What You Need to See Before AVENGERS: ENDGAME

Well, I did this last year for Infinity War, so here we go. Working backwards through the previous movies, with as few spoilers as I can:

CAPTAIN MARVEL
If you don’t know who Captain Marvel is, or what her deal is, you might want to check this one out. But in terms of plot, nothing in it is really followed up in Endgame. All you really need to know is Captain Marvel exists. If you saw and liked Captain Marvel, though, you’ll have a good time at Endgame.
STATUS: Skippable

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP
Seeing that I hadn’t even bothered with seeing this one until watching it a week before Endgame on Netflix, it turned out to be surprisingly critical. A major element of the movie’s plot is set up here, and no it’s not Ant-Man going up Thanos’ butt.
Corollary: For Ant-Man and the Wasp to make the most sense, you’ll need to have seen Avengers: Infinity War, Captain America: Civil War, and Ant-Man.
STATUS: Essential
 
AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR
Endgame is the second half of Infinity War. You can see it that way, or as the finale of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe to this point. Either way, yeah, seeing this without having seen Infinity War is a waste of a very expensive movie ticket.
Corollary: I broke down what movies were needed to really get Infinity War last year.
STATUS: Essential 

BLACK PANTHER I mean, it’s a good movie that you should see anyway, but if you haven’t seen it yet you aren’t going to be lost watching Endgame other than the Captain Marvel element of “these characters exist.”
STATUS: Skippable 

THOR: RAGNAROK
Thor’s character arc gets a lot of attention in Endgame, and ultimately the events of Ragnarok are crucial to making the most of this film and Infinity War.
Corollary: Ragnarok depends on Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor: The Dark World, The Avengers, and Thor.
STATUS: Essential
 
SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING
Do you know who Spider-Man is? Did you see Infinity War or Civil War? If yes, then if you haven’t seen this one yet don’t worry about it. But it’s pretty good.
Corollary: You’ll probably want to have seen Captain America: Civil War before watching this one.
STATUS: Skippable

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 2
Like Infinity War, Endgame leans heavily on elements first established in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, though really the only characters you need to pay attention to are Nebula and Gamora, which is rough because this movie is mostly all about Star-Lord. It would help to have seen this one to understand the sisters’ bond more, but if you haven’t gotten around to it yet, don’t sweat it.
Corollary: If you check this one out, you’ll really want to have seen the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie.
STATUS: Optional 

DOCTOR STRANGE
Any movie that introduces an Infinity Stone is probably a good call to see before Endgame, and if you haven’t seen this movie yet you might be really confused when a certain character shows up. It’s not altogether the most necessary, but if you have the time you should squeeze it in.
STATUS: Optional
 
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
This movie was a major turning point in the arcs of several of the Avengers. It’s not directly tied to Endgame, but so much of this film is completing the arcs of the main Avengers characters and I think if you haven’t seen one a lot of moments in Endgame will fall flat.
Corollary: To get the most out of Civil War, you need to have seen Ant-Man, Age of Ultron, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Avengers, Captain America: The First Avenger, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man.
STATUS: Essential 

ANT-MAN
You don’t need to have seen this movie to see Endgame, but it’s a necessary background to movies that are essential to Endgame, such as it’s sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp, so if you haven’t seen it you should probably give it a go.
STATUS: Optional  

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON
I think having seen Age of Ultron makes some of the character beats in Endgame land a bit better, I think a lot of the character work being done here pays off a lot more now that we know where they were going. And Age of Ultron was also pretty crucial to Infinity War. But if you haven’t seen this one yet, you probably won’t be too too lost, other than a few moments here and there.
Corollary: Essential to understanding Age of Ultron are The Winter Soldier and The Avengers.
STATUS: Optional

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
Several key concepts and characters to Infinity War and Endgame were introduced here, so it’s pretty critical to following who’s who and what’s what in the new movie. Also, if you’ve already seen this one it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to give it a rewatch to refresh your memory.
STATUS: Essential 
 
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
Not much from this movie is directly related to Endgame, however it’s pretty crucial to later movies that are themselves more crucial to Endgame, and there are a few moments in the movie that may not really land if you haven’t seen it.
Corollary: If you’re seeing Winter Soldier for the first time, then The Avengers and The First Avenger are essential to understanding it.
STATUS: Optional

THOR: THE DARK WORLD
Again, this one introduces an Infinity Stone - and more specific elements end up being surprisingly crucial to Endgame’s plot. It’s not very highly regarded among fans - it’s not a bad movie so much as it’s a bit forgettable - but you’ll want to have seen it before going into Endgame.
Corollary: The Dark World’s plot depends on The Avengers and Thor.
STATUS: Essential

IRON MAN 3
It’s a relatively key part of Tony Stark’s character arc, serving as a bridge between the first two Avengers movies, and it also explains one minor cameo in Endgame, but if you missed it, you haven’t missed much.
STATUS: Optional

THE AVENGERS
If you haven’t seen the first Avengers movie, what are you even doing going to Endgame? This one’s pretty critical.
Corollary: If you haven’t seen The Avengers, somehow, you might want to see The First Avenger, Thor, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man before doing so.
STATUS: Essential
 
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER
Endgame is a lot about paying off the character arcs of the major Avengers characters, and a lot of Steve’s storyline stems more from this movie than his later two “solo” films. Don’t sleep on this one.
STATUS: Essential  

THOR
This one is an essential introduction to concepts elaborated on in later movies that are more Endgame crucial, but this film itself isn’t really all that important to Endgame.
STATUS: Skippable

IRON MAN 2
The story of this one? Not so much. The themes? Absolutely. Again, character arcs are really important to Endgame, and Iron Man 2 really does the heavy lifting on a major element of Tony’s character.
Corollary: You’ll probably want to see Iron Man before seeing Iron Man 2.
STATUS: Optional 

THE INCREDIBLE HULK
This movie may as well have never happened in terms of any of its major narrative threads being picked up.
Corollary: The Incredible Hulk is a pseudo-sequel to the non-MCU movie Hulk.
STATUS: Skippable

IRON MAN
It’s debatable if anything from this movie is really crucial to Endgame, but the new movie really is focused on providing a satisfying finale for the entire canon of Marvel films up til now, and that gives it a very retrospective tone. What better way to prepare for that tone than going back to where it all began?
STATUS: Optional

Star Trek: Discovery Has the Worst Handle on Stardates of Any Trek Property

Star Trek: Discovery is a prequel series currently airing, set about ten years before the original 1960s Star Trek which starred William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. There are many things a die-hard Trek fan can point to that violate “canon”, the established history and lore about the Star Trek universe that have been established over the half century of the franchise’s existence.
Most of these changes are visual in nature, updating the look and feel of the show to something that seems futuristic to a modern television audience, instead of what would seem ten years less advanced than what seemed futuristic to a 1960s audience. Some changes are to avoid overly complicated lore that might turn off new viewers (although the show has also indulged in using some of the most complicated continuity in the franchise to tell its stories on occasion). Many of these changes can be justified by the need to make a modern Trek show that appeals to everyone, not just diehard fans.
But the show fucks up stardates constantly, and it’s driving me crazy.
Now, stardates might be the most inconsequential thing to complain about, the very definition of the kind of asinine nitpicking Trek fans are mocked for, but the thing about it is this: it costs Discovery nothing to get it right. Unlike costumes and set designs, special effects and alien make-up, stardates are not an expensive visual, nor are they a complicated story element that eats up exposition time. They’re just some numbers rattled off during the traditional “Captain’s log” voice-over segments of the show, that were originally designed to make things easier for the writers.
Star Trek is set in the future, but exactly when was originally left somewhat vague. Years of filling in the details has led to the original series being pegged with the years 2265-2269. Discovery begins in the year 2256. But the original series writers didn’t want to be bogged down with exact dates, and besides - the Enterprise serves a United Federation of Planets: there are enough different calendars on Earth let alone when you consider alien worlds with different methods of measuring time altogether.
So stardates were designed as nonsense numbers that supposedly are a kind of standard nonbiased timekeeping method in the Federation. You aren’t really supposed to pay too much attention to them on the show, or wonder what they mean. However, if you do pay attention to them, presumably because you’re detail obsessed as many fans of Trek are, you’ll notice they aren’t wholly random.
Stardates in the original series progress roughly from episode to episode - more smoothly if you take the episodes in the order they were produced rather than they were aired. Season 1 features dates that range from 1312.4 to 3417.7, Season 2 runs 3018.2 to 4770.3, and Season 3’s dates cover 4372.5 to 5943.9. Whether you watch the episodes in airdate order or production order, the stardate progression isn’t perfect, but it is approximate - the numbers go up, roughly 1000 units for each year that passes in story.
With Star Trek: The Next Generation, the franchise moved 100 years into the future, with that series set from 2364-2370, and the show’s producers paid greater attention to stardates, with a more consistent system in place. Like on the original show, these dates are not the responsibility of the show’s writers, but rather are written in later by story editors and other staff members who work consistently from episode to episode and are aware of what order the scripts will be produced in the season. The earliest date in TNG is 41153.7. The decision had been made to increase stardates from four digits to five to show that the new series was further in the future, the leading number 4 was chosen as a subtle reminder the show was set in the twenty-fourth century, the next number was the season, and the last three numbers progress roughly from 000 to 999 throughout each season, with each season covering roughly one year in the story. The last date in season 7 of TNG is 47988.0. This system continued until the film Star Trek: Nemesis, set in the year 2379 on stardate 56844.9.
When JJ Abrams rebooted the Star Trek timeline with his new films in 2009, the writers of that film decided to just make stardates the Earth year with a decimal point after them. Which kinda misses the whole point of why stardates exist, but at least was easy for an audience to understand and was consistent, and missing the point was largely the raison d’être of the Abrams helmed Trek films.

So that brings us to Star Trek: Discovery, which - despite all the visual differences - is set within the original continuity of the franchise, ten years before the adventures of Kirk and Spock. Based on this, what would be a reasonable system of stardates to assume? Perhaps to take it down to three digits, to show that we are before the original four digits of TOS, similar to how TNG employed five digits?
No. The earliest stardate we get in Discovery is 1207.3, which is certainly an earlier number than the earliest TOS given date, but based on the rationale of the previous stardate systems would indicate a date earlier the same year as the first stardate of TOS, not ten years earlier. Things only go downhill from here, however. The next stardate we get is six episodes and seven months in story later, and is 2136.8, which would place this story in the middle of season 1 of TOS, presumably. Then the very next episode after that features the much earlier date of 1308.9 - which again predates TOS, but only by a few weeks perhaps. And unlike past Trek shows, where the storytelling was largely episodic and so non-consecutive stardates in consecutive episodes can be hand-waved away, Discovery is an extremely serialized show. The 1308.9 episode definitely takes place after the 2136.8 episode. The next stardate we get is five episodes and nine months in story later, 1834.2. Five episodes later, in season 2, we get 1029.46, the earliest stardate we’ve had yet, and then in the very next episode 1834.2512, which would be about twenty-five minutes later than the stardate from six episodes ago. This utter nonsense, while seemingly inconsquential, demonstrates the core of a recurring problem with Star Trek: Discovery. They want the touchstones of Star Trek, the recognizable elements, without doing any of the work for them.
They know that stardates are a thing in Star Trek, a string of numbers with a decimal point after them, sometimes four digits, sometimes five. Better make it four since we’re closer to TOS than TNG, I guess. But no one is paying attention, it seems, to what the stardates are episode to episode, whether they progress in anything close to a logical or consistent manner, not just with previously established shows, but more significantly in my eyes - with each other in the same show!
Going back all the way to the original series, when you read behind the scenes interviews with the producers, writers, and designers who worked on it, you consistently hear about decisions that were made in at least a desire to appear believable and coherent. “What would this thing actually look like in the future, maybe?” or “If this was real, how would you really design it?” It’s why the Enterprise has a smooth exterior hull for instance, instead of the highly detailed fiddly bits of ships in Star Wars which show scale more easily. Because if you really wanted to make a spaceship, why would you put a ton of stuff on the outside since that means you’d have to go out in a spacesuit to fix it?
The stardates on past series were arbitrarily decided, but then once those arbitrary starting numbers were chosen, they progress forward throughout the shows in a roughly consistent manner. As if they were a real thing, that worked. And for many fans, “as if it were a real thing, that worked” is a big appeal of the world of Star Trek. It cannot be stressed enough, it is all arbitrary fictional bullshit, but it’s consistent within itself, and that helps us to believe it, which helps us be invested in the stories and characters, even if they are set on strange new worlds where no one has gone before.
On Discovery, you get the sense that the design principles have changed from “what would seem believable?” and “what can we afford?”, the two masters of past Trek worldbuilding, to “what looks cool?” and “what signals Star Trek to people?” So sometimes things look familiar, like iconic props such as phasers and communicators, other times things look utterly different, like the overall aesthetic of Starfleet interiors or the entire Klingon race. It’s not consistent within itself, because the goal is to either make your jaw drop at how awesome it was, or else to signal something in your brain that says “aha! Like on Star Trek.” The stardates on the show are the latter - no one seems to care how they work or if they’re consistent, but they’re a thing they know the audience knows are a thing from Star Trek, so let’s throw them in there, and who really cares?
What’s the most frustrating is, they’re the easiest things in the world to get right. It’s just numbers on a page, dialogue said by an actor, it costs nearly nothing to just make sure you’re counting up from episode to episode rather than spouting random numbers. So when something that small, and that easy to get right, is utterly disregarded, it puts you on edge about how the rest of the show is being handled.

I like Star Trek: Discovery. I like the cast and the characters a lot, I often enjoy the writing, and sometimes I even like the aesthetic choices. But I would be lying if the feeling I often get from watching the show is that for all the money being put into it - and it is indeed the most expensive and thus most impressive Star Trek has ever looked - the entire series from writing to post-production feels a bit sloppy. As they say, the devil’s in the details.