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

Wait, Jon Snow's in this too? I thought it was just the other beardy one

If I was going to hazard an opinion on the Eternals, knowing next to nothing about the Eternals other than what is in that trailer, I'd say the mix of sand and costume and music and general portent gives it a Biblical vibe, and said portentous Biblical vibe doesn't necessarily jibe with the goofy jokes? Also, for something seemingly epic in scope and filmed in great locations, it seems weirdly ... small and cheap. Both may turn out to be big surprises, but my takeaway on this and Shang Chi is that for two big imminent Marvel movies with new characters, they've done a pretty poor job demonstrating why I or anyone should care about either of them. Besides magic bracelets and laser eyes, of course.

Yeah, this week's What If? was just really sweet, I liked it a lot.

new movie trailer has too many people in it.... that's too many people

gonna have to kill some of them off to fit them into an avengers movie, starting with robb stark cause it would be funny

also i don't really mind the standard whedon-style snark dialogue but i wonder how long they're gonna stick with it? feel like the world is getting increasingly sick of it and the children are ready to move on. i was sort of looking forward to the joylessness of the first trailer just as a change of pace, but then that "no one ever saved the world with sarcasm" line, ugh

It's funny because I thought that style of dialogue was fun and refreshing when they did the first few movies, a change of pace from every franchise/reboot being gritty. Now, tons of stuff has that style, spilling over outside of Marvel. Wouldn't say I'm as sick of it as I was the gritty style, but it can be pretty cringy when done badly

Hasn’t snappy sarcasm been Marvel’s USP since the days of the first Fantastic Four comic? Hard to see them dropping it now.

Lol I'm sure the Eternals will have more than enough dull pompousness to keep you happy.

A pre-FX version of the Spider-man trailer leaked and by all indications leans hard into lots of familiar faces and characters. There's always a chance December 2021 might end up December 2022 or 2023 at this rate, so maybe Marvel can team with the feds and dangle it out there as an incentive to get vaccinated.

And here’s the full one

What just happened? Watch the official teaser trailer for #SpiderManNoWayHome, exclusively in movie theaters December 17. @SpiderManMovie pic.twitter.com/IdK2DFTlQK

— Marvel Studios (@MarvelStudios) August 24, 2021

I'm hoping that's like the first 20 minutes, but pretty cool so far.

“The multiverse is a concept about which we know frighteningly little”

— I wish! (longtime comics reader)

OK, *now* they're going to introduce Mephisto.

Reviews for Shang-Chi are out and seem to be overwhelmingly positive

Was skimming some comments somewhere and I saw someone sum up that Marvel movies generally have a high floor but a low ceiling, which is to say, they're almost all going to be pretty good, but most are only going to be *so* good, and that more or less scans. Only a couple of conspicuous lows, and a couple of consensus highs, but most MCU is pretty MOR. Curious where this one falls.

Each Marvel movie like a crawlspace in the sky

The reviews I've seen have definitely made me more excited for it (and the 4th phase in general) xp

Excited to see it, but really there's no way Doctor Strange would agree to do that for Peter Parker is there? He'd just be like "fuck no, kid... you might destroy the universe. I can put glowy stars on your bedroom ceiling though"

But what about an evil devil figure that frequently pretends to be other people and also gives people things in exchange for things?

The Wong / Strange interaction is there to show Strange is still learning what he should / shouldn't do, and that he has a little of the surgeon arrogance left over to push the envelope.

The LA Times review is positive and says not to fault Simu Liu, Tony Leung has the star presence. Stoked enough to see this, will brave the theaters instead of waiting for blu.

Simu is a gifted comic actor and deeply enjoyable to watch but that sounds right to me.

tony leung is one of cinema's most magnetic screen presences, i think expecting simu liu to be his equal is maybe asking a bit too much

I saw a review that said largely the same thing, but expressed some dismay that Michelle Yeoh is largely sidelined. Anyway, I like these movies, they're fun, so I definitely foresee a not-crowded matinee in my near future.

Excited to see it, but really there's no way Doctor Strange would agree to do that for Peter Parker is there? He'd just be like "fuck no, kid... you might destroy the universe. I can put glowy stars on your bedroom ceiling though"

― Jaime Pressly and America (f. hazel)

that spell might not be so dangerous otherwise but for what Loki did? which Strange doesn't know. that could be the connection.

Spider-Man: No Way Home comes out December 17th this year, while Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is out March 25, 2022. Pretty cool to interconnect Sony and Disney/MCU properties that directly, storywise.

The whole thing is a Republic serial with really long episodes.

Shang-Chi seems like it has minimal continuity bullshit. Today that interests me more than crossovers.

Interestingly Shang-Chi was one of the 10 properties Marvel used when starting their movie studio. They could make movies based on the 10 properties, but the properties were also collateral. Hard to tell if it was a movie they were planning to make or just a property that they didn't care about losing.

wmc otm but they're trying to fold in the TV shows into that continuity and own multiple spaces. didn't republic do that with radio?

Oh neat, Tony Leung is in the new movie? Good

The All Hail the King one shot was kind of cool, might as well milk the streaming platform for fun little things like that (although I really could have lived without them hitting on every prison tv/film cliche in the book in such a short run time - especially the awkward and borderline offensive Justin Hammer cameo).

My son is really disappointed we have to wait 45 days to see Shang-Chi, although I'm wondering if they may relent on that hard deadline if the first couple of weekends fall below expectations. Seems better to grab the $20 premier access money while the iron is hot.

FWIW, All Hail the King is the better part of a decade old now (originally included on the Thor: The Dark World Blu-ray).

Haha, I had no idea. Probably because that is one of the few we never bothered to buy on Blu-Ray.

I know I'm late with this but I felt the science-fictional premise of Loki never coalesced into something that even pretended to try to have rules or make sense and that really diminished the show for me. Does a new timeline split off when somebody literally messes with the timeline by time-travelling, which is what MCU Loki did? Or is that all those timelines already existed in parallel? But in that case what makes some Lokis variants that need to be pruned while presumably billions of others just toodle along in their parallel timelines? Like, fundamentally, why in the end would Kang's forces have been specifically grabbing Sylvie-Loki out of her timeline in her childhood?

They only needed to prune timelines that would somehow eventually lead to another Kang existing and another "warring timeline"

Time travel/alternate reality plots suck. I'm so over them. I know the only way to increase the stakes from "Thanos kills half (or all) life in our universe" is to add alternate universes, but the thought of it all makes me pissed. There are no rules, and any rules they make up to try to hand-wave it are stupid and end up getting broken anyway.

I thought it (with a help from Endgame) established that there was only one timeline, that was the point of the TVA? We were never told what marked Sylvie as a variant.

Time travel/alternate reality plots suck. I'm so over them.

I'll admit, I'm deeply underwhelmed that this is apparently going to be the thread running through the Phase 4 films. I hope I'm pleasantly surprised and they do something new + engaging with those hoary fucken concepts, but I do suspect that Phase 1-3 is gonna wind up being the little pocket universe I'll inhabit while most of what comes afterward spins out of (quality) control. Prove me wrong, MCU!

There are no rules, and any rules they make up to try to hand-wave it are stupid and end up getting broken anyway.

Just like superhero comics.

I guess I haven't been paying attention to theatrical releases in general for the past 18 months but it's still genuinely a little shocking to only just realize that Shang-Chi is being released on the actual day of its release. I knew it was coming sometime this year, had no idea it was coming so soon.

I know the only way to increase the stakes from "Thanos kills half (or all) life in our universe"

tbf, the fundamental flaw in the Avengers series of movies is that Thanos killing half the universe never feels like it actually has very high stakes, which I feel like the franchise is kind of implicitly copping to in the What If episode where it's treated as a joke

the fundamental flaw in the Avengers series of movies is that Thanos killing half the universe never feels like it actually has very high stakes

I buy from the external standpoint of "they were going to figure out a way to get everyone back" but not from a narrative standpoint; the primary thrill of Endgame is the desperation driving the Avengers, first to pull off their insane time-travel plan, then to prevent a time-traveling Thanos from undoing their success, and at the end of the movie most of the Asgardians we know are still dead, plus Tony is dead, plus Steve actively chooses himself over his duty or his friends for the first time in the entire series and takes himself out of the team's leadership role and the other person who led the team, Black Widow, is also dead. You still have this group of powerful heroes but all of their recognized leaders are gone and we still don't know who exactly is helming them now; is it Sam? Is it Carol? Is it Rhodey? I'm assuming that is a main narrative driver for the team in Phase 4 as they introduce new characters and elevate secondary ones, like Wanda and Bucky.

The Doctor Strange episode of What If was so good, so trippy. My favorite so far.

Yeah, the Thanos thing did indeed end with three of the MCU's A-list anchors gone for (more or less) good, so that's not nothing.

xp - Agree! Lots of crazy mystic intergalactic creature design.

the fundamental flaw in the Avengers series of movies is that Thanos killing half the universe never feels like it actually has very high stakes

I buy from the external standpoint of "they were going to figure out a way to get everyone back" but not from a narrative standpoint; the primary thrill of Endgame is the desperation driving the Avengers, first to pull off their insane time-travel plan, then to prevent a time-traveling Thanos from undoing their success, and at the end of the movie(...)

I personally think that the stakes were too high and were not resolved in way that left me satisfied.
I mean: I quite adore the MCU but the one thing that I've minded ever since first seeing Endgame is the fact at the end that the five years which had passed since the 'snap' were not undone, which would mean that the universe is not only a gigantic logistic mess afterwards, but also with terribly sad emotional consequences, such as parents having missed out on five years of their children's development or people in relationships having moved on to new partners.
So far, they've managed to carry the mess well enough. Spider-Man: Far From Home addressed some of it at the start in a funnier & better way than I had expected. Falcon & the Winter Soldier went into it fairly well too with the whole idea of the Flag Smashers. But I think it will mostly be treated as a source for jokes or maybe some more plot points, but always remain a mess, and in essence a sombre one at that.

Hulk explained the rules in Endgame which meant that the science of the plot was about as good as it could get; it was made clear that everything that had happened would remain as actual history. I would have strongly preferred it if the Infinity Gems had simply been powerful enough to overrule the rules of time, space and reality and they could have enforced a reset to the moment of the snap.
That might have meant for lesser consequences of the climax of a 22-movie series. I wouldn't have minded.

Who do we actually have confirmed in Phase 4 so far?

Samtain America
Bucky
Ant Man
Dr Strange
Thor
Hulk
The Guardians sans Gamora + Nebula
Wanda (as antagonist?)
Shang Chi
Hawkeye? Ronin? Maybe he’ll do a turn as Goliath at some point?
Wasp
Captain Marvel
Spider-Man

Possible TV crossovers:
Spectrum
Variant Lokis
Wiccan?
Speed?
Kate Bishop?
She-Hulk?

I guess War Machine and some number of Wakandans also should be listed there, too

Ms Marvel (in the Captain Marvel sequel, and her own show)
Blade
Moon Knight maybe?