For many months, the phrase "Endgame" had been buzzing around the house. The grand finale of the Avengers series was eagerly awaited. I had watched the first part of Avengers many years ago. I had not disliked it but I am not sure if I had liked it either. It was dark and at the same time cynical; always an interesting combination. At that time, I was not aware of the Marvel vs. DC mania. From my point of view, super heroes are super heroes. With the exception of Modi and Trump, they only existed on screen or paper (I wanted to write "they only existed in 2D" instead of "paper or screen" but then I remembered the annoying 3D glasses). Superman flew and spewed laser from his eyes. Spiderman climbed walls and discharged web. Batman sped around, jumped from place to place and talked in an annoyingly hoarse voice. Iron man loved to stay in the insides of a robot. They all had super strength and would not break a sweat if some villain pounds them using the Statue of Liberty or Eiffel Tower. To my not fully developed brain all of them seemed the same at a macro level. So, I was shocked to realize that my understanding was far from reality. There was a fundamental difference between superheroes, viz., some belonged to the Marvel universe and others to the DC galaxy. Further, it is considered a blasphemy to mix one with the other. As a mother realized when she asked her son while watching a Marvel movie "When will Wonder woman come?" The boy was embarrassed and shocked. He spit out a "Mom! What's wrong with you? Wonder woman's in DC." The poor mother was perplexed by the response and asked "Why is she in DC? Is she meeting the President?” It was the boy’s turn to be perplexed. He asked “Why should she meet the President? What are you talking about?” The mother realized that her understanding of DC was incorrect. She asked “What do you mean DC?”
“Ma! DC comics”
“Why are we talking about comics?”
“Ma! Can I explain later? I am unable to concentrate.”
“Hey! Tell me now. You have watched this movie four times already.”
“Maaaaaaa! This is an important scene.”
“Shhh! Tell me when Wonder Woman will her entry?”
“Wonder Woman will make an entry because this movie is based on Marvel comics and Wonder woman is only seen in DC comic.”
“So who was the woman in the poster?”
“That’s probably Captain Marvel or Black Widow”
The mother decided to ask no further questions. She had not realized that Captain Marvel was a woman and she had never heard of Black Widow. She decided to go with the flow.
The beginning of the month arrived. The clamour to watch Endgame increased. Patience levels were at an all time low for the youngest member in the family. Three times a day, the family was made aware of the countdown status. As the day of the movie approached we became a part of a group of friend from work who were planning to watch the movie. Around the time, I was made aware by the above mentioned youngest member that I was not learned enough to understand the movie. Marvel had made 22 movies in 11 years and each movie added a character or two to the finale. For example, I had not watched the movie Ant-man and did not realize that Ant-man played a pivotal role in the finale. Then there was the Winter Soldier. Not to forget, Black Panther! I thought all these were different movies and the Avengers only included the five or six characters with Fury. My thoughts were far from reality. This issue came to the fore when I watched Infinity war, which I had missed watching in the theatres last year and had to rent on YouTube as a part of my preparation for Endgame. Infinity war had many super heroes and I had to use tally marks to keep track of all of them. At the end of the movie, many of the super heroes wither away and I thought I had no use of keeping track of their existence or their actions for Endgame. For example, the all important Fury withers away but not before he sent a message on a pager to I-am-not-sure-who. If I had not watched Captain Marvel, I would not have realized the recipient of the message and would have been perplexed at the sudden appearance of the recipient. So clearly my Avengers knowledge was sketchy and I required a crash course of the Marvel world. I opened an Excel sheet and drafted a plan. I started by watching the original Avengers. I followed it with Thor Ragnarok, Civil War and Ant man. I had become 80% ready for Endgame. I was informed that the only Black Panther and Spiderman were missing from my spectrum. I protested "I know Spiderman". I was admonished sternly and made aware that this Spiderman is not the old Spiderman but was Spiderman (Tony Spark upgrade version 2.0). Comparing the two Spidermen is like comparing Window 10 with DOS. But I refused to accept. I know all about Spiderman and Peter Parker and did not have the time to know more. Now only Black Panther remained. I started watching “Black Panther” in a bright room at two in the afternoon but could not get through the first fifteen minutes. The occurrences in the movie were enveloped in darkness and I could only see the reflections of the room on the screen. I gave up and decided to try it later that evening. Finally, I ended up watching the movie at two in the afternoon on the television in a hotel room in Bangalore. I found the movie interesting but I not great. Somehow, all the characters in the movie seemed detached. The movie required some over the top acting but everyone other than Forest Whitaker indulged in realistic acting.
The real boost to my enthusiasm for Endgame came from Infinity war. An year earlier, I had contempt for the movie and gave it a miss. Being an old school superhero movie watcher, I wondered, why Avengers required so many superheroes to bring down a villain. Superman, Spiderman and Batman handled multiple villains possessing multiple hands and tentacles single handedly. People told me Thanos was different and that he is god among super villains. I waved my hand in a Mr.Bean-ish manner and uttered "pffffffttt". I considered myself lucky for not being a part of the Infinity mania. I lived in this manner for an year and then watched the movie. I would probably be exaggerating if I say "it is the greatest superhero movie ever made" but I would be lying if I say "I did not feel that way". Watching Infinity war was an absorbing experience and sixty percent of the absorption came from Thanos. He is one of the best super villains conceived by humanity. He is extremely powerful and eliminated many super heroes through the snap of his fingers and at ither times through violent means too. He believes that he has a strong sense of morals and values but as is usually the case the world does not appreciate it. He was convinced that though his actions caused pain it was not done for his own pleasure; he believed he had to snap his finger to make the universe a better place to live in. I loved the ending of the movie wherein he walks to a cliff, sits by the edge and calmly watches a sunset. Prior to this calm end he had destroyed many superheroes and half the living creatures in the universe by snapping his fingers. Does the universe possess a greater super villain?
I awaited Endgame with bated breath. I was curious to see how the remaining Avengers defeated Thanos. Being a super hero movie, the makers of the movie will not allow the super villain to win. Would the universe not crumble if Thanos wins and continues to live? His thought that he is doing it for the universe and not for himself makes him dangerous. (This reminds me of the political situations prevailing in different parts of our planet?) So he has to go! But how?
Before I proceed to Endgame, I would like to place my formal protest at the way common people, like me, are treated in these movies. We scream and run around, like ants, with our hands flailing around above our heads. (NOTE: The ‘like ants’ part was for ‘run around’ and not for ‘hands flailing’. I have never seen an ant flail its hands. As a matter of fact, I am not even sure if ants have hands. They could just be four legs, which are the ant’s forelegs). We humans are either crushed by flying trucks or smashed by falling buildings or simply blown to bits by fluorescent explosions. These explosions vaporise us and not even ash is left behind. The makers of such movies don't even let us observe these plain vanilla human faces. I would like to know if someone who looks like me would perish in one such attack. I formally protest through these words at the treatment meted out to us non-superhero human being by the makers of superhero movies.
I did not book the tickets for the movie as soon as they opened. As a matter of fact, by the time I realized that the bookings were open, all the tickets for the opening Friday and the weekend were booked. So we decided to go for the movie on Monday. The tickets were available in a theatre close by but I did not book. I waited for the bookings to open in a new theatre close by. I had watched Shazam in the theatre and loved the new and blue look inside. It looked like the insides of a space ship, which made it an ideal location to watch the finale of Avengers. I checked the bookings website once every three hours for two days (not including the time I slept and worked, of course). As time passed I thought the fellows at the theatre had received a message from someplace in the Universe stating "Don't bother to open the bookings for Avengers: Endgame. Your planet, the Earth, will be destroyed at 12:04 am on 26 April 2019*. * - Conditions Apply". I was getting desperate. The forefinger of my right hand hovered around the "Book now" button of the older theatre but it not touch the button as I felt reassured by the fact that most seats for Monday afternoon were available. So I waited. Finally, I was relieved to know that the Earth would live through another Friday when the bookings at the new theatre opened. I booked tickets for the afternoon show. We had forty minutes to reach the theatre from our work place. The time taken for the journey was not a worry; only fifteen minutes. The afternoon meeting was a worry though. If it stretched beyond the designated time due to the abundantly available enthusiasm of its participants, we could miss the first few scenes of the movie, which as everyone knows is considered an act of blasphemy.
Unfortunately, the afternoon meeting turned out to be an interesting one. It involved people presenting concepts in different manners using mechanisms, which resembled role play but was not called so. By the time all the teams readied their presentations only 20 minutes were available. We had already informed everyone about our plan and had requested everyone to contain they enthusiasm that afternoon. But as is usually the case, enthusiasm radiates and travels faster than radioactivity. As a result, the presentations stretched beyond the closing time. When the stretching reached fifteen minutes, I became desperate and started displaying five of the nine navarasas on my face. It must have been an effective display for the meeting ended almost immediately. As expected the journey to the theatre took only the estimated amount of time and we were in our seats two minutes prior to the start of the movie.
Prior to getting to my thoughts on Endgame, I would like to mention two points.
A few minutes into Endgame, we find a benign Thanos sitting in a decrypt location surrounded by the remaining Avengers. When they demand him to surrender the Infinity stones, he informs them that he has destroyed them as he believed they were no longer required. I felt a thrill run through me. Twenty minutes into the movie, the Infinity stones were destroyed and Thanos seemed as harmless as a hermaphrodite. I wondered what all these fellows would do for the remaining two and a half hours. The thrill disappeared a moment later when Thor beheaded Thanos. The people on screen had the same shocked expression as I had. Being a child friendly movie they too would have thought "What the hell!" Thor looked around, shrugged and uttered something stupid that I refuse to repeat. On hearing the words, half the audience whooped and clapped. I realized that I had done a mistake. I should have stayed at home and watched Infinity war again. The next thirty minutes were some of the dullest moments of my life. I was put through an absurd emotional drama. I realize superheroes have every right to express their emotions but I believe they should not do so for more than five minutes on the screen. I wish the makers had watched “Die Hard” prior to making these thirty minutes.
The beheading of Thanos gave me an idea on the direction the movie would take but I was not sure of the reason for taking that direction. The villain no longer existed and the problematic stones had disappeared. In the normal world, the remaining population of the universe would spend their time rebuilding the universe. But that probably would be an ideal theme for a pornographic movie. This was an Avengers movie and so the villain had to resurrected and fought again. But I was shocked by all the sentiment and emotion that the movie and its characters underwent prior to before they reached this decision. I do realize that I belong to the minority who were annoyed by these scenes. I blame it on Doordarshan, which during my younger days ensured that I sat through many hours of Dilip Kumar, Sivaji Ganesan, MeenaKumar and Vijayakumari. I was also lucky enough to weep through the second half of Deshadanam within the safe haven of a dark theatre. The sadness of the Black widow did not move me. I did not pity Captain America for his morose expressions. I thought Tony Stark should feel happy playing with his daughter and not pine for Peter Parker's company. Instead, the members of Avengers by two walked around the screen like Zombies. At the end of thirty minutes, they came up with two uninspired reasons to continue with the movie.
The audience were then taken through the Quantum version of "Back to the future". The little interest and respect I had for the movie disappeared when one of the characters mocked the time travel concept of "Back to the future" and then ended up using it. If I have a choice, I would time travel to the past and erase the concepts of time travel and wormhole from Hollywood. The genre of science fiction survives primarily on these two concepts and Endgame has used and abused them beyond the acceptable limited.
As expected, the climactic battle had all the superheroes reappearing. The audience went berserk at the appearance of each superhero and my annoyance climbed steadily. By the time Ironman snapped his fingers I did not care whose head snapped and whose stayed intact. At that point I did not realize that the movie had another twenty minutes of sentimental nonsense in store for me. Apparently these were the scenes that caused extreme sadness among the teens and twenteens. One person in Hong Kong had to be taken to the hospital from the theatre. It is a pity that she did not go through an operation for I would have loved to use the phrase "from cinema theatre to operation theatre".
I was glad to walk out of the theatre. I did not and still don't understand the world going bonkers for this movie. It is a very boring end to a good movie series. It totally failed to build on the premise setup by Infinity war. At the end of Infinity war, Thanos was the all powerful villain who could destroy the Universe at will. But in Endgame we have to deal with a naive Thanos who does not even possess all the Infinity stones. The movie was basically a Marvel version of “Back to the future II” where people messed with history and future by travelling back and forth in a time machine. In that sense Endgame is not even original.
“Ma! DC comics”
“Why are we talking about comics?”
“Ma! Can I explain later? I am unable to concentrate.”
“Hey! Tell me now. You have watched this movie four times already.”
“Maaaaaaa! This is an important scene.”
“Shhh! Tell me when Wonder Woman will her entry?”
“Wonder Woman will make an entry because this movie is based on Marvel comics and Wonder woman is only seen in DC comic.”
“So who was the woman in the poster?”
“That’s probably Captain Marvel or Black Widow”
The mother decided to ask no further questions. She had not realized that Captain Marvel was a woman and she had never heard of Black Widow. She decided to go with the flow.
The beginning of the month arrived. The clamour to watch Endgame increased. Patience levels were at an all time low for the youngest member in the family. Three times a day, the family was made aware of the countdown status. As the day of the movie approached we became a part of a group of friend from work who were planning to watch the movie. Around the time, I was made aware by the above mentioned youngest member that I was not learned enough to understand the movie. Marvel had made 22 movies in 11 years and each movie added a character or two to the finale. For example, I had not watched the movie Ant-man and did not realize that Ant-man played a pivotal role in the finale. Then there was the Winter Soldier. Not to forget, Black Panther! I thought all these were different movies and the Avengers only included the five or six characters with Fury. My thoughts were far from reality. This issue came to the fore when I watched Infinity war, which I had missed watching in the theatres last year and had to rent on YouTube as a part of my preparation for Endgame. Infinity war had many super heroes and I had to use tally marks to keep track of all of them. At the end of the movie, many of the super heroes wither away and I thought I had no use of keeping track of their existence or their actions for Endgame. For example, the all important Fury withers away but not before he sent a message on a pager to I-am-not-sure-who. If I had not watched Captain Marvel, I would not have realized the recipient of the message and would have been perplexed at the sudden appearance of the recipient. So clearly my Avengers knowledge was sketchy and I required a crash course of the Marvel world. I opened an Excel sheet and drafted a plan. I started by watching the original Avengers. I followed it with Thor Ragnarok, Civil War and Ant man. I had become 80% ready for Endgame. I was informed that the only Black Panther and Spiderman were missing from my spectrum. I protested "I know Spiderman". I was admonished sternly and made aware that this Spiderman is not the old Spiderman but was Spiderman (Tony Spark upgrade version 2.0). Comparing the two Spidermen is like comparing Window 10 with DOS. But I refused to accept. I know all about Spiderman and Peter Parker and did not have the time to know more. Now only Black Panther remained. I started watching “Black Panther” in a bright room at two in the afternoon but could not get through the first fifteen minutes. The occurrences in the movie were enveloped in darkness and I could only see the reflections of the room on the screen. I gave up and decided to try it later that evening. Finally, I ended up watching the movie at two in the afternoon on the television in a hotel room in Bangalore. I found the movie interesting but I not great. Somehow, all the characters in the movie seemed detached. The movie required some over the top acting but everyone other than Forest Whitaker indulged in realistic acting.
The real boost to my enthusiasm for Endgame came from Infinity war. An year earlier, I had contempt for the movie and gave it a miss. Being an old school superhero movie watcher, I wondered, why Avengers required so many superheroes to bring down a villain. Superman, Spiderman and Batman handled multiple villains possessing multiple hands and tentacles single handedly. People told me Thanos was different and that he is god among super villains. I waved my hand in a Mr.Bean-ish manner and uttered "pffffffttt". I considered myself lucky for not being a part of the Infinity mania. I lived in this manner for an year and then watched the movie. I would probably be exaggerating if I say "it is the greatest superhero movie ever made" but I would be lying if I say "I did not feel that way". Watching Infinity war was an absorbing experience and sixty percent of the absorption came from Thanos. He is one of the best super villains conceived by humanity. He is extremely powerful and eliminated many super heroes through the snap of his fingers and at ither times through violent means too. He believes that he has a strong sense of morals and values but as is usually the case the world does not appreciate it. He was convinced that though his actions caused pain it was not done for his own pleasure; he believed he had to snap his finger to make the universe a better place to live in. I loved the ending of the movie wherein he walks to a cliff, sits by the edge and calmly watches a sunset. Prior to this calm end he had destroyed many superheroes and half the living creatures in the universe by snapping his fingers. Does the universe possess a greater super villain?
I awaited Endgame with bated breath. I was curious to see how the remaining Avengers defeated Thanos. Being a super hero movie, the makers of the movie will not allow the super villain to win. Would the universe not crumble if Thanos wins and continues to live? His thought that he is doing it for the universe and not for himself makes him dangerous. (This reminds me of the political situations prevailing in different parts of our planet?) So he has to go! But how?
Before I proceed to Endgame, I would like to place my formal protest at the way common people, like me, are treated in these movies. We scream and run around, like ants, with our hands flailing around above our heads. (NOTE: The ‘like ants’ part was for ‘run around’ and not for ‘hands flailing’. I have never seen an ant flail its hands. As a matter of fact, I am not even sure if ants have hands. They could just be four legs, which are the ant’s forelegs). We humans are either crushed by flying trucks or smashed by falling buildings or simply blown to bits by fluorescent explosions. These explosions vaporise us and not even ash is left behind. The makers of such movies don't even let us observe these plain vanilla human faces. I would like to know if someone who looks like me would perish in one such attack. I formally protest through these words at the treatment meted out to us non-superhero human being by the makers of superhero movies.
I did not book the tickets for the movie as soon as they opened. As a matter of fact, by the time I realized that the bookings were open, all the tickets for the opening Friday and the weekend were booked. So we decided to go for the movie on Monday. The tickets were available in a theatre close by but I did not book. I waited for the bookings to open in a new theatre close by. I had watched Shazam in the theatre and loved the new and blue look inside. It looked like the insides of a space ship, which made it an ideal location to watch the finale of Avengers. I checked the bookings website once every three hours for two days (not including the time I slept and worked, of course). As time passed I thought the fellows at the theatre had received a message from someplace in the Universe stating "Don't bother to open the bookings for Avengers: Endgame. Your planet, the Earth, will be destroyed at 12:04 am on 26 April 2019*. * - Conditions Apply". I was getting desperate. The forefinger of my right hand hovered around the "Book now" button of the older theatre but it not touch the button as I felt reassured by the fact that most seats for Monday afternoon were available. So I waited. Finally, I was relieved to know that the Earth would live through another Friday when the bookings at the new theatre opened. I booked tickets for the afternoon show. We had forty minutes to reach the theatre from our work place. The time taken for the journey was not a worry; only fifteen minutes. The afternoon meeting was a worry though. If it stretched beyond the designated time due to the abundantly available enthusiasm of its participants, we could miss the first few scenes of the movie, which as everyone knows is considered an act of blasphemy.
Unfortunately, the afternoon meeting turned out to be an interesting one. It involved people presenting concepts in different manners using mechanisms, which resembled role play but was not called so. By the time all the teams readied their presentations only 20 minutes were available. We had already informed everyone about our plan and had requested everyone to contain they enthusiasm that afternoon. But as is usually the case, enthusiasm radiates and travels faster than radioactivity. As a result, the presentations stretched beyond the closing time. When the stretching reached fifteen minutes, I became desperate and started displaying five of the nine navarasas on my face. It must have been an effective display for the meeting ended almost immediately. As expected the journey to the theatre took only the estimated amount of time and we were in our seats two minutes prior to the start of the movie.
Prior to getting to my thoughts on Endgame, I would like to mention two points.
- The pop corn in this new swanky theatre costs 200 bucks. The interval time snack being an integral part of the movie watching process ensured that the cost of snacks was nearly 500 bucks per person, which is more than double the cost of his/her ticket and which is sufficient to provide for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a family of four eating at home. The ridiculousness of this situation has forced me to look towards Netflix and Amazon Prime instead of cinema theatres.
- Since I write my thoughts on the movie nearly a month after its release, I don't have to write the words "Spoiler Alert", which is a minor tragedy. I would have loved to use that phrase. “Spoiler alert” is a phrase of power. It intimidates it's recipients to believe that its utterer knows something that they probably don't want to know yet. If the utterer wishes so, he/she could whisper this information into their ears and make them feel miserable but, in many cases, he/she is benevolent enough not to do so. I think the use of the phrase helps us understand the feeling God has when He/She sees us preparing for an examination. He/She already knows the result for He/She is all knowing but He/She does not intimate us of the result for He/She wants us to go through the miserable experience of studying even though He/She has already decided on what the result is. If this comparison does not make sense, ignore it.
A few minutes into Endgame, we find a benign Thanos sitting in a decrypt location surrounded by the remaining Avengers. When they demand him to surrender the Infinity stones, he informs them that he has destroyed them as he believed they were no longer required. I felt a thrill run through me. Twenty minutes into the movie, the Infinity stones were destroyed and Thanos seemed as harmless as a hermaphrodite. I wondered what all these fellows would do for the remaining two and a half hours. The thrill disappeared a moment later when Thor beheaded Thanos. The people on screen had the same shocked expression as I had. Being a child friendly movie they too would have thought "What the hell!" Thor looked around, shrugged and uttered something stupid that I refuse to repeat. On hearing the words, half the audience whooped and clapped. I realized that I had done a mistake. I should have stayed at home and watched Infinity war again. The next thirty minutes were some of the dullest moments of my life. I was put through an absurd emotional drama. I realize superheroes have every right to express their emotions but I believe they should not do so for more than five minutes on the screen. I wish the makers had watched “Die Hard” prior to making these thirty minutes.
The beheading of Thanos gave me an idea on the direction the movie would take but I was not sure of the reason for taking that direction. The villain no longer existed and the problematic stones had disappeared. In the normal world, the remaining population of the universe would spend their time rebuilding the universe. But that probably would be an ideal theme for a pornographic movie. This was an Avengers movie and so the villain had to resurrected and fought again. But I was shocked by all the sentiment and emotion that the movie and its characters underwent prior to before they reached this decision. I do realize that I belong to the minority who were annoyed by these scenes. I blame it on Doordarshan, which during my younger days ensured that I sat through many hours of Dilip Kumar, Sivaji Ganesan, MeenaKumar and Vijayakumari. I was also lucky enough to weep through the second half of Deshadanam within the safe haven of a dark theatre. The sadness of the Black widow did not move me. I did not pity Captain America for his morose expressions. I thought Tony Stark should feel happy playing with his daughter and not pine for Peter Parker's company. Instead, the members of Avengers by two walked around the screen like Zombies. At the end of thirty minutes, they came up with two uninspired reasons to continue with the movie.
- We have to get everyone back.
- The Infinity stones are very important for the universe's existence. We have to get them back and place them in their designated location. Only then will our universe feel like our good old universe complete with Thanos and rest of the villains.
The audience were then taken through the Quantum version of "Back to the future". The little interest and respect I had for the movie disappeared when one of the characters mocked the time travel concept of "Back to the future" and then ended up using it. If I have a choice, I would time travel to the past and erase the concepts of time travel and wormhole from Hollywood. The genre of science fiction survives primarily on these two concepts and Endgame has used and abused them beyond the acceptable limited.
As expected, the climactic battle had all the superheroes reappearing. The audience went berserk at the appearance of each superhero and my annoyance climbed steadily. By the time Ironman snapped his fingers I did not care whose head snapped and whose stayed intact. At that point I did not realize that the movie had another twenty minutes of sentimental nonsense in store for me. Apparently these were the scenes that caused extreme sadness among the teens and twenteens. One person in Hong Kong had to be taken to the hospital from the theatre. It is a pity that she did not go through an operation for I would have loved to use the phrase "from cinema theatre to operation theatre".
I was glad to walk out of the theatre. I did not and still don't understand the world going bonkers for this movie. It is a very boring end to a good movie series. It totally failed to build on the premise setup by Infinity war. At the end of Infinity war, Thanos was the all powerful villain who could destroy the Universe at will. But in Endgame we have to deal with a naive Thanos who does not even possess all the Infinity stones. The movie was basically a Marvel version of “Back to the future II” where people messed with history and future by travelling back and forth in a time machine. In that sense Endgame is not even original.
