Rolling Marvel Cinematic Universe thread (+ a poll: Classic or Dud?)

he's been so dang consistent

If you've got a choice between that and Gillen's Loki-and-pals runs, I'd take the latter, though.

Legion's second season goes all over the place - if you can stand it (and there's a lot of good in there) the third is amazing.

Is it a Teen Titans thing?

the first real revival of the characters was in a teen titans storyline

further for polyphonic: Doom Patrol predate Teen Titans by a few months (1963 vs 1964); the third major Teen Titans version/revival, 1980's New Teen Titans, included a minor Doom Patrol character as a member (which led to the team's resurrection, and eventually the resurrection of most of its dead members); the Doom Patrol TV show for some reason includes the 1980 NTT character Cyborg as well as the Doom Patrol's cyborg mainstay Robotman.

This is also a dece summary of the parallels between Doom Patrol and X-Men:

https://nerdist.com/article/doom-patrol-x-men-parallel-history/

Yeah, Cyborg threw me off. Although to be honest I assumed the show was about Doctor Doom at first. I don't know comics too well.

the robotman tv show face is very doc doom-ish

Watching Into the Spider-Verse again (yes, I know it’s not an MCU movie, but if we’re talking Doom Patrol...). Still get tripped up by the following plot holes(?), which come up in the same scene:

1. Why doesn’t Peter B. Parker react, at all, to meeting a young version of Gwen Stacey, alive and well? Even though he knows she’s from an alt universe, you’d think he would have some feels about the encounter.

2. If Spider-Gwen arrived in the Miles-verse a week before everything went down – before Miles even got his powers – how did her spider-sense know to direct her to go to his school? How did she enroll, get a uniform, etc.? Where has she been living for a week?

Great movie, tho!

(Gwen also doesn’t seem to have any emotional response to working with a grown-up version of her deceased best friend; but I guess she’s had a little time to get used to the idea of multiple Peter Parkers.)

does gwen track thru SM canon? that PP might not know gwen

This movie kind of goes sideways from the canon (e.g., the Miles-verse isn’t literally the Ultimate Universe, although it’s based on it) – but that Peter is meant to be a version of Spidey-616, it would be odd for Gwen not to be part of his backstory. But I acknowledge your point, it’s loosey-goosey enough that who knows.

Huh, apparently they’ve given that Peter (and his universe) an official designation: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Peter_Parker_(Earth-TRN701)

(It’s funny b/c “Earth 616” is actually used in the movie, as kind of an Easter Egg; but it’s not literally that universe, so makes sense for it to get its own number.)

Huh, apparently they’ve given that Peter (and his universe) an official designation

they

Ok, an “unofficial” designation.

(Btw - fixing my link, for anyone who cares)

I also see the aforementioned Easter Egg is addressed in the Notes for Peter B. Parker’s reality:

In the Super Collider's screen, this reality is designated "E-616" after Earth-616, the reality this universe is an adaptation of.

BTW, 616 technically no longer exists since the events of Secret Wars. (pushes tape-festooned glasses up nose, takes hit from inhaler, adjusts pocket protector)

My son has been watching a Spidey animated series which seems to mash up events in the Ultimate Universe and regular universe, at least as far as I can tell from watching a few scenes. (Wonder which "TRN" that Earth been assigned, LOL.) Anyway, there's apparently a riff on the Superior Spider-Man arc - Otto Octavius (who's a teenager in this show) takes over Peter's body, according to my son. He asked me what bad things Doc Ock did when that happened in the comics... because in the show, all he's done so far is "tell Aunt May to stop making wheat cakes, because they're not healthy." And I thought - "Hey, I get that reference."

Just finished all the movies my daughter wanted to see (basically everything but the first two Thors and all of the Iron Men). Found it kind of amusing that all these movies build up to the epic conflict with Thanos, who first destroys half the life in the universe and then later decides to rebuild the universe from scratch ... which is sort of the scheme devised by Ego in the second "Guardians" movie, which is introduced and thwarted in a single standalone movie by a ragtag crew of misfits.

Yes that is a fascinating observation about these movies

people just get really angry at Kurt Russell

I mean the crux of Ego’s plan was he had to reproduce the celestial quality of himself in another person, so all it took was for that one person to strongly disagree with the plan, plus some additional surgery by the rest of the team to obliterate Ego so he couldn’t try it again.

Thanos collected six individual artifacts with unsurpassed celestial energy and was able to bend that power to his will with no outside help. That’s why thwarting his plan took everybody and required time travel.

Ha, no, I get that. It wasn't really a criticism or nitpick, I just like the way the movies scale up and down as much as needed. For example, Captain Marvel is massively powerful, but she mentions in passing that it's a big universe and she can't be everywhere at once and there are battles that need her elsewhere, implication being battles similarly in need of someone at her power level. Or a quip from Rocket to ... Tony Stark? Anyway, I think he grumbles that he's only a genius *on Earth,* which snide or no implies there are beings much, much smarter than him elsewhere. Or just a character as goofy and aloof as Ego, practically godlike but sort of casual about it; reminded me of the Beyonder in the comics. I kind of like how Thanos has godlike aims but not really godlike ambitions, and in the grand scheme of things, yeah, it took assembling all those stones to come close to the innate powers of some entities in the far flung universe. Though I guess the movie didn't really have time (or need) to delve in to what the infamous finger snap might have done to not really living in the traditional sense entities like Ego or the like.

Obviously the scaling works the other way, too, letting, say, Spider-man or Ant-man or even Captain America and Iron Man deal with smaller more terrestrial villains in their own movies, while Thor gets to zip across the galaxy battling fellow pseudo gods and supreme beings.

Or just a character as goofy and aloof as Ego, practically godlike but sort of casual about it; reminded me of the Beyonder in the comics.

wild that a Marvel character generated in the 1980s by some efficient hacks who never otherwise created any significant characters of their own would be reminiscent of a Marvel character created by Jack Kirby in the 1960s

IIRC, Ego of the comics is not "godlike but casual about it", but rather pompous and grandiose? So it's not really Kirby's characterization that informed that aspect of the movie version, and the Beyonder doesn't really resemble the comic book Ego.

yah the Beyonder and Ego aren't similar in the comics afaik, but movie Ego is grandiose as heck after the layer of Kurt Russell charm is chipped away

(I was just goofing though)

(tbh checking Shooter's wiki, Shadow Lass might count as a character whose personality he created [twenty years before the Beyonder {when he was 14}])

Having made it through the MCU A-list and B-list we finally made it, in roundabout fashion, to "Iron Man 2." Oof, what a boring, dull slog that one is. It's so dull, in fact, that I was pretty sure I'd never seen it before, then midway through wondered if maybe I *had* seen it before. When it ended I still had no idea if I had seen it before, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to forget it again real soon regardless.

The rest of the movies I haven't rewatched yet with my daughter I *have* seen. Wondering how "Iron Man 3" holds up; I liked it at the time. We haven't watched the first two Thors yet, ether, and I'm curious, because I remember the first one also being dull as dirt, but weirdly I remember actually enjoying the second one. Though of course neither is nearly as good as the third one, so ... yeah, we'll see how they hold up.

IM2 was garbage

glad that ended the Mickey Rourke fetish phase

IM3 is ok!

Yeah, 3 was fine; Shane Black made it his own. IM2 is probably the only MCU I wouldn't watch again.

I liked IM3

the only mcu movie I'd watch again

It's weird, Iron Man 2 ... something clearly went wrong. It even looks bad - grimy and underlit - and stretches of it are kinda incoherent. It could just be the script. There are bits and pieces of it that are OK in passing, but the whole thing is really just a patchwork of barely-there ideas and character development.

I just saw that Nia DaCosta signed on to direct "Captain Marvel 2." I liked "Little Woods" a lot, though of course that one is about as far from a Marvel movie as can be. Her "Candyman" reboot is of course MIA. And Sam Raimi is still on for "Dr. Stranger 2 - Dr. Stranger," right? Crazy that Marvel has to commit to getting these movies going at hundreds of millions of dollars a pop even though no one has any idea when they might be able to be released, let alone safely filmed. Are any of them currently in active production, that anyone knows of?

Taika Waititi posted himself sleeping on set today so I guess Thor 4 is a go:

Back on set! I've come to realise just how much I miss shooting. Appreciate the things you once took for granted or whatever zzzz. pic.twitter.com/YM02FiqjTV

— Taika Waititi (@TaikaWaititi) August 5, 2020

Apparently New Zealand is up and running. There was that story of James Cameron et al. flying down there and submitting to a 2-week quarantine so that he could get going on "Avatar" again (thank goodness).

just here to admire taika's swag which is evident even while napping

He probably looks cool at the dentist, too.

I’m into the double-mask look

I loved Taika already, but loved him even more after watching those Mandalorian behind the scenes things. He just always seem to infectiously joyous and his style is always A++++

https://images.app.goo.gl/HWhuT8KE9JwoNuwy8

https://i2.wp.com/categorianerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/taika-waititi-nos-bastidores-de-the-mandalorian-foto-div-61884607.jpg

are they just going to resume shooting movies, mask every actor, and digitally remove the mask, Henry Cavill-style?

tbf half of the actors are supposed to be masked, and half of them are probably not even the actors at all, for that matter. When we rewatched Infinity War/Endgame it was pretty clear on the small screen how little of Carrie Coon's character was actually Carrie Coon. I loved reading the avclub interview with her about playing that character:

AVC: What was it like working on a project like that where it’s almost comically large in scale? I guess literally comically large—a comic book movie.

CC: I mean, so comically large that I was there for one day and then did a half a day in Chicago. When that job was posted, it was just a voiceover job. So I did an audition in my closet, and they gave me some notes. I didn’t even know what I was auditioning for when I was doing this voiceover. Then I think the Russo brothers—maybe what happened is they found out it was me and they knew my work as an actor. They invited me to come in and do some of the mo-cap. Now, of course, on those films, really the credit goes to a stunt person and 200 animators, right? Very little of it is us: just the facial expressions, the landing, the close-ups. So they didn’t really need me for very long, because Proxima Midnight doesn’t have a huge part in that film, and, once they scan you, they can make you do whatever they want.

I was in my first trimester, I was rehearsing a play in New York City, I didn’t have a lot of availability. I think they flew me down late on a Sunday, I went in Monday, I did a very quick session with their movement coach, and then they kind of threw me into all these scenes where there wasn’t another actor in the room with me. It was just the producers and the PAs and everybody working on the set with stuff they had already assembled. They would let me watch it, and I could see myself as the character moving on the screen, but I wasn’t actually interacting with anybody. I didn’t have a scene partner. In that regard—I’ve said this before and many people are critical of it—it’s lonely. I mean, you’re in a room full of people, but as an acting exercise it’s lonely. So it was hard. And the eclipse was also happening that day, so we took this huge break to watch the eclipse, and then we had to rush through the rest of the work.

To have the movie be that big, and to be there for such a minuscule (Laughs.) amount of time was really strange. Because honestly? That is the thing I get the most fan mail for. I have an Avengers jacket that sometimes I’ll throw on when I go to the corner store in Chicago, and, inevitably, someone between the ages of 18 and 47 will stop me and ask me where I got it and why do I have it. They don’t recognize me, of course (Laughs.), because of all the CGI. But it’s so strange. I just didn’t realize the extraordinary power of the franchise. It’s just not something I’m very plugged into.

AVC: And you got nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Fight!

CC: Yes. And I was, like, “Give it to the 200 animators and the stunt woman.” (Laughs.) Because I think I made three faces in that fight and maybe held a stick. They had to come up and do some reshoots—they had to come up to Chicago for a day because I couldn’t fly—I was about eight and a half months pregnant, so just imagine me, this very pregnant 37-year-old swinging this foam stick around my head with a camera around all of these twentysomethings. It was deeply embarrassing for everyone. Because I don’t do anything halfway; it’s all 110%. A lot of puffy, red-faced grunting. (Laughs.) It was pretty terrible.

Taika Waititi posted himself sleeping on set today so I guess Thor 4 is a go:

Apparently New Zealand is up and running.

This looks like he's probably in post on his next movie, not filming Hollywood actors and hundreds of extras in Australia on his movie after next. I promise you, they are different land-masses, and one state in the latter recently went into the most severe lockdown yet, after first giving up on contact tracing and opening up fully. (The government of the state above it, which gave the next Thor $25 million in kickbacks to film at a facility that used to be public land, but the government paid Rupert Murdoch $25 million in kickbacks to take a 100-year lease on5 million in kickbacks to film at a facility that used to be public land, but the government paid Rupert Murdoch $25 million in kickbacks to film at a facility that used to be public land, but the government paid Rupert Murdoch $25 million in kickbacks to take a 100-year lease on5 million in kickbacks to take a 100-year lease on, is starting to think about closing their borders.)

uh, thanks, System

pure poetry, imo

i'd move right now to New Zealand if they'd let any outsiders in.

Finally convinced my daughter to watch Thor, and I'm glad, because I had forgotten almost everything about it except that I thought it was dull, which is ironic, because while I had forgotten almost everything about it, it was absolutely not dull and in fact was pretty enjoyable!