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 lord_blackfang wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
The kind of setbacks they've faced post Endgame are pretty unbelievable.

I mean... I kinda find any and all sorts of setback believable when you are dragging on the zombie of a franchise past its narrative climax and logical conclusion, with plans to apparently give it move movies in death than it got in life.

So because the Avengers defeated Thanos there's no more stories to tell?

Just because Phil stopped looping on Groundhog Day, there's no more stories to tell?

*shrug*

I don't know a single person IRL who went to see anything since Endgame except maybe Deadpool.

I'm confused as to why you think that Thanos is the only Avengers-level threat, honestly. There's 60 years worth of comic history to mine for stories. It was never going to be just a one-and-done story arc, so long as the movies kept making money.

And while we're being all anecdotal, I've seen everything before and since Endgame, and so have those of my friends who are into comic book movies. You may have lost interest, but some of us still want to see what might come next.

I think the problem is escalation of threat.

The producers/filmmakers/executives/survey data all want to produce bigger threats each time they produce a film in a series. Each big bad must be worse than the one that came before - the problem with Thanos is that was a multi-movie massive universe ending type threat.

That's really hard to top and it cuts out a LOT of the enemies, stories, plots and more from 60 years of comic adventures.

It's like an open world RPG with fixed levels on foes. Once you've beaten the end-game boss - everything else is basically a non-threat cake-walk. It's really hard to bring heroes down to deal with localised small threats when they've just beaten such a massive thing. They are just too experienced, well equipped and so forth to make it a believable level of drama

Honestly it feels like both a comic/film generational thing on the creative side that right now we are well into an age where everything has to be big, galactic threat levels. Even heroes that historically dealt with quite minor threats and localised issues are now dealing with kingdom/country/world/universe ending threats on a regular basis.


I think the other issue is actors shifting around; reboots (spiderman is onto what 4, 5?) and link-ups. Whilst strong fans can and have kept up; a lot of casual fans feel confused and burned out. So whilst they want a cool film, they also don't want to go into it where half the plot and key characters were developed outside of it in a series on a streaming service; and the other half are in films lead by other heroes and so forth.

Good chunk of post Endgame tales dealt with the fallout of Endgame.

Half the universe’s population gone for five years, then suddenly they’re back. Which helps Endgame feel like it happened, and it mattered. Now the storytelling wasn’t great there, but I do prefer it to “we’ll just undo everything Thanos did and wind back time”.

Kang however does feel like a damp squib. I liked the portrayal, but the underlying story felt wonky and poorly planned out.

We also need to keep in mind a fair chunk was filmed with COVID restrictions in place. Now that doesn’t mean “therefore they’re secretly great”, but it is a factor we shouldn’t ignore.

I think COVID messed more with timing than anything. The MCU has generally not really been about setting up the next film outside of post credit stuff, but even post credit stuff can be hard to tease properly when schedules are up in the air. The big stand out to me is The Marvels, which very much feels like it was supposed to be set up by Far From Home of all things and definitely not after Secret Invasion.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Kang however does feel like a damp squib.

Certainly you meant a damp squid.

I don't think He Who Remains and the kangs are weak villains. I think we need to see them get things done.

The Kang of Quantumania was a Kang weakened and banished. He Who Remains so far, has won. He always won. He always will have won.

Now we need to see the council of Kangs winning. In the same way Thanos sat in the background for 11 years before showing up and being a monster. We need Kangs to show up and be monsters.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Kang however does feel like a damp squib.

Certainly you meant a damp squid.

Nope.

A squib is a small firework, often used as the trigger for a larger firework. Being a firework, if it’s damp it won’t work.

So, I just read an article complaining about RDJ playing Doom. Apparently they are saying it's Whitewashing? I though Doom was a White guy? Was there a variant that was another ethnicity?

 cuda1179 wrote:
So, I just read an article complaining about RDJ playing Doom. Apparently they are saying it's Whitewashing? I though Doom was a White guy? Was there a variant that was another ethnicity?

Latveria is in southeast Europe, and according to wikipedia:

Ethnic Groups: Mixed European stock, Slavs, Roma, Greek, possibly Bulgarians who migrated in Banat during the Ottoman rule in Bulgaria

Most of the comments I've seen is that people would have preferred a relatively-unknown actor from one of those ethnic groups.

I mean, if he's literally just playing THE Victor Von Doom from Latveria I can't say I disagree. I just don't think that's what's happening here.

 cuda1179 wrote:
So, I just read an article complaining about RDJ playing Doom. Apparently they are saying it's Whitewashing? I though Doom was a White guy? Was there a variant that was another ethnicity?

Isn’t he supposed to be Slavic? I heard the same complaints about The Witcher.

Theory.
RDJ is just Trevor Slattery again

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Theory.
RDJ is just Trevor Slattery again

I'd personally prefer if they went full ham on the ridiculousness and have Tommy Wisseau be Dr. Doom:

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Foh-hai-reed-v0-m1wy61r1ycfd1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D95812aba50a72c15594deee6d3b5ded01004f478

I did not hit her Reed, I did not hit her, I did NAWT.

Oh hi, Hulk.

It's the same co.plaint they have about wanda and pietro.

All 3 of these characters are technically "romani". An ethnic group generally marginalized throughout the eastern european area.

The people complaining would like someone with at least some romani descent to play the characters.

Not stating an opinion on agreement or disagreement with the sentiment. Just stating the sentiment.

 Grimskul wrote:


I'd personally prefer if they went full ham on the ridiculousness and have Tommy Wisseau be Dr. Doom:

That would save the MCU. Tommy Wisseau for the win. RDJ was not a good choice.

For me - Endgame did a brilliant job of ending the stories of most of the characters that I had grown to love over the previous years and then....

Well just not being grabbed by whats left and whats new.... I mean the films I have been seen have been ok I guess - about the same level as say Justice League and Aquaman and 8 million times better than Batman vs Superman...but not really excited to see a new marvel film and thats same with friends - maybe its just an age thing... I don't know...

RDJ - loved him as Iron Man and would have been excited to have him back as an IM with his supporting cast - maybe his Doom will be great - I will see what its like.

I wonder how much difference it would have made if some of the short tv series had been movies instead.

WandaVision was brilliant, and really needed the episodic format to work, but Ms Marvel, Bucky and the Birdman (as Captain America 4), and Hawkeye would all have been much punchier as movies, and cinema releases would possibly have given them a wider appeal overall.

Hawkeye is my favorite show and Ms. Marvel and Loki were a fun watch as well. I'm happy with the format they're in.

The difference for me between good and not so good post-Infinity War Marvel (yep, not Endgame. Lame time travel resolution is lame) is how serious they're trying to be. All this whining about the blip and trying to make the next universe ending threat happen (and all of Black Panther, as sad as the real life reason for it is) isn't fun. The wackier and more lighthearted stuff works very well for me, on the other hand. Strange 2 and The Marvels for movies, and the aforementioned shows.

That's really it for me. Too much gravity, not enough fun. Maybe a little better craftsmanship wouldn't go amiss when it comes to setting things up and resolving them. But I can put up with a lot of flaws as long as it's fun to watch.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the series as well. My concern with them is accessibility. I can't help but wonder how much it hurt The Marvels that two of the main characters were set up in two different TV series locked behind the D+ paywall. How many cinema goers are going to have no idea who Kate Bishop is or why she's in the next Avengers movie?

While the extra content is great for those of us willing to consume it, I wonder if they've introduced too many new characters too fast and in a way that makes it harder for the general audience to follow, and I can't help thinking that's going to hurt things going forward.

 insaniak wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the series as well. My concern with them is accessibility. I can't help but wonder how much it hurt The Marvels that two of the main characters were set up in two different TV series locked behind the D+ paywall. How many cinema goers are going to have no idea who Kate Bishop is or why she's in the next Avengers movie?

While the extra content is great for those of us willing to consume it, I wonder if they've introduced too many new characters too fast and in a way that makes it harder for the general audience to follow, and I can't help thinking that's going to hurt things going forward.

I think that's definitely a factor. And when people fall 'behind', some of them are likely to give up following it altogether.

Marvels definitely could have been a movie and missed nothing. I feel like the Falcon movie NEEDED to be a show. Loki and Wanda were mandatory shows based on their content. And I could agree that Hawkeye could have been a movie even though it's legit one of my favorite shows they did.

I think post end game I can agree they got a little to serious. And they were slow to capitalize on some of their better stuff. Also whatever happened to thier release schedule needs to be fixed. The jarring shifts in Nick Fury are obviously because everything is out of order but holy poop are they noticable and a turn off.

There's definitely a few that felt like they might have been film scripts that were used to test the process of turning into shows. Falcon and Ms Marvel are probably the two most notable in that direction. Wanda is definitely written as a show. Loki I'm a bit split on. It could be either, but it definitely benefits from the extra runtime and the amount of effort that went into it as an early offering.

I think Hawkeye and Moon Knight feel more like they were designed as shows and I think they would have set a better town for the TV side if the line hadn't been blurred early on. Secret Invasion feels like its obviously a salvaged script that got made to fill some contracts but was at one point probably supposed to be a film and maybe Captain Marvel 2.

 gorgon wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the series as well. My concern with them is accessibility. I can't help but wonder how much it hurt The Marvels that two of the main characters were set up in two different TV series locked behind the D+ paywall. How many cinema goers are going to have no idea who Kate Bishop is or why she's in the next Avengers movie?

While the extra content is great for those of us willing to consume it, I wonder if they've introduced too many new characters too fast and in a way that makes it harder for the general audience to follow, and I can't help thinking that's going to hurt things going forward.

I think that's definitely a factor. And when people fall 'behind', some of them are likely to give up following it altogether.

Very true - I don't have Disney so have virtually no idea about most of it now - but plenty of other stuff to watch - also I know friends with Disney subs very unhappy about the new adverts

 gorgon wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the series as well. My concern with them is accessibility. I can't help but wonder how much it hurt The Marvels that two of the main characters were set up in two different TV series locked behind the D+ paywall. How many cinema goers are going to have no idea who Kate Bishop is or why she's in the next Avengers movie?

While the extra content is great for those of us willing to consume it, I wonder if they've introduced too many new characters too fast and in a way that makes it harder for the general audience to follow, and I can't help thinking that's going to hurt things going forward.

I think that's definitely a factor. And when people fall 'behind', some of them are likely to give up following it altogether.

*raises hand*

Yep that's me - I'm behind and way out of the loop. Plus the longer it happens the more bulk of stuff there is.

IT can also be VERY messy when some TV series run alongside films and the film dips in part way through the series and then there's another film and then a separate series that runs alongside and and and - before you know it its actually effort to work out what order to just catch up.

sadly that does tend to match the comic experience too, with many crossovers, having to read/buy series you don't care about as the character you are following wanders all over other titles from the brand (and occasionally other brands)

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
sadly that does tend to match the comic experience too, with many crossovers, having to read/buy series you don't care about as the character you are following wanders all over other titles from the brand (and occasionally other brands)

Yep its one reason that I've never even attempted to dip into them at all. Not to mention they have an almost legion number of reboots/refreshes/half refreshes/reimagining's and so forth

The secret to comics has always been to find authors you like and follow them regardless of character. Good authors tend to make their run pretty self contained with minimal reliance on what their predecessors left them with.

Yup. Hickman's got a great track record. Daniel Way too. Also food authors often start their run with a good jumping on point. HoX/PoX lays all the ground work you need for the next 5 years of x men books.