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

Fighting was good, probably the best we've seen in the MCU. Tony Leung was fantastic particularly. Movie overall was just solid, not top tier Marvel. I'd place it a notch over Black Widow. Had to be happy just to see every Asian and Asian-American on-screen, honestly.

Made the effort to contribute to this weekend's opening box office, as afraid as I was of the pandemic. Went to a very late showing last night with like six other people in the theater.

The third episode of What If…? was ridiculous in leaning on the grimness

I felt like it would have been more in the spirit of What If for Nick Fury to put on the Iron Man armor. Its whole thing is "things are different but somehow end up being kind of the same."

Also suffered from the fact that a What If is supposed to start by DEPICTING the alteration that changes history downstream, which this one, for obvious reasons, doesn't.

I may be too uptight about what counts as What If.

On Shang-Chi -- the last big fight was disappointing IMO, overcrowded and color graded down to a murky dusk for a scene that took place at dawn, but the bus and scaffold scenes were amazing. The fewer the characters, the better the fight in this case. Good performances -- Liu and Awkwafina have a great BFF vibe and omg is Liu great to look at or what. The elements shoehorning Shang-Chi into the MCU feel forced, but the elements shoehorning him into the Marvel print universe in the 1970s/80s felt forced too*, so I'm kind of okay with that. It's a very good MCU entry. Maybe not top tier? Requires further consideration.

(*Except for the Man-Thing issue, which I've always loved.)

The fewer the characters, the better the fight in this case.

I think this is actually almost always true throughout MCU

There are a couple of big free-for-alls I like in earlier movies, but mostly yeah.

The Civil War airport fight being an honourable exception.

For some reason I really like when they end in ott melee chaos, like Iron Man 3 and Black Widow.

I did love Katy being all “I just learned how to shoot an arrow yesterday!!!!”

I thought this was a lot of fun. Sure, some of the silly stuff was, well, silly, but it mostly flows really well. And it helps to have a real movie star as the villain. Given I know nothing about the titular character and had my doubts, I give up, I think this monolith MCU endeavor is capable of keeping the imperial streak going indefinitely. Just a matter of occasionally whittling down the number of superpowered heroes.

We watched the first Captain America movie over the weekend (one of the many of these I haven't seen). It was good, somewhat better than I expected (or at least it had a modest vibe and some charms I didn't expect). We also recently watched the second of the new Spider-Man movies... didn't like that one too much, but whatever. I guess if you don't like one particular cinematic Spider-Man, wait a few years, right?

Oooh, you are in for some treats with Winter Soldier and Civil War if you haven't seen those yet

First Holland Spidey is top-tier MCU. Second Holland Spidey...nnnnnnotsomuch.

Didn't like it as much as Homecoming, but still thought it was pretty great, esp. Mysterio.

Yeah, I do think Homecoming is good, we've watched that a few times.

My kid wants to see Winter Soldier next, so guess we will (someone told me IRL that it's their all-time favorite Marvel movie).

For those who don't care to go too deep, the list is basically: Cap 1 & 2, Iron Man 1, Spidey 1, Thor 3, Black Panther. If you aren't feeling any of those, you can safely shut it down.

(NB, have not seen either of the pandemic-era Marvels)

Cool – I also saw Iron Man OG (in the theater, little did I know what it was kicking off); and liked Ragnarok a lot too.

Ant-Man is one of the others I’ve seen and thought was fun and offbeat (at least except/until some of the generic fight stuff toward the end).

We always believed in you, @simuliu. And if being a super hero doesn’t work out, our door is always open: https://t.co/GhGMYwOdom

— iStock (@iStock) September 7, 2021

Ant-Man is one of the others I’ve seen and thought was fun and offbeat (at least except/until some of the generic fight stuff toward the end).

Ant-Man & The Wasp is more of the same except better.

For those who don't care to go too deep, the list is basically: Cap 1 & 2, Iron Man 1, Spidey 1, Thor 3, Black Panther.

I'd maybe add Guardians 1?

And doc strange surely

Black Panther I think is the only one I haven't seen a second time. It may, however, also be one of the few everyone in my family has seen, even my wife, for whatever reason. I could see watching Shang-Chi in theatres a second time at some point, the action in that one I felt took good advantage of the space. Speaking of which, I'd never thought about it or noticed, but I guess all the Marvel movies are in (more or less) Scope *except* The Avengers and Ant-Man.

And also speaking of action, Shang-Chi and Black Widow do both lean haaaaaaard into the impervious human heroes mode, which is a modest problem I had with both. If they're essentially harm-proof before they even get magic rings or fresh weapons then the fighting does become just variations of pachinko with people in place of little balls. When Shang-Chi gets his special armor in the movie I thought, huh, why bother? Is it just to get him out of the hoodie he's been wearing the entire movie?

To be fair, every action movie in the last forty years (maybe even longer) grants the main characters the ability to avoid harm in a seemingly superhero fashion, not sure that's unique to Marvel at this point.

No, for sure, that's right in "I am the best at what I do movies" movies like Mission Impossible, and Bourne, and James Bond, John Wick, et al. But when it's a series of fantasy movies that makes a distinction between human heroes and super heroes it's a distinction without merit. Iirc in Black Widow, at one point her sister complains that when space god Thor is done fighting he doesn't need to take an Advil, and I thought, Black Widow's sister, what you need is stronger than Advil.
https://c.tenor.com/XTAirZ-BVDcAAAAd/black-widow-explosion.gif

lol that gif reminds me that i actually ended up with so little interest in black widow that i skipped the last ten minutes or so and just read the ending/post credit spoilers instead. no regrets there.

Finally caught up with the two most recent "What If ... ?" episodes. The Doctor Strange episode was maybe the darkest Disney has gotten, and while the most recent Marvel Zombies one was mostly played for laughs, it's still pretty horrific for the Mouse. The show does seem to be missing (or probably more likely ignoring) the gist of the whole "what if?" premise, though. The Nick Fury one and the zombie one, for example, aren't about the repercussions of bad decisions or whatever, they're just basically ... what if something else happened, for some reason. (And incidentally both are Hank Pym's fault, so ... what if the original Ant-Man just messed everything up.)

I mean, that's the way the comics were too IIRC

The show does seem to be missing (or probably more likely ignoring) the gist of the whole "what if?" premise, though. The Nick Fury one and the zombie one, for example, aren't about the repercussions of bad decisions or whatever, they're just basically ... what if something else happened, for some reason.

Huh? That is exactly the point of What If... ? as stated in pretty much every intro. It's not supposed to be about "bad decisions", just what happens if one tiny (or not so tiny) decision point changes things. I don't think it's ever been intended to just showcase bad decisions.

xpost Maybe? I can't remember. Some of these definitely do play into the premise, though. Unrelated, this zombie one only riffed on the (not What If) comic series source material, maybe because many of the major players aren't in the MCU yet. But the Marvel Zombies comic was all horror, but this one by necessity had to tone things down (despite the number of beheadings, eviscerations, etc.)

xpost again, But most of these are not about what if one tiny thing changes, most seem to be about what if one major thing is different. Like, the first one, sure, what if Carter became Captain America, fair enough. Or what if Strange messed up time to save someone. But the Nick Fury one was "what if someone murdered all the Avengers before they became the Avengers," and the zombie one was basically "what if the Hulk returned to a world where everyone was zombies because ... reasons." They're totally different worlds.

The Nick Fury one was "what if Hope Van Dyne joined SHEILD and died" and the zombie one was "What If Janet Van Dyne became a zombie in the quantum realm" but you obviously knew that because you watched them

Eh, I think it's just supposed to be a fun excuse to write a single-shot story that explores different settings/characters, not something that really requires a specific set-up.

NO jon THERE ARE RULES

lol my fault for not having seen the new episode yet!

(tbc I agree with you and am making fun of Josh)

no worries, I was picking that up.

Yeah, I guess I just saw those "what if" instigators as a sort of minimal means to an end to get the story going, which I know is the whole point. But tonally, things like the Dr. Strange one and the Black Panther Starlord one are I suppose a little more thought out than the hand-wavy "Oh, btw, Hank Pym found zombies in the Quantum Realm, because we need zombies" sort of stuff.

the only one i liked so far was the Agent Carter one

so far mostly these just feel like really boring fanfic which i guess they are

The plot of the Dr. Strange one was meh but the art of the cosmic creatures he was summoning was A+++++ and some of my favorite animation of this whole thing.

Spoilers for the zombie episode

Didn’t like the new one at all, apparently they are almost in reach of a cure but still beheading potentially curable people left right and centre while constantly quipping. They are sad when Hope dies for some reason, not sure why she gets special treatment. Or at least Peter cares, her dad doesn’t seem overly fussed.

Hope's dad... is Hank Pym? Who was a zombie early on in the episode?

I'm not sure you were actually paying attention to what happened

Observed elsewhere:

For those keeping score at home, this episode ends with the fourth “well, everyone is screwed now” cliffhanger in a row, and it’s also the third “everyone is dead now” episode in a row.

It really helps when they get the original cast members back!

That Avengers murder one was super grim, and they even got Michael Douglas to reprise his role, even though he sounded kind of half-assed

That Doctor Strange one was the biggest surprise for me honestly - and it really helped they m/l the whole main cast from the film back. Cumberbatch did a really great voice performance for it, and having McAdams play the role and not a sound-a-like made it more meaningful

What If issues regularly end on apocalypse hysterics so that's in line with the book
i can't do the cartoons for some reason, feels too meta to me

ok i enjoyed the zombie one

I guess tbf a lot of comics regularly regularly end on apocalypse hysterics, too, so it's all fitting. I suppose I'm just nonetheless surprised the What If cartoon has been so relentlessly grim. This is Disney+, not HBO Max.

It hasn't been relentlessly grim though. The T'Challa episode certainly wasn't and this week's might have been about zombies but was lots of fun and definitely had more of a comedy tone

Hope's dad... is Hank Pym? Who was a zombie early on in the episode?

I'm not sure you were actually paying attention to what happened

Mixed up my Ant-Men. Ok, that makes more sense

My son has been updating me every morning with a countdown until Shang-Chi hits Disney+.