Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
is just a few days away, but the movie is hardly able to match the excitement and buzz that surrounded Avengers: Endgame. Thanks to Infinity War, Avengers 4 was the most talked-about piece of entertainment in town, in a year that brought us not only the end of Marvel’s Infinity Saga but also the final season of Game of Thrones — and now, the last movie in the third Star Wars trilogy.
With nearly eight months gone since the Endgame’s premiere, we’re still talking about it, as we’ve been getting plenty of new information in the past few weeks. The film premiered on Disney+, complete with an exciting bundle of deleted scenes that are still fun to watch, even though they didn’t make it to the final cut — especially one that would have significantly altered the course of events. At the same time,
The full script is available at this link, and you can check it out if you feel like getting a different kind of Endgame experience. And that’s where We Got This Covered scooped up the following scene that would have taken place on the roof of the Sanctum in New York, during Bruce Banner’s chat with The Ancient One:
SHE CONJURES A MAGICAL PROJECTION OF THE INFINITY STONES, SPINNING IN UNISON. A TUNNEL OF GOLDEN LIGHT POURS FORTH.
ANCIENT ONE (CONT’D): The Infinity Stones create the experience you know as the flow of time. Remove one of the stones, and the flow splits.
She plucks the GREEN TIME STONE out of the array: A SMALLER, BLACKENED RIVER BRANCHES OFF FROM THE FIRST.
ANCIENT ONE (CONT’D): Now, your timeline might benefit. My new one…would definitely not.
SHE GESTURES. OUR CAMERA ZOOMS INTO THE BLACKENED TUNNEL…
TUNNEL POV: HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE RUN AS WE FLY OVER A CROWDED STREET, UP TO…THE BURNING HONG KONG SANCTUM.
ANCIENT ONE (O.S.) (CONT’D): In this new branch reality, without our chief weapon against the forces of darkness, our world would be overrun…
MOVE UP TO SEE DORMAMMU IN THE SKY. HE OPENS HIS MOUTH… BACK ON THE ROOF…THE ANCIENT ONE PLUCKS MORE STONES FROM THE GOLDEN RIVER, CREATING FIVE MORE BLACKENED TRIBUTARIES.
ANCIENT ONE (CONT’D): For each stone you remove, you’ll create a new, vulnerable timeline. Millions will suffer.
(beat)
Now tell me, Doctor. Can your science prevent all that?
The callback to Doctor Strange would have been excellent for anyone who had seen the film. Strange wouldn’t have been able to come to bargain with Dormammu — a being who had previously been unaffected by time — without the Time Stone, and Earth would have been lost. But the moment may have been an unnecessary complication for the final Endgame cut, especially for moviegoers who hadn’t seen all the earlier movies.
There would have also been a somewhat significant error in this scene. The Ancient One shouldn’t have been able to conjure that particular tale of future events because it happened after her death in Doctor Strange. She’s well aware of things that didn’t happen in her timeline so far, like the fact that Strange is doing surgery several blocks away, but she can’t know that it’s Strange who will outsmart Dormammu — assuming there were no changes to her timeline. As we know from Doctor Strange, her fate is pretty much sealed. She tried to avoid it but wasn’t able to do it, in spite of her magical abilities.
Ultimately, not having the scene in Endgame, no matter how exciting it would have been visually, was what was best for the film. That said, the fact that Dormammu was initially planned to appear in Endgame could mean that the character will be brought back in future MCU movies.
