Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 4 & Beyond (and a chance to change your vote)

I have a heart condition! If you hit me, it will be for the Glorious Purpose!

<3

ws trayce; the glorious purpose demands it

hey!

I was completely bored by Black Widow. Pugh was great, Winstone awful and easily the least essential MCU movie. Whole thing felt like a missed opportunity and wonder if it would have been better set further in the past with a younger actor as Natasha.

Seeing several tweets these past few days about how the MCU “ruined” Taskmaster or “completely wasted the opportunity” of the character.

If I were feeling more charitable if ascribe this less shitty reasons, but I can only assume that the toxic portion of the fandom is having a big baby shitfit because of the casting. So sick of this shit.

if = I’d

Just read that Taskmaster reveal, and think it's a great idea. Besides being a fan of the actor, the more change and inclusion, the better. Fits with the movie, too. The Wiki page has already updated itself with the SPOILER, FYI.

Xpost: it’s not because of the casting, they decided to give her a backstory that might rub some people the wrong way and Olga is a fantastic actress but she doesn’t have any lines in the movie that I can think of and she has a couple of scenes without the mask that amount to less than a minute. Considering that she’s not the one doing the fighting and she’s very likely only in a very few scenes the one behind the mask it does feel like they underutilize her and any actor could have acted that role. People are angry not because of the casting but because they wanted more of her not less. I hope we see more of her character in the future in a speaking role.

The actual character fighting was good. Lots of moves that you could immediately identify who it was based of.

A'ight, guess I'm bowing out if folks are just gonna straight-up spoil things itt.

We do have hide tags now, y'know.

Are people itt paying $30 to watch this on Disney+?

i saw it in a theater. otherwise it would have been a torrent.

Fuck sorry. Didn’t think the taskmaster reveal could be a spoiler.

something something greg davies

Sorry, that’s why I tried to stay purposely vague in my post.

We did pay $30, the first time we’ve done this, but still cheaper than the three of us seeing it in the theater and paying for parking, even if we forego snacks.

This was ok I suppose but the whole gun/stabby military axis of Marvel just sits badly for me in terms of their overall content and messaging as FUN. I mean Florence Pugh watches everyone in a Russian prison die in an avalanche and thinks it looks cool and at the end hundreds of workers on a flying building plummet to their doom, hopefully into uninhabited territory. But that's ok because it's the good guys that do it.

The main cast are great apart from Ray Winstone, who for unclear reasons is doing a Richard III hunchback routine. Pugh and Harbour are certainly having fun with it and it would be nice to see both of them again.

Aldo, this video essay may interest you

Meantime back to Loki:

https://www.musictech.net/features/interviews/theremins-remote-orchestras-natalie-holt-marvel-loki-score/

I'm not sure I'd go as far as that video but the bodies don't half pile up at the hands of the good guys and there's never any recognition or regret for what they've done. The Winter Soldier, as a specific example, is traumatised about what he did when he was a bad guy but the stuff he does as a good guy is fine (even at the same time as he is still upset and guilty about doing exactly the same thing before).

Not trying to dismiss aldo's very reasonable and correct points, but I think it's weird that this is suddenly framed as an MCU issue. Ignoring collateral damage by the good guys is such a long established action movie trope that it has been a major plot driver for movies before the MCU even kicked off - The Incredibles being one of the prime examples popping to mind, but I know there are others I'm blanking on right now.

Granted the scale in the MCU is, like other things, is usually much larger. Again, it's totally a valid question and deserves acknowledgment. I just saw it being framed as "here's another thing wrong with the MCU" when I don't think it's a unique thing to superhero flicks.

Oh it's absolutely not unique to them, and you're right that it's been a big problem especially across action movies for a long time. Let's not go near the thousands killed when the Death Star blows up.

I guess it just seems in heavy contrast to the 'super' element of it - which sometimes is just a cgi version of the fight from They Live in prettier colours - as the fact it's people killing each other seems to go unremarked. When The CW ran Arrow as a grim & gritty version without trick arrow it was just somebody shooting people.

I suppose things like Star Wars can get framed as war movies in which we should expect large body counts as part of what goes on, whereas individuals shooting people in the name of what they think is right is more in the vein of Death Wish.

i think there's still an expectation that superheros don't kill people or use guns

The Winter Soldier is my favorite MCU film but I have to agree with the point SkipIntro's video made, which is that it's kind of horrible that it ends with Black Widow deciding that while Hydra's fascism was evil and had to be brought down, as long as the "good guy" Avengers have unlimited power and no accountability it's totally fine. This is touched on with barely minimal insight in Civil War.

(In fairness, I do think Black Widow DOES try harder than many of their films to show some remorse and consequences for the heroes' actions in the script, see the new origin for Taskmaster as Natasha's accidental creation... though even then, it was the girl's own father who was really responsible.

This is touched on with barely minimal insight in Civil War.

Absolutely. I liked a lot of Civil War, but the missed opportunity to explore this with any meaningfulness was disappointing. Maybe that's asking too much of dumb popcorn flick, but they teed up something more interesting around the edges of that film but never followed through.

An alternate opening and ending frame the movie as a flashbacks from Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), allowing them to simultaneously flesh out her dislike towards Fury's methods and her undying loyalty to S.H.I.E.L.D.

(about The Avengers!)

Back to Loki… finale was slightly underwhelming and a tad exposition-heavy, but still very enjoyable. Easily the best of the three MCU shows so far.

easily better than wandavision? the highs of wandavision were very high indeed imo

I haven't watched the finale of Loki yet, but don't think it has been nearly as good as WandaVision.

xpost ok maybe on par, in the sense that both shows were pretty amazing overall but somewhat whiffed the ending.

Or I just like Loki more because it pushes all my buttons i.e. time travel shenanigans and Owen Wilson.

Very interesting Loki finale, actually seems to be hugely important in staging the next MCU phase.
Can I boast about the fact that I thought of Immortus on here a week ago, and while Jonathan 'set to star as Kang' Mayors' character in here was referenced as "He who remains"/"called many things: (...) a conqueror", this variant was clearly mostly based on Immortus

Loki is the only one that that came close to nailing the landing of the three so far. Looking back, Wandavision’s may be the worst by a good distance.

Loved Jonathan Mayors in the Loki finale and LOVED Black Widow. Overall I think Loki was kind of dull considering all the ideas and opportunities it had, but that final performance makes me feel hopeful for the future.

And I may be overreacting to Black Widow but I found the THEMES and a lot of the execution genuinely touching and refreshing. Top tier MCU for me.

I thought the last episode of Loki to be the best of the series. Loved the "villain" and excited for what's to come.

Black Widow definitely surpassed my expectations. Marvel films are consistently solid to me with only a small number of them beating that bar, but this one did. It juggled skillfully between being funny, exciting, tense, and moving. Two very good new characters too (Pugh's and Harbour's)

Conclusion of Loki was fascinatingly tense from where I sit. Hope to catch BW this weekend.

Loki felt like it was about seven episodes too short.

Thus a second season you see

Finale kinda underwhelming but damn what a performance

Regarding Loki, kind of annoyed less by the surprise! there's going to be a season 2 so we'll leave a million threads dangling but I guess that's far more normal for streaming shows.

Overall, great series. I may give Wanda the edge over it for its higher peaks and moments of weirdness. Better than Falcon, but that was still very fun.

I love the way Loki resembles the monthly comics,with a different story/genre/status quo every episode, random plot swerves, and a solid ensemble cast to hold things together (the best superhero comics are ensemble series or ensemble series in disguise).

That said, while I’m super glad there’ll be another season, I thought this episode was probably the weakest so far (not enough Loki or Loki/Möbius!) and the “no one remembers you” cliffhanger felt a bit “because the plot says so”.

Am I the only one who found Jonathon Majors super annoying? I hate that kind of faux-Robin Williamsy madcap acting. Sylvie is great though! Prob my fave MCU “improvement” on the original comics character, alongside Vision’s recasting s as an English fop in the TV show

the “no one remembers you” cliffhanger felt a bit “because the plot says so”.

I thought this was a cool way of showing what I assume is a major point of the new MCU - we are now dealing with the classic Marvel multiverse with various timelines and multiple versions of all the characters.

Now I'm just waiting for my Squadron Supreme 12-episode limited series.

I thought Loki did a very admirable job in bringing the huge scale cosmos to life in a way that felt very true to Marvel comics.

I just thought of this: multiverse allows MCU to sub new actors in for the aging originals.

if the MCU's popularity actually survives moving into "the classic Marvel multiverse with various timelines and multiple versions of all the characters" I will be impressed slash deeply dismayed

I just don't feel like I needed so much discussion of Loki's motivation for things. "Hi, I'm Loki, I'm the Norse god of mischief" is really all I need to know. Now let's get mischiefing. I don't care about his angst or whatever. Let's have some FUN.

I'm assuming they are only going to focus on the multiverse for Phase IV, but having introduced it - it'll be a handy way to roll in any other recastings or character rebrandings necessary when they get to Phase VII, or whatever.

I can't see any reason to assume they'll pay it any more mind than they did with Terrence Howard -> Don Cheadle.