Ending the game

Marvel’s last Avengers movie, “Avengers: Endgame,” wraps up the current Avengers storyline with a bang and lives up to the hype.

In the previous movie, “Avengers: Infinity War,” Thanos successfully obtained all six of the infinity stones. 

The stones are each represented as an aspect of existence: space, time, reality, power, soul, and mind. 

With every stone Thanos found, he got stronger because he controlled one more essential aspect of the world. 

Though the Avengers tried their best to defeat Thanos, they were too late. 

Thanos embedded the six stones into a gauntlet that simultaneously used their powers. 

And with the power of the stones, Thanos wiped out half of the population because he believed that killing people would help prevent overpopulation and the depletion of resources. 

The ending of “Avengers: Infinity War” left the audience shocked to see that their favorite heroes, such as Black Panther, Star-Lord, Gamora, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Nick Fury, were gone.

“Endgame” starts where everything left off in “Infinity War,” with the remaining Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Thor, Ant-Man, Rocket Raccoon, and Nebula, taking their last stand to save the world.                               

Many fans had high expectations for “Endgame,” because it is the last movie in the original Avengers franchise.

The success of “Infinity War” also set the bar high for “Endgame.” 

Despite “Endgame” making $1.2 billion  last weekend  compared to “Infinity War,” which only made $640.5 million its opening weekend, the production costs for both movies were around $400 million.

Nonetheless, many students enjoyed the movie and believe that it lived up to the high expectations that they had set for it.

“I thought it was a marvelous ending to the arc that Marvel has made over the past 10 years,” sophomore Angela Paloma said.

Spoiler Alert! 

“Endgame” starts with the remaining Avengers strategically planning to bring everybody back after they find Thanos on another planet and kill him. 

Even after he is killed, they still don’t know how to bring everyone back.

Five years pass and almost everyone has come to the conclusion that their friends and family are never coming back. But they regain hope when Scott Lang (Ant-Man) comes up with a plan that could possibly save everybody. 

With Lang’s plan, the remaining Avengers travel to the past to retrieve the stones from their past selves. 

To retrieve the reality stone, Thor travels to Asgard where he accidentally has a touching reunion with his mother. 

After they collect all the infinity stones, they make a gauntlet with them to bring everyone back. Hulk operates the gauntlet because he is the only one who can handle its power. 

Though everyone is brought back to life, Nebula brings Thanos and his entire army back to the present to destroy the Avengers and once again decimate half the population. 

Although there are not many deaths in the movie, the few deaths that happened had a big impact on the story and the characters. 

While searching for the soul stone, Black Widow and Hawkeye fight to sacrifice one person to obtain the stone. Eventually Black Widow sacrifices herself to save Hawkeye.

Iron Man also dies trying to protect the world, with his loved ones by his side as he takes his last breath. 

Some viewers were happy that their favorite characters didn’t die.

“It lived up to all of the hype and I’m just happy that Spider-Man didn’t die,” freshman Cindy Zhu said.

“Endgame” was a fitting end to the original Avengers franchise because it unites all the heroes together and brings us back to the past movies. 

But not all is lost. 

Although some of our favorite characters are gone, there are more new characters like Shang-Chi and Ms. Marvel being added to the Marvel cinematic universe, who are waiting for their stories to be told.