Must Know Facts Before Watching Avengers: Endgame

Facts to Know Before Watching Avengers: Endgame

Facts to Know Before Watching Avengers: Endgame

Arguably, the biggest star cast of the cinematic history has been assembled for Avengers: Endgame – touted as the movie of the decade. This much awaited movie is set to hit the theatres on April 26, 2019. The movie is releasing in India in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu languages and in 2D, 3D, 2D IMAX, 3D IMAX and 4DX formats. Recently Avengers: Endgame’s co-director Joe Russo and maestro musician A R Rahman launched Marvel Anthem for Indian fans and the anthem “Roke Na Rukenge Ab To Yaara” is creating quite a buzz among star struck fans.

Record Breaking Advance Booking

Advance booking of Avengers: Endgame started on April 21 in India and within hours, tickets of the first weekend were almost sold out. Given the phenomenal demand for Avengers: Endgame tickets, we don’t need a Ptolemy or a Nostradamus to predict that the movie is going to shatter the box office records set by its prequel – Avengers: Infinity War. Infinity War had opened to 31 crores on day 1 and collected more than 100 crores in its opening weekend – a record for any Hollywood movie in India. Endgame is reportedly eyeing 40 crores on day 1.

The Cast and Crew

Avengers Endgame is produced by Marvel Studio and directed by Russo brothers – Anthony and Joe. The director duo had successfully directed Marvel Studio’s earlier movies – “Captain America: Winter Soldier”, “Captain America: Civil War” and “Avengers: Infinity War” in the past. Avengers: Endgame features Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Clinit Barton/Hawk Eye/Ronin, Brie Larson as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant Man, Bradley Cooper as Rocket (voice and motion capture) and Josh Brolin as Thanos (voice and motion capture). An exciting speculation is on that the characters who were wiped out in Avengers: Infinity War, might also reappear in Avengers: Endgame.

What ENDGAME stands for?

In the game of chess, the final stage – where only a few pieces remain in play – is called the endgame. At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, half of the Universe’s population is turned into dust and only a few Avengers are left, hence the title Endgame. It also refers to Doctor Strange statement to Tony Stark after giving the Time Stone to Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War“We’re in the endgame now”. Avengers: Endgame will also wrap up a mega story that spanned 22 movies starting with Iron Man (2008) – the first movie of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

MCU Timeline

This 22 movie, 48+ hour saga can be classified into three phases – Phase I consists of six movies – from Iron Man (2008) to Avengers (2012). The first phase movies introduced superheroes, as we saw Tony Stark turns into Iron Man by way of electromagnets and arc-reactors, Bruce Banner turned into Hulk through exposure to gamma radiations, Steve Rogers turned into Captain America through super-soldier serum and vita-rays and Thor – the god of thunder – proved himself as the worthy successor of Asgard’s throne. The final movie of Phase I – The Avengers saw the misuse of Tesseract’s powers by LokiThor’s brother, and the assembling Avengers – Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America and two agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. – Black Widow and Hawk Eye – saving the Earth from Chitauri Fleet and ill plans of Loki. In the end credit scene, we first saw a glimpse of Thanos.

Phase – II saw some sequels and introduction of more superheroes like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man. Thanos made small appearances in Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Phase – II started with Iron Man 3 and ended with Ant-Man. Phase – III introduced many new superheroes like Doctor Strange, Spider-man, Black Panther, Captain Marvel and present ones – Infinity War and Endgame. This phase started with Captain America: Civil War and is going to culminate with Avengers: Endgame.

Although Iron Man (2008) was the first released MCU movie, the MCU timeline starts with Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) – the fifth released MCU movie, which depicted the events of the Second World War. Additionally, the Infinity Stones too made their first appearance in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) as Tesseract, which contained Space Stone. Chronologically, Captain Marvel (2019) comes next, where events took place in the nineties. Next in timeline is Iron Man (2008) followed by Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011), Incredible Hulk (2008), The Avengers (2012) and so on.

What are Infinity Stones?

In Avengers: Infinity War, the Infinity Stones were already explained. Just to recall, Infinity Stones are the remnants of six singularities that existed before the Big Bang, got compressed into six stones after the universe began, and were dispersed throughout the cosmos. Each of the Infinity Stone embodies and controls and essential aspect of existence that can only be directly used by powerful beings. The six extremely powerful Infinity Stones are – Space Stone (Blue), Mind Stone (Yellow), Reality Stone (Red), Power Stone (Purple), Time Stone (Green) and Soul Stone (Orange). Doctor Strange wears Eye of Agamotto which contains Time Stone. Although on their own, these stones provide great power, when combined, they form a circuit, a positive feedback loop granting the user infinite power. That’s why Thanos looks to obtain all the Infinity Stones so that his powers become practically limitless. Since the stones are very powerful, the special glove – Infinity Gauntlet – was created by Eitri – the dwarf of Nidavellir. It was Eitri who created Thor’s hammers – MjoInir and Stormbreaker.

Who is Thanos and how he got the Infinity Stones?

Thanos is the King of Titan. Gamora and Nebula are his adopted daughters. Thanos henchmen – Black Order/Children of Thanos – comprised of Cull Obsidian, Ebony Mow, Proxima Midnight and Cornus Glaive. In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos was in search of all the six Infinity Stones in order to have re-balance of the universe. He believed that the universe is over-populated, which led to the destruction of his planet – Titan. Thanos forced Eitri to prepare Infinity Gauntlet – which can store all the six Infinity Stones. Power stone/Orb was protected by Nove Corps on planet Xander. Thanos obtained Power Stone after destroying Xander. Loki gave Tesseract – which contained Space Stone – to Thanos, in order to save his brother Thor’s life. Thanos obtained Reality Stone from The Collector of Knowhere. Thanos sacrifices his daughter Gamora over a cliff at Vormir to get the Soul Stone. Doctor Strange surrenders Time Stone to Thanos, in order to save the life of Tony Stark. During the deadly battle of Wakanda though, Wanda/Scarlet Witch destroys the Mind Stone – residing there in the forehead of Vision. Thanos used Time Stone to turn back the time and repair the stone – ripping the Mind Stone out of Vision’s head- and completed the Infinity Gauntlet with all six stones, to fulfil his lifelong mission – wiping out half of the universe’s population.

What to expect from Endgame?

After the catastrophic events of Avengers: Infinity war where Thanos succeeded in his nefarious mission, the remaining Avengers team will have to devise a strategy to once again fight Thanos in order to save whatever is left there. The trailers and TV Clips haven’t revealed much about the storyline. We have seen in Endgame trailers that Thanos has hung his armour, Tony Stark is stuck there in space, remaining Avengers are teaming up, and Captain Marvel and Ant-Man are set to join the Avengers team. The new suits of Avengers team are speculated to be useful for Quantum Realm travel/time travel. What we have inferred from the trailers is that the remaining team of Avengers has come together and decided not to move on, but to rectify what has gone wrong. Avengers are gearing up for a final battle to ‘avenge the fallen’, as this is ‘the fight of their lives’ and they can’t afford to lose, no matter ‘whatever it takes’.