8) How Long Did Doctor Strange’s Training Last?
When Stephen Strange loses the use of his hands in a car accident, he scours the world looking for a way to heal them. When he meets the Ancient One and learns of the mystic arts, she informs him that it will take a long period of studying and practice for him to master these new abilities. For us, this long period takes about an hour. But the movie never specifies just how long Strange studied in Kamar-Taj for.
There are some factors here that can give us a clue as to the time frame of the movie, though. Chiefly, there’s Strange and Christine’s relationship to consider. When he eventually returns to New York, she seems surprised to see him but not enough to suggest that it’s been years. Likewise, he mentions how he’s emailed her many times but she never responded. We can guess, then, that he has only been away a fair few months.
This sounds like a quite a brief period of time in which to learn how to become a master magician, but we’re told that Strange has a photographic memory and was apparently born for the mystic arts. Two things which would speed his studying time along.