'Avengers: Endgame' Trailer Breakdown: Whatever It Takes...to Keep The Secrets Intact

This morning, Marvel Studios shook up a normal Thursday with a surprise trailer drop for Avengers: Endgame. Since we've only had a short theatrical teaser trailer and a Super Bowl spot for the movie, fans were excited to finally get a good solid look at some brand spankin' new footage. However, since Marvel is playing things so close to the vest, they cleverly utilized footage from the previous films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to pad it out. Even so, we still got a good minute and a half of new footage, and that's enough for us to look through with an Avengers Endgame trailer breakdown.

The trailer begins with an Iron Man flashback as voiceover of Tony Stark from Avengers: Endgame recalls the moment he became Iron Man. "I fought my way out of that cave, became Iron Man, realized I loved you. I know I said no more surprises, but I was really hoping to pull off one last one."

This is all Tony in space, and just like the first teaser trailer, he's on the verge of giving up being able to get back to Earth. He's sending a farewell message to Pepper Potts from the Benatar, the ship that previously belonged to the Guardians of the Galaxy. But since all but Rocket Raccoon are dead, I guess it has a sole owner now.

Captain America gets a couple flashback shots, too, from The First Avenger. However, the voiceover here isn't from Steve Rogers. Instead, it's a Peggy Carter quote from Captain America: The Winter Soldier. "The world has changed," she says.

The voice continues over the previous shot of the Statue of Liberty with abandoned boats all around it. "None of us can go back," she says. There's this melancholic shot of Steve Rogers at a group support meeting to go along with that sad realization. It's a veterans hospital, as we saw in the Super Bowl spot, where he's likely inherited Sam Wilson's group.

Now this shot likely got fans very excited, because they thought this might be Kate Bishop, the first female Hawkeye in Marvel Comics. This is a character many have speculated might be played by 13 Reasons Why star Katherine Langford, who has an unknown role in Endgame. That would be a great addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, however...

The next shot shows us that this isn't Katherine Langford. More than likely, that's Hawkeye's daughter. That's further supported by the fact that it appears Hawkeye's wife (Linda Cardellini) is in the background setting up a picnic. It looks like the family is enjoying having Hawkeye home to spend time with them. But it likely doesn't last very long.

The female voiceover continues with this shot of Hawkeye. She says, "All we can do is our best. And sometimes the best that we can do is to start over." A new shot of Hawkeye in full-on assassin mode gives us an idea of what likely happened to that picturesque family day.

This meaningful, emotional expression that Natasha Romanoff has as she looks at Hawkeye confirms that the former Avenger has been going through some dark days. And it's likely because his whole family disappeared after the snap. Surely Hawkeye is going to be eager for some revenge.

But for now, these two share a tender moment, embracing as friends. However, it's interesting that the "start over" part of the voiceover comes just as this shot appears. Could a bit of a romance blossom between these longtime partners? Natasha's fling with Bruce Banner may have died down, and with Hawkeye's family gone, he might be lonely enough to take solace in his old friend's arms.

Another Captain America flashback comes out of nowhere. It's interesting that this follows the "start over" line too. Obviously Captain America has dealt with the death of those close to him before. First, he thought he lost his best friend Bucky (and we know how that turned out). Then he had to lose him all over again, not to mention the death of Peggy Carter (whose funeral is where this flashback comes from). Its placement seems odd since it's just before a Thor flashback, but it does follow that line from Peggy Carter, so it works, I guess.

Thor gets a couple of his own flashback shots showing Asgard and Odin, both now gone. Kind of interesting that they didn't show Loki since his death was one that hit Thor hard, despite his brother's continued betrayal. Could that be hinting at his possible survival? After that, the flashback shots echo what Thor says in voiceover: "I saw all these people die." More than likely he blames himself, since he's the one who didn't stop Thanos by going for his head.

Voiceover continues from Captain America over one last flashback shot when he reaches for the dust that used to be Bucky Barnes. Cap says, "I keep telling people to move on. Some do. But not us." Natasha looks at him with sadness in her eyes. But we should really be paying attention to her hair, because this is the first real evidence we have that there's a significant time jump that will take place in Avengers: Endgame.

Notice how her hair has blonde at the bottom, but it's her normal red color on top? It's clearly grown out from when she was fully blonde in Avengers: Infinity War. No one gets their hair dyed like that. There is no question that we will see some kind of significant jump in time after the snap. And if you need more evidence of that, don't worry, there's more coming.

Looks like Scott Lang made his way back from being lost in the quantum realm. But he looks confused and scared as hell. And that's because he's clearly been gone a long time. Look at that house. Look at those posters. This isn't hours or even a few days after the snap. A serious chunk of time has gone by whenever Scott Lang returns, and I wouldn't be surprised if he finds that his family is gone just like Hawkeye's.

There's a shot of a Quinjet flying through a foggy Tokyo. More than likely it's Natasha going to snag Hawkeye while he's out working as a ronin.

Voiceover from Natasha during these shots appears to be chopped up from a few different lines. She says, "Even if there's a small chance...we owe this...to everyone who's not in this room...to try." She's likely talking out loud about going to take down Thanos, a scene that was recently played at a Disney investors meeting and described online shortly thereafter. That might be where the above shot comes from, since they're not wearing those advance tech suits that keep popping up on promotional art and toy packaging (those are coming at the end of the trailer). There's also a chance she's talking about some kind of plan to reverse the effects of the snap.

Here's one of the more intriguing shots from the trailer, featuring Hawkeye running down some kind of industrial hallway lit only with red lights. An explosion follows behind him, but this doesn't give us any indication as to what he's doing there or why the facility blows up suddenly.

Here's a badass hero shot of Rocket Raccoon looking like a real rascal on the shoulders of War Machine, who is wearing some new armor it looks like. With all the smoke around them, it's difficult to get an idea of where this shot is happening. But Rocket looks rather mischievously pleased with himself, so it's probably before or after taking down some kind of enemy. We're thinking this might have ties to the other shots we see of Nebula and Captain America later in the trailer. But more on that in a bit.

Steve Rogers responds to Natasha in this shot, "We will." We're not sure where this is taking place, but it appears to be in a park of some kind, maybe just on the grounds outside of The Avengers headquarters in upstate New York. This could be where they all decide to head off and kill Thanos for what he did.

Hawkeye is back at Avengers HQ as well, with his cool new mohawk haircut. He looks scared, skeptical, and pissed at the same time. He doesn't know what it was like to go up against Thanos, so he's probably a little worried.

Cap continues in voiceover, "Whatever it takes." This shot of Scott Lang doesn't seem all that interesting at first, but it appears to be at Avengers HQ. Pay attention to the background of this shot, particularly the window you can see over Scott's shoulder. There's a growing, glowing orange light outside. Is some kind of threat coming to attack Avengers HQ? There was a LEGO set leak recently that seemed to confirm as much, so Thanos might be coming to Earth at some point.

This shot could have easily been from Avengers: Infinity War. But there's something about this shot that makes Thor look triumphant, as if he's just landed a crushing blow with Stormbreaker. Could it be the hit that he should have made the first time around? Since there's nothing but cloudy skies around him, it's hard to tell.

Now where the hell is this shot taking place? Upon first inspection, this looks like the trashed, debris-ridden planet of Titan. But who would Nebula be attacking there since Thanos has already left and returned to his garden paradise? Perhaps this is from another encounter with the Mad Titan elsewhere. Maybe in the rubble of Avengers HQ?

Another shot of Hawkeye shows him in that industrial facility from before with even more red lights behind him this time. There's a light on his arm that we saw briefly before when he was running from the explosion. Is this just a flashlight, or is it one of those quantum devices we've seen strapped on the other Avengers in leaked set photos? Either way, he's got his bow ready for an attack, perhaps only as a precaution, but we're still wondering exactly what it is that he's doing here. He repeats, "Whatever it takes."

A pissed off Natasha Romanoff unloads an entire clip into a shooting range target at Avengers HQ. She echoes Captain America and Hawkeye in voiceover: "Whatever it takes."

And then we get this gritty shot of Captain America. He straps on his shield tightly and looks pissed as debris burns around him. This could be the same place where Nebula also looked like she was ready to kill someone. And it could also be the same smoky location that Rocket and War Machine were standing in earlier.

We're also wondering if it's the same place where Ant-Man has shrunken down and uses a wooden pencil to make a big leap over a flood of water. The pencil and the hanging headphone jack make us think even moreso that this is taking place at Avengers headquarters. And since there's fire in all of these shots, that would make sense.

Then there's one final agreement from voiceover by Tony Stark as he says, "Whatever it takes." But Tony is still on the ship, stranded in space right?

Nope! He's back with the rest of The Avengers in their headquarters, and they've all got those new advance tech suits strapped on and ready to go. The question is, where are they going in those suits and why do they need them? More than likely, this isn't happening immediately after the events of the snap when the team decides to go kill Thanos. Look at Natasha's hair again. It's pretty much fully red. This is further in the future than immediately after the snap. So what exactly are they all going to do?

Finally, the stinger at the very end shows a scene that was played for the Disney investors and described online. It's Thor walking up to Captain Marvel in an intimidating fashion and summoning Stormbreaker so that it sweeps right past her face. But she doesn't flinch or blink an eye. And Thor smiles and says, "I like this one."

Again, check out Natasha's hair. Fully blonde in this scene, and much shorter too. When the team goes off to kill Thanos with Captain Marvel, it's going to be early in the movie. So a lot of time has passed with some of these later scenes, and it makes me think Captain Marvel may not be part of the bigger plan to reverse the effects of the snap. But we'll see.

***

This trailer proves that Marvel Studios is going to keep as many secrets as they can with this one. They want the audience to be totally surprised by what happens, and we couldn't support that more. There's not even a single hint of any dusted characters making a comeback. We can't wait to see how this all turns out when Avengers: Endgame hits theaters next month on April 26, 2019.