Marvel Cinematic Universe general stuff

The White Wolf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121224776#Comment_121224776

Shambolic. Someone needs to take responsibility for ensuring these properties are carefully conceived before they go into production, because there's not a chance I believe a show stopping production halfway through an 18 episode arc is going to fix anything. The show is fucked, simple as that.

They should take Secret Wars as their chance to do a reset, because it's clear they've created something now that they can no longer effectively manage.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121250093#Comment_121250093

That's fair, but I think you also hit upon the critical part that may perhaps yet grind the MCU to a halt: a good showrunner; cos if you look across the MCU there aren't a lot of James Gunns these days. And as we've read in recent days the TV shows haven't even had any proper head honcho in the first place (not that it wasn't obvious watching the damn shows).

eightieschewbaccy

I'd love to see another Luke Cage season over Daredevil. It's got that kind of cultural difference that Marvel would benefit from. The greatest failing of the Netflix shows was doing that Defenders team up. Although would largely outdo much of the marvel shows atm.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121251633#Comment_121251633

I actually never got the hate for the Defenders. I really enjoyed it. Some missteps in it, but the interaction and dynamics between the main four was great, and it was the best (or at least most tolerable) version of Danny/Iron Fist. Sigourney Weaver and Scott Glenn were both terrific too.

pjohnson

Wonder Man was a weird choice for a TV series, a lot of his stories revolved around him being the base for Vision and his following links to Scarlet Witch.

Without those links he was a weird character to select for MCU no more than Agatha Harkness.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121252389#Comment_121252389

I'd guess it would've been a stripped down version of the character taking the bits that are more interesting as a TV show. There's definitely something interesting about someone with super powers using them to just take bumps as a stuntman. More grounded stories like that are a nice break from the big crashy bashy magical stuff. Much like Jessica Jones, who was a private investigator first, and super-powered second, and all the better for it.

CastorTroy

I keep getting Wonder Man and Machine Man mixed up, for some reason. I guess because I haven't read too much of either.

Doctor DooM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121248318#Comment_121248318

Wonder Man is actually one of my weird childhood faves. He should be one of the biggest characters Marvel has, but he's a mess, in continuity and out. If done right (and after Secret Invasion, I'm not confident it would) it could be hilarious. Some highlights:

The very first Avenger to join after Cap. Then, he got canned because Marvel thought they'd get sued by DC over Wonder Woman. Then, brought back to life because DC brought Captain Marvel back and that annoyed Stan. He has a genuinely obnoxious costume but... hmm... doesn't that look a little bit like the Vision?

Dude is as strong as Thor, as invulnerable as the Hulk, and was for years so scared of dying again that he'd hide at the back of the Avengers going into a fight while normal dudes like Hawkeye and Cap were at the front. What a dick.

His mind was copied by Ultron to create the Vision. They consider each other brothers. Which makes Wanda his sister in law. Which means he's (kind of) related by marriage to Magneto. Vision considers Ultron his father. So he's related to him, and Hank Pym too (who Ultron considers his dad, in turn). This is never really brought up in the comics as far as I know. He's kinda not really sort of related to everyone in the Avengers.

He moves to the west coast and joins the Avengers West Coast (where a huge amount of the MCU has come from lately- AWC is a kooky, bad selling, but beloved comic).

He becomes an actor. He only gets hired for action films because he's not very good, but you don't need to hire a stuntman. At one point, in continuity, he gets very angry with his agent for the size of the cameo he has in the (real world) Captain America and the Avengers arcade game (he throws Hawkeye + Cap their flying sled things and says "OK! Get on!" and that's it).

Because he has the same mind as Vision, he REALLY wants to do the nasty with Wanda.

This leads to him refusing to allow them to copy his mind when Vision gets disassembled (a la WandaVision) to give him back his personality when they put him back together. This is where White Vision comes from in the comics. He clearly is doing this to remove his competition for Wanda (WHAT a dick).

He then gets a genuinely fun comic series on his own for once where he moves to Hollywood and no one understands how he can live there without a car (at this point he can't fly yet, but he has little jetpacks on his waist).

He eventually does manage to sleep with Wanda, gets blown up by some massive alien bomb, and becomes her stand that she can summon in combat.

Wanda then does her whole no more mutants/Avengers disassembled/ I'm the most important thing in Marvel thing so obviously Simon is not on her level any more. So he then tries to bang Carol Danvers, completing a weird cycle of being a character Marvel killed for being too like a DC character chasing round a character with the same actual super hero name as a DC character but Marvel have the copyright for.

He then becomes a pacifist. Who can't be hurt so there's no risk in being so. WHAT a dick. Does lead to some funny stuff with him preaching to the Hulk while he rages and the like.

What a beautiful mess of a character.

The White Wolf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121252389#Comment_121252389

I don't think you can say that about just Wonder Man. I remember when they announced their first slate of shows for Disney +, and feeling indifferent. Shows built around popular characters from the MCU, but questionable whether they could create a meaningful show out of. Let's see how it goes kind of thing.

Then they announced another slate of shows and I knew they were doing too much. What originally felt like a great idea for some prestige television, quickly became a realisation that ok, they're just throwing stuff at the wall for the sake of content.

The sad thing is that some of the characters I felt worked reasonably well like Moon Knight and She Hulk, but the shows themselves were extremely....pointless and uneventful. There was literally nothing of note about them other than I guess that the main character was portrayed reasonably well but you're left feeling nothing about it afterwards?

Agent Coulson

The judge rules that Jonathan Majors must stand trial for domestic abuse after his appeal was dismissed and the trial date is set for November 29th.

The DA has also said they offically will not be prosecuting his accuser saying that matter is now closed and sealed after finding no prosecutorial merit.

Sirsok

Is She Hulk Canon? And if so does the introduction of the K.E.V.I.N character sound as world breaking to everyone else as it does to me.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121302935#Comment_121302935

I'd guess the actual in-world stuff is canon, while the fourth wall break stuff (like 'KEVIN') is just fun fluff for that show alone.

johnny_ultimate

Another big ol' juicy bit of behind-the-scenes piece about the current uncertainty over at Marvel studios - this time about the enterprise as a whole, rather than just the TV (although of note: apparently a single episode of She-Hulk cost a staggering $25 million).

Includes some extra info on just how troubled the Blade production has been (although it's interesting they/re now looking at more modestly - ie $100m - budget for that, which would be a big and IMO welcome change for Marvel), the Jonathan Majors question, and potential plans to bring back the original Avengers. Also seems Nia DaCosta took a back seat on The Marvels during post-production - not a major surprise given some of her comments on the production.

https://variety.com/2023/film/features/marvel-jonathan-majors-problem-the-marvels-reshoots-kang-1235774940/

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121311515#Comment_121311515

Man what an absolute fustercluck. I hadn't realised, or maybe just forgotten, that The Marvels cost $250 million. That's insane and means even a modest success at the box office mightn't be anywhere near enough to make this a sucess. Of course the usual nekbeards will be obnoxiously delighted if that happens. Nia DeCosta being absent from post production just reads as depressingly standard though.

The stuff about Blade reads absolutely abysmal though, and is just increasingly frustrating he's even a Marvel character at all. Can we not just have a Wesley Snipes legacy-sequel, which I think many people would be down for? Ok, maybe not Snipes but that's nothing a dumptruck of money wouldn't fix.

Cos this bit sounds ... bloody 'ell... some motherfúckers always gotta ice-skate uphill.

One person familiar with the script permutations says the story at one point morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons. Blade was relegated to the fourth lead, a bizarre idea considering that the studio had two-time Oscar winner Ali on board.  

The White Wolf

Ali done fans a massive favour by refusing to proceed with Blade as originally written.

Also, if they want to give due respect to the character, genre and story, a €100 budget is fair and fine by me. Absolutely no reason why a good Vampire film needs to cost more than that.

Agent Coulson

They just need to stop with the $150m CGI battles at the end of each movie and just get on telling stories leave the crazy CGIfest battles till the end of each Phase

silverharp

is it ok to criticize Disney yet?

https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1719742090223964454

~Rebel~

I don't really see how Blade fits in with the rest of the MCU... like, as wacky as the universe has become, throwing in vampires feels like jumping the shark, and trying to make them something other than vampires kinda kills the point of the character.

Would much prefer if it was its own separate thing, unrelated to the rest of the MCU - just a regular grounded world, with vampires as the only bit of weirdness/magic.

Agent Coulson

Blade was never going to and never will in the MCU live up to Wesley Snipes Blade.

I would have loved seeing the Netflix Marvel show runners given a chance with Blade over a couple of 8 episode seasons.

They did graphic really well and Blade would have been perfect for them.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121313287#Comment_121313287

Hes a weird fit in the comics aswell, he was briefly an Avenger a few years ago and the general fan concensus was WTF is he doing here.

The White Wolf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121313287#Comment_121313287

If it was 5/6 years ago I'd agree, but since then they've introduced time travel, earth shattering gigantic robotic gods (plus various other Gods to perplexing results), witchcraft, mutants, religious totems and werewolves. Not to mention the multiverse, which increasingly seems to be their out for introducing the MCU X Men and Fantastic 4

Seems a bit unfair to look at all that and say they've finally jumped the shark with vampires.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121313679#Comment_121313679

I think "vampires" are different though; they always seem like the concept or monster you either do properly, or not at all. And given media has tended to portray them in full R-rated glory - Twilights notwithstanding - adding them to the MCU feels misplaced, and neutering an idea that has always tended to be full-on and unencumbered by Four Quadrant marketing. Maybe not jumping the shark, but for me definitely adding something that just doesn't fit into the Type of universe we already have. Going double given Blade has previous movie appearances and all of them conformed to that aforementioned gore or blood soaked portrayal of vampirism.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121313287#Comment_121313287

I think they were planning to segue the likes of Blade and Moon Knight into their own supernatural-based team-up (Midnight Sons) with the likes of Black Knight and even a new Ghost Rider.

silverharp

by all accounts the Marvels is going to be a flop, and signaled by an embargo of reviews until ~48hrs before it opens, never a sign of strength? this film seems to suffer from the "quirky comedy" elements which I doubt many people want, its more Disney+ than a "tent pole" film. This film has everything going for it with screens being free so there are no excuse other than Marvel making poor movies.

johnny_ultimate

The problem Marvel has worked itself into is that the films have been pretty tonally uniform thus far, with only really the 'jokiness' meter adjusted up or down depending on the film in question. They're all of apiece - it creates a consistency, but also makes it increasingly difficult to do anything different within the self-imposed confines. Even Deadpool feels it will fit in pretty smoothly, even if they tone down the crassness, as that's very jokey and silly.

Blade is pretty different, so it's obviously not going to slot in easily - and it's not really a major surprise they're going through a fair bit of creative confusion trying to get it over the line. The TV stuff has been a tad more adventurous, but the more tonally unique stuff there have been little asides and not really properly integrated into the series as a whole. Wandavision was significantly different until it just became standard Marvel fare in the back half.

I do think Marvel needs to be a lot more adventurous in terms of tone and content, so in that sense, it's slightly encouraging they're aiming for a smaller production with Blade, even if said creative turmoil also causes serious concerns about the state of the project. Their problem will always be doing those different, more adventurous projects will clash with their goal of a consistent, interlocked 'MCU'. I'd much rather the former than the latter, but it seems pretty certain Marvel executives are set on that latter.

Penn

I think a lot of Marvel's success has always been that their films were usually "Superhero + XXXX" films.

Thor Ragnarok: Superhero + Buddy cop

Spider-Man Homecoming: Superhero + School Drama

Ant-Man: Superhero + Heist movie

Cap 1: Superhero + War .... Cap 2: Superhero + Spy thriller .... Cap 3: Superhero + well, more superheroes...

But that's what I think a lot of their best stuff comes down to, as well as why the MCU has had the longevity it has had. The SuperHuman formula had clear differences and balances between the Super and Human parts which gave it variety and kept things fresh, and even the parts of the MCU like the humour can be adjusted to suit those types of movies (ie. more jokes in Thor Ragnarok, fewer jokes in Black Panther)

But lately they've gone all in on the Super part and just a tacked-on generic "Human" story to fill in the gaps. It's why we get big Act 3 sequences that don't really mean anything, or are far too big, or feature way too many side characters just because Marvel are overloading their films in order to set up the next thing.

I really liked Shang-Chi, and there are parts of the third Act I really enjoyed. But the dragons, big fight between mostly extras and CGI monsters, Awkwafina shooting the arrow, Razorfist, Shang's sister showing she could fight.... none of it was really necessary (I did like the imagery of Shang using the rings to kill the giant monster, but if it wasn't in the film it wouldn't have been a loss either). Ant-Man Quantumania.... that just had absolutely zero heart to it at all. Black Widow was just unnecessary altogether other than introducing Florence Pugh's character (and David Harbour though I'd need to see more of him, he was a bit hit and miss). Eternals had some good ideas and actually did feel like it was trying to do something different but still went too big in scale and struggled to find a good balance between its characters. And in fact the post credits of Eternals is very emblematic of the issues facing the MCU; They bring in Thanos' brother, and he's played by Harry Styles. Harry f*cking Styles? That's the definition of "Set it up because it'll get attention, and we'll figure out what we're doing with it later."

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121314156#Comment_121314156

The TV stuff has been a tad more adventurous, but the more tonally unique stuff there have been little asides and not really properly integrated into the series as a whole.

I find it remarkable the Loki production designer has to "fight" Marvel to allow his team to build sets. And sure enough, Loki has been one of the more arresting and imaginative - and tactile - MCU productions in a while. Part of the enjoyment has been watching the camera and actors move about those wonderfully retro locations of the TVA.

The White Wolf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121313828#Comment_121313828

I think you've hit the nail on the head, do it properly or not at all. I thought the introduction of the Multiverse came at a perfect time to facilitate telling tonally different stories that would do justice to a character, but based on what has been said about Blade, obviously not.

They have a 2 time Oscar winner playing one of Marvel's best known characters....and he's relegated to a supporting character in his own film. It perfectly encapsulates the issues post Endgame.

CastorTroy

Just bring back Sticky Fingaz as Blade.

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121314156#Comment_121314156

It's all crashing down spectacularly fast. They have done so much wrong in the last few years it's hard to know where to start.

So I'm not going to. Everyone knows the problems.

What I would mention is that I think it was a huge mistake bringing the whole multiverse in. Yes, they got a couple of half decent outings from it but they have treated it as an obvious blank cheque in the future to write characters in and out.

The biggest issue I have with it is that it all ultimately means there are no consequences for anything because nothing really matters when there is always millions of other universes where everything works out fine in the end. Very hard for audiences to get invested in something like that.