As the final clock winds down to Avengers: Endgame, I want to make a last-minute prediction or two on this blog. I don't even know if they're so much predictions for Endgame as much as predictions for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in general. That's because I originally assumed them to be predictions for last year's Avengers: Infinity War, and they ended up never factoring into that movie.
My predictions all center around the scene in Thor: Ragnarok where Thor meets Doctor Strange in New York. The setup for this scene is that Thor just exposed his brother Loki as an imposter who's been posing as their father Odin on Asgard for the last four years, and now he's forcing Loki to bring him to the real Odin on Earth. They can't find him in New York, the place where Loki imprisoned him, and then Doctor Strange shows up and takes them to his Sanctum to question what they're doing on Earth. After some comical banter and slapstick, he sends them to Odin in Norway.
I've had a complicated relationship with Ragnarok ever since it came out, but the one aspect of it that I've actually argued about is this scene. Forget about the Avengers crossovers just for a second; in the context of the single movie Thor: Ragnarok, this scene is completely pointless. It brings the pacing to a halt, nothing that Thor and Doctor Strange talk about comes into play later in the plot, and including Doctor Strange in this story at all just raises questions about why he didn't help to fight the villain when she first showed up on Earth. You could easily rewrite the script to just have Loki know where Odin is and take Thor straight to Norway himself.
What's more, Strange doesn't cross paths with Thor or Loki in Infinity War, so this scene doesn't even work as a setup for future MCU films.
At least not yet.
Strange was one of the characters who died from Thanos snapping his fingers at the end of Infinity War. Since the majority of Endgame's plot will most likely center around the Avengers trying to undo that snap, I suspect that Strange will make a comeback somewhere in the second half of the film. It's also been speculated that Loki, who appeared to die in a more traditional way in Infinity War, will also come back. Perhaps the scene in Ragnarok was a means of introducing him and Thor to Strange in order to set up a two- or three-man teamup between them in Endgame.
Loki and Strange working together especially would be interesting, since having Loki use his powers for good in alliance with someone who once dismissed him as a threat for having them would show all the more how much he's come full circle. In turn, it could show growth on Strange's part by having him acknowledge that a fellow magic user he once dismissed from Earth can have some use if enough need arises for it. Strange's mastery of the Time Stone could also come into play and turn out to be the force behind some of the bizarre circumstances of Loki's (again, we'll say "alleged") death in Infinity War.
If that doesn't happen in Endgame, then there could still be a chance of something along those lines occurring in Phase Four of the MCU. Tom Hiddleston's contract with Marvel Studios is expiring after Endgame, but Chris Hemsworth has said on multiple occasions that he'd be interested in reprising his role as Thor afterwards if possible. Maybe this is a well-disguised spoiler being leaked about Thor's status at the end of Endgame, or maybe it isn't. What we do know is that a Doctor Strange sequel is in the works for Phase Four, so if Hemsworth does end up coming back for that phase, there's a real chance that we might get a Strange-Thor team up after all.
That would make a lot of sense, since their predecessors Odin and the Ancient One who once oversaw the universe have effectively passed on from it. I feel like Thor meeting Doctor Strange in Ragnarok is so beside the point for that movie that it HAS to serve as a setup for something bigger, maybe as a preview of how the future Allfather and Ancient One will interact when protecting the universe post-Endgame.
It's hard to say how far ahead Marvel Studios plans their MCU movies anymore. Given their history with the Infinity Saga though, I'm willing to believe that they have enough foresight to plant seeds five or six movies in advance.
Or maybe that scene in Ragnarok was just an excuse to put more pratfalls in the movie and the studio's still looking for a sequel where they can shoehorn in justification for it. Neither one would surprise me.
