First, a note that this is a spoiler free zone for Avengers: Endgame, but not for any previous movies. While I’m going to talk about the post-game after watching Avengers: Endgame here, I’m going to try really really hard to do it in such a way as not to give any spoiler adjacent comments in the process. Though, full disclosure, I’m not going to be able to be as fully clear of spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War for those of you that haven’t seen that yet. (Why haven't you seen it yet!?!?)
We’ve all been there. We survived the aftermath of watching Avengers: Infinity War with our friends. The drives home in stunned silence or angered gnashing of teeth. The painful discussions that followed in the weeks after. (One of my friends literally had to be talked into ever giving money to anyone associated with the film or Disney titles again afterwards. No joke.) The sharing of the hopes and the fears of what’s going to happen to our favorite and not so favorite characters as we make our way to the final film of Phase Three and what we know is going to be a tough weekend for some of us.
Having seen Avengers: Endgame twice already this weekend, I can tell you that it’s full of really great conversation starters. My squad made special processing plans as we were leaving the theatre. Where to go so we could get into depth and talk about what we’d seen, how to do it so that we wouldn’t spoil the fun for other people, where we’d all be able to stay for an extended period of time so we could really get into the conversation and not feel rushed. We ended up specifically requesting a table in a dark corner of a restaurant and vetting the waiter to make sure that he wouldn’t be upset if he stepped in at just the right moment during our movie discussion.
It’s one of the things we love the most about these (and our other favorite) films. (There was a particularly painful drive back from Dallas after watching a pre-release screening of Serenity that we don’t dwell on.) As we break down the comparisons between the characters from one movie to another, we get to hear how everyone sees things in the movies a little differently. We talk through the arcs the characters have gone through from Edward Norton Hulk all the way to where we are now. Which characters we’re hoping we’ll see in cross overs, which ones we’d rather never hear from again.
Films create such visceral responses in us. Watching and relating to the struggles of others is part of what makes us human.
It’s an exciting aspect of all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films that’s developed through the last eleven years since Iron Man first gave us a pleasant surprise in 2008. But sometimes, those conversations are easier to have than others. Especially when there’s so much emotion tied up in a movie like this one.
Some conversations are easier than others. And some are easier to get going than others. Sometimes there’s an awkward space between the excitement of leaving the theatre and unloading from our cars so we can get into a conversation space where we lose track of what we wanted to say. What seemed like it was going to be easy to just jump right in gets a little more challenging as we try to get to the heart of what we want to explore.
So, to help you and your movie going brigade have a plan for getting through the aftermath of Endgame; we’ve put together some spoiler free questions that you can use to do your own post film review. We’ve designed these questions so that there aren’t any spoilers contained within. You can print them out ahead of time without fear that they’ll accidentally trigger some speculative thread that reveals all the secrets before you’re ready. But, you can have them on hand so that as soon as you leave the theatre and get to a safe zone where you won’t have to worry about spoiling anything for others, you’ll be able to dive right in.
These questions are designed to pair with our free Print & Play version of our very own Mixed Company card game, so you can have all the cards you’ll need to play through as many rounds as you want. We recommend the Quick Start Rules for this one. While the Challenge and Action Cards are great, they don’t fit as well for this style of discussion. You can even skip the voting phase if you think you’ll want to go through all 18 questions to get a really in depth discussion.
For this version, you’ll want to make sure you print out: