Avenger's Endgame: How to do a Save the World Story [ featuring Overly Sarcastic Productions! ]

avenges int game do they save the world story where everything and everyone for all of time is at stake really really well so let's talk about why spoilers head for endgame obviously if you haven't seen the film don't watch the video so remember when Sony drops the trailer for spider-man far from home and everyone was just like well I guess he comes back an end game then sort of took away the big question that everyone thought they were gonna focus on that day yep they would indeed save the world yet here's the thing indie games still managed to build and sustain tension very effectively so the question becomes how did they can you hear that what's that sound oh hey it's redone blue from overly suggestive productions you know I thought phenols dusted you you'd think so but then house really wasn't being specific enough with his definition of life and we're just cartoon characters so we're fine and we know a little bit about this whole saving the world thing - oh well that's a marvelous so well why don't you tell us about what the problems are would they save the world trope creating tension means establishing stakes and this can be incredibly tricky to do super low stakes are uninteresting to begin with but if we set the bar too high it becomes impossible to stay invested we all know in the back of our minds that the bad guys can't just win since that would be incredibly unsatisfying so let's talk about infinity war how do you establish that your antagonist means business you have him beat the crap out of the entire cast of Thor Ragnarok mostly off screen like it's nothing that way when banner falls into the sanctum panting that the audience immediately knows what this dude is capable of over the course of the movie the tension ratchets further and further up as Thanos collects more stones getting more and more powerful until and then it's the worst case scenario come to pass the bad guy one that is an extremely bold filmmaking choice because it hits us hard with the most important component of stakes consequences as much as people like to complain about comic book movies not having any consequences there are several films in the MCU that are directly incited by the events of previous movies and of course the biggest one of them all is the snap so now endgame starts in a fascinating space the heroes have lost this is completely uncharted territory for superhero movies as the entire first hour of the film stews in the deep consequences of that substantial catastrophic failure it doesn't start anymore in media res than endgame but the trouble is that from the outset tension is minimal because there's no way things can get worse for the universe from a strictly narrative standpoint there's nowhere to go but up so on paper there are really no stakes at all it's tricky enough to manage stakes in the save-the-world story but this is an unscrew the world story so it's completely different territory then how did the writers take a situation that begins in that incredibly dark and futile place and turn that into two and a half hours of more tension well the writers actually did something pretty simple for the most part the tension and the emotional weight and the narrative isn't actually derived from these save the world story threat where they need to bring all the people back and save the world and or universe instead it's derived from two things one who will die and two internal character struggles this was a really good decision on part of the writers because these are things that people actually deeply and truly care about that they can relate to that they get invested in and that they cannot predict unlike whether or not they will save the world meaning they can use them to ramp up the tension and stakes more effectively for a closer look let's examine the obstacles the characters face in each of the 3x the challenges of the first actor bringing the Avengers back together and then whipping up some time trap and it ends with caps obligatory pep talk in them jump me back in time you would think that the tension would be directly derived from the difficulties in inventing time travel and while I'm no expert I'm pretty sure it's a difficult thing to do but no Tony Stark manages to invent time travel virtually the first time he tries in a single scene there isn't the struggle we usually associated with such a major obstacle to saving the world we see in play with some Holograms there's a brief clip of one simulated failure which we didn't see him invest any time or effort into before he realizes BAM he's done it he has literally figured out how to time travel likewise the attempts of ant-man cap and the Hulk to an event time travel are mostly played for laughs they have no real consequences in the story instead they derive the tension and the stakes from conflicts between Tony and Steve as well as Tony wanting to hold on to what he has found in the five years since the snap and come to see as the most important thing family and to look a little deeper into the same way Tony discovers time-travel all of the emotional weight and most of the dialogue in the scene is based around whether he should use time travel to save the world if it could risk losing his family the moments between him and pepper and where his daughter learns to swear are touching and the focus is given to them for a very particular reason to invest the audience in something more down to earth than the fate of everything and everyone and their cats for all of time and the scene with Steve finally asks for Tony's help the conflict is over whether they should pursue this as a second chance in swing cap says we've got a second chance Tony picks up his daughter and says I've got my second chance right here it's totally believable that Tony wouldn't want to involve himself when he risks losing his daughter the writers understood that the stakes of saving the world ie bringing everyone back are difficult for people to really visualize or feel to empathize with especially given we have outside knowledge that they will succeed because yeah so instead they chose to scale the story down and grounded in stakes that we can empathize with and that can be realistically lost in the story in spite of the heroes winning the day and the second way they build tension in the first act is with relationships so the MCU has spent a decade building up relationships that audiences care about and the risk of losing those character dynamics Mehta one part of this is Tony and Steve it took a long time for stark and Rogers to respect one another to develop this dynamic of mutual trust and respect in spite of their philosophical and moral differences this relationship has always been a tenure one growing in Avengers being challenged in age of Ultron heightening in civil war and turning to bitterness in infinity war it hurts when we see Tony Rael it's Steve for his failure in the opening you said we'd win or lose together and guess what cap we lost I've got nothing for you cap nothing here Steve has nothing to say in response Tony doesn't trust him and Steve almost doesn't trust himself the audience cares about this conflict between them being resolved about this relationship and because of this this tension when he gets angry at Steve there's tension when Tony refuses to help him asking Tony means Steve needs to swallow his pride and Tony would have to trust Steve and his plan again it feels like that relationship is gone and these are still stakes ones that we still care about another part of us is Natasha and Clint who have always relied on each other and had this strange camaraderie as the two without powers and the Avengers in the opening scene we lose that dynamic we care about when Clint's wife and children are dusted he withdraws from as friends and those who love and support him and Natasha spends a significant part of the first date trying to find him we care about keeping them all together we care about maintaining these important relationships that they've built up because ultimately the story isn't just about who they lost to Dennis but what each of them lost in themselves because of it hope optimism and clear moral direction a normal life all of these give emotional stakes to the story because even if in the shadow of a save the world threat we still care about Tony trusting Steve about Clint being able to confide in Natasha about keeping this team together and nope wait is the view of really lead to believe that our heroes won't be able to invent time travel but we are led to believe that Clint won't reconnect that Tony won't trust Steve again and that there is risk of Tony losing the daughter he loves and even if the save the world threat frames the direction of the story overall the stakes come from Tony's relatable losses and the tension comes from whether we will lose or regain these relationships that we have come to care about and this focus on building tension through internal character struggles and who will die becomes clearest in these second-act from when they travel back in time through to win bene use as the start gauntlet the practical obstacles to saving the world at this point in the story are very simple cab is to get the mine stone Tony the space stone Hulk the time stone nebula Rhodes the power stone Thorin rock at the reality stone in Clinton Natasha the soul stone but let's take a closer look at how the tension is built in each of these story threads as they overcome each of these obstacles in the case of the power stone and the mind stone there are no serious obstacles to getting the stones and furthering their saving of the world roads are nebula pretty much just walk in and take it this even something of a joke in the film where road says don't walk in there's always traps which nebula scoffs set as if the riders were recognizing they're usually at this moment in the story there are pointless obstacles the heroes have to overcome and they just take it and in the case of camp there is an active subversion of tension by setting up the lift scene from Winter Soldier so the original scene from Winter Soldier was truly tense with real stakes and we can feel how close cap comes to failing but in indie game the story just sidesteps the tension here entirely and kept tricks them into giving him the stone he then has to fight himself but it's mostly played for jokes about America's ask and that's because the focus is really on his character both are kept moments here though largely tensionless brilliantly display his growth he's smarter than before and faster on his feet with the hail Hydra moment and he's able to defeat his past self by playing into his own emotional weaknesses with saying Bucky is alive much of this has played as a joke but it's an effective means of showing substantial character growth in the case of the space stone even though they lose it at the start and a forced travel further back to the 1970s to find it again Tony pretty much just walks in and takes it from the vault but there is tension in the scene it just doesn't come from difficulties in acquiring the stone firstly Steve has to choose to trust Tony again which he does you trust me I do marking a mending of that relationship that we care about and secondly Tony has to confront his complex feelings about his father as well as his own responsibilities of being a father when he meets his dad and thirdly Steve has to once again leave piggy behind a character struggle that would culminate in his choice at the end of the film these are character struggles that they've developed in previous films and this pattern becomes even more overt in the case of the reality stone we don't even see rocket get the stone he just walks in and takes her from Padme but once again there is tension and stakes in the scene Thor nearly suffers a panic attack and he has to learn to deal with his fears of Thanos and his grief and seeing his home and family all of whom he has lost in his timeline he manages to overcome this after meeting with his mother and all of this culminates in him rediscovering himself as still worthy and still brave taking back me on there by which time rocket arrives with the stone once again none of the tension in this scene is derived from difficulties in getting the stone and being one step closer to saving the world those things just happen in the background amidst character struggles and speaking of Thor red guys Thor is my favorite Avenger so endgame physically hurt me to watch I'm convinced the Russos hated everything Taika Waititi did with Thor in Ragnarok and they decided endgame was gonna be their revenge every piece of character development II got in Ragnarok is systematically undone in Infinity Warren endgame he lost the hair the cape the eye the hammer learned to be true to himself embrace his own power and step up to lead his people know now he's a by clops with long hair and a cool weapon again plus zero sense of responsibility for his people that now need his leadership more than ever and while every other Avenger is processing their emotions in trauma with a level of excruciating realism that borders on tortuous for is fat now isn't that hilarious Thor doesn't have a single emotional moment in this movie that isn't played for laughs he has breakdowns PTSD anxiety attacks all things that are played completely straight when Tony suffers from them an Iron Man 3 by the way he's lost everything that mattered to him he failed to kill thanos when it mattered the most and because of that trillions of deaths are weighing on his conscience clearly the best way to explore his tortured psyche is to strap on the world's fakest beer gut and have his closest friends dismiss and roll their eyes at his obviously deteriorating psyche because haha fat people are hilarious haha panic attacks are hilarious haha crippling depression is hilarious I'm gonna go rewatch Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes a show that likes Thor exactly as much as I do right on red but the time stone the time stone is the only story thread that spins time and obstacles explicitly about attaining the stone and not to do with internal character struggles or character deaths The Hulk has to convince the ancient one to give him the time stone but there is a reason for this this is kind of the obligatory exposition scene where they explain how time travel works and to remind the audience that Doctor Strange had a specific plan and lastly the soul stone this scene was intentionally placed at the climax of this second act as the story reaches a new peak in both tension and stakes this is because the soul stone brings with it a grim inevitability but the audience and characters knowing that one of them has to die to acquire it there's a dramatic irony to the scene given that the audience saw how Thanos acquired it beforehand here the writers and characters spent no time dealing with whether or not one of them can or should kill themselves to acquire the stone because the audience already knows on some level that one of them will the only question is and this is what they derive the tension from who will do it Clint or Natasha the stakes are high either way this is why the scene with the two repeatedly try to sacrifice themselves for each other works so well the tension ramps up because we don't know who will succeed and we want to neither of them to die each of them getting closer and closer to death till Natasha gets the upper hand and ends her life for Clint the emotional weight of the scene is also why the story spends more time on Vermeer than on most of the other stones the collection of the Infinity stones which takes up the majority of the second act work despite the audience knowing that they will succeed in doing so that they will get all the stones this is because the tension focuses on unknowns and relatable story threads overcoming character struggles like for mending relationships like between Tony and camp or ever who will die in pursuit of saving the world like Clinton Natasha the audience can relate to these internal and external conflicts more thus becoming more invested and they cannot predict their outcomes sustaining tension and takes on a level independent of saving the world so I had to applaud them for that and there I was watching our heroes save the world and bring everyone back it was a fantastic end hey what we're only two hours into endgame ah Thanos transported himself to the future with a plan to play God again hahaha and speaking of Thanos I want to talk about how his characterization comes into play at face value he behaves wildly inconsistently seeming cold and self confidence and infinity war but slipping into bouts of remarkable sadism towards his enemies and his big air quotes family in that movie and an end game I reconcile this by reading him first and foremost as a vindictive narcissist here's what I mean Thanos had an idea everyone disagreed because it's a stupid-ass idea and now that they're all dead he tours the universe enacting his will on to others through violence when he's in control of a situation as he is for much of infinity war he's self-righteous and remarkably calm but whenever he feels threatened or irritated he becomes extremely vengeful and an end game bent on wiping out all life just to settle a score each movie shows a different side of Thanos but both of these characterizations fit completely into his persona of a raging narcissist the neat thing is that Thanos also serves as a direct foil for the faults of our big three he has Steve's stubborn conviction but lacks any moral compass to ground it he has Toni's grand egoism but lacks his engineid to back it up and he has Thor's love of a good fight without the priorities of a worthy King to justify it and he sees other people as a means to an end and probably couldn't even pronounce the word team he's the total philosophical antithesis of the Avengers with all of their faults and none of their strengths going in blinds to take on the Avengers and doing so without acquiring the stones first was an act of total hubris but it's completely on par for mr. I am inevitable it's a bold strategy so let's see how it pays off so we're in the third act we're in the endgame now when the story is an unknown territory and even though the stakes of the save the world thread are supposedly raised Thanos now plans to wipe out all of the universe and remake it in his image which you know to be fair in a weird twisted philosophical sense it is still balanced this pattern of relying on internal conflicts and character deaths for tension and stakes translates to the third act as well however as the final act of not just the film but really the end game to everything the MCU has built so far the emphasis shifts to character deaths and how they do this is actually really interesting if kind of an obscure meta discussion on how we perceive fiction there's this weird trope infection which you might recognize where characters can't die or we don't expect them to until their character arc is resolved like there's this internal logic that the oven of fate isn't done baking them yet it's not uncommon to have a scene that finally bring this characters arc to its close just before they die maybe they reconcile with another character they prove they've got over their fears or they overcome a fatal character flaw and sometimes the death equals Redemption trope kicks in like how boromir's arc ends in Redemption by him dying defending the hobbits this is why it's kind of shocking when some characters die before we feel their story is done whatever that means but the flip side of this is that seeing a characters arc concluded means that it puts them in the danger zone in our minds and our six main characters an indie game measure up pretty well against this Thor redeems himself by facing up to us failure and fighting Thanos once more he is as his mother told him being his best at who he is worthy his character arc has brought to a satisfying point Steve Rogers arc culminates him him being proved as worthy to wield Mjolnir that through every trial and tribulation he maintained his moral character and undid his failures in infinity war he also now trusts and means his relationship with Tony this is a good end to his arc venez arc culminated with his own snap to revive half the universe in the start of the MCU banner saw the Hulk as a destructive monster but now that the Hulk and Bennett can work together as a team he is able to use his strength to create rather than senselessly destroy it's not my becoming professor Hulk but by doing his own snap that banner truly realizes he isn't a monster anymore Clint's well laying down his life to save his family from Thanos would be the ultimate or and for all he has done which we see he struggles with and Tony Tony's Ark is the most poignant here of all he has finally come to see that family is the most important thing manifested in this moment where he hugs Peter Parker close the natural reaction to the scene from homecoming is also redeemed himself by bringing the boy he felt responsible for bank on top of us in the original Avengers film this this tints interaction between Tony and camp you know the guy to make the sacrifice play to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you I think I would just cut the water here Tony finally becomes selfless as he lays down his life his arc is finished in a strange meter since the resolution of these six character arcs puts an expectation that any or all of these characters could die they were all in the danger zone in that final battle against Thanos there isn't that feeling of unfinished business for them that often means the audience's discount danger towards a particular character no one really thought that Thor was going to die in thought - if any one of them would have been the one to click their fingers like Tony did it would have been a satisfying end the result of all of this is a save the world story that still feels tense because the weight is on character rather than plot thanks so much for having us here man it was great to stop by and dish about endgame if you want to see more from us head to overly sarcastic productions and check out our trope talks playlists for more fun literary analysis now if you'll excuse us we got to get back home before the timeline splits into a dozen fragments Oh totally understand fed the timeline and multiverse and all I've got my own dimension to take care of thoughtful of you ha ha to chime in and sorry to put a cap on this discussion but it was inevitable and I'm terrible but that is all from us hope you guys enjoyed this collaboration I really loved working with our speed there fantastic both of them and go check them out as always come from over on Twitter and Instagram that's actually where our livestream dude just some casual chats and you can ask me questions and so on support the channel over on patreon get my book down at the link in the description below thank you to the literal 800 of you who already have truly means the world you guys are fantastic I love you all stay nerdy and thanks to all my patrons I will see you in the future you

Channel: Hello Future Me

Views: 326,899

Rating: 4.8676257 out of 5

Keywords: explained, theory, lore, analysis, how to, endgame, infinity war, avengers, marvel, captain america, storytelling, save the world, trope, osp, red, blue, tony stark, iron man, steve rogers, black widow, thanos, infinity stones, reality stone, time stone, dr strange, homecoming, far from home, spiderman, film, winter soldier, thor, ant man, hulk, gauntlet, collaboration

Id: iX8ik0FVxEU

Length: 22min 52sec (1372 seconds)

Published: Sat May 11 2019