About a thousand years ago (well, 1996), a leading video game magazine published a list of “The Top 100 Video Games of All Time.” Their number 1 was Super Mario 64, which had just come out earlier that year. A lot of readers complained that they had picked a “flavor of the month” as the winner of an “all time” list. Yes, Mario 64 was innovative and ground-breaking for its use of 3D platforming, but would it really stand the test of time as well as, say, Super Mario Bros 3 or Street Fighter 2? Or was it just more appealing because it was shiny and new? Two years later they ran an updated list, and this time “Ocarina of Time” came out on top. In both cases, I have to side with “shiny and new.” SM64 and LoZ:OoT are both great games, but even today, there’s dozens of 8-bit games I would rather play before I touched either one.
When I added Endgame to my ranked list of MCU movies, I had a hard time deciding whether to put it above or below Infinity War. With the Marvel movies, I tend to like the most recent ones best, mostly because I haven’t watched them 100 times yet. For each movie on the list, I had to ask myself questions like, “Will I still like this movie as much in five years? Is Doctor Strange really better than Captain America, or is it just newer?” Right this minute, there’s no movie in the MCU that I would rather rewatch than Endgame. It’s the perfect finale to this story arc, and it’s gorgeous to boot. But is it “better” than Infinity War? Will I always think so?
The thing is, Infinity War is a solid, cohesive story with a beginning, middle, and end. Yes, it’s the story of Thanos, and yes, the bad guy wins… but it’s still a self-contained story. You don’t have to have seen a lot of the other movies to understand it. Endgame, on the other hand, is probably incomprehensible if you haven’t seen at least 10 of the last 20 movies. Even some of the movies I would have thought skippable were more important than I would have thought. My least favorite MCU movie is “Thor: The Dark World”, and yet that movie is essential for one large sequence in Endgame.
True story: A couple of weeks ago I was texting with a friend of mine who hadn’t seen Endgame yet. He was talking about catching his wife up on the series so they could see it together. He was about to show her Black Panther and Captain Marvel. I told him that Black Panther is more important to Infinity War than it is to Endgame, and that watching Captain Marvel isn’t really essential as long as you know who the character is and what she can do. I capped it all off by saying, “Really, the only recent movie I can think of that’s essential to see before Endgame (besides Infinity War of course), is Ant Man & the Wasp.” He took a minute to reply, and finally texted, “…Fine. I’ll watch it.” He’s not an Ant-Man fan, and had resolved to just skip that one.
Here's the thing… Captain America: Civil War is one of my favorite MCU movies. But do I really love the movie, or is it just that one scene? When Civil War was released, the airport fight was the best scene in the entire MCU series, bar none. When we first bought the blu-ray, sometimes we would put the disk in and skip to that scene, watching it two or three times before letting the movie continue. But if you edited out that one scene, it would be a pretty average movie at best. It has its high points – Peter Parker meeting Tony Stark, the Iron Man vs Cap fight at the end, the introduction of Black Panther… but it’s not really any better than, say, Winter Soldier. I love Civil War, but if I’m truly honest with myself, it’s one awesome scene surrounded by filler.
I think we can all agree that the final fight in Endgame has dethroned the airport fight in Civil War. Endgame’s lengthy climax is truly the best scene in the MCU series. I’ve seen Endgame three times now, and that scene has brought tears to my eyes Every. Single. Time. When all those portals start opening up, I just lose it. And then Thanos gets that “Oh Crap” look on his face, and my face actually hurts from all the smiling. And let’s not forget Cap picking up Thor’s hammer. But is that one big fight enough to make Endgame the best MCU movie?
Look, I love the lightsaber fight with Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode I. The first time I saw it, I thought that one scene was better than anything in the original trilogy. It made the lightsaber duels in Episodes 4-6 look positively antiquated. But I’ve never accused the Phantom Menace of being the best Star Wars movie. One great scene is not enough.
Of course, the climax isn’t Endgame’s only good scene. The time travel stuff was great fun, full of humor and fanservice. Really, there’s no part of Endgame that I dislike. But I guess my real issue is that I’m not sure I consider Endgame a movie, so much as a big long climax. Even though it’s three hours long, it still feels like half a movie to me. Five years down the road, when it has another ten MCU movies to compete with, I don’t know if Endgame will hold up. By then, I don’t know if I’ll even think about watching Endgame without watching Infinity War first. I’m sure I’ll still love Endgame, I just don’t think it will stand on its own as a complete movie the way Infinity War does.
Bottom line: The climax of Endgame is the best fight scene in the MCU series. However, I think Infinity War is a much more solid movie.
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