Unless I'm remembering it wrong, at the end we are down to our Avengers from the first film, minus Nick Fury and plus a couple of others. So that means Tony, Cap, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and I assume Hawkeye, Captain Marvel and Ant-Man will have to figure out a solution.
It's been interesting reading reactions to ending. For those that know nothing about contracts, sequels and studio deals there's true shock over who is dead. For many, they were believing the mass murder up until Black Panther and Spider-Man who common sense would tell you are going to be in future films. Of course, many know that all the dust people are not really dead, but it's an interesting note to pause on for a year+. Normally, this is a moment we might sit in for 3-5 minutes and then Earth's Mightiest Heroes would put a plan in motion to undo Thanos' work. Instead we end with Thanos victorious. Some claim there's no ending to the film and I might agree if not for the scenes of the survivors wondering where to go from here and Thanos watching the sunset with satisfaction, which I think gives this adventure a nice coda. It's much like the scene after Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince when Harry announces he won't be returning to Hogwarts because he has a much bigger mission to complete. You know the story isn't finished, but this part of it is very much complete, with the right amount of unanswered questions hanging in the air. I think the film is closer to that than Deathly Hallows Part 1.
I'm also more certain now that the Soul Stone will be used to bring Gamora back to life.
And the ending doesn't ring hollow for me because it's not about the Avengers being massacred, it's simply about them losing. All of this power, some of them seemingly immortal and they still failed to save the planet. I don't need or want them dead. I just need them beaten.
I'm assuming Valkyrie is dead and I'm kind of bummed about that. It's like the start of Alien 3 where you learn all that effort from Aliens was for nothing. Thanos wipes out half of civilization, but it seems he's destroyed all but one Asgardian. I wonder if there was a deleted scene where Thanos let Valkyrie escape with half of the people. Maybe when they filmed this they weren't sure how popular the new characters from Ragnarok would be, but they seemed very confident about the Black Panther cast.
I was happy for the little Captain America I got considering everything was pointing towards his death.