Thread:Elledy92/@comment-26838855-20190425183005/@comment-26838855-20190502012012

Teen Titans Forever! wrote: I think we all agree the film should have worded the time travel explaining scenes better.

Anyway I personally like their explanations (alternate realities are official, Peter and his friends were all snapped and still have there current age and the world is going to very confusing because of that). I thought it was worded fine until I found out their intention, in which case, yeah, poorly worded. This Russo reveal has made me like the film less, unfortunately.

Anyway, I've reevaluted the Ancient One scene and the Captain America scene, taking your suggestion into account but also trying to make it work for the way the Russos are saying the time travel works. I've done my best with the poor wording.

"If I give up the Time Stone to help your reality I'm dooming my own."

If the Ancient One gives Bruce the Time Stone so he can alter reality, that could benefit him and the reality he creates, but it leaves her doomed, missing the Time Stone.

You can either take this as that they are already in a new splinter reality, or that she is referring to the fact that as soon as it's given up, there are two realities and Bruce would be helping his or dooming hers.

I don't know if Loki has escaped yet at this point, or if Cap has said "Hail Hydra", but the fact that events in 2012 are incompatible mean that the moment they arrive is a split. It can't just split a few minutes after their arrival because that would mean that originally in the timeline, the 2023 versions of themselves were present for a few minutes, hidden then... disappeared? The split has to occur BECAUSE they arrived. So we know it has to be the first of those two options.

"With all due respect, alright, I - I'm not sure the science really supports that."

"The Infinity Stones create what you experience as the flow of time. Remove one of the stones and that flow splits. The flow of time splits when a stone is removed. But it's also already split, apparently, despite the stone not being removed yet - and can still split anyway even if you don't remove a stone. Anyway...

"Now this may benefit your reality, but my new one, not so much. In this new branch of reality, without our chief weapon against the forces of darkness, our world would be overrun, millions will suffer."

So she's saying Bruce would pop back to his reality with the thing that can help him, but he's leaving behind a splinter without the Time Stone that is in massive trouble.

"So tell me doctor, can your science prevent all that?"

"No... we can erase it. Because once we're done with the stones, we can return each one to its own timeline at the moment it was taken, so chronologically, in that reality, it never left."

Meanwhile, the black line moved back into the orange line and disappears.

So "no", they can't "prevent" the suffering. But they can erase the suffering timeline from existence in returning the stone. I just don't see how this doesn't imply that the splinters are cut off, and only opened/closed due to Infinity Stones. But if it's not that, I guess you can fudge it as, "We make sure that for the Ancient One's reality, that we've already created in arriving back in 2012, there's no darkness, we just return the stones."

However, this doesn't account for:

-Why that involves getting rid of a split in time. Because you're not.

-Why removing the Infinity Stone had anything to do with splitting time.

-Why this is "erasing" and specifically not "preventing".

The only way I can answer these questions is that she is talking about a splinter ON the splinter. Ignoring the fact that the timeline just splintered and just referring to the timeline they're currently in, and saying that removing the stone will cause a further split that will cause a dark reality, and they're erasing THAT splinter from existence. But the splinter created by them arriving in 2012 is still in existence, it's just not a problem.

This works with the unclear usage of "reality", but does not account for the fact that the scene strongly is implying that the Infinity Stones are THE reason that time splits.

Sure, we know from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that time can split in other ways as well, but that's not important here, in this film by the rules they set up for the film, that they are aware of, it strongly implies that Infinity Stones are THE reason time splits. But I guess not, I guess she's just also saying that removing Infinity Stones also causes a split. It's a second way things split. That's poorly phrased if that's the intention, but, *sigh*, OK.

"And remember, you have to return the stones to the exact moment you got 'em or you're gonna open up a bunch of nasty alternative realities."

So what this is meant to mean is actually that if you don't return the stones you'll cause dark alternative realities splintering from the splinter realities.

Edward Zachary Sunrose wrote: Thank you, and I agree wholeheartedly. They should've explained the time travel a lot better. Especially since it really does seem to be consistent with how they did it in AoS, and how they usually do it in the comics. And in both of those other places, we've never actually gotten a conclusive explanation either.

They did hint that we might see how Steve got back to the main timeline and how he got the other shield for Sam, so I imagine this'll be the basis for a What If episode, a one-shot, or maybe even a movie down the line if Chris Evans ever wants to return. But who knows? Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I feel explained its time travel really well.

It's weird that they're not revealing it. I wonder if it's because of a concrete future plan or a just-in-case plan.

Marvelus wrote: The time travel was perfectly explained, just two things to clear up:


 * 1) Once the Stones were returned, that alternate timeline got erased?
 * 2) How did Rogers return? If he returned via time machine, why didn't they show that?

It wasn't perfectly explained or else people like all of us who have taken the time to comb through it in detail would come to an agreement, and would've known how it worked. We didn't.

1) I guess my explanation for that is now that they've erased the splinter on the splinter.

2) They probably didn't show him coming out of the machine for story reasons rather than logic reasons. a) It's much more moving with the slow realisation, b) it's less silly, c) it doesn't allow them to have Steve just calmly talk to Sam aside from the others, and d) if he came back as an old man it might confuse people like they'd done the thing they did with Scott earlier in the film. But it's the only way he could've got back according to the logic the film tells us.

MJLogan95 wrote: 1) Most. The timeline where Loki stole the Tesseract was not erased as they could not pursue Loki to retrieve it.

2) We don't know how. Or why they elected not to show it. We just know he jumped back. 1) It's all or nothing. While 2012 and 2014 are the two where it's very incompatible with the original timeline, it turns out according to the Russos that every bit of time travel splits the timeline, so 1945, 1970, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2018 all have splinter timelines coming off them from Steve's jump, the Space Stone Heist, the Mind and Time Stone Heist, the Reality Stone Heist, the Power and Soul Stone Heist, and Hawkeye's test. If the timelines therefore continued to exist as their own timelines, which seems to be the case if it is indeed that they're erasing the splinters on splinters and from the implication of the Russos'/Markus and McFeely's comments, then we have three timelines (1970, 2013, and 2018) that are essentially identical, one timeline that could be very different or only slightly different (2012), and two timelines that are very different (1945, 2014).

2) Yup.

Marvelus wrote:
 * 1),What I seemed to understand at first was that, the Stones kept the time in stone and did not allow it to change. So if you put it back, nothing would have changed and the changes made would get erased.


 * 2)Again. That is a problem. It would have been more touching if Cap was always Carter's husband.

1) That was the initial understanding because that's what the film seems to suggest...

2) I agree. I don't care about the splinter timelines and find it very weird.

Elledy92 wrote: 1) Timelines that has been created cannot be erased. Just like you can't alter the past, you can't alter the continuum of something that is settle. What you can erase are possible futures where the Stones are not in place in their own universes. ​​​​​​ My reasoning for that, from the film's dialogue, was that the Infinity Stones back in union set the flow of time back to right, thus erasing the timelines. But now, with the Russos' information, my new understanding is above, and I think seems to be similar to what you're saying in that last sentence.

Edward Zachary Sunrose wrote: Exactly. All of the trips we saw, even Hawkeye's brief one, created alternate timelines. 1940's, 2012 and 2014 especially are too far gone, but the others, while still alternate timelines due to the smallest of details and interactions, will follow the same general path as the MCU does. Yeah.

Teen Titans Forever! wrote: The previous two comments are exactly right. I don't know how there are fans who are still in denial. What do you mean in denial? Are there people still claiming that Steve is in the main timeline? Because while that still works better by what the film tells you, the answer, however annoying, has been given.