it allowed for lovely callbacks to earlier movies and for revisiting the first Avengers one without making the whole thing feel self-indulgent
Yes, so much this. These kind of revisitations can feel like a cheap bottle show when done wrong, but this so much wasn't that.
Re: Natasha vs Clint as to whom to kill - well, there's no question as to whom I, personally, would have wanted to keep (Nat, of course), but within the story: here's no way she'd have let her best friend, who once was the one to bring her out of the assassin life, sacrifice himself, she'd been depicted as capable of outfighting him the two times we'd seen them fight (when he was under Loki's control in Avengers and in Civil War, when he needed Wanda); "neither" wasn't an option for her given they really needed the soul stone in order to bring back half the universe.
And what a way to close an era with his final line.. Indeed. In my cinema, the entire audience whispered it with him. I was prepared for death over retirement as a way for the character to go go out for a mixture of Doylist and Watsonian reasons - RDJ's contract being up again and him aging out of the plausible action hero age, and the fact Tony retired three times from superheroing already in universe and it never kept (once after Iron Man 3, once after Age of Ultron, once in this movie between his return to Earth and the gang showing up at his house), so him declaring "okay, that was it for me" at the end of this one would have carried neither emotional resonance or believability. But I wanted his last appearance to be a good one (not just in the sense of getting a good exit scene), and it really was. (There also was extra applause in the credits when his name appeared.)
no subject
Yes, so much this. These kind of revisitations can feel like a cheap bottle show when done wrong, but this so much wasn't that.
Re: Natasha vs Clint as to whom to kill - well, there's no question as to whom I, personally, would have wanted to keep (Nat, of course), but within the story: here's no way she'd have let her best friend, who once was the one to bring her out of the assassin life, sacrifice himself, she'd been depicted as capable of outfighting him the two times we'd seen them fight (when he was under Loki's control in Avengers and in Civil War, when he needed Wanda); "neither" wasn't an option for her given they really needed the soul stone in order to bring back half the universe.
And what a way to close an era with his final line.. Indeed. In my cinema, the entire audience whispered it with him. I was prepared for death over retirement as a way for the character to go go out for a mixture of Doylist and Watsonian reasons - RDJ's contract being up again and him aging out of the plausible action hero age, and the fact Tony retired three times from superheroing already in universe and it never kept (once after Iron Man 3, once after Age of Ultron, once in this movie between his return to Earth and the gang showing up at his house), so him declaring "okay, that was it for me" at the end of this one would have carried neither emotional resonance or believability. But I wanted his last appearance to be a good one (not just in the sense of getting a good exit scene), and it really was. (There also was extra applause in the credits when his name appeared.)