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Hey, nobody’s perfect.
Avengers: Endgame might be the biggest movie in the world, but that doesn’t mean that it’s immune from those nagging continuity errors that can be found in virtually every Hollywood production, including many of the Marvel Cinematic Universe entries that came before it.
In case you’re not hip to the lingo, a “continuity error,” such as the ones that plagued 2008’s Iron Man, usually happens when a cut between scenes imply a series of events that, well, shouldn’t be possible, such as a character’s drink suddenly going from empty to full from one shot to the next. In Endgame, fans have spotted a pretty egregious example, and it has to do with Scott Lang. You may only want to keep watching if you’ve seen the flick, because we’ll be getting into some SPOILERS.
The glitch occurs near the end of the film, during the monumental battle between Thanos and his invading forces and the Avengers, alongside all of the returned heroes and the entire Wakandan army. But you don’t need a whole recap, right?
During the melee, Lang and Hope Van Dyne are making their way through the chaos in an attempt to reach Scott’s van, still housing the Quantum Tunnel. It’s a nifty little scene, with Ant-Man and the Wasp suddenly thrust back into action together once again… but the very next shot is a wide one of the two opposing forces clashing on the battlefield. There, in the middle of it all, is Lang in his Giant-Man form. Whoops! Directors Joe and Anthony Russo have been going gangbusters explaining to the press some of Endgame’s perceived plot holes and mistakes, but unless they’re going to tell us that it was actually Hank Pym or Bill Foster wearing an extra Ant-Man suit or something, we’re pretty sure this is a big old fat error that falls directly on the film’s editors.
Film productions generally employ one or more “script supervisors” whose job it is to make sure that seemingly insignificant details remain consistent between multiple takes of the same scene. When they drop the ball, things can start getting a little glitchy, but often, such as in the case of this scene, it comes down to a simple oversight during the editing stage. If the sequence had been cut differently, it may have appeared that Lang had left Van Dyne on her own in order to “go big” and rejoin the fray, but as it stands, he appears to be in two places at the same time. Ant-Man may be resourceful, but he’s no Loki.
As we previously mentioned, it can be nearly impossible to squeeze every last continuity error out of a film, editors are often left with a less-than-desirable choice of shots to piece together, and continuity can be tough to maintain when various takes of the same scene are shot weeks apart, for example. The Mighty Marvel Cinematic Universe is no exception, and trained as its rabid fans are to always be on the lookout for tiny, Easter egg-y details, very few of its continuity errors go unnoticed. The “Goofs” section of the IMDb page for inaugural entry Iron Man alone lists a whopping two dozen mistakes in continuity, including Stark’s tip disappearing from the tip jar, the color of the camera lens on Tony’s phone changing between cuts, and even the length of Stark’s goatee going from pencil-thin to full and fuzzy over the course of one short night.
Mistakes such as these are pretty easy to spot if you’re on the lookout for them, and let’s face it, the only real surprise here is that this is the only continuity error that has been spotted in Endgame so far. With the flick only having been in theaters for a short time, it probably won’t be long before fans going back for repeat viewings point out a bunch more.
Does it seem a little bit ridiculous for such an easily-spotted gaffe to show up in such a highly-anticipated box office juggernaut of a film? A little bit, sure. Does said gaffe diminish our enjoyment of Avengers: Endgame even one iota? Absolutely not. Then again, it’s a little tougher than usual to zero in on tiny onscreen errors when you’re crying tears of pure joy.
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