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

lol sic!! my kids were squirming in their seats. “why does he just keep saying the same thing daddy?? we get it!!” ffs i thought i was losing my mind. and then instead of cutting through the bullshit loki…… agrees w him?? “you know what mr baddie… i believe you have a point, you know”

because he actually wasn't bullshitting!

well we have his word for that. formally he’s the bad guy, the man behind the curtain. it’s true that the show gives us this twist that huh maybe the tva is necessary after all, but it felt very unsatisfying after a 20-minute infodump.

you're not saying anything i disagree with

I felt like the exposition went on a bit long and I also felt like he was hamming it up and got a bit tired of it, but I did get the feeling that what he was saying was not bullshit, which was possibly why they had it go on so long, so the viewer wasn't left questioning whether he was lying or not.

that’s fair

I think the show did a good job revealing Loki at his most humbled. Is it in the first episode where he recognizes he might be dealing with the greatest power he's ever known? The Sylvie Loki, on the other hand, is not humbled by the circumstances at all, through time and temperament, which is an early (if still obvious) sign that they are not at all the same. So it makes sense (to me) that Loki would just sit and listen, out of curiosity and awe, to what this lunatic is talking about, and ultimately believe him. And of course Sylvie was never going to chill, no matter what Kang said. That's why I was fine with an episode of mostly exposition; our Loki has been us, the viewer, for much of the show, and he wants to know what's going on, too. And as far as exposition dumps go this was a better ending imo than WandaVision (also lots of villain monologuing) and Falcon (don't even remember the villain). Loki's got an audience with God, more or less, so he's all ears.

I do think the show should have done a better job developing Sylvie, but talky or no by the end I really had no idea what either Loki would decided to do. And given how important Kang will apparently be going forward I think they (the show) really needed to explain him to the layman.

Our said told us that his camp counselor had a "strange conversation" with the kids (we were like - uh oh)... it turned out he had detailed some theory where if you watch these recent three Marvel series simultaneously, key moments onscreen will "sync up" with each other (we were relieved - oh, he's just a super nerd).

(*Our son told us...)

Pink Floyd tech still relevant

who would even do this

Loki wasn’t an anti-TVA ideologue, having doubts about the wisdom of destroying it all isn’t out of character.

There's these scenes in the Wandavision & Loki finales that sync up apparently (SPOILERS obvs if you've not seen them):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub3jCFh5W2Y

Not buying it at all. You could a random 30 seconds of Cheers and match it up that well with Loki.

could *take*

Yeah but the point is it's not random - those two scenes above align if you start both finales at the same time

Loki director:

It was definitely coincidental on our side. We were in post basically when WandaVision went on television, so I think it is probably coincidental. I wouldn't want to shut down any theories though, it's kind of fun.

In other words, she finally confirmed Mephisto!

C'mon people:

https://heroichollywood.com/kate-herron-responds-loki-wandavision-theory/

The fan theory has blown up over the last week, with fans speculating how this direct comparison between the two shows ties into the larger plans for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In an interview with SUPES, Loki director Kate Herron was asked her thoughts on the theory and if there was some validity to it. However, like most theories, Herron confirmed that it was merely coincidental.

“Interesting. It was definitely coincidental on our side. We were in post [production] basically when WandaVision went on television, so I think it is probably coincidental. I wouldn’t want to shut down any theories though, it’s kind of fun.”

damn, xp to Josh

amusing spin on the "all Marvel stuff ends the same" critique

Scarlett Johansson, star of the latest Marvel movie “Black Widow,” filed a lawsuit Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court against Disney, alleging her contract was breached when the media giant released the film on its Disney+ streaming service at the same time as its theatrical debut.

Ms. Johansson said in the suit that her agreement with Disney’s Marvel Entertainment guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release, and her salary was based in large part on the box-office performance of the film.

“Disney intentionally induced Marvel’s breach of the agreement, without justification, in order to prevent Ms. Johansson from realizing the full benefit of her bargain with Marvel,” the suit said.

Disney couldn’t be reached immediately for comment.

Meanwhile, if "Black Widow" proved a box office disappointment, I can only imagine what's in store for "Shang-Chi" in a month or so.

I don’t think Black Widow was a disappointment when you factor in the D+ money. She just doesn’t get a cut of the streaming revenue.

Comparing any movie's box office to "normal" right now is pointless and stupid. That said, good for her.

gal gadot and patti jenkins both got $10m in lieu of their cut of the box office when ww1984 went to hbo max, good for scarjo for going after her money imo

lmao stop supporting these ghouls

Disney gives a "no merit whatsoever" response to Johansson's pay lawsuit and calls it "sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic."

— Brooks Barnes (@brooksbarnesNYT) July 29, 2021

jesus, get your money ScarJo

oh shit they're trying to guilt trip her out of money?!

lmao at the mouse taking the high road

yeah, that's... quite the statement, lol

it's cool that she apparently has an email from Disney's chief counsel saying - “We understand that should the plan change, we would need to discuss this with you and come to an understanding as the deal is based on a series of (very large) box office bonuses.”

Not paying royalties due to authors they don’t care about makes a certain evil kind of sense but fucking with their headline stars is an incredible move. “We own it all what the fuck you gonna do?”

But Covid.

when someone says you breached a contract and you start talking about global pandemics you 100% breached that contract https://t.co/eXhc1Jz6OF

— Law Boy, Esq. (@The_Law_Boy) July 29, 2021

More shocked they didn't pay her off ahead of time (ala the Warner / HBOMax / WW84 deal mentioned). Disney clearly in the wrong here, but they've got the legal team to keep it in the courts forever.

One thing regarding Loki and the MCU multiverse that I was wondering about the other day:

In Infinity War, Doc Strange scanned millions of futures to see the one way to win.
This set off a series of events which inadvertantly caused Loki to get his hands on the Space Stone/Tesseract in the past.
Which led to the events in Loki's own show.
Which led to the aforementioned millions of futures actually being able to exist.

My head hurts.

it’d be funnier if each future he saw had TVD fixing things so that the Avengers win each time.

"I went forward in time, to view alternate futures. To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict."
"How many did you see?"
"14,000,605."
"How many did we win?"
"Every single one of them.”

Finally saw "Black Widow." Count me among those that think this was actually one of the better Marvel movies. Certainly one of the most violent, that's for sure. At times it creeped into black comedy body horror territory.

that's a cool way to die

I’m now imagining Strange being like “we win in all of them but Tony is SUCH a dick…”

BTW, to be even more team ScarJo, this movie really did feel to me like, if not for the pandemic and all attendant bullshit, it could have been a much bigger deal at the box office.

Want to read J. Hoberman’s recent writeup about Stan Lee bios.

I enjoyed the first episode of "What If ...?" Kind of like watching a Marvel movie at twice the speed.

BTW, occurred to me mid episode that this would be an easy way to "introduce" the X-Men or Fantastic Four, if they wanted to.

I liked What If! The animation style was weird and off-putting for five minutes and then I got used to it and liked it. I think it works better for someone like my kid who's memorized every beat of every movie. But I felt it had more of the spirit of the comic than I'd expected.

i really loved it!

(bc I have memorized every beat of the first Cap movie lol)

I liked it a lot, and I appreciated that the creative team really seemed to relish animating someone beating the living shit out of Nazis.

Thought last week's episode was ok but this week's was brilliant.

Loved all the "good" Thanos scenes

is there a list of the full series in terms of episodes or is there intentionally not. Only seeing the first 2 episodes plot outlined so far.
Would be good to know what is coming and how long the series is.

Nine episodes I think (and the same for season two)

loved everything about the second episode. RIP Boseman fuck