Duck, Duck, Goose

The outfit is nothing to write home about, so I’m hijacking this post to talk about Avengers: Endgame instead. The title is actually an obscure reference to Goose, the cat/Flerken in Captain Marvel – I’m wearing a cat brooch after all. I’m still wondering why they renamed him “Goose” instead of keeping the name “Chewie” from the comics. Probably now that Disney owns both Star Wars and the MCU, they don’t want the two confused, plus “Goose” is a nod to Top Gun, which is appropriate for a film about a fighter pilot set in the 80s/90s.

Anyway, let’s move on to Endgame. In short: it’s good. OK, slightly longer: it’s really good. It’s everything a Marvel fan can hope for in a film that is 11 years in the making. And yes, it is a film for Marvel fans. I can’t imagine any casual viewer can watch it and feel the same emotional impact. But as for those who have been with Marvel from the start, you’d laugh, you’d cry, and you’d cheer your heart out. I especially love all the callbacks and payoffs of details set up in other films, which make the whole thing (and I mean the whole of MCU, not just this movie) very cohesive and well thought-out. And it’s a very focused film too, despite its 3-hour run time. Unlike Infinity War, which has to set up so many new dynamics, Endgame is very much a film of the original Avengers – Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow. It is their swan song, and as painful as it sometimes is, it is the send-off they (and the fans) deserve. We have a new generation of superheroes now, but I’m not sure that the success of this phase of the MCU can ever be repeated. It truly feels like the end of an era.

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