home during a major storm (bonus points because I think this was the one where they combined with the other shows in their lineup). I think in Friends it was during a wedding.

What I’m referring to is the intentional clipping of previous footage from episodes of a sitcom to create a “new” episode. In these collection episodes there are lines like, “Remember that one time…” and then they cut to the previous scene.

It is content for the audience and it allows people to take a breather. For instance, in an animated shows, the animators don’t have as much to animate because they’re reusing old footage.

It’s a good combination of efficiency and nostalgia. A perfect example in Avengers: Endgame was when they had to sneak up on Star Lord / Peter Quill / Chris Pratt. It’s the same scene as the one from Guardians of the Galaxy, then the joke of calling him an idiot.

In that way it uses the exact same formula as the sitcoms. Having said that, I am not against formulas. In this case, I thought it was just straight up beautiful.

By using the recap method, it opened up a ton of options. For instance, everything that was ever mentioned in any movie suddenly became fair game. Even more so because time travel was involved. (I wanted so hard to do an article or two on time travel, but I think I’ll save that for another time.)

On that note, one of my favorite lines from any of the MCU movies comes from the Captain America: First Avenger.

After Cap wakes up and finds himself in a fake hospital room, he then breaks out.

Fury: You’ve been asleep, Cap. For almost seventy years. You gonna be okay?
Cap: Yeah. Yeah, just…I had a date.

That last line by Cap…man, so beautiful. And Avengers: Endgame, they play further into that idea. He finally got the dance and some wedded bliss with the girl of his dreams.

Love it, just straight up love it.

Honorable Mention:
Black Widow / Natasha Romanova / Scarlett Johansson versus Clint / Hawkeye / Jeremy Renner.

Man, I loved this scene so much. The part where Clint says “You know what I’ve become” and all the other bits of dialogue. SO GOOD. I’ll fully break everything down one day and walk you all through a full AlohaAlvin dissection. But this article is running long enough at this point, so I think I’m going to call it.

Writers,

Which scene was your favorite scene in Avengers: Endgame?

Aloha,
Alvin