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

Final She-Hulk was tons of fun. Did they only have Charlie Cox for a day? Because he did so little to hide his Irish accent I thought for a second he was leaving it on purpose.

he's English

huh. wonder what was up with his accent, we both heard Irish!

loved the she-hulk finale, super fun
and always glad for more charlie!

THe Druid's Ball Turner prize winning installation was on exhibition in Galway for a month and a half recently. In the film of the actual Ball held in Belfast there is a part of a performance by drag artist Rosa Tralee who uses the phrase that she has her divaship as part of a talk she is giving which turns into a chant when she takes the audience outside at the end of the night. So that was running through my head when She-Hulk was described as a Diva at the end.

Ants ants ants

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlNFpri-Y40

kang kang kang

Caroline Polachek, there's money to be made!

Into me
Kang! and I go
Into you
Kang! and you go
Into me ...

So! I watched No Way Home. I was not expecting....to be so moved by such a cynical way to join the three Spider-Men and their most iconic villains, especially since I've no attachments to the original films w/ the mild exception of Tobey Maguire's second try.

But I know the comics, and I forgot how well Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina embodied their roles. I sorta wonder how the younger audience members several months ago responded when they appeared -- or even when Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire did.

OTM, except for me it’s the first Raimi film (which I’ve found holds up well, even though it’s overlong).

Rewatching Far From Home (that’s the second one, if you get the titles mixed up like I do)— it’s actually pretty good, it’s just the Mysterio parts that are a drag. I don’t like storylines where the good guys get “tricked” by a big, complicated deceit.

So...Wakanda Forever anyone? Given it's been such a full week with everything I almost feel like this just suddenly finally happened, but saw it Thursday: not the first film by default but not trying to be -- imagining what it would be like if Boseman hadn't passed and you can see how the bones of the story with Namor would have happened. Often a mood piece, an elegant extended farewell in many ways, down to the usual mid-credits scene.

I’m looking forward to seeing it soon - pretty much down for anything Coogler does at this point

seeing it later today, a bit daunted by the running time and I'm overall feeling pretty disinterested in this franchise, but whatever.

I thought it was good, and for long stretches it even felt like a real movie, but it was also kind of slow and long and overly solemn (albeit for obvious reasons). Parts of it gave me "Eternals" vibes, tbh, though "The Eternals" was slow and long and really stupid, too, and "Black Panther 2" wasn't stupid. Mostly I like the idea of this movie of warring blue water people taking the wind out of the sails of next big movie about warring blue water people.

Oh, fwiw, this was the first movie in forever where the first theatre we went to was sold out through the end of the day, so we had to go somewhere else.

Ok this is very good. Agree that there are big chunks of this that feel like a real movie and not just a Marvel Entertainment.

I read a pull quote from Armond White’s review of this and seriously why is he still alive but Chadwick Boseman is dead? Like if you wanted actual proof that life is capricious and random and that there’s no benevolent diety guiding things along a master plan, there you go

I wasn't expecting this to be as good as it is, partly because generally speaking I find Leticia Wright kind of annoying, but she carried this well and her dramatic work, particularly at the very end, was great. there are a lot of really great looking scenes in this and the underwater stuff comes across much more convincingly than similar stuff in Aquaman. Marvel films that touch on grander conspiracy themes have a tendency to get bogged down in plot machinations that I have a hard time following or recalling from one movie to the next but this moved along briskly without overt storytelling complications. I did think I had found a plot hole when it was over, but that was resolved about 60 seconds later in a mid-credits scene.

What was the plot hole?

they never explained who the Best Boy was

Nice interview on Why Marvel Films Look Like That

https://www.techwontsave.us/episode/142_why_visual_effects_look_the_way_they_do_w_julie_turnock

(ILM and because Jon Favreau really liked the look of “Empire Strikes Back”)

xp Lol x3

it's good that films are now putting their running times right there in the title

(heh, we made that joke at the dinner table yesterday.)

It’s a deeply unfunny joke

lot of weird critical soul searching from reviewers about "why don't i like wakanda forever more than i do, am i a bad person"

my main gripe is that they should have had Winston Duke say "fish man" more times because it was funnier every time

"Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" had its silly/sweet/stupid moments, but I'm not sure James Gunn should have boasted that it took him just a couple of hours to write.

the star wars holiday special took 48 hours on quaaludes to write

They seem to be ramping up the promo machine hype rhythm:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3V5KDHRQvk

Going big on the music there

looks like a cross between two story arcs that they've teased (Rocket's past, Adam Warlock) and who knows, might work?

I feel like Gunn's attention is kind of split between projects and hopefully Pratt gets third or fourth screentime in this one

outside of MCU, if you have a chance to play the Guardians video game, I'd recommend it. kind of a rail-style adventure game that's competently executed across the board, with no real curveballs but a thought-out plot and funny Adam Warlock speeches in full alliteration mode and ridiculous Infinity saga trappings (that darn Magus!)

oh, and the fact they land on what looks like earth with critters, probably the High Evolutionary?

Didn't Gunn say he had this all scripted before Disney canned (and rehired) him? Hopefully that means he had it pretty well mapped out. Though in interviews I think he said this was more of a struggle than the other ones, but perhaps that's the subject matter and end of an era weighing on him.

wow, "In the Meantime" now as old as "Come and Get Your Love" was when Vol. 1 came out

yeah high evolutionary sounds about right.
why does everything accelerate into dark grim gritty, this shit should be vaguely amusing and do nothing more than that.

Pratt can't be funny anymore?

wow, "In the Meantime" now as old as "Come and Get Your Love" was when Vol. 1 came out

Until you realise that 41 years is longer than 27 years and geoffrey was being funny

:( meant to hide tag

lol I can do the math. it’s still gonna have me fucked yo for days!

aaand fu autocorrect. yo.

well anyways good for royston langdon and now that spacehog has received the dramatic half-time nostalgia movie trailer treatment I guess I am old now, hello everyone see you at the rec center hope there is bread pudding today

new board: i love bingo

And one last trailer for this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WfTEZJnv_8

I am extremely hyped for this

KAAAAANG

I love the juxtaposition of Michelle Pfeiffer's extreme gravitas and the classic goofy purple/green Kang costume

(37 seconds in) What is with everyone in the Marvel universe having headgear that can instantly retract behind the back of their heads via button-push, by becoming digital particles no less, and yet these particles become armor helmets filled with mechanical parts and computer systems... and yet Iron Man is the only character that wields this universal techno-magic as his "power"? There oughta be whole armies that can instantaneously materialize weapons and tanks and armor if everyone's got one of these frickin helmets!!

Anyway I know it's just so the character in the action movie drama adventure can show their acting faces unobstructed for the audience's sake, but it might be the most disproportionately impressive technology that half of all the star characters seem to have at this point so I find it kind of funny from an in-universe standpoint.