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

Widow

The Black Widow movie was OK, it was a B. But I didn’t even realize that pgwp neglected to include it 😂

(It was better than The Eternals by a lot though)

Not to mention all the secondary characters, heroes and villains alike, introduced in the movies and TV shows. Some of whom are supposedly slated to get their own shows or movies, some of whom will no doubt be totally forgotten or need to be reintroduced, unless they were just inserted as a gag. Like Eros and Pip dropped in at the end of "The Eternals." Who the fuck remembers that? Or "Man-Thing," hiding out in "Werewolf by Night."

Granted, as a very casual comic reader when I was younger, like many I didn't like *all* comics or *all* characters, just some. Marvel's big lift is that they are trying to make movies that *everyone* likes, but just as not everyone read "Spider-man" or "Dr. Strange" or "Daredevil" or whatever, not everyone equally wants "Moon Knight" or "Thor" or "Captain America." And even then, not every era/writer/artist was a winner. That's why they should probably focus on the writing first and foremost. In the end, no one cares about FX. They care about good characters, which means good writing. Paul Rudd may be beloved by all, but everyone likes Loki (the character) better than "Ant-man" (and most characters) in the MCU because he gets good lines that are in turn elevated by Hiddleston, one of the only actors left in this grand endeavor that gives consistently compelling performances. Like, Elizabeth Olson is a great actor, but she's not that great in "Dr. Strange 2" because she's simply not given anything good to work with, imo. ScarJo and Pugh and Harbor are all really good/fun in "Black Widow," but I can't even remember what that movie was about. You just don't care because there's no momentum, and there's no momentum (and in return, no drama) because the stories don't provide any.

Not that they've had a winning track record later, but does Pixar do "reshoots"? Start without finished scripts? I doubt it.

Dunno about others, but Toy Story 2 famously scrapped the story halfway through (already locked into their shortest production period ever) when Lasseter finished on A Bug’s Life. (The McQuarrie Missions Impossible start shooting with two stunt sequences written and new troupe members cast, and make up the story, characters and other action setpieces as they go along. Changing your mind midway through making something works fine if there’s someone in charge of having a mind to change. And if the animators had better working conditions, when the mind is Phil Lord’s.)

Missions Impossible start shooting with two stunt sequences written and new troupe members cast, and make up the story, characters and other action setpieces as they go along

lol it shows!

I’m a cynic and a grumbler - but don’t hate comic book movies. Just want them to be better, fewer. and less necessarily interconnected / dependent on one another.

Plenty of entertaining, satisfying comic book movies in the last year or so that aren't dependent on each other, or anything else.

Fincher's Killer is slight, but a functional thriller that's well-made. I refuse to guess how much of its oddness was intentional, but I had a hoot watching The Beach That Makes You Old. Kline's Funny Pages has some half-in-jokes, but clearly doesn't expect the viewer to know them. Haven't seen the second Adkins Accident Man, but critical consensus is that it's superior, and I can't imagine he takes longer to set up the character than the 40-odd seconds of montage and VO in the first. Mélanie Laurent's Wingwomen dropped on Netflix a week ago; even if developments with the author don't forestall adapting the sequel, you're still GTG on the first one. Shortcomings only made it to multiplexes an hour away by bus here, but had great reviews. I skipped the last six (1991-2016), but Mutant Mayhem is completely stand-alone, assumes no prior knowledge of any version of the property, and is huge fun.

I definitely read somewhere (years ago though, not sure how it is now) that Pixar basically reworked their movies until they worked, often extensively changing a movie midway through production (I think "Brave" was supposed to be very different initially, maybe I read an article about that movie)

xxp

Loki finale. Oof.

Is that a bad oof?

Loki finale. Oof.

― groovypanda, Friday, November 10, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I think it needs to be said that despite Majors’ off-set awfulness, he is also truly terrible as Kang. I’m nfind ever scene with him (in season 1, and Ant Man, and especially season 2) just absolutely insufferable

Good oof xp

And hopefully a fitting ending for Tom Hiddleston's Loki

i struggled to keep up w Loki finale, i felt kinda lost. i’d mildly struggled this season generally but still enjoyed it but for some reason this last ep i found maybe ~too~ high-concept? idk

in the last year or so

lol turns out a due-out-theatrically-in-2020 Nimona adap dropped on Netflix five months ago (to good reviews!)

Loki is Groot?

finale felt like an edge of tomorrow rip for the first half

The Marvels was a lot of fun, definitely one of the better ones I've seen in the last few years... Iman Vellani pretty much owns the movie, and it felt at points like I was missing some backstory due to not having seen some of the TV shows. But they kept it light and short, which is what I wanted. And of course the scene with the zero-g floating kittens was epic.

(we saw the 3D IMAX version... there were, including us, nine people in the theater)

not a marvel head, so maybe i'm missing something extremely obvious, but

loki is not a hero! so why is he doing all this? because he likes having friends? yet he loves sophie/himself so much that he will do anything but kill her/himself. running out there and grabbing the time-strands, even if it made sense, doesn't address any of the main issues, which are him/sophie/destiny. and that was the interesting part -- are they the same? are they different? why does he care? -- not this nonsensical time chaos

(tbf the CENTURIES LATER placard was extremely funny)

hmm Loki gets his throne, completes the redemption arc he’s been on since Thor:Ragnarok, finds his Glorious Purpose (in case they didn’t make it obvious enough, that was the name of the episode for both the pilot and the finale) and becomes literally Yggdrasil, the world tree in Norse mythology holding together all of the realms - or in this case, all time and space

As an ending it’s a bit too neat, even if how he got there didn’t make a lot of sense

And agree that the show abandoned all that was interesting about the Loki/Sylvie dynamic… feels like a mistake to have kept them apart for so much of the season. I didn’t like the idea of a romantic pairing, but their scenes always had spark

This is not the same Loki as the one in Ragnarok though, right? This one diverged at the end of the first Avengers movie.

Knew someone was gonna bring that up haha. I meant in the context of the MCU as a whole, the theme of his character has always been about finding redemption through selflessness/sacrifice

which honestly is a lazy and boring trope, but I’m not expecting complex character endings from the MCU and this is a good exit for Hiddleston as any

Sounds like The Marvels had the lowest opening weekend of any MCU movie, and isn’t expected to break even.

I liked the last Loki. I thought it did a good job wrapping up the story while simultaneously putting him (and, if they want, Kang) in an in-case-of-franchise-emergency holding cell.

I thought The Marvels was fun, exceeded my admittedly pretty low expectations. Iman Vellani was great, she’s just a joy in this role. The prince subplot was weird and probably unnecessary, but the short running time overall kept it from dragging.

Was expecting a nod to that particular group in the mid-credits scene but not THAT particular version of the character.

We saw this in IMAX 3d and for the first time ever, the glasses they gave me weren’t functional. It looked like complete garbage with them on, before I finally checked my son’s glasses quick to realize I needed to go out and get replacements.

I saw it today and thought it was great, lots of fun. Now feeling like all the bad juju it had in the run up was just more dumb misogyny when it comes to superhero/fantasy/sci-fi.

Iirc, didn't the first Captain Marvel movie really benefit from coming between the two Avengers finales, with a huge post credits cliffhanger priming it further? Pretty good timing. Also, two of the main characters of this one were essentially introduced in TV shows, I wonder if that might factor in as well.

People are saying that the SAG strike, and lack of actor promotion for the movie, may have also played a factor? Idk

One thing I was a bit confused by in Loki is, when they prune someone, they'd end up in that empty world where all the other Lokis were last season.

But if that's where Renslayer ended up how come the scene then suggested that was still the TVA (with the floor logo they showed)? I wasn't sure what to infer there.

Loki getting what he wanted all along, but not quite how he wanted it. I'll take it.

I'm kind of wondering if some scenes were cut from the Loki finale. I'd heard some chatter that the finale was going to set something up with Kang for the next Avengers movie, and that...didn't really happen.

A slight sense of a hedge, yeah, with the ending reference to what happened in Quantumania and a bit of a 'we'll keep an eye on things.' I figure they could always recast, they've done it before!

xxxpost Iirc that place at the end of time, where pruned timelines go, is a hodgepodge of trimmed timeline stuff, including alternative TVA detritus and other crap. Buildings, vehicles, etc

Most of the announced future films are hovering in a pre production purgatory, so yeah, the future is unwritten.

ha ha I just saw a theory that we saw Loki becoming The Beyonder

Well, Secret Wars would be a fast way to introduce literally every unused character at once, lol.

Looking at what people have written around the web on the last Loki episode, I'm not alone in thinking
Loki is now the God of Stories. That was the culmination of a plotline where he's decided not to be the God of Lies. Kind of nice that he now has his own throne and his own version of Yggdrasil crafted from all the timelines

Yeah that's kinda what I'm figuring.

I'm always impressed when Disney lets some numbers out. Looks like a little over 11 million people watched the Loki finale.

But it was the same person in 11 million different branches

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F-jpZZkaMAAg-ih.jpg

I wrote a big long post about how I watched the Eternals for the first time and how bad it sucked, but I guess it didn't go through and I don't have the heart to rewrite it.

But man, what a slog. Definitely my least favorite Marvel movie. Well, maybe tied with the Hulk. But this one was so bad because it tried to do so much and missed the mark so badly! Pip the troll was ghastly, does anybody really want to see him in a movie? Or Starfox for that matter? Some things work in the comics and will not work in movies, or they need a very deft touch. The Mr. Fantastic problem.

Nothing landed, although some of the visuals were nice I guess. Why do Kirby and throw out everything Kirbyesque?

I tried watching both Hulk movies over the weekend. I didn’t realize/remember that the 2nd one was an MCU movie (and they just replaced the actor); I thought Ruffalo was yet another reboot. Anyway, I didn’t get very far in either of them.

Yeah, Eternals was flat-out bad and boring.

Which reminds me of a couple of other characters/actors that I just can't imagine returning to one of these movies any time soon. Like Charlize Theron as Clea. Or Brett Goldstein as Hercules. Or Jon Snow as Black Knight. First of all, they can't even keep all the mainline actors on retainer forever, can they? Eventually they have to move on, a la RDJr or Hiddleston. But these secondary people, where could they possibly fit in in the next several years, especially as Marvel/Disney incorporates the Fox properties? There are just too many characters, too little demand, and the costs are too high. One reason the Guardians movies work is they don't really have to deal with any of this stuff, they can be off in space in their own relatively self-contained stories. Probably smart that Disney is exploring the idea of making some of their other stories more self-contained as well.

I could see a Charlize movie in the chute tbh

Ang Lee Hulk was bad but interesting. Norton Hulk was just bad.

What If? returns over Christmas with a new episode daily from December 22

Why do Kirby and throw out everything Kirbyesque?

This. Especially now, when we have the technology to realize Kirby's vision, which I would describe as cinematic from the jump.

https://socyberty.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/pencil.jpg

I thought "The Marvels" felt totally perfunctory, even by the standards of these movies, where even the worst (bar one or two) have still generally been OK. Which is to say, "OK" didn't quite do the trick this time. It felt really ... small with every scene a handful of actors standing around on a small, clean soundstage, talking jibber-jabber, a la Star Trek, while (might as well be) AI readies some generic alien landscape or chaotic battle. Aside from the A+ cat sequence, it just felt so run of the mill and, for all its characters, totally free of character. These movies more or less all look the same, so maybe it really does come down to the script/story, or perhaps a director strong enough to protect the script/story. But good luck cleaning up this mess, Marvel, especially when every movie introduces another major character/universe or two.

Meanwhile, my wholly unsurprising take is that it was fun and I enjoyed it