EXCLUSIVE: Following his Oscar-nominated role in Minari and scene-stealing part in Nope, Steven Yeun is continuing to show his range as he is now looking to add a Marvel movie to his resume. Sources tell Deadline, Yeun is set to join Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts, in a part that is not only significant to this film but could also play a role going forward in future films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Meanwhile, although I haven't seen it from a site or other source I'd consider reputable just yet, it sounds like the Agatha show has been mothballed more or less indefinitely.
Azreal13 wrote: Meanwhile, although I haven't seen it from a site or other source I'd consider reputable just yet, it sounds like the Agatha show has been mothballed more or less indefinitely.
That seems incredibly unlikely. It's already in production with set photos and everything. I also suspect it's story is pretty key to set up several characters needed for other projects. Stuff I have seen is it could be delayed till next year. Which would make sense with them stretching out their production schedules to give more time for post production and special effects.
Given that, I suspect, a few of these shows were added as reactionary additions to the schedule (Agatha, Echo) than things Feige would have more carefully planned, it's unsurprising that they're the ones having the most issues.
We're seeing the normalisation of Marvel Studios now that Chapek and the bankers he put over Feige are gone. Now that Kevin has the reins back, so to speak, the output will slow and (hopefully) the quality can improve.
I am still grinding through the second season of Agent Carter. It is not nearly as good as Season 1, and there is a forced Tie-in with Agents of Shield that was going on around the same time. I think that is hurting the overall story, however the characters are still fun to follow.
I imagine this got nuked when Marvel TV got nuked too. However, thanks to the time period, costuming, and sets it was probably not cheap to make anyway.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Given that, I suspect, a few of these shows were added as reactionary additions to the schedule (Agatha, Echo) than things Feige would have more carefully planned, it's unsurprising that they're the ones having the most issues.
We're seeing the normalisation of Marvel Studios now that Chapek and the bankers he put over Feige are gone. Now that Kevin has the reins back, so to speak, the output will slow and (hopefully) the quality can improve.
Do we know what exactly happened on the business end? I had no idea Kevin had lost any control over the MCU after Endgame, though it definitely explains how wonky phase 4 was. Did they just put new executives in charge over him?
As I understand it, and I may be completely wrong, they wanted to use the MCU and SW to drive subscriptions to D+, so both had to start coming up with TV series they otherwise wouldn't have done.
With D+ not being as profitable as hoped they are pulling back on the productions.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Given that, I suspect, a few of these shows were added as reactionary additions to the schedule (Agatha, Echo) than things Feige would have more carefully planned, it's unsurprising that they're the ones having the most issues.
We're seeing the normalisation of Marvel Studios now that Chapek and the bankers he put over Feige are gone. Now that Kevin has the reins back, so to speak, the output will slow and (hopefully) the quality can improve.
Do we know what exactly happened on the business end? I had no idea Kevin had lost any control over the MCU after Endgame, though it definitely explains how wonky phase 4 was. Did they just put new executives in charge over him?
Bob Chapek (spelling?) was CEO after Bob Iger "retired". Iger was the guy who protected Feige from Ike Perlmutter and put the MCU under feiges control instead of the Marvel Council.
Chapek apparently dove all in on Disney + as his landmark move and is likely responsible for the vastly increased amount of output from Marvel Studios. (There are more hours of content in phase 4 than phase 1-3 combined) and contributed heavily to the tapping out the CGI studio production capacity.
Capek was removed and Iger has taken back over. Followed with these announcements of things slowing down again.
Chapek's right hand man was a guy called Kareem Daniel. Chapek reorganised Disney's entertainment division, lumping a lot of things together and putting them all under the command of Daniel. This meant that Daniel was placed in a position between Chapek and Feige, meaning Feige had to go through him (whereas before Feige went straight to Iger, or Alan Horn when Horn was still around - and Horn is an industry veteran known all across Hollywood; he's who WB CEO David Zaslav brought in to help out when he took over WB). Between Chapek and Daniel there was an air of "quantity over quality", as they wanted to use their big brands (SW, Disney and Pixar) to drive D+ subscriptions.
If you know anything about how badly this went for WB with their "Year of Stupid", then you should be able to guess how well this approach went for Disney. They put out big Pixar films onto D+ (Pixar employees were not happy about this), and pushed more and more D+ shows. The malaise of Phase 4 is partly because of the people above Kevin.
Now yes, the pandemic is part of this - that's unavoidable - but remember that the various high ups went to the board to oust Chapek not because of bad financial results from COVID, but because they couldn't stand the way Chapek was running the company. Daniel went very soon after Chapek got the boot, and suddenly Feige was reporting to Iger again, the thing he used to do when Marvel was truly dominating.
This is from a different forum and was specifically from an Ant-Man & The Wasp Quantumania thread and their recent terrible second weekend results, but I feel like is more valid in a general Marvel thread so I wanted to repost it here:
Multiple factors [when it comes to Ant-Man 3's massive second week drop] to be honest. February is just a bad month for movies, early reception and word of mouth hurting the movie, and to be honest Ant-Man is just a weird movie to kick off the next phase.
A near 70% drop is terrible. When it happens to movies like No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness it makes more sense as those have huge opening weekends, and the second weekend simply can't live up to that. Ant-Man 3 did not have that level of opening, yet still saw a massive drop off.
See when that clickbait headline came out the other day that kept adding on conditions to narrow its focus and basically make itself meaningless ("Biggest drop... for a movie that made $100m on opening... on a Tuesday... during a full moon... during Summer... during a Year of the Rabbit... with a guy named Chris on the catering team...") I dismissed it as it was just some junk website chasing clicks. The actual weekend results weren't out yet.
But they're out now, and they're bad. You can say it's February all you like, or that there are "multiple" factors, but the simple fact is that this movie is doing badly. You get a 45%-50% drop, and you're cheering. You get a 50-60% drop, and ok, that's what you expected. A 65% drop is a bit harrowing. But a 70% drop? That's "high level meetings at Marvel HQ" levels of bad.
I don't believe in "superhero fatigue", but one thing I did hear today was the idea of "mediocrity fatigue". The MCU hasn't been exceptional in a while. I think Phase 4 drained people's interest not because of a lack of interest in superheroes, but because of a lack of interest in meandering aimless plotting with movies that didn't seem to be for anyone (like seriously, what was Eternals?). And the D+ shows aren't hitting either. Their quality ranges so much from flat out excellent (most of Wandavision, Loki), to exceptionally bad (She-Hulk) to just kinda there (Hawkeye). And it's the "just kinda there" ones that are the real problem. The things that aren't good, but at the same time aren't so bad as to garner attention. Phase 4 has just kinda been "there" for most of its run.
And we're seeing this in Ant-Man 3's results. This isn't the worst movie of the MCU - not by a long shot - but it's getting worse results than things like Black Widow or Dumb & Dumber not because it is worse than them, but because people are taking their feelings of frustration and malaise out on this film. It's not fair. It doesn't deserve it. But it's what the film is stuck with.
This is going to be a wakeup call at Marvel, that's for sure, and I hope that what we're seeing is just the lag time between previous productions and what Marvel is doing today to fix this, because if they don't, there won't be a Phase 7.
If I were to put a finger on it, it's definitely not super hero fatigue so much as 'global ever rising stakes fatigue.' The Godzilla threshold keeps going up and it's not just limiting the stories they can tell but sucking a lot of the individual character out of those stories as they all become more or less the same. And to top it off many of the characters the MCU was built on aren't there anymore. No more Cap or Tony, Banner seems gone. Widow is gone.
Of the new characters who emerged to take their place, Strange is simply too much of a jerk with too little heart of gold and I couldn't even tell you what other heroes we're supposed to really root for as the 'hearts' of the franchise.
There's really just Tom Holland who I like but is too young to really carry that weight as a character.
Chadwick Boseman was the guy who could have taken that role but fate is a cruel mistress. In his absence there's too much disconnection and meandering indeed to hold my interest. There's no character really bringing all these other characters together.
I think the fatigue is real. And it's not just the quantity/quality, but the lack of cohesion both internally as well as with the source material.
I haven't seen Black Widow or Eternals yet. I have no desire to do so. Release a Black Widow movie after she's dead and then do what they did to Taskmaster? Why should I care about this movie? Why should I care about Eternals at all? The end of Eternals has a pretty big thing happen, then 5 movies and 4 tv shows later NO ONE HAS MENTIONED IT.
Ant-Man 3 kind of flies in the face of the end of Ant-Man 2, which we could hand-wave away if the end of Ant-Man 2 wasn't extremely crucial to the end of the Infinity Saga. Janet helps get Scott to the quantum realm at the end of that movie. Endgame is entirely dependent on that happening. And on top of that they Taskmastered MODOK in the process.
Doctor Strange 2 is wholly dependent on the events of Wandavision. While I liked a lot of Wandavision, leaving us with the realization that Wanda subconsciously enslaved and tortured a whole town is an unsatisfying ending to a character we were supposed to have cared about and they reinforced that with DS2 ultimately ending the character's arc as a villain (how many people did she murder in that movie)?
Thor 4 has us following the god of thunder as he has to "find himself" again for the 4th (?) time in the last 10 years of his 1500 years of life? So, I guess you can say there's some consistency there...
Spider-Man No Way Home, while enjoyable, completely changed the trajectory of SM that they'd been building up until that point. In all of his previous appearances they were building him up like the next Tony Stark, but then they wiped it all away. Which, fine, I'm interested in seeing what they do with a "street level" Spider-Man story or trilogy or whatever they do, but we spent 3 movies building up him and his cast of characters to have it wiped away. Spider-Man going through adversity is on-brand, but it's a completely unforshadowed direction for the character with everything they set up in the MCU up till that point.
They couldn't do anything about the change that had to happen with Black Panther, but it results in yet another complete change.
GotG3 is going to end the arc of those characters from what it sounds like.
Steve gives Sam the shield at the end of Endgame, and then all of FatWS happens because Sam gives the shield away in opposition to Steve's wishes. It isn't even the real shield. That got destroyed in the fight with Thanos...
LordofHats wrote: If I were to put a finger on it, it's definitely not super hero fatigue so much as 'global ever rising stakes fatigue.'
World saved! Galaxy Saved! Multiverse saved!
Even better, the more extreme the threat the more common morality and collateral damage is irrelevant!
Also the increasing disconnect between the powerful characters and the Hawkeyes of this world. By making everyone's power about shooting or punching the baddies you see that you simply don't need the 'normal' ones. Thor 4 was terrible, especially after Thor 3, but it did highlight the Guardians are essentially irrelevant if Thor is around, an immortal with the power of a (minor) God.
Looking back over the recent slate of superhero films, I liked Suicide Squad 2 as trashy fun, Spider man as memberberry overload and having the plot revolve around figuring stuff out (even if punching at same time) and Ragnarock as proper comic book silliness (and that is now for coming out a long time ago...). I struggle to even remember the rest.
Well, I finished Agent Carter season 2, and it was very underwhelming and ended on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved. Too bad, I enjoyed its run better than Agents of Shield's long, convoluted run.
With Iger back, do you guy's think most of the D+ shows are going to be scrapped going forward to re-focus on movies only? That was the business plan that worked in the past.
Easy E wrote: Well, I finished Agent Carter season 2, and it was very underwhelming and ended on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved. Too bad, I enjoyed its run better than Agents of Shield's long, convoluted run.
With Iger back, do you guy's think most of the D+ shows are going to be scrapped going forward to re-focus on movies only? That was the business plan that worked in the past.
Depends.
The TV Series for me worked because of the sort of stories they were telling. Essentially, the fall out from the undoing of The Snap, and just how much both snaps messed the world up.
Now? We just don’t have the same fall out from any of Phase 4. When we get through with Kang? Who knows. Possibly. Depends just how bad things get when fighting him off.
Just as I don’t want movies for movies sake (such as cheaply made FF4 just to keep the rights), I don’t want a movie concept stretched out to be a TV series for sake of getting another TV Series out.
Economy of story telling. That’s what’s important. Take the right amount of time to tell your tale. Not a minute longer. Not a minute shorter. WandaVision, FalconSoldier and Loki all managed that nicely.
I think there will be less drive for D+ shows but i think there is an advantage to the format for specific kinds of stories. We would never get Wanda Vision or Loki as a movie.
Marvel Studios has the ability to utilize the format when the story would benefit from it. So they should.
WandaVision and Loki are the two of the bunch that weren't obviously movie scripts that had been chopped up and loaded with filler to stretch to a TV schedule. Nothing suffered more from this than The Book of Boba Fett though.
Cancellations are inevitable. Feige is on record as saying that there is a shift on to less frequent, higher quality content.
Some shows may get simply pushed back, but others are going to fail to find a slot in the schedule where they remain relevant (I suspect Agatha will be this eventually, they just don't want to make that public right away for whatever reason.)
LunarSol wrote: WandaVision and Loki are the two of the bunch that weren't obviously movie scripts that had been chopped up and loaded with filler to stretch to a TV schedule. Nothing suffered more from this than The Book of Boba Fett though.
Certainly comparing Book of Boba Fett to The Mandalorian, and Andor in particular is a good example.
But I do stress BoBF is, if we’re honest, only poor when directly compared to its stablemates. As a TV show, looked at in isolation? There’s bugger all wrong with it. And indeed, it not being a simple story spun out over 24 episodes of exactly 45 minutes to meet syndication standards meant whilst we probably can argue there was some filler? It wasn’t drowning out the cool bits.
All I think I’d do with a super cut is rework it, so we get all the Boba of Arabia bits over and done with as separate episodes, probably nice and upfront. Even then, having recently binged it, it does work better watched as a whole than episodically.
Fair point. But overall, it’s not a bad bit of entertainment.
Like. At all.
Decent acting. Decent story. Decent cinematography. Decent action. It’s all there. It’s just….not quite as good as its stablemates.
That’s like saying *insert world champion pugilist here*’s protégé or sparring partner, by dint of not being *inserted world champion pugilist* is therefore……soft as a pot of mashed potato made in a nursing home for the terminally toothless and swallowing challenged.
BOBF was dismal. The fact that it just turned into a different show 5 episodes in shows that. And that finale... Jesus...
I think that we'll see less reactionary spin-offs. No Echos or Agatha's moving forward. And more things that aren't just vehicles for introducing a new character.
Azreal13 wrote: Cancellations are inevitable. Feige is on record as saying that there is a shift on to less frequent, higher quality content.
Some shows may get simply pushed back, but others are going to fail to find a slot in the schedule where they remain relevant (I suspect Agatha will be this eventually, they just don't want to make that public right away for whatever reason.)
I disagree with Agatha.
I think Wanda is a vital component of the Secret Wars conclusion (putting the universe back together). And part of getting Wanda back is getting her kids in the mix. Which is ostensibly what Agatha is actually about. The MCU version of Children's Crusade.
Decent acting. Decent story. Decent cinematography. Decent action. It’s all there. It’s just….not quite as good as its stablemates.
That’s like saying *insert world champion pugilist here*’s protégé or sparring partner, by dint of not being *inserted world champion pugilist* is therefore……soft as a pot of mashed potato made in a nursing home for the terminally toothless and swallowing challenged.
It’s not the same thing.
I disagree with this pretty much entirely. BoBF was terrible story. Good acting sure. But what the hell was it even about? Flash Back to Dances with Sand People while in the modern day Bobba Fett has become a 'good person" trying to run a crime empire. Even when there was action it was confused. A low speed chance on "speeders". A pause to get a giant monster for a fight with a couple droids with canons for no good reason. The show was a mess from the beginning.
LunarSol wrote: WandaVision and Loki are the two of the bunch that weren't obviously movie scripts that had been chopped up and loaded with filler to stretch to a TV schedule. Nothing suffered more from this than The Book of Boba Fett though.
Certainly comparing Book of Boba Fett to The Mandalorian, and Andor in particular is a good example.
But I do stress BoBF is, if we’re honest, only poor when directly compared to its stablemates. As a TV show, looked at in isolation? There’s bugger all wrong with it. And indeed, it not being a simple story spun out over 24 episodes of exactly 45 minutes to meet syndication standards meant whilst we probably can argue there was some filler? It wasn’t drowning out the cool bits.
All I think I’d do with a super cut is rework it, so we get all the Boba of Arabia bits over and done with as separate episodes, probably nice and upfront. Even then, having recently binged it, it does work better watched as a whole than episodically.
The thing about Boba is that its stretched so thin you can see the gears underneath. The uncanny vibe of the whole thing seems to come from the way that scraps of meat are kind of draped here and there but not in an order that flows naturally. Even towards the end, there's REALLY weird bits of repeated story beats, like the Pike leader revealing to Cad Bane they had killed the Tuskens in a way that is framed as a shock to the audience followed by Cad revealing it to Boba in a way that is supposed to shock the audience? They keep repeating the bacta sequence but they don't have a really natural reason for it. These things feel like they were designed to happen once and just get reused to buy time.
If I was a gambler, I'd wager the original script looked something like this:
- Cold open action sequence of Boba storming Jabba's palace and taking the throne
- Bobba runs his empire and comes into conflict with the Pykes.
- Bobba is wounded in Pyke reprisal, is put in Bacta to recover.
- Flashback of Bobba escaping the sarlac, being rescued by the Tuskens and finding a family among them.
- Bobba wakes up and prepares for war with the Pykes
- Bobba hunts down the Pyke leader and kills him, revealing that it had all been done to get revenge for killing his Tusken family.
This isn't really a "how I would have done it better kind of thing, IMO. This feels like the script they were working from and just attached random things in where they could to fill time. Stuff happens in weird orders to try and make episodes with a semi contained narrative but there's no plot to any of it. It's really noticeable, even compared to other films that got reworked to shows. I think the only thing close to it in terms of being awkwardly chopped up for television is probably Ms Marvel.
Azreal13 wrote: Cancellations are inevitable. Feige is on record as saying that there is a shift on to less frequent, higher quality content.
Some shows may get simply pushed back, but others are going to fail to find a slot in the schedule where they remain relevant (I suspect Agatha will be this eventually, they just don't want to make that public right away for whatever reason.)
I disagree with Agatha.
I think Wanda is a vital component of the Secret Wars conclusion (putting the universe back together). And part of getting Wanda back is getting her kids in the mix. Which is ostensibly what Agatha is actually about. The MCU version of Children's Crusade.
I think Agatha is too important to put aside.
If that's what they intended, then fair enough. But my impression with Agatha was it was a shoehorned in show because of positive audience reactions to the character, rather than something woven into the overall arc from the get go.
Obviously things can be changed, and the reported delays might be just because of that, but if my impression is that it's sort of "stuck on" to the MCU rather than integrated from an early stage is correct, I can see it going in the bin. Especially as I can see Vision Quest being the intended show to do what you're talking about, which could very much still pinch stuff from Coven if it's warranted.
Azreal13 wrote: Cancellations are inevitable. Feige is on record as saying that there is a shift on to less frequent, higher quality content.
Some shows may get simply pushed back, but others are going to fail to find a slot in the schedule where they remain relevant (I suspect Agatha will be this eventually, they just don't want to make that public right away for whatever reason.)
I disagree with Agatha.
I think Wanda is a vital component of the Secret Wars conclusion (putting the universe back together). And part of getting Wanda back is getting her kids in the mix. Which is ostensibly what Agatha is actually about. The MCU version of Children's Crusade.
I think Agatha is too important to put aside.
If that's what they intended, then fair enough. But my impression with Agatha was it was a shoehorned in show because of positive audience reactions to the character, rather than something woven into the overall arc from the get go.
Obviously things can be changed, and the reported delays might be just because of that, but if my impression is that it's sort of "stuck on" to the MCU rather than integrated from an early stage is correct, I can see it going in the bin. Especially as I can see Vision Quest being the intended show to do what you're talking about, which could very much still pinch stuff from Coven if it's warranted.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that Agatha was their original plan to get those pieces into place. We know things changed. Multiverse of Madness became a very different movie because of covid with America Chavez originally set to appear in Spiderman No Way Home (released concept art shows her). But they had pieces they needed moved into place, right? We need to introduce the Young Avengers. That includes America. So when she isn't over here we need another spot for her. Wiccan and Speed (Wandas Kids) get their set up in Wanda Vision. With MoM going the way it did it sets up Children's Crusade to introduce their older versions that join those Young Avengers. Where can we do that? Well, people responded well to Agatha. What if we did a Children's Crusade with a Agatha lead?
I think Agatha was created to get the pieces they knew they needed in the place they needed them with an opportunity to capitalize on a popular character and tell a decent story. So here it is.
I don't think it's a disposable story. Something they can just scrap the way they did with the Inhumans movie because Marvel Studios never wanted to make it in the first place. I think this is a story MS wanted to tell to set up their future plans and they just need to spread it all out longer so that things don't get so messy.
But again, none of that needs Agatha when we have Vision Quest, which arguable fits even better because he's the "father" of two of the characters?
YA are undoubtedly part of the big plan, but I think anything they give to Agatha will either be taken from somewhere else, weakening the donor, or superfluous to the central MCU arcs.
But ultimately unless they come out and actually explain it (or it's painfully obvious) we'll never know what was planned in advance or what was as hoc cash in.
Well, Vision Quest is presumably more about him trying to figure out who he is and ultimately building his daughter Viv.
I can see how you would need to pick one or the other in Children's Crusade or Vision builds a family. Particularly because Vision is NOT Wanda's kids father. The fake magical construct version of himself that wanda made in the hex is. Actual vision wasn't there for any of that.
Lance845 wrote: Well, Vision Quest is presumably more about him trying to figure out who he is and ultimately building his daughter Viv.
I can see how you would need to pick one or the other in Children's Crusade or Vision builds a family. Particularly because Vision is NOT Wanda's kids father. The fake magical construct version of himself that wanda made in the hex is. Actual vision wasn't there for any of that.
By the same logic, neither were the kids. Main MCU Wanda never had kids, which is partly why MoM Wanda's obsession with them was completely over the top. And current Vision went full Ship of Theseus metaphor, painfully explained, so at least there is a minimal connection there (unlike her completely fake kids).
Odds are pretty good that if/when they introduce the hero versions of those kids, they'll be the ones from the AU Wanda she puppeted in MoM. At least, I hope so, in so far as it might put some limits on the absurdity of parallel, alternate and fake characters in the main universe. Those specific kids will at least have a motivation for caring about stuff that happens in other realities.
Lance845 wrote: Well, Vision Quest is presumably more about him trying to figure out who he is and ultimately building his daughter Viv.
I can see how you would need to pick one or the other in Children's Crusade or Vision builds a family. Particularly because Vision is NOT Wanda's kids father. The fake magical construct version of himself that wanda made in the hex is. Actual vision wasn't there for any of that.
By the same logic, neither were the kids. Main MCU Wanda never had kids, which is partly why MoM Wanda's obsession with them was completely over the top. And current Vision went full Ship of Theseus metaphor, painfully explained, so at least there is a minimal connection there (unlike her completely fake kids).
Odds are pretty good that if/when they introduce the hero versions of those kids, they'll be the ones from the AU Wanda she puppeted in MoM. At least, I hope so, in so far as it might put some limits on the absurdity of parallel, alternate and fake characters in the main universe. Those specific kids will at least have a motivation for caring about stuff that happens in other realities.
But unlike the Vision who wasn't actually there, Wanda DID give birth to them. And, like the comics, their ACTUAL existence as magical constructs could result in their reincarnation in the MCU prime universe. Wanda can reshape reality. She did it not understanding it and without any discipline. We just don't know whats going to happen yet with the nature of her kids.
Wanda created her kids, and after she lost them, she wanted them back, and the inherent corruption from the Darkhold didn't help the situation. Nothing about her actions struck me as being over the top.
Agatha exists as a show because the song was suddenly popular and the people actually running Marvel at the time (ie. not Feige) were reactionaries wanting to pump out as much stuff as possible. Essentially, for the briefest moment of time Marvel Studios started to get run like WB was with the DCEU - never sticking to a plan, lurching from project to project as audience reactions and the fickle interest of the crowd waxed and waned - and it's causing no ends of problems.
The effects of Iger/Feige 'righting the ship' (so to speak) won't be seen for a while unfortunately, simply due to the production length for any given project. In the meantime, Feige has to salvage what he can from the troubled Agatha, Echo and even Blade productions to try and make it all work.
So, I had a think about it after this weekend, and decided that Phase 4 stuff has been really weak, trending towards DCEU levels of badness.
Here are my thoughts on post End-game movie and TV:
Movies:
1. Spider-man- No Way Home
2. Shang-Chi
3. Wakanda Forever
4. Eternals
5. Multiverse of Madness
6. Quantumania
7. Love and Thunder
*= I am not including Black Widow on this list as they are technically pre-Endgame.
The first three clearly had some connective or character driven reason or genre to explore. The last three are just.... a mess and were designed more to move the MCU forward than to tell actual interesting stories about those characters, explore new themes, or to visit a different genre.*
A lot of people bagged on Eternals, but it was still way better than whatever the last three movies were supposed to be.
Television:
1. Wandavision
2. Falcon and Wintersoldier
3. Werewolf by Night
4. Loki
5. Moon Knight
6. Ms. Marvel
7. Hawkeye
8. GotG: Christmas Special
Anything not on the list I have not watched yet, and may of may not be in a hurry too. 4-7 all started strong, but could not carry it through. Falcon and WS brought up the best themes post-snap, but was a bit shaky. To be honest, I think the TV shows have mostly detracted from the MCU mystique rather than grew it.
*= Okay, MoM was going to horror and Love and Thunder was maybe trying for buddy cop or Odd Couple kinda humor. Either way, they were so loaded with other MCU baggage they couldn't just be their own thing.
Loki - By far the most entertaining, but could have been anything not just Marvel, as it was a vehicle for the main actors to be themselves in a low effort but high charisma way.
Moon Knight - A complete stand alone. Could have been in any universe or none and I thought quite fun. Especially the ability to skip past the frankly tedious now fisticuffs (I have the cosmic power... to chin you!)
Werewolf by Night - I get it, well executed and somewhat tongue in cheek. More a film school project than prime time though.
Wandavision - good starting schtick then lost it in a bunch of consequenceless whatever.
Falcon and Wintersoldier - Many flaws with what they were trying to show, tried to make supporting the status quo radical. Also apparently Falcon is broke, because reasons? (Clearly they are unaware as serving military/a contractor he would be quite well off, plus nicking whatever wasn't nailed down in Stark towers in true NCO fashion.)
Hawkeye - Well, I guess its Hawkeye? As a vehicle to replace him with a younger model I guess it was ok?
Ms. Marvel - great start, downhill rapidly. Quite kid focused?
GotG: Christmas Special - Well it had a good song? It was completely aping its genre though, shame that genre is a bit naff.
The_Real_Chris wrote: Falcon and Wintersoldier - Many flaws with what they were trying to show, tried to make supporting the status quo radical. Also apparently Falcon is broke, because reasons? (Clearly they are unaware as serving military/a contractor he would be quite well off, plus nicking whatever wasn't nailed down in Stark towers in true NCO fashion.)
Falcon not being able to get a loan was so frustrating. He could have called Pepper or Happy. He could have started a GoFundMe-type thing. Wakanda made him a hundred-million-dollar suit. They couldn't have floated him a couple hundred grand?
The_Real_Chris wrote: Falcon and Wintersoldier - Many flaws with what they were trying to show, tried to make supporting the status quo radical. Also apparently Falcon is broke, because reasons? (Clearly they are unaware as serving military/a contractor he would be quite well off, plus nicking whatever wasn't nailed down in Stark towers in true NCO fashion.)
Falcon not being able to get a loan was so frustrating. He could have called Pepper or Happy. He could have started a GoFundMe-type thing. Wakanda made him a hundred-million-dollar suit. They couldn't have floated him a couple hundred grand?
Sure, he could have, but that is NOT how Falcon wanted to operate. It is part of his character from the start.
The_Real_Chris wrote: Falcon and Wintersoldier - Many flaws with what they were trying to show, tried to make supporting the status quo radical. Also apparently Falcon is broke, because reasons? (Clearly they are unaware as serving military/a contractor he would be quite well off, plus nicking whatever wasn't nailed down in Stark towers in true NCO fashion.)
Falcon not being able to get a loan was so frustrating. He could have called Pepper or Happy. He could have started a GoFundMe-type thing. Wakanda made him a hundred-million-dollar suit. They couldn't have floated him a couple hundred grand?
I think this is the problem when you have an expanded universe and most of the heroes are on speaking terms or better with one another. Some issues that could have been easily solved or addressed because of friends/connections with other heroes or characters get hand-waved away for the sake of plot contrivances.
I think this is the problem when you have an expanded universe and most of the heroes are on speaking terms or better with one another. Some issues that could have been easily solved or addressed because of friends/connections with other heroes or characters get hand-waved away for the sake of plot contrivances.
DC struggles so hard to reconcile Batman as both an urban myth vigilante and simultaneously one of the foremost leaders of single most recognizable and powerful super hero organization on the planet.
I think this is the problem when you have an expanded universe and most of the heroes are on speaking terms or better with one another. Some issues that could have been easily solved or addressed because of friends/connections with other heroes or characters get hand-waved away for the sake of plot contrivances.
DC struggles so hard to reconcile Batman as both an urban myth vigilante and simultaneously one of the foremost leaders of single most recognizable and powerful super hero organization on the planet.
Pretty much, definitely one of the problems of Batman being a prominent member of the Justice League. I remember the DCAU sort of addressed this kind of conflict with Batman mostly being a "part timer" despite being a founding member, but that doesn't really adress what you mentioned and how he doesn't call in Superman over from Metropolis whenever he comes across Metahumans.
I think this is the problem when you have an expanded universe and most of the heroes are on speaking terms or better with one another. Some issues that could have been easily solved or addressed because of friends/connections with other heroes or characters get hand-waved away for the sake of plot contrivances.
DC struggles so hard to reconcile Batman as both an urban myth vigilante and simultaneously one of the foremost leaders of single most recognizable and powerful super hero organization on the planet.
Pretty much, definitely one of the problems of Batman being a prominent member of the Justice League. I remember the DCAU sort of addressed this kind of conflict with Batman mostly being a "part timer" despite being a founding member, but that doesn't really adress what you mentioned and how he doesn't call in Superman over from Metropolis whenever he comes across Metahumans.
They usually handwave it as a pride thing and Batman's loner mentality. Gotham definitely wants to be a bubble reality most of the time though, to the point where Nightwing has a different red head girlfriend depending on which side of the fence he's on.
While I have enjoyed their team up from time to time I still know the only reason for it is money. They are two wildly different power levels, genres, and settings that make no sense when put together. Street level noir crime mystery and three color sci-fi fantasy adventures of a demi-god are wildly at odds.
A lot of people bagged on Eternals, but it was still way better than whatever the last three movies were supposed to be.
Maybe on a technical level? But it was boring & (other than teasing the Black Knight) full of characters I just don't give a crap about. True, I've never cared about the Eternal comics wise, but I gave the movie the benefit of the doubt. Who knows, maybe it could be a surprise like Shang-Chi (another character I've never cared one way or another about - but turned out to be an entertaining enough movie).... Nope. Just a waste of my time & $.
Thor: L&T though? Ok, maybe it's not the best entry the MCU has to offer, but I was at least entertained by characters I like.
Remember, he lost pretty much everything in the run up to End Game. Indeed out of all The Avengers, perhaps only Wanda has had a rougher ride over the years. Had he jobbed Thanos in the face with Stormbreaker, that would’ve been job done. But his wrath over took him, the need to be up close and personal at the end.
Remember, he lost pretty much everything in the run up to End Game. Indeed out of all The Avengers, perhaps only Wanda has had a rougher ride over the years. Had he jobbed Thanos in the face with Stormbreaker, that would’ve been job done. But his wrath over took him, the need to be up close and personal at the end.
Yeah, Love and Thunder is a character piece about Thor finding contentment despite all his tragedy. He has been hurting for a very long time. I think it's a pretty great look at him coming out the other end of grief.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Love & Thunder destroyed 10 years of character development. And it turned him into an idiot at the same time.
That movie didn't have Thor finding contentment. It had him getting a labotomy.
Love and Thunder is a story being told to us by Korg. The more outrageous bits are Korgs embellishments (riding storm breaker like a witches broom). But you cannot look at the conversations between Thor and Jane on the ship heading to Gorrs shadow world, in the hospital, when she arrives to help fight Gorr and he dispairs, or when he is holding her as she dies in Eternity's chamber and seriously think this is the character with a lobotomy and having all his character undone. He is making peace not just with losing Jane, but with all the losses he has suffered over those 10 years. When he says to Gorr, "You won. Why would I spend my last minutes with you when I could spend them with her? You could chose to bring her back. You could chose love." it is Thor finding a positive purposeful outlook on the future instead of the drifting through conflicts and pain he has been doing since his mother was killed. He makes peace with his losses. Finally. Taking Love under his care isn't just battles for battles sake. He is actually living his life for the first time in a long time.
"It's a story told by Korg" doesn't make it any better.
The movie is bad. The Marvel/Taika humour is awful. Korg remains the worst character in the MCU (other than maybe X-Men Origins Wolverine's Deadpool Taskmaster). It's a stupid film that insults its audience and makes the main character into a gormless moron.
It lacks internal consistency and external consitency.
It was sad - because the Thor in Ragnarok was still a bit of a fool, and I get the pain and loss etc. But then they seemed to take it to an extent that made little sense. It was more of a parody Thor than the joke short of him living with a random house share.
The_Real_Chris wrote: It was sad - because the Thor in Ragnarok was still a bit of a fool, and I get the pain and loss etc. But then they seemed to take it to an extent that made little sense. It was more of a parody Thor than the joke short of him living with a random house share.
It’s the Thor of Infinity War and End Game as well.
Infinity War? He blew it. As Thanos said, he should’ve gone for the head.
End Game? He’s living with what he perceives as multiple failures. First when Thanos attacked the Asgardian ship, killing half of those aboard, including Loki and Heimdall. Then half the universe. He’s retreated into himself. King in name only. One could even argue he surrounded himself with enablers in the form of Korg and Meik, even though by then he’d slain Thanos, it was all for naught.
End Game we see him find himself somewhat. Not just by talking with his Mum (something that hits me personally, having lost my own Mum), but even Mjolnir answering his call. Especially Mjolnir answering his call. By the end, he’s cut himself some slack, hands over the monarchy, and we come to Love & Thunder.
I felt LnT was a letdown. Korg is such a horrible character, so defending it as As Told By Korg isn’t helping it. Turning Thor into an idiot. Anthropomorphising the hammers. Making the Guardians so useless. The child soldiers. The Got Danged Goats. I don’t hate Taika, but I’m glad he’s not doing any more of them.
My wife and I both really liked Eternals. It's a slow burn but well acted with meaningful character interactions. I think its one of the few things that likely would have thrived as a TV series instead.
I put Ragnarok as one of the best films in the entire MCU but the follow up is one of the worst, IMO. I think the story itself is fine and I adore the end but it just doesn't have the balance Ragnarok pulled off, making it a pretty cringy watch all the way through rather than in just a couple poorly timed moments.
My family and I enjoyed Love and Thunder as light entertainment. Probably helps that we weren’t too invested in the character of Thor so much as the light/comedic tone and lore of the MCU.
Eternals felt like an ambitious failure, which makes it interesting, if not exactly fun to watch. I hope they bring back the actor who played Druig, because he was the only compelling one, besides the Bollywood comedy duo.
H.B.M.C. wrote: "It's a story told by Korg" doesn't make it any better.
The movie is bad. The Marvel/Taika humour is awful. Korg remains the worst character in the MCU (other than maybe X-Men Origins Wolverine's Deadpool Taskmaster). It's a stupid film that insults its audience and makes the main character into a gormless moron.
It lacks internal consistency and external consitency.
You take this stuff too seriously.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
AduroT wrote: I felt LnT was a letdown. Korg is such a horrible character, so defending it as As Told By Korg isn’t helping it. Turning Thor into an idiot. Anthropomorphising the hammers. Making the Guardians so useless. The child soldiers. The Got Danged Goats. I don’t hate Taika, but I’m glad he’s not doing any more of them.
You know they've done that in the comics well before this movie, right?
Well its a continuum isn't it? I though Ragnarok captured the heroic silliness of the whole premise brilliantly. Saying that my favourite superhero shows have been suicide squad 2 and the boys tv series. So I am certainly on the jaded end of things. Suicide squad 2 though was brilliant, no idea why it isn't more viewed.
AduroT wrote: I felt LnT was a letdown. Korg is such a horrible character, so defending it as As Told By Korg isn’t helping it. Turning Thor into an idiot. Anthropomorphising the hammers. Making the Guardians so useless. The child soldiers. The Got Danged Goats. I don’t hate Taika, but I’m glad he’s not doing any more of them.
You know they've done that in the comics well before this movie, right?
The comics once gave Superman the power to shoot tiny versions of himself from his hands. I’d complain if they added something that stupid to the movies as well.
AduroT wrote: I felt LnT was a letdown. Korg is such a horrible character, so defending it as As Told By Korg isn’t helping it. Turning Thor into an idiot. Anthropomorphising the hammers. Making the Guardians so useless. The child soldiers. The Got Danged Goats. I don’t hate Taika, but I’m glad he’s not doing any more of them.
You know they've done that in the comics well before this movie, right?
The comics once gave Superman the power to shoot tiny versions of himself from his hands. I’d complain if they added something that stupid to the movies as well.
As much as you don't like it (and that is fair enough) anthropomorphizing the weapons isn't just a thing from the comics. It feeds into the "Story by Korg" bit. It's Thor looking back at what he once had with all his nostalgia for it instead of looking forward to what he should be doing with his future. I don't think Stormbreaker was actually floating around watching Thor Cheat on it with his old hammer. Mjolnir has an enchantment on it that gets it to act on behalf of Jane. Stormbreaker has no such enchantment.
Again, you not liking that is fine. You should like what you like. But there is purpose to (most of) the things happening in the movie and it isn't just random nonsense.
Taking that interpretation as correct on face value (which I don't) then you're left with the problem of what the feth was Waititi thinking introducing those sorts of concepts into a film which is fundamentally aimed at families?
There's now way kids are going to grasp that at all, and it's so far outside of the creative language used in these sorts of blockbusters that even adults that are equipped to decipher it (a depressingly small minority) aren't going to be looking for it in a popcorn film.
Frankly the whole idea whiffs of post hoc justification for a poor execution of an already flawed concept.
Yeaaaah, no offense but the amount of damage control and copium by some people to justify movies like L&T to be more meaningful than it actually is reminds me of when a clearly braindead fanservice anime/manga is defended by hardcore fans as having "good plot" and extrapolating meaning that isn't there when even the creator flat out states they made it because he wanted to draw big titty anime girls. I mean when Chris Hemsworth low-key burns the movie by saying it was as if a 7-year old made a movie, that's not exactly good commentary on how even the main actor felt that it probably wasn't fully thought through in terms of Thor being treated as a serious character.
The idea that L&T is stupid because the tale is told through the mouth of Korg is bothersome. It's the kind of thing that someone should have paused and said, "this is a terrible idea."
Korg is a nobody. Especially now. He's not a massively important or beloved character. He was mildly amusing in Ragnarok, but to focus a $200+ million project through his perspective is wildly misguided.
It is a well worn path of Ancient stories to have the narrator be someone other than the hero. I mean, classic examples include 300 and Beowulf. Since this was the story of a "Space Viking" it makes sense the story would be told by another story-teller rather than Thor himself.
Heroes' do not tell their own story, especially in an Epic. That's just tacky!
That said, I didn't think Thor: L&T was very good.
The defense lawyer of Jonathan Majors says the actor is “completely innocent” and “provably the victim” after he was arrested on Saturday in Manhattan and charged with assault and harassment in what New York Police Department described as a “domestic dispute.”...
... Chaudhry goes on to say there is video footage from the vehicle where the alleged incident took place, witness testimony from the driver and onlookers and two written statements from the woman recanting the allegations.
“All the evidence proves that Mr. Majors is entirely innocent and did not assault her whatsoever,” she said. “Unfortunately, this incident came about because this woman was having an emotional crisis, for which she was taken to a hospital yesterday. The NYPD is required to make an arrest in these situations, and this is the only reason Mr. Majors was arrested. We expect these charges to be dropped soon.”
Just Tony wrote: So we've convicted him already before a shred of evidence is shown?
I don’t think anyone has convicted him. But after the Rick and Morty guy’s arrest for DV, and how the studio handled it, it raises some serious questions about how Disney/Marvel will respond. If his lawyer’s statement is true, and there’s video of the incident that exonerates him, I think we’d all be a lot happier.
A difficulty with domestic violence cases is that we all know victims might recant for all kinds of reasons, and partners might also use the threat of DV accusations for all kinds of reasons. The guilty might never face justice, and the innocent might never be cleared.
Other folks have been using the opportunity of his arrest to make claims about the kind of person he is. No idea what's legit, but apparently some other acting folks at least don't like him enough to publicly post about it.
bbb wrote: Other folks have been using the opportunity of his arrest to make claims about the kind of person he is. No idea what's legit, but apparently some other acting folks at least don't like him enough to publicly post about it.
They were the best in a long while. Not entirely because he was in them, but he played a part. Mainly notable that they brought back the "Be all you can be", which was the motto when I joined.
Apparently Secret Invasion got a release date of June 21 and then a day later it was changed again to 'coming soon'? Can anyone confirm? I can't even find it on the app for some reason.
Got my backlog of shows to watch cleared out, and were between anime seasons, so I watched the first season of Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur. Fun show, very colorful, lots of music. They really upped Lunela’s charisma and likability. In the comics she’s a very stuck up, smartest person in the room kind of character, where in this she’s more awkward and doesn’t harp on about her superior intelligence all the time. She’s still the smartest person in the room. They also completely leave out her being an Inhuman, zero mention of that. Still bring her “super power” into one episode, but it’s from a gadget mishap, not her power. Crossover from the rest of Marvel is nearly non-existent, with only a single character I recognize, and only by name given the vast changes to their appearance, plus a mention of Wakanda in one episode alongside the quick silhouettes of a couple Black Panther characters.
Anyways, as mentioned, it’s just a fun, non-serious show with catchy music and bright colors and good jokes.
I’m at the stage where I’m not going to watch anymore trailers for it. I don’t have to be convinced to see it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Saw the trailer for Blue Beetle on Facebook. Not the voice I’d have expected for Khaji-da, but the suit looks Amazing. I’m down for it.
Yeah, it feels like one of the few releases where it seems to have meaningful stakes and won't be a complete CGI fest. Hopefully more Winter Soldier, less Multiverse of Madness please.
Grimskul wrote: Yeah, it feels like one of the few releases where it seems to have meaningful stakes and won't be a complete CGI fest. Hopefully more Winter Soldier, less Multiverse of Madness please.
Feels X-files meets Winter Soldier (or the secondary characters in Civil War, rather than the silly main plot), but with something else lurking in the background.
Not sure if the 'something else' is good or bad, but the 'one last mission' makes me think of the Lethal Weapon movies, and a lot of 'week before retirement' jokes in cop movies.
If they don't rip off the clappy guy's fight from Jujutsu Kaisen I'm going to be very disappointed. Really like the vibe on this trailer though. Kamala seems like exactly what's needed to tie it together.
Seems we're still going to get some variation of Quantum Bands in this. Curious where they're going with the villain. Flerken herd should be funny at least.
Reading the leaks the movie sounds all kinds of terrible (the singing... good God the singing...), and I don't understand how (or when) Carol messed up Hala... but I love Ms. Marvel as she's so much fun.
As one of the very few people in the world who actually liked the Captain Marvel movie I was already looking forward to this, and now I'm stoked. This looks really fun!
That does look fun. From Rambeau's appearance in WandaVision, I was worried about a total wangst-fest as she whined about Marvel abandoning her and her mom (or whatever her issue was supposed to be).
I have to presume that once Carol has finished decimating Hala (for the second time, apparently), Rambeau will hand wave it with another "They'll never know what you sacrificed!" bit of bull-gak-ery.
H.B.M.C. wrote: A convenient shield that protects against all legitimate criticism.
Pretty much it. I make sure to overexplain my criticisms of media in excruciating detail so as to avoid being instantly dismissed as a racist homophobic misogynistic bigot.
H.B.M.C. wrote: A convenient shield that protects against all legitimate criticism.
Pretty much it. I make sure to overexplain my criticisms of media in excruciating detail so as to avoid being instantly dismissed as a racist homophobic misogynistic bigot.
I remember this being the case for what happened to Ghostbusters 2016, and that didn't end up doing well after basically borderline saying the fandom were a tirade of isms and deliberately deleting comments to only highlight the ones with bad takes. It's unfortunate that so many people have been tribalized to reduce people who don't like what you like as an instant istaphobe or whatever meaningless ad hominem is being thrown nowadays. Diversity is great, except when it comes to having diversity of thought apparently.
creeping-deth87 wrote: As one of the very few people in the world who actually liked the Captain Marvel movie I was already looking forward to this, and now I'm stoked. This looks really fun!
I liked Captain Marvel a lot and I will say what y'all are afraid to say for risk of a ban.
Brie Larsen is an absolute smokeshow. I don't know what it is, but the combination of her eyes and the looks she can give, her voice, and certain other clearly displayed assets in that trailer are absolutely absurd. The gal that plays Monica is pretty high up on the conventionally attractive scale as well.
There are legit criticisms. There are also the various ists who are out to trash things regardless. Pretending either doesn't exist is a problem.
Ghost Buster 2016 is a perfect example. Bad movie (especially the 3rd act). Lots of legit criticisms to be made. But, pretending haters were not hating it when all we had was a single still image of the ghost busters logo and a cast announcment is just ignoring the facts of history.
Ms Marvel and Captain Marvel both had their fair share of the various ists doing their hate for iligitimate gak from the get go. Pretending that didn't happen or thinking pointing out that it is happening is just some kind of smoke screen is bs. I say this as the person who thinks Ms Marvel is the weakest D+ marvel offering with a unfocused narrative that resolved all of its threats too fast for it to have any narrative weight.
H.B.M.C. wrote: A convenient shield that protects against all legitimate criticism.
Pretty much it. I make sure to overexplain my criticisms of media in excruciating detail so as to avoid being instantly dismissed as a racist homophobic misogynistic bigot.
I remember this being the case for what happened to Ghostbusters 2016, and that didn't end up doing well after basically borderline saying the fandom were a tirade of isms and deliberately deleting comments to only highlight the ones with bad takes. It's unfortunate that so many people have been tribalized to reduce people who don't like what you like as an instant istaphobe or whatever meaningless ad hominem is being thrown nowadays. Diversity is great, except when it comes to having diversity of thought apparently.
It warms my heart to see a term I came up with getting used in the wild...
Lance845 wrote:There are legit criticisms. There are also the various ists who are out to trash things regardless. Pretending either doesn't exist is a problem.
Ghost Buster 2016 is a perfect example. Bad movie (especially the 3rd act). Lots of legit criticisms to be made. But, pretending haters were not hating it when all we had was a single still image of the ghost busters logo and a cast announcment is just ignoring the facts of history.
Ms Marvel and Captain Marvel both had their fair share of the various ists doing their hate for iligitimate gak from the get go. Pretending that didn't happen or thinking pointing out that it is happening is just some kind of smoke screen is bs. I say this as the person who thinks Ms Marvel is the weakest D+ marvel offering with a unfocused narrative that resolved all of its threats too fast for it to have any narrative weight.
Nobody is ignoring the neckbeard incels who troll to troll. Nobody is ignoring legitimate criticisms. SOMEBODY is ignoring the absolute shilling done for substandard products based solely on whether certain boxes are checked. Ghostbusters 2016 is a perfect example of that as well. You just glossed over it...
I did a "skimmy" re-watch of Captain Marvel and I don't see how it is any worse than Iron Man, Thor, or Captain America: The First Avenger. I wouldn't put it over any of those (except maybe Thor), but it's definitely not significantly worse by any means.
trexmeyer wrote: I did a "skimmy" re-watch of Captain Marvel and I don't see how it is any worse than Iron Man, Thor, or Captain America: The First Avenger. I wouldn't put it over any of those (except maybe Thor), but it's definitely not significantly worse by any means.
I suppose it depends on what elements you are looking at. One thing is that it comes a decade+ after those so it could be seen as a bit worn thin in comparison. The characters in Captain Marvel, while ok, were not nearly as engaging to general audiences as the earlier origin films. I have no issues with Brie Larson but she isnt as charismatic as RDJ, Jeff Bridges, Chris Evans, or Hayley Atwell. Everyone loves Tom Hiddleston and there is nothing in CM close to him. Sam Jackson is the exception but he isn't just a Captain Marvel character nor was this his first MCU film. Overall I agree that on a flat surface they aren't radically better but I think they have a few things that make them more well loved in hindsight.
The others also had time to grow and breathe whereas Capt Marvel felt like it got shoved out quickly just to be able to throw her in the next Avengers film. If Marvel had gotten her introduced earlier and given audiences a bit more time to get to know her it would be remembered a bit differently, I imagine.
Nobody is ignoring the neckbeard incels who troll to troll. Nobody is ignoring legitimate criticisms. SOMEBODY is ignoring the absolute shilling done for substandard products based solely on whether certain boxes are checked. Ghostbusters 2016 is a perfect example of that as well. You just glossed over it...
Disagree.
When it's pointed out that the incels are out doing their thing and the response is "Oh look. Here comes the perfect defense against all criticism." I think it IS being ignored.
GB2016 isn't a substandard product based on boxes being checked. It's a completely run of the mill nothing movie that is produced the vast majority of the time. It's exactly as crap as the majority of the comedy movies produced in the last decade. And it's 3rd act is a cgi weightless let down with a big light in the sky like every action movie for the past decade as well. It's Suicide Squad (the Will Smith one). A legit criticism of the movie should be a legit criticism of the movie. Not some assumption of a agenda producing content. The product is paint by numbers. It's painted by the same numbers as the majority of the movies any of us have ever seen.
trexmeyer wrote: I did a "skimmy" re-watch of Captain Marvel and I don't see how it is any worse than Iron Man, Thor, or Captain America: The First Avenger. I wouldn't put it over any of those (except maybe Thor), but it's definitely not significantly worse by any means.
She doesn't have much of an arc. Starts really powerful, ends even more powerful, doesn't have to struggle at anything, is completely invincible. It's why the other characters in the film were more interesting.
trexmeyer wrote: I did a "skimmy" re-watch of Captain Marvel and I don't see how it is any worse than Iron Man, Thor, or Captain America: The First Avenger. I wouldn't put it over any of those (except maybe Thor), but it's definitely not significantly worse by any means.
She doesn't have much of an arc. Starts really powerful, ends even more powerful, doesn't have to struggle at anything, is completely invincible. It's why the other characters in the film were more interesting.
At the beginning of the film she's been conditioned to see her power as a tool belonging to and controlled by someone else. She's repeatedly required to hold back and then humbled to reinforce the notion that her power is a separate thing and without it, she is weak. Her struggle is entirely about making her own choices, which is why its so important that in the end she doesn't fall for the "fair fight" conditioning when something is actually on the line. At the beginning of the film she's essentially powerless, but makes the Kree very powerful. Breaking that conditioning is what the movie is all about.
Ms Marvel and Captain Marvel both had their fair share of the various ists doing their hate for iligitimate gak from the get go. Pretending that didn't happen or thinking pointing out that it is happening is just some kind of smoke screen is bs. I say this as the person who thinks Ms Marvel is the weakest D+ marvel offering with a unfocused narrative that resolved all of its threats too fast for it to have any narrative weight.
I think that is taking it as an adult offering. Looking at it as Tween marvel and it fits that programming quite well.
GB2016 isn't a substandard product based on boxes being checked. It's a completely run of the mill nothing movie that is produced the vast majority of the time. It's exactly as crap as the majority of the comedy movies produced in the last decade. And it's 3rd act is a cgi weightless let down with a big light in the sky like every action movie for the past decade as well. It's Suicide Squad (the Will Smith one). A legit criticism of the movie should be a legit criticism of the movie. Not some assumption of a agenda producing content. The product is paint by numbers. It's painted by the same numbers as the majority of the movies any of us have ever seen.
Bt its instantly compared to its namesake. I think (and so does my daughter, so I am probably right) their mistake was having 4 people being the comedian. Look at the originally and they play is straight with one funnyman playing off the others. And example fo less is more.
And really we need to organise a social movement to scrap the 3rd act CGI fight scene. One of the reasons I liked moon-whatisname marvel series was they figured out how to skip the majority of the fights. A million different superpower punches does not drama make.
Ms Marvel and Captain Marvel both had their fair share of the various ists doing their hate for iligitimate gak from the get go. Pretending that didn't happen or thinking pointing out that it is happening is just some kind of smoke screen is bs. I say this as the person who thinks Ms Marvel is the weakest D+ marvel offering with a unfocused narrative that resolved all of its threats too fast for it to have any narrative weight.
I think that is taking it as an adult offering. Looking at it as Tween marvel and it fits that programming quite well.
If we were only talking about the physical threats I would agree with you. But her bully in episode 1 is her friend in the next appearance. Her conflict with her mom is resolved with a 3 generational hug 1 episode later. She ruins her brothers wedding and he has her back immediately. Something, ANYTHING, needed to be a conflict that started in episode 1 or 2 and resolved in the final episode. But everything resolved almost immediately.
GB2016 isn't a substandard product based on boxes being checked. It's a completely run of the mill nothing movie that is produced the vast majority of the time. It's exactly as crap as the majority of the comedy movies produced in the last decade. And it's 3rd act is a cgi weightless let down with a big light in the sky like every action movie for the past decade as well. It's Suicide Squad (the Will Smith one). A legit criticism of the movie should be a legit criticism of the movie. Not some assumption of a agenda producing content. The product is paint by numbers. It's painted by the same numbers as the majority of the movies any of us have ever seen.
Bt its instantly compared to its namesake. I think (and so does my daughter, so I am probably right) their mistake was having 4 people being the comedian. Look at the originally and they play is straight with one funnyman playing off the others. And example fo less is more.
Yes. Agreed. Nobody was the deadpan emotionless scientist. Or the working class stiff. Or the sleaze. They were all the comedian and the sleaze and the scientist as needed for whatever room they were in at the time.
And really we need to organise a social movement to scrap the 3rd act CGI fight scene. One of the reasons I liked moon-whatisname marvel series was they figured out how to skip the majority of the fights. A million different superpower punches does not drama make.
It still ended with a big fight with a light in the sky though (Purple this time!). Moon Knight was great. But the ending was a little bit of a let down.
Ghostbusters 2016, whilst far from perfect, is far from being an objectively bad film.
The cast, whilst their comedy is of course subjective, are all perfectly competent in their roles.
It doesn’t particularly monkey with the established lore. Specifically that while ghosts do exist, they can’t manifest on their own all that readily. Ghostbusters, it was the coming of Gozer. Ghostbusters 2, the coming of Vigo and the mood slime. 2016 it’s a nutter with technology. Afterlife it’s Gozer again.
The main difference is Ghosts being smashable, with the right technology, rather than simply being captured and contained.
Is it a great movie? No. Would I necessarily pick it over the other three? No. Would I still watch it as part of a Ghostbusters binge? Yes. Would I watch it on its own? Also yes.
trexmeyer wrote: I did a "skimmy" re-watch of Captain Marvel and I don't see how it is any worse than Iron Man, Thor, or Captain America: The First Avenger. I wouldn't put it over any of those (except maybe Thor), but it's definitely not significantly worse by any means.
She doesn't have much of an arc. Starts really powerful, ends even more powerful, doesn't have to struggle at anything, is completely invincible. It's why the other characters in the film were more interesting.
At the beginning of the film she's been conditioned to see her power as a tool belonging to and controlled by someone else. She's repeatedly required to hold back and then humbled to reinforce the notion that her power is a separate thing and without it, she is weak. Her struggle is entirely about making her own choices, which is why its so important that in the end she doesn't fall for the "fair fight" conditioning when something is actually on the line. At the beginning of the film she's essentially powerless, but makes the Kree very powerful. Breaking that conditioning is what the movie is all about.
I'm not sure we watched the same movie. In the beginning she's smug, has superpowers beyond compare and won't let anyone tell her what to do. In the end she's smug, has superpowers beyond compare and won't let anyone tell her what to do.
Her progression in the movie is about becoming more efficient at being an egotistic ass.
Easy E wrote: The Ghostbusters are part of the MCU now! I think I missed something......
"Who you gonna call?"
"He-Man! He-Man! He-Man"
The cross-over I never knew I needed, but the one I deserve.
Not sure that doesn't exist, somewhere. Some of the cast of Him-Guy canonically did come from or visit Earth.
And it certainly wouldn't be as weird as the Star Trek/X-men crossovers. Or the Conan/Spiderman/assorted X-titles crossover (though that last one is kind of a cheat).
LunarSol wrote: They're going to cross the streams to vaporize Orko.
Well, yes. He was the one stuck on Earth pestering small children in a crashed plane about the true meaning of Christmas.
Since he basically has the same body type as Slimer (though thankfully a robe and hat), calling the Ghostbusters about it seems incredibly appropriate.
Rumor is that if they do replace Jonathan Majors that they're looking for someone like Damson Idris, but they still have some time before a decision will have to be made so they can see how it plays out for a little longer.
Honestly, I'm still hoping Kang is just a red herring for Doom, but certainly disappointing as Majors performance had me mildly interested in what they might do with the character.
LunarSol wrote: Honestly, I'm still hoping Kang is just a red herring for Doom, but certainly disappointing as Majors performance had me mildly interested in what they might do with the character.
I still think thats the case ultimately. Kang does his multiversal war. Tears apart realities. Battleworld. Gets defeated. Doom takes control. God emperor doom is the final big bad.
I know, I know. It’s far from the 21st Century we were promised as kids.
But it is all the same.
In theory, and not having a clue about actors contracts and that? There seems to be nothing stopping a studio with Disney’s size of pockets from reshooting existing scenes with the replacement, or just digitally inserting the new actor and their dialogue.
Didn’t enjoy it as much as the first but definitely more than the second.
Quill being shown as competent is a nice change for me, and I liked the fact that by the end of the film everything hadn’t just been reset. The events of this movie and its predecessors have seen the characters change.
Plus a great corridor fight that really makes me want Drukhari Succubi to be awesome in Xth edition 40K.
A long film but not one that made me conscious of the fact until I checked the time as we left.
I enjoyed it and thought it had nice pay offs for all the characters. There are some odd bits here and there and this is definitely Adam Warlock In-Name-Only more than Adam Warlock, but overall it is worth seeing.
The soundtrack didn't have the consistency of the earlier films and seemed a bit more erratic. The acoustic version of Creep is fine but I don't think that would be the version Quill would have on his Zune. It didn't stay in the 90s and jumped time periods a bit more than the others; the first film was the 70s, the next was the 80s, and this was supposed to be the 90s. It had some 90s songs but it didn't feel like a 90s soundtrack. Continuation in spoiler.
Spoiler:
it was a bit awkward that they were part of entire planet of people being completely wiped out and destroyed but it is just, essentially, background noise.
In the post credit sequence Rocket is shown switching the playlist from 1990 to 2000 signifying the next chapter in the story.
This is one of those times where they introduce a thing from the comics and manage to both put in a lot or all of the stuff from the comics (even when it's dumb) without it BEING dumb or adapting it to make it better.
The movie was funny, emotional, dark at points, cathartic at others. Great. Watch it.
Spoiler:
Adam Warlock
This is a character who got a TON of his comic history crammed into the movie in like 12 minutes of screen time and like 3 conversations. They also fudged his personality Tony Stark style in that they gave him one. For those unfamiliar, Ayesha (Her) and Adam (Him) were created to be perfect beings and a perfect pair in the comics. Ayesha is nuts and power mad and Adam eventually turns on her and becomes a good guy. He's pretty flat and stoic in the comics and mostly flys around with grandoise statements of doom and ill portent and such.
Here, the Sovereign (The Gold People from GotG 2) are an iteration of The High Evolutionary making "Perfect people and a perfect society." Which changes WHO made Him and Her but not WHY so it's a nice little translation to the MCU version. The High Evolutionary woke up Adam early so he is childlike (not in that he is a big baby, but in that he has little context for things and doesn't get some nuance of situations). He is following orders because his purpose is to follow orders. He understand he has purpose, and wants to fulfill it but he has a nativity about him. He doesn't think in terms of doing right or wrong at first. Simply fulfilling purpose. And by the end of the movie his position on the new iteration of the GotG gives the character a place to learn and grow and become the Adam he eventually becomes in the comics (but again, with actual personality this time).
High Evolutionary and related materials
Amazing that they managed to put him in with all his arrogance and monstrous behavior and make him both really compelling as a massive powerful threat villain AND never compare him to Thanos in the film. Even though they kind of have the same goals but different methods. Making a better universe.
Counter Earth. Insane that it is in the movie.
The Ani-Men. Insane that they are in the movie.
The Evolutionary Guard. Not named as such, Insane that they are in the movie.
I really just all around loved this movie. It absolutely captures what makes this specific group of characters shine and is pretty easily one of the best films in the MCU. Certainly in the very top echelon of sequels.
As a big fan of the Dan Abnett run, I also got to totally geek out seeing almost everything I loved brought to the screen in one form or another:
Spoiler:
Phyla! Phyla makes it to the MCU! I also greatly appreciate that there's a route to Moondragon.
Himbo Warlock is definitely a change, but not one without merit or even comic backing. Warlock's personality is often wildly changed when he cocoons and they definitely set him up to grow into something more later on.
Significant Cosmo time! My only gripe here is the nature of the plot doesn't give us a chance to show her irrational reaction to Rocket.
New Gamora is a great opportunity to fix one of the big faults of the original movie. Giving her more than the love interest personality is great and they did a great job rebuilding her into a more fleshed out character.
As for the villain and meat of the plot
Spoiler:
So much stuff you'd never expect to see in a film, but Rocket being such a success has definitely made possible. Lylla and Wal Rus are great takes with Floor (Blackjack?) definitely hammering home the cruelty of the situation.
Its so odd how well Chukwudi Iwuji manages to let you forget that he's playing an irredeemable psychopath. So many times you reach the point where you think he's been appeased enough to be semi rational before he suddenly shifts to a new level of cruelty. One of the MCU's top villains by a long shot.
Given how much I hated Guardians 2, I went into vol 3 with pretty low expectations and still ended up hating it. I liked it more than 2, but... doubtful I will ever watch it again.
Gonna try to keep this spoiler free. I really could not stand the actor playing the high evolutionary. He and William Shatner should enter an over acting competition, I seriously have no idea who would win. The guy just alternated shouting and whispering his lines. I found him to be one of the worst villains they've done in a while.
Tonally speaking, I think James Gunn went a little too James Gunn here. The number of times someone put in or took out ear buds to cue a change in the music was exhausting. It happens so much I actually found it distracting.
It also bugged me that the Guardians seem to have somehow pressurized an entire region of space. There are several moments where an explosive decompression is warranted but doesn't happen because Gunn doesn't want it to.
Spoiler thoughts
Spoiler:
The whole Alter Earth thing felt so incredibly unnecessary. It feels like it's there to show the audience what a monster the villain is when he blows up all of the adorable animal people, but we already know he's a monster from Rockets flashbacks so that whole tangent is a total waste of time.
All of the feel good happy celebrating at the end was seriously cringe. Felt like I was watching the end of a rom com. Peter reuniting with his granddad was also hysterical. I love how the woman who answers the door just lets him right in. No 'who are you?' or 'why do you want to see him?' like a normal person would ask, we just go straight to 'oh yes he's right inside come let me show you.' And then his grandfather who hasn't seen him in like 30 years instantly recognizes the guy? It's atrocious.
Adam Warlock felt like such an afterthought in the movie. You could have lifted him right out and lost nothing. Every time he appears I was surprised because I totally forgot about him.
There were a few things I did like. Rockets flashbacks were great, and I really liked that Gamora and Peter didn't end up back together, and... Er, I think that honestly might be it.
I'd just assumed Peter had called ahead to find out if the grandfather was still alive and there, and thus at least the woman opening the door was expecting him
creeping-deth87 wrote: Tonally speaking, I think James Gunn went a little too James Gunn here. The number of times someone put in or took out ear buds to cue a change in the music was exhausting. It happens so much I actually found it distracting.
I don't think I even noticed that, though it does kind of fit the way the music is dealt with. I could see how it could get a bit cheesy.
It also bugged me that the Guardians seem to have somehow pressurized an entire region of space. There are several moments where an explosive decompression is warranted but doesn't happen because Gunn doesn't want it to.
That's the only bit that really stood out at me as breaking the immersion. I can't see how they'd have done it differently though, but I guess they could have at least had some kind of giant atmosphere bubble.
The oddity with the pressurization is really when the monsters are smashing the cockpit on Rocket's ship. I think what REALLY draws attention to it is how many other places in the movie they're careful about it.
Worth noting though, the answer to a lot of the scenarios is that the larger entities (Knowhere, High Evolutionary's ship, etc) have an energy shield that maintains atmosphere the same as the wrapping seen in Yondu's death in Vol 2. Swapping it between being completely impermeable (yellow) and allowing solid matter to pass through (blue) is established many times throughout the film, though the visibility of the field itself isn't always consistent. It's USUALLY only visible when something is in contact with it, but there's more than a few instances where it remains visible for the scene and a few others where it doesn't show up when people pass through.
LunarSol wrote: The oddity with the pressurization is really when the monsters are smashing the cockpit on Rocket's ship. I think what REALLY draws attention to it is how many other places in the movie they're careful about it.
Worth noting though, the answer to a lot of the scenarios is that the larger entities (Knowhere, High Evolutionary's ship, etc) have an energy shield that maintains atmosphere the same as the wrapping seen in Yondu's death in Vol 2. Swapping it between being completely impermeable (yellow) and allowing solid matter to pass through (blue) is established many times throughout the film, though the visibility of the field itself isn't always consistent. It's USUALLY only visible when something is in contact with it, but there's more than a few instances where it remains visible for the scene and a few others where it doesn't show up when people pass through.
Yeah, it's been pretty consistent in all the Marvel space stuff that a ship, unless destroyed or suffering catastrophic damage has some kind of shielding that maintains a pressure seal/atmosphere. Even in guardians 1, the city of Knowhere has huge openings exposing it to space (eye sockets, mouth, base of the jaw down the spine) but people can walk around completely fine. They can get in those mining pods and fly right out into open space even though they "are not meant to be out here." without sucking every person in the city out from explosive decompression.
About the music. I did notice that there was a LOT of somebody hits play on a thing and a song starts. It even happened sometime for a very brief, almost pointless, walk. It definitely occurred more in this one than any other past entry and it was a little gratuitous/distracting. Not so much that it took points off the movie for me. But enough that about 2/3rds 3/4s of the way through the movie when it happened again I had the thought of "okay, cool. press the button. Lets go."
About the music. I did notice that there was a LOT of somebody hits play on a thing and a song starts. It even happened sometime for a very brief, almost pointless, walk. It definitely occurred more in this one than any other past entry and it was a little gratuitous/distracting. Not so much that it took points off the movie for me. But enough that about 2/3rds 3/4s of the way through the movie when it happened again I had the thought of "okay, cool. press the button. Lets go."
This really felt like the recent videogame more than prior films. On a similar note, the one cut that really stood out to me was the lack of a transition after the hallway fight. It's a wonderful sequence for sure but after its done everything kind of jumps into the next scene without a smooth bridge. Clearly one of those CGI heavy moments that was planned and built pretty early on without needing a lot of context, but just stood out to me, particularly given how they transitioned into the scene.
LunarSol wrote: This really felt like the recent videogame more than prior films.
I think that is a pretty good description. It certainly has the feel of cutscene > gameplay > cutscene. The emotional connection to the characters is the draw of the film and that is strong enough to still recommend it if you liked the previous films. Still weird that we're assumed to be so desensitized to large scale destruction that seeing a planet of families and friends wiped out would just be, at best, a footnote.
LunarSol wrote: This really felt like the recent videogame more than prior films.
I think that is a pretty good description. It certainly has the feel of cutscene > gameplay > cutscene. The emotional connection to the characters is the draw of the film and that is strong enough to still recommend it if you liked the previous films. Still weird that we're assumed to be so desensitized to large scale destruction that seeing a planet of families and friends wiped out would just be, at best, a footnote.
IDK, I thought overall the destruction of counter-earth was pretty effective. It's certainly better than most disaster movies and we actually had someone to connect to prior. It might have been nice for the Guardians to try and fail to stop it, but honestly its done so flippantly that it mostly just makes it clear, if you are not persuaded by all the animal cruelty up to this point already, that the High Evolutionary is not someone that can be reasoned with or dealt with in a rational manner.
The villain flippantly destroying the planet is one thing the filmmakers doing it is another. I understand its use as a narrative tool but was still to much of a "blink and you'll miss it" for such a catastrophic event. It doesn't derail the movie enough to not recommend seeing but it is a mark against it. All they needed was just a moment extra after all the fighting on the ship if they had just looked over and shown the debris then it would have at least felt like there were consequences. Instead it is blowing up as they leave, they fight on the ships, then they move move to the ending.
I felt like we got quite a bit as they were escaping. There were a lot of good ground level shots of the destruction as they escaped including the homes we saw earlier. I'm not sure what more there is to show really. Certainly better treatment than most planets get when they're destroyed. (ie Xandar, Krypton, Alderaan, probably anything Galactus eats)
Saw it last night. All I can say is if you've just lost a beloved family pet and you want to see a GotG movie to help cheer yourself up a bit, this is not that movie.
Spoiler:
I'll echo previous comments about the music. I liked the music, but sometimes I would have liked to have heard the orchestral 'Guardians Theme' at heroic moments more often.
The emotional rollercoaster meant it didn't have the fun charm of the first, but it was definitely better than Vol.2. Also (and maybe some of these characters may crop up again in other MCU movies, but) I never felt like there was a crudely inserted link to the next Marvel item, which ruins my enjoyment somewhat.
True. But I guess it’s a natural shift. Due to the literal impact of the Wrasslin’ it’s something you can only do effectively and regularly for so long.
A shift to movies brings some existing level of acting, a familiarity with long periods of work (practice bouts, training etc) and a commitment to the gimmick etc. So provided nobody is expecting Shakespeare, you’re most of the way there to being easy to work with.
The mcu stuff has always been little more than just moving wallpaper for me.
I don't know enough of the minutiae of the comics to get most of the references (nor do I care to know them). They're flashy, fun, spectacles. If I want depressing realism, I can look out my front door. 95% of what I know about marvel characters came tangentially from friends who WERE huge nerds about them. Some of it osmotically found its way into my head.
But even my meagre comics knowledge has heard of "MODOK" (aka "the floating head guy").
I saw it elsewhere (maybe even here?) and I think I agree the movie might have been better had they not advertised Kang being in it. Set it up as MODAK as the villain in the ads and the beginning, and reveal their boss half/two-thirds thru.
@ Chromedog, oh aye but the hit rate is seemingly falling, out of the newer stuff I've only liked Moon Knight and Spidey 3, and a few of the What If's ?
Maybe I should take my comic reading approach and follow writers over characters but given the MCU is by committee the fall back of "has purty ladies" might be the way, or a What If...1602
AduroT wrote: I saw it elsewhere (maybe even here?) and I think I agree the movie might have been better had they not advertised Kang being in it. Set it up as MODAK as the villain in the ads and the beginning, and reveal their boss half/two-thirds thru.
I don't know. There's so little here. The environment is pretty (well, the first half is pretty, the second half is generic sci-fi grey brutalist, which is hopefully a deliberate thematic choice), but...there isn't any story or arc. Just a setup.
Cassie wants her dad to care about something other than their adopted family (he does not)
Hope (when she exists) wants her mom to be more open (she isn't)
Mom (I don't even remember her name) is a basically a camera for scenes the main characters don't personally see and a secondary exposition dump
Hank is a homing beacon for deus ex ants (that don't actually matter, but fill the CGI budget for the final conflict).
Kang wants to not be here, and is ragey about it (for reasons to be revealed later).
Irrelevant rebels are irrelevant. Literally faceless minions minion.
Tune in next time for.... hopefully something better?
AduroT wrote: I saw it elsewhere (maybe even here?) and I think I agree the movie might have been better had they not advertised Kang being in it. Set it up as MODAK as the villain in the ads and the beginning, and reveal their boss half/two-thirds thru.
This was my immediate assumption while watching the film. The rebels present MODOK as the big bad in several scenes and Johnathan Majors is introduced in a way that would make it very easy to hide him as the secret bad guy. It feels like that's supposed to be the big shocker just based on how the early scenes are framed. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was not suppposed to know who that guy was playing until he donned the helmet.
The pandemic really messed with the production schedule on these things and shuffled around their order quite a bit. I've heard Quantumania was supposed to be a very early Phase 4 film originally and I suspect it got pushed back to stall for time for theaters to return while the TV content was a lot easier to wrap up. Certainly didn't help that its basically a pure CGI film during a time when the studio was bleeding its VFX team dry.
It takes remarkably little to make both work the other way around. Kang gets his big reveal in Quantumania. Loki goes after "Immortus" instead with the more important reveal being how different Immortus is compared to the conquerer. I'd bet in that instance the big reveal is the Council of Kangs rather than Kang himself, which honestly makes a lot more sense given the focus of Loki was less about time travel and more about variants.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Voss wrote: And wow the council of kangs was an utter gonzo clownshow. In a 'be more insane than Johnny Depp in Davy Jones' Locker' sort of way.
Yeah... that's Kang for you. He's largely just a giant ball of retcons and plot contrivances. Half of his variants are attempts to make villains of the week important in hindsight and the rest are attempts to add weight to boring stories by making it part of this nebulous but ill defined master plan. Honestly, the closest I have ever gotten to being excited about the character is in Loki and Quantumania and that's solely on the back of Majors's performance.
Irrelevant rebels are irrelevant. Literally faceless minions minion.
Tune in next time for.... hopefully something better?
FWIW, the plot structure of this film is startlingly similar to the outline of Trevorrow's original script for SW Episode 9. Notably how the finale plays out.
Voss wrote: And wow the council of kangs was an utter gonzo clownshow. In a 'be more insane than Johnny Depp in Davy Jones' Locker' sort of way.
Yeah... that's Kang for you. He's largely just a giant ball of retcons and plot contrivances. Half of his variants are attempts to make villains of the week important in hindsight and the rest are attempts to add weight to boring stories by making it part of this nebulous but ill defined master plan. Honestly, the closest I have ever gotten to being excited about the character is in Loki and Quantumania and that's solely on the back of Majors's performance.
Honestly had I seen this before Loki I would've completely panned Majors as an actor. Though the Loki version was a touch too manic for my taste, there was a fair amount of depth. This one seemed to have a different emotion for every scene, and half the time it didn't make sense or made things worse for himself (particularly as the movie went on). About the only time he was coherent and relatable was the flashback promising the mom that she would be there when Hope opened the door, and casually threatening Scott and Cassie. After that he was just... gone.
Basically every Kang story ever is some variation of him doing something evil, the good guys stopping him, but then him gloating about how making that happen causes future events that one let him TAKE OVER THE WORLD! Not that more than half the time, the latter point is revealed at the start of the next Kang story as a sloppy retcon.
At best, he's just absurd piles of Xanatos gambits. At worst, he's an absurd pile of retcons. I honestly cannot think of a single Kang centric story I really like, but he's notably at the center of several of the all time worst.
LunarSol wrote: At best, he's just absurd piles of Xanatos gambits. At worst, he's an absurd pile of retcons. I honestly cannot think of a single Kang centric story I really like, but he's notably at the center of several of the all time worst.
This. Johnathan Majors was fun to watch but the character is just to much everything, everywhere, all at once. The shtick of "but it was I, Kang, the whole time!" gets really tired really fast.
LunarSol wrote: Basically every Kang story ever is some variation of him doing something evil, the good guys stopping him, but then him gloating about how making that happen causes future events that one let him TAKE OVER THE WORLD! Not that more than half the time, the latter point is revealed at the start of the next Kang story as a sloppy retcon.
At best, he's just absurd piles of Xanatos gambits. At worst, he's an absurd pile of retcons. I honestly cannot think of a single Kang centric story I really like, but he's notably at the center of several of the all time worst.
Yep, you can pretty much take any amount of crap & attach some variation of Kang to it. Either directly or retroactively.....
I’ve not read much Kang but the couple things I’ve seen them in I enjoyed. Namely Symbiote Spider-Man and Savage Avengers. They just popped up for a last page reveal in the new Avengers run this past week now so see how that plays out.
Finally saw Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania last night on D+. It was no cost beyond my existing subscription and I had absolutely nothing planned for the evening. It still felt like I wasted my time. Hope barely featured so the "and the Wasp" part of the title was misleading. Bill Murry was wasted, Michael Douglas probably didn't know what the hell was going on and Kang failed to make an impression as the new 'big bad'.
Definitely the worst MCU movie. By some margin. And I've seen Iron Man 3 and Thor: Love and Thunder.
I liked Quantumania better than Ant Man 2, though neither really sits on a lofty perch. Definitely preferred it to Thor 4, but really we're just arguing over participation ribbons.
MarkNorfolk wrote: Finally saw Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania last night on D+. It was no cost beyond my existing subscription and I had absolutely nothing planned for the evening. It still felt like I wasted my time. Hope barely featured so the "and the Wasp" part of the title was misleading. Bill Murry was wasted, Michael Douglas probably didn't know what the hell was going on and Kang failed to make an impression as the new 'big bad'.
Douglas didn't have much of a role in the film, he felt more wasted than Murray, who honestly... hasn't done well in cameos in years. His charm and spark burnt out and it feels like he's just going through the motions because 'charming jackass' was his thing for so long.
Used the "has purty lady" fall back to watch New Mutants and yes for a gelfling Ms Taylor-Joy is very easy on the eye, the film sadly is a jumnled mishmash that smacks of re-re-rewrite and editing forkwittery
In January 2020, Disney's official fan club website D23 described the film as a "new addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe", a statement that was quickly picked up by fans and reporters. Soon after, all mentions of the film were removed from the website, while Disney identified this as an error and stated that the film would not be part of the MCU.
If I recall, Disney refused to allow the standard reshoots to make the film work and just wanted it out as cheaply as possible. Then the Dark Phoenix movie was cut and reshot to remove the big, climactic space battle and put the action on a train, so viewers wouldn’t get it confused for Captain Marvel or something.
For now, I’m going to withhold overall judgement, as I think we have some Ultron Syndrome going on.
As you’ll know, Age of Ultron isn’t terribly well regarded. And I don’t dispute it has some issues. But…in retrospect, going back and watching it? It really does set up a lot of what follows. That realisation, and knowing it wasn’t squandered, has given me a better appreciation for what it was doing.
I'm really puzzled by 'Brave New World' rather than 'New World Order.' Are we supposed to take it as fighting an authoritarian regime that is out in the open rather than a conspiracy?
It has to do with messaging, right? Not just 'marketing groupies think this will sell seats better, because Huxley has comic book fans hiding somewhere'
For now, I’m going to withhold overall judgement, as I think we have some Ultron Syndrome going on.
As you’ll know, Age of Ultron isn’t terribly well regarded. And I don’t dispute it has some issues. But…in retrospect, going back and watching it? It really does set up a lot of what follows. That realisation, and knowing it wasn’t squandered, has given me a better appreciation for what it was doing.
I get it has its rough patches (Thor), but honestly, I've always thought AoU was fantastic. It is absolutely loaded with fantastic moments. Honestly, I think most of its ire comes from it being released at a time when everyone wanted everything to be dependent on everything else and rather than rewarding you for notebooking the location of all the Gems; it was kind of happy being its own thing. Every time I rewatch it I really enjoy it, though its got stiffer competition in Phase 2 with both Guardians and Winter Soldier topping it.
A simple review from me. The best of the Phase: Whatever films. Actually felt like a complete arc.
My unofficial rank with a strong recentcy Bias
1. GotG: Vol 3
2. Spicer-man: No Way Home
3. Wakanda Forever
4. Quantumania
5. Dr. Strange: MoM
6. Thor: Love and Thunder
I thought this list was stronger than I recall, and then I realized several films got left off. Here's my full rankings:
1. GotG: Vol 3
2. Spider-man: No Way Home
3. Wakanda Forever
4. Dr. Strange: MoM
5. Eternals
6. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
7. Quantumania
8. Black Widow
9. Thor: Love and Thunder
A simple review from me. The best of the Phase: Whatever films. Actually felt like a complete arc.
My unofficial rank with a strong recentcy Bias
1. GotG: Vol 3
2. Spicer-man: No Way Home
3. Wakanda Forever
4. Quantumania
5. Dr. Strange: MoM
6. Thor: Love and Thunder
I think I'd go:
Rank / Show / Comment
1 / Werewolf by Night / It was good and different from all the other MCU stuff
2 / Spider-Man: No Way Home / I find the storyline a perplexing choice, but it was fun.
3 / Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 / I didn't enjoy the grotesque aspects of it, but there was a lot of heart in it. Perplexed by some choices, expecially with it being Gunn's last one.
4 / The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special / The characters are fun.
5 / What If...? / I'm a sucker for What If stories and they did them well enough.
6 / Loki / I really enjoyed the art direction and score. Doesn't feel like it gets Loki right, but I was entertained enough to give it a pass.
7 / Hawkeye / My kids really enjoyed it, and I can relate to Clint's exasperation.
8 / Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings / Enjoyable enough.
9 / WandaVision / First half spectacular / Second half... perplexing direction.
10 / Ms. Marvel / I enjoyed the supporting characters more than the lead, but the story was weak.
11 / Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness / Loved the Rami, hated the story.
12 / Moon Knight / It was just kind of a thing and stuff happened.
13 / Thor: Love and Thunder / Aspects of it were okay, but overall it was irritating.
14 / Black Panther: Wakanda Forever / A lot happens and I didn't care about much of it. There really wasn't much they could do about the situation.
15 / Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania / Increadibly stupid and poorly executed.
16 / The Falcon and the Winter Soldier / Hated much of the logic of this show.
17 / She-Hulk: Attorney at Law / Just about one of the worst things I've ever seen. Did not watch last two episodes, but wish I stopped watching sooner.
Voss wrote: I'm really puzzled by 'Brave New World' rather than 'New World Order.' Are we supposed to take it as fighting an authoritarian regime that is out in the open rather than a conspiracy?
It has to do with messaging, right? Not just 'marketing groupies think this will sell seats better, because Huxley has comic book fans hiding somewhere'
MarkNorfolk wrote: Saw it last night. All I can say is if you've just lost a beloved family pet and you want to see a GotG movie to help cheer yourself up a bit, this is not that movie.
Finally went to see GotG 3. I was quite surprised how dark and violent this was compared to earlier two Guardians films. Also there was less wacky humour (but for me, that is a plus). I can see why this would be a turnoff for some who are looking for similar humorous romp as the first two.
I agree the music didn't work as well as in earlier films. Also, too much shouting and overacting. I liked how Mantis and Nebula assumed leadership roles. Overall, nevertheless, I call positive on that one. It was heavy on sentimentality, and that often works for me.
Turnip Jedi wrote: Used the "has purty lady" fall back to watch New Mutants and yes for a gelfling Ms Taylor-Joy is very easy on the eye, the film sadly is a jumnled mishmash that smacks of re-re-rewrite and editing forkwittery
Pretty much sums it up - its watchable fun and ATJ does get Illyana mostly right in looks, attitude etc and IMo its better than the last Dark Pheonix film but thats not saying much
Just realised I have not bothered to watch any of the new phase films....
AduroT wrote: Steve Rogers is dead to me. There’s no way all that stuff went down in WinterFalcon and no one called him up and asked him his thoughts on this.
He's been kidnapped and stuck in a revitalization chamber for phase 7. Its fine.
AduroT wrote: Revitalization chamber? They found a way to reverse aging in Endgame already.
The method doesn't matter.
Its about having an excuse to have the character vanish for a while, until marketing decides that they'll make $XX dollars with a reintroduction.
They can make some knock-off villains from his blood, have a lingering mystery across a couple Falcon-Cap movies, then bam, big 'reveal' of Rogers Ascendant. (Or was he part of Hydra all along, like the dumb comic book arc)
Disney unveiled or changed the release dates for a slew of movie titles Tuesday, including Marvel’s Blade, which was announced this morning to be delaying production.
Blade, the vampire pic starring Mahershala Ali is currently in search of a new director, following Bassim Tariq’s departure. It is now set to open September 6, 2024, having previously been slated for November 3, 2023.
Among the changes, the as-yet-untitled Deadpool threequel has moved from September 6, 2024 to November 8, 2024, with Fantastic Four bumped from that latter date to February 14, 2025. Previously set for November 7, 2025, Avengers: Secret Wars, the first of back-to-back movies in the Avengers series, will now debut on May 5, 2026.
An untitled Marvel pic set for February 14, 2025 has been pushed to November 7, 2025, with another having been removed from the schedule after being set for May 1, 2026.
Phase 6 is where the reboot of the Fantastic Four lived, along with the twin Avengers pics: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars. Both were originally touted to go six months apart in May and December 2025; Kang Dynasty was first up, and was not a part of today’s changes. It will be Secret Wars that moves into the May 2026 position.
Disney unveiled or changed the release dates for a slew of movie titles Tuesday, including Marvel’s Blade, which was announced this morning to be delaying production.
Blade, the vampire pic starring Mahershala Ali is currently in search of a new director, following Bassim Tariq’s departure. It is now set to open September 6, 2024, having previously been slated for November 3, 2023.
Among the changes, the as-yet-untitled Deadpool threequel has moved from September 6, 2024 to November 8, 2024, with Fantastic Four bumped from that latter date to February 14, 2025. Previously set for November 7, 2025, Avengers: Secret Wars, the first of back-to-back movies in the Avengers series, will now debut on May 5, 2026.
An untitled Marvel pic set for February 14, 2025 has been pushed to November 7, 2025, with another having been removed from the schedule after being set for May 1, 2026.
Phase 6 is where the reboot of the Fantastic Four lived, along with the twin Avengers pics: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars. Both were originally touted to go six months apart in May and December 2025; Kang Dynasty was first up, and was not a part of today’s changes. It will be Secret Wars that moves into the May 2026 position.
And? There's an ongoing writers strike & a potential actors strike. That things are delayed shouldn't even be news.
LunarSol wrote: Really worried DP3 is going to suffer the most from the strike :(
Really? Spin out the barest thread of plot, fill holes with quips and one-liners.
Its almost an achievement when they manage to be relevant to audiences in [current year].
LunarSol wrote: Really worried DP3 is going to suffer the most from the strike :(
Really? Spin out the barest thread of plot, fill holes with quips and one-liners. Its almost an achievement when they manage to be relevant to audiences in [current year].
The whole point is the quips and one-liners are almost all ad-libbed and the writers’ strike means no ad-libbing.
LunarSol wrote: Really worried DP3 is going to suffer the most from the strike :(
Really? Spin out the barest thread of plot, fill holes with quips and one-liners.
Its almost an achievement when they manage to be relevant to audiences in [current year].
Though improvised dialogue is said to be something of a "grey area" when it comes to the WGA, and actors are technically still allowed to ad-lib, Reynolds' writing credit will restrict him from doing so - providing he intends to support the strike, that is.
Voss wrote: (Or was he part of Hydra all along, like the dumb comic book arc)
Yeah, that’s not what that story was, and it was actually quite good. Coincidentally it happened because they de-aged Steve Rogers in the comics.
I blame the faux shock media outlets clickbait antics, that sort of thing happens all the time in comics, I mean exactly how long is Kamala going to stay dead with a movie coming...
The Kamala death thing is so stupid. They advertised it for like a month that it was coming, then the issue is all someone could die but who?! And they had their hidden spoiler cover that came out after. They didn’t even have the decency to kill her in her own book! They killed her in a Spider-Man book and so far it’s all just about how that’s effecting Parker. Cyclops is good friends with her due to the whole kid Cyclops being in Champions, and it was actually hilarious how he found out she’d died. He was hitting on Emma Frost trying to get with that she’s just like Hey, Kamala died. Still in the mood? Yeah didn’t think so. But yeah, there is Zero chance Kamala stays dead. Best theory I’ve heard is shell resurrect with her tv/movie powers instead of the stretching.
She's 100% getting retconned as a Mutant. She dies, turns out she secretly had the X-gene all along and Krakoa is able to revive her with powers that are more in line with the TV/movie version.
Q: But didn't she got her powers from the terrigan mist that's lethal to mutants?
A: Hey, shut up.
The film was initially released and distributed by Universal on June 13, 2008, and the company held the rights to the title for 15 years. Now, in a notable shift, the rights have reverted to Marvel Studios, leading to the film’s release on Disney+.
Ghaz wrote: ... Now, in a notable shift, the rights have reverted to Marvel Studios...
This is the 'major bit of news' I was referring to. If Marvel has reclaimed the distribution rights from Universal, then they should be able to make a film where Hulk is the lead character and not relegated to being a sidekick...
AduroT wrote: Don’t you put Venom in the same bin as Morbius!
Morbius is, well, Morbius
Stars a bloody awful actor who fronts a bloody awful rock band, isn’t even vaguely talented and allegedly pays extra special attention to those fans that…..shall we say weren’t around circa 2008….allegedly.
But more importantly, made Joker seem like a right spanker and about as hard and threatening and edgy as a sponge from the planet wussywussywusspants.
Agreed. I am really excited to see some hopefully Winter Soldier style content. Sepite there being Skrulls the MCU has lacked some of this more grounded action since... Hawkeye?
Good first episode. Less build up than I was expecting, they just kind of jump in with both feet right off the bat. Lot of info on what Fury’s deal has been since Endgame. Something I expected to happen later in the series happens already. No fancy credits like the other series have had, just black and white text. No post credit scene on this one.
And now the show is stirring controversy over its opening credits use of ai artwork. They say they did it intentionally for the off putting not quite human effect of the ai art.
but as the monkey photograph copyright case proved even if the AI did most of the work (like the monkey did) the fact that a human set up the situation (set up the camera, input the request for a certain type of image to the AI) it could be copywrite to those humans
As far as I know if the AI did the majority of the work then the product cannot be copyrighted. So if a human puts prompts into a generator then the resulting product is not a copyrightable product.
So for the example that set the law in the US, a human created a comic book using AI that generated the layout and images while the human made the text. Because most of the work had been done by the AI the product wasn't allowed to be covered by US copyright law.
So if this intro was a human putting prompts into a generator that the AI then generated, it wouldn't be covered.
As far as the show itself is concerned, one of the more interesting things is they've never established Boss Skrull Talos as a good guy.
In Captain Marvel they just sort of handwaved it as 'he has a family, he must be good,' and we're sort of stuck with that premise for the intro. But this is the kind of show that should have layers...
Spoiler:
Huh, well. Fridged the wife off camera somewhere. Still such a classy move
----
Really uncertain about this one after epsiode 1.
Everyone is an obvious spy. No one actually walks around like they're just people- they move like people in a spy movie, openly sneaking on the street in front of people (and pulling guns).
Can't figure out why homeless chic is a thing, either. Its seems like it would attract more attention than just workman/business casual.
Some of the transformation scenes just do not work. Yes, the Skrulls are hidden from the camera view and the protagonist(s) view, but are in full view of other people.
This reminds me a lot of the Dr Who follow-up episode with the shape-shifting tentacle monsters, post peace treaty, when a faction is creating a conflict because there needs to be a conflict to resolve.
Spoiler:
Cool. A follow-up fridging. I'd be more upset, but its a side character from 12-20 movies ago.
Yeah, I was immediately like How did no one see them change!? the first time they pulled that stunt in the crowd and then they did it twice more. I was rather expecting a twist that nigh the entire crowd were Skrulls and it was an elaborate trap to bait and capture Fury.
Decent first episode. I like the paranoid vibe they're setting up right from the start and the quick jump into the action.
Some minor quibbles:
1. I assume the crowd scene at the end was telling us that scary Skrull leader dude was in fact tracking Fury in Moscow by shifting into all those people he saw. That's fine for the guy in the bar, but how the hell does that work for the woman on the park bench and the kid that were there was he walked through the city? Is the guy shifting, then sprinting down a bunch of side alleys to shift again and wait for Fury to show up? Weird.
2. Agreed about the "everyone is acting like a spy" thing. Maybe in the case of G'iah (yes, I looked up how to spell it) it's supposed to be showing her inexperience but everyone else just kind of screams "SPY!" with how they definitively do not blend in anywhere.
3. As far as the overall plot goes, doesn't the fact that world governments are aware that Skrulls exist make the supposed plot a bit dodgy? Sure, you can't assume Skrulls are responsible for everything, but when it's one plausible explanation for geopolitical frenemies doing out of character things it somewhat lessens the impact of their plan.
4. Agree on the shifting in plain sight problems. It looks cool on screen but the practicalities don't make sense. Wouldn't this sort of thing be all over social media by now as well? It reminds me of the scene at the end of Rise of Skywalker where Rey teleports the lightsabre to Kylo and he pulls it from behind his back. It's supposed to be this big kick-ass moment, until you realise Kylo's surrounded and the 3 guys behind him would clearly see the sabre he's now holding, which just turns the whole scene into unintended comedy for me.
I used to have issues with his American accent, but then I saw (and heard) Burn Gorman in Man in the High Castle so now I have no problem with him at all.
I used to have issues with his American accent, but then I saw (and heard) Burn Gorman in Man in the High Castle so now I have no problem with him at all.
Oh he has The Hobbit trilogy, Sherlock Holmes, Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy and innumerable “Martin Freeman Looks Exasperated in a variety of different films” to make up for.
So, I was mulling over the show at breakfast, and realized we've got another 'refugees are worthless people' story going on.
The usual mix of Gormless Tools and Evil Terrorists.
Nevermind that they are shapeshifting aliens who are physically superior to humans, a partially intact tech base, a couple dozen sites that only they can inhabit, and 30 years to work , they're just barely getting by.
Instead of refugees are scum, we could have had the prosperous United Secret Skrull Republic, propped up by Skrull Technologies Incorporated, and either openly or secretly puppeting MCU!Russia (or, gasp, actually cooperating). And that could have been the basis for either powerful and prosperous micro-nation (and a sudden twist where the real problem is Kree infiltrators) or an actual Secret Invasion.
But apparently we're so culturally invested in the usual refugee narrative that we get angry terrorists again.
Eh, it's okay. I didn't not like it but I also didn't really care, which is pretty much all I can say for anything Marvel at the moment.
Guardians 3 was really fun but the last Marvel thing I enjoyed before that was Spider-Man.
The Skrulls problem is they never tried to bond with humans by turning their new home into a cheap amusement themed around their culture and lost homeland. Surely they could have won hears and minds with a Kreean BBQ stand too.
Sigh. After almost a year between this and She Hulk, I was hoping for something good after the various delays and reshoots but I nearly turned it off a few times by the end of the episode. I feel like they should have maybe led with the newcomer being shown to the Skrull settlement instead of the bizarre intro we did get. There was just nothing there to sink my teeth into.
Very underwhelming. I hope it gets better quick but with only 6 episodes (why is this their magic number?) I kinda seriously doubt it will. Endgame seems more and more like it really was the end.
Slipspace wrote: 3. As far as the overall plot goes, doesn't the fact that world governments are aware that Skrulls exist make the supposed plot a bit dodgy? Sure, you can't assume Skrulls are responsible for everything, but when it's one plausible explanation for geopolitical frenemies doing out of character things it somewhat lessens the impact of their plan.
It'll be interesting to see if they even address that. I'll just say I have my doubts and leave it at that.
Slipspace wrote: 4. Agree on the shifting in plain sight problems. It looks cool on screen but the practicalities don't make sense. Wouldn't this sort of thing be all over social media by now as well? It reminds me of the scene at the end of Rise of Skywalker where Rey teleports the lightsabre to Kylo and he pulls it from behind his back. It's supposed to be this big kick-ass moment, until you realise Kylo's surrounded and the 3 guys behind him would clearly see the sabre he's now holding, which just turns the whole scene into unintended comedy for me.
Yeah, it's kind of irksome. All the cool kids pretend that the world does not exist outside of that one camera angle. It's in Obi-Wan Kenobi, in at least one John Wick, in The Crazies. You could probably make a long list. Probably goes back decades, too, though I suppose it may have gotten more popular in recent times.
It’s like how in so many monster movies they’re invisible if they’re just off screen. They’ll ambush people standing in the open because if the camera can’t see them neither can the victim. Always been a pet peeve of mine.
I'm probably going to enjoy this show. Yes, the public shapeshifting looks cool but doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Yes, the Skrulls remind me of the Zygons with how they need to keep their 'originals' on ice. And yes, someone we were convinced was human is going to be a skrull, and someone we know is a skrull will turn out to be a different skrull.... but that's the kind of show it is.
I know I am super behind, but I just watched the first 3 episodes of She-Hulk.
Seems harmless enough and aping the "Girl-power Lawyer genre" such as Ally McBeal and the like. I guess that is the only one I can think of at the moment. I did enjoy the jabs at the media as entertainment more than informing though.
Knowing that it is in such a genre helps make sense of some of it. However, the obligatory hero fight when two new heroes meet felt especially gratuitous and forced. However, that is a convention of the Super-Hero genre.
Finally, I am not sold on the She-Hulk effects.... at all.
besides the clunky writing I think She-Hulks biggest issue was trying spread itself too thin over too many genres and not really hinting any, well bar getting Tim Roth to Tim Roth which was the highlight
Representatives for Majors have long maintained his innocence and his lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, told Newsweek the actor was "provably the victim here," with police at two NYPD precincts finding probable cause to arrest Jabbari.
Chaudhry said that Majors met with the NYPD last week "to present them with evidence of what really happened on that night."
"Within hours of viewing the evidence, and conducting their own thorough investigation, the NYPD found probable cause to arrest Grace Jabbari for assaulting Jonathan Majors," Chaudhry added.
Some call backs and Easter eggs from Groot, Frost Beast, Cull Obsidian and Extremis.
Suggestion of Super Skrulls to come!
Actually quite graphic finger-cutting-off scene. In fact more graphic violence than one might expect from a Marvel show.
Samuel L Jackson and Olivia Colman clearly having a blast.
Also, Brexit confirmed to have happened in the MCU as well.
Shaping up quite nicely if you ask me.
A bit odd, overall.
Went some places that I didn't expect and didn't feel particularly relevant (and the train discussion really made me wonder how old Fury is supposed to be, even with a 5 year time out for the Blip. I have a hard time with the idea that he was a teenager in the early 50s).
I wasn't not expecting the end, but it still felt... off. The bottom suddenly fell off the already tepid sense of urgency, and well... years of time out on a space station. Everybody else has been real bitter about that.
A lot of this reminds me of fan theories during Avengers 1 (and 2) that Fury was some kind of villainous mastermind, as well as a jerk. His people skills seem very... over-estimated.
Some call backs and Easter eggs from Groot, Frost Beast, Cull Obsidian and Extremis.
Suggestion of Super Skrulls to come!
Actually quite graphic finger-cutting-off scene. In fact more graphic violence than one might expect from a Marvel show.
Samuel L Jackson and Olivia Colman clearly having a blast.
Also, Brexit confirmed to have happened in the MCU as well.
Shaping up quite nicely if you ask me.
A bit odd, overall.
Went some places that I didn't expect and didn't feel particularly relevant (and the train discussion really made me wonder how old Fury is supposed to be, even with a 5 year time out for the Blip. I have a hard time with the idea that he was a teenager in the early 50s).
I wasn't not expecting the end, but it still felt... off. The bottom suddenly fell off the already tepid sense of urgency, and well... years of time out on a space station. Everybody else has been real bitter about that.
A lot of this reminds me of fan theories during Avengers 1 (and 2) that Fury was some kind of villainous mastermind, as well as a jerk. His people skills seem very... over-estimated.
I’m not sure he’s so much a jerk, as someone suddenly well out of his depth, who no longer carries quite the same authority he once did. As if the world took his Blip and off-world time as a retirement, restructured its pecking order and moved on.
But I agree with bbb the fairly explicit violence was…unexpected. I myself am not bothered about such things. But it definitely stands out in its inclusion in a mainstream MCU show. And if one was settled in with kids to watch, I can envisage many a “back” button be hastily pressed.
I am enjoying this show though. It’s building up nicely, and moving along at a pretty decent pace. Of course with 2/3rds of its episodes yet to be seen it’s too early to say if it’s going to carry it all off.
The comments on violence made me go have a look at what rating and warning the episode got. 16+ (for Germany anyway) and only the usual photosensitivity warning. No mention of Jacqueline Bauer making an appearance. Maybe they figured the rating alone suffices, or kids aren't into spy shows?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: But I agree with bbb the fairly explicit violence was…unexpected. I myself am not bothered about such things. But it definitely stands out in its inclusion in a mainstream MCU show. And if one was settled in with kids to watch, I can envisage many a “back” button be hastily pressed.
MCU takes it fairly easy on torture, but is otherwise hardly free of violence and happy murder. Probably not something parents should be unaware of, in my opinion.
Also, this is the 4th D+ show (out of 8) to feature terrorist refugees. Can't they think of any better antagonists?
Unfortunately not.
I miss the days when the MCU was anti-capitalist.
'Displaced persons are the scum of the world' is getting real ugly.
Can we just have villains who are bad because they are bad or greedy or power-hungry, and not because of some trauma they've endured?
I don't get why the Skrulls are so inept at finding a home. Why are they outsourcing it to Nick Fury and Carol Danvers and why isn't anyone complaining about Carol? Nothing about this plot makes sense and I'm not entertained enough to not notice. And where is Fury's massive spy infrastructure we've seen multiple times that he's somehow managed to maintain past the fall of SHIELD?
I didn’t think it was That graphic. You don’t see the cutter remove the finger, when she holds it up it’s a pretty clean cut, not really dripping blood or anything, and they don’t show the matching hand wound other than bloody rag. There was a bit more time spent on this one, but the MCU has had plenty of severed parts before.
AduroT wrote: I didn’t think it was That graphic. You don’t see the cutter remove the finger, when she holds it up it’s a pretty clean cut, not really dripping blood or anything, and they don’t show the matching hand wound other than bloody rag. There was a bit more time spent on this one, but the MCU has had plenty of severed parts before.
I think it's a combination of the intensity and brutality of it. GotG3 was also way more intense and grotesque than everything previously.
Black Dwarf had his hand cut off. Winter Soldier lost his arm. Thanos lost his head. Thor lost an eye. Nebula was taken apart for punishment. Etc. Those are all dismemberment that happened, but weren't really focused on.
This was a torture scene featuring dismemberment. They show the cut. They show the bloody stump. I don't recall anything similar in the other MCU shows.
And it’s not an action scene where you might expect injury. It’s colder, which I think is the difference for me.
Similar during the rescue attempt, we see blood trails from knife work. Not gushing by any means, but enough to make it that bit more graphic than many are used to from the MCU.
bbb wrote: I don't get why the Skrulls are so inept at finding a home. Why are they outsourcing it to Nick Fury and Carol Danvers and why isn't anyone complaining about Carol? Nothing about this plot makes sense and I'm not entertained enough to not notice. And where is Fury's massive spy infrastructure we've seen multiple times that he's somehow managed to maintain past the fall of SHIELD?
What exactly is there to complain about Captain Marvel? She made her priorities pretty clear in Endgame when she bitched about Earth not being the center of the universe and her presence was needed elsewhere instead of literally the one place where the fate of half the life in the universe was decided. So, like, who cares about some shapeshifting hobos? How is that her problem all of a sudden?
Also, this is the 4th D+ show (out of 8) to feature terrorist refugees. Can't they think of any better antagonists?
Unfortunately not.
I miss the days when the MCU was anti-capitalist.
'Displaced persons are the scum of the world' is getting real ugly.
Can we just have villains who are bad because they are bad or greedy or power-hungry, and not because of some trauma they've endured?
I don't get why the Skrulls are so inept at finding a home. Why are they outsourcing it to Nick Fury and Carol Danvers and why isn't anyone complaining about Carol? Nothing about this plot makes sense and I'm not entertained enough to not notice. And where is Fury's massive spy infrastructure we've seen multiple times that he's somehow managed to maintain past the fall of SHIELD?
On the last bit? It’s alluded that the Skrulls were conquerors. Earth is a civilised world that’s never heard of them. So a world where having renounced their warlike past, they have a clean slate to show other worlds It’s For Realsies This Time.
I don't get why the Skrulls are so inept at finding a home. Why are they outsourcing it to Nick Fury and Carol Danvers and why isn't anyone complaining about Carol? Nothing about this plot makes sense and I'm not entertained enough to not notice. And where is Fury's massive spy infrastructure we've seen multiple times that he's somehow managed to maintain past the fall of SHIELD?
Well...
apparently he let the spy infrastructure lapse so the plot could happen.
Disney didn't pay for Carol in this show, so they aren't going to talk about her.
The Skrull's 'ineptitude' is getting hints dropped.... but honestly, yeah. The GotG once crashed on a seemingly uninhabited forest planet and Rocket was working with Carol pre-Blip-restoration, so... that requires basically one conversation along the lines of 'hey, you know any uninhabited planets?' and job done. 'Immunity to radiation' gives a far wider profile for viable settlements
Can we just have villains who are bad because they are bad or greedy or power-hungry, and not because of some trauma they've endured?
Truthfully, I like villains with real motivations, they're just going back to this particular well too frequently, and tarring a lot of people with a really bad brush.
Also given what some of them are doing and how they're living, there's really no reason for the rest to be refugee squatters. A million (less casualties) shapeshifters in a population of 7 billion is effectively invisible- 0.014% of the population.
What I feel from the show is that it's got a lot of good ideas, but the groundwork to explore them hasn't really been laid. This idea that Fury's spy network has been Skrulls the whole time is awesome but the bits of this haven't been set up in a particularly compelling way, largely because Fury himself has been so out of the MCU since Winter Soldier. The lack of any of these characters in general makes it very hard to get invested the way the story expects. This needed to be built up in other ways than "I guess that wasn't Nick in Spiderman" and "Nick has a lawnchair in space".
And where are all the spaceships that the million Skrulls used to get to earth?
The million Skrulls all came to earth after Fury got ashed because they had no place better to go in a halfly depopulated universe? Did no Skrulls get ashed?
Why don't the terrorist refugee Skrulls go terrorize the Kree instead of earthlings?
bbb wrote: And where are all the spaceships that the million Skrulls used to get to earth?
The million Skrulls all came to earth after Fury got ashed because they had no place better to go in a halfly depopulated universe? Did no Skrulls get ashed?
Why don't the terrorist refugee Skrulls go terrorize the Kree instead of earthlings?
Shhhh, stop bringing up valid points, just turn your brain off and mindlessly watch the next episode. /s
Also, this is the 4th D+ show (out of 8) to feature terrorist refugees. Can't they think of any better antagonists?
Unfortunately not.
I miss the days when the MCU was anti-capitalist.
'Displaced persons are the scum of the world' is getting real ugly.
Can we just have villains who are bad because they are bad or greedy or power-hungry, and not because of some trauma they've endured?
I don't get why the Skrulls are so inept at finding a home. Why are they outsourcing it to Nick Fury and Carol Danvers and why isn't anyone complaining about Carol? Nothing about this plot makes sense and I'm not entertained enough to not notice. And where is Fury's massive spy infrastructure we've seen multiple times that he's somehow managed to maintain past the fall of SHIELD?
I mean... Why they can't find a home was more or less stated. They didn't get the destruction of skrullos because they avoided war. It was because they liked war too much. The Skrulls made themselves hated enemies across the galaxy. The kree may have been attempting genocide. But they were doing it to an enemy who had a past of infiltration, destabilization, and murder themselves. Why can't they find a new world on their own? Because everyone else remembers what the Skrulls were and don't want that on their world.
bbb wrote: And where are all the spaceships that the million Skrulls used to get to earth?
The million Skrulls all came to earth after Fury got ashed because they had no place better to go in a halfly depopulated universe? Did no Skrulls get ashed?
Why don't the terrorist refugee Skrulls go terrorize the Kree instead of earthlings?
Shhhh, stop bringing up valid points, just turn your brain off and mindlessly watch the next episode. /s
Well, we know cloaking tech exists. And there’s nothing to suggest they couldn’t have hitched a ride. That we haven’t seen the ships on-screen proves nothing.
Earth was already populated by Skrulls. And seemingly largely unaware. For a species actively hunted, that’s an appealing home. I mean, we have shelter, food and comforts. Would you rather than, or take your chance roughing it?
Because the Kree have ways of spotting Skrulls and nobody wants to get dead in the face as a result?
Also Earth is clearly totally cool with Asgardian alien refugees... were the Skrulls really not able to come up with a gimmick of impersonating park goers to assimilate?
That's got to be easier than orchestrating global chaos to cause wars between superpowers.
for that matter, if you want to go sinister... the make a wish foundation, or a free health clinic, and your terminally ill relative is replaced with a Skrull. 1 awkward generation of invalids, and then the Skrulls are in fact the miraculous survivor relatives who are championing massive advances in medical technology as they semi-skrull most of the humans, until the hybrids are all more or less the same, much improved race. Or... from a horrifyingly cash based perspective, find some gold diggers, kidnap them, inherit their wealth, donate it all to Skrull charities, and secure several private islands to house a few million refugees.
There are so many more practical ways to use the ability to perfectly mimic a person than global terrorism. Most involve petty to grand theft..... but really, with access to alien tech, all you need is to patent a microwave replacement and sell it and you're set. Wealth will insure security in many, many areas of the globe.
On one level I'm enjoying the show, and certain tropes that I expect to see in such a thing, but...
Garrick is just another angry thug that no-one should be really listening to. He just wants to kill things, because he's a piece of s***. He's got less dimensions than the Flag-smashers, and they were stupid.
It looks like the skrulls are ruling the world already. Why do they need a terrorist to get things done?
Spoiler:
Was that Rhodey a skrull? Was the 'firing' of Fury a show? Now he's been 'disavowed' he can 'go to work?'
Fury's married to a skrull and living in domestic bliss in the Home Counties of the UK? Looking forward to the explanation on that one
Gitzbitah wrote: Also Earth is clearly totally cool with Asgardian alien refugees... were the Skrulls really not able to come up with a gimmick of impersonating park goers to assimilate?
That's got to be easier than orchestrating global chaos to cause wars between superpowers.
for that matter, if you want to go sinister... the make a wish foundation, or a free health clinic, and your terminally ill relative is replaced with a Skrull. 1 awkward generation of invalids, and then the Skrulls are in fact the miraculous survivor relatives who are championing massive advances in medical technology as they semi-skrull most of the humans, until the hybrids are all more or less the same, much improved race. Or... from a horrifyingly cash based perspective, find some gold diggers, kidnap them, inherit their wealth, donate it all to Skrull charities, and secure several private islands to house a few million refugees.
There are so many more practical ways to use the ability to perfectly mimic a person than global terrorism. Most involve petty to grand theft..... but really, with access to alien tech, all you need is to patent a microwave replacement and sell it and you're set. Wealth will insure security in many, many areas of the globe.
1) The Asgaurdians both look like us and are borderline indestructible to regular human means of killing them (Come at them with a knife or a gun and I think most Asguardians would destroy you). It helps that they set up shop in the lands of people who historically worshipped them.
2) The Skrulls have been hiding as us. When that gets revealed people would freak the feth out. Can you imagine the conspiracy theories? Trump is/was a Skrull? Biden is/was a Skrull? Every election for the rest of all of our lives would go that way.
3) The Skrulls are not interested in being us and living our way. They implied it with the plant and they have said it a couple times. They want their own world. The Skrulls who are doing this rebellion are not talking about living with us. They are talking about wiping us out (or getting us to wipe ourselves out) and terraforming the planet. This isn't about living with humanity. It's about making New Skrullos.
I can see why so many folks hate it. Not a normal slice of Marvel pie by any stretch of the imagination. Some could even think it was taking pot-shots at their fandom.
Halfway through and I'm not sold on anyone's baggage, let alone the 'plot.'
This feels like it needed to be background throughout phases 3 & 4, and not just setting up the next 'twist' in a flashback five minutes before so we can vaguely sort of feel bad that someone might have a bond or something that we never saw. Fury's bonds in particular have all the strength of a used tissue in a rainstorm. He's just a petty little prick.
Just to be clear,
Spoiler:
gunshots happened at a naval admiral's residence, and nobody nearby came to see the alien corpses scattered about the yard, or the two men piling them up in an SUV and pausing to chat with the doors open half-an-hour later?
Really?
Spoiler:
Also, why did the Admiral Skrull give two farts about not-actually-his-son? The 'plan' is really, actually literally kill all humans. He could've just killed Talos in the first place and ambushed Fury when he opened the door...
As for the end... the first event isn't going to stick. Surprise dramatic reveal at the end of of episode 5. The second is misdirection. They're being too obviously cagey, again.
To the second point, part of the the tech the skrulls use, is, if you use it too long, you start to act more like who you are impersonating.
Also, i have to ask, what do Gavik think is gonna happen when wipes out humanity.
PArt of the reason they need a new home is the kree are hunting them.
IF they take out earth, Kree and all the rest of the galaxy will be livid, they just tok out the race that saved the galaxy.
I checked out after two dull episodes of thoroughly unlikeable characters and yet another capable and highly-competent hero in a Disney property turned into a grumpy old man past his prime.
Lance845 wrote: Secret Invasion is turning into the tragedy of Talos. The show is good. I like it. 6 episodes might be too short ...
Nick Fury needs to stop being a Dick to his one good friend.
I don't get why he's like that, to be honest, but to me the show is pretty devoid of things to take an interest in. At least Fury being a dick is funny to watch.
Spoiler:
Ogling Emilia Clarke is just about the only other thing to keep me busy while I wait for something interesting to happen. Very rude to shoot her character. I'm not getting the impression that she's dead dead, but no more screen time until it's revealed as a twist isn't helping the show. And if she is dead for good, that's even less helpful.
I checked out after two dull episodes of thoroughly unlikeable characters and yet another capable and highly-competent hero in a Disney property turned into a grumpy old man past his prime.
Nah. They decided to escalate both problems instead.
But someone went to a classy bank to get a single handgun out of a safe deposit box and walked through a train station with their 'Spy' hat on like it was a Jason Bourne movie, so clearly they're doing their 'research'
I think pretty much every Disney + show with the exceptions of Wanda Vision and Loki are better binged back to back then weekly episodes.
Even now, going back and rewatching episodes 1-3 of Secret Invasion together the show manages to keep some better narrative flow without the long breaks. I am borderline ready to stop watching until it's all out.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Am I the only one one feeling as if nothing happens to advance the story every episode? Like I feel like we are right where we stated still
I kind of feel that way. It's less that NOTHING is happening and more that it's happening at such a glacial pace that the 6 episode run doesn't seem nearly enough.
Spoiler:
Episode 1 establish there is a skrull spy game going on.
2 establish Graviks take over of the skrull leadership.
3 Reveal G'iah's loyalty.
4 Fury strikes back and suffers some losses from the team he never really started building.
Great...
So 2 more episodes for Fury to get his gak together and come up with a plan of attack against this global threat and then execute it in a way that .... kind of has to work? Right?
hotsauceman1 wrote: Am I the only one one feeling as if nothing happens to advance the story every episode? Like I feel like we are right where we stated still
I kind of feel that way. It's less that NOTHING is happening and more that it's happening at such a glacial pace that the 6 episode run doesn't seem nearly enough.
Spoiler:
Episode 1 establish there is a skrull spy game going on.
2 establish Graviks take over of the skrull leadership.
3 Reveal G'iah's loyalty.
4 Fury strikes back and suffers some losses from the team he never really started building.
Great...
So 2 more episodes for Fury to get his gak together and come up with a plan of attack against this global threat and then execute it in a way that .... kind of has to work? Right?
Nothing is not improved by giving something more time to do nothing.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Am I the only one one feeling as if nothing happens to advance the story every episode? Like I feel like we are right where we stated still
I kind of feel that way. It's less that NOTHING is happening and more that it's happening at such a glacial pace that the 6 episode run doesn't seem nearly enough.
Spoiler:
Episode 1 establish there is a skrull spy game going on.
2 establish Graviks take over of the skrull leadership.
3 Reveal G'iah's loyalty.
4 Fury strikes back and suffers some losses from the team he never really started building.
Great...
So 2 more episodes for Fury to get his gak together and come up with a plan of attack against this global threat and then execute it in a way that .... kind of has to work? Right?
Nothing is not improved by giving something more time to do nothing.
I don't mind a slow burn. I feel like this kind of pace would work with the netflix 13 episode format. we get 4 episodes of build up and then a twist. 4 episodes of the second act and then a twist again. 4 episodes of the 3rd act that ends on a cliff hanger and a finale to wrap it all up.
If this was written and designed in the Netflix Marvel Show format this next episode would be about Fury making his plan to go on the offensive and 3 more episodes of the good guys getting some gak done before the rug got pulled out from under them.
It's not though. And with only 2 episodes left this thing is going to have to rush in a way that won't be satisfactory.
Huh. I forgot about the episode this week.
Which I guess says everything that needs to be said.
I guess I'll catch up eventually at some point.
I wonder if Jackson ever thinks about his role in the Star Wars prequels, and how he demanded he go out like a bad***, not a chump. Now when I think of him, I think of him as an old man, with Fury's little pop gun, raising and lowering it over and over again without taking a shot.
I really wouldn't mind it, except it really doesn't feel at all like an invasion. My expectations were much higher for, you know, something that actually feels like a global conspiracy or a war. This is extremely small scale, and feels more like a well equipped gang fighting and I think would have benefited from a different name. It pretty closely matches the level of conflict you see in the Netflix marvel, street level heroes series.
The problem is they're trying to play up these worldwide, global stakes, and they just are not there. Even calling it Fury would have worked better.
Gitzbitah wrote: I really wouldn't mind it, except it really doesn't feel at all like an invasion. My expectations were much higher for, you know, something that actually feels like a global conspiracy or a war. This is extremely small scale, and feels more like a well equipped gang fighting and I think would have benefited from a different name. It pretty closely matches the level of conflict you see in the Netflix marvel, street level heroes series.
The problem is they're trying to play up these worldwide, global stakes, and they just are not there. Even calling it Fury would have worked better.
Comes off the same way with how Age of Ultron was titled tbh, where the idea of "Age" would be considered longer than the 1-2 weeks Ultron was active and messing around with the Avengers.
"Long Weekend of Ultron" doesn't have the same ring to it.
I still haven't gone back to this. I just find the central premise - Fury didn't find a world for the Skrulls in 30 years, so they're going to take over Earth - to be completely unrealistic.
H.B.M.C. wrote: "Long Weekend of Ultron" doesn't have the same ring to it.
I still haven't gone back to this. I just find the central premise - Fury didn't find a world for the Skrulls in 30 years, so they're going to take over Earth - to be completely unrealistic.
They kind of uncut it as well by suggesting they were the comic book donkey-caves all along. Which seemed likely, but... I dunno. They're both guilty and innocent, ridiculously powerful and helpless, all at the same time.
The premise that they're in control of the UK, India and the US media but are still poor, disgruntled refugees is a bit mind-numbing. AND defacto in charge of international espionage for 30 years. (So... Hydra, by the by...)
Once in charge, the next person in charge will also always be a Skrull.
I also really want to know how the writers think major heads of state can just wander around Russia, and vanish for hours or even days at a time, even without a major international crisis happening.
(yadda yadda shapeshifters, but also yadda yadda 'their disguises are better if they stay shifted' or whatever that was.)
Voss wrote: They're both guilty and innocent, ridiculously powerful and helpless, all at the same time.
So Marvel is fence-sitting again, just like they did with the Flagsmashers in Mephisto & The Winter Mephisto.
Sounds about right.
But at least with F&TWS they had the excuse of their show's central plotline being torn to gak because it was all about a pandemic and suddenly that had to be written out/edited around because they didn't want to release a show about a pandemic during a pendemic.
