Avengers: Endgame has a subtle, yet brilliant, reference to Back to the Future Part II during its epic climax. After the devastating ending of Avengers: Infinity War, the remaining Avengers try and fail to resurrect the dusted victims of Thanos’ snap, locating the Mad Titan only to discover that he has destroyed the Infinity Stoes. Five years later, after the world tries to move on and accept their losses, Steve Rogers and friends can’t give up trying to bring everyone back. Fortunately for them, Scott Lang returns with a plan to get the powerful Infinity Stones back in their possession.
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The most prominent reference to the Back to the Future franchise in Avengers: Endgame comes when Steve, Scott, and Natasha try and recruit Tony to help. As Tony is hesitant to accept due to the dangers involved, Scott ensures that they will all be safe if they strictly follow the rules of time travel. The two rules Scott lists are directly from the plot of the second Back to the Future installment: don’t talk to your past self, and no betting on sporting events. Even later in the film, while discussing the actual rules of time travel before a test run, Scott is disappointed that Back to the Future is ”a bunch of bulls**t.”
With multiple references to the classic time travel blockbuster, it’s fun to discover that the massive climax of Endgame had a big Easter egg from Back to the Future Part II that a lot of fans may have missed. Reddit user Malechite discovered pointed out this visual reference, which comes right after the big moment of Tony snapping Thanos and his army away. The first image of victory after Tony’s snap arrives as Rocket Raccoon is about to be hit by a Chitauri Leviathan. As Rocket braces for the impact, the creature turns to dust and leaves him completely unharmed.
This quick scene mirrors Marty Mcfly’s encounter with the Jaws 19 hologram in the then-futuristic 2015. The cartoon-looking shark tries to take a bite out of Marty before disintegrating into pixels. With both scenes next to each other, the reference is obvious – but even without knowing it’s a Back to the Future II reference, the Endgame moment is still very cool.
Subtle references like this are just one of the ways that revisiting movies can be rewarding for fans. Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo infuse their Marvel movies with many homages to classic films - just as they once did with Community episodes like “Basic Rocket Science” (which plays with the tropes of space travel movies) and “For a Few Paintballs More” (which is packed with Star Wars references). And given that Endgame is now the highest-grossing movie of all time, it’s likely to become influential to future filmmakers in the same way the Back to the Future movies were.
- Black Widow (2020) release date: May 01, 2020
- Eternals (2020) release date: Nov 06, 2020
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) release date: Feb 12, 2021
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2021) release date: May 07, 2021
- Thor: Love and Thunder (2021) release date: Nov 05, 2021
- Spider-Man: Homecoming 3 (2021) release date: Jul 16, 2021
- Black Panther 2 (2022) release date: May 06, 2022
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 release date:
