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

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.

― peace, man, Friday, May 5, 2023 12:42 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Squeezed Iron Man 3 in today and yeah, it is so much worse.

• Completely forgot that it was a Christmas movie. Double-checked the release date and it came out in May - they couldn't even get "Christmas in July" right, for Christ's sake.
• Egregious version of Jingle Bells as Tony Stark dances his new Iron Man suit on.
• Stark tells an adorable child "Loved you in Christmas story, by the way." Har dee har har har.
• Stark encounters a second adorable moppet, who becomes his annoying sidekick for about ten minutes. At one point, Tony calls him a pussy!
• TV news camera guy totally fanboying out over Stark. Shows off Stark tattoo.
• Bad guy plans to publicly justify presidential assassination by saying it was in retaliation for an oil spill. Although that is not his actual motivation, it still plays into the bad-guy-as-ecoterrorist trope.
• Too Many Iron Mans at the end reminded me of my gripes about the last season of Mandalorian.
• Couldn't find a way to wrap up all the storylines, so they gave us several minutes of Stark voiceover at the end explaining to us what happened.
• Spy music over closing credits - why?

On rewatching Iron Man 2 a few weeks ago, the only other thing I had forgotten about that dragged it down for me was an Elon Musk cameo. He acquitted himself like a bumbling moron. I really liked everything else about it.

Completely forgot that it was a Christmas movie

did you see who is credited as writing and directing it

^^^

THANK youuu

is that a favreau trademark? christmas?

…you do know what one of his most famous movies is, I trust.

Chef?

No, Chelf

Just checked imdb and the only other Shane Black-related movie I've ever seen was Monster Squad.

Have yourself a merry little Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys.

listen to sic, he speaks the truth

The family and I watched Wandavision and Loki. Wandavision started off terrific but once the Marvel machinery kicked in it became just okay. Agatha’s look was straight out of a Spirit Halloween store or something, very generic and not BAD enough. Color coordinated energy blasts, bleh.

Lokii didn’t start off as strong but kept getting better. I wish the ending was more of a self-contained thing instead of stage setting for the next Big Bad, but Kang was played so charismatically that it worked. Curious if the actor is going to rehabilitate his image fast enough to continue on with Marvel or if they’ll recast him. Given the multiverse aspect to his character, that seems like it would be the easiest option?

As a straight guy, I often don’t pay a lot of attention to guy’s looks, but Loki is extremely handsome in this, especially when he’s just in a suit.

It made me very happy anytime it cut to alligator Loki for a reaction shot. And Richard Grant as classic Loki!!!

Next up is Falcon and Winter Soldier.

Curious if the actor is going to rehabilitate his image fast enough to continue on with Marvel or if they’ll recast him.

i saw someone on twitter say he'd already been let go but I could find nothing to substantiate that. He was obv in Ant Man but that was shot ages ago (and maybe released before this situation occurred); he's slated to be in Loki season 2 which I don't know that they filmed yet; and the next Avengers movie revolves around him, apparently. No idea what they're going to do there. hard to see him coming back since, parallel with the arrest, an awful lot of former co-workers of his publicly stated he has always been a nightmare.

seems like it would be pretty easy to lampshade or whatever. this man is the imposter, blah blah blah. kind of like what they did with the Mandarin. you thought that was Kang but it was just some shape shifter God being, the real Kang is so much worse and he's coming for you.

Or they could just easily recast him, like they did with Iron Man's friend.

Given that within the multiverse there’s an alligator Loki, they could literally recast him with anyone, right? I haven’t seen Quantum-Mania, so I don’t know where that leaves off. But they could have a golden retriever play Kang.

Started Falcon & Winter Soldier tonight. Digging it so far.

I just became aware of the Mcu yesterday

Looking for something new to watch on Sundays now Succession is over?

Finally saw GOTG V3

Loved the Rocket storyline … overall pretty enjoyable. Soundtrack has really kinda gone off the rails at this point… like it’s still fun songs but pretty unfocused, it’s just an Everything Salad lol
but I did love the Rainbow & Alice Cooper was a fun drop

Sounds like less MCU coming: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/13/disney-cuts-back-on-marvel-star-wars-content.html

for sure, lots of delays/holds. Saw Shang Chi 2 might not be til 2026 or something.

With the actors going on strike too, it's probably going to be really thin calendars for a few years soon. But, good. Fuck the greedy asshole.

yeah, all these companies are going to use the strikes as a way to scale down their original programming

“Marvel is a great example of that. It had not been in the television business at any significant level, and not only did they increase their movie output, but they ended up making a number of TV series,” said Iger. “Frankly, it diluted focus and attention.”

Such a weird thing to say about a wing of your company that absolutely destroyed most box office records.

well, the movies did get significantly worse in the past few years

don't think the business wing cares as much about that.

Also I think it’s very much up for debate that the movies have gotten worse

The de-aged Samuel L Jackson in the TV series looks somehow better than in Capt Marvel.

the technology gets a little better every year

An interesting MCU side-effect is that when I dip into a recent Marvel TPB collection (as I do from time to time), the "stasis" of E-616 is startling... Tony's still alive, Natasha's still alive, everyone looks young... obviously the mainstream timeline was always like this (notwithstanding significant side-trips and fluctuations that almost always ended up reverting back to the mean), but it's thrown into contrast by the onscreen universe where actors age, characters die, etc.

Anyone watching Secret Invasion?

Is this the first time the shows have had some fairly significant plot points for the MCU?

I mean Maria Hill dying is maybe not that big a deal but Talos has had a pretty major role in recent films, so him being killed seems like a big thing to happen "off screen" for those that just watch the movies. (Although I'm still not convinced he's dead seeing as we've already had one fakeout this season with his daughter and that this is Marvel where numerous characters return after being killed).

I paused Secret Invasion while my kids are in town but I am excited to catch up on it

He appeared in the post-credit scene for the second Spider-Man film - other than that it's just Captain Marvel?

I suppose you might wonder what's going on with Wanda in the 2nd Dr. Strange movie if you hadn't watched Wandavision.

I “got it” from following the WandaVision thread, thankfully.

I feel like Super Skrull is a more compelling villain than Kang was in the Ant Man movie. Maybe they should pivot.

Meantime, new trailer:

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

I just found out that the daughter of one of my coworkers was an editor on this and absolutely hated it, but this is not making me any less hype about the movie

Oh dear! (To her thoughts, not your hypeness.)

I only saw the first episode, but it kinda sounds like "Secret Invasion" is the first MCU show that no one liked at all.

I like it a lot but I’ve fallen behind

I was ambivalent at first but I really like Secret Invasion. The dystopian vibe is a nice change from the other Marvel shows & it’s weirdly enjoyable to see everyone mad at Nick Fury & him having to be accountable for the things he’s orchestrated

Jackson is really great in this, he gets to do a lot more dramatically-speaking than usual

pretty sure Ant Man 3 put the immediate brakes on my kid's Marvel interest. suggested reading the Wiki page for the second half of the film and moving on from there, and he's vv ambivalent. i actually didn't think it was that bad relatively speaking but i can understand it's all kinda wearying at this stage.

The scene at the end with all the Kangs in the stadium grunting and hooting was pretty fucked up

Ant Man was the first MCU film I haven't seen, period. Not in a hurry to either.

3, that is

we don't talk about Eternas

lol, Eternals

I mean, I liked Eternals but it didn’t need the sex scene

That was the first feature we all disliked as a family. (Coincidentally, we all also disliked "Nomadland," too)

I've got zero expectations for any of their movies until, maybe, "Fantastic Four," and even then, it seems questionable whether they can hit the 2025 release. The smart move, imo, would be to abandon/punt Kang as a villain and swap in Dr. Doom as a big bad. There was a rumored Doctor Doom standalone film in the works, which could have been a savvy way to reset this mess, but I suspect that Noah Hawley script got scrapped because he will pop up in Fantastic Four.

It'd be really funny if Kang tried some crap and Doom just showed up and knocked him off the field