At the end of Infinity War, Thanos clicks his fingers, turns half of everyone to dust, and fucks off to his allotment. At the start of Endgame, the Avengers arrive at his allotment, chop off his hand, then his head. Dead.

Later in Endgame, in the past, past-Thanos, who is yet to get all of the stones, finds out from the network link between past-Nebula and now-Nebula, that the Avengers are trying to undo what he is yet to do. So past-Thanos crashes into now-Avengers’ party, and blows up their base. That results in the epic final battle which ends in Stark clicking Thanos into dusty oblivion.

So, you’ve gone to all this effort to maintain a timeline, then done exactly what you said you wouldn’t do, by killing the bad guy before he’s done any of the stuff he’s going to do. There’s no point returning the stones to the precise points in the timeline, because you’ve just turned the guy to dust before he’s going to get them.

Andy wrote:

At the end of Infinity War, Thanos clicks his fingers, turns half of everyone to dust, and fucks off to his allotment. At the start of Endgame, the Avengers arrive at his allotment, chop off his hand, then his head. Dead.

Later in Endgame, in the past, past-Thanos, who is yet to get all of the stones, finds out from the network link between past-Nebula and now-Nebula, that the Avengers are trying to undo what he is yet to do. So past-Thanos crashes into now-Avengers’ party, and blows up their base. That results in the epic final battle which ends in Stark clicking Thanos into dusty oblivion.

So, you’ve gone to all this effort to maintain a timeline, then done exactly what you said you wouldn’t do, by killing the bad guy before he’s done any of the stuff he’s going to do. There’s no point returning the stones to the precise points in the timeline, because you’ve just turned the guy to dust before he’s going to get them.

As the mystic bald chick explained to banner, the stones had to go back as when they were removed they created alternate timelines we didn't see on screen.

Dinostar77 wrote:

As the mystic bald chick explained to banner, the stones had to go back as when they were removed they created alternate timelines we didn't see on screen.

Yes, I get why it was necessary to avoid those, but they’ve just caused the mother of all paradoxes that fucks up the timeline leading up to each moment they’re supposed to return the stones to. It’s like crashing your car into someone’s front room, then making a fuss about getting the ornaments back in exactly the right place.

Loved it, had very high expectations and it pretty much met them. What an awesome film.

My take it changing the past doesn't affect the present because as mentioned when you change the past the current future is now your past so and changes don't have any affect.
A cheap way to cover time paradoxes and I have never seen it done that way before and covered the fact that going back and stopping thanos before the click won't fix anything.

The point about 5 years going by and everyone who didn't get dusted still being the same age as the dusted dudes is a good one though.They will probably ignore that one too.

I don't mind as it was a great film and would prefer plotholes to a more accurate but less interesting film.

But they didn't did they, or at least only for half the population

edit: what I mean is they didn;t simply erase all the consequences of his actions, which would have been the lazy superpower god powered dick move. 50% of the population still experienced what happened, unless I've missed something, and they got five years older than all their peers. Not an issue for most adults but half of Peter Parker's school mates will be finishing Uni now

Bruce Banner’s explanation doesn’t actually solve anything, it just badly explains why paradoxes are paradoxes.

Yes, the past of the Thanos who turns to dust still exist, but that Thanos hasn’t started collecting the Infinity Stones yet.

Put it this way, if I turn you to dust when you are 25, how do I chop your head off when you’re 50? You never get to be 50. None of the things you did between 25 and 50 can happen, because you died when you were 25.

The Infinity Stones needed to go back because the other reality would have been buggered by the events of the Doctor Strange movie if the Time Stone had not been present, etc. It doesn't matter that much if the other reality wasn't 100% restored to normal. In fact if the next story arc hinges on bad stuff happening because of a lack of Infinity Stones in the normal universe then the alt universe will have been done a favour by having the destruction of theirs averted.

Right I'm with you, you are thinking of a bunch of nearly parallel lines and our heroes jumping between them. As opposed to a character centric line, and from what I saw there were no paradoxes (I'm sure there's some if I look properly) so I'm not sure where the issue might be. Thanos A is killed in the shed, Thanos B is met and killed at another time. Before or after are meaningless here, because it depends on perspective. From the character's point of view young Thanos was killed after old Thanos

Andy wrote:

Had the Avengers’ plan gone to, er, plan, then what they did was restore everyone who died five years later. They would then put all the stones back, and the events of the last twenty-whatever films would have played out exactly as we watched them. However, the plan went awry, and Thanos from the past (before he had any of the stones) jumped into the present. They responded by turning him and his army to dust. Now, how are the events of the last twenty-whatever films going to play out, because Thanos doesn’t exist there any more.

EvilRedEye wrote:

Doesn't fuck up our time. Fucks up the alternate universe's although arguably for the better.

I think the thing that makes it even more complicated is that on top of fairly convoluted time travel mechanics you've got a magical gauntlet that essentially let's people non-vocally make wishes... in a movie. It's hard to know what Tony's snap does. It seems like it just killed Thanos' army but it could have restored them in the other timeline or something, we have no way of knowing.

pantyfire wrote:

THIS FUCKED UP LOGIC ALWAYS HAPPENS IN MOVIES BASED ON TIME TRAVEL.  I've never come across a single movie with time travel safe theme that you couldn't say 'but what if....?'.

Predestination does alright. Primer does alright. Er … I think that’s it.

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

Does this movie have white men wearing fancy pants and saving the world?

You are smarter than this.

Is he?