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Love street level MCU

 LunarSol wrote:
I am so wildly behind this corner of the MCU.

Now if we could only get more Moon Knight.

When I rewatched the Netflix Punisher seasons I thought they'd aged pretty well. The actor has generally trended at being better in his role over time too. He appeared in the Spiderman trailer too so I'm looking forward to that one.

Recently rewatched the Avengers movies cause I got the itch. They're still pretty good even the less good ones in Ultron. But I still had the itch so I caught up on Captain America: Brave New World. It's okay, I guess. Not a great movie. Not a terrible movie. They had some good acting talent in it though and just didn't really give the characters not named Ross much to really work with. Actually wonder how good this movie might have been had it been more of a personal or psychological thriller focused on Ross specifically rather than centered on Sam. Not that Sam is bad in this movie he just doesn't have much to do but be the guy who saves the day. Guess they shuffled all his character development into Falcon and the Winter Soldier :/

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the original goal of BNW was to make a Tom Clancy film and test audiences balked at the lack of action or clear villain. It's a cool story that just doesn't feel cohesive, and Anthony Mackie kind of gets heavily outshone by Ford.

I feel like the core problem is that the portrayal of the Leader doesn't really work. He just doesn't cast the presence of a looming mastermind throughout the film to make that work. His probability gimmick feels, honestly like a spitball writing idea that isn't nearly as compelling as whoever wrote it thought it was.

Like, there's a really cool film built around Ross's need for control that uses Banner and Betty and the Captain Amerca brand in there. It just doesn't execute them with the confidence needed to really work.

When you put it like that, it totally feels like someone pitched 'Clear and Present Danger except Marvel' and then it just kind of didn't work. But maybe that's just because it has Ford in it and he stared in a lot of Tom Clancy stuff and Clancy-like stuff in the 80s and 90s!

 LordofHats wrote:
When you put it like that, it totally feels like someone pitched 'Clear and Present Danger except Marvel' and then it just kind of didn't work. But maybe that's just because it has Ford in it and he stared in a lot of Tom Clancy stuff and Clancy-like stuff in the 80s and 90s!

It was probably a bit closer to that initially but, like Falcon and Winter Soldier, they started retooling, rewriting, and reshooting a lot of it halfway through. At least F&WS had Covid as a reasonable excuse. For BNW the studio seemed to suddenly decide audiences wouldn't want an espionage thriller and threw in Hulk villians and the Serpent Society. Giancarlo Esposito's character was entirely added in during reshoots post production.

Now I'm on the Black Panthers and damnit. Black Panther still has a kind of meh transition into a weaker third act, but I still liked T'Challa's character and I looked forward to what the next film staring him could really do.

And Wakanda Forever just suffers so much in his absence. In a way it's a great movie for mourning what was lost when he passed. But it's also like... Just not a great movie because none of the actors or actresses can really fill that void and you feel his absence the entire film. T'Challa managed to be more than the sum of his parts in the best way, but Wakanda Forever just comes out to be less than the sum of its parts and it's disappointing because it didn't have to be this way but life is a cruel bitch sometimes T_T

I really think losing Chadwick Boseman fethed a lot of the plans for Phase 4. Boseman might not have been the best actor in the MCU, but he worked for his character and put forward a performance that was better than the sum of its parts. He would have been a great linchpin character to center the post-Tony Stark/Steve Rogers MCU and losing him took that away, with no standing legacy characters who could really fill that void and none of the more recently established ones who could step up and fill it.

 LordofHats wrote:
Now I'm on the Black Panthers and damnit. Black Panther still has a kind of meh transition into a weaker third act, but I still liked T'Challa's character and I looked forward to what the next film staring him could really do.

And Wakanda Forever just suffers so much in his absence. In a way it's a great movie for mourning what was lost when he passed. But it's also like... Just not a great movie because none of the actors or actresses can really fill that void and you feel his absence the entire film. T'Challa managed to be more than the sum of his parts in the best way, but Wakanda Forever just comes out to be less than the sum of its parts and it's disappointing because it didn't have to be this way but life is a cruel bitch sometimes T_T

I really think losing Chadwick Boseman fethed a lot of the plans for Phase 4. Boseman might not have been the best actor in the MCU, but he worked for his character and put forward a performance that was better than the sum of its parts. He would have been a great linchpin character to center the post-Tony Stark/Steve Rogers MCU and losing him took that away, with no standing legacy characters who could really fill that void and none of the more recently established ones who could step up and fill it.

I was initially unimpressed with Black Panther because of the very weak, generic superhero film finale (at least they didn’t have a sky beam), but it’s actually become one of my favourite MCU films on rewatching, when I figured out that it’s much more about the character development. It’s one of the few films of any genre I can think of where the hero gets to the end and basically goes, the villain may have been going about it all wrong, but he had a point, we should actually do that, but in a better way.

I think the movie's main weakness is that everyone sort of ditches T'Challa and goes along with Killmonger kind of easily, and it's really weird that T'Challa doesn't immediately say that Killmonger attacked him and rescued Klaue just to show up with his corpse a bit later, which seems extremely suspicious to me and like maybe we shouldn't trust that this guy is legit. Like the whole transition into the finale act is just really weak and brings down the movie a little bit. The action bits and stuff after that work, and the emotional stakes are solid. The plot just suffers a bit for how fast things kind of spin out like all the characters know they have to go along with this for the sake of the plot even though you'd think they'd protest more or point out 'this seems insanely sus.'

EDIT: And honestly, while we're at it, why doesn't Killmonger just take Klaue down when they first cross paths and then go to Wakanda, when there'd be no way for T'Challa or anyone to point out he's acting like kind of a crazy person? The plot of the movie is just kind of eh. It kind of gets carried hard by how charismatic the characters are.

The movie is less about Black Panther, and more about Wakanda and its place in the world.

Subtext is essentially Wakanda has kept itself and its fantastical way of living to itself. Meanwhile, the rest of Africa has experienced little but exploitation.

Killmonger was right, but his solution was just “boot on the other foot”. Wakanda, and by extension, T’Challa, was wrong in remaining isolationist.

And so we have a fairly quick civil war. The way I read it, it’s not so much Killmonger’s proposed method that swayed some of the tribes, but overall message of “why have we just sat back and watched”. His argument, if not his proposed approach has plenty of merit at the end of the day.

Hence, when T’Challa wins out in the end, serious reforms are made. Major ones.

Sadly they’ve not really follow through on that. But I guess when your massively charismatic lead passes away at a tragically young age? There are inevitable changes of plan.

There are tons of moments from Black Panther that stick in my craw, which several have been addressed already, but one that I CANNOT let go was the moment where W'kabi tries to run Okoye down with the rhino. He clearly demonstrates that he's committed to killing her in order to push his agenda. When she has him at spearpoint, he asks "You would kill me, beloved?" Her reply: "For Wakanda? Without hesitation."


WHY IN THE NAME OF EVERY DEITY DID SHE HESITATE AT THAT POINT?

Oh, we get to look forward to more fun with Frank. Yay!

 Just Tony wrote:
There are tons of moments from Black Panther that stick in my craw, which several have been addressed already, but one that I CANNOT let go was the moment where W'kabi tries to run Okoye down with the rhino. He clearly demonstrates that he's committed to killing her in order to push his agenda. When she has him at spearpoint, he asks "You would kill me, beloved?" Her reply: "For Wakanda? Without hesitation."


WHY IN THE NAME OF EVERY DEITY DID SHE HESITATE AT THAT POINT?

Psychosis. She's the one who calls automatic firearms primitive while she waves around a pointy stick. Stands to reason she has a poor grasp on reality in general.

Why would someone be irrational when attacking their significant other in a moment of rage and betrayal? Yeah, that is a tough nut to crack. Most people are calm and collected with a clear mind and clear heart during that kind of betrayal.

Brave New World was too afraid of what it wanted to actually say to be any good.

It ended up being rather prescient in one really big way.

 Ahtman wrote:
Why would someone be irrational when attacking their significant other in a moment of rage and betrayal? Yeah, that is a tough nut to crack. Most people are calm and collected with a clear mind and clear heart during that kind of betrayal.

And here's where I realized you've never been in actual combat, AND defending that betrayal wouldn't enrage her enough to just kill him out of anger instead of out of duty. No amount of copium can explain that gak.

 Just Tony wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
Why would someone be irrational when attacking their significant other in a moment of rage and betrayal? Yeah, that is a tough nut to crack. Most people are calm and collected with a clear mind and clear heart during that kind of betrayal.

And here's where I realized you've never been in actual combat, AND defending that betrayal wouldn't enrage her enough to just kill him out of anger instead of out of duty. No amount of copium can explain that gak.

Good catch, you have correctly identified that I've never been in combat against an technologically advanced sci-fi civilization that utilize trained Rhinos, a magic mineral, and a super soldier flower potion. Perhaps my error was not thinking of the comic book movie's conflict and combat in terms of scientific realism, but instead in terms of narrative and character. Truly, I don't know what I was thinking. My bad,

Snark doesn't change the fact that it was literal combat with someone who had personally betrayed her and was flat out trying to kill her. It was only the rhino knowing her that saved her life. STILL an incredibly stupid scene.

 Just Tony wrote:
Snark doesn't change the fact that it was literal combat with someone who had personally betrayed her and was flat out trying to kill her. It was only the rhino knowing her that saved her life. STILL an incredibly stupid scene.

Oh I see the problem you're having trouble distinguishing a movie from reality. It is literally not real combat, there wasn't even a real rhino, it is a scripted and choreographed bit in service to a fictional narrative. If you don't like the scene fine but the reasoning of it not being real is asinine.

 LordofHats wrote:

I really think losing Chadwick Boseman fethed a lot of the plans for Phase 4. Boseman might not have been the best actor in the MCU, but he worked for his character and put forward a performance that was better than the sum of its parts. He would have been a great linchpin character to center the post-Tony Stark/Steve Rogers MCU and losing him took that away, with no standing legacy characters who could really fill that void and none of the more recently established ones who could step up and fill it.

The original plan was to have Boseman replace Chris Evans, Holland replace RDJ and Brie replace Hemsworth and quickly fell apart with Boseman's death, "the internet" deciding Brie didn't smile enough and Sony deciding to stop cooperating with the Spider-Man rights and obviously all the COVID stuff.

Man, War machine really got the shaft in that plan.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Snark doesn't change the fact that it was literal combat with someone who had personally betrayed her and was flat out trying to kill her. It was only the rhino knowing her that saved her life. STILL an incredibly stupid scene.

Oh I see the problem you're having trouble distinguishing a movie from reality. It is literally not real combat, there wasn't even a real rhino, it is a scripted and choreographed bit in service to a fictional narrative. If you don't like the scene fine but the reasoning of it not being real is asinine.

Quadrupling down on the snark and then being a condescending donkey-cave while insulting my intelligence CERTAINLY doesn't change the fact that the entire scene was written like gak.

I definitely find BP to be one of the MCU's best, even with its rather disappointing final duel. It's two main leads carry so many ideas about culture, tradition, and generational pain that make its story about far more than the summary of events that happen in the film. It's a film that I'm always disappointed gets dismissed for its MCU trappings rather than explored for how much it has to say. It's not a perfect film, nor my favorite, but easily in my top 5 for the MCU.

Wakanda Forever is definitely a film heavily compromised by the death of its lead. You can definitely feel where Boseman was supposed to be in nearly every scene. Given its circumstances I think it gets really close to pulling it off and I think even more than the original, it's really let down by the distracting CGI in its otherwise extremely personal finale.

Also, being made during the pandemic lead to further compromises.

 Just Tony wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Snark doesn't change the fact that it was literal combat with someone who had personally betrayed her and was flat out trying to kill her. It was only the rhino knowing her that saved her life. STILL an incredibly stupid scene.

Oh I see the problem you're having trouble distinguishing a movie from reality. It is literally not real combat, there wasn't even a real rhino, it is a scripted and choreographed bit in service to a fictional narrative. If you don't like the scene fine but the reasoning of it not being real is asinine.

Quadrupling down on the snark and then being a condescending donkey-cave while insulting my intelligence CERTAINLY doesn't change the fact that the entire scene was written like gak.

Ok

I think we need to be clear that most of the discussion about media on this board is all opinion based. You ( the generic you in this case) will see one thing as a plot hole, I will see it as obvious. You will like something, and I will fnd it insipid.

There is no "objective truth" to be found here.

 Easy E wrote:
There is no "objective truth" to be found here.

Except that Secret Invasion was bad.

And that Section 31 is an abomination.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And that Section 31 is an abomination.

It's not MCU, but I'll allow it.

What, no one wnated to chime in and tell me how Jared Leto is objectively bad? Come on Dakka, are you even trying anymore?

 Easy E wrote:
What, no one wnated to chime in and tell me how Jared Leto is objectively bad? Come on Dakka, are you even trying anymore?

Hey now, don't make the Society of Jared Leto Appreciators come into the thread at full force. Mad Dok can only take so much fan casting for him as every major lead for every franchise

I would love to see him show up in Avengers Doomsday just to see his reaction to that though.