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

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

That said, GOTG3 was fukkin fantastic

Since you liked both (but a lot of people apparently didn't like the last Ant-man), I 'd love to hear your take on what Guardians maybe did better, or differently enough, to explain why it apparently is doing a lot better than Ant-man did (even though a lot of critic reviews revealed a similar sense of fatigue not reflected in the box office).

these insect men are just getting too much exposure

They did a better job of showing how loathsome the High Evolutionary is compared to Kang, who by defining is kind of all over the place. Kang already did most of his terrible stuff by the time we see him in Loki and Quantumania, but we get to see the entire horrifying path the HE takes and why he absolutely has to be stopped/opposed. There’s also much more effective tone-blending in GOTG3; it’s an inherently goofy property shot through with agony and pathos that swings much more easily between hilarity and horror than the Ant Man movies, but both of them do an excellent job of drawing how a good family bond, whether by blood, chosen family, or a mixture of the two, gives you the support to go above and beyond what you might think yourself capable of.

So, GOTG3 had a stronger story but they both leaned into these themes and I enjoyed them both for it.

Well said indeed.

I guess he's supposed to be in "Loki", as one might expect

He is, per one of the credits clips for Quantumania; he plays a version of Kang set somewhere in the late 19th/early 20th century and is observed from an audience by Loki and Mobius.

Watched Hawkeye. Have no idea if we're going in the right order here but it's approximately correct*. Thought it was great, and Renner was excellent, kinda the first time he's been given a chance to be the central figure and he nailed it. Steinfeld was a really likable addition as Kate Bishop and her relationship w Hawkeye was stellar, forgot Pugh was going to be in it but she's phenomenal and one would hope they're gonna bring her back again. I did think it was weird that in the post credit scene of Black Widow it seemed like JLD was the one who egged her on into going after Hawkeye but here it was something else entirely. Maybe I'm misremembering how that scene went down. But it's not a big deal. Thought it was vv good. Generally the comedy was better here than it is in some other marvel stuff.

*What the hell are we even supposed to watch next

Hawkeye was really a lovely unexpected Christmastime watch back in late 2021 when it came out. Generally speaking I don't rewatch anything in the whole MCU cycle -- I tend to just enjoy them in the moment as entertainments -- but I might almost go back to that in some future December.

it's one hell of a mass market big budget anti-vivisection movie.

GOTG Vol. 3? GOTG We3, morelike (he even stole for the Laika character, too)

https://thesmartmarks.com/artman/uploads/dog1.jpg


I don't remember almost anything about #2 and haven't seen the Xmas special - is it specifically a feature of his Zune that it has 2002-era remasters of 1980s songs? Cute if so!

(either way, the album was out of print for another 12 years after that, until the 30th anniversary box set that is now nine years in the past, so I doubt Johnson is making much off of "sales." He has posted an HD remaster of the video to youtube, though.)

Yeah, I did think it kind of weird (or not weird?) that the album art that popped up on the Zune was not the original but the remaster-specific art.
This
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/58/Soul_Mining_CD_Cover_2002_Release.jpg

Not this
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bb/The_The_-_Soul_Mining_CD_album_cover.jpg

I sort of wondered if it was a mistake, but the fact that you see it at all makes me think it was intentional.

I was all excited to out-pedant sic but I googled to get my facts straight and We3 predates Cosmo by 4 years

re: GOTG3, were there any lines as stupid as "famously huge turds," "sexual love...for her," or "did you make a penis?" Those bits from the second movie put me off the MCU in general for many years.

i'm going to assume the cigarette smoking on the original cover is a no-go for a disney property

re: GOTG3, were there any lines as stupid as "famously huge turds," "sexual love...for her," or "did you make a penis?" Those bits from the second movie put me off the MCU in general for many years.

There are, but they are primarily in service of making the character saying them look stupid so it didn’t bother me

There's a line about poop yes

I mean, James Gunn's whole deal is "Hurt people hurt people" and he's comfortable with both halves of that. There's the story that when he turned in the first cut of GOTG, Kevin Feige took him aside and said, y'know, this is fine, but we wanted a James Gunn movie, so he sat down and wrote another scene where everyone talks about their feelings. Which, for all that a friend was freaked out by the vivisectiony stuff, is what's putting me off the movie - the latest trailer was just the conversation with Starlord, Gamora, Nebula and A.N. Other in an elevator, and I just don't know if I want to see three hours* of Chris Pratt being whiny.

*subjective time

He only really has time to whine in the first half of the movie

It took a minute to get going for me. The first quarter dragged a little but once it ramped up it was pretty great.

i'm going to assume the cigarette smoking on the original cover is a no-go for a disney property

didn't occur to me but this is almost certainly it - last week my work had to remove one cigarette from a 1940s D!5ney work even though it signified reprobatism in the original

they coulda done the 45rpm cover though!

Meantime

Marvel Studios🤝@DisneyPlus

A new season of #Loki starts streaming October 6, 2023.
All episodes of #Echo drop November 29, 2023. pic.twitter.com/jQq2xdbuiV

— Marvel Studios (@MarvelStudios) May 16, 2023

Odd they're switching back to an everything-at-once approach for Echo, especially since it's supposed to further set up the Daredevil/Kingpin return IIRC.

Wonder if they're trying to rush the timeline a little with a less tested property. Interesting, regardless.

Fwiw, Quantumania is available on Disney+ tomorrow, with GotG 3 coming in mid-August.

I’ll check out Echo (cool character).

Re: Soul Mining, feel like Peter would be most familiar with the original US cover, same style but with Matt Johnson (?) shouting in pain (from multiple hammers striking his head)

binge drops for unknown IP, but weekly for hits, is a pretty established model now

Iirc this is actually a first for Disney+ MCU, none of their stuff has ever dropped all at once before. But yeah I suppose it makes sense in some contexts. For example, if a show starts out slow, maybe they're worried people will jump ship too fast, and dropping everything at once might cut attrition levels, or spark word of mouth. Though I still don't know how viewership/ratings work for these streaming services, or what counts as a "hit," and why.

Nobody feeling Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is absolutely their raison d'etre yet?

I’ve only watched a few episodes but it was super enjoyable

that reminds me i never finished Moon Knight or whatever it was called

Took me forever to finish that one, too, but it's not bad. Maybe the least MCU stuff outside of GotG?

I'd like to think the release cadence was related to the contents - some stories (particularly those more mystery-focussed) work better as individual episodes, some more as one block - like individual issues vs a graphic novel.

(that's probably not what's happening here, I'm aware)

Maybe the least MCU stuff outside of GotG?

Pretty much -- there was a glancing Black Panther connection and a bit of set dressing with connections elsewhere but that was about it.

I think Oscar Isaac refused to sign a long-term contract so they probably couldn't really promise Moon Knight spilling over into other projects.

PG13 isn’t what it used to be, huh?

Haha no it is not

I did really enjoy GOTG3, but besides my GF and I there was a family of four (a mother and three small children) also in the theater (in a sadly dying mall) last night … and all I could think was “damn, this is not for kids.”

any non-spoilery reasons you can give? asking for a friend (who's 11)

ha, guess I now have the same question, is it markedly worse for kids than the last two?

the word "fucking" appears at one point (was this the first time in the MCU? The first two Deadpools don't count as the first two movies weren't part of the MCU, and Venom: Let There Be Carnage had one 'fuck' but was technically part of SSU).

the vivisection stuff is psychologically pretty rough, it bothered me for a bit and I usually don't get bothered by that stuff (not 'bothered' in a 'they shouldn't have included this' but 'bothered' in that the scenes affected me)

thanks, was curious. we've dealt with language in other movies he's watched so not too worried about that, but good to have a heads up about the vivisection stuff