It's not a minor thing. But what you say makes sense. It's the only way far from home can make sense.

But talking plot holes:

Nebula killed her past self...how does this make sense?

Thanos and his armies are dusted before infinity war begins?

Gamora knows every thing?

Loki escapes with the tesseract?

Or was this supposed to have created a parallel universe with a different time line?

I thought replacing the stones was supposed to prevent that?

If so, is there now a living gamorra?

Is there a rogue loki out there?

But why did cap stay in the same timeline when he went to the past?

But then how di

I think most of those can be explained with alternate timelines. When Hulk is talking to The Ancient One she says we need those stones in our timeline otherwise bad stuff will happen, so he promises to return the stones, correcting their timeline.

So The Ancient One conversation happens in timeline B, this is the universe that Nebula and Thanos discover the plot and leave from, so there is no Nebula, or Thanos or his army in universe B, and there is also a rogue Loki. Gamorra could have been given a brief history lesson by Nebula, at least about how they came to trust each other, and that could have included her romance with Quill.

The biggest plot hole from this scenario is Cap, he would have gone back in time to universe B, and aged in universe B, so he shouldn't turn up in universe A. At the time I took this as a closed loop, Peggy was always sketchy about the details of her husband when talking to Cap on her death bed in Civil War or was it Winter Soldier? Anway, I took it at the time that Cap was always going to go back, and Peggy kept him a secret so to speak. She got her cake and to eat it too, she just had to pretend her boyfriend didn't come back from the future.

BUT...

All of this hinges on changes being made in the past creating new timelines, and this is where things get complicated. Loki escaping with the tesseract would create one diverging timeline, Nebula leaving when she did would have created another, Thanos and his army leaving after Nebula would have created another. Not to mention War Machine and Nebula knocking out Quill would have altered his timeline, as would Rocket attacking Jane, Cap fighting himself along with Ant-man shocking Tony etc...

All of those adjustments would create diverging timelines.

Bottom line is, Primer is still the smartest time travel movie ever made

Another thing, how did nebula transport Thanos and his armies? They said they needed the pym particles. But she only had the one vial from the other Nebula. Did she give this to Thanos for him to replicate? But then how did she get back?

Rewatching it occurred to me that Peter and Ned were happy to see each other because half of the kids in their school had left, and they were happy that each other was still there.

A lot of things could be considered as closed loops. I mean cap used the mind stone on himself, which could have wiped his memory. Same sort of thing could happen with Quill. Maybe him getting knocked out happened before the opening credits of GotG.

Very true, I forgot that Cap used the mind stone

It already looks like there's no payoff at all for May's "What the f-" at the end of Homecoming. What should have led to an entertaining scene with Marisa Tomei rying to strangle RDJ seems to have been glossed over completely. There had better be at least a flashback scene in the next Spider Man picture.

@A to Z said:

Another thing, how did nebula transport Thanos and his armies? They said they needed the pym particles. But she only had the one vial from the other Nebula. Did she give this to Thanos for him to replicate? But then how did she get back?

She came back with Hawkeye. I assumed she used Nat's vile since she didn't need it anymore.

Nebula killed her past self...how does this make sense?

Alternate timeline. Nebula/Thanos doesn't matter in that timeline anymore since everyone associated with Thanos left and died.

Thanos and his armies are dusted before infinity war begins?

Alternate timeline. Thanos doesn't matter in that timeline anymore since he left and died.

Gamora knows every thing?

Yes, she's caught up.

Loki escapes with the tesseract?

Yes, well an alternate timeline Loki has it. The tesseract doesn't matter in that timeline anymore since Thanos left and died. It's not like the Avengers needed the Tesseract anymore after the first Avengers movie. Remember even in their timeline, Thor used it to bring back Loki to Asguard, but in that timeline he already escaped. We'll see in the Loki series what happens with that I guess.

Or was this supposed to have created a parallel universe with a different time line?

Yep. The rules established is that every time there is a deviation in events it creates an alternate timeline.

I thought replacing the stones was supposed to prevent that?

Captain returning the infinity stones to their respective timelines was to stop the creation of too many new alternate timelines, so that means the only difference in the alternate timeline is Thanos is dead before Infinity War so the Avengers there do not need to time travel. Oh and Loki is still alive in that alternate or another alternate timeline. We'll see in the Loki series I guess.

If so, is there now a living gamorra?

Probably. I don't know if she got dusted like the rest of Thanos's army. It's not like Tony could have made an exception in her case. We'll find out in GotG v3.

Is there a rogue loki out there?

Probably, but not in the current Avengers timeline...at least not yet. We'll see in the Loki series I guess.

But why did cap stay in the same timeline when he went to the past?

Not sure, but probably because it's his timeline, so was stuck in it or that he used the GPS one last time to get back to it once he was old. Time travel is confusing. I think the new What If series coming up in Disney+ is supposed to deal with all the alternate timelines created, Cap and Peggy is supposed to have an episode in it (so Chris Evans isn't quite done with the MCU yet).

She came back with Hawkeye. I assumed she used Nat's vile since she didn't need it anymore.

So thanos replicated the pym particles? I guess he could have taken months to do it in his own time.

Thanos is dead before Infinity War so the Avengers there do not need to time travel. Oh and Loki is still alive in that alternate or another alternate timeline. We'll see in the Loki series I guess.

makes no sense that Loki would be in the same timeline that Thanos and his armies died in. His timeline was altered before that timeline was altered. Also the changes to that timeline would have had a ripple effect, which means things would have already been different in the other timeline.

I don't know if she got dusted like the rest of Thanos's army. It's not like Tony could have made an exception in her case. We'll find out in GotGv3.

She was not dusted. That would have made no sense. We saw her fighting on the side of the Avengers in the "girl power" scene. It would be a strange choice by the writers. She will be in GotG3 for sure.

Peggy was always sketchy about the details of her husband when talking to Cap on her death bed in Civil War or was it Winter Soldier? Anway, I took it at the time that Cap was always going to go back, and Peggy kept him a secret so to speak. She got her cake and to eat it too, she just had to pretend her boyfriend didn't come back from the future.

that does not quite add up. in the winter soldier, peggy said in a video that cap saved the life of the man who became her husband, suggesting that her husband and cap were two different people...unless she was just flat out lying, but why do that?

i am grateful for this thread, as i was very puzzled by the scene were ned and peter were the same age, yet cassie remained aged 5 years. now i realise that ned and peter lost five years while their school mates aged. that has given me a deeper appreciation of the plot of this film.

i still can't quite square how steve ended up with peggy, unless he went to a timeline where she did not marry someone else? anybody got any answers?

Well I guess she had to lie to Cap, otherwise she would mess up the timeline.

but she wasn't just lying to cap. she recorded a video that played in the smithsonian where she was clear that her husband was someone else. which makes me think that the peggy who married another man, who steve talked to at the nursing home in winter soldier, and who he was the pall bearer for in civil war, comes from a different timeline...

She would have had to keep it a secret. But maybe she did marry another man? Maybe it will be explained later? Or maybe it's just a plot hole.

The Peter/Ned scene at the end left me with some of the same questions that started this thread. At first I thought that we were back in 2018 as if Infinity War never happened, but after seeing the scene with Scott, Hope, and Cassie, It seems that the rest of the stories going forward are just continuing from 2023. If they are keeping in that continuity, then I guess we'll have to assume that all of Peter's high school friends that end up in Far from Home must have been dusted as well.

My takeaway is that the Snap still occurred in 2018 with its victims returning unaged five years later even though the 2014 version of Thanos traveled to the future, failed to complete his snap, and got dusted by Tony. I don't think we are meant to be concerned about branching timelines. Other than half of the planet missing the past five years, the only major changes to the timeline that the characters end up in are that Gamora is a 2014 version of herself that didn't experience bonding with the rest of the GotG, we don't know what Loki did with possession of the tesseract for the past eleven or so years, Thanos wasn't around to kill Loki after the destruction of Asgaard, and Steve Rogers was able to return to Peggy and presumably grow old with her. Even if the writers of The Winter Soldier didn't intend for Peggy's husband to be Captain America from the future when they wrote the movie, I think it's a perfectly reasonable retcon to say that she was purposefully misleading Steve so he wouldn't know about his own future.

Unrelated question: Who was the teenage boy in front of the porch at Tony's funeral scene? Was he just a random extra, or was he supposed to be someone we recognized? He was standing alone as the camera was panning through the crowd just before Nick Fury walked on screen.

@poit57 said:

Unrelated question: Who was the teenage boy in front of the porch at Tony's funeral scene? Was he just a random extra, or was he supposed to be someone we recognized? He was standing alone as the camera was panning through the crowd just before Nick Fury walked on screen.

It was Harley Keener, the little boy that helped Tony on Iron Man 3 (played again by Ty Simpkins though more grown up). It's not surprising you didn't recognize him, as me, my brother and our friends were driving home from the movie, he asked everyone in the car if they recognized the kid at the funeral, and only me and him did.

@Innovator said:

It was Harley Keener, the little boy that helped Tony on Iron Man 3 (played again by Ty Simpkins though more grown up). It's not surprising you didn't recognize him, as me, my brother and our friends were driving home from the movie, he asked everyone in the car if they recognized the kid at the funeral, and only me and him did.

Thanks. I don't think many audience members will recognize him which makes the choice of character callback seem kind of strange even though it makes sense story-wise. But then again, I'm probably among very few audience members to wonder about his significance despite not recognizing him.

Unrelated question: Who was the teenage boy in front of the porch at Tony's funeral scene? Was he just a random extra, or was he supposed to be someone we recognized? He was standing alone as the camera was panning through the crowd just before Nick Fury walked on screen.

i have exactly the same question, and was about to post the same. would be very grateful for any answers.

i have conflicting feelings about peggy and steve ending up together. while it is a kindness from the writers that he gets to have his happy every after, which judging from the reviews so far seems to appeal to many, and i loved steve and peggy's relationship in the first avenger, i had accepted that a life together was not meant to be for them. i watched the agent carter series, and one of the most impressive and effective storylines was peggy's acceptance that steve was not coming back and moving on with her life. you got a sense of the inner strength, integrity and intelligence that lead to her becoming the director of shield. the feminist in me struggles with what has happened, namely that her journey has been erased in order to bring happiness to a popular male character. steve was also moving on, as shown in civil war, with sharon carter. i used to read the cap comics, and when i used to read them, it was sharon that was the love of steve's life, whereas peggy was just a war time fling. i know, the movies are a separate entity, and like i said i did love the chemistry between peggy and steve, but i really wanted to see the relationship with sharon and steve grow towards its potential. i think it is sad that sharon has not even been mentioned since civil war.

also, my understanding of the theme of steve's arc in the MCU is 'the man who sacrificed everything', which is why as i was watching the final battle in endgame i expected it to be steve that wore the gauntlet and sacrificed everything to save the universe. it would have been the fitting end to his arc, and i would have found that much more impactful emotionally than having iron man be the one.

oh well. it is what it is.