Avengers Endgame is Beautiful | Video Essay 

So this was kinda incredible. It really makes me appreciate the film more, because you’re right. All of their personal narratives are woven into, broken by, and reorganized throughout the story and the climax perfectly encapsulates their best selves. They win via a compromise of sorts. They can’t compromise in their mission, but in order to complete it they MUST compromise their old sense of self-sacrifice who they were, to become what they need to be. Tony sacrifices his ego to save the universe, Cap sacrifices his sense of duty to be with the love of his life, Thor sacrifices his power to become a better man, Natasha sacrifices her life to keep her family together, the Hulk sacrifices his anger to become a stable figure for his community, and Clint sacrifices his sense of guilt over the red in his ledger to be there for his family again like he convinced Natasha she could do all those years ago. That’s brilliant.

“Trauma destroys people’s relationship with time because the loss of continuity means the absolute inability to imagine a future anymore.” This quote is genius.

In the 1st Avenger Tony said: *"Everything special about you came out of a bottle Rogers"* and Steve said *"You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play. To lie down and let the other guy walk over you"* . In Endgame, Steve wielded Mjölnir proving he is worthy of a God's weapon because of his soul. And Tony without hesitation sacrificed himself for the rest of the world. Poetic end to their arcs since Avengers (2012).

"He's a father with no family; he loses the story of his life."

When you realize Captain America already lost everyone before when he woke up 70 years later.

As a therapist who specializes in trauma treatment I can say... You brilliantly conceptualize recovery in the context of this film.

What I love about this movie is that it feels like it was crafted with love. So many blockbusters from the past ten years just seem like noise so the trend of marvel movies to actually make you care about the characters and their emotional journeys and not just rely on the spectacle is truly special and something very few studios are doing anymore. And it makes it all the more sweeter when you can have a greater audience reaction for a WWII soldier picking up a magic hammer than any CGI slugfest in the latest transformers or fast and the furious movie.

One of my favorite little but deep moments to me is when Steve, Tony, and Thor see Thanos sitting in the courtyard, and the discussion they have about that. Thor's the guy in his own movie that started off invading Jotunheim and got in a big fight purely because someone pissed him off. In that movie, he initially thought purely about his own motivations and doing shit by himself, confident in his own ability to take on any challenge. In the Avengers, he talks about Tony and Steve as being beneath him, how "tiny" they are, so even though he's humbled he still sees himself as the strongest and the guy who can do things by himself. In Endgame, he affirms the value he now sees in Tony and Steve by wanting them all to be in agreement on distracting Thanos to allow the others to recover. Tony Stark is the planner, the guy who wants to know exactly what he's getting in to. If Thor purely trusted in his strength, Tony purely trusted in his brain. He believed himself to be the smartest person in the room, and the most capable of solving a problem by himself because of it. He regarded Thor as 'distant' because Thor was not just an alien, he was an overbearing brute of a man. He regarded Steve as 'distant' because he was a soldier (which Tony made a point of saying he's not in the first Avengers) with an antiquated notion of conducting oneself (Not to forget that 'everything good about you came out of a bottle). Tony has my favorite line in that Endgame scene because in response to Steve mentioning that it's probably a trap, Tony says "I know, but I don't care". He's choosing instead to trust the 'drape-wearer' and the 'bottle-born soldier', because they've proven themselves to him. Steve is the guy who values simple honor and virtue above all else. He's "just a kid from Brooklyn", and he's a simple man who has faith of some description and a belief in the ordinary people. He's openly skeptical of the man of legend (Thor) and the man of science (Tony). Both have always been extraordinary and neither have learned the hard realities of life to the extent he has. In Endgame, he's come to see Tony as a devoted friend who will risk his own life against a far superior opponent and he sees how Thor has been broken down by failure. I believe Endgame is where Steve comes to more fundamentally trust in both Thor and Tony, two people whose talents he might still not fully understand, because he understands them on a personal level. I also think this is part of why he could call Mjolnir, because he understands that although it's a magic space hammer, the values involved of honor and sacrifice are still fundamentally human and the values he's lived his life by.

Captain America- Why do people go to war?so that at the end of the day they can have peace. Steve fought the WW2 and lost the a woman he loved for first time. He then fought the new york battle,sokovia,Shield betrayed him,Avengers betrayed him. And lastly he lost to Thanos. Ultron told Steve "God's righteous man.Pretending you could live without war" Tony told him to get a life. And then when Steve saw Peggy he saw the peace he always fought for and at the end of the day when he won the war he returned to Peggy.

I think another great thing about endgame is that it mirrors infinity war. Thanos won by not giving in and collecting the stones no matter the cost. The Avengers won by collecting the stones no matter the cost. Thanos actually, taught the avengers something.

I'm so happy Endgame is out on digital now so we can see footage with all of the video essays.

Endgame makes me love the original avengers so much more. The arcs that these characters have gone through throughout nearly a decade makes me appreciate living in this generation.

CAN YOU HEAR ME CRYING ABOUT STEVES ANALYSIS? BECAUSE FINALLY HERE IS AN ANALYSIS THAT DOESN'T BASH STEVES CHOICE TO STAY WITH PEGGY

The VHS kinda Lo-Fi aesthetic of your videos is addictive to watch

After watching the film for a second time I still can't believe how emotionally impactful they managed to make it....

i love when you talk about trauma because you’re so eloquent and your ideas are so… warm.

This is exactly what I thought about the film! I was too emotional during the first time I was watching this. I get it why people laugh at chubby Thor, but those scenes was never funny for me. I feel what he was feeling. It was brutal. This video deserve so much more exposure! You always make such great contents with amazing writing and splendid editing. I am a fan!

Honestly you deserve wayyy more subscribers, this editing quality and video making is top notch. Loving it.

i called the suicide hotline tonight and the guy who picked up listened to me talk about my trauma and after i calmed down we discussed the avengers and other stuff i was interested in. he recommended this video. thank you, eric (i believe that was your name, i could have misheard). you saved my life. you’re dope as hell too.

Such a great video. I still cannot get over how great the scene with Tony and Howard is. It's absolutely smothered in dramatic irony and it is amazing. After the movie I spent an hour reading through the Stark legacy on the wiki lmao

Yup Tony at that moment was a God. But that is what you strive towards. To be the best he can be.

"We become the monuments to our own memories and that process is intimately painful, because that continuity that you hold yourself to has to change directions. It is a fundamental aspect of being human that you have to give in to the serendipitous nature of life--even if it means recovering from pain or helping others to. And that search for meaning is always there." Damn. ✊🔥💚

Thank you for this video. I walked away from the movie with this message completely clear. It meant everything to me that Thor had suffered so much but was still worthy to wield Mjolnir- but all people could think about was his weight. Thank you for being intuitive and seeing the beauty in this movie. It was a great video to watch. Keep doing what you're doing. :)

Finally, the most thorough and greatest breakdown of one of the greatest endings to a series of movies. Thank you . This is the best movie review I've heard for this movie. Respect Due.

This video made me tear up just thinking about how incredibly made this film was and how each individual character's arcs were woven together so beautifully

This video not only shows the beauty of Endgame but also teaches with how to deal with trauma..by rather filling it with imagination but by building a new continuity.. This is actually a treatment for MaladaptiveDayDreamimg patients...where it is a brain mechanism of dealing trauma with imagination which is a temporary fix but not a solution to trauma..the real solution to this condition is to build a new continuity to life.. Your Video is so amazing..that I can't describe it in words..and the gentle music you used in background..is the icing on cake.. Your channel will definitely be in the top league of RU-vid..And you deserve it because of the quality of the video..

My brain cannot handle this level of...speaking. I can’t. This is some high level shit.

This video is just ridiculously well made. From the old VHS style intro, that recaps and goes over some of the key moments in the film, that I honestly can't get enough of, to the grand idea that to overcome trauma you must reinvent yourself completely in a sense, it's just... Wow man, thank you for this, I really felt this. Thank you for highlighting all those aspects in a way that I truly don't think anyone else could on this site. I just love how large and wonderful all the themes you brought up in this video feel, while still remaining and feeling completely human. It's beautiful, it's such a large sense of building your identity. "Humbled enough to love himself." and "Responding to Trauma isn't about restoring the self to the way it was before. Healing demands a complete sense of reinvention." It's all just really great.

Man, you are so eloquent. It is so refreshing to hear well thought out and well-phrased content. Nowadays, RU-vid is riddled with shallow content , and you sir are a beacon of hope. Continue the good work. I'm subscribed, and ready to see some more of what you got. Bravo!

That RU-vid algorithm has its moments

... Wow. This may be the video that made me officially, narratively and thematically, like Avengers: Endgame. Either way, it's an excellent one. One of my favourites of yours so far! You deserve _many_ more subscribers than you currently have, by the way - it's a count that your videos' quality, compared to the higher (sub count) strata, is highly in excess of and I can only hope that difference is compensated in the (relative) near future!!

it’s 4 in the morning, i was about to sleep but i can’t do that now.

Beautiful video essay. I've watched Endgame 9 times already and it hits me just as hard each time. I couldn't put into words what resonated with me about the movie so much until you I saw your title that it's about dealing with trauma. I lost my father in November 2016. Time helps, but I've never really been the same. Any time I see a character suffer some sort of loss or trauma, I feel it viscerally. With Endgame, the trauma and grief end with redemption, growth, and healing. It's like healing vicariously.

Your take on Endgame is absolutely beautiful and I love it. Keep up the good work :)

People always did say Steve was selfish for abandoning Bucky who he had sacrificed everything for the past few movies. But is that the message you want to convey? To keep sacrificing, to keep giving everything to someone else and just ignore yourself? Peggy wasn't just a fling or an old flame, for Steve, Peggy was a promise. Peggy was hope. Peggy was his endgame. And maybe, after all the wars that Steve had fought and lived, maybe he deserved his own rest too. (Even though, I dont really think Steve would REST in that sense, since he'd probably help solve that timeline's problems, etc.)

Avengers Endgame haters: It's just fanservice Implicity Pretentious: Hold my video

“The greater good has rarely outweighed my own self interests.” Wonder if he was talking about tony

These video essays have helped me understand why I am obsessed with these movies and what kind of lessons we actually can learn from them other than “wow Cap got the Hammer.”

I absolutely adored both this one and the Iron Man one and your take on Captain America's arc was also pretty cool. Love the deep analysis you put in to this and the way you tie in theory. Looking at it all through the lens of trauma is so so interesting to me. Thanks for sharing!

6:56 That guinea pig gave me a good chuckle X)

I wonder how the movie would have started. If Joss didn’t fight to keep the farm scene.

I'm not crying you're crying. I just have some rain on my face.

I had to pause the video and breathe for a second when Steve said “you’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play” because I started tearing up. the MCU is so beautiful and it’s character development is so profound and unlike any other story in history

Man you outdo yourself every time! Beautiful analysis. I didn’t think about some of these things until now, and they make me appreciate the movie even more. I also learned a few life lessons which rarely happens from something like RU-vid haha.

this is so beautiful. You made me love this movie even more and made me cry. Keep up the good work

I have no words to say how wonderfully you made this video essay to endgame it's A TOTAL LIFE CHANGER or with no exaggeration you gave me a much lighter and beautiful side of it, subbed to you!!

Another thing I want to mention about Endgame is how it favors emotion over spectacle. When I think back about it, most of the runtime doesn't have as much action as say, Infinity War (which is still one of my favorite MCU movies). This movie is willing to give the characters room to breathe and tell a story without bombarding us with special effects. The last hour earned its' action while paying tribute to the characters we've grown to love over the course of 21 movies.

This is an exceptional work that you should be incredibly proud of. I especially appreciated how you folded in seamless the perspectives of the source material while maintaining your own perspective. It's the perfect vignette to show the shallow people who claim that super hero movies lack depth.

1:15 You said Iron Man and Cap both had trilogies where they developed high level of resilience towards traumatic experiences. I completely agree, but what makes Thor's trilogy so different that he couldn't handle what happened after the snap? He lost his parents and home during his three movies so he did experience trauma. The only reason I can think of differently is the events of Thor 3 were just before Infinity War so he didn't have time to reinvent or persevere, like both Iron Man and Cap did.

no one: Implicitly Pretentious: "As I quote from The Mnemonic Imagination..." Great video btw

This video deserves to be shown in psychology classes. Each line is a gemstone when it comes to grasping the ugliness of trauma and the hope ultimately needed for the overcoming of it.

I feel like this should be included in the official DVD extras for Endgame. Great work. I enjoyed this.

The most beautiful written essays are often underrated

Thank you so much for the deeper contextualization of a film I already loved for a number of reasons. The weight and glory of seeing it all through the lens of trauma, memory and imagination, personal reinvention, and recovery is simply beautiful. Thanks for calling out this theme so brilliantly---for the added layers of significance and meaning.

This analysis really encapsulates the complex finale of 10 year long character arcs and it's beautiful. I wonder if you'll do a video on Peter's trauma after FFH, because for me that movie was another traumatic continuity for the survivors of endgame ;(

This was beautiful. I cried all over again.

We are dealing with a collective trauma right now

Endgame is beautiful, as are your videos. There's something very satisfying and peaceful about watching them, they're not full of hate and ranting like many others. I also love the VHS aestethic and the big text on screen. Keep it up man 👍🏼

Very good video. It helped me better contextualize Tony and Steve's endings. I still don't really know how I feel about Natasha's conclusion though and I do wish Bruce and Hulk had a better defined trauma throughout the MCU to better contextualize the meaning of his role in End Game. Such as the source of the anger that made him monstrous before his personality merge, which in the comics is clearly stemming from the abuse he suffered from his father which is a trauma the MCU never explores.

When you pulled out Cap's "let the other guy walk over you" line I felt silent tears fall down my face. The growth of Tony and Steve is hard to keep in mind because the movies have been happening for so long...but you put it all together so well. That line gets me every time. It shows how they overcame themselves by learning from one another. Subscribed.

"Responding to trauma isn't about restoring the self to the way it was before. Healing demands a complete sense of reinvention where old answers will be replaced by the discovery and construction of new ones."

I like the fact that while the battles with thanos in infinity war were really bright with interesting color pallets. Kinda to simulate hope, the avengers never faced a foe that has beaten them before. But the end fight against Thanos in end game is super dark, gloomy and grey. This isn't playful fun times anymore with ''magic with a kick'' etc. This is now about the life of the universe itself and all its inhabitants against an entire army led by a warmonger that has beaten them all single handedly before.

So I've watched both your videos on trauma. I suffered a massive trauma when I was a child that broke me both mentally and physically. It took me years to reach a form of normality. And Both of these videos left me weeping, mostly because in many ways it sounded like you were talking about me. I want you to know that you did a very good job explaining the depths the writers, actors and film makers went to show these traumas even if the audiences didn't register that they were there. And know you touched someone intending to or not. Good job. !^_^!

I have never saw such an amazing video essay on the best Avengers film

I'm going to go back in time to stop myself from commenting on how much this movie, and this video made me cry. OH MY GOOOOOOD!!!!

Congrats on getting your PhD in Avengers. This was beautiful.

So many of the lines you said in this speak to me and my own sense of self. Thank you for this clip.

this is such a beautiful movie, I didn't even think about how Steven went from being unselfish to selfish, and Tony did the opposite. Because thats what they needed. I love that MCU isn't just super heros fighting super villains, its real human stories in a super hero background.

3:08 Oh my God...this is exactly what happened to me when my mom died recently, and I still have no focus on my future. You mention "re-invention" later in the essay. That may have to be my path forward. Now you've made a film I already love more integral to my life. (Side note: I watched my mom die of pancreatic cancer in 2013, and the next summer had to relive it in "Guardians of the Galaxy". To this day, I don't watch that opening scene on my Blu-ray. I just chapter stop my way past it.)

In the first minute I knew you absolutely nailed this

I loved endgame as soon as I saw it but this. THIS. Just adds a whole new level to the film. Amazing video. Amazing analysis. Video essays like this are the reason I am so passionate about films!!

Every time I see certain clips of this, I just BAWL. I can't help it...that's how much it moved me. Thank you, Leo, explaining why. And use as many goddamn dramatic pauses as you like...you make 'em work!

Wonderful commentary, perfectly said. I was into Marvel Comics as a child 40 years ago and it's been very gratifying to see these characters make it to the big screen for the last decade, and to see the effect they've had on millions of people all over the world. Clearly these films have have great meaning to many, for creators like you to put in the time and careful work to make such compelling fanvids about them. Very insightful, well done.

This is easily your best video yet (and one of the best on RU-vid) Far more than film analysis it has the potential to anchor somebody when they're lost in grief (sadly an expert subject both professionally and personally) I'm so pleased to witness your evolution from analysis of art, to analysis that is art itsellf. To analysis of art that may be more meaningful as art than the original art elevating both.

"responding to trauma isn't about restoring the self to the way it was before, healing demands a complete sense of reinvention."

This was a beautiful analysis. Every time I think all angles of this wonderful tale have been fully explored, someone comes up with something new.

Amazing work! 🙌🏻🙏🏻 cheers from México! 🇲🇽

I Love you 3000 i didnt know i needed this until now thank you so much for making this video

this is crazy profound because I was literally trying to write about trauma and nostalgia and building new self while, as you said, becoming monuments to our own memories. I love this take and I can't wait to watch again with this in mind.

You’ve earned a subscriber. This was one of the best in-depth and personable analyses of a film I’ve seen on RU-vid in a long time.

This video deserves more way more exposure, it is genuinely thought provoking and shows the true beauty of this movie.

You came up in my recommended today. I love it when the algorithm gets it right and tells me about the amazing smaller channels like you. Subscribed.

Scott Lang's role may also represent the importance of the untraumatized to the traumatized. He's the one who comes in with a fresh new idea about how to fix everything, where everyone else had simple accepted that there was nothing left to do. It's important for the traumatized to speak among themselves, as they're really the only ones who can understand. But it's also important that they don't associate solely with other traumatized people - that road leads to crab buckets (a situation in which the social dynamic inhibits people from rising above their peers, or 'escaping the bucket', based on the observation that crabs in a bucket will keep each other from escaping). The world's collective trauma has kept them in a bucket for five years, and it takes a man like Scott Lang to come in and say "no wait we can fix this."

I just stumbled upon this in my recommendations, I rarely watch videos about endgame or the mcu in general. I'm glad I watched this video and I wanna thank you for creating this peace of art (you really can't call it anything else). I love endgame, it's as a close to a perfect movie as possible in my opinion, but there's quite see things I've missed that this video has brought up to me. It just makes me love this movie even more, seeing the depths it has and how many layers you can uncover and still find something new. This comment is getting longer than intended, lastly I'm gonna rewatch the movie tomorrow or rather today since I'm writing this at 4am. Thank you again for this, I'm hoping on seeing other videos like this one in the future! :)

It took superior insight and intelligence to analyze the characters and their story arcs the way you did. The visuals were well chosen (and the edits superb). The timing and delivery of your self deprecating humor had much flavor as well...... Cool azz presentation.😎👍🏾

best new channel I've found in months. Keep up the good work!

I re-watched the MCU to remind myself some important plots before i'll watch all the disney+ series, and maybe to kinda appreciate these films more. And your essays are totally helping with that, i love your work, man! Actually when i was about to watch Endgame i was more excited for the fact that later i'll binge all your MCU essays than for the series i wanted to watch 😅

Wonderful take on this, I agree fully. Also: a spoken essay without pauses leaves no room for the words to sink in.

That clip of Maya Hawke

Just watched your Iron man video and now immediately got this recommended. You're doing a really good job with this one as well :)

Well hot damn, if that’s not the most beautiful vid I’ve seen in ages. Glad I finally discovered your channel after all these years. Your writing is a cut above 99.9% of this platform, and I hope you continue to find an audience that appreciates the depth, nuance, care, and Oxford commas woven throughout your work. New favorite channel. ❤️

Amazing!!! The part where you talk about how Tony goes through who he tells ‘iron man’ too is my favorite and a great thing I love to see connected (:

Incredible video man, the way yoy broken down the way the movie used both the time travel and time jump elements to fit into what the characters are going through psychologically and the movie's underlying theme. The movie does an amazing job of bringing together all the characters' internal conflics and shared trauma and bringing it together; while the movie didn't manage to give all the OG 6 well-developed meaningful arcs (Hulk and Hawkeye) it still brought their shared experiences together amazingly.

What an amazing video about an amazing movie, made me well up all over again. Steve's continuity of caring for others above himself crumbling at the site of Peggy really gets me.

Best video essay I´ve seen on the entire sea of reviews. Great work.

I can’t wait to watch Endgame and see what my fav character, Black Widow, does

6:58 fluffy guinea pig

Very interesting stuff, it's so condensed that one has to watch it twice. Thanks a lot for a great analysis.

You just made me love Avengers: Endgame even more. Props to you and your video.

Your essay is so very beautifully conceptual, in a very human way!