George R.R. Martin praises Avengers: Endgame, says Stan Lee would be proud

It seems like George R.R. Martin gave himself a little respite from the long process of writing The Winds of Winter in order to catch a screening of Marvel Studios' Avengers: Endgame. As it transpires, the Game of Thrones author was a big, big fan of the film.

"Endgame is amazing. Kudos to the writers and director[s]. I cannot believe they got all those characters into one film, and still managed to do them all justice," Martin wrote on his personal blog earlier this month. "The final battle was epic, exciting, thrilling, full of twists and turns…and strangely beautiful. But the character scenes earlier in the film really made it for me. The opening with Hawkeye, the Ant-Man scenes, Tony Stark’s moments communing with his helm…so many more.

There’s plenty of action here, but this is not just 'A Big Dumb Action' movie, of which there are far too many these days. Stan Lee would have been proud. Could he ever have dreamed that all those characters he and Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and the rest of the Marvel team created in the early '60s would one day come to dominate global culture?  There’s an amazing story for you. Oh… and yay for the rat. The unsung hero. They should make him an honorary Avenger."

The "rat" to which he refers is the rodent that accidentially reactivates the Quantum Tunnel, thus bringing back Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) who's been stuck in the Quantum Realm for the five years since Thanos' (Josh Brolin) Infinity Stone plan succeeded. His tenure down there began at the very end of last summer's Ant-Man and the Wasp when Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) were snapped out of existence.

Realizing that only five hours has passed for him, Lang begins to formulate the idea of using the Realm to time travel back in time to undo the deadly scheme, a concept that eventually morphs into the now-infamous "Time Heist" seen in the movie. Without Ant-Man returning, the Avengers would have wallowed in self-pity and depression until the end of time, so it is this one rat that really gets the story moving along. He (or she) is truly the greatest rodent protagonist since Ratatouille's Remy.

About to enter its fourth weekend in theaters, Avengers: Endgame's global box office tally currently sits at $2.4 billion, although the film is assuredly gaining on James Cameron's Avatar (2009) for the record of highest-grossing movie ever. It's already overtaken Cameron's Titanic for the second spot, so it's only a matter of time.

Game of Thrones wraps up for good this Sunday at 9pm EST on HBO with the airing of the sixth episode of the eighth and final season. Nevertheless, the network is hard at work on three spinoff shows set in Westeros.