Sebastian Stan addresses Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers ending

It’s been a year since Avengers: Endgame was released, and fans are still divisive over how Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers’ arc ended.

Avengers: Endgame was the swansong for the original Avengers team, with Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) bequeathing his shield to Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson/The Falcon. The controversy surrounding Steve’s decision to choose Sam over his other best friend Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) has yet to cease. That, along with Steve making a life of his own in the past has divided fans for over a year.

Stan has now addressed how he approached Bucky’s final moments with Steve while promoting his latest film.

During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he says that he played the two characters’ last scene ‘as goodbye’. According to him, Bucky Barnes knew that Steve was going back in time and he kept quiet about Steve’s plan because he didn’t want his fellow Avengers to stop Steve.

Bucky supported Steve wanting to live the life he had lost when he became Captain America back in the 1940s, and Steve wanted Bucky to have a stab at it as well. He comments:

"“Steve is saying to Bucky, ‘You’re going to go and do that, too. I’m not going to put this thing on you. We’re both going to live our lives — the lives that were actually taken from us back in the ‘40s when we enlisted…”"

By not burdening Bucky with the shield, Steve was effectively giving Bucky the chance to restart the life that had been taken away from him, first by the Second World War and then by Hydra who had brainwashed him into being the silent assassin, the Winter Soldier. Steve wanted Bucky to leave his past atrocities behind and start anew. Stan, however, stated that Bucky didn’t realize that Steve was going to return as an older man again, so that was a nice surprise for him.

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Stan himself has see-sawed over his feelings about Bucky and Steve’s ending, a move that got him a virtual pat on the back by fellow Disney star, John Boyega, who also struggled with how his character Finn’s relationship with Poe Dameron was portrayed on screen. Many viewers have called out Marvel Studios for their conservative handling of Bucky and Steve’s relationship, as well as the lack of closure for all of Steve’s friendships in the film.

Given the limited screen time Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes were given in Avengers: Endgame, Stan tried to infuse their shared moments with as much substance as he could – with or without dialogue. At the end of the film, according to Stan, Steve and Bucky’s relationship was ‘not about the shield’, and there was no conflict over Sam being the better character to take on the mantle of Captain America.

Sam has a clean record and is a ‘good man’ according to Steve, for him to take the shield should be a no-brainer. It’s also obvious that Steve and Sam are close team-mates and friends since they’ve worked on several missions together by the end of Avengers: Endgame, so the controversy around Sam being Captain America is baffling, to say the least.

Stan has said that the ‘baggage’ that comes with the title is going to be addressed in the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe spin-off show, The Falcon & The Winter Soldier. The Disney Plus series features Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson and Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, as well as Daniel Brühl and Emily VanCamp returning as Zemo and Sharon Carter.

Production was a few weeks away from completing but has been put on hold due to the global pandemic. The show will revisit the style of Captain America: The Winter Soldier – arguably one of the best MCU films – with practical effects, massive action and tons of emotional character development. That sounds extremely promising for the show.

The Falcon & The Winter Soldier is supposed to release on Disney Plus in August this year.

How do you feel about Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers’ ending? Did Bucky deserve the shield or should Steve have continued as Captain America? Let us know in the comments.