Avengers Endgame Encore (2026) 💜💙❤️💚💛🧡

Weekend at Endgame’s — Disney and the Russo Brothers Are Holding Up 2019 and Pretending It’s Still Alive

Seven years. It has somehow been seven years since Avengers: Endgame originally came out in 2019, and Marvel Studios has now dragged it back into theaters under the title Avengers: Endgame Encore, conveniently just a few months before Avengers: Doomsday. I hadn’t sat through this entire movie since I originally saw it in theaters, so going back after seven years was certainly an experience. However, probably not for the reasons Marvel wanted it to be. The strangest part wasn’t discovering some exciting new version of Endgame. It was realizing just how much the MCU, the actors, and even my own perspective have changed while the actual movie sitting in front of me has remained almost completely frozen in 2019.

Before anything else, let me save some of you three hours. If you’re buying a ticket to Endgame Encore specifically because you want to see the new Doomsday connections, you’re basically going to sit through the exact same three-hour Avengers: Endgame you watched in 2019 before reaching the new material around the ending and credits. This isn’t some dramatically expanded cut with deleted scenes restored throughout the runtime. This isn’t a substantially reedited version. This isn’t Avengers: Endgame — The Definitive Edition. For almost the entire movie, I was sitting there thinking, “Yep. That’s Avengers: Endgame. That is indeed the movie I saw seven years ago.”

And that’s my biggest problem with this entire rerelease: it’s unbelievably lazy.

I should also establish something before anyone assumes I’m somebody who adored Endgame in 2019 and then decided years later that it’s suddenly fashionable to hate it. I’ve had major problems with this movie for years. My previous rating was a 4/10, and I’ve always considered Infinity War dramatically better. Weirdly enough, though, watching Endgame again after seven years actually made me enjoy it slightly more. The pacing went down a little easier after such a long break, and I found myself chuckling more than I remembered. So congratulations, Endgame. Seven years later, you’re getting upgraded from a 4/10 to a 5/10.

Don’t spend that extra point all in one place.

Let’s Start by Showing Y’all the Trailers Shall We?

Yes, I did play the two thousand nineteen endgame trailers because this is the exact same movie, also wow that you could not live with your own failures, where that bring you? Back to me. Seem eerily fitting for what Disney is doing with this film, also, since this is apparently the promotion for doomsday. Here’s a trailer for that movie.

Yeah see y’all on December 18th I guess! Enjoyed all the so called set up? Lolo, also, here’s a funny silence. Your cell phones doomsday styled version that they released in front of this re. Release.

Wait, There Are Different Versions of Endgame Encore?

And because this rerelease apparently wasn’t unnecessarily complicated enough already, there’s another thing worth talking about: not every screening of Avengers: Endgame Encore gives audiences exactly the same experience.

There are standard screenings, IMAX screenings and Disney’s new Infinity Vision premium-screen certification. I personally saw the movie in IMAX, which meant I got the complete collection of new Doomsday material, including the TVA sequence involving the multiverse collapsing. Infinity Vision screenings also received the complete collection. However, some standard screenings did not receive all of that material, with the TVA/incursion sequence being held for the premium presentations.

I’m sorry, but that’s ridiculous. In other words, this is just one giant cash grab of a scam.

You’re already asking people to pay money to watch a seven-year-old, three-hour movie again because you’ve attached a few minutes of supposedly important setup for Avengers: Doomsday. The Russo brothers have been talking about how important Encore is to understanding where things are going next. Fine. If you’re going to make that argument, then why the hell aren’t you showing all of that supposedly important material to everybody who buys a ticket?

Imagine somebody doesn’t spend every waking moment reading Marvel press releases. They see an advertisement saying Endgame Encore contains an exclusive look at Doomsday. They buy a standard ticket, sit through three fucking hours of a movie they’ve already seen, reach the end and then discover:

“Oh! You didn’t buy the correct Endgame Encore.”

What?

“You bought Endgame Encore.”

Yes.

“But not Endgame Encore Encore.”

Oh, fuck off.

And the scene being withheld from some standard screenings isn’t just some thirty-second introduction where Robert Downey Jr. says hello. It’s the TVA sequence establishing that multiple incursions are happening simultaneously and the multiverse itself is collapsing. If we’re being told these additions are important connective tissue for Doomsday, that’s pretty significant connective tissue to lock behind particular premium presentations.

Either this footage matters or it doesn’t.

If it matters, put it in every version.

If it doesn’t matter, stop marketing Encore like audiences need to see it before Doomsday.

I was fortunate because I deliberately chose IMAX and therefore got the complete experience, but that doesn’t make the strategy any less irritating. If anything, knowing somebody could’ve bought a ticket to the exact same rerelease, watched the exact same three-hour movie I watched, and then received less of the only genuinely new material makes this whole thing feel even more cynical.

And Infinity Vision makes the situation even more interesting because Disney is clearly trying to establish it as a recognizable premium theatrical option. That’s fine. Compete on screen size, projection, sound, brightness, presentation quality—whatever makes the experience better.

But don’t compete using story scenes.

I don’t want superhero movies reaching the point where buying tickets starts sounding like I’m selecting a video-game edition:

Standard Edition: Movie + some bonus footage.

IMAX Edition: Movie + complete Doomsday setup.

Infinity Vision Edition: Movie + complete Doomsday setup + Disney-approved premium presentation.

What’s next?

Avengers: Doomsday Ultimate Latveria Edition — includes five additional minutes of Victor von Doom if you buy the commemorative popcorn bucket?

This isn’t DLC.

It’s a movie.

And if Marvel genuinely believes these scenes are important enough to connect Endgame to Doomsday, everybody who pays to see Endgame Encore should get the same damn story.

I still remember the insane amount of hype surrounding the original Endgame. Infinity War ended with Thanos actually winning. Half of existence disappeared. Peter Parker died terrified in Tony’s arms. Thor realized his desire to make Thanos suffer instead of immediately killing him had cost the universe everything. Then Thanos sat down peacefully and watched the sunrise. We had to wait an entire year to discover how the Avengers could possibly recover from that, and Marvel managed to hide a surprising amount of the actual movie from its trailers. There was genuine mystery surrounding Endgame, and there was genuine anticipation because Infinity War had done the work to earn it.

The marketing for Encore feels completely different because Marvel isn’t really selling Endgame anymore. They’re selling Doomsday, and hilariously enough, the laziness started before my screening even began.

They played the second Doomsday trailer—the one originally shown at D23—and the countdown at the end still said the movie was four months and three days away.

Guys.

I watched this on September 29.

Doomsday releases December 18.

We’re less than three months away.

Apparently updating a months-old countdown graphic before putting the trailer back into theaters required too much effort. It’s a tiny detail, absolutely, but it perfectly foreshadowed what I was about to watch: take something you already have, don’t bother updating it, and put it back on the screen.

Then Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. appeared in a prerecorded introduction to remind everybody how Endgame was the experience of a lifetime back in 2019 and how it served as the bookend to the Infinity Saga.

Thanks, guys.

I was there.

I remember.

But using the word “bookend” is unintentionally hilarious when you’re about to show me a rerelease whose entire purpose is reopening that ending seven years later and attaching setup for another Avengers movie to it. Nothing screams “bookend” quite like reopening the book and writing another paragraph on the final page.

They then told everybody to buy tickets for Avengers: Doomsday on December 18, and RDJ finished the introduction by saying:

“We love you 3000.”

And I’m sorry, but my immediate reaction sitting there was basically:

Oh, fuck off.

“I love you 3000” actually meant something between Tony and Morgan. It became one of the emotional signatures of Tony’s death and his relationship with his daughter. Using it seven years later as a cute little nostalgia wink immediately after advertising tickets for the next Avengers movie felt unbelievably corporate to me.

And Endgame Encore hadn’t even properly started yet.

Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

Do I really need to explain Avengers: Endgame in 2026?

Fine.

Following Thanos successfully wiping out half of all life in Infinity War, the surviving Avengers are left dealing with their failure. Their initial attempt to reverse what happened goes nowhere, and five years pass with humanity attempting to rebuild around an unimaginable loss. Steve Rogers is running support groups while clearly being unable to move forward himself. Natasha is desperately trying to keep whatever remains of the Avengers functioning. Thor has completely fallen apart. Tony has finally found some peace with Pepper and their daughter Morgan.

Then Scott Lang unexpectedly returns from the Quantum Realm and discovers that while only a short amount of time seemed to pass for him, five years passed outside. That gives the surviving Avengers an idea: use the Quantum Realm to travel into different points in their own history, retrieve past versions of the Infinity Stones, bring them into the present and use them to restore everyone Thanos erased.

And yes.

Seven years later:

I still think the time travel is stupid.

But the important thing regarding Encore is that none of this has suddenly become a substantially different movie. If you already own Endgame, have Disney+, bought the Blu-ray, saw it multiple times in 2019 or can recite half the movie from memory, Encore doesn’t suddenly provide some radically different version of the central story.

You’re watching Endgame again because Marvel wants to get you to what comes afterward.

Character Rundown

Robert Downey Jr. is still excellent as Tony Stark, and Tony remains one of the strongest elements of the movie. His reluctance to participate in the Time Heist makes complete sense because, for once, Tony actually has something peaceful that he doesn’t want to lose. He survived Titan, spent weeks stranded in space, returned home and eventually built a family with Pepper and Morgan. Tony isn’t refusing because he suddenly doesn’t care about everybody Thanos erased; he’s terrified that fixing the past might destroy the future he finally managed to create. His relationship with Morgan remains sweet, and Tony’s eventual decision to help feels like an actual decision rather than something the screenplay forces him into immediately.

Tony and Nebula stranded in space also remains good material. I like their strange little friendship, and I especially like the quiet moment between Nebula and Rocket after they realize that practically everybody they cared about is gone. The movie doesn’t need some enormous speech there. They look at each other and understand.

Steve Rogers works well during the aftermath too. He’s literally telling other people they need to move forward while being one of the characters least capable of doing that himself. Natasha is similarly trapped by the past, except her response is desperately holding onto the Avengers because the Avengers became her chosen family. I actually wish Endgame spent more time exploring that because it’s one of Natasha’s more interesting emotional ideas.

Although watching Natasha in 2026 produces some unintentionally hilarious moments thanks to Black Widow. Natasha says:

“Before all this, before this job, before this family, I had nothing.”

And my brain immediately went:

“Really, Natasha?”

“How’s Yelena doing?”

“Melina?”

“Not-Sheriff-Hopper?”

Then Tony later asks whether Natasha had any family, and Steve answers:

“Yeah. Us.”

Yelena somewhere:

“Well fuck me, I guess.”

Obviously Black Widow was made later, and there’s a perfectly reasonable interpretation that Natasha means the Avengers were the first stable family she actually chose for herself. Her childhood family was created as part of an undercover operation, she was separated from Yelena for years, and the Red Room destroyed anything resembling a normal childhood. Still, those lines sound noticeably different after Marvel retroactively established that Natasha had Yelena, Alexei and Melina and had even reunited with them before Infinity War. It’s not necessarily an Endgame plot hole; it’s just one of several places where seven additional years of MCU continuity make a 2019 scene hit very differently.

Clint Barton becoming Ronin still feels massively underdeveloped to me. We get this dramatic introduction showing Clint has become a sword-wielding vigilante murdering criminals after losing his family, Natasha retrieves him, and then the Ronin identity mostly disappears. For something presented as this enormous transformation caused by five years of grief, it feels surprisingly temporary.

Professor Hulk?

Still hate him.

Seven years accomplished absolutely nothing there.

Bruce explains that he stopped treating Hulk as a disease and finally combined Banner’s intelligence with Hulk’s body, which is a perfectly interesting concept. The problem is that what I see doesn’t feel like Banner and Hulk becoming one character. It feels like Bruce Banner became enormous and green. Hulk’s independent personality—the angry, childish, destructive personality we’d watched slowly develop throughout previous movies—is essentially gone, and one of Bruce and Hulk’s biggest pieces of character development happened entirely offscreen.

Thor’s depression, on the other hand, makes complete sense. This man lost Odin, Loki, Heimdall, Asgard, enormous numbers of his people, and then had Thanos at his mercy and failed because he wanted revenge rather than simply killing him. Of course Thor has collapsed psychologically. My problem has never been Thor becoming depressed. My problem is how often his physical appearance becomes the joke. Tony’s panic attacks in Iron Man 3 were treated seriously. Thor gets “HAHAHA, LOOK HOW FAT HE IS!” repeatedly. The underlying character idea is much better than the execution.

Watching Thor in 2026 also creates another funny hindsight problem. Near the end, he gives Valkyrie control of New Asgard and talks like he might not even return. In 2019, that’s presented as this enormous new direction: Thor is leaving his old responsibilities behind, Valkyrie is becoming king, and Thor is heading into space with the Guardians.

2026 me:

“Bullshit. You’re back dealing with New Asgard pretty damn quickly in Love and Thunder.”

Even the whole Thor joining the Guardians setup now feels strangely temporary because Love and Thunder moves past that partnership incredibly quickly. In 2019 it felt like Marvel was setting up this huge new status quo. Seven years later, I know most of the interesting adventures that supposedly came from it happened between movies.

Captain Marvel still doesn’t work for me in this movie either.

And yes.

I still hate the haircut.

But my bigger issue after this rewatch is how obviously her power level creates problems for the screenplay. Carol is so absurdly powerful that Endgame basically needs her to be somewhere else for most of the movie. The in-universe explanation is that other planets need help too, which is perfectly understandable, but from a writing perspective it’s incredibly convenient.

Then she returns during the final battle and flies straight through Thanos’ enormous ship like it’s made of tissue paper.

My immediate thought was basically:

“HEY! THERE’S THE DEUS EX MACHINA!”

When Thanos later headbutts her and she barely reacts, the movie practically demonstrates its own problem. He ultimately needs to pull the Power Stone out and hit her directly with it to get her away. I wouldn’t say the movie definitively proves Carol could simply walk over and snap Thanos’ neck whenever she feels like it, because superhero power levels are never that clean, but Endgame absolutely creates a balancing problem for itself. Carol is so powerful that the easiest dramatic limitation is simply:

She’s busy somewhere else.

And finally we have Thanos.

Except this isn’t really the Thanos I loved in Infinity War.

That Thanos gets killed near the beginning.

The final villain is his 2014 counterpart, and I hated that decision years ago just as much as I do now. Infinity War Thanos was patient, calm, strangely charismatic and completely convinced that his horrifying philosophy was necessary. He’d personally experienced the events of that movie. He sacrificed Gamora. He fought Strange. He stabbed Tony. He survived Thor burying Stormbreaker in his chest. He completed his mission.

The Avengers never really get their rematch against that Thanos.

Instead 2014 Thanos basically watches the highlights, discovers his future counterpart succeeded and eventually decides he’ll destroy the entire universe and create a new one because the survivors weren’t grateful enough.

Wow.

Much more interesting.

You took one of Marvel’s best villains and transformed him into Final Boss Thanos.

Pacing / Episode Flow

This is one area where my opinion actually improved slightly. I still think Endgame feels like three different movies glued together: a bleak post-Snap drama, a time-travel heist and then an enormous CGI superhero war. But after not watching the movie for seven years, I found the pacing slightly easier to sit through than I remembered. Maybe seven years was simply the appropriate amount of time I needed between Endgame viewings.

The first portion remains the most interesting structurally because we’re actually living with the consequences of Infinity War. Humanity has been broken for five years. Natasha can’t move forward. Steve can’t move forward. Thor has fallen apart. Tony has created a family. Clint has become Ronin. There’s an entire fascinating movie buried inside the question of what happens when the superheroes lose and then have to live with that loss for years.

Then Scott returns and suddenly we’re on the MCU Greatest Hits Tour.

Remember The Avengers?

Remember Thor: The Dark World?

Remember Guardians of the Galaxy?

Remember Alexander Pierce?

Remember Crossbones?

At one point Frank Grillo appeared as Brock Rumlow and my 2026 brain immediately went:

“GASP! RICK FLAG SR.!”

Wrong franchise, Jarrod.

Individual moments during the Time Heist work. Tony meeting Howard is good. Thor meeting Frigga is good. Steve fighting himself is entertaining. Rhodey watching Peter Quill dance around Morag and immediately concluding he’s an idiot still makes me chuckle. But collectively, this is where Endgame starts feeling like Marvel touring its own museum, and knowing how nostalgia-heavy the MCU became afterward makes that stick out even more now.

Then the final act turns into one enormous battle, and I still hate the Infinity Gauntlet hot-potato sequence. Everybody starts passing the most powerful object in existence around like they’re participating in some superhero relay race.

TAKE THE GLOVE!

GET IT OVER THERE!

PASS IT!

RUN!

I understand that it’s supposed to give different heroes their individual moments while moving the Gauntlet across the battlefield. I know I’m supposed to think it’s awesome.

I don’t.

I think it’s stupid.

Pros

Despite everything I’ve criticized about Avengers: Endgame, there are absolutely things in this movie that still work for me, and rewatching it for the first time since 2019 actually reminded me of more of them than I expected. Tony Stark remains one of the strongest parts of the movie. I still really like the opening material with Tony and Nebula stranded in space because it’s such an unusual pairing, and the movie allows their relationship to develop through relatively small moments rather than enormous speeches. Watching them play their little paper football game together is strangely sweet, especially knowing how completely broken both characters are after what happened on Titan. Tony is physically deteriorating while Nebula has just lost practically everybody she cared about, and there’s a quiet understanding between them that works surprisingly well.

Tony’s material after the five-year jump also remains strong. I like that the movie doesn’t have him immediately agree to the Time Heist simply because Steve asks. Tony finally has something he’s terrified of losing: Pepper and Morgan. He spent years believing that the Avengers needed to prepare for some enormous threat, that threat finally arrived, Tony lost, and somehow he eventually managed to build a peaceful life afterward. His reluctance makes complete sense. The relationship between Tony and Morgan is also genuinely sweet, which obviously makes Tony’s eventual sacrifice considerably more effective.

Tony meeting Howard Stark during the Time Heist is another scene I still really like. Yes, it’s fan service, but it’s fan service with actual character development underneath it. Tony gets to speak to his father as an adult, understand Howard from a completely different perspective and have one final conversation with him without Howard realizing he’s talking to his own son. Tony has spent so much of his life carrying complicated feelings toward Howard that there’s something genuinely satisfying about him finally getting a little closure.

Thor meeting Frigga also works extremely well for me. I have plenty of problems with how the movie handles Thor’s depression elsewhere, but this scene actually treats what he’s going through seriously. Frigga immediately realizes that something is wrong with her son, and Thor finally gets to speak with somebody who understands him without judging what he’s become. When Thor discovers that he’s still worthy of Mjolnir, I like that moment too. It’s not saying his depression magically disappeared. It’s giving Thor the reassurance that despite everything he’s been through and everything he thinks he’s failed at, he is still worthy.

Natasha and Clint’s relationship remains one of the stronger emotional relationships in the movie as well. I still have issues with how quickly Endgame moves on after Natasha’s death, but the actual Vormir sequence works. Neither one is pretending to sacrifice themselves because the screenplay needs somebody to die. They both genuinely believe the other person deserves to survive. Clint wants Natasha to live because he believes he’s become something horrible during his years as Ronin, while Natasha believes restoring Clint’s family is more important than saving herself. Their fight over who gets to die is tragic precisely because they’re fighting to save each other.

Tony’s final sacrifice still works for me too. The “And I… am… Iron Man” callback is one of the bigger callbacks in the movie, but unlike some of the fan service that bothers me, this one feels earned because it closes Tony’s story. The MCU began with Tony publicly declaring “I am Iron Man,” and his final act is Tony using that identity to save everybody else. His funeral afterward is also effective, particularly because the movie slows down and lets the characters actually mourn him.

I also still like the small cheeseburger moment between Happy and Morgan. Morgan says she wants cheeseburgers, Happy tells her that her dad liked cheeseburgers too, and then promises to get her all the cheeseburgers she wants. That’s the kind of callback I prefer. If you remember Tony asking for an American cheeseburger after escaping captivity in the first Iron Man, it adds another layer to the scene, but the movie doesn’t stop and scream at you to recognize the reference.

Thanos’ final moment remains one of my favorite little visual details in the movie as well. At the end of Infinity War, Thanos wins and quietly sits down while watching the sunrise. At the end of Endgame, Tony snaps away Thanos’ army, Thanos realizes he’s lost, and instead of screaming or giving some giant villain speech, he simply sits down again. This time he’s not peacefully admiring his victory. He’s silently accepting his defeat before disappearing. That’s a callback I genuinely like because the movie trusts the audience to recognize the parallel without explaining it.

And surprisingly, I found myself laughing more during this rewatch than I remembered. Not every joke works for me—far from it—but there are some genuinely funny moments. Bruce testing time travel on Scott and repeatedly turning him into different ages still gets me. Steve sees baby Scott and says, “It’s a baby.” Bruce responds, “It’s Scott.” Steve clarifies, “As a baby!” Bruce casually says, “He’ll grow.” Steve immediately responds, “Bring Scott back.” That entire exchange still works because Steve is appropriately horrified while Bruce is acting like accidentally turning Scott into an infant is a minor technical inconvenience.

Rhodey watching Peter Quill dancing around Morag is another joke that still makes me laugh. We know Quill thinks he’s incredibly cool during that opening scene in Guardians of the Galaxy. Seeing it from an outside perspective where there’s no music and he’s just some idiot dancing around by himself makes Rhodey’s reaction completely understandable.

There are also individual moments during the final battle that I still enjoy even though I have major problems with the battle overall. Steve finally wielding Mjolnir is still a great payoff. Doctor Strange returning with everyone else is cool. Tony, Steve and Thor confronting Thanos together gives the original three major Avengers one final battle alongside each other. And while the audience reaction obviously wasn’t remotely what it was back in 2019, I can still appreciate what the portals sequence accomplished when it originally happened. It was the payoff to an enormous amount of MCU history, and seeing practically everybody who had disappeared return at once remains an impressive piece of blockbuster filmmaking even if the surprise is obviously long gone.

Favorite Music / Soundtrack

Alan Silvestri’s score is another part of Endgame that I genuinely enjoy. There are several pieces of music throughout the movie that still work extremely well, particularly during the emotional and climactic moments, so I’m leaving this section open to add my specific favorite tracks separately rather than just vaguely saying the soundtrack is good.

Overall, these positives are why I can’t honestly keep Endgame at the 4/10 I previously gave it. I still have a mountain of problems with the movie, and Encore itself gives me even more things to complain about, but after seven years away from it, I found more individual scenes, performances, emotional beats and jokes that worked for me than I remembered.

Cons

Okay, this is where the floodgates open, because while I enjoyed Endgame slightly more than I did seven years ago, almost every major problem I had with this movie is still here. Time softened me slightly on the pacing and some of the comedy. It did not magically fix the screenplay.

So You Had a Perfect Ending… and Decided to Reopen It?

The Russo brothers’ own explanation for why they went back to the ending of Endgame might actually summarize one of my biggest problems with this entire rerelease better than I ever could. Anthony Russo straight-up describes Steve Rogers’ final scene with Peggy as “the perfect ending for Steve Rogers.” Great! We agree! Steve finally got his dance with Peggy, he lived the life he’d sacrificed for decades, and Endgame closed with that image.

So naturally, the next question was apparently:

“What happens one moment after our perfect ending?”

I’m sorry, what?

You literally just called it the perfect ending.

If you believe you gave Steve Rogers the perfect ending, maybe—and I’m just throwing out a wild suggestion here—leave the perfect ending alone?

Anthony explains that part of the appeal behind Doomsday was going “one moment past that perfect ending” and thinking about how radically everything could change by taking one step beyond it. Joe Russo then describes their thinking as:

“Could we reach back to pull the story forward?”

And there it is.

That sentence perfectly describes what Endgame Encore feels like to me.

You’re not naturally continuing something that was deliberately left unfinished. You’re reaching backward into something you already finished so you can use it to prop up the next story.

Joe then talks about how nobody has had the opportunity to do something like this before, and my immediate thought is:

Gee, I don’t know, maybe because that’s basically regurgitating your own homework?

You finished the assignment!

You handed it in!

Seven years passed!

Now you’ve been given another assignment and apparently decided:

“Wait! What if we take the final paragraph from our old essay, erase the period and keep writing?”

That’s not automatically some revolutionary storytelling technique. Franchises have revisited supposedly finished stories, retconned endings and inserted new events into old continuity plenty of times before. Sometimes it works incredibly well. Sometimes it makes the original ending worse. The important thing isn’t simply that you can reach backward. It’s whether reaching backward actually improves anything.

And right now, I’m not convinced this does.

What makes these quotes especially interesting is that the Russos are basically confirming the thing I’ve been saying throughout this entire review: Endgame was an ending first. The connection to Doomsday came later. They’re openly describing looking back at the ending they created and finding a way to use it as the beginning of this new story.

That’s fine!

Just don’t sell me the feeling that Doomsday was somehow naturally sitting inside Endgame all along.

It wasn’t.

You guys literally just explained how you reached back and created the connection afterward.

And this goes directly into my larger problem with Marvel’s Doctor Doom setup. Why are we reaching seven years backward to manufacture setup when Marvel could have spent more time moving forward and actually establishing Doctor Doom? Why wasn’t Victor given more development through the Fantastic Four? Why haven’t we properly established Latveria? Why haven’t we established enough of Victor’s relationship with Reed? Why not address the Council of Kangs and use Doom to provide an actual transition from the villain Marvel originally spent years setting up?

Instead, we’re going back to Steve and Peggy’s dance.

Again.

The Multiverse Saga introduced an enormous number of characters, concepts and storylines after Endgame, yet when Marvel suddenly needs to make Doctor Doom feel like the culmination of everything, apparently we’re digging through the Infinity Saga’s attic looking for things we can reuse.

And that’s why Joe’s phrase “reach back to pull the story forward” doesn’t excite me.

It explains exactly why Encore feels so forced.

You aren’t convincing me that Endgame always naturally led into Doomsday.

You’re showing me the construction crew arriving seven years later to build the road between them.

And the funniest part remains Anthony Russo saying:

“We really thought about that ending as the perfect ending for Steve Rogers.”

Then leave it alone!

You don’t walk up to the Mona Lisa and say:

“You know what? Perfect painting. Absolutely perfect. Anyway, I think she needs a baseball cap.”

Sometimes an ending works precisely because you know when to stop fucking writing.

Anyways!

Let’s start with the fucking rat. Scott Lang escaping the Quantum Realm—the event that ultimately gives the Avengers the opportunity to restore half of existence—happens because a random rat crawls across the correct controls and accidentally activates the machine. If that rat decides to go sniff some garbage instead, Scott apparently remains trapped. No Scott means no Quantum Realm idea, no Time Heist, no recovered Infinity Stones and potentially no resurrection of everyone Thanos erased. Congratulations, random rat. Forget Iron Man, Captain America and Thor. One of the most important heroes in the entire MCU is apparently Random Rat #1.

Then there’s the Time Heist, and I still don’t particularly like Endgame’s approach to time travel. I understand the rules the movie establishes: changing the past doesn’t rewrite your present because that change creates a branch. Fine. I understand what Bruce and the Ancient One are explaining. That doesn’t mean I have to like it, and it certainly doesn’t stop me from wondering how many alternate realities these idiots should have accidentally created through sheer incompetence.

Their mission is basically go into the past, retrieve the Stones, disturb as little as possible and come home. Instead Steve fights his own 2012 counterpart and knocks him unconscious, Steve tells HYDRA agents “Hail Hydra,” Tony and Scott completely fuck up getting the Tesseract, Loki grabs it and escapes, Tony and Steve have to jump even farther back to 1970, Tony has an extended conversation with his own father, Steve sees Peggy, Thor talks to Frigga on the exact day she’s supposed to die, Thor temporarily removes Mjolnir from that timeline, Rhodey knocks Peter Quill unconscious, Nebula’s cybernetics accidentally alert 2014 Thanos to the entire operation, and eventually Thanos gets himself, his children and his gigantic fucking spaceship into the future.

Guys.

THE ASSIGNMENT WAS GET THE STONES AND DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING.

Watching all of this in 2026 is even funnier because Loki subsequently established just how important branching realities actually are. Loki escaping wasn’t some harmless little accident that disappeared once Steve returned the Stones. We got two seasons of television because these idiots lost control of the Tesseract. So if Doomsday eventually reveals that the Avengers accidentally created even more multiversal problems during the Time Heist, my reaction is going to be:

Yeah. No shit. Look at what they did.

I also still don’t particularly like the Nebula situation. Yes, I understand why modern Nebula doesn’t disappear after killing her 2014 counterpart. According to Endgame’s rules, 2014 Nebula has effectively branched away from modern Nebula’s personal history. Killing her doesn’t rewrite the present Nebula’s past. I understand the explanation. My brain still finds the entire thing incredibly messy, especially when so much of the movie depends on audiences accepting increasingly complicated timeline mechanics whenever the screenplay needs them.

That’s also why Tony’s line “You mess with time, it tends to mess back” stuck out considerably more during this rewatch. The Russo brothers have teased that there are lines in the original Endgame that will matter in Doomsday, and if I had to guess which line they’re talking about, that’s my number-one suspect. If Doomsday reveals that the Avengers’ actions involving time helped contribute to the multiversal catastrophe, fine. That could actually work. But don’t turn around afterward and pretend Tony was secretly foreshadowing Doctor Doom in 2019. That’s retroactive continuity. There’s nothing inherently wrong with finding new meaning in old dialogue, but a new payoff doesn’t magically become an old plan.

Then there’s Thanos, which remains one of my biggest problems with Endgame. I still cannot understand why the movie kills the version of Thanos we actually spent Infinity War developing and replaces him with his 2014 counterpart for the climax. Infinity War Thanos sacrificed Gamora, fought Doctor Strange, stabbed Tony, fought Steve, survived Thor burying Stormbreaker in his chest, snapped his fingers and erased half of existence. That Thanos won. Then Thor cuts his head off near the beginning of Endgame, and the Avengers never actually get their rematch against him.

Instead the final battle is against a younger Thanos who basically watched the previous movie through Nebula’s memories. Tony isn’t fighting the Thanos who stabbed him. Thor isn’t fighting the Thanos he nearly killed in Wakanda. This Thanos hasn’t personally experienced any of that. He watched the highlight reel and decided to invade the future. That immediately removes some of the emotional weight from the confrontation for me.

His new plan is also considerably less interesting. Infinity War Thanos genuinely believes his horrifying population-control philosophy is salvation. He’s completely wrong, obviously, but the conviction makes him interesting. 2014 Thanos discovers that the survivors aren’t grateful for what his future counterpart did and essentially responds with:

“Fine! I’ll destroy the entire universe and make a new one!”

Wow.

Much deeper.

You took one of Marvel’s most interesting villains and turned him into Final Boss Thanos.

Captain Marvel remains another problem. Firstly, yes, I still think that haircut looks terrible. Seven years didn’t save it. More importantly, though, Carol is so absurdly powerful that the movie doesn’t seem to know what to do with her. She conveniently spends most of the story elsewhere because other planets need help, then returns during the climax and flies straight through Thanos’ gigantic ship like it’s made of tissue paper. The moment she arrived, my brain basically screamed:

“HEY! THERE’S THE DEUS EX MACHINA!”

Then Thanos headbutts Carol and she barely reacts. He ultimately has to rip the Power Stone out of the Gauntlet and hit her directly with it just to get her away. I wouldn’t literally say the movie establishes that she could casually walk over and snap Thanos’ neck whenever she wants, but it absolutely creates a power-balancing problem for itself. Extremely powerful characters can work perfectly well when writers give them interesting limitations. Carol’s main limitation here seems to be:

“She’s busy somewhere else until the screenplay needs her.”

Professor Hulk still sucks too. Bruce and Hulk spent multiple movies fighting over control of the same body. Ragnarok developed Hulk into an actual personality with his own emotions, insecurities and desires. Infinity War then has Hulk refuse to come out after losing to Thanos, seemingly setting up a major reconciliation between these two personalities.

Then Endgame jumps five years and basically says:

“Oh yeah, they worked it out.”

WHAT?

You skipped the interesting part!

Bruce tells us he stopped treating Hulk like a disease and combined the brains and the brawn, but what I see doesn’t feel like Bruce and Hulk becoming one. It feels like Bruce Banner won custody of Hulk’s body. Hulk’s independent personality is practically gone, and one of the most important developments in their entire relationship happened offscreen.

Clint’s Ronin storyline has a similar problem. Clint loses his family and becomes a sword-wielding vigilante murdering criminals around the world. That’s a gigantic transformation for somebody who used to be an Avenger. The movie introduces Ronin with all this dramatic weight, Natasha retrieves Clint, and then the entire identity basically becomes something he used to do during the five-year gap. I would’ve liked considerably more exploration of what those years did to Clint psychologically instead of treating Ronin like a cool temporary costume.

Natasha’s death still doesn’t receive enough aftermath either. The actual Vormir sequence works for me, but Natasha was one of the original six Avengers and had been part of the MCU since Iron Man 2. After she dies, we get the Avengers mourning her by the lake and then the movie has to keep moving toward its gigantic finale. Tony eventually receives an enormous funeral attended by practically everybody. Natasha’s death feels like something Endgame processes considerably faster. She deserved more.

And then there’s the Infinity Gauntlet relay race. I know what this sequence is trying to accomplish. The movie wants different heroes to carry the Gauntlet so everybody gets a little spotlight during the enormous final battle.

What I see is:

HOT POTATO!

PASS THE INFINITY STONES!

GET THE GLOVE OVER THERE!

NO, YOU TAKE IT!

RUN!

This is the most powerful object in existence, and everybody is tossing it around the battlefield like the Avengers accidentally wandered into a cosmic track-and-field event. I know I’m supposed to think it’s awesome.

I still think it’s stupid.

The Actual Encore Rerelease Is Even Lazier

Then we get to the reason I’m reviewing this movie again in the first place: Avengers: Endgame Encore itself.

Marvel had seven years to figure out how to make this rerelease worthwhile, and somehow the answer was essentially:

“What if we just played Endgame again?”

If you’re going to give this rerelease an entirely new subtitle and advertise it as this special event leading into Doomsday, why not actually create a definitive version of Endgame? There are deleted scenes from this movie. Restore some of them. Finish the visual effects. Give Natasha’s death more aftermath. Expand Clint’s time as Ronin. Give us more material explaining how Bruce and Hulk became Professor Hulk rather than having one of the biggest developments in that relationship happen entirely offscreen. Hell, take another pass at some of the CGI, because there were effects shots on that gigantic IMAX screen that still looked uncanny to me.

And for the love of God, show Steve returning the Infinity Stones. The Russo brothers are now throwing around the idea of exploring Steve’s mission returning the Stones as another story, and I’m sitting here thinking:

Guys. You literally have Endgame back in theaters right now.

This would’ve been the perfect opportunity. Give me an extended epilogue showing Steve returning Mjolnir and the Reality Stone to Asgard, returning the Time Stone to the Ancient One, and eventually arriving on Vormir with the Soul Stone only to discover that fucking Red Skull is standing there.

Steve:

“…you.”

Red Skull:

“Steven Rogers.”

There. That’s something genuinely new that would make me want to see Endgame again.

Instead, for almost three hours, I kept thinking:

“Yep. That’s Endgame.”

“Still Endgame.”

“Yep, that’s exactly how I remember it.”

Even Cassie Lang reminded me how little Marvel actually changed. Emma Fuhrmann is still playing teenage Cassie because, well, this is the 2019 movie, even though Kathryn Newton subsequently became the MCU’s adult Cassie. I’m not necessarily arguing Marvel should digitally erase Fuhrmann—she did nothing wrong, and replacing an actor’s original performance would create an entirely different problem—but if Marvel was genuinely trying to make some continuity-updated 2026 edition, there were opportunities everywhere.

They didn’t take them.

The most interesting differences during my screening weren’t created by Marvel.

They were created by seven years passing.

Endgame Has Become a 2019 Time Capsule

This was honestly one of the strangest things about watching Endgame again. The movie hasn’t changed, but practically everything surrounding it has.

Stan Lee appeared and my immediate thought was:

“Well, I guess I can safely say I got a Stan Lee cameo in theaters in 2026. May he rest in peace.”

Then T’Challa walks through the portal, and I quietly thought:

“Wakanda Forever.”

Later Tony’s final recording talks hopefully about everybody having a happy future while the movie cuts to T’Challa, Shuri and Ramonda standing together overlooking Wakanda. My reaction in 2026 was basically:

“Hehehe… if only they knew.”

That shot meant something completely different in 2019. Now it’s impossible not to think about Chadwick Boseman’s death and everything that subsequently happens to that family.

Peter Parker is another one. This Peter still has absolutely no idea what’s coming three movies later. Peter and Ned happily reunite, shake hands and hug, and I’m sitting there thinking:

“Enjoy remembering each other while that lasts, buddy.”

Then Aunt May appears at Tony’s funeral.

“Oh right. You’re still alive here.”

William Hurt appears as General Ross.

“Nice seeing you before your untimely passing and before Han Solo takes over.”

Robert Redford appears as Alexander Pierce, and now he’s sadly gone too. Between Stan Lee, Chadwick Boseman, William Hurt and Robert Redford, this movie has become a strange snapshot containing several people who are no longer with us. That’s something I wasn’t thinking about in 2019. Watching it in 2026, it’s impossible not to notice.

Then Natasha starts talking about how she had nothing before the Avengers.

2026 me:

“Yelena would like a word.”

Tony asks if Natasha had any family.

Steve:

“Yeah. Us.”

Again:

YELENA WOULD LIKE A FUCKING WORD.

Okoye mentions an earthquake underneath the ocean near Africa, and now my brain immediately goes:

“Well, that sounds a little different after Namor.”

I’m not saying Marvel secretly planted Namor there. Subsequent continuity simply changes how that line sounds.

Thor gives Valkyrie control of New Asgard and talks like he might not return.

Me:

“Bullshit. See you back there pretty quickly in Love and Thunder.”

Thor then leaves with the Guardians like we’re entering this enormous new Asgardians of the Galaxy era.

2026 me:

“Yeah… about that.”

Seeing the Guardians themselves also felt strangely nostalgic because that particular version of the team has essentially reached its conclusion, and they’re not part of the announced Doomsday ensemble. Watching Peter Quill and Gamora again also reminded me how little I care about their romance. When 2014 Gamora discovers she was apparently with Quill and basically reacts with “This is the one?”, I’m sitting there agreeing with her. Nebula’s response that her options were basically him or the tree isn’t exactly a glowing endorsement either.

Then I reached the credits and saw:

JAMES GUNN — EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

And genuinely thought:

“WAIT. JAMES GUNN HELPED PRODUCE ENDGAME!?”

Obviously his involvement makes sense because of the Guardians, but seeing James Gunn’s name attached to this gigantic Marvel movie in 2026, when my brain now immediately associates him with DC Studios, was hilariously strange.

None of this was something Encore added.

Seven years of real life and subsequent MCU stories did more to change my experience of Endgame than Encore itself did.

Weekend at Endgame’s

My audience was also incredibly quiet, and that genuinely struck me.

Back in 2019, “On your left” practically blew the roof off theaters. The portals opening was this enormous communal moment because audiences had spent an entire year living with Infinity War’s ending. Then Steve finally says:

“Avengers… Assemble.”

And theaters exploded again.

This time?

Nothing.

Nobody stood up. Nobody started clapping. There wasn’t remotely the same energy.

And sitting there, I realized Marvel can rerelease Avengers: Endgame.

Marvel cannot rerelease 2019.

You cannot rerelease waiting an entire year after Infinity War. You cannot rerelease seeing Steve lift Mjolnir for the first time. You cannot rerelease hearing “Avengers Assemble” for the first time after eleven years. You cannot rerelease the uncertainty of not knowing how this entire saga was going to end. You cannot recreate a cultural moment simply by putting the movie that created it back onto an IMAX screen.

That’s where my ridiculous Weekend at Bernie’s comparison came into my head.

Disney has one arm.

The Russo brothers have the other.

And between them they’re carrying around the corpse of this gigantic 2019 cultural phenomenon while insisting:

“LOOK! IT’S STILL ALIVE!”

Guys.

Let Bernie rest.

The movie itself isn’t worthless. Hell, I actually enjoyed Endgame slightly more this time. What feels lifeless is the attempt to resurrect the phenomenon surrounding it. “On your left” still exists. “Avengers Assemble” still exists. Tony’s sacrifice still exists. But those moments became cultural events partly because of when audiences experienced them.

Tonight I wasn’t experiencing that phenomenon again.

I was remembering what it felt like to experience it.

I’m Done Doing Marvel’s Homework for Doctor Doom

For months, I’ve kept giving Marvel hypothetical opportunities to make this enormous pivot to Doctor Doom work.

Maybe they’ll resolve Kang elegantly.

Maybe Doom arrives and kills the Council of Kangs.

Honestly, that would make some sense to me. You spent years establishing Kang and his variants as this massive multiversal threat? Fine. Have Victor eliminate them. You resolve the previous storyline while immediately demonstrating that somebody considerably more dangerous has entered the board.

Maybe Doom gets properly established through the Fantastic Four. Maybe we meaningfully establish Latveria. Maybe we establish his history with Reed. Maybe additional projects gradually explain why Victor becomes the central villain of the Multiverse Saga.

I’ve repeatedly caught myself thinking:

“Here’s an opportunity for Marvel to make sense of why Doom is suddenly here.”

I’m done doing that.

Marvel publicly announced Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. The Multiverse Saga was clearly moving toward Kang as an Avengers-level threat. Then the direction changed. Plans changing isn’t inherently a problem. Massive franchises change direction all the time.

My problem is how Marvel is handling the pivot.

Instead of taking additional time and projects to naturally transition from Kang to Doom, the approach increasingly feels like:

Kang?

Who’s Kang?

We don’t have a Kang.

Instead, last year’s Fantastic Four gives us Doctor Doom kneeling in front of a four-year-old Franklin Richards in a post-credit tease.

Okay.

Now Endgame Encore is supposedly an important bridge toward Doomsday.

Okay.

And I’m supposed to keep constructing explanations in my own head for how all of this could eventually fit together?

No.

I’m done giving Marvel leeway and inventing solutions on its behalf.

If Marvel wants Victor von Doom to suddenly become the central villain of this saga, Doomsday needs to do the work.

This Feels Like Marvel Trying to Recreate Infinity War

Another concern I have going into Doomsday is how aggressively the marketing feels like it’s trying to recreate the energy of Infinity War. The most obvious example is Thor attacking Doom with Stormbreaker. Thor comes down and swings Stormbreaker at Doom in a way that immediately evokes his attack on Thanos in Infinity War. Except Stormbreaker actually buried itself in Thanos’ chest and nearly killed him. Doom apparently deals with Thor’s attack using two fingers.

I understand exactly what the marketing wants me to think:

“Remember how powerful Thanos was? Well, LOOK HOW POWERFUL DOOM IS!”

But instead of automatically thinking:

“OH SHIT!”

my reaction is increasingly:

“I can see exactly what you’re trying to make me say ‘oh shit’ about.”

That’s the difference. Infinity War didn’t become exciting because Marvel repeatedly told audiences that Thanos was important. The previous movies had already done the homework. Thanos had been teased for years. The Infinity Stones had appeared throughout the MCU. Gamora and Nebula had personal relationships with him. Loki had worked for him. Ronan interacted with him. Vision literally had an Infinity Stone in his forehead. Strange possessed another. The Avengers were fractured after Civil War. Thor’s world had just been destroyed in Ragnarok.

By the time Infinity War began, the pieces were already on the board.

Doomsday doesn’t have that luxury with Doom.

So now we’re getting the Russo brothers back, RDJ back, Chris Evans back, Thor back, the Fox X-Men back, Endgame itself back, Tony Stark imagery repurposed for Doom, catastrophic multiversal stakes and a villain moment seemingly designed to communicate:

“THIS GUY IS EVEN STRONGER THAN THANOS!”

It feels like Marvel is trying very hard to recreate the feeling of Infinity War without having done the same amount of setup beforehand.

Stop Trying to Convince Me This Was Always Leading to Doom

And this is where Marvel’s retroactive Endgame connections really start annoying me.

The Russos have openly talked about lines in Endgame having an impact on Doomsday. Marvel has gone back to Steve’s ending. They’re repurposing imagery associated with Tony. They’re positioning Encore as connective tissue between the Infinity Saga and Doomsday.

At this point, the marketing almost feels like Marvel is trying to gaslight its audience into believing Doctor Doom was somehow always waiting at the end of this road.

No.

He wasn’t.

Endgame came out in 2019 as the conclusion to the Infinity Saga. Marvel later publicly announced The Kang Dynasty. The Russos themselves have acknowledged that when they made Endgame, they viewed it as an ending. Plans changed.

That’s fine.

What bothers me is watching Marvel go back seven years later, reopen Endgame, attach Doomsday material to it and suddenly tell us old dialogue has new significance.

That’s not seven years of Doctor Doom setup.

That’s a seven-year-old movie being retrofitted to support a new direction.

And the more Marvel tries to make the connection feel inevitable, the more obvious the retrofit becomes to me.

You don’t need to convince me Doom was secretly part of the plan.

Just make a good fucking Doctor Doom story.

And Apparently This Is “Required Viewing”?

The Russo brothers have also hyped Endgame Encore as important connective tissue going into Doomsday, which leaves me asking one very simple question:

Why?

I just watched it.

For almost three hours, it’s Endgame.

The same Endgame.

The genuinely new Doomsday setup comes around the ending and credits, which I’ll discuss in the spoiler section.

So please explain why I needed to sit through this entire three-hour movie again rather than simply watching those few minutes of new material.

Maybe Doomsday will genuinely reveal that specific events and dialogue from Endgame are absolutely crucial. Maybe Tony’s “You mess with time, it tends to mess back” becomes massively important. Maybe Steve’s decision to remain with Peggy has consequences we don’t remotely understand yet.

Fine.

I’ll judge that when Doomsday actually comes out.

But based on Encore itself, I didn’t walk out thinking:

“Holy shit. Now I understand why Endgame absolutely needed to be rereleased.”

I walked out thinking:

“You used a three-hour movie from 2019 as a delivery system for a few minutes of Doomsday setup.”

Those are very different things.

And after sitting through the whole thing again, that’s ultimately my biggest problem with Endgame Encore.

It doesn’t feel necessary.

It feels forced.

It feels retroactive.

And above everything else, it feels lazy.

Final Thoughts

So after seven years, what do I actually think of Avengers: Endgame now?

Well… I still don’t really like it.

I don’t hate every second of this movie, and this rewatch actually went down slightly easier than I expected. There are performances I still enjoy, emotional scenes that still work, several jokes that genuinely made me laugh, and Alan Silvestri’s music remains great. The pacing didn’t bother me quite as much after taking a seven-year break from the movie, either. That’s why I’m actually raising my original rating rather than lowering it. Back then, I gave Endgame a 4/10. Today, I’m willing to give it a 5/10.

But practically every major problem I had with the story is still sitting there. The Time Heist still doesn’t work for me. The random rat accidentally releasing Scott is still ridiculous. Professor Hulk still feels like Bruce Banner wearing Hulk’s body rather than a satisfying conclusion to their conflict. Clint becoming Ronin still feels underdeveloped. Natasha still deserves more aftermath. Captain Marvel remains so absurdly powerful that the screenplay has to keep her somewhere else until it needs its deus ex machina. The Infinity Gauntlet hot-potato sequence still looks stupid to me, and replacing Infinity War’s Thanos with his 2014 counterpart remains one of my least favorite decisions in the entire movie.

And that’s before we even get to Encore.

If anything, watching this rerelease convinced me that Marvel wasted an opportunity. If you’re going to drag Endgame back into theaters seven years later and give it a fancy new subtitle, do something with the actual fucking movie. Restore deleted scenes. Finish unfinished effects. Give us a longer version. Show Steve returning the Stones. Expand character moments. Polish CGI that hasn’t aged perfectly. Give somebody who already owns Endgame a reason to say, “I’ve never seen this version before.”

Instead, for almost the entire runtime, I was sitting there thinking:

“Yep. This is Avengers: Endgame.”

“Yep. That’s exactly how it happened.”

“Yep. I saw this in 2019.”

And ironically, the biggest difference wasn’t anything Disney added. It was everything that has happened since 2019. Seeing Stan Lee again. Seeing Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa. Seeing William Hurt’s Ross before Harrison Ford took over. Seeing Robert Redford. Seeing Aunt May alive. Seeing Peter and Ned happily together before Ned forgets Peter exists. Hearing Natasha talk about having no family before the Avengers after Black Widow introduced Yelena, Alexei and Melina. Seeing Thor leave Asgard with the Guardians knowing how Love and Thunder eventually handles that setup. Seeing the old Guardians together after their story has essentially ended.

Endgame has accidentally become a 2019 MCU time capsule, and I found that considerably more interesting than anything Marvel actually did to the movie for Encore.

The audience reaction drove that home even harder. Back in 2019, “On your left” and “Avengers Assemble” practically caused earthquakes inside theaters. This time my audience was basically silent. And I don’t blame them. We already know what’s coming. We’ve already experienced these moments. The surprise is gone.

Marvel can rerelease Endgame.

Marvel cannot rerelease 2019.

That’s why my Weekend at Bernie’s comparison kept coming back to me. At times this whole thing felt like Disney and the Russo brothers standing on either side of this gigantic cultural moment from seven years ago, holding it upright and saying:

“LOOK! IT’S ALIVE AGAIN!”

No.

It’s not.

And that’s okay.

Endgame had its moment. It made an absurd amount of money. It concluded the Infinity Saga. It gave audiences one of the biggest communal theatrical experiences of the 2010s. You don’t need to keep dragging that moment back out and expecting it to produce the same reaction.

Which brings me to Doomsday.

After Encore, I actually feel less interested in giving Marvel the benefit of the doubt about how Doctor Doom fits into this saga. I’ve spent months thinking of possible ways they could make this pivot work. Maybe Doom eliminates the Council of Kangs and gives us an actual transition from the villain Marvel originally established. Maybe another project properly introduces Victor. Maybe we get more of Latveria. Maybe Reed and Victor’s history gives Doom the foundation he desperately needs before becoming the villain of an Avengers movie.

At some point, though, I realized:

Why am I writing the connective tissue for Marvel?

Marvel announced The Kang Dynasty. Then plans changed and Doctor Doom became the villain. That’s fine. Plans change.

But don’t expect me to pretend the Multiverse Saga was secretly building toward Victor all along.

It wasn’t.

And I’m especially done with this attempt to reach backward into Endgame and make everything suddenly feel like it was always leading toward Doomsday. Tony’s old dialogue might suddenly matter. Steve’s ending suddenly matters. Tony’s imagery is being repurposed for Doom. The Russos are back. RDJ is back. Chris Evans is back. Endgame itself is back.

The marketing almost feels like Marvel is trying to gaslight the audience into believing Doctor Doom was somehow always waiting at the end of this road.

No.

I was there in 2019.

I remember what this movie was.

Hell, your own prerecorded introduction before Encore reminded me that this was supposed to be the bookend to the Infinity Saga.

So stop trying to turn the bookend into chapter one of Doomsday seven years later and then act surprised when I can see the seams.

And I still don’t feel like Doomsday has received the setup an Avengers movie of this size should have. The marketing keeps telling me how enormous everything is. Doom can apparently handle Stormbreaker with two fingers. The Fox X-Men are back. Steve Rogers is back. Thor is back. RDJ is playing Doom. The Russos are back. Universes are collapsing. Everybody is coming together.

Okay.

But Infinity War didn’t have to repeatedly convince me that it was the culmination of something. The previous movies had already done that work. Thanos had been established. The Stones had been established. His relationship with Gamora and Nebula had been established. The Avengers’ fracture had been established. Everything was sitting there waiting to collide.

With Doomsday, I can practically see Marvel trying to recreate that feeling.

And that’s very different from actually earning it.

Maybe Doomsday comes out on December 18 and completely proves me wrong. Great. I would genuinely rather watch a good Doctor Doom movie than spend three hours saying “I fucking told you so.” But right now, after everything Marvel has shown me, I don’t have much faith in how this story has been assembled.

And no, I’m not saying Doomsday is guaranteed to financially fail. With Avengers in the title, RDJ returning, Steve Rogers returning, the X-Men appearing and the sheer amount of marketing behind this thing, obviously there’s enormous commercial interest.

My concern is something different.

Will the movie still work once the event is over?

Because that’s precisely what happened with Endgame for me. Strip away the opening-weekend insanity. Strip away everybody screaming when the portals open. Strip away the applause when Steve says “Avengers Assemble.” Strip away the excitement of finally discovering how the Infinity Saga ends.

Seven years later, I’m left looking at the actual story.

And I’m still thinking:

“Wait a minute. A lot of this plot is fucking stupid.”

That’s what worries me about Doomsday. Marvel seems extremely focused on creating another gigantic moment.

I’m waiting to see whether there’s a great movie underneath it.

As for Avengers: Endgame Encore itself? I don’t think I needed this rerelease. I certainly didn’t need to sit through an almost completely untouched three-hour movie just to reach a handful of Doomsday connections. If Marvel had actually created an extended edition, restored deleted footage and given me a meaningfully different version of Endgame, I’d understand the appeal considerably more.

Instead, this felt like a lazy cash grab built around nostalgia and advertising the next Avengers movie.

At least I got something unexpected out of it.

Seven years later, I enjoyed Endgame slightly more than I remembered.

So congratulations, movie.

You gained one point.

The rerelease itself?

You mostly reminded me that I already own Avengers: Endgame.

Rating

5/10

Seven years ago: 4/10.

Seven years later: 5/10.

Apparently absence really does make the heart grow… slightly less annoyed.

Also, i’m getting sick and tired of these re. Releases, now they are considering doing a re. Release a brand new day. Even though that movie hasn’t even ended its theatrical run.

This is becoming scummy, it’s a cash grab that’s all this is, don’t buy into it, yes I brought into it to reveiw it but still, im a lost cause, don’t make the same mistakes as me.

Spoiler Warning

Spoilers for a 2019 movie, I guess?

Seriously, I don’t know what I’m protecting anybody from here. Avengers: Endgame came out seven years ago. Tony Stark dies. Natasha dies. Steve goes back to Peggy. Thanos loses. Bruce becomes Professor Hulk. If any of that was news to you, congratulations on somehow avoiding one of the biggest movies ever made for seven years.

The actual reason for this spoiler section is Endgame Encore, because this is where I can finally discuss exactly what Marvel added to connect Endgame with Avengers: Doomsday. And having now actually seen all of it in IMAX rather than reading descriptions online, I can confirm that the scenes we had heard about beforehand were accurate. There wasn’t some giant missing piece of context that suddenly made everything click for me.

If anything, seeing them myself reinforced my biggest criticism:

This feels incredibly forced.

Steve and Peggy’s Ending Isn’t Allowed to Be an Ending Anymore

Let’s start with probably the most important alteration, because Marvel has literally gone back and changed how the final scene of Endgame plays.

The original movie ends with Steve returning the Infinity Stones, deciding to remain in the past and finally getting his dance with Peggy Carter. Whether you liked Steve’s decision or not, the intention was pretty obvious: this was Steve Rogers’ ending. He had spent his entire life sacrificing himself for everybody else, and now he finally chooses something for himself.

Hell, Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. literally appeared before my screening to remind me that Endgame was the bookend to the Infinity Saga.

And then Encore goes:

KNOCK KNOCK.

Because apparently Steve and Peggy aren’t even allowed to finish their fucking ending anymore.

Loki arrives at their house. Peggy answers the door while Steve initially stays out of sight, and Loki tells her that he can’t necessarily be helped by her, but he can help both of them. Steve then reveals himself.

Cut.

And there you go.

Seven years later, Marvel has literally extended the scene that originally closed Steve Rogers’ story because now it needs to lead into Doomsday.

This is exactly what I mean when I say Marvel has reopened the bookend.

They didn’t simply make another story involving Steve years afterward. They went back into the actual final moments of his ending and added:

“Oh, by the way, Loki showed up.”

And apparently, according to the Russos, this moment is where Doomsday is “born.”

Okay.

Sure.

But this immediately raises approximately nine thousand questions, and one of them only occurred to me after thinking about what this means for old Steve at the end of Endgame.

Wait a fucking minute.

If Loki showing up at Steve and Peggy’s house leads Steve into the events of Doomsday, and Steve then lives long enough to eventually become the elderly Steve we see sitting on the bench in Endgame…

DOES OLD STEVE REMEMBER DOOMSDAY!?

Because if this is all part of Steve’s personal history, then what exactly does old Steve know when he hands Sam Wilson the shield?

Did this man live through some enormous multiversal catastrophe involving Doctor Doom, Loki, collapsing universes and whatever the hell else happens in Doomsday…

…then come back to 2023, sit on a bench, hand Sam the shield and say absolutely fucking nothing about it?

Sam:

“How’d it go?”

Old Steve:

“Fine.”

SAM, ASK FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS.

If Steve has already experienced Doomsday by the time he’s sitting on that bench, then apparently this old bastard is carrying around potentially universe-saving information while everybody else is completely unaware.

“Anything we should know, Steve?”

“Nah.”

“Any giant armored Latverian dictators coming?”

“Can’t think of anything.”

“Multiverse doing okay?”

“Probably.”

“Who are the TVA?”

“Never heard of them.”

“Okay, enjoy retirement!”

WHAT!?

Obviously Doomsday could reveal some explanation involving memory wipes, alternate branches, Loki moving Steve somewhere outside conventional time, or this Steve ultimately not becoming the exact old Steve we see on the bench. Multiverse stories have approximately seventeen emergency exits available whenever continuity becomes inconvenient.

But until the movie explains that, Encore has created this question.

And this is precisely the kind of thing that happens when you go back seven years later and add new adventures inside what was originally somebody’s completed ending.

And Apparently Steve Staying With Peggy Causes Doomsday?

This is another thing I’ve been struggling with ever since the Russos started talking about Steve’s decision being important to Doomsday.

If Steve staying in the past with Peggy somehow creates or contributes to the multiversal catastrophe, then why is that apparently the big problem?

Because the Avengers were not exactly careful during the Time Heist.

Steve fought himself.

Loki escaped with the Tesseract.

Tony talked to Howard.

Thor talked to Frigga.

Mjolnir temporarily disappeared from Asgard.

Peter Quill got knocked unconscious.

2014 Thanos learned about the future.

An entire alien army traveled through time.

But apparently Steve dancing with Peggy is where we’re drawing the line?

THAT’S what broke everything!?

Again, Doomsday may have a perfectly specific explanation for why Steve’s choice matters more than everything else. Maybe it’s not simply “Steve stayed in the past and therefore multiverse go boom.” Fine. I’ll wait for the movie.

But Encore itself doesn’t explain it.

It simply tells me:

Steve and Peggy → Loki arrives → apparently this is where Doomsday begins.

Marvel, you’re going to need to connect a few more dots than that.

The Bruce Banner Scene Feels Like They Filmed It on a Saturday

Then we get Bruce Banner.

And this might genuinely be my least favorite of the new scenes simply because of how hilariously cheap it felt to me.

Bruce is recording himself on a camera following what happened to him in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The whole thing has this weird video-diary/found-footage presentation where Mark Ruffalo is basically sitting there talking into a camera.

And immediately you can tell:

THIS WAS NOT FILMED IN 2019.

Obviously it’s not supposed to take place in 2019, so Bruce looking different isn’t technically a continuity error. But visually, the transition is hilarious. You’ve just spent three hours watching 2019-era Mark Ruffalo, and suddenly here’s Bruce with this big puffy beard and thicker curly hair.

My immediate thought was:

Did somebody grab Mark Ruffalo on a Saturday before he had a chance to shave?

It genuinely has this vibe of:

Marvel: “Hey Mark, you free this weekend?”

Ruffalo: “Why?”

Marvel: “Need about ninety seconds of Doomsday setup.”

Ruffalo: “Am I filming with Robert?”

Marvel: “No.”

Ruffalo: “Do I see Doctor Doom?”

Marvel: “No.”

Ruffalo: “Big set?”

Marvel: “Camera.”

Ruffalo: “Costume fitting?”

Marvel: “Whatever you’ve got.”

Ruffalo: “Do I at least get lunch?”

Marvel: “We’ll see what we can do.”

Because that’s the other thing:

WE DON’T EVEN SEE DOCTOR DOOM.

Bruce is talking into the camera, things begin going wrong, and then we hear Doom’s voice offscreen telling him:

“I’ve come to collect you.”

That’s it.

Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom doesn’t physically walk into the scene. We don’t get this intimidating first proper encounter between Victor and Banner. We hear his voice.

So one of Marvel’s big pieces of Doctor Doom setup before Doomsday amounts to:

Mark Ruffalo video diary.

Spooky shit happens.

RDJ voice from somewhere offscreen.

“I’ve come to collect you.”

There.

Doctor Doom setup!

Hope everybody feels prepared!

And this is where I’m officially done inventing better solutions for Marvel.

For months I’ve been saying:

“Maybe Doom kills the Council of Kangs.”

That would at least provide a transition.

Instead Marvel’s approach increasingly feels like:

Kang who?

Anyway, Doom kneeled in front of a four-year-old Franklin Richards in the Fantastic Four post-credit scene, and now you can hear his voice talking to Bruce Banner in the credits of a rerelease of a movie from 2019.

There you go.

Apparently we’re ready for the next Thanos-level Avengers villain.

The TVA Showing Up in Endgame Broke My Brain

Then suddenly:

THE TVA!

And this is where my brain just refused to accept what I was looking at as part of Avengers: Endgame.

Not because the TVA can’t logically exist. Obviously Loki established that the TVA operates outside conventional time, and this new sequence is setting up Doomsday. There’s no inherent continuity problem with the TVA existing.

It’s the real-world chronology that makes this feel so fucking unnatural.

I’m watching a movie from 2019.

In 2026.

And during the credits of that 2019 movie, characters introduced in a television series from 2021 suddenly appear because they’re setting up a movie coming out at the end of 2026.

Read that sentence again.

Actually, don’t.

It might hurt you.

My reaction was basically:

“Oh hey, TVA! Nice to meet you! You won’t exist on television for another two years, but welcome to my 2019 movie that I’m watching again in 2026 because the Russo brothers told me this is apparently necessary viewing for another movie coming out in a couple of months!”

WHAT SENTENCE DID I JUST SAY!?

Mobius is there. O.B. is there. Casey is there. Miss Minutes is there. The TVA is watching the multiverse fall apart as multiple incursions begin happening simultaneously, with universes colliding and being destroyed. Eventually thousands of universes are apparently being lost, and O.B. delivers the big message:

The multiverse is collapsing.

Okay.

That is genuinely important information for Doomsday.

But it still doesn’t feel like Endgame.

It feels like I watched Endgame, the credits started, and Marvel suddenly changed the channel to Loki Season 3: Avengers Edition.

And that’s the problem with how Encore is assembled. If Marvel had actually created a genuine extended edition and integrated meaningful new material throughout the movie, maybe this would’ve gradually felt like a new version.

Instead the boundary is incredibly obvious:

2019.

2019.

2019.

2019.

ENDGAME ENDS.

WELCOME TO 2026!

LOKI!

DOOM!

TVA!

INCURSIONS!

BRAND NEW DAY BANNER!

DOOMSDAY!

My brain didn’t feel like Endgame naturally transitioned into another story.

It felt like Marvel opened a portal in the credits and started throwing six years of later continuity through it.

Doctor Doom’s Mask Scene Somehow Annoyed Me Even More in the Theater

And then we reach the final little Doctor Doom tease, and yeah, seeing it properly on the big screen did absolutely nothing to change my opinion.

I still hate this.

At the very end, Marvel brings back the familiar metallic hammering sound associated with Tony Stark forging the Mark I armor in Iron Man. That sound was already used at the end of the original 2019 release of Endgame. Back then, it was a simple audio callback to where the entire MCU began. Tony Stark had just died, the Infinity Saga had reached its conclusion, and after the credits we heard the sound of Tony creating the first Iron Man suit.

It was basically:

2008: Tony creates Iron Man.

2019: Tony’s story ends.

Simple.

Effective.

Done.

Except apparently not, because Encore takes that exact sound and inserts flashes of Doctor Doom forging his mask around it.

And sitting there in the theater, my sarcastic reaction was basically:

“OHHHHHH! I understand now! Silly me! Clearly that wasn’t Tony Stark forging his mask back in 2019. It was Doctor Doom all along! Marvel planned everything! What geniuses!”

Go fuck off.

Obviously, I know that’s not literally what the Russos are claiming. They’ve talked about the intentional symmetry and duality between Tony and Victor, and their whole “planned all along” comment was joking. But that’s exactly why I find this so forced. You’re telling everybody that Robert Downey Jr. is absolutely playing Victor von Doom, not Evil Tony Stark, while simultaneously going out of your way to introduce Doom using one of the most recognizable pieces of Tony Stark imagery in the entire MCU.

Same actor.

Armored genius.

Metal mask.

Same hammering sound.

Nearly identical visual idea.

And then Marvel wonders why fans keep asking:

“So… is he Evil Tony?”

Gee. I wonder where they’re getting that idea.

If you’re committed to RDJ playing Victor von Doom, then let Victor have his own fucking identity.

Give me Doom forging his mask in some gigantic Latverian foundry. Mix machinery with magic. Give the scene this medieval, almost ritualistic quality. Establish the combination of science and sorcery that makes Doctor Doom distinctive. Make me look at the screen and think:

“Holy shit. Victor von Doom just forged his mask.”

Instead I’m thinking:

“Oh. Robert Downey Jr. is doing the Tony Stark hammering thing again, except now it’s Doom.”

That’s not making me more interested in Victor.

That’s making me think about Tony.

And considering this rerelease literally opened with RDJ telling me Endgame was the bookend to the Infinity Saga, repurposing Tony’s final audio bookend for Doom three hours later is almost comically contradictory.

Also this makes the 3rd appearance of Doctor Doom.  With 3 different masks for some reason.

“This was the bookend!”

Great.

Then stop taking pieces off the fucking bookend.

So What Exactly Did I Sit Through Three Hours For?

This is the question I kept coming back to after the movie ended.

The Russo brothers have repeatedly talked about Endgame Encore as important connective tissue going into Doomsday. We’ve been told there are moments and even dialogue from Endgame that will matter to the new movie.

Okay.

I just watched the entire thing.

Please explain why I needed to.

Because if we’re talking strictly about the new information Encore gave me, I learned that Loki interrupts Steve’s life with Peggy, Doom is apparently “collecting” Bruce Banner, the TVA is watching thousands of universes collapse through simultaneous incursions, and Doom is forging his mask while Marvel deliberately parallels him with Tony Stark.

That’s certainly setup.

But why did I need to watch three hours of Endgame again to receive it?

You could put these scenes together as a short Doomsday prologue and communicate practically the same information.

And that’s where the whole “required viewing” idea loses me.

If Doomsday itself genuinely depends on specific events and dialogue from Endgame, fine. I’ll find that out on December 18. Maybe Tony’s “You mess with time, it tends to mess back” becomes incredibly important. Maybe Steve staying with Peggy has consequences we haven’t remotely understood yet. Maybe there are connections nobody has guessed.

But Encore itself didn’t suddenly make the original movie feel like secret Doomsday setup.

It made me feel like Marvel needed Doomsday setup and decided to attach it to Endgame.

Those are not the same thing.

This Is Exactly What Happens When You Pivot This Hard

And this is where the entire Kang situation continues hanging over Doomsday for me.

I’ve spent months giving Marvel hypothetical ways to make the transition work. The obvious one in my head was always the Council of Kangs. Marvel already established them. Fine. Have Doctor Doom wipe them out. That gives you an actual transition between the villain the Multiverse Saga originally established and the villain Marvel now wants to use.

Instead, so far, it feels like:

Marvel: “Kang?”

Audience: “Yes. Kang. The guy you spent years setting up?”

Marvel: “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Audience: “You literally announced The Kang Dynasty.”

Marvel: “Anyway, here’s Doctor Doom.”

And what actual setup have I received?

Doom kneeling in front of four-year-old Franklin Richards in the Fantastic Four post-credit scene.

Doom’s voice telling Bruce Banner:

“I’ve come to collect you.”

Doom’s mask getting hammered together using Tony Stark’s old sound effect.

That’s where I’m supposed to go:

“Ohhhhh! NOW I understand why Victor von Doom is the culmination of the Multiverse Saga!”

No.

I’m done doing Marvel’s homework.

Maybe Doomsday itself finally provides the missing material. Great. That’s its job.

But I’m not going to keep inventing hypothetical explanations and then giving Marvel credit for stories it hasn’t actually told.

And I’m Still Not Buying the “This Was All Connected” Feeling

Anyways hope y’all enjoy today’s review and see yall on December 18th for Doomsday i guess?