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

Disagree a bit - on a smaller 1080p screen, good CGI looks sharper than it does on larger set, but it does exacerbate the badness of bad CGI. I did see Love & War at the cinema too, where it also looked bad.

I think the problem with these big superhero movies vs. the comics is the same as say Star Trek movies vs. the show. Comics and the original Star Trek shows were serialized, there was room to do all sorts of stories. It sometimes is the small things that make the comics tick and when you got only 2 hours, it's got to be about stuff going boom.

These movies are suffering the same weight of failure just like the never ending yearly 'big tie-in' comic story lines.

Loki looked cool, but they actually did a bunch of stuff with retro design that was really neat.

If you have access to the Vice channel, two eps into Icons Unleashed: MCU. Lots of behind the scenes details on the company and its development of their properties. Ep 1 goes through the various financial situations and company management that led to selling their most recognizable properties, while Ep 2 dives into Iron Man. Great breadth of interviewees.

The previous Icons on The Fast & the Furious franchise was as entertaining and informative.

Still working through these with the wife and kids. We recently watching Infinity War for the first time and I knew enough to warn the kids that it would get sad and scary, but reminded them that we know lots of these characters come back and that comics routinely kill people off temporarily. It was pretty bold to end the movie like that, shit. I'm extremely late to the party but Spiderman turning to dust was pretty damn rough. I can't imagine having to wait a year for Endgame.

But that's it for Vision? He sure was underused.

Ah you've yet to watch WandaVision

watched No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness the last couple of weeks. I thought both were really good.

man they put Peter Parker thru the wringer in this series don't they. obv feels like an Infinity War type ending for him, which will have to be corrected. I liked the return of Molina/Dafoe/Foxx/etc, though they kinda left Dafoe hanging there in existential malaise as he warped back to his timeline. Garfield made more of an impression than Maguire in his return. He seemed more emotionally involved, Maguire seemed more bemused/stoned.

Multiverse of Madness was better than i expected. thought Wanda-as-villain made sense, if one hasn't forgotten the end of WandaVision. If one hadn't seen it, it would make vv little sense. I understand folks who wouldn't be down w/a film series that only tracks logically if you've seen a television series taking place between theatrical entries, and kinda wish they'd allow a scenario in which those who didn't see the series would be able to understand the why/what/how of her turn. other than that...the Raimi-ness of the film was vv welcome. Doc Strange mind-controlling his alternate self's corpse while forced-ally undead screaming banshees cling to it...i'm pro all of that. when he said, "who said it had to be living?" i may have replied, "aw yeah." also, it was so brutal in places, and i guess i'm specifically talking about Wanda going off like Carrie and dispatching the alt-universe illuminati. Raimi was really using the limits of PG-13 to full advantage.

obv feels like an Infinity War type ending for him, which will have to be corrected.

No, the opposite! It feels like they corrected all the weirdness from the past few movies, and finally set up "real Spidey," they way we know and want him to be (or at least I do, as a longtime fan). I was very into that ending.

i appreciate the ending, by correcting it i mean it's not the end of that particular storyline w/his old chums as much as it's a reboot within the series and there will be a journey back, as it were. i was also wondering if it was a way to take him outta the avengers storyline and back to solo adventures, primarily.

i don't think doctor strange is gonna come back with a spell to make everyone remember peter parker again, though maybe MJ will hit her head and remember. who knows.

Meantime via io9:

According to ComicBook, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 has been rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of violence and action, strong language, suggestive/drug references, and thematic elements.”

Not sure I understand why that is newsworthy in the least. Both of the other GOTG movies were PG-13. Was there an expectation that this wouldn't be?

That way you, the informed consumer, can know what you're objecting to. (If you are.)

I was just curious if maybe I missed something else like maybe there was consideration of this getting an R rating or something at some point.

so how fucked are things given Majors arrest?

on one hand, DC is rolling forward with releasing the Flash despite Miller's fucking crazy behavior. but I also suspect that he won't return and their flip over to Gunn as the DC machiavelli gives them an opportunity to do this. Majors has just been set up as the primary villain for, presumably, a number of movies/series. Unless charges are dropped or he's acquitted completely, I can't see how this doesn't fuck things up.

on the other hand, multiverse allows them to recast

re: majors himself: He was extraordinary in the Last Black Man in San Francisco. I guess he's been fine in the MCU, like most people are. Haven't seen Creed 3 yet. He undoubtedly has talent. It'll be really unfortunate if he also turns out to be a psycho.

June for them secret invasions

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

And flerkens for all!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuk77TjvfmE

HYPE LEVEL SKYROCKETING

I was just thinking "hmm, but Kamala's grandmother and her people weren't from space, they were from another dimension.." and then noticed the music choice again

see what you did there

sorry, great-grandmother

Looks good (movie) but looks bad (that same distracting super-duper green-screen flatness that I guess we're stuck with until they actually start filming in space/other dimensions/better sets).

Is Kamala the first lead movie character who debuted on a Marvel tv show? I know some other characters (like Kang and Wanda's kids) have crossed over to the movies already. (This is if you count Monica as debuting in the Captain Marvel movie.)

Yeah, that would be the case.

Pretty much the three things you'd need to see for this are Captain Marvel, WandaVision and Ms. Marvel -- though I'm guessing both the end credit scene from Spider-Man: Far From Home and the forthcoming Secret Invasion series are both useful.

Love Kamala for being elated to have powers and meet her heroes. Same kind of audience proxy fun as Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and The Flash.

Will be fun to see how the MCU balances their release schedule and younger actors aging with the teasing of Young Avengers and new Champions rosters.

The Vice MCU series has been educational for revealing how much the early movies gambled on success, with one lesson learned being the establishment of a permanent art department to ensure continuity from film to overlapping film.

Trailer breakdown for those curious

https://gizmodo.com/the-marvels-trailer-breakdown-captain-marvel-2-kree-1850324881

Anyway, GOTG 3? A traet, honestly better than I expected. Among other things -- and the trailer hinted enough at this -- it's one hell of a mass market big budget anti-vivisection movie.

Also, will confirm that the whole GOTG-and-associated arc absolutely makes the most of color and design out of the whole series of movies. Kinda worth watching for that reason alone!

Watched Falcon and the Winter Soldier and really liked it a lot. Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan* are great. I though the aspects focusing on race were actually vv moving in part and well-handled in ways that didn't come off as didactic and honestly if they did I wouldn't have cared. Daniel Bruhl was outstanding. It was a pretty propulsive show and the low-key scenes w Sam's family were really good I thought. Idk I was impressed.

*idea: Michael Mann should cast Stan as the younger version of the sizemore character in the upcoming Heat prequel/sequel film

The fam and I are watching the marvel stuff in order and we just watched Spiderman, Far From Home. We haven't seen any movies or TV shows after that. Is GOTG 3 standalone enough so we can go ahead and see it?

Have you seen in the first two? I haven't seen the new one, but as far as all these movies go, so far they have been relatively independent from the rest of the movies.

Yeah, I think we’ve seen everything the Guardians have been in, including the xmas special.

I fell off hard from the MCU when my son stopped caring about it. At the time, I had been disappointed enough with some of the movies (Avengers 2, Iron Man 3, GOTG 2*) that it didn't really matter to me. At some point, I watched Thor: Ragnarok, at my wife's request, but have been a completely disconnected naysayer otherwise

Last week, for some reason, I started bingeing the ones I hadn't seen. Ant-Man, Ant Man and the Wasp, Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Infinity War, and Endgame thus far.

It's all been entertaining! Sometimes dumb, sometimes grotesquely ugly CGI, but fun enough for me to maybe not care if the movies are "bad".

imo the tv shows are where it’s at specifically loki and wandavision

Yeah, I'm looking forward to those.

Wait, Iron Man 3 not Iron Man 2?

some of us just like birds

I want my buhd.

I'm 10 years away from having seen either, so my memory's not great on why I feel that way. Iron Man 2 had Tony peeing in his suit and the dance-off with DJ AM (RIP), but Whiplash was fun. Iron Man 3 opened with Eiffel 65 in one of the most baffling soundtrack moves I've ever experienced, pointless Ben Kingsley fake-out, Pepper Pots gets a giant bunny, and there was something about plants? Maybe I'll watch them again sometime. Who knows.

GOTG3 def best marvel thingie since endgame. Maybe one of the best marvel thingies period. Exceptional craft, and, what’s been painfully missing, an actual story to tell.

I do enjoy watching DC/Warner step on rake after rake, but I’m wishing Gunn well. Hell of a way to mic drop.

Watched this last night, thought was fun with at least one great set piece (the battle scene) tho not quite up to the raves i've been seeing

major question i was left with was as biggest exposure for The The's This is the Day if Matt Johnson would see an uptick in sales

This movie was pretty good, but it was also probably the darkest, most grotesque kids movie since "Babe 2."

Couple more thoughts. I feel that Gunn must have played the GotG game, because this one felt more in line with that than the first two. Even uses the same Rainbow song. Speaking of which, I can't remember when the series introduced an MP3 player, but I liked that the soundtrack was more than K-Billy's Super Sounds of the 70's; the Adam Warlock Adrian Belew gag was shockingly specific/perfect, and other than that, this movie coincidentally featured a few of my most beloved songs of all time. Last, imo this whole thing underscored how underwhelming the last four MCU films have been. This one was funny and sad and visually impressive, but it all worked because you (I) care about the characters, and that's maybe because Gunn does, too. This didn't feel assembly line pro forma, it felt loose and free, but not lazily indulgent, even if it leans a little too hard into emotional manipulation. Is there a character in this installment that *doesn't* cry?

The Zune was introduced at the end of the second film after the tape player got trashed.

I was skimming around some "Guardians" takes and came away with a couple of interesting tidbits that perhaps underscore the psychology of movie marketing. A lot of people were braced for "Vol. 3" to underperform, based on its immediate predecessors, but apparently it's bucking trends thanks in no small part to good ol' word of mouth. From what I read, "Vol 3" is tracking to match the 2nd weekend of "Vol 2" despite opening 30m *lower*. It's tracking to beat "Dr. Strange 2"'s second weekend despite opening *$70m lower*. It's likely beating "Quantummania"'s lifetime gross in 10 days despite only opening about $10m higher. And there's a slight (but not invisible) chance that this one could creep to $1 billion, which would make Chris Pratt the first actor to star in three billion dollar grossing films in a row.

Of course, there are a number of unique factors that could be at work. Technically "Guardians" is not a superhero movie, so maybe superhero fatigue is less at work. Similarly, it's the least related to the broader MCU right now, so it can operate a little more independently. In fact, not only does it not have to worry about stepping on too many storyline toes, I read an interview with Gunn that indicated the amount of effort he took over the years to make sure other MCU films did not fuck up his own storyline too much. And then there is Gunn himself, who clearly cares about his characters, which in turn makes us care more. After so many rote sound-stagey cogs in a somewhat amorphous and definitely poorly maintained machine, this one snaps with so much more creativity and life, and looks good, too.

I assume Disney et al. will draw the wrong conclusions from all this.

No idea how "The Marvels" will do (or what it will attempt to do), no idea what to expect from "Captain America 3" or "Thunderbolts" next year, and of course it's been an uphill battle for "Blade." I assume "Secret Invasion" and "Loki" on TV will have a lot of heavy lifting to do, narrative-wise, though the travails of Jonathan Majors may have screwed things up; I guess he's supposed to be in "Loki", as one might expect, and that being TV gives Disney maybe the slimmest hint of flexibility to replace him, but who knows.

And then there is Gunn himself, who clearly cares about his characters, which in turn makes us care more.

lol come on

I dunno, I think it matters! One of the characters is motion capped by his brother, another he motion caps himself, he is good friends with much of the cast, many of whom have apparently served in one another's weddings, and several of which have showed up in one way shape or form in many of his other projects. I do think he feels a certain allegiance or responsibility to the thing, more than say Peyton Reed cares about Ant-Man, or even Sam Raimi swooping in as a hired gun substitute for Doctor Strange.

I mean, we are talking about make believe stories for children, more or less, but I felt among the biggest failures of the last couple movies is you just didn't care about Ant-Man and his family or whatever he was fretting about, or whatever it is that was making Doctor Strange sad.

I mean, I cared about what happened to Ant Man and his family, that’s why I liked the movie