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

Also I dug that SI was operating in a genre (paranoid political thriller) that the MCU doesn't really do - the closest would be The Winter Soldier, if you squint?

Any five minutes of it is better than any five minutes of Malekith, or Tony Stark's Daddy Issues.

As far as the movies, we just watched Thor: Love & Thunder. It was fun but leaned too far into goofiness.

I maintain that it should've leaned harder into goofiness, and that they should've made more explicit the fact that the entire movie is a load of shaggy dog BS being whipped up on the fly by unreliable narrator Korg. It could've been a new Princess Bride. Something got seriously lost in translation/studio interference.

Yeah, that would have worked. It was tonally off-balance with wackiness and then deadly serious bits. James Gunn manages to make that work, but it didn't really click here.

I think it's maybe because the Guardians themselves are funny, well-written characters; the humor comes from their interaction/bickering. Whereas the central joke of Thor is that he is *not* funny, he's a pompous straight man, which can be silly, but just writing jokes around him is not innately funny. Iirc the smart move of "Ragnarok" was literally separating Thor from the drama, cordoning him off in his own wacky story while the serious stuff transpired elsewhere.

I like these movies but they're pretty simple-minded; I think you could easily skip Wandavision and Secret Invasion and Ms Marvel and still make complete sense of The Marvels.

("Why is Nick Fury in space?" "A. Cause he's a space guy now" is pretty much all you need to know, for better and worse.)

I got really bored with GOTG3 and stopped watching after 30 mins, maybe I should try again. I think, even if the quality of some of these movies is still quite good, the repetition is definitely getting boring.

Versus, say, Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks, which are doing plotlines I've seen countless times before in other Star Treks, but are somehow still pretty fresh and fun.

GOTG3 has the best Adrian Belew reference in the Marvel Universe, for this I give it many thanks.

X-Men '97 is super fun

I wasn't even a fan of the 90s show back then (and almost every boy I knew was!) but I'm enjoying this too

Just announced that Julia Garner will play the/a Silver Surfer, which rules.

Oh, right on. I have been 100% 'no notes' about the Fantastic Four casting thus far.

Yeah, the casting has been great so far. Very interested to see if they can stick the landing with the Dr. Doom casting.

xpost And I'm sure the entire open-minded and inclusive fan community will be completely onboard with this casting decision.............

the/a Silver Surfer, which rules

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dlYOD1_WU4

X-Men ‘97’s latest episode: HOLY SMOKES!!

I am very close to crowing this the best MCU product.