Endgame should have been the endgame

Marvel Studios is re-releasing Avengers: Endgame in cinemas as Avengers Endgame: Encore this week, hoping to drum even more hype for Avengers: Doomsday. While I'm excited to watch this watershed moment in cinema again, I'm also reminded of what we could have had if all of this was just...done.

But to understand my misgivings, we have to go all the way back to April 2019, to me in a dark cinema jam-packed with a hundred people absolutely losing their shit when Captain America grabbed Mjolnir and whispered the word we've been waiting for him to say for the past 10+ years: "Assemble." 

Endgame gave Marvel and its fans something most franchises never get: a real ending. Tony died saving the world. Steve got his happy ending. Thanos was defeated. And if I'm being honest, how amazing would it have been if it could have stopped there and let the whole 11-year run stand as one of cinema's greatest achievements.

But then Marvel didn't stop. New characters arrived only to be never seen again (poor Shang-Chi...). The much-anticipated post-credits scenes became less relevant—or worse, pointless (remember Harry Styles as Starfox? How about Roy fucking Kent as Hercules?). And don't get me started on the Disney Plus shows, which meant Marvel was losing money to muddy the cinematic universe's waters (though I am thankful it gave us Loki, She-Hulk, and Werewolf by Night) and made the MCU feel more like homework than ever before.

And so Marvel allowed the MCU not to mature, but to grow old, to grow past its peak strength into withering weakness, like the Peter principle at work but for comic book movies.

So it's kind of poetic that Marvel is at its lowest, calling for heroes to save them—and it's RDJ again, it's Chris Hemsworth again, all against a world-ending threat...again. And now they're re-releasing Avengers: Endgame, reminding us of how good the MCU got, hoping that nostalgia will bridge the gap between now and December when Avengers: Doomsday comes out.

But Paul Bettany's Vision put it perfectly: "A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts." The MCU was beautiful because it ended on the highest note it could possibly get, built on top of an achievement no one will surpass in the foreseeable future.

I will enjoy watching Endgame again in the cinema. I just don't like being reminded that the Avengers already had a happy ending, and it was not allowed to rest.