Could Avengers: Endgame end up being the next Last Jedi? *some spoilers maybe?*

First off, let me address that this is an article I found on the Facebook page for one of my state's local cons that I thought was a good question.

From Movie Web (spoilers blurred out)

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The trailer and title release for Avengers: Endgame was certainly enough to get Marvel fans around the world excited for the next installment in the Avengers franchise, but not everyone seems to be pleased with what they've seen so far. Simply due to the over-hyping of the movie and the negative backlash Avengers: Endgame has received, it is quite possible that the Infinity War follow-up could end up going down the same dark path as last year's The Last Jedi.

As a quick recap for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, following the cliffhanger ending of The Force Awakens, Star Wars fans went rampant with theories on what they wanted to see in the next movie. While the marketing of The Last Jedi was met with mostly positive attitudes, much like Avengers: Endgame so far, the release of The Last Jedi changed everything. Simply put, Star Wars: The Last Jedi was unable to satisfy the needs of everyone in the audience, as nearly every Star Wars fan wanted to see something different on screen, but were quite disappointed. The fact that The Last Jedi diverged from the typical Star Wars hero's journey certainly had something to do with the backlash as well, but regardless of the reason, The Last Jedi has seemed to permanently tarnish the Star Wars brand for fans, even though from a filmmaking perspective, the movie was rather brilliant.

While it is too early to tell, it seems quite possible that Avengers: Endgame is heading down the same path. Since Avengers: Infinity War first released back in April, Marvel fans have also run rampant online with theories of how they think the "snap" will be undone, be it with time travel or by rescuing the souls of the fallen heroes from the Soul Stone. Many fans have also gone online to describe scenes that they "need" to see in the movie, from Steve Rogers seeing Peggy Carter in the afterlife, to Tony Stark facing the wrath of Aunt May. There are many characters that Marvel fans want to keep alive, in addition to characters they want to see sacrifice themselves in a noble way. Unfortunately, many of these character "needs" conflict with one another.

Even though the movie is still several months away from its release, Avengers: Endgame has already faced some negative backlash in this regard with its title release. Since Marvel waited so long to announce the title for the movie, many Marvel fans have been theorizing what the movie will be called, with titles like "Avengers: Annihilation" and "Avengers: Reassembled" being some of the frontrunners. In fact, this backlash was even predicted by Kevin Feige, the President of Marvel Studios, back in April. This is what he had to say on the secretive Avengers 4 title at the time.

"I've said before, it's gotten entirely out of hand. And now will have no chance to living up to any expectations of what it's gonna be. And it sort of backfired, if I'm honest with you, because the notion was to not talk about it so the focus was to be on [Infinity War]."

If the past few years with big franchises has told us anything, it's that keeping details about a movie may help to keep out spoilers, but it can ultimately hurt the final project. The marketing for Star Wars: The Last Jedi revealed practically nothing about the movie except what characters we would see in it. When the movie released and Star Wars fans figured out that it was about Luke Skywalker being a grumpy old hermit and that it was all one super slow chase scene, they were upset because many of those fans had expected the movie to be the great comeback of Luke Skywalker. They were expecting an epic, not a "passing on the baton" story. Though the "baton" story was well told, it was evidently not what fans wanted.

Right now, it appears as though Avengers: Endgame is going down the same path. We know the roster of heroes who will be in it, and that the Avengers will somehow try to reverse the decimation from the last movie, but that's about it. We don't know how they are going to do this, be it with time travel or by some other method. We don't know where they are going to do this, as they couldspend the entire movie on Earth or they could travel across the galaxy to track Thanos down, making the movie essentially a space opera. We also don't know when it will all happen, as many fans are predicting the main plot of the movie will take place years after the events of Infinity War. While all of these factors do help to keep the movie secretive in order to make the first viewing more exciting, as history has shown, it does have its consequences.

While Avengers: Endgame will still surely make a lot of money, as the cliffhanger ending of Avengers: Infinity War has already made it a box office draw. However, if the movie does end up being a disappointment to many fans like Star Wars: The Last Jedi, it could prove to be dire for future installments to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Studios seemingly has plans to keep the MCU going for at least another decade, but this could end up being halted if Avengers: Endgame is met with the same backlash as The Last Jedi. Hopefully Avengers: Endgame will manage to live up to everyone's expectations, but based on what we've seen so far, there's a good chance it could inevitably disappoint many of its fans simply because, as Kevin Feige put it, all of the hype is getting out of hand.

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Again, a solid question. But props for Kevin Feige for noting the hype is getting out of hand (much to the point where some of Marvel's videos have had attempts at rating bombings because the trailer wasn't out yet at the time).

1. Avengers Infinity War did NOT end in a cliffhanger. The Universe was saved and perfectly balanced like all things should be.

If Infinity War was the last movie of the Marvel series, that would be okay. It was the perfect way to end it.

2. The Last Jedi is hated because it went full blown SJUU in every single scene and massive agenda pushing.

As long as Avengers Endgame doesn’t ram Social Justice down our throats, it will be a great movie.

So far Marvel hasn’t messed up like Star Wars has in pushing agendas instead of making great movies.

The backlash on Joss Whedon directed Avengers (original, Age of Ultron), Black Panther, and Jessica Jones say otherwise. And when Feige's plan to have a female majority in the MCU happens, it's gonna get worse. It's become a predictable format these days.

Hell, it's been hitting their comics for sometime too with the MERE EXISTENCE of some characters, like Silk, X-23 as Wolverine, and Miles Morales.

@nintendoboy16: WTF are you blabbering on about?!?

This Last Jedi had an agenda talk confuses me. Maybe I'm blind to such things.

These marvels movies need numbers. So many. Of all the series of film out and Disney making it all a big cesspool u wud think they list films by number to not confuse.

You know, that's a very good question nintendoboy16. Infinity War release was over hype to the top on launch, the fans were all excited and our expectations were meant. The only thing this could go bad for Endgame if it doesn't meet the same expectations cause we all expect the remaining Avengers to go defeat Thanos once and for all. While Marvel as a whole is still a comic book and not Star Wars fantasy we all know and love, I'm sure Marvel Studios can pull off the hype again but I'm glad the first Endgame trailer didn't show too much and they don't need to show anything else from this point.

The Last Jedi got so much flank due to different directors from J.J Abram to Rian Johnson and Last Jedi was nothing like what J.J direct and I like the Force Awaken more so then Last Jedi. That said, I'm actually more worried about Captain Marvel film at this point. 2 trailers and it it's showing any hype at all.

Uggh. Comparing Avengers to the worse-than-prequels Star Wars is reprehensible.

Personally, I think its really simple. Star Wars had a story that had a beginning and an end (you can even count the prequels in there too if you want as even those movies at least had a story). Then the man who created the franchise sold it to Disney and its no wonder why its going in all the weird and fanservice ways that it has been.

Avengers is comics. Comics keep going and going and going. Heroes die. Then they resurrect. Then they get older and a new young'n becomes the Spiderman or Batman (Batman Beyond). As long as the directors/scriptwriters can drum up a new dastardly villain, some relative funny banter and quips, HULK SMASH!, and some fight scenes....well, that's all there is to it!

Point is, no I don't think new Avengers will be as awful as the Last Jedi. They are both big, silly, action movies that entertain the masses. Unless Rian Johnson somehow joins up with Marvel, I don't see any superhero movie deviating from the same storyline all Marvel movies seem to follow.

What, you mean ****ing awesome?

Avengers Endgame will be better for sure. The Last Jedi was a big dissapointment from Rian Johnson. He can do better. Personally, I'm still dissapointed James Gunn was fired for a ridiculous reason, was looking forward to his GotG 3.

Last Jedi was directed by a Soy Boy, overseen by a third wave Feminist. Kevin Feige, the Russos and co. care about the fans, the source material, but also throw enough subversion where it doesn't seem off putting and keeps things interesting.

@SOedipus: The prequels are the worst nmby a long shot, this new narrative that they aren't is getting played out.

@poe13: Star Wars doesn't have an end, the books, comics, games etc show that pretty clearly.

Just out of curiosity...I see a lot of hate for Rian Johnson for ruining The Last Jedi, but how much control over the movie did he actually have?

And someone please enlighten me on this, I'm genuinely curious.

I mean, regardless of any writing and/or directing credits he may have had, he's not the mastermind behind these movies, is he? I'd have to imagine that most of the stuff that pissed people off is either stuff that Johnson wasn't responsible for, or that Johnson thought up and was then approved by the people above him. If Johnson was primarily the IDEA GUY behind The Last Jedi, then isn't that a much bigger problem than The Last Jedi sucking?

Comparing this to Marvel movies, isn't this part of why Marvel movies are so successful? None of the directors for these movies could screw up the MCU, because none of these directors are running the MCU. I mean, I thought that Iron Man 3 kind of sucked, but if that were enough to tarnish the MCU then isn't that kind of Kevin Feige's fault (as opposed to Shane Black's fault) for letting that happen at all? I'm just curious exactly how much blame Rian Johnson deserves here (assuming that you thought The Last Jedi sucked).

Infinity War has been largely been compared to The Last Jedi.

I have to say, I agree with this completely. As someone who viewed Marvel movies as "eh", I expected another throw-away villains while heroes made light-quips and jokes like it was action-comedy with no threat.

Instead (like Gollum) the character manages to transcend CGI where you're not really thinking about the effects.

@MrGeezer: From watching the bonus materials on the Last Jedi bluray he pretty much had free rein to do whatever he wanted.

Hey, all I want to see is them eating Shawarma after beating Thanos.

Yet it was Kevin Feige that thought hiring Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy and Firefly/Serenity) for Avengers 1 and 2 was a good idea, Whedon has a reputation for being a "Soy Boy". And again, Black Panther and even MCU TV like Jessica Jones have a reputation for 'catering to the SJW crowd.'

Progressive stuff by itself isn't bad. Jessica Jones is a great character you can get behind and root for. It's bad when it done bad. Last Jedi with Ray and pink haired.... can't even remember her name, are just.... terrible. And you get people praising shit, for no other reason than "teh progressive woo!", even though they are objectively terrible characters.

My point was that it did for Lucas, but then Disney bought it and now it doesn't. And I don't take the EU into account. Just talking about the original story that George Lucas set out to make.

Well if that's the case, then that's a FAR bigger warning sign than anything that he actually did. That'd imply that Disney had no idea where the hell this trilogy was going to end up when they started it.

Not what I've been seeing in this era of society and politics.

Not sure what you mean but I've seen very little people complain about Jessica Jones.

When you have characters who are perfect, they make for just, boring characters. Season 1-2 of Star Trek: The Next Generation are testament to this. Gene Roddenberry wanted a utopian universe where the crew would have no conflict and basically be perfect. Even inserting himself as a Mary Sue.

And you know what? He ended up being the most hated character in the franchise, immediately written out after Gene Roddenberry's death. Going so far as to have his cameo appearance in the movies cut out.

The idea of shitty characters is nothing new or exclusive to woman, or means you're against progressive stuff. If you watch DS9, Nog is pretty much the "anti-Wesley". It's extremely in line with the progressive type views Gene Roddenberry envisioned, it's just better done as a far more interesting compelling character/universe.

Nog isn't "Jesus Boy" with "magic talents", he's from a scummy race nobody likes, acts like a little dick at the start of the show, he naturally develops through trials and tribulations.

Pink haired lady, I watched Last Jedi thinking "where the hell did she come from"? And Rey is just, like a template of a "hero", with nothing there. She sucks. Even that little shit "now this is pod racing" is more compelling. When he walks away from his mother I at least felt a beat of something.

Last Jedi was a fantastic movie

I must be crazy. But I've been really down on these latest star wars films. Everyone raves about them, but I just thought they were ok. I'm just not seeing it.

I was kind of nonplussed by The Force Awakens. To me it was a giant knock-off A New Hope and was just completely afraid of taking any chances, which I guess is a little hypocritical coming from someone who detests the prequels, but I don't think their problem was taking chances. It was that they were written by George Lucas.

Anyway, I loved The Last Jedi. I feel like it got back to the philosophical aspect of the franchise in a big way, especially its Buddhist roots. Luke Skywalker's arc is pretty much a perfect distillation of the middle road between attachment and nihilism, and I particularly liked that line Yoda had about Rey already possessing the knowledge of the Jedi texts within her, it's very emblematic of the Buddhist focus on introspection over dogmatism. I feel like the entire movie pretty much perfectly encapsulates the many political viewpoints in today's society. You have Luke, the tired cynic who doesn't think there's any solution but to retreat into the wilderness; Finn, the impassioned freedom fighter who wants to burn everything down no matter what the cost; Poe, the self-righteous rebel who sees enemies in all corners; Leia, the perhaps a bit too overbearing authority figure who sees the error in the young people but can't engage with them on a truly democratic and respectful level; and Rey, the cipher in it all, who rises above it all to simply fight injustice and take a stand for her principles. I also like the way it turned tropes on their head, specifically the trope of a young upstart rebelling against ignorant authority figures. Even though Holdo and Leia's decision to not just tell Poe and Finn what was going on is completely incomprehensible, Poe and Finn did completely tank their perfectly reasonable plan to save the fleet out of bone-headed pride. Finally, I think it did a good job of building a pretty tense film, starting out with a big rebel victory that devolves into a situation where their options slowly dwindle until they're faced with a desperate showdown. Not only did I find it enjoyable, but very different from anything Star Wars has done in the past, which was a breath of fresh air after Force.

Oh, and I just like to trigger the anti-SJW crowd. Every time I hear someone brainlessly exclaim that Rey is a Mary Sue my eyes roll back into my head and do a complete 360.

The difference is clear: Infinity War is an amazing film, pays homage to the source material without destroying it, and keeps the previous films in line.

Force Awakens was a fine movie except Rey beats Kylo (even though he's wounded). It took 2 full movies, and a brutal whipping before Luke defeated Vader. Then Last Jedi essentially nerfs the entire setup of Force Awakens - knights of ren absent, Luke is in hiding instead of some big plot point with the jedi temple, Rey is a beast (the rock sequence would have made sense if she didn't already spend most of the movie kicking ass), Luke's death was entirely unnecessary and anti-climactic, and everything about Snoke (no information, easily defeated, no confrontation with Luke), and the ENTIRETY OF THE "ESCAPE" was laughable.

Which is too bad, because Hamill was fantastic and there are several great scenes. The projection, the fight with the guards.

Basically my point is the foundation of Infinity War is very strong. And the Russos/Feige have been good about not screwing it all up.

I just finished watching all 20 MCU movies. I'd say majority of them are fairly overrated. Especially if you watch them back to back like I did. You soon realise how similar they are to each other. But, they were enjoyable nonetheless. Just my opinion though. I liked how watching them in order, you get to see all the pieces come together. Guardians of the Galaxy is extremely canon in my opinion as it goes more in depth about the Infinity Stones.

I really loved Thanos in Infinity War. As messed up as it may seem I kind of felt pity for him. Strange I know. But I get this vibe that there's much more to his story than what we think. There's this bittersweet aspect about him.

I am looking forward to End Game but I won't rush out to the cinemas straight away to see it. Sooner the better though. ;)

Well, I admit, I loved Last Jedi. Still, just acknowledging fan backlash when it's there.