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

If that somehow ends up in the new movie at the end of the year it will all have been worth it.

i was frankly stunned at how bad black widow was: terrible editing, shitty script, muddy action sequences, overlong runtime, johansson barely making much of an effort, bombastic overbearing score, tonal confusion throughout. dumb twitterspeak repartee, brutal murder, emotional awakening or expensive fx? Why not everything all at once for two hours? the right answer is because it liquifies into a slurry of meaningless nonsense without stakes or engagement but somehow no one thought to point that out. Johansson and Winstone aside, the acting is an occasional saving grace, particularly Pugh and Harbour who seem to be in a much better movie. I would've liked to have watched that one instead of this one. This one was boring.

Black Widow was a lot of fun. I look forward to Yelena chasing down Clint

I felt it was one of the more ambitious MCU movies: human trafficking, sexism and unorthodox, but actually really relatable, family dynamics. Loved it really.

I enjoyed Black Widow. It does seem like it's the least essential MCU movie by far, but it works well as a standalone Bond-style romp. Cool to see various moves from previous MCU movies back in Taskmaster's moves.
Agreed that Pugh and Harbour were especially strong. I don't get what people have against Ray Winstone (on here is not the first time that I see him being written off). I quite enjoyed him as a soft-spoken completely remorseles controlling sociopath who could get dangerously aggressive.

There's a transition at the end of the movie that seemed pretty weird though: when Natasha stayed behind to await General Ross and the military, then in the next scene, at a later moment, gets a plain to help her fellow Avengers, is it simply left to the viewer's imagination to explain whatever happens inbetween?

Still haven't had a chance to see this, but the number of places I've seen describe it as a standalone Bond-styled romp underscores that there is no hurry. I like all these Marvel movies, more or less, but I've come to prefer the space/magic/fantasy side of them over the well-trained-ninjas subset.

contemporary bond movies are more cohesive and better crafted than this, which is pretty damning.

Contemporary Bond movies are fun, too

i'm beginning to understand why we're diverging on this topic

You hate fun? *runs away*

i am pro-fun; i am anti-dour, badly edited OTT killfests without purpose or engagement
i liked loki a lot though i have thoughts on the somewhat pro-fascist conclusion

i am anti-dour, badly edited OTT killfests without purpose or engagement

are you sure watched Black Widow and not, like, Faces of Death

xpost Unless I misunderstand your point, I wouldn't say it was pro-fascist so much as it was a presentation of a fascist promoting his agenda as the only reasonable choice (in the same way that Infinity War wasn't really pro-Malthus).

You get my general point, but the fascist propagandizer isn’t Kang or Loki but Disney.

“Dour” is a bond reference; for BW, substitute “variably maudlin and insouciant”

“Dour” is a bond reference; for BW, substitute “variably maudlin and insouciant”

“Dour” is a bond reference; for BW, substitute “variably maudlin and insouciant”

“Dour” is a bond reference; for BW, substitute “variably maudlin and insouciant”

Dang zing

Forks vm otm. My 12 year old daughter was thoroughly bored too and insisted we watch CRUELLA again when we got home for some entertainment.

I mean, if we are going to judge it by our kids' reactions, our almost 10 year old has watched it four times already.

i would like to judge it from the trailer i saw on tv, which made it look like grey shit

Will definitely say this, I was thinking Weinstein at the end for sure, but the Karolyi idea, I can live with that as well:

Anyone else notice that the villain in Black Widow started off looking like ruthless gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi, and ended up looking a lot like Harvey Weinstein?

I think this movie might have slightly feministical undertones in the subtexts.#BlackWidow #MeToo pic.twitter.com/piY2ofbQuf

— Marc L'Hommedieu 💛❤💙 (@MarcLHommedieu) July 19, 2021

AITA for calling my bf a gatekeeper? https://t.co/MP5hLZ2wvt pic.twitter.com/TCkMHCmMc4

— Am I the Asshole? (@AITA_reddit) July 19, 2021

i liked loki a lot though i have thoughts on the somewhat pro-fascist conclusion

To Valentijn: yeah, i felt that was kind of abrupt, too. But I guess since we already know what happens between Civil War and Infinity War they were... too lazy to even bother explaining exactly what happened here?

I'm gonna challenge aldo's Black Widow take in spoiler tags:

It's really weird to me to clutch pearls about the collateral damage of all of the dead employees of the Red Room given that their job was "kidnap, brainwash, and mutilate orphaned girls to mold them into super assassins and murder the ones who don't pass muster". It reeks to me of "it's fictional so I can worry about good people on both sides without any real world blowback or repercussions". Like, are you really rending your garments because the dude who did IT for the Red Room blew up? THAT takes you out of the story?

Basically it's one thing to be all "I'm troubled by the depiction of fascism in superhero stories" but when the addendum is "because I'm sure some of the fascists were actually lovely and devoted to their families" I think you need to start asking yourself some hard questions

djp’s hidden text otm

yeah agreed. and a lotta people probably died in that

taskmaster chase

haha lol i suck at spoiler tags sorry.

DJP is completely otm wrt to the Red Room organization but, to be completely honest, I think the objection was more to the avalanche that presumably killed hundreds of prisoners who, given the narrative, were very frequently innocent people tucked away for being inconvenient to the regime.

Maybe not "more", but also an objection.

Meantime:

EXCLUSIVE: After a thorough search that has involved months of meeting a slew of talent, @Marvel's new 'Blade' movie has found its director: Bassam Tariq https://t.co/Nc13Q3bOh2

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) July 19, 2021

Regarding that Black Widow scene: It's not defined who those prisoners actually were; for example, do you think Alexei is meant to be taken as an innocent person given how enthusiastically he gave Natasha and Yelena to the Red Room and how delighted he was by how many people they'd presumably killed? And even then, is the presumption warranted that they were all innocent OR that they all died in the avalanche? It seemed from the staging that most, if not all, of the prisoners made it back inside before the avalanche swept through as well as most of the guards; why isn't the presumption that they survived and were able use exits higher up in the prison to get out? It's literally fiction; the people in that prison can be whomever you want them to be and what happens to them after the snow sweeps through can be whatever you want it to be.

The point j/v/c makes was definitely the jarring point for the reasons he gave. But enhhh I don't really gaf about it, I was just trying to explain why I am less keen on the military complex films rather than Big Men Punching Each Other.

I certainly didn't intend to start an argument here, at all, just noting that it wasn't the scene DJP called out that stuck in my craw, it was a different scene. But to answer DJP's questions:

Fair, I do not think Alexei is at all innocent, and saying "very frequently innocent" was overstating the fact. However, given what we do know about Soviet era prisons (which I think was the implication here, or at least the implied allusion with it being in the middle of nowhere), I wouldn't presume them all to be hardened criminals and some of them would be dissidents or resistance types. So no, I would not presume them to be all innocent. Also, yes, I would agree that many of them did make it back to safety, but I don't think any prisoner, regardless of their criminal past, deserves to suffocate to death in a man made avalanche in the name of freeing one guy.

Some very geeky speculation based on Black Widow's post credit scene and the possible non-multiverse future of the MCU, also going into the MCU streaming series:

Early MCU days were set off by Nick Fury recruiting Tony Stark for his Initiative. Is Elaine from Seinfeld now setting up a private contractor version of the Avengers? Taking cues from the 'Dark Avengers' comic book storylines where supervillain Norman Osborn got into the good graces of the public and replaced the then-current altruistic Avengers with remodelled villains - maybe also drawing from Mark Millar's 'Ultimates 2' storyline where the Ultimate version of the Avengers were confronted by a counterpart team from opposing foreign nations?
The Contessa seems like a morally ambiguous or even evil Fury, who we now know has a morally ambiguous Captain America and a morally ambiguous Black Widow in her employ. Tim Roth's Abomination will show up in the upcoming She-Hulk series, who could be her Hulk. From the original Avengers, that leaves Iron Man, Hawkeye and Thor. There might easily be an Iron Man counterpart featured in War Machine's announced series Armor Wars, such as the Titanium Man or the Crimson Dynamo. Lalo Salamanca/Tony Dalton will feature in the upcoming Hawkeye series, he might fit as dark Hawkeye, alternatively Hawkeye's brother Trickshot might show up at some point. That leaves Thor. I have no idea which upcoming film or series might feature a 'new Thor'. I keep hoping that Hercules will be introduced at some point, as he's one of my personal favourite Marvel characters. Other Thor-counters could be Ares or the Thor cyborg clone (as in Dark Avengers), or Slavic deity Perun (as in Ultimates 2).
Obviously, I could be entirely wrong here.

I have no idea which upcoming film or series might feature a 'new Thor'.

Oh that’s no mystery, it’s been announced…

Oh that’s no mystery, it’s been announced…

Ah, yes... that's pretty obvious indeed. But I don't think -that- new Thor would be a likely candidate for recruitment into a Dark Avengers-style team. But maybe.

I like that theory a lot.

Yeah, I agree with that theory. Valentina/Elaine's first appearance should have been Black Widow BEFORE appearing in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, too... she's definitely going to make more appearances. Maybe they'll introduce Ares or Hercules in the next Thor movie. Abomination seems a lock for this, great idea there. Loki seems a good opportunity in the next season to introduce a character on that power level as well.

Good interview, this.

https://gizmodo.com/loki-director-kate-herron-explains-the-loneliness-he-wh-1847331591

This...is very very good casting.

https://variety.com/2021/film/news/michaela-coel-black-panther-2-marvel-1235024815/

Also, the making-of on Loki is up at Disney+ as I figured it would be.

And said making of special is pretty fun. Hiddleston narrates, a good piece of promo.

Owen Wilson talking about working with Tom Hiddleston lmao pic.twitter.com/SOUXMbwOIM

— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) July 21, 2021

the moment where Owen talks about Tom suggesting “there was only one person we considered” vs. Tom later on wrt the casting choice for classic Loki.

There are no good options with regards to BP2. It's dumb to lose the character of T'Challa, but Chad's take was so definite...

Casting Coel is exciting, but i'm not sure which wakandan female character is even left to cast? Maybe Storm?

xpost
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead with Wilson and Hiddleston could be actually amazing

i just watched the last episode of loki and it was boring as fuck

How dare you