Some of Joe Russo’s Endgame Answers are Questionable – Here’s Why

As of today, the “official” spoiler ban on Avengers: Endgame has been lifted. Here come the memes regarding the end of the Infinity saga, but also the analysing of scenes in the movie, and discussions on plot-holes and what comes next in the MCU.

In my review of Avengers: Endgame, I mentioned the presence of a plot-hole. That plot-hole was amongst one of the questions addressed by Joe Russo (one of the film’s directors) at a recent Q&A in China. The interview has since been translated and uploaded on Reddit, with the answers circulating around the internet. Some of the answers aren’t satisfactory, though – at least not to me.

If you haven’t watched Endgame yet, reading beyond this point means getting spoiled about certain major key points in the movie.

The Plot-Hole

The plot-hole I had in mind was regarding Thanos’ army time-travelling into the future. Just how did his entire fleet make it through, if they had no Pym particles on them that they would have needed to time travel? It just didn’t make sense to me.

Q: How did Thanos bring his army to the future?
A: There is a guy called Maw in his army, he was a great wizard. Thanos himself was a brilliant genius as well. Those two easily reverse engineered and mass produced Pym Particles.

This was the official answer. In case you don’t quite remember, Maw is the guy that Tony Stark very brusquely calls “Squidward” in Infinity War.

While that might make sense, I just wish there was more to this that was actually shown in the film. All we got was Thanos sneering at one (1) tube of Pym particles. I know there’s only so long that a film can run for, but even an simple order to Maw on Thanos’ part to engineer more Pym particles would have easily fixed this plot-hole.

Another Issue?

Other than that plot-hole, I was thinking about the lack of a funeral for Black Widow, despite how much the Avengers were said to be “her family”. I guess other people were thinking the same, which is why it got addressed at the Q&A as well:

Q: Why didn’t Black Widow get a funeral as well?
A: Did you forget when the heroes where mourning for her after when they returned from past? Maybe her funeral happened off screen. Maybe it will be shown in future installment, because there are still tons of stories in MCU that are waiting to be tell.

If you’d count “mourning” as a literal moment of silence, followed by a cut of the original Avengers at a lake with Hulk throwing a bench, then sure. Though I wouldn’t expect all the heroes to appear for Black Widow’s funeral (like they did for Tony in the end), I wish they did something more for Black Widow. Even floating out a little flower wreath for her (again, like Tony) would have been a nice touch, especially since they were already at the lake.

That, in the same interview, this was said:

Q: Can you get the soul your sacrificed for the Soul Stone back when you return it?
A: No, the process is irreversible. Even if you have returned it to its original location, you wouldn’t be able to get the person back. In fact, it’s not really returning the stone, more like put it back properly. The tribute soul for the soul stone will forever be sealed in that place, therefore Black Widow is gone forever.

It makes their answer of “Maybe it will be shown in a future installment” kind of weak, because she’s already confirmed to be dead. If she gets a film at all, it will most likely be a prequel to her joining S.H.I.E.L.D – which means that there wouldn’t be a reason to show her death, or any mourning of it whatsoever, except maybe in a post-credit scene.

Of course, these are just my two cents on these matters. The rest of their answers mostly make sense to me, and it’s just these two in particular that I really found lacking. Plus, the movie’s still pretty enjoyable overall.

For those who want to know what else was addressed, here’s the whole interview:

Joe Russo’s Q&A about the plot of Avengers: Endgame in China from marvelstudios