Marvel Cinematic Universe general stuff

~Rebel~

To be fair, so far I think they've done a decent job of not using the multiverse as a crutch to bring people back. The people we know are still the ones we've known from the beginning - with the exception of Gamora, and even there, they showed that this is a different person with different experiences who is going to go live their own life separate from their previous-alt-persona. And with Wanda they showed someone trying to use the multiverse to fix their problems, and showed it go horribly wrong.

I hope this is an ethos they stick to, to keep the stakes intact.

DangerMouse27

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121314441#Comment_121314441

I like the idea that people are really leaning into Loki Season 2, as it seems like a lot of it could be relevant to the mainstream MCU. It feels like that, whether it will be or not. Just like Victor Timely, seems like a lesser evil than Kang, I think the opposite is the case for Mobius. Hear me out.... Annihilus..

Whereas, there doesn't seem that connect with She-Hulk or even with Moon Knight, though the links are there. They seem more forced.

Werewolf by Night. I've yet to watch the colour version, but I really liked the idea and pace of it, and the casting is superb. Maybe a MonsterVerse, that sits alongside Moon Knight, Black Knight and Blade? Separate to the MCU across the galaxy.

People are pretty much covering my thoughts on the current state of the MCU, but I will add my own original thought.

I liked Antman: Quantumania. And more so, because I can see the movie that was left behind on the cutting room floor. That movie centres around Janet van Dyne, and delves into her experiences in the Quantum Realm. That is a good movie! De-aged and she's a fox, as per usual. But, some focus group complained, probably because it isn't cool to be Bill Murray fans anymore, so they chucked all of that in the bin and just monalogued their entire relationship. When I watch Ant Man: Quantumania, the other version exists and it's got lots of heart.

pjohnson

The post Avengers and pre X-Men/FF was always gunna be a lull.

flazio

Speaking of Fantastic Four, there was a nice easter egg in Spider-Man 2. Basically a tall building on the south West corner of Central Park was seen in the first game as Fisk Tower, it was then used in the Miles Morales game as a squat HQ for the Underground, here it's been renovated as the Baxter Building with a massive 4 still being painted on the helicopter pad.

Worth noting however that this doesn't mean that the Fantastic Four are definitely making an appearance in Spider-Man 3 or the upcoming Wolverine game set in the same universe. Avengers Tower has stood tall throughout the game and we've never seen any Avengers. Nelson and Murdock, Alias Investigations, the Wakanda embassy and Sanctum Sanatorium are all there but no sign of any occupants (well, a message from the Sanatorium and some off screen help)

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121318202#Comment_121318202

In fairness, I was saying that from the start of Phase 4, but at some point we have to acknowledge that they're not pulling themselves out of that lull. Thor Love & Thunder should have been a home run and it was awful. Quantumania should have been the MCU saying "We needed Phase 4 to help reset things and set up new characters, now here's where we're going", and it was a total dud (with the exception of Kang himself who was pretty great). GOTG3 was terrific, but also the end of most of those characters, their stories, and James Gunn in the MCU.

Most of the other movies have had elements of great ideas, or some great moments, but they've been so engulfed by the MCU trying to set up the next 5 years and just throwing random stuff in with no proper design or direction. I think Chris Hemsworth even said he was surprised to see 'Thor will return' at the end of the credits of Thor L&T because he hadn't actually signed on to do another film, then you have them throwing in Brett Goldstein as Hercules, Harry Styles as Starfox, Kit Harrington as Black Knight etc in post-credits scenes which don't feel like they're properly planned. They feel more like "Do it for now, and we'll work it out later".

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121318522#Comment_121318522

with the exception of Kang himself who was pretty great

Hmmm can't say I was as wowed. Between that and Loki, I'm kinda not sure Jonathan Majors' disappearance from the MCU would be a negative: so far his affected accents have been really distracting.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121318157#Comment_121318157

I suspect the multiverse will be the crutch they lean on if they can't arrest this trough of broad disinterest. Open a chequebook and get Downey Jr, Evans etc to come back for an alternative version (evil?) of themselves. Heck the promise to play bad guys alone might be enough to get em back.

johnny_ultimate

One of the issues with the multiverse as an MCU concept (although obviously something like Everything, Everywhere... and Into The Spider-Verse shows its broader formal and storytelling potential) is they used their trump card - the big, throwback reappearances - right out of the gate in Spider-Man. It's not a great film IMO, but it absolutely delivers on bringing a bunch of separate, popular strands together. It feels like you instantly have diminishing returns after that, and the multiverse films so far have predictably failed to follow up in a satisfying way.

Obviously, Deadpool 3 is going for the same trick (with or without a multiverse), and might have some extra oomph for that reason - but given it's already been done with X-Men in Days of Future Past, it'll be interesting to see if they can pull off a full 'getting the gang back together' effort in that sense.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121318940#Comment_121318940

His performance in Loki is definitely shaky, the stutter is far too overdone. His performance in Quantumania (not the post-credit variants though) and He Who Remains in Loki S1 I thought showed great promise.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121318988#Comment_121318988

I think as well, what Everything & the Spider-Verse films have shown is a willingness to take the concept of multiverse as this potentially crazy idea where anything's possible - and running with that idea to various tonal or creative extremes. The Spider-Verse films might have been buttressed by some stellar grounded character work, but around all that have been visuals that arguably pushed animation to a level American Cinema has perhaps never before indulged. The production obviously took an attitude of why not? when it came to just having about a half dozen competing styles in a single movie - it's the multiverse baby so why not try and use that idea. There's a scene in Across the Spider-Verse, with Gwen confronting her Dad and it's rendered in a way that was genuinely jaw-dropping in its beauty, the background abstracted into emotionally-textured splashes of colour as two people aired their laundry.

The problem with the Multiverse in the MCU is that by design the MCU can't have competing tones - not really, not when it counts - so all it can do with the Multiverse is so very tame and limited in comparison. The Multiverse of Madness I enjoyed, mostly cos hooray Sam Raimi's back everyone! - but the actual execution of the multiverse as a concept was so boring. Pizza balls, oh wow MCU you're really trying here.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121318991#Comment_121318991

That's fair forgot about Loki season 1; suppose if you gotta play the same guy a dozen times over the choice is to go subtle through performance, or go "big" through tics and physical differences. Just not that into the stammers and cod-English accent choices so far

pjohnson

I think the whole idea of bringing back characters through the multiverse to the main MCU is really overstated. It hasn't even happened much in the comics out side of a few X-Men (Blink, a Nightcrawler, Nocturne) and especially the (certainly never going to make it to MCU) insane Summers-Grey family tree.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121319054#Comment_121319054

Yeah that's why I had to mention the variants in the post-credits scene of Quantumania too. It's obviously difficult to play multiple versions of the same base character, but Victor Timely has a significant tic/stammer and Immortus sounded like he had a sore throat, took 15 strepsils, and they all got stuck in his throat. He doesn't need to go to such extremes to portray them differently to the point where it's a distraction.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121319072#Comment_121319072

I think it really matters how it's done. Something like Spider-Man NWH, using the Multiverse to bring back old characters in a way that was satisfying for those characters own stories too made it worth it, so it wasn't just nostalgia or fan-service. Doctor Strange MoM, the Illuminati were fun, but also dispatched so quickly and may as well have not been there at all. Then you have the likes of The Flash which just CGI'd in dead people for just pure fan-service (I can't really comment on how well they used Keaton's Batman as I haven't watched The Flash).

I think using the Multiverse to bring back old characters for fun cameos can be done well, but I think some films try to rely on that nostalgia to carry more of the film than they should. Doctor Strange MoM pretty much spoiled the whole thing in their trailers in order to sell the movie.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121319339#Comment_121319339

Michael Keaton put in a good enough showing but nothing was done with the character; this particular nerd hated the fact Keaton's return was in Generic Concrete World and not the Art Deco fever dream of Burton's original films.

Again looping back to the idea that a better - or at least more interesting - approach taken by Flash's idea of a multiverse would have been to go fúck it, let's do this alternative world as a functional third Burton Batman, Burton aesthetic n all. But that would have required imagination and gumption - something the DC stable chronically lacks. Though weirdly probably less CGI but more physical construction - which in the crazy logic of Hollywood would be a no go.

johnny_ultimate

As an off-topic aside, I happened to see a clip of a certain Superman 'what if' cameo from The Flash doing the rounds on social media the other day, and it might legitimately be the worst CGI I've seen in a major blockbuster in the last 10-15 years.

EoinMcLovin

https://youtu.be/AFUKnherhuw?si=hm9etdgWwekAz_G3

___

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121320818#Comment_121320818

The whole movie was a disgrace, right from the very off. The director did a round of media trying to excuse the CGI as intentionally shít and "flash vision" but if you think the still is bad you should see it in motion.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121320847#Comment_121320847

I still don't have a lot of faith in this, and given that they're still just going to release all the episodes in one go I'm not sure Disney do either.... but that's a promising enough trailer.

irishguitarlad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121320847#Comment_121320847

The most promising Marvel trailer I've seen in a long time. Looks really dark.

Foxtrol

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121318202#Comment_121318202

This is the main issue I'd put full blame on MCU for.

They needed a palate cleanser post End Game, rather than running straight into X-Men or FF, but they went too far and got far too cocky about it. They had enough of the B team heroes to keep things going for a phase of set up, however not where they've pushed things. Losing Boseman hurt the stable of heroes but even with him still around they've pushed far too many movies about characters that people aren't interested and it looks even worse with the likes of CA3, Thunderbolts, Armor Wars in Phase 5.

The other biggest issue was mostly out of their control. With them having an integrated universe, COVID absolutely destroyed their plans. No other movie or show comes anywhere close to the impact that it had on the MCU plus the associated costs. Huge chunks of scripts had to be rewritten and reshoots done due to movies changing order and it is clear they tapped the breaks on trying to tell and overt bigger story. I understand the argument that 'well they could have stopped and just taken their time and waited for the earlier movies to be ready' but to me that isn't based in reality. I do agree though, they should have slowed down more with what they faced, instead of in some circumstances speeding things up.

Probably the best time for MCU to deal with these types of challenges, with the heroes currently involved. Much rather now than making the same mistakes with the X-Men and completely messing up that introduction - given the huge number of characters it will open up.

Zero-Cool

I remember seeing The Avengers in a cinema in Dublin, the 2nd audience in the world to see it (poxxed lucky in a competition) but I will never forget the smile on my face start to finish. I think the only way that gets replicated is if they go all in with the X-Men and don't **** it up.

Varik

I don't have much hope for echo, hard as they tried I didn't give a **** about her in Hawkeye.

But at least it's all dropping apparently at once so with no break between I'll probably watch the lot.

Agent Coulson

Echo is the first in the new Marvel Spotlight series that will be rated TV-MA

Character driven street level stakes,

I'm pretty sure that's what the Netflix shows were about.

https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1720848286901264736

flazio

The whole point of that teaser, in my opinion, was to reestablish Vincent D'nofrio as the Wilson Fisk we remember from Daredevil.

The tagine intrigues me. "No bad deed goes Unpunished".

I don't think Jon Bernthall was spotted on set but, you never know.

~Rebel~

Very much feels like a Daredevil style show - even down to a street level hero with a disability. Feels a far more interesting direction than what I had been expecting based on her Hawkeye appearances - which makes sense; Hawkeye was more of a YA tone establishing Kate Bishop around a Christmas story, whereas this is something completely different and much grittier and darker looking. Quite looking forward to it now.

pixelburp

Was pointed out by others on the internet that this was the weekend Blade was originally meant to come out.

silverharp

oof, if it plays out that way, that would make the wold wide total sub $300m in total if it followed the same path. Any reason to think the Marvels will do better than the Flash?

https://twitter.com/CultureCrave/status/1720915683498922254

CastorTroy

I think The Marvels could be decent enough, but it has 2 characters that were set up in Disney+ series in WandaVision and Ms Marvel, with a lot of people refusing to watch Ms Marvel for some reason.

Come to think of it, is WandaVision the only female led MCU project that did well and was widely liked? Jessica Jones as well but that's being swept under the rug, it seems.

Though I guess since all the female led projects came out post Endgame they're among a list of projects that didn't do well.

McLoughlin

Jessica Jones wasn't MCU it was Netflix.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121329369#Comment_121329369

It was both, and not at the same time. All the netflix shows definitely took place in the aftermath of the alien invasion of New York from the 2012 Avengers film. It was referenced a few times, albeit either as background visual items like newspaper headlines - or the increasingly abstract mentions of "the incident" like the productions were paranoid open mentions would ruin the tone.

Full_Circle_81

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121328886#Comment_121328886

I don't think I've ever seen a film with so much doom-forecasting written about it. The internet seems to be flooded with it of late!

I didn't care much for the Captain Marvel movie (or her brief appearances in subsequent movies), nor did I enjoy either WandaVision or Ms. Marvel, but I'm guessing the new movie will still be easier to sit through than The Flash was, with double it's problematic star front and centre throughout.

I'm also curious to see if any of DaCosta made it through the Marvel machine to the finished product.