This is not a film review.
This is a mourning and processing review.
This is spoiler filled so if you don’t want that, you better click away!
This is me in sorrow. This is me in pain. This is me feeling loss to a world that is painful. To a world that doesn’t entirely exist on its own but feels like it does so very, very much. This is me coming to understanding. This is me grappling with such immense loss…loss of characters so influential, so heroic, so life-changing and life-saving even. This isn’t exactly me saying #ThankYouAvengers ’cause I’m still kinda pissed. I am mourning. I have been deeply affected by a world of heroes that were never in my control. I wish to mourn and share my ache with those of you who are just beginning to watch the same film I did and possibly take something different and foreign and yet all the same emotions and thoughts from it. I stand with you. We will make it through this…together. Whatever it takes. With love to 3000. Let’s begin.
***SPOILER WARNING***
….
!!!!
Natasha Romanoff.
Tony Stark.
Steve Rogers.
These are the ones we lost.
Tony’s death is the one that sticks out the most for me. I feel like my soul has been shredded to pieces. I am emotionally wrecked. Like a sinking ship. A deserted island. I’m in shock. I don’t want it to be true, but it is and it sucks and life feels so much less meaningful now.
And it’s not like I could have ever done anything about it, you know? I was powerless. Just as powerless as you.
And I know, I know part of the journey is the end. And they did win, this time, they won. But it still hurts. It hurts very deeply and very badly.
I’m never gonna look at cheeseburgers the same way (and Morgan, right? When she said that and Happy spoke to her, I cried all over again).
And the funeral, man I cried then too.
The moment when Tony passed–if the movie had ended right then and there I would have legitimately BAWLED and SOBBED–but it didn’t so I had to clear my eyes and get rid of the snot from my nose as I started to cry again in other parts.
And then Steve at the bench, having grown old… God damn it, then I was crying too.
And even when Natasha sacrificed herself for the soul stone, I shed a few tears then. But it wasn’t like with Iron Man, you know? It just wasn’t.
Iron Man was my second favorite character (the first being Loki, as if that’s much of a surprise, ahaha). I wish I could have seen Loki fighting in the final battle. That’s something I want to write into the story line from a pure fan fiction point of view. I also want to write a fic where Tony and Loki re-unite (FrostIron for sure, is that any surprise, either? XD) in the afterlife. Probably something I can just put my energy back into and try to move on as best as I can from these cinematic sacrifices.
I wish Vision could have been there, too.
And the movie was so much about trying again, trying to start over but always having that doubt in mind that things could have been different. Having the opportunity to have second chances–with Thor and his Mom, The Ancient One and Hulk, Tony and his Dad, Steve and Peggy–all of it, just … hits me in the gut.
I love, I truly do love that Steve got to live a life with Peggy and grow old but it’s so, sooo sad to see him go. To see everything as it happened, and without any end credits scenes just gutted me. My processing song for this post is: Sum 41’s “Crash” (fitting, I find).
I really thought it was going to be Barton that sacrificed himself, and it was a close call for sure, and when Nat just said “It’s going to be okay” and leapt…
And even their meeting after back in the present day (five years after Thanos snapped his fingers when AIW ended) talking about Nat and wanting her to be there… shit, man.
And then there was the whole time travel component.
And Tony had a family.
And at first it confused me that them saying they wouldn’t mess with the past and the present day at the 5 year mark would be intact was something I missed at watching the movie (i.e. My Mom explained it to me in the car later). Which makes sense as to why Morgan is still alive and everything (I loved that Pepper joined in within the fight, too).
I think it was really Peter begging for Tony to stay that got me.
I mean, I knew, I thought he wasn’t going to make it, but shit, I wasn’t ready for it. Not like this. Even with Cap I wasn’t ready for it.
And there’s just this void in me now. Like, I want to go see it again now (I already got tickets to see it again with a friend who hasn’t seen it yet for Monday evening) but it’s just so fresh even now.
And when Pepper told Tony that it was okay and “You can rest now.”
Dude, I’m just in tears.
I feel so shattered. I feel like a husk of a soul. Carnage.
And I teared up when everyone was there to fight the final battle, that was lovely and so awesome and inspiring and fantastic.
But that loss, man. That final, “I am Iron Man”. I mean, I was nervous when the movie started and Tony was so sickly and then for everything to come full circle and for him to wield the stones to vanish Thanos but that taking everything out of him…
I don’t think I realized how attached to these characters I was, until, it was too late. They were gone. And I guess that’s how life and death tends to be, isn’t it? Like I genuinely just feel like curling up in a ball and sobbing for the next year.
And when Cap at the end let Sam hold his shield. And to have passed that on. Oh god!
And they got to play Tony’s last message and everyone was there for him at the funeral. I swear, I feel like I’m not going to be the same. I mentioned the thing about the cheeseburgers, right? Because I swear shawarma and cheeseburgers I’ll never look at in the same way again.
There was comedic relief spliced into the story, too, don’t get me wrong.
It was shocking and funny to see how much Thor let himself go and how human he was because he’d chopped off Thanos’s head and then drank himself into a stupor after and got fat and when presented with his mother again he spoke to her at length (I kinda wished he’d done more with Loki though, to be honest) and tried to warn her about her own death to come but she knew, I think, and she accepted it.
It was a very meaningful exchange. It was interesting to see too what else happened after the Avengers movie had ended where it did, why Loki got a muzzle and how he disappeared when the Tesseract was out in the open. I enjoyed the hurt/comfort nature within this movie.
I also enjoyed when Nebula and Tony were playing with the paper footballs. And I thought it was well done how Clint started off the movie but his family were the ones to disappear. His growth, and really, all their growths were so touching and heartfelt.
I just wish things could have ended differently. And I don’t think I’m ready to accept them for how they are the way they are.
I’m probably going to be busy writing fanfics about this ending and AU’s where things went differently. In part to mourn and in part to move on and carry forwards.
I feel….more clear-headed now. I really needed to process.
I came into this Marvel Cinematic Universe in summer 2014. I fell in love with Thor and Loki through fan videos on Youtube and tons of fanfic stories (“Drown” by Ordis is my utmost favorite). I had the idea of my own fanfic story (the one I now proudly call “Come to Pass”) before I ever made another fanfiction.net account (I had a previous one for House MD but lost the password). I watched Iron Man 3 and Iron Man 2 trying to find the Loki scenes but couldn’t. Eventually I came across Avengers and for the first two hours, felt the scenes weren’t in there either, but then they were and I fell in love. That’s how I got involved into the MCU.
I had seen Iron Man before, not in theaters but on TV, and I always thought that Thor was just another one of those ancient Rome movies my Mom likes, and not actually a superhero movie.
I was a kid when I saw the original Spider-Man movies. The ones with Tobey in them.
And I saw Thor and I saw Captain America and I saw a couple of the Hulk ones and The Winter Soldier on TV and everything. I saw Ant-Man and Doctor Strange and The Dark World, Age of Ultron (I think, can’t recall for sure) on TV too.
I saw Civil War, Ragnarok, Infinity War, Endgame and Homecoming in theaters.
I saw Captain Marvel in theaters too, actually, to be fair.
But in 2016 I started writing my own fanfic stories and publishing them online. I think it was only just this year when I decided I’d write “Come to Pass” the one from when I first got introduced in this magical and life-saving realm.
I mean, honestly, this universe kept me alive for so long. Ragnarok, Infinity War, Endgame… I had to be alive still in order to see them and enjoy their presence and bask in their glow.
And now, with a clearer head and still with an ache, I will find time to write and write passionately. Because I loved these characters. I loved these stories. And life, life always moves on, moving forward no matter how much we want it to stop and stay the same, at times.
I’m sure I’m not over mourning now, in ways I know I’m not, but I may be able to write yet and I will probably read some fanfics to help me to cope and come to terms with everything.
Even with Tony and Natasha and Steve gone in the MCU, in the cinemas, they are still living on in each and every one of us. I don’t know how I’ll be able to stand re-watching old movies they’re in without thinking about their ultimate demise, but maybe that’s not the point. Maybe the point is that they still live, despite everything that wound up happening, they’re still here, they still live and breathe and feel and can be manipulated and explained and understood.
In many ways, they are timeless. Which is a theme you’ll see me talk about more in my book review on “Pet Sematary” (1983).
For now, I think it’s time I pick myself up and move forwards. I don’t know how or if exactly I will go onwards with the MCU. Maybe it ends here, and maybe it doesn’t. I’m curious to see what happens next.
And I will always love Tony Stark and Loki. My two favorites. And they’ll always be with me, moving forwards. And Steve got to be with Peggy, he got to live a life so full and beaming. He got to finish something he had once started.
And I guess, I will find new reasons to stay alive. Maybe to read all the fanfics out there, of others wishing for a different end. It’s amazing the power that fictional characters can have on us.
It’s not goodbye, it’s just… see you later.
Okay, I’m officially crying again but I think this is where the story of this Mourning Review ends.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for being. Thank you for existing.
And above all: Thank you Stan Lee for helping to create these masterpieces. This one is to you.
May we all find peace, meaning and trust in the process of this life. And hey, we can always go back and be with them again in other movies and videos and clips. They’re not gone forever. Just for a little while.
❤ ❤ ❤
RecoverytoWellness 