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How do!

Just been to the cinema in the first time in forever to go see Shang Chi.

It’s…really good! Decently paced, good exposition. The action is superb, and the characters likeable.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Spoiler:

Post credit scenes are solid, even if the last one is somewhat predictable. Could see it dovetailing into the fate of the Black Widows that survived the fall of the Red Room too.

Saw it. Pretty great! I think the second half of the 3rd act kind of stumbles a little bit. But over all great.

I think they might tie into The Eternals in some way?

Certainly they’re once again heading down a path where my limited comic knowledge is completely failing me in terms of predicting what might tie into what.

Really looking forward to what the future holds.

 Lance845 wrote:
Saw it. Pretty great! I think the second half of the 3rd act kind of stumbles a little bit. But over all great.

Spoiler:

So the rings. Either they are signaling Fin Fang Foom or they are Celestial/Deviant in origin.

Regarding certain named dragon - could the one from the movie be him, without naming him there?

Nah. He didn’t get his face wrecked by Squirrel Girl.

I thought it was an alright movie. Had a good time but not enough to want to buy it when it comes out. I think my favorite scene was the bus fight. The Mandarin was well done making him not just a generic evil baddy and also realize how much his influence was going on in the background in earlier Marvel films without being to on the nose about it. I didn't mind the change to the rings from rings to bracelets but their powers seemed a bit generic tbh. Maybe later they will discover that they can freeze, shoot flames, ect.

 Shadow Walker wrote:
Regarding certain named dragon - could the one from the movie be him, without naming him there?

Nope. Ta Lo is one of mavels "God Realms" like Asgard. That thing is literally a God protector dragon.

Fin Fang Foom is an alien called a Makluan whose ship crashes on earth with him in a suspended state. The 10 rings in the comics are alien tech found in his ship. Alluded to in the movie without explicitly stating their origins.

I also appreciated that the baddie wasn’t just a malevolent moustache twirler.

 Ahtman wrote:
I thought it was an alright movie. Had a good time but not enough to want to buy it when it comes out. I think my favorite scene was the bus fight. The Mandarin was well done making him not just a generic evil baddy and also realize how much his influence was going on in the background in earlier Marvel films without being to on the nose about it. I didn't mind the change to the rings from rings to bracelets but their powers seemed a bit generic tbh. Maybe later they will discover that they can freeze, shoot flames, ect.

Spoiler:

Might not be Fin Fang Foom but the same species of aliens that look like dragons that Fin Fang Foom came from. I hope it is Fin Fang Foom though because Fin Fang Foom is such a fun thing to say. Fin Fang Foom.

See I would rather they didn't do all that stuff. The 10 rings combined powers comes down to... ah... so almost the infinity gauntlet again. But this time 10 Macguffins instead of 6.

Also the WAY they are used in this is pretty fantastic. And the difference in the way they are used by different people is also pretty great.

I was thinking they would make the Great Protector and "heart of the dragon" be a bit more metaphorical. Nope, they just outright did it. I liked in the last battle that everyone was useful, and Shang-Chi did not just hog all the glory himself.

This movie really leaned into many of the "tropes" of Asian cinema and it was better for it.

However, this movie did make me feel like Black Widow really got the shaft. I felt like Shang-Chi was better written, better characterization, better villain, and better "stakes". Sure, Black Widow had to fit the modern Atomic Blonde/Casino Royale/Jason Bourne model BUT it just didn't feel like it pulled it off as well as Shang-Chi did with leaning into its genre tropes.

Haven't gotten to watch it yet, but glad to hear pretty positive reactions. The last couple of weeks my feed has been overloaded with the kind of disgusting "will it to fail" nonsense the internet has gotten so bad about lately.

 Easy E wrote:
I was thinking they would make the Great Protector and "heart of the dragon" be a bit more metaphorical. Nope, they just outright did it. I liked in the last battle that everyone was useful, and Shang-Chi did not just hog all the glory himself.

This movie really leaned into many of the "tropes" of Asian cinema and it was better for it.

However, this movie did make me feel like Black Widow really got the shaft. I felt like Shang-Chi was better written, better characterization, better villain, and better "stakes". Sure, Black Widow had to fit the modern Atomic Blonde/Casino Royale/Jason Bourne model BUT it just didn't feel like it pulled it off as well as Shang-Chi did with leaning into its genre tropes.

I feel BW suffered from the delayed release, as it came hot on the heels of the well received WandaVision, FalconSoldier and indeed Loki, each of which moved us neatly along from the fallout of End Game.

It was slated for release before them, so ended up with an unintentionally tough act to follow. What’s there is good. It’s objectively a good film. But with the three tv shows really showing more of the MCU’s potential, BW felt a bit out of place alongside its stablemates.

Perhaps. On re-watch, in the right order it may fare better.

Also, it really does feel like a Ten Rings show is on the horizon complete with Jon-Jon and Razorfist.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I feel BW suffered from the delayed release, as it came hot on the heels of the well received WandaVision, FalconSoldier and indeed Loki, each of which moved us neatly along from the fallout of End Game.

It was slated for release before them, so ended up with an unintentionally tough act to follow. What’s there is good. It’s objectively a good film. But with the three tv shows really showing more of the MCU’s potential, BW felt a bit out of place alongside its stablemates.

I'm shocked they dropped it right after the Loki cliffhanger of uncovering the man behind the curtain. That had ALL the hype of the MCU and Black Widow got dropped right in between.

 Lance845 wrote:
See I would rather they didn't do all that stuff. The 10 rings combined powers comes down to... ah... so almost the infinity gauntlet again. But this time 10 Macguffins instead of 6.

I don't want it to be all the stuff from the comics either but I would like a little more than generic energy projection. I suppose it was energy projection and mind control, as they were able to control them remotely. They were utilised fine and I'm not going to be upset of there isn't really more added to them; it is just a nitpick tbh.

On the ten rings?

Let's see, he used them to block bullets, complete super-leaps, to pull things/people around, explode people, shoot energy blasts, power punches, power blocks, and to create a energy shield. They also granted eternal life and may have helped him translate stuff (Unsure on that last one).

Those sound like pretty good abilities to me. I think they got pretty creative in how they used them.

But, on the basis of the comics, don’t exhaust their potential.

I mean…I’m kinda old now at 41. I grew up with the good old ZX Spectrum computer. If nothing had come to challenge my experience there? I’d be quite happy still playing on my beloved Speccy. Though I might have upgraded to an Amstrad once I got old enough to have a job.

I feel that’s where Wenwu might’ve plateaued in terms of him exploring the potential of the Rings. What he’d figured out was More Than Good Enough for around 1,000 years. They brought him wealth, power and infamy quite early on. The fear of his reputation carried him the rest of the way.

Had he met Iron Man? He might’ve done what I did, and go a bit SNES, N64, GameCube, Wii, Switch in terms of exploring the potential of the medium he was enjoying.

This….this was random. Hopefully it makes sense.

I get it. With what he knew, he could beat any conventionally armed foe one-on-one.

However, now the Avenger's were unconventional foes and might require him to go a bit deeper.

Ahhh, but because *reasons*, he never came up against them…

Which to my mind only adds to the narrative potential of them!

 Easy E wrote:
Let's see, he used them to block bullets, complete super-leaps, to pull things/people around, explode people, shoot energy blasts, power punches, power blocks, and to create a energy shield.

Magneto does all sorts of thing with magnetic fields but it is still affecting magnetic fields and not multiple powers. How The Citrus Fruit projected the energy from the rings allowed him to do all that, but it is still manipulating energy not multiple powers. Now the elongated life span and psychic control would be separate abilities granted by the rings.

I don't think they ever created energy blasts. I think they have their own energy FIELD around them and linking them which was used with them all in motion to create that bubble to stop arrows and gak. But mostly he blasted the rings themselves into people.

What I found really neat was that Wen Wu only ever used them as blunt instruments. I shoot them into the ground to launch me. I shoot them into people. I make a chain to grab a person. Etc etc..

But Shang Chi used them to create stepping stones, hand holds, moved them to line up with his kicks. Shang Chi showed a broader potential for the rings application than his father ever did. I feel like that was very interesting.

Basically they were only ever a weapon to Wen Wu. They are a tool to Shang Chi.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Let's see, he used them to block bullets, complete super-leaps, to pull things/people around, explode people, shoot energy blasts, power punches, power blocks, and to create a energy shield.

Magneto does all sorts of thing with magnetic fields but it is still affecting magnetic fields and not multiple powers.

Well... that depends. The (Fox) movies certainly make it seem that way, but moving forward into the MCU is a question mark.
In the comics, and particularly the behind the scenes stuff, that's... less true.

Part of it is simply writer fiat and bad science, but...
at times he's shown off gravity manipulation, shooting energy blasts, magnetic control of non-metallic objects, being able sever chemical bonds at the atomic level, invisibility, shields that allow him to survive in space, physical strength and reaction boosts, wormholes, and some level of telepathy (that's sometimes just his helmet instead), but sometimes he can block telepaths without it, read dreams, issue telepathic commands, and even astrally project himself. Almost none of that can be handwaved away by 'magnetism.'

The rings are similarly a narrative device that could go in many different directions (source, amplifier, catalyst, etc).