There’s never quite been a movie like Avengers: Endgame. That’s probably because there’s never been a movie franchise like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With over 20 interconnected movies released over the span of a decade, Endgame had ample opportunities to make tons of references and callbacks to a sprawling continuity of characters and plot twists. And while many significant lines of dialogue were pretty easy to spot like
…there were still plenty of other fantastic callbacks that may have flown over your head. Here are some of the small details you might’ve missed in Avengers: Endgame.
Beware: gigantic, world-ending spoilers ahead.
Throughout the film, we got lots of direct references to previous movies, but some are less obvious than others. For example, when Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton fly their spaceship to Vormir to retrieve the Soul Stone, one of them quipped to the other, “we’re a long way from Budapest.” That refers back to a mysterious mission the two of them went on in their shared past that they referred to during the events of the first Avengers film.
Meanwhile, just before the un-dusted heroes all join Cap to fight Thanos and his army toward the end of the film, we hear Falcon jump on the radio to tell his partner: “On your left.” That’s a callback to when Cap kept lapping the Falcon when the two first met as competing joggers at the beginning of Captain America: The Winter Soldier:
But the most endearing and heartbreaking callback? When Happy Hogan chats with Morgan after her dad’s funeral and he asks if she’s hungry. She says she wants “cheeseburgers,” and Happy smiles, saying, “Your dad liked cheeseburgers, too.”
That’s a reference back to a scene early on in the very first MCU movie: when Happy and Pepper pick up Tony after his rescue from the Ten Rings and he demands two things: that Pepper call a press conference…and cheeseburgers:
Unless you spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there’s a better than decent chance that you have no idea what Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo look like. Well, you actually got a great look at one half of the directing duo you just may not have realized it at the time.
When the movie jumps five years forward in time, we catch up with Steve Rogers in his support group in Queens, New York. In that circle of trust is a man who says he and a date spent the whole evening talking and crying. That guy is Joe Russo, the younger half of the directors who also helmed three other epic MCU entries: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers: Infinity War.
This also wasn’t Joe Russo’s first time in front of the camera, either. He appeared in an episode of Arrested Development, a show for which he and Anthony directed several episodes, as well as in their film You, Me and Dupree, and all three of their other MCU films though Joe’s part as Bert the paparazzi in Infinity War hit the cutting room floor before the movie made it to theaters. Keep watching the video to see Small details in Endgame only true fans noticed!
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Cheeseburgers and Budapest on your left | 0:41
Embracing Community | 2:03
Familiar headgear | 3:41
The incredible shrinking arrow-man | 4:21
Howard Stark’s butler, and also Howard the Duck | 5:17
The original Avengers: Endgame | 6:40