Avengers: Endgame Directors Explain Turning Point of Hulk and Ancient One Scene

When it comes to the most pivotal scene in Avengers: Endgame, most people will probably point to [...]

By Charlie Ridgely

When it comes to the most pivotal scene in Avengers: Endgame, most people will probably point to the deaths of Black Widow or Iron Man as their answer. Those are both totally valid options, but there's another scene earlier in the film that actually sets more in motion than you realize. The conversation between Hulk and the Ancient One lays the groundwork for most of the events in the second half of Endgame, and on the movie's feature commentary track, the writers and directors explain what makes that sequence so important.

Writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and directors Joe and Anthony Russo break down each and every scene from Endgame on the feature commentary, including the bit between Hulk and Ancient One. The scene took a lot of reworking, according to Markus, but it was necessary to make the rest of the film fall into place.

"Another scene that took a lot of rejiggering and jiggering," said Markus. "To make things complicated things clear and clear enough so that people could track why certain decisions are made later."

There's a point in the scene where Banner tells Ancient One that Doctor Strange chose to give up the Time Stone to Thanos and she realizes that he had to have had a reason to do so, changing her mind. It's this part of the scene that the creators argue makes the rest of it fall into place. Joe Russo referred to it as "the turning point of the scene."

"It sends you back to the previous movie reminding you about where we're headed," said McFeely. "The 14 million futures that Doctor Strange looked at."

"And that if this is how, why she is, that if Strange were to give that stone away willingly, that there would be purpose behind that action, and that perhaps the purpose of that action was for her in this moment," added Joe Russo. "This scene paints the stakes for motivating Cap to return at the end of the movie."

"To do something other than what she thinks she should do. She, if you remember in Doctor Strange, could never see past her own death, so she has to take his word for it," McFeely said.

If it wasn't for this scene, Doctor Strange's words at the end of Infinity War aren't nearly as important and Captain America wouldn't have had a reason to travel back to the past.

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