Avengers: Endgame is the biggest superhero movie ever, and is full of moments that make me want to stand up and cheer. But there’s one scene that I cringe every single time I see it, and that’s when all of the MCU’s female heroes band together for a massive show of force against Thanos’ forces. It’s not that seeing them all together wasn’t cool, it definitely was, but the moment smelled of being shoehorned in to artificially create a “moment.”
And it turns out I’m not the only one who worried about that scene. In the book “The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe” Executive producer Trinh Tran admits some within Marvel Studios were concerned that it would look too much like pandering. WHAT!? YOU DON’T SAY!?!?
“[In earlier cuts] when we started screen-testing it, there was a little concern for ‘Does it come off [as] pandering?’ Are we going to get people saying, ‘Oh you’re just putting that scene in there just to put the scene in there. Does it actually have a story to tell with the rest of the narrative?’ That was always a concern in the back of our heads.’”
You might recall at the time, there was a lot of talk about bringing together Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie, Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel, Zoe Saldana’s Gamora, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Evangeline Lilly’s Wasp, and other female characters into an Avengers-style teamup. This scene was put in because of the buzz that talk generated on social media.
So in order to quiet any pandering complaints, the team decided to add more scenes of the female heroes fighting in small groups during that gigantic battle, so when they came together it would be more natural. They. Did. Not. Succeed. It’s distracting every time.
Anyway, it’s hardly the worst thing ever. Just a minor annoyance in an altogether awesome movie. The sad part is that we never got that all-woman teamup movie, and perhaps never will.
