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

Yup, solid start all around. Also ended on the right fucked up note.

I'm aware the TVA has been around in the comics since the mid-90s, but if I was Steve Blackman I'd probably still give my lawyers a call in the morning just to spitball. Which is to say this was great, but it'll remind a lot of people of The Umbrella Academy.

I wold have had an easier time with the TVA if they weren't so strict about the timeline. Does this mean there is no free will? Is the TVA the baddies?

Fucking time travel amirite? I'm getting pretty sick of it. Any time you think more than five seconds about a time travel plot it all falls apart.

There are some easter egg-y bits suggesting that Kang (who is confirmed for the next Ant-Man film) may be one of the three timelords. So your POV may prove prescient.

when did owen wilson age into becoming john slattery?

I had the same thought

Owen wilson is always a joy for me and i hope he is well

he looks so good w grey hair holy shit

posts very much in character <3

:D

I like how owen wilson gets to do his signature 'whispery, flirty nonsense' occassionally, like talking up to the TVA judge.... he's still got it!

More of that this episode - if it was just 5 episodes of Tom and Owen bickering I would be very okay with that

mmm ragnarok salad

Yes as I was saying on the netflix thread - Wilson/Hiddleston banter I am here for, it was great.

This show is so much fun.

jet ski magazine <3

Caught up with this now and as well as Brazil/Umbrella Academy it seems heavily redolent of Legion

I know we're only two episodes in but I think I like this one the most of the Disney+ shows thus far. Hiddleston's Loki + Owen Wilson is a truly inspired combination, and I hope they find a way to continue the pairing beyond this show (assuming it's only limited to one season).

Thought this was fun, exciting, well scripted, well performed, a story I haven’t seen before on television – the whole package. Some of the Kirby-tribute background shots were stunning. And it looks especially amazing considering almost every scene is basically just two people in a room talking, during a pandemic. Like Wandavision - and TFAWS, which did it badly - it feels like an actual comic book story, not just a blockbuster movie with comic book characters in it.

Intrigued to figure out how they’ll do their usual thing and turn it into an airborne fight between two energy beings in the last half an hour.

"warring timelines" will be the beams of light, obviously

I look forward to getting stuck in to Loki based on what I've read here. WandaVision was so much fun but F&WS ultimately pretty boring and dour, and I couldn't give a shit about the Falcon's sister's damn boat.

Guess you aren't gonna be waiting in line when the Falcon's Sister's Damn Boat film drops next year.

I heard a rumor that the boat is actually Mephisto in disguise.

lol at the notion that umbrella academy somehow broke important new ground in comic book storylines

Yeah but the comment was "it'll remind a lot of people of The Umbrella Academy" which I think is fair enough as would imagine the majority of Netflix viewers who watched it don't read comics.

I only read the first volume of Umbrella Academy, did it develop a concept or storyline beyond "1989 Doom Patrol tribute band"?

funny you should say, given s1 of doom patrol was effectively “umbrella academy, but good”

the 1989 Doom Patrol was good

Yo this show, it’s my shit

the 1989 Doom Patrol was good

Holy shit, ep 3 is full-on a Doctor Who episode

Definitely that but relatedly some serious Douglas Adams vibes too, it wasn’t called an ark for nothing. Best episode yet, especially for being essentially a bottle episode at that.

Oh yeah, definitely caught some Hitchhiker vibes, too

There is a cast of dozens, almost none of the regulars appear, and all but one (used for thirty seconds) of the sets was new to this ep iirc - that's the opposite of a money-saving bottle episode!



Seems likely that Adams' Ark was inspired by Who, fwiw: he'd already been mailing pitches in when Doctor Who's serial The Ark In Space ran in 1975, and got a meeting & pitched a story called The Krikkitmen in 1976, directly to the author of Ark In Space, who was also the equivalent of a head writer/showrunner at the time*. Adams got his first freelance commission as a writer for the show by pitching with the pilot script of Hitchhikers in 1977, and had to get John Lloyd to write the later eps of the first series with/for him bcz he was busy with that Who four-parter.

Having gotten hired as a BBC radio producer after that first HHTTG series was produced, he became Who's "~showrunner~" six months later in October 1978, while his first serial as writer was going to air (his first obvious rewriting is on the final ep of Season 16). It took six months of rescheduled studio bookings to get the five episodes of Hitchhiker's second series - including the Golgafrincham B-Ark plotline - done, as Adams repeatedly failed to complete the scripts, due to simultaneously working on the HHTTG novel, stage play, LP and having a full-time day job on Who.

So Long And Thanks For All The Fish is basically the first** piece of Hitchhikers after the pilot episode that wasn't bashed out in a panic as a side-project from, or reworking of, Doctor Who!

* (Adams later rewrote the pitch as a Doctor Who And The Krikkitmen feature film in 1980, and re-rewrote as the third HHTTG novel when that went nowhere.) ((The first Dirk Gently novel is also a reworking of two of his Who serials, down to still including a TARDIS, dematerialising so the sofa gets stuck.))

** or only, if your headcanon rightly doesn't include Mostly Harmless.

Well, conceptual bottle if you like, didn’t expect most of the episode to be the two of them just talking!

the sicbot will not tolerate your puny human asides

<3

Both the first two episodes also (seemed to me to be saving money by) having half the running time be two ppl in a room talking - either Wilson and Loki, or Wilson and boss. Though the sets look to be almost entirely digital, and I wonder if that's because it's cheaper, or just safer in covid times, and actually more expensive.

(This interview with the bloke who novelised Krikkitmen in 2018 claims that the Golgafrincham plot was actually reworked from a Who pitch that was rejected because he'd clearly been too closely inspired by Ark In Space! Which I've never heard before, but since this guy had access to Adams' archives in order to write these and other novelisations...)

I appreciate all of Loki's confusing and elaborate metaphors.

This show looks really good for an MCU thingy - loved the purple skyline with the asteroids falling all around a dying planet

Wasn't sure at first how I felt at first about the abrupt, Owen-free segue this episode but it won me over. Long unbroken action shots are turning out to be my crack, it seems, so I was a big fan of the end sequence.

Can we get the Loki show runner to take over Doctor Who and commission a Snowpiercer episode?

Yes please - I still can’t get through the Chibnall era and it bums me out so much cause I love Jodie Whittaker.

Kate Herron is a director on Sex Education too, she seems pretty fantastic so far.

The director of all the Capaldi Who two-part season finales is watching Loki:

Loki ep 3 (spoiler, opinion) -- first third pure Doctor Who, a really beautifully choreographed fight, 2nd third a lot of talking that's like, um, wha?, last third amazing action putting Who budget to bed in the first three shots. I found the action particularly engaging.

— Rachel Talalay (@rtalalay) June 24, 2021

From the moment I joined @LokiOfficial it was very important to me, and my goal, to acknowledge Loki was bisexual. It is a part of who he is and who I am too. I know this is a small step but I’m happy, and heart is so full, to say that this is now Canon in #mcu #Loki 💗💜💙 pic.twitter.com/lz3KJbewx8

— Kate Herron (@iamkateherron) June 23, 2021

Which is awesome though I did wonder if there are parts of the community who will be unhappy at the higher percentage of bi visibility that are now trickster gods of lies.

The FX and direction are *really• impressive. And somehow manages to be flamboyant without being Fukunaga-ishly "look at me!!!"

"my sole personal intent in taking this job was to represent bisexuality by making it clear that the most self-interested and mendacious people in the world will take advantage of either binary gender if it suits their own nefarious purposes 🌈"

it worked for John Constantine though, so

Meantime in movie world

Watch the brand-new trailer for Marvel Studios’ #ShangChi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and experience it only in theaters September 3. pic.twitter.com/JMypllwDK9

— Marvel Studios (@MarvelStudios) June 25, 2021

Finally caught up with last week's "Loki," which was fun, but ... I can't tell if some of the scenes, particularly the action scenes, were clunky because of Covid, or clunky just because they're clunky. Same thing with a bunch of Falcon and the Winter Snowman. Like the instructions were something like, "ok, stay six feet apart but pretend you're punching people, which we'll add later, along with the set and the FX. And then we'll use more FX to move you and your sparring partners closer together." Which can't be that different from how these things often are, so maybe it's just because I'm paying closer attention the seams seem to be a little less seamless.

Anyway, this episode also felt very much like a "Mandalorian" episode.

Ha I very much said that last point at a couple of times.