Captain America's Avengers: Endgame Line That Means Way More Than You Think
Who knew eight little words could spark hours of discussion — plus countless gasps across the globe?
Avengers: Endgame achieved that staggering effort-to-result ratio when Chris Evans' Steve Rogers uttered an uncharacteristically crass line in Avengers HQ after he and his fellow heroes concoct a plan to obtain the Infinity Stones and use them to reverse the universe-splitting snap of Avengers: Infinity War.
At the start of Endgame, the superheroes lucky enough to survive the decimation exacted by Thanos (Josh Brolin), the Mad Titan with the purple face and a particular grim penchant for genocide, venture to locate their foe by shipping off to the location where the Infinity Stones were last used. Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) declares that things will go better with Thanos this time around because she's there to assist, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) summons his battle-ax Stormbreaker in preparation to take down the Titan, and Captain America delivers a line that left fans' jaws hanging open: "Let's go get this son of a b****."
Joe Russo revealed during an April 27, 2020 livestream of Avengers: Endgame that Cap's comment was one of the most talked-about and most significant lines of the entire film.
It was surprising to hear Captain America swear
One reason why this line is so significant is because of the sheer weight it carries coming from the mouth of the usually squeaky-clean superhero. Captain America had gained a reputation amongst both fans and in-franchise characters for being a bit of an old man. He famously called out Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) during Avengers: Age of Ultron when he said "s***," scolding the iron-clad Avenger with a simple, "Language!" That became a running joke with other Marvel characters, who would poke fun at Steve any time another hero swore, as well as with Marvel fans, who found Steve's swear-averse stance to be endearing.
Hearing Cap swear — and in a totally serious manner — in Endgame highlights how heavy the situation at hand is, and further shows how determined the Star-Spangled Avenger is in righting Thanos' wrongdoings. But there's another reason why this line is important.
Cap's line in Avengers: Endgame encapsulates the entire "mission" of the film
According to Russo, that the line is shocking and unexpected coming from Captain America is the whole point — not just of the moment itself, but also of Avengers: Endgame as a complete entity. Steve's profanity-punctuated remark represents what Endgame is all about: doing the unexpected. This includes having Steve swear, for certain, but it goes beyond that in a major way.
Russo explained that the line is also a "misdirect on what the mission is going to be." Fans are led to believe, upon hearing the line and seeing the action card that pops up on screen thereafter, that "the movie is going to be a space movie" — that the Avengers are going to be hoping around the cosmos, tracking down Thanos and trying to defeat him.
However, as Russo noted, "ten minutes later, it's different." After Thor slices Thanos' head off when it's revealed that the Mad Titan obliterated the Infinity Stones into atoms, rendering them completely irreparable and the Avengers' plan totally ruined, Avengers: Endgame takes a turn. The action jumps ahead five years, where many are consumed with grief over the events of Infinity War and hopelessness over the fact that the Stones have been destroyed, and eventually sees the Avengers attempting a whole new plan: split up into groups, travel through time, snag the Infinity Stones from several places in the past, power their own Infinity Gauntlet, and use it to undo Thanos' snap. Pretty different from what you expected to go down the first time you saw Endgame, huh?
As Russo put it, the "mission with Endgame" was always to "subvert expectations throughout the film and keep surprising you." Cap's comment itself and the way it prepares viewers for a plot that doesn't end up playing out as anticipated encapsulates that perfectly.