"Avengers : Endgame" vs "Star Wars : The Rise of Skywalker" vs "Game Of Thrones" vs "Dark Phoenix"

2019 may be one of the best years Hollywood has ever seen, decade-long title holder of "Highest Grossing film of all time" - Avatar was finally dethroned by Endgame. We got phenomenal films like Parasite, Joker, Jojo Rabbit and Toy Story 4 to name a few. Among all the films and series that released in 2019, there were many conclusions. In this article we will focus on some of the biggest ones and breakdown which one lived up to the expectations and how.

The conclusions we saw in 2019 were:

"Avengers : Endgame" - finale of Marvel Cinematic Universes' - The Infinity Saga

"Star Wars : The Rise of Skywalker" - finale of Star Wars' -The Skywalker Saga

"Game of Thrones : Season 8" - final season of one of the best TV shows - Game of Thrones

"Dark Phoenix" - last movie in 20th Century Fox's main X-Men continuity

"Toy Story 4" - last film in Pixar's critically acclaimed franchise - Toy Story

"How to train your Dragon 3 : The Hidden World" - last film in the How to train your Dragon series

"IT : Chapter 2" - conclusion to the story of Pennywise and the Losers Club that started in IT : Chapter One

SPOILERS ahead!

Acknowledging the fact that Toy Story 4, How to train your Dragon 3 and IT: Chapter 2 are great films, for the sake of this article we will focus on the four major and longest running franchise conclusions - Endgame, Rise of Skywalker, GOT S8 and Dark phoenix - where it is really difficult to get a perfect conclusion.

Continuity:

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you"

- Maya Angelou

Endgame and GOT S8 continue with the long running narrative, whereas TROS drops an all new detail in the form of Palpatine being alive as there is no other apparent connective or progressive story telling tool that was set up in the previous two installments. Dark Phoenix is better viewed as a solo movie with same characters, as the timeline is pretty messed up.

Antagonist and their impact:

"A story is only as good as it's villain"

- Luke Taylor

As is with every X-Men movie, Dark Phoenix has an all new villain, the alien race headed by Vuk and an unstable Phoenix possessed Jean Grey. Vuk is intimidating as a villain with the over-used "take over the world" motive, but I disagree with people who say that Jessica Chastain didn't act well, she portrays the soul-less alien queen pretty well, and as for Jean she too is powerful as an antagonist and manages to give a tough fight to the X-Men also setting up the consequent civil war between Charles and Erik on a more personal level.

TROS brought back Palpatine as its antagonist, but he is not as intimidating as Thanos, he just shows up at the beginning to give exposition on how he returned and later at the end to die. That's it! He has no impact on the characters or plot whatsoever except that the good guys need to stop the bad and Rey is afraid that she will turn to the dark side (i.e, Palpatine). Palpatine revealed to be the master mind behind Snoke who turned Ben to the dark side happened to have no solid plan on what he would do if Rey reached Exegol to stop him and even didn't know about the Force Dyat between Rey and Kylo....He truly needs to find a master for his mind!

Game of Thrones is better than the aforementioned as the antagonists are introduced very early on in the story - The Wight Walkers. The Night King - without uttering a single word - manages to bring the fear that Palpatine couldn't. He sure is one of the most intimidating antagonist who was not done justice as he is taken out very conveniently in a single episode after years of build up, but still better than the previous two.

Out of this list, Endgame has the best antagonist. The reason I say so is because Thanos manages to bring the terror and the sympathy, of which sympathy is lost because the version with whom we sympathize is killed early on and is replaced by a younger and more menacing version, but still is the same character who just wants to do good but this time more brutally, how else could they reuse Thanos? This was the best way.

The Night King is an antagonist that is the embodiment of death, Thanos is similar but more human like.

Subverting expectations:

GOT S8 probably has subverted our expectations so much that we tend to consider S6/S7 to be the conclusions, from Arya suddenly killing the Night King and the threat being built up for so many years being gone in an instant to Daenerys going mad without proper build up and her death. While I'd like to argue that the ending was rushed, it is also true that some scenes in the 'Long Night' episode, the death of Rhaegal worked well in subverting our expectations.

Endgame was in a similar position when Thanos the primary antagonist was decapitated within 15 minutes of the movie, but luckily it ultimately served justice to the older Thanos who we saw in Infinity War, it certainly wouldn't be easy to believe that an almost prophet like Titan who wanted to save the universe suddenly wanted to destroy all of existence. Thor Ragnarok ignited the fame flame for the god of thunder, which only got better in Infinity War ( Bring ..me....Thanos!!!) so it was subversive to see him put on so much weight and become a comic relief, but that moment when Thor wields both Storm Breaker and Mjolnir and his beard is braided for the final fight, his weight never interferes with the plot or the character much, which is good.

Rey's heritage was subversive, because I bet we all expected her to be a "No one" related to the Skywalkers somehow or a Skywalker herself, which adds meaning to the title of the film. Rey being Palpatine's descendant could have had major impact on the story, but it doesn't, if she doesn't need the dark side to shoot lightning from her fingers then why didn't she use it against him in the final fight?

Nostalgia and fan service:

Endgame definitely tops this list, the time travel sequence brings nostalgia of the previous films, while the third act is full of fan service - Cap wielding Mjolnir, Pepper in the Rescue armor/her own Iron Man suit, "Avengers.....Assemble!!" (which actually doesn't make sense, they were already assembled it should've been "..attack!") , Spidey activates instant kill and flies through hanging onto Mjolnir and later on a Pegasus, "She's got help" female avengers assemble; the third act is a giant fan service.

TROS brings back Lando Calrissian that is good enough, but apart from that there is nothing much.

The X-Men in their iconic outfits was a sure treat and finally getting a proper Phoenix Jean Grey which ultimately fades as we reach the third act, more on that in a later sub-section.

Melisandre returning and lighting up the Dothraki weapons was a visual treat, Ghost just being present at the Long Night battle was surely fan service, the battle at Winterfell sure felt like fan service much like the Endgame battle, the Hound vs the Mountain was pure fan service but was disappointing.

Visual spectacle and action scenes:

Honestly, Dark Phoenix has some of the best X-Men action sequences. But is it a visual spectacle? I'd like to say No.

TROS has good visuals - Opening action scene with Kylo, Kylo vs Rey, the thousands of Star Destroyers - but lacks the power-packed space battle of any of the previous installments.

Given previous battles like battle of the Bastards and others that were so brilliantly choreographed, 'The Long Night' being the longest episode which was totally a battle was underwhelming due to the dark tone of the episode but as mentioned earlier the season has some good visuals - Dothraki charging at the unseen Wight Walkers, battle of the Dragons, Danereys' growth into the Dragon being portrayed - Drogon spreads his wings while Dany walks- and the final scenes of the series were visually appealing .

Endgame's first and second acts have few action scenes - the attack on Thanos, Steve (2012) vs Steve (2023) and Natasha vs Clint. The third act being a massive action feast, must I mention the visual spectacle that was the third act - The big three standing on the remains of the Avengers HQ overlooking Thanos, Steve's first blow on Thanos using Mjolnir, Steve vs Thanos' entire army and the icing on the cake "The Portals scene", followed by the beautiful shot of a silhouette of Cap standing with the broken shield and Mjonir as Captain Marvel destroys the Sanctuary II.

Acting:

"Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances."

- Sanford Meisner

All four projects had good acting but the below mentioned were standouts:

Michael Fassbender (Erik a.k.a Magneto), Sophie Turner (Jean Grey), James McAvoy (Charles Xavier), Jennifer Lawrence (Raven a.k.a Mystique), Nicholas Hoult (Hank a.k.a Beast) in Dark Phoenix.

Daisy Ridely (Rey), Adam Driver (Kylo Ren a.k.a Ben Solo), Lupita Nyong'o (Maz Kanata) in TROS.

Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister), Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister), Kit Harrington (Jon Snow), Maisie Williams (Arya Stark), Isaac Hempstead (Bran Stark), Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targareyn) in GOT S8.

Robert Downey Jnr. (Tony Stark a.k.a Iron Man), Scarlett Johansson (Natasha Romanoff a.k.a Black Widow), Chris Evans ( Steve Rogers a.k.a Captain America), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Karen Gillan (Nebula), Josh Brolin (Thanos), Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner a.k.a Hulk)

Score:

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.”

- Plato

While Dark Phoenix has a wonderful other-worldly score by Hans Zimmer it doesn't create any nostalgia when your hear it like the Avengers, Game of Thrones or Star Wars scores.

Alan Silvestri, Ramin Djawadi and John Williams give the already nostalgic tunes more life with certain adjustments for the finale.

'The Force is with you' - All the jedi and

'Farewell' - closing the movie

from TROS;

'The Night King' - the night king approaching Bran and

'The Iron Throne' - last score closing the series

from S8 of GOT;

'Arrival' - Captain Marvel flies the Guardians ship to Earth,

'No Trust' - Title card,

'One Shot' - Cap's speech and Time travel begins,

'Not Good' - Natasha's sacrifice (reminds of Gamora's murder),

'I was made for this' - Hulk's snap,

'Worth It' - Cap is worthy, 'Portals',

'Get This Thing Started' - Wanda vs Thanos and Black panther chase,

'The One' - Iron Man's snap,

'Main on End' - credits

from Endgame are notable standouts.

Overall story and Final Battle/Conclusion:

Endgame, GOT S8 and TROS all deal with interesting stories as conclusions. While Dark Phoenix is not actually a conclusion but just happens to be the last film in the main Fox X-Men continuity.

Dark Phoenix starts with the car accident that will later prove to be one of the main reasons Jean goes into a stress disorder. The story is similar to Captain America : Civil War, a character unintentionally splits the team into two factions with opposing thoughts on how to solve the situation with an outer threat that will cause more damage, but Dark Phoenix has a causality in the form of Raven that heightens the tension, but it all culminates in a battle sequence on a train and Jean taking Vuk into space and destroying her. One of the reasons the film got delayed was because the third act was supposedly too similar to Captain Marvel which is why they changed it, the director also revealed that the X-Men were not supposed to work in union at the end. Dark Phoenix is not a culmination event but happens to be the last film and for that it is good enough.

TROS gives a clumsy explanation to Palpatine's return. Rey happens to know that Luke had tracked the sith way finder and they go to the planet where Rey, Poe and Finn happen to meet Lando and later happen to sink in the exact spot where they find a dagger that just so happens to be the clue to the way finder and once Rey gets her hands on the way finder, Kylo crushes it and Leia happens to call out to Ben which distracts him and lets Rey get the upper hand in a duel. She later travels to Excegol where Palpatine is waiting for her to kill him but changes plans when Ben arrives. The final confrontation lacks any lightsaber duels and less interesting space battles than previous entries and manages to rip off the ending of another conclusive movie released the same year by the same company!! The finale seems like it was not meant to be one for the Skywalker Saga but just another random episode, given that the actual plan for Episode IX was Duel of the fates a different story all together, that was switched up because of the major criticism received for The Last Jedi, they totally made things up that didn't have any prior build up.

GOT S8 starts off by giving us time with our characters but compresses what could have been at least two or three episodes of strategic well planned satisfying battle against the Night King into one singular episode and rushes Dany's arc to a point that we no longer relate to her and kills Cersei Lannister by dropping bricks on her. S8 feels more like a combination of good moments in a long story, the story that is hidden from us because the writers were in a hurry to finish this project.

Endgame starts low by showing us Hawkeye's family dust away and then decapitates Thanos and takes us five years into the future. Tony discovers Time Travel rather easily, and then they go back in time to retrieve the stones which is emotional but drags on, then the epic final battle where Tony gets a perfect conclusion to his arc and all of us are satisfied, except characters like Drax whose main arcs revolve around Thanos don't get any pay off and Hulk never gets to beat Thanos (though the Russo's confirmed that Thanos beating Hulk in Infinity War wasn't meant to setup another fight between the two characters, which nonetheless all of us were expecting) but what we got was no short of exciting, except Thanos chasing the heroes through time would have been more effective.

Conclusion:

Images used are Original posters, copyrights Marvel Studios, HBO, 20th Century Fox and LucasFilm

The movie (or must I say, event) that served as a perfect conclusion is Avengers : Endgame. thr movie managed to live up to the hype and satisfy most of it's fan base by giving a proper end to the Infinity Saga .

GOT had the potential but rushed its narrative to fit a lesser time frame, TROS introduces new plot point into the story which only makes things worse, Dark Phoenix is good as a stand alone but in no way can compete for a best culmination title because it is not one.

The hype for the MCU has died down. Game of Thrones and Star Wars (for me personally) took the MCU's place for some time but the MCU never seems to let us down and with new and exciting projects awaiting us in the further phases.......I'm trying to say that I love the MCU 3000, so this may seem partial but Endgame is truly the best long running franchise culmination we got in 2019 and you may have a different opinion, you are entitled to have your own opinion as well so let me know which one was the best conclusion for you in the comments down below.

Just how big was 2019 ? 

Disney alone had seven billion-dollar films in 2019. Sure, even Disney won't be able to catch up to that, because they are surely not going to have  
-a MCU film off the heels of the most ambitious cross-over in history (Avengers : Infinity War) - "Captain Marvel",  
-two live action remakes of iconic classics - "Aladdin" and "The Lion King",  
-a culmination of a 22 film inter-woven story arc - "Avengers : Endgame",  
-a followup to one of their most successful  franchise - "Toy Story 4",  
-a sequel to a Disney Princess movie that broke the old Disney Princess movie stereotypes (Frozen) - "Frozen 2"  and  
-the finale to a 4 decade old story - "Star Wars : Episode IX : The Rise of Skywalker"   all release in the same  year. Maybe sometime in the future they will beat their own record, as they own almost every major studio and IP now.