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

It's bit more than tinkering and refining, I think. Or at least more than usual. The whole messy timeline from wiki:

*Doctor Strange director and co-writer Scott Derrickson had plans for a sequel by October 2016. He signed to return as director in December 2018, when Cumberbatch was confirmed to return. The film's title was announced in July 2019 along with Olsen's involvement, while Bartlett was hired to write the film that October.

*Derrickson stepped down as director in January 2020, citing creative differences. The next month, (writer) Waldron joined the project, and Raimi took over as director by April 2020.

*Filming began in November 2020 in London but was put on hold in January 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Production resumed by March 2021 and concluded in mid-April in Somerset.

*And now six more weeks of reshoots for the remainder of this year, with a (third) release date in May.

I'm sure it will work out, and I bet, given the timing, that actor availability probably explains a lot of it. Heck, some people had problems with conspicuous reshoots in "Black Widow," but I didn't notice anything wrong there.

Probably annoying him to sign on and have a new co-star attached before a script was even done! But who knows if that's how it played out...
Funny thing is I saw a trailer for Derrickson's next movie, The Black Phone, before Venom tonight

My son wanted to watch Shang-Chi, so we watched it today. The first half hour or so was great! The rest was good, but long! The final joke was great.

They seemed to want to have it both ways with the dad. He’s 1000 years old, but he’s duped by some dragon? He’s seriously blames his son for not intervening as a little kid? I feel like they should’ve even made him truly evil, or “redeemed” him a little more clearly.

This thread is great (with spoilers if you've not seen Shang-Chi)

Finally watching Shang-Chi, here as a bus operator to rate the SFT transit factors of The Bus Scene:

— Mack, yes, That Mack (@that_mc) November 13, 2021

hah loved it

I had zero idea about shang-chi prior to watching it.

I loved the snakey chinese style dragon which I don't think I've ever seen represented on screen before watching Raya and the Last Dragon which was weirdly voiced by Awkwafina.

Speaking of which I love that they were able to shoehorn her saying the word 'vagina' and later 'gina' into a Marvel movie.

Also love when I see some ridiculously named character like RAZOR FIST and realize that it has to be some old villain from the actual comics.

I also thought of Raya... and the final post-credits scene reminded me of the teaser at the very end of The Mandalorian. (It really is like a factory repurposing parts across its current product line, huh? Lol)

http://www.geekchicelite.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/nightfist.jpg

Iirc, none of the trailers more than hinted at the dragon stuff in Shang-Chi, so I was pleasantly surprised.

(I just rewatched the trailer to confirm and was, unrelated, quickly reminded that the first time I watched it for a second I thought they had sneakily cast Jackie Chan, who Leung in his long-hair wig fleetingly resembles.)

Am half an hour in, so far my reaction is "oh not the old runaway bus thing again, just steer it uphill or even not downhill and it will roll to a stop." Yours, a joyless pedant.

Easier said than done!! :D

xpost clearly you have never steered a runaway bus, what do you have against working class people?

They keep on steering it down the hill!

Well, it can't go up the hill! It's San Francisco!

Forget the brakes, it's Chinatown.

Yeah - it's going pretty fast, man...

The way the bus finally comes to a stop (grinding against a garbage truck) was funny to me... when I lived in SF, I watched a Muni bus turn a corner, latch onto the side of a parked car, drag it forward, and slam it into the car parked in front of it. The driver got out, inspected the damage, and gave a look like – "FML!"

(xp the brakes were cut! and the driver was knocked out. Awkwafina does her best!)

I was trying to make an awful pun.

I enjoyed it

(the pun)

I liked Shang-Chi, I really liked the creature design. Could use more of that in Marvel movies tbh.

(meaning tossing in more incidental creatures that aren't the main villains or w/e)

I thought I caught an homage to Big Trouble in Little China, in one of the fight-club/creature/elevator scenes, but maybe I'm projecting that (not sure if that's actually a movie that anyone would pay homage to!)

pizza dog confirmed for hawkeye. I am so happy.

(and so prepared for disappointment)

god remember when you could actually see what was happening in movies https://t.co/RY9WVWmUWb

— i want to bailey-ve 🛸 (@been_herde) November 17, 2021

I mean, that's just directors trying to recreate the iconic Gwen Stacy panels from the comics

https://www.spidermancrawlspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Gwen-feature.jpg

The point about lighting is good though

HDR seems to have made movies darker.

SNAP

Which of those panels is iconic?

The one on the left is a classic

Have any of the movies paid tribute to this?:

https://i2.wp.com/fusion.tv/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cqnjennviaascv1.jpg?resize=1024%2C1014&quality=80&strip=all&ssl=1

(swik)

The panel on the left has been redrawn or traced sometime between Theakston and Jemas, and garishly computer-coloured in the last ten-twenty years. It's possible that every element of that image post-dates the Raimi shot, which also does not recreate any element of that framing whatsoever.

Even if it did, the two other freezeframes that clearly are based on the Raimi framing would not be any less muddy, dark, and ill-composed.

The last of the Gwen panels in your montage is the only one that uses CGI to make the image indistinct and hard to read, but I assume that's a deliberate effect for that single panel, not a consistent element of the entire sequence (or whole comic) that the recent Spider-directors are trying to homage.

(BTW, are they chronological? The third one looks like it might be from Untold Busiek or Ultibendis, while the second one appears to be Starkings or Roshell, which I think of as the same timeframe, but only based on very limited exposure. The framing of the second is obviously not on the same Captain Yesterday mission as the third, though.)

For reference, the original panel (in context) can be seen here: https://www.cbr.com/comic-book-questions-answered-just-how-did-gwen-stacy-die/

Yeah sorry I just grabbed an image from GIS. But I seem to remember that Gwen Stacy sequence as almost a received memory.

Yeah none of the movie frames capture the original, since they're interested in the faller.

(I love that online evolution means that there's someone in the comments there claiming that the CGI goes into production before there's a cast or a script)

in fairness, some variant of that is probably true with all pre-viz / sizzle reels / storyboard pitching that happens

Yeah previs can happen prior to script: https://www.insider.com/marvel-plans-movies-action-scenes-years-before-filming-previs-visualization-2021-1

(That’s not the same thing as the final CGI “going into production” tho)

The fact that costumes are CGIed onto the actors is another way in which the final 3D models are probably “in production” before the script.

This is entirely off-topic, but I thought y'all my appreciate it:

When my son talks about stuff that happens in Marvel movies, he always refers to, e.g., "the events of Endgame" – I guess b/c that's a phrase YouTubers use?

So this morning he asked me what I thought happened to some Pixar characters, and he began: "After the events of Soul..."

Haha. I read that in "IN A WORLD..." voiceover tones.

~steeples fingers under chin~ “Go on…”

Ha ha... he asked where (who) I thought Soul #22 ended up on Earth.

Greta thunberg

Kate Bishop Hawkeye starts on Wednesday! I saw a TV commercial for the series last night, and it got me psyched in way that watching the full trailers on YouTube haven't (for some reason).

We watched Shang Chi as a family last night, and everyone enjoyed it, both the two of us that had never seen it and the two of us watching it for the second time. My wife even managed to stay awake. I feel like I'm in the minority thinking the CGI at the end was (for lack of a better word) a marvel: the scale, the way it was orchestrated, just the sheer amount of movement and information on the screen. I even liked the details of the lion-cat-monsters when they're just lurking blurry in the background. And the fight choreography is really good, too.

The making-of special was pretty sharp as well.