Movie Review: Avengers: Endgame [Geekery & Pedantry Edition]

I did a more proper review of Avengers: Endgame in a previous post, and this one will be geared more towards the discussion of the geeky stuff like call-backs, minor characters, some potential plot holes and how they may or may not have made sense in retrospect, and discussion about foreshadowing, some plot holes in the movie, and other stuff. Because as much as I did enjoy Endgame, it'd be a lie to say that the movie is tightly-plotted. It's only the sheer power of the performances of the actors that the movie worked out a well as it did.

Anyway, this review was written before I watched Spider-Man: Far From Home or the special extended cut.

As with anything involving this movie, spoilers are at your own risk.

TIME TRAVEL DISCUSSION -- ALTERNATE TIMELINE OR STABLE LOOP?

This is the elephant in the room, I think. The biggest problems when you introduce time travel into a story, particularly one that's already jam-packed with like three dozen characters, is that... time travel, inherently as a plot device, really invites plot holes. The movie itself sort of brushes aside the whole "naaah, time travel can't change time, we'll always be creating a stable time loop" during the discussion between Hulk and the others. And... and evidently, that's not exactly true? While our heroes' sojourn to the '70's and Dark World-era Asgard went without a hitch, the two glaring continuity snarls of causing Loki to escape with the Tesseract in 2012 and 2014-era Thanos and his forces arriving onto the present day are both events that would cause a significant change in the timeline. The former might be explained with Captain America off-screen beating up Loki and returning him back to Avengers custody so the rest of the 2012 Avengers movie could take place, but Thanos and company got all killed and wiped out in 2023.

The other plausible reason, I guess, is that Tony used his Snap to undo any temporal paradoxes, becasue we know Tony's smart and he's also someone who wants to preserve the events in the present day at any costs. But we don't get any real confirmation from any of our heroes beyond "yep, Steve's going to play time police and return everything back to their proper temporal space".


That's all potential handwaves, of course, and another potential handwave is that the Ancient One and Bruce's discussion about branching timelines actually did end up causing branching timelines in the couple of timelines that the Avengers failed to maintain the flow of time. After all, what Bruce and the Ancient One were discussing -- that the time stream is maintained as a single cohesive flow -- can only be accomplished if the stones are returned to their original positions in time, making it look as if the stones have never left in the first place, and only in that position that no branching timelines are created. Something that, while certainly possible with the stones themselves, is not quite so possible with the temporal-displaced Thanos, Nebula, et cetera. Because unless Tony wished them back to 2014 to continue their original histories and ensure that the pre-existing history isn't changed, history now has a huge glaring hole where Thanos and his forces are supposed to be.

Which is why I really wished the initial conversation establishing the rules of time travel between Bruce, Rhodey and Scott was a bit more clear. I think what the movie ended up telling us, particularly with the Ancient One monologue later on, that if they cause a significant enough change, i.e. remove an Infinity Stone without returning it back later on, they'll cause a splinter timeline. And so far, from what we saw in Endgame, only two splinter timelines happened -- one where Loki escaped and teleported away with the Tesseract in 2012, and another one in 2014 where Thanos, Gamora, Nebula and the rest of their forces disappeared. And in the latter's case, it'll explain why the present-day heroes are able to kill the 2014-alternate-timeline Thanos and their forces without destabilizing the timeline. I just really wish the movie explained this a bit more, instead of doing the whole "haha, time travel isn't like other movies" gag.

So... I don't know. I do appreciate, honestly, that Avengers: Endgame is a movie that prioritizes character over plot. I really do -- I'd rather have a movie with a strong emotional core and a slightly handwaved plot than the other way around. That's how you get sub-par superhero movies. But they spend so much time yakking on about reverse-mobius models and slapping "Quantum" behind everything but not really making clear just how the specifics of their time travel work particularly when things go awry. The easy part is to just handwave it and say that either Tony's Snap or Steve's Great Time Travel Adventure end up putting everything back in place, but I really felt like we could've gotten a line or two addressing the whole time travel stuff, particularly after the paradoxes have happened.

Or maybe we're just putting too much thought into it, and that it's this exact time paradox that created the Multiverse we'll be exploring in Spider-Man: Far From Home? I'm not the biggest fan of that theory, honestly, but it's one that I'll probably accept depending on the execution. Alternatively, people are saying that because the Avengers fucked with time in this movie, the next supervillain's going to be Kang the Conqueror, born out of the time paradoxes... but considering how relatively poorly time travel is handled in this movie, I don't have confidence that we can satisfactorily get a proper time travel movie that makes sense of these paradoxes.

Magic is a bludgeon

So one of the biggest praises I had for Infinity War is how visually appealing the spectacle of utilizing both magic and the Infinity Stones are. One of my biggest complaints about the usage of some of these Stones and reality-warping abilities is that... they're so... mundane. The Aether was just a swirling liquid metal goop in Dark World, and magic in Doctor Strange are primarily either just portals or magic swords. In Infinity War, they try their best to change this around. Thanos's fight with Doctor Strange is nothing short of phenomenal. From launching the mirror dimension itself to Thanos, to turning things into bubbles and butterflies, to altering reality to create a fake Knowhere, to doing the whole clone thing and summoning the chains and all that jazz.

Here? None of the Infinity Stones are even used in any sort of interesting capacity. The magicians all just essentially make shields and shoot beams, and the only interesting thing Dr. Strange does is to manipulate some rocks one time, and then he just gets stuck with waterspout management. Again, the action scenes work fine without the magic, but... it's just such wasted potential, y'know? The Infinity Stones quite literally get reduced to plot coupons, and the sole time anyone uses the Stones individually was when Thanos pulls the power one out to punch Captain Marvel in the face.

Again, the movie's pretty damn crowded as it is and the special effects budget is probably already through the roof as it is, but still... that final battle would've been a lot more interesting if the Infinity Stones were used, you know? Maybe have Thanos come into possession of one or two of the Stones by the time Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel and the other heavy hitters start coming into the play? Which leads into...

POWER LEVELS: IT'S OVER 9000

Another pretty valid criticism that I've seen is that by the moment the reinforcements arrive, Thanos really ended up feeling not quite as threatening, and a lot of people argue that he sholdn't even be that powerful in the first place. Sure, he's got a fancy new sword, but this is 2014-era Thanos, without any of the Infinity Stones. Sure, the argument that he's actually taking things seriously this time around and actually going for the kill instead of being detached and just dispatching the pests in his way goes a long way in explaining why a stoneless Thanos is so dangerous.

But the thing is, Thor with Stormbreaker in Infinity War was able to strike through Thanos with a completed infinity gauntlet, and... sure, Thanos might be preoccupied and slightly distracted in that movie, but in this one, Thanos is ostensibly weaker, while Thor has help. He's out of practice, maybe, but he's got Mjolnir and help in terms of Iron Man and Captain America. Power levels is not a thing in superhero shows, of course, and the main reason is so that it'd be an exciting action finale, but y'know.

Also, while it's certainly not one-on-one, it is interesting the same argument that happened to Scarlet Witch able to hold off a five-stone Thanos in Infinity War with her powers -- which came solely from a single Mind Stone -- also holds true in this movie. Captain Marvel, whose powers came solely from the single Space Stone, is able to hold Thanos off with ease. I suppose the infinity gauntlet really doesn't work as that much of a power-up, then, but more as an energy regulator or something? For all the introdump the movies do about where the Infinity Stones come from, I really wished we actually got some exposition about just what they do and how they relate to the gauntlet.

Also Doctor Strange is another super-powerful member on the battlefield who probably should be gunning for Thanos, huh? He managed to hold his on against a Thanos with four stones that was abusing the powers of the reality stone, he really should've done a lot more in this finale.

A little less egregious are the Black Order, who are basically fodder in this movie. Ebony Maw's the only one who's doing anything that looks particularly threatening, levitating rocks and shaping the terrain and everything. Meanwhile, the other three members of the Black Order, previously needing multiple powerful members of the Avengers to take down, end up basically being dispatched very simply. Corvus Glaive just dies in the background, skewered by Okoye. Cull Obsidian gets to fight Iron Man and Spider-Man for all of three seconds before Giant-Man accidentally stomps him flat. Proxima doesn't even get an action scene I don't think. I really do kind of wish we had gotten some more... mini-bosses, as it were. More ships, or something, to keep Dr. Strange and Captain Marvel and Scarlet Witch busy instead of, y'know, a waterspout.

Whatever happened to the mouse?

No, I'm not going to talk about the actual mouse that showed up in the movie. "What happened to the mouse" is a trope describing a character or a plot point that was brought up, but never really explored and is just sort of dropped and shrugged off. With how busy and jam-packed Infinity War and Endgame are, there defintiely are a couple of plot points that I wished we had more clarification of. Again, these could all be explored in future movies, and they certainly don't exactly ruin my enjoyment of Endgame, but these are conspicuous questions for me, and ones that could've easily been handwaved aside with a single line or two.

Whatever happened to Xandar?
It really could've been handled a lot better, all things considered. By the time Infinity War begun, Xandar's just fallen and Thanos already has the Power Stone. We really could've snuck in a post-credits scene somewhere (ideally Guardians 2) showing Thanos arriving at Xandar, or showcase one of the Guardians trying to hail Xandar and getting a reply informing our heroes of the devastation, or have the Xandarian survivors show up in the final battle... Didn't Rhomann Dey or whoever that dude is called survive Ronan's assault?

The Collector?
So is he dead? Alive? The Collector we saw in Infinity War was a projection of the Reality Stone, and while Knowhere is burning, we never actually got to see if he survived or not, and I'm genuinely not sure if the Collector is high on any movie's list of "hey, what happened to this character?"

Red Skull?
So is Red Skull, former leader of Hydra, just... a ghost guardian man now? Even with the missing confrontation between Steve and Red Skull, does he just sort of... hover there in Vormir until the Soul Stone is returned? Is he released of his curse? Did his character as a person change at all?

Infinity Stones power imbalance? Why don't they use individual stones?
How is the Tesseract able to transform the Red Skull into the immortal guardian of Vormir and the Soul Stone, or give Captain Marvel such immense strength; or the Mind Stone able to create Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Ultron and Vision... but when combined together, the stones are just sort of parts of a whole to Snap this and that? It's... it's part of my complaint, really, that they sort of forget about the Infinity Stones as individuals and are just treating them as collectibles. Alternatively, they have learned enough from the events of their various movies that messing with any single one of the Stones can really cause some massive fuck-ups. As for the power imbalance... comic book logic, I suppose.

Thanos: Rising?
We know Thanos's motivations. Or, well, at least his mission statement. We also see some bits and pieces of his past, particularly how it relates to Gamora. But we really have no real concept about what, really, made Thanos tick. What made him so, so convinced that wiping out half the population is the key to world peace? What alien race did he come from and why is he so damn powerful? As a quasi-comic-book-reader, I know some of these answers, but in the movies themselves, I kinda wished that either Infinity War or Endgame had at least explored these topics a little.

Cap's Big Journey?
So alternate timeline or not, Steve goes aroud returning every single Stone back to where they took it from. Fair enough -- presumably Steve goes around time with the Pym particles and used the Tesseract to travel through space. Returning the Power, Time and Mind Stones, as well as Mjolnir, would probably be simple enough as long as Steve can sneak in and out unseen. But how will Steve deal with the others? The Reality Stone in particular -- how is he going to get that back into Jane's body? As a side-note... I didn't think about it this way before, but, man, considering a huge plot point of Dark World is how difficult it is to extract the Aether out of Jane, the fact that Rocket did it with a syringe is probably a sly nod to how silly that whole movie is, huh?

Also, considering that the Tesseract and Loki's scepter respectively have to be shattered to access the stone inside, how did Cap get those stones back into their respective forms? Presumably Red Skull and Vormir just sort of accepted the Soul Stone too, huh? Considering how Steve talked about how he's going to 'prune all the branches', presumably Captain America's journey kept alternate timelines to a minimum.

WHY DID THEY NOT DO [X], a.k.a. Plot Holes Everywhere

Let's be nitpicky, and talk about some of the more... interesting plot holes in this movie. The real answer for any of thee is just "the movie would've not flown as well otherwise" or "it's the less interesting way things could've gone". But really, I kinda wished they sort of acknowledged or handwaved some of these. And I think I've talked enough of the time travel paradox questions above, which at this point I'm just going to shrug off as "Time Travel Works Don't Ask Us"... which, admittedly, is 100% consistent with the inconsistency that time travel is portrayed in superhero comics.

They should've called in Captain Marvel!
...and the movie would end up like Justice League, where Superman ends up cleaning up everything. There are a lot of moments where Carol really would've been useful. The Time Heist. Looking for someone to do the Snap. Hell, even when Doctor Strange was gathering allies. But this is a slightly less nitpicky bit as we could assume Carol is just still busy in space throughout everything that's going on. Would've been nice if we had a throwaway line talking about how Carol's fighting the remnants of Thanos's army or something, though.

They should've brought Okoye and Valkyrie and [insert character here] along!
I kind of get, to some extent, why they didn't bring certain characters along. They have a limited supply of Pym particles, after all, and someone like Okoye, despite her competence, wouldn't really have anywhere in her past to hunt for Infinity Stones. But arguably, neither did a lot of the other characters. War Machine, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Ant-Man and Rocket really have nothing to do with the stones they are assigned to, and, again, while Captain Marvel might be busy in space, it is kind of odd that the Avengers would pick a slightly mentally-unstable Hawkeye (at the beginning of the movie, at least) and a fat, drunken Thor as opposed to Okoye and Valkyrie, or literally anyone else. I dunno. It's the unfortunate reality when you juggle so many characters and so many actors, sometimes these things happen, but I really do wish we had gotten some explanation instead of them just being out of the movie for no real good reason.

Would it not be easier to get the Tesseract from Asgard in 2013? Or take the Aether from the Collector in 2014? Or the Mind Stone at any point in time it's in Hydra possession?
...that's a fair point, I guess they just didn't think about that. Out of universe? Because we're picking the most ideal plot points for our main Avengers characters to get emotional payoffs. Like, clocking the Collector in the head and absconding with the Aether would be ridiculously anticlimactic as opposed to Thor meeting Frigga.

Thanos's plan doesn't make sense!
That's the whole point of the goddamn movie. Thanos is a madman, and you should not be rooting for mass murder for the greater good.

So did Steve supplant the identity of Peggy Carter's original husband?
It's honestly a pretty interesting conundrum. Honestly, Steve creating a stable time loop is how I interpreted the movie's ending in the first place. After getting the Infinity Stones back to the points in the time that they took the stones out of, Steve ended up returning to the 1940's and marrying Peggy in secret, and the mysterious husband Peggy married in the prime timeline is Steve. It makes sense, and you can thank the super-serum that Steve ended up surviving all the way to 2023, all the while content to be 'retired'. But that would also mean that this 'old' Steve Rogers stood idly by while all sorts of horrors and deaths he could've prevented happened, which was why apparently the directors ended up putting out a statement that Steve went to an alternate timeline, and married the Peggy Carter there. Which is... it's a lot weirder and honestly I think makes the ending feel a lot less sweet, and I do believe that I liked the earlier explanation of Steve just being in the background of the original timeline all along. And even if Steve did end up creating a splinter timeline (which is presumably what happened in the 2012 where Loki escaped, the 2014 where Thanos disappeared, etc) the fact that he was able to return to the 'prime' timeline baffles me.

Why didn't they pick up the Infinity Gauntlet from when Thanos has completed them? Why didn't they go to 2018-era Titan and knock out Star-Lord?
After all, they could've had a very ideal point in time when Thor struck Thanos down with Stormbreaker, before or after the Snap. Just take the entire gauntlet from the weakened Thanos in 2018, and return back to 2023. Which... I don't really have an answer for that. I guess they were looking for spots in the timeline where they can theoretically cause minimal damage to the time stream? The original plan was to sneak in, cause minimal changes to the timeline, and then sneak out, after all. Showing up right in front of 2018-era Thanos will guarantee him reacting and causing a splinter timeline, I guess? I dunno. I really, really wished the time travel stuff was made a lot clearer.

Nebula's wi-fi?
...yeah, okay, this one is kind of an ass-pull, not going to lie. Doesn't bother me as much, but I do admit that I really wished the Nebula stuff had gotten some foreshadowing, either here or in previous movies.

Why didn't Nebula just time-travel immediately?
She's panicking. Thanos is still a pretty sore spot for her, I'd wager, and the idea of being captured and tortured again, and dooming their entire world-saving mission because of her mistake, is enough to cause her to panic and do stupid things.

Why did Clint and Natasha go to Vormir? Isn't it too convenient?
Yes, yes it is. Either Nebula is secretly a sadist and assigned them together without telling them the sacrifice plan (which is unlikely) or that it's simple, sheer coincidence. Considering Clint and Nat are both normal human super-spies, their skill-sets would've been a lot more useful quite literally in any other mission, either the New York or Asgard ones, or, hell even the Morag one, with the experienced space traveler Nebula taking the far more protected War Machine to the unknown Vormir. I guess it just comes to chance? Or maybe just lazy writing.

2014-Nebula opening a portal without Pym particles?
It's a bit of a plot hole, but it's later clarified by the directors that Thanos's scientists easily reverse-engineered the Pym Particles and copied the science from 2023-Nebula's mind. Kind of what you can easily infer, honestly, although it really wouldn't have hurt them to have added in an extra scene showing Ebony Maw experimenting with the Pym particles or something.

Where did War Machine get his spanking new armour?
...somewhere in the Avengers mansion, I guess? That one was a bit weird.

Why didn't they do [X] when they snapped?
Why didn't Hulk bring back Vision, Loki, Heimdall, et cetera? Even if Gamora and Black Widow are out of bounds, why didn't they reverse the other deaths? Or reforge an alternate Mjolnir, or immediately wish for the stones to be returned to their origin points in the timeline? Well... I dunno. Could be a couple of reasons, really, from the Stones causing even more harm depending on the complexity of the wish, to Hulk really already struggling to maintain the stones on his fist at all, so wishing for even more changes would've been problematic, or... y'know, plot reasons.

Also, for anyone out there who goes "why not wish Thanos away from the get-go", they had absolutely no idea 2014 Thanos was even coming until the Avengers mansion was firebombed, and the gauntlet and stones fell next to Hawkeye. Also, any other question about "why didn't they wipe Thanos from history" or any sort of actual alterations to the past is implicitly because Tony Stark had vowed to keep the events of the past couple of years intact to protect the existence of his daughter, and the heroes, being heroes, would not risk changing the timeline even further.

Why didn't Dr. Strange use the Time Stone to reverse time and bring back Tony from the dead?
...you got me there. Considering we've seen the Time Stone reverse Vision's death... yeah, I have no idea. Not even a "his death was caused by the full power of the infinity gauntlet, there's no reversing it" explanation. I guess it's part of the whole "good guys do not abuse absolute power" thing? Sounds like a hollow explanation, though, considering how they just, well, abused the Infinity Stones to restore the universe, but I suppose these superheroes have a far, far better adherence to their moral code than us. I guess the real explanation was the showmakers going "come on, that death scene was perfect."

Why didn't Ant-Man shrink into a small size and go up Thanos's butt and expand / Why didn't Wong sling ring and slice of Thanos's arm, et cetera, et cetera.
Out-of-universe, it wouldn't made for as epic of a movie. In-universe, they didn't think of it, or they were not in the right place at the right time.

"What, you wanted more?"

Yes, yes I do.

So that's the line that Wong says when Dr. Strange asks him if that's all the reinforcements that they could've summoned. It's greedy, I know, and considering a lot of the characters that actually do show up like half of the Guardians or Falcon or Bucky or Wong don't really do anything significant... it'd still be a particularly badass sequence just to have them show up, y'know?

And, yeah, in an ideal world, this would be the place to sneak in the Defenders, Ghost Rider, the Agents of SHIELD, the various Inhuman factions, the Runaways, Cloak and Dagger, and all the rest of them. But I know it's unrealistic. Even if the studio is willing to pay a couple dozen extra actors for a cameo, the mainstream audience would be baffled who the hell, say, Jessica Jones or Daisy Johnson or Deathlok or Karnak or whoever are. So while I'm sad that they didn't make it into the movie, I understand why, from a movie-making perspective.

I've also discussed how it's such a huge, huge shame that Nick Fury, Maria Hill and the remnants of SHIELD -- even if you don't show Coulson's SHIELD -- didn't show up for one last hurrah, especially considering that it was Fury that started this whole thing. But without further ado, and just drawing entirely from the movies, here are a bunch of characters I wished did show up:

• Lady Sif: She was also MIA in Thor: Ragnarok, so I wonder if there's some bad blood between her actress and Marvel Studios? Sif is the original Asgardian action heroine, and honestly it'd be a pretty damn powerful moment for Thor to see another one of his old allies being alive. It's perhaps one of the more major misses, I think. 
• Sharon Carter / Agent 13: Sure, Sharon's not the most impressive or colourful superhero out there, but she was basically considered an honourary superhero in Winter Soldier and Civil War. She didn't really get any sort of proper closure with Captain America, too, and while I realize she's nowhere as prominent as, say, Falcon or Winter Soldier, she definitely deserved better.
• Other SHIELD & Military Agents: Discounting Nick Fury and Maria Hill and the TV people, we could've had Jimmy Woo, or Colonel Ross, or Everett Ross in a Wakandan fighter jet. I dunno. It never struck me until now that we didn't even have any military presence in the final fight, huh?
• Eitri: Not even a single mention to everyone's favourite dwarf? I don't expect him to actually fight, maybe, but having him show up and throw around some Nidaveliir weapons would be pretty damn awesome, particularly since he's one of the few characters who have suffered greatly at the hands of Thanos. 
• Talos and the Skrulls: Talos is a great Skrull-bro, and when a lot of random alien spaceships showed up when Dr. Strange summoned them, I would've thought that the Skrulls would show up in the finale to help out Captain Marvel. The only reason they're not added, I guess, is that Captain Marvel and Endgame were filmed simultaneously, so it's just a matter of timing. Man, how badass would it be if 2014-Ronan followed the time-displaced Thanos to 2023, allowing Talos to fight one of the Accusers that have wiped out many of his people? 
• Ant-Man I & Wasp I: Hank and Janet did show up in the finale, but man, I'm kinda sad we didn't see these two old retirees suit up. I know they're retired, but if there's one fight that they would suit up for... hell, at least have Hank throw some of those tank keychains around, it'd be hilarious!
• Goliath & Ghost: Not as prominent characters as Hank or Janet, but these two characters from Ant-Man & The Wasp are technically allies to the Ant family, right? And even if Ghost is in pain from using her abilities, we know Goliath has limited Giant-Man style powers. It'd be a badass redemption. 
• Nakia: She, like, still counts as one of the Wakandan warriors, right? But she just skipped out on both Infinity War and Endgame. I know Okoye's a lot cooler, but still, it's a bit of a shame. 
• The Nova Corps: Or as I mentioned before, at least give us confirmation if Xandar is just fucked or something. I dunno. I confess I don't super-duper care about Nova Prime or the faceless army of space cops, and maybe some of their ships did show up in the background and I'm talking out of my ass, but it'd be neat to see them fight side by side with the Guardians and Ravagers. 
• Stakar Ogord and the old Guardians: A bit of a pipe dream, since Sylvester Stallone is expensive, but c'mon, they introduced the old, original Guardians team in Volume 2, why not use them and see how cool they are?

Also, on the bad guys' side... by 2014, The Other should be alive, isn't he? He's certainly nowhere as charismatic as Ebony Maw, but would've been a neat continuity nod seeing him fighting alongside the others. 

Click under the break for easter eggs listing!

MARVEL EASTER EGGS CORNER

As the biggest Marvel cinematic universe movie and one whose whole point was to celebrate the half decade's worth of movies, you can bet there's a fuck-ton of callbacks to previous movies, as well as other aspects of the comics. And that's not counting the fact that we went back to the time periods of The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: The Dark World for a significant portion of the movie as well!

A quickfire one, because there is a lot of nods to previous movies. We're starting off with nods to previous movies first. Phase one movie easter eggs:

• Tony's final line to Thanos before his own Snap, "I am Iron Man", is the iconic final line of the original Iron Man movie, and one that catapulted Tony Stark as essentially the face of the Marvel Universe both in-universe and IRL.
• The first arc reactor with the words "proof that Tony Stark has a heart" is a large plot device in the original Iron Man movie, and is used in Tony's funeral as part of his funeral wreath. 
• Happy has a clearly melancholic expression at Morgan Stark asking Happy for a cheeseburger, noting that cheeseburgers were Tony's favourite food -- indeed, Tony did iconically ask for a "cheeseburger first, press conference second" after he returned from being taken captive by the Ten Rings in Iron Man. 
• The post-credit scenes are the sounds of hammering on a forge, a reference to how Tony Stark built his legacy in a cave from a box of scraps. 
• Easy to miss, but New Asgard is located in Tonsberg, the ancient village featured in Thor where an ancient war against Asgardians and Jotuns took place, as well as in Captain America: The First Avenger where Johann Schmidt found the Tesseract. 
• Captain America and Bucky's final lines before Captain America stepped into the time machine at the final scenes of the movie is "don't do anything stupid while I'm gone", followed by "how can I? You're taking all the stupid with you." which is the same thing that Bucky said to Steve in Captain America: The First Avenger prior to Bucky leaving to enlist in the war.
• Captain America's iconic catchphrase, "I can do this all day", originated from Captain America: The First Avengers, and has sort of became kind of a meme afterwards. 
• Tony did get his wish in both The Avengers and in the first act of this movie where he muses that the last thing he wants to see before he dies, as well as his dying thoughts, to be Pepper's face... and that, indeed, is what he sees as he dies. 
• 2012-era Thor notes that they're going to "lunch, and then Asgard", referencing the Shwarma post-credits scene at the end of The Avengers, as well as the scene later on of Thor and Loki returning back to Asgard at the end of that movie. 
• In The Avengers, several moves from Captain America, Thor and Iron Man fighting against each other in the first act is referenced when the three of them join forces against Thanos in Avengers: Endgame. In particular, Mjolnir hitting Captain America's shield causing a massive shockwave was what ended the fight in Avengers, but both items are wielded by Steve to knock Thanos off-balance in Endgame. Likewise, Thor overcharging Iron Man was an accident in Avengers, but used as what's essentially a combo move in Endgame. 
• Clint and Natasha make jokes about them being a long way from Budapest, a reference to their battle banter in The Avengers while fighting the Chitauri about a prior mission in Budapest. 
• 2014-era Thanos mutters that the humans and Avengers that opposed him are "unruly wretches", the same way that The Other referred to the humans when he reported to Thanos of the Chitauri and Loki's failure at the end of The Avengers.

Phase 2 movies easter eggs. Again, I'm only listing easter eggs, not the entire time-frames that our heroes traipse through.

• This isn't Pepper Potts' first Iron Man armour, because she did don Tony's armour briefly in Iron Man 3 to defend their home from the Mandarin's forces. 
• In 2012, a captured Loki mocks the Avengers by briefly transforming into Captain America to mock them. While foreshadowing the misunderstanding between 2012-Steve and 2023-Steve, it's also a homage to a scene in Thor: The Dark World, which features a memorable cameo by Chris Evans as Loki-disguised-as-Steve. 
• Thor attempts to excuse his cybernetic right eye as being "hit in the face during the Battle of Harokin". While we never see said battle, it was brought up in idle conversation between Thor and Sif in Thor: The Dark World. 
• Captain America dons the 'stealth outfit' from Captain America: The Winter Soldier when they head off to space to confront Thanos, which is definitely not something I expected. 
• The whole scene where 2012-era Captain America meets Brock Rumlow and Jasper Sitwell's team in an elevator features a lot of shot-for-shot recreation of the epic and most memorable action scene on the elevator in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The joke is, of course, Steve manages to defuse the situation by taking advantage of how he knows they're all Hydra agents, leading to the "Hail Hydra" whisper scene, itself a reference to another iconic scene from The Winter Soldier involving Jasper Sitwell and Senator Stern. 
• SHIELD 1970's bunker headquarters is seen in all its glory here. This bunker was featured prominently in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where Captain America and Black Widow would find the computerized mind of Arnim Zola located beneath the abandoned base. As a nod to this, Howard Stark was looking for Arnim Zola before he bumped into Tony Stark. 
• Falcon's line to Captain America is a nod to the running gag from The Winter Soldier, where Steve and Sam originally met each other while jogging, with Steve constantly overlapping Sam with the words "on your left".
• While ranting against Captain America, Tony brings up his original "a suit of armour all over the world" plan from Avengers: Age of Ultron, as well as the recurring nightmares of an alien invasion and a pile of dead Avengers bodies, which... kinda-sorta foreshadows Infinity War and Endgame in very broad strokes. Captain America's broken shield was in Tony's dream-vision, though, which happens for real in this movie courtesy of Thanos. 
• Tony also brings up Steve's line about how "if we lose, we would do so together" from Age of Ultron.
• Rumlow's team in 2012 talk about how they are bringing Loki's scepter to Dr. List, who is Baron Wolfgang von Strucker's right-hand man. As we see at the beginning of Age of Ultron as well as several tie-in episodes of Agents of SHIELD, it definitely made its way to Dr. List all right. 
• Captain America previously budged Mjolnir during a casual Avengers party in Age of Ultron, causing Thor, at that point to react slightly shocked. This movie confirms that Thor definitely suspected that Steve was worthy all this time, and has outgrown his pride and is totally okay that Steve can pick it up.
• Edwin Jarvis is a major protagonist in the two-season long TV show Agent Carter, where he assisted Howard Stark and Peggy Carter in establishing SHIELD and fighting against threats against mankind.  

Phase 3 movies easter eggs: 

• The events of Captain America: Civil War is brought up a bit, particularly between Tony and Steve earlier in the movie where Tony rants about their past ideological differences with Steve. Post-timeskip, Tony would apologize and return Captain America's shield to him, noting that "he made it for you", in contrast to his original parting words with Steve about how the shield belonged to his father, not him. 
• Ant-Man introduces himself to the Avengers mansion by reminding them that they met in the airport and he got "really big", referencing how his Giant-Man powers first debuted in the events of Civil War.
• During the final battle, Black Panther refers to Clint by name, which is a reference to the two of them coming to blows during the events of Civil War, where Clint jovially introduces himself only to be met with a rebuffal of "I don't care" by T'Challa. Evidently, he does now. 
• Captain America calls Spider-Man by the nickname of "Queens", which came from their brief conversation about their mutual New York origins in Civil War.
• The Ancient One in 2012 tells Hulk that he's "five years too early" for Stephen Strange, and it's established in Doctor Strange that she's seen the future to learn about Stephen Strange.
• Nebula's surprise at being complimented after a victory recalls a conversation in Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, where she notes that she has never once won in any game against Gamora. 
• There is a running gag in Spider-Man: Homecoming of Spider-Man's "suit-lady" A.I., Karen, suggesting that Spider-Man use Instant Kill Mode. Peter finally activates it against the Outrider horde, and it's apparently just automatic stabs with the iron spider legs. 
• Spider-Man: Homecoming features a scene prominently of Peter hugging Tony awkwardly while Tony shoos him out of his car, noting that "we're not there yet". Here, Tony gives him the biggest of hugs after seeing him resurrected. 
• Even when the two personalities have merged, Professor Hulk uses original Hulk's nickname for Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok, which is "Angry Girl". 
• Frigga being confused at Thor's cybernetic eye refers to Thor's eye being gouged out in Thor: Ragnarok and subsequently replaced by Rocket in Avengers: Infinity War.
• Tony apologizes to Pepper about "no more surprises", in a reference to a line he and Pepper talked about in Avengers: Infinity War. Also, during the conversation, he also briefly notes that he dreamed that they had a son called Morgan, named after Pepper's uncle. In the five-year timeskip, they have a daughter instead, but her name is still Morgan. 
• In a hilarious brick joke, in Infinity War, Wong off-handedly noted that he likes Ben & Jerry's "Hunk-a Hulk-a Burning Fudge" flavour, which Professor Hulk ends up eating by the tubful at one point during the Time Heist brainstorming session. 
• Thor keeps calling Rocket a 'rabbit' throughout Infinity War. Evidently, it's a confusion that is shared by all of Asgard, because the random Asgardian guards that chases Rocket during the Time Heist yell at each other to "stop that rabbit!"
• During the first scene with Clint teaching his daughter archery, he has a tracking device on his ankle -- clearly, Clint was under the same terms of house arrest similar to Ant-Man in Ant-Man and the Wasp due to their support of Steve Rogers during Civil War. 
• In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Wasp gives Scott some grief for referring to Captain America by the nickname "Cap". In this movie, Wasp herself addresses Cap by "Cap", leading to a shared grin between the two.
• Captain Marvel destroys the same sort of gigantic spaceship the same way she destroys one of the Kree Accusers' ships in Captain Marvel.  

Comic book easter eggs:

• The concept of the Avengers splitting up into smaller teams to travel through time, complete with a large amount of references to past adventures, is highly based on the twelve-issue Avengers Forever miniseries.
• "Avengers Assemble", of course, is the iconic battlecry that's said almost every possible opportunity in the comics. In a subversion, every time it's about to be said in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, the line ends up being cut away... until this epic, epic climactic movie. 
• The Snap dusting half of living things is dubbed "The Decimation" in-universe. In the comics, the Decimation is a different event caused by a crazed Scarlet Witch's powers going out of control in the events of House of M, leading to the depowering of 99% of the world's mutants. 
• The whole scene of Thanos retiring on an alien planet and farming, while using his armour as a scarecrow, is a homage to the end of The Infinity Gauntlet, the original comic-book maxi-event that Infinity War adapts in broad strokes. That Thanos didn't get his head chopped off by a group of vengeful superheroes. 
• Captain America's "Hail Hydra" whisper to Jasper Sitwell isn't just a reference to the iconic line from the Winter Soldier movie, but also a reference to a storyline called "Secret Empire" in the comics, which ended up being spread like wildfire upon the universally-derided (and eventually retconned) revelation that Captain America was a deep sleeper agent all this time.
• Captain America fighting himself is, of course, a reference to apparently iconic issue, Captain America #156. 
• Of course, in the comics, Captain America's successor is Falcon. One of them, anyway -- sometimes it's Bucky. 
• Ant-Man's van is locked away in storage unit number 616, a likely reference to the significant number 616 -- Earth-616 is the name of the mainstream, original Marvel comics designation in the multiverse.
• Thanos's catchphrase in this movie, "I am inevitable", is a reference to an iconic line from The Infinity Gauntlet, "Thanos is inevitable."
• Thanos destroying Captain America's shield, while Captain America remaining as the one last man standing to fight and stand against Thanos, parallels their encounter in The Infinity Gauntlet, where a similar thing happened -- albeit comics!Thanos actually straight-up murdered all the other Avengers and would murder Steve shortly afterwards. 
• Meanwhile, Thanos's enmity with Iron Man throughout Infinity War and Endgame actually recalls Thanos's very first comic-book appearance where he's just a regular random alien warlord... and he debuted in Iron Man #55 as an Iron Man villain. 
• As you can probably tell by everyone referring to the Hulk in this movie as "Professor Hulk", this is what the combined-persona of Bruce Banner and Hulk ended up being called in the comics. 
• Hawkeye's identity Ronin is a combination of Hawkeye adopting a new identity in the mainstream, 616 Marvel continuity, but is also loosely inspired by the events of the Ultimate Marvel continuity, where Hawkeye's family was murdered brutally, causing Hawkeye to self-destruct and adopt a violent, suicidal attitude. The movie wisely brings in the tried-and-true Punisher mentality instead. 
• A very small one, but Red Skull addresses Hawkeye as "Clint, Son of Edith". Clint's father was an abusive shitbag in the comics, and Clint has basically disowned and cut all ties with him.
• The whole "rebuilding New Asgard on Earth" is a plot from the more modern Thor runs, where the Asgardians rebuilt "New Asgardia" in Oklahoma after the events of Ragnarok.
• Thor becoming a drunken, long-haired messy wreck was inspired by the 2014 Unworthy Thor run, although the comic version features neither Thor getting obese nor him playing video games. Instead, the Asgardian who grew fat and obese to cope from a traumatic ordeal is Thor's brother Balder, who went through a similar thing in the 90's. 
• Thor has apparently wielded multiple Mjolnir-equivalents in different points of his runtime. Sometimes it's hammers belonging to alternate Thors, sometimes it's a temporarily-displaced hammer. 
• This being the final movie for the two of them, Iron Man's final armour is a more realistic recreation of his original, classic "Mark II" armour from the comics, with faithful depiction of colour schemes. In the same vein, Captain America's final outfit in this movie finally adapts the classic chain-mail fish-scale design of his comic-book counterpart's outfit, something that the MCU movies have not incorporated for the longest time. 
• Rocket Raccoon's outfit in this movie, with the scarf and everything, is similar to the original Abnett/Lanning run of Guardians of the Galaxy that popularized Rocket as a character and is where the MCU's version of the Guardians draws the most from. 
• Rocket's insistence in a conversation with Black Widow about how he's not actually a raccoon is a reference to a (somewhat controversial) retcon that Rocket is not actually an uplifted cyborg raccoon, but an alien that just happens to look like one. 
• While he doesn't suit up, in the 70's a very comic-book accurate version of the original Ant-Man suit can be seen in Hank Pym's desk. 
• In the comics, Rescue's armour is red, like most other Iron Man armours. But the MCU version takes inspiration from the Iron Man: Armored Adventures cartoon, where the Rescue armour is purplish-blue. 
• Captain Marvel's outfit post-timeskip is a wee bit closer to her comic book counterpart's, with her short-cut hair as well as a red sash as a belt. The outline of her costume -- inverted from her outfit in Captain Marvel -- is now red with black shoulder and leg areas. This is a reference to Carol's first comic-book outfit as "Ms. Marvel", albeit without showing off 50% of her skin. 
• Captain Marvel gets a slightly flirty line with Spider-Man when they meet each other. The two characters (who didn't have quite as drastic as an age gap as they do in the MCU) actually dated for a while in the comics. 
• The Quantum realm suits share a lot of similarity to the design and colours of the space uniform suits worn by the Avengers in the cartoon Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
• Hawkeye is the first person other than Ant-Man to volunteer to shrink down to enter the Quantum Realm, and it's a subtle nod to how Clint actually adopted the identity and powers of Goliath briefly in the comics.
• "Asgardians of the Galaxy" is actually a comic-book title, albeit one that was published very recently.