I'm writing this a week after Avengers:Endgame was released. Since it smashed all box office records, I'm going to assume than anyone who stumbles across this blog has seen the movie and doesn't care about spoiler. You've been warned.
I'm not going to talk about Easter eggs or call-backs. I'm going to talk about the character arcs of the last 11 years and how this movie resolves them for the six original Avengers. This is a much more personal movie than Avengers: Infinity War. Until the final fight it really features just the six original Avengers plus Ant-Man, Rocket and Nebula plus Captain Marvel who is more of a cameo than a real presence.
The original crew can be divided into the big three and the rest. The big three, Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, have all had three solo movies plus the four Avengers movies. We got to know all three and we can appreciate the closure that Endgame provided for them.
First is Iron Man, Tony Stark. The key to his character is daddy issues. In the first Iron Man movie we see that he inherited Stark Industries from his father. His father's partner became a surrogate father for Tony but then betrayed him. In the second Iron Man movie, we actually meet his father. Tony has recreated his father's Stark Expo (modeled on the 1964-5 New York World's Fair). The plot concerns Tony's attempt to understand a message his father left for him. In the third Iron Man movie and in Spider-Man Homecoming, Tony acts as a surrogate father for lonely teenagers. In Captain America: Civil War, he creates a technology to relive and change memories just so he can say goodbye to his father.
In Endgame, Tony gets to do this for real. He travels back to 1970 and meets his father and gives him the hug he's wanted to give him for 30-odd years. He also proves that he can be a better father than his father was.
Thor's character is all about failure and trying to live up to impossible expectations. In the first Thor movie his father essentially disowns him and he nearly kills himself trying to prove that he's worthy. In the second movie his mother is killed and his brother, Loki, appears to have been killed. After seeing a vision of Ragnarok in the second Avengers movie, he spends years trying to prevent it. He appears to have succeeded at the beginning of the third Thor movie but then things go very wrong. His father dies, a sister he didn't know about appears and destroys his hammer. He's beaten in an arena by the Hulk. When he finally escapes he realizes that he has to bring Ragnarok about himself in order to save the people of Asgard. He manages to evacuate them in a pair of space ships only to be attacked by Thanos where Loki is killed (again) and half of the surviving Asgardians are killed. Thor devotes himself to getting a weapon capable of killing Thanos. In the process he undergoes great pain and suffering, nearly dying. He finally appears in the nick of time only to fail because he wanted Thanos to gloat so he didn't kill Thanos immediately.
In Endgame, Thor is a drunken couch potato, wallowing in his own failure. He's already had a chance to say his goodbyes to his father (in a vision) but he talks to his mother who tells him that it's alright to fail. He's also able to call his hammer, proving that he's still worthy, even after his failures. By the end of Endgame he's got his confidence back and is ready to go adventuring again.
I want to note what a great job Chris Hemsworth did in this movie.
Captain America's character arc is easy He found the love of his life then lost her, being frozen for decades. He tried a relationship with someone else but it didn't work out and he was alone. During Endgame he got to see his true love through a venitian blind. When he traveled back in time again, he went back to the time he'd been separated from Peggy, married her and grew old with her.
The Black Widow appeared in seven movies. Except for her friendships with various Avengers, particularly Bruce Banner and Hawkeye she is never shown to have any close ties. She spent a lot of time worrying about "the red on her ledger" meaning people she'd killed as a spy. This gave her a chance to redeem herself. She sacrificed herself so half of the universe could live again.
The Hulk had six appearances including his own solo movie. In his movie he was more than a "rage monster". He made tools, specifically shields. And he said a couple of words. He hadn't changed much in the first two Avengers movies but his relationship with Banner was changing. In the first Avengers movie we discovered that Banner could change at will because "he was always angry". In the second Avengers movie the Black Widow was able to coax him to change back to Banner as needed. The big change came in Thor: Ragnarok when he was far more intelligent.
In Infinity War, Thanos beat him and he refused to come out. The big surprise was in Endgame when we found that the Hulk and Banner had merged into a smart Hulk. This happened in the comics several times and that version of the Hulk in known as the Professor.
Hawkeye only appeared in three Avengers movies plus a cameo in the first Thor movie. Most of what we know about him was from the second Avengers movie where we found out that he had a wife and kids. He sat out Infinity War and Endgame begins with his family going to dust. Hawkeye becomes a vigilante before the Black Widow recruits him for the team again. By the end his family is restored and, presumably, he settles down with them again.
While not an Avenger, Nebula finished a character arc that started in Guardians of the Galaxy. She progressed from Thanos's devoted daughter and killing machine to a caring person. We even got to see her with her younger version so we could see how much she'd changed. Her character arc essentially followed her sister Gamora but then, in a time travel twist, she led an earlier Gamora to change.
One final observation. At the end of Infinity War, Fury was paging Captain Marvel. This was really a red herring. Outside of rescuing Stark and Nebula from a disabled space ship she contributed nothing to the plot. The space rescue was engineered to let Tony record a heart-wrenching farewell to Pepper before Captain Marvel rescued him. She was part of the initial attack on Thanos but Thor was the more important one there. She was just present. The she left because she had more important things to do. She showed up again during the big battle but it's unclear if she really added much. She was just one of dozens of combatants. She was also really annoying. I hope this isn't the future of the MCU.
On the other hand, I'd been afraid that she'd have a bigger part and ruin Endgame so I was glad to see as little as possible of her.
