Avengers: Endgame is the 307th episode of Screen Junkies comedy series Honest Trailers. It was written by Spencer Gilbert, Joe Starr, Dan Murrell, Danielle Radford and Lon Harris. It was narrated by Jon Bailey as Epic Voice Guy. It parodies the 2019 superhero movie, Avengers: Endgame. The video is 7 minutes 37 seconds long. It was published on August 6, 2019 to coincide with the film's release on Blu-ray/digital. It has been viewed over 4 million times.
Watch Honest Trailers - Avengers: Endgame on YouTube
"Today's escapist fantasy isn't becoming a superhero, it's going back to fix your mistakes, instead of scraping by in the waking nightmare of your own failure." ~ Honest Trailers - Avengers: Endgame
Script []
After 21 MCU Movies, prepare for the final conclusion of The Infinity Saga... and also Part 2 of Infinity War, penultimate film of Phase Three, intro to Phase Four, and backdoor pilot for about three Disney+ shows. Whew. You remember when movies just... ya know, ended? And then your imagination had to take over? Ugh, sounds exhausting.
Avengers: Endgame
The most successful crowd-pleasing global film franchise is back. But since life on earth sucks now, it's all about grief, (shows Natasha sobbing), loss...
Tony: I lost the kid.
...guilt...
Clint: It's supposed to be me.
...depression...
Rocket: Are you crying?
Thor: Nooo...
...and despair!
Steve: Thanos should have killed all of us.
Because today's escapist fantasy isn't becoming a superhero, it's going back to fix your mistakes, instead of scraping by in the waking nightmare of your own failure. (sobbing) Can I do a time heist? On my life?
Five years have passed since half the population vanished, or as introverts call it: winning the lottery! (shows shots of empty cities) -- Ahhh... that looks nice. -- Baseball remains unpopular, culture got frozen in 2017...
Smart Hulk: Dab.
...and an actor shortage has forced directors to cast themselves.
Man at therapy group (Joe Russo): I cried... just before dessert.
Now the Avengers must band together to do what every big franchise does when they write themselves into a corner (posters of X-Men: Days of Future Past, Star Trek (2009), Men In Black 3 appear): Time travel. Watch the surviving heroes dissemble for a Now That's What I Call Marvel tour of your fandom. with several alternate camera angles on The Avengers...
Loki: I'll have that drink now.
...a trip to the S.H.I.E.L.D. base where they store all the movie's closure...
Tony (while hugging Howard Stark): Thank you. For everything.
...the cliffs that demand you lose someone you love, or at least your work bestie, and a daring raid to justify the existence of Thor: The Dark World, in a plot held together by a whole bunch of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff they'll try to explain 100 times.
Smart Hulk: Now either it's all a joke or none of it is.
None of it's a joke. Now explain yourself!
Smart Hulk: If you travel to the past, that past becomes your future, and your former present becomes the past. Which can't now be changed by your new future.
Now explain it again with a visual aid!
Ancient One: The Infinity stones create what you experience as the flow of time. Remove one of the stones, and that flows splits.
Now explain it again, but simpler!
Thanos: They're not trying to stop something I'm going to do in our time. They're trying to undo something I've already done in theirs.
Even simpler...
Smart Hulk: Changing the past doesn't change the future.
You know, maybe time travel's a paradox no matter how it gets justified. (shows Old Cap) See?
Reunite with all your favorite Marvel heroes who aren't clogging up an air filter somewhere, like Iron Man, who's really matured since Iron Man 1, but is still the a-hole who'd rather die than let someone else get the last word...
Thanos: I am... Inevitable.
Iron Man: And I... am... Iron Man. (Snaps his fingers)
...Captain America, who, after spending a decade in the present day, has learned to curse...
Captain America: Son of a bitch. / Oh you gotta be sh*tting me.
...lie...
Captain America: Hail Hydra.
...and look at guys' butts...
Captain America: That is America's ass.
...Thor, who it's okay to make fat jokes about because he's also suffering from a very realistic post-traumatic stress disorder...
Thor: What do you think is coursing through my veins right now?
Rhodey: Cheez Whiz?
Hahah. He's struggling. -- The Hulk, who cut down on the runtime by finishing his arc before the movie starts...
Smart Hulk: I know, it's crazy.
...Hawkeye, who deals with the loss of his family by having a veeery Cyberpunk midlife crisis, Ant-Man, who, thanks to the Internet's brain poisoning, is a letdown every time he's not inside Thanos' ass (a Vox article with the title "The Avengers: Endgame theory that Ant-Man kills Thanos by expanding inside his butt, explaned")...
Ant-Man: Flick me.
...Black Widow, who finally gets a primary storyline in one of these movies: killing herself to motivate the boys!
Smart Hulk: We have to make it worth it.
(Sigh). At least you can tell the passage of time by her hair. That's... something. -- Rhodey, hoping and praying they don't travel back before Iron Man 2, Nebula, who ruins the Avengers' plan so many times, the most helpful thing she does, is kill Nebula (Shows Nebula shooting and killing 2014 Nebula), and Captain Marvel, who's so powerful, the movie desperately finds excuses to leave her out...
Captain Marvel: The things that are happening on Earth are happening everywhere, so you might not see me for a long time.
...until it comes up with an excuse to bring her in (shows Captain Marvel bringing down Sanctuary II), so Marvel can finally have her lead the first all-female Avengers team-up... shot. Wooo, maybe Marvel will let them team up together in the sequel...? (shows Phase Four schedule, no new Avengers movie) Ughhh. Okay, maybe they can all pose again in the background of the Loki show?
Remember Thanos? The MCU's most complex and motivated villain yet? He dead (shows Thor decapitating Thanos), and taking his place is old Thanos. Uhh, new old Thanos. Younger old Thanos? You know, the version who sits and lets everyone else do all the work...
Thanos: Find the stones.
Nebula: What will you do?
Thanos: Wait.
...who steals his evil plans from Spaceballs...
Thanos: ...reduced to atoms.
Banner: You used them two days ago!
Dark Helmet: What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?
Colonel Sandurz: Now.
Gamora: What did you do to them?
Thanos: Nothing. Yet.
Helmet: Go back to then.
Sandurz: When?
Helmet: Now.
Sandurz: Now?
Helmet: Now.
Sandurz: I can't.
Helmet: Why?
Sandurz: We missed it.
Helmet: When?
Sandurz: Just now.
...and who commands a faceless CGI army the likes of which we have never seen before, since his last two faceless CGI armies (The Chitauri and the Outriders). But whatever, watching him fight Thunder Cap was the best moment of my life, and I'm including the birth of my children, guys! Sorry kids, you're just not worthy... of my time. And attention.
So in a world where everyone hates Game of Thrones now, everyone’s worried about Star Wars, and J.K. Rowling won't stop crapping on the floor of her legacy (shows an A.V. Club article with the title "J.K. Rowling reveals that wizards used to just sh*t on the floor, like dogs"), it's a minor miracle we got a satisfying conclusion to a global nerd franchise. Now just do it again, forever, or the entire film industry will collapse. (shows a Disney-themed Monopoly game) No sympathy from us, Disney! You did this to yourself.
Starring: Iron Deficient Man (Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man); One Punch Woman (Brie Larson as Captain Marvel); Captain Clench (Shots of Chris Evans as Captain America clenching his jaw); Ant Hardly Wait (Paul Rudd as Ant-Man); I Am Roots (Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow); Bojacked Norseman (Chris Hemsworth as Thor); Jeremy Renner's One Big Line of Acting...
Hawkeye: Go grab your hammer… and you go fly and you talk to him!
...Go Downstairs! Go Help! They Need You! (Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One); We Need More Russos! Get me More Russos! (Rene Russo as Frigga)...
Captain America: Avengers! (beat) …assemble.
(SQUEE!); Hazy Ex Girlfriend (Zoe Saldana as Gamora); Werther's Original Avenger (Old Cap); and Rat-Man and Time Van... Coming Soon to Disney+.
The honest title for Avengers: Endgame was 'I Love You 2.8 Billion.' Titles designed by Robert Holtby.
I Love You 2.8 Billion
[Hawkeye's wife Laura Barton calls him, after being unsnapped]
Oh my god, her mobile plan is still active?! Clint, you gotta turn off auto pay, man!
Trivia[]
Honest Trailers Commentary - Avengers- Endgame
- This honest trailer features the return of the hidden Easter egg, the Alan raptor (at 2:53). In 2018, the raptor was dusted by Thanos's snap in the Avengers: Infinity War Honest Trailer along with half the universe. Now that she's back, she will appear in every Honest Trailer.
- One of the deleted jokes from this episode pointed out how weird it will be for Captain America to go back to the 1950's now that he has experienced modern music and movies. In the Honest Trailer Commentary, the writers further expanded on this point even further by imagining how Cap would adjust politically to the pre-Civil Rights Movement era.
- In the Honest Trailer Commentary, the writers also pondered why Thanos's snap disintegrated the contents of people's pockets right along with them. They facetiously suggested that it would have ruined the film's mood if we had heard half the universe's keys, phones and wallets falling to the ground simultaneously.
- This episode doesn't feature Rocket Raccoon very much. The writers admitted they didn't just have any jokes about Rocket, so they focused on the characters they did have jokes about.
Watch the full episode of Honest Trailers Commentaries on YouTube
Reception[]
Honest Trailers - Avengers: Endgame has a 97.1% approval rating from YouTube viewers. Sandy Shaeffer of Screen Rant noted "The Endgame Honest Trailer, much like the public at large, pokes good-natured fun at everything from the movie's confounding attempts to explain its time travel rules (something even the film's writers and directors can't seem to agree on) to its clear setup for upcoming MCU Phase 4 films and Disney Plus TV shows involving characters like Scarlet Witch, Falcon, and Hawkeye. At the same time, it raises some deeper and more meaningful criticisms of the movie, including the way it combines fat jokes with an exploration of Thor's PTSD that has otherwise resonated with people or kills off Black Widow to serve her male counterparts' character arcs. And of course, it wouldn't be proper if the Honest Trailer didn't bring up the infamous "Thanus" fan theory at some point (which it does). All the same, the video acknowledges that it's something of a miracle that Endgame - flaws and all - managed to deliver a satisfying finale to the Infinity Saga."
In his write-up on the Honest Trailer, Ethan Anderton of SlashFilm wrote "the fact that Thanos has to watch hologram videos of himself in order to figure out what he has to do next really does call back to that brilliant gag from Spaceballs where the Imperious Forces watch their own movie while it’s still being filmed. That’s some next level time travel right here." Tommy Williams of Geek Tyrant wrote "There are some pretty great moments in this trailer such as why does Laura Barton still have a cell phone plan after five years." In his review of the Honest Trailer, Brandon Davis of ComicBook.com observed "The jokes range from jokes about the Avengers fixing the miserable lives which people have to live every day, baseball remaining unpopular, and time travel being the only tool capable of getting the writers out of the corner they trapped themselves in. In fact, time travel remained one of the biggest jokes, as it was explained several times over in the movie."
Production credits[]
Epic Voice Guy: Jon Bailey
Title Design by Robert Holtby
Written by Spencer Gilbert, Joe Starr, Dan Murrell, Danielle Radford & Lon Harris
Produced by Spencer Gilbert, Dan Murrell, Joe Starr & Max Dionne
Edited by Kevin Williamsen
External links []
- Avengers: Endgame’ Honest Trailer: That Expensive Backdoor Pilot to Three Disney+ Shows - Slash Film article
- HONEST TRAILERS Ask Some Good Questions About AVENGERS: ENDGAME - Geek Tyrant article
- Avengers: Endgame Honest Trailer - Even the MCU Doesn't Get Time Travel - Screen Rant article
- Avengers: Endgame Gets an Honest Trailer - ComicBook.com article
