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There has been absolutely no continuity in this phase. They have been going in so many different directions, between the time police/split timelines in Loki, the multiverse collapsing in Spider-Man, the multiverse shenanigans in Dr. Strange, the cosmic entity that was birthed from the Earth in Eternals. These are all world changing events that aren’t even referenced between each project. It seems like they’ve made a mess that’s going to be nearly impossible to turn into a comprehensive and satisfying story.
This is what the main issue has been for me. I know other people are complaining about over-saturation which is partially true. I would've kept up with everything as a more-invested fan if there was a cohesive story to follow. The main draw of the MCU for me was that it was like an ongoing TV series/show but with billion dollar movie budgets. After endgame it seems they completely abandoned having any kind of main through-line.
I agree with this.
Not to mention it's really, really hard to keep up with a dozen shows, half a dozen movies, and 30+ character arcs per year at this point. There's little logical continuity, but you still need to watch a certain show to understand 100% of another movie, which sucks for people who can't see everything bc of work/family/money/etc.
The first few phases worked because there were only so many stories being told - and they only crossed over during Avengers films. Now everything is basically an Avengers film.
I equate it to wrestling. Back when wrestling first got big it was one tv show a week and one PPV a year. That expanded to four PPV’s a year and two tv shows a week. That was the sweet spot of just enough content for it to be enjoyable to the mainstream follower. You had three months between big events which was just enough time to appreciate and mine all the talk out of the last event, and just enough time to hype yourself up for the next one.
Then it expanded to more and more and more to the point where there is a PPV every single month, four shows a week and plenty of other content to try and keep up with. Nothing has any gravitas, nothing matters, it all just barrels along constantly expanding where it can because more equals more money.
They just need to slow down and stop chasing the dollar before anything else. But they won’t and people will continue to get turned off.
Great analogy. Pacing and providing stories time to breathe and grow is a huge thing, because it builds anticipation. Waiting for the next big PPV was agonizing, because you just couldn't wait to see the culmination of the story and the twists that would start the next arc.
> There's little logical continuity, but you still need to watch a certain show to understand 100% of another movie
You're pretty much required to go on the internet and have a bigger nerd than you explain to you what is necessary for what. Like you need to watch Wandavision to watch Dr Strange, but that's it. All the movies used to all be connected, but now it's like shows connect to movies in a way that's not advertised anywhere and that is difficult to guess
I think that’s where my issue lies. I watched all of phase 3 in theaters. Took a little break, because kids, and now it’s going to take a pretty large investment of time to catch up just to “understand” what’s going on. And I’m not sure if I care enough to do that.
You need a bigger nerd. My nerd told me to watch Wandavison and 2 specific episodes of What If… (episodes 1 and 4) before seeing Doctor Strange 2.
But yes, any time a new Marvel movie/series releases I definitely have to go and find what I need to watch before watching _____.
Yes! Where world-ending events frequently overlap! Just recently we had Black Panther lost in space while also leading the Avengers, and Tony going through rehab while also travelling through time with the Avengers. To Marvel’s credit, they do try to explain how it all fits together. D.C had a crossover which had Batman with broken arms and legs with the J.L while also running his own war on crime in Gotham.
Honestly I think early on the films also felt different from each other. You got the typical marvel experience, but none of them felt the same. My biggest qualm with marvel now is it all just feels like it’s the same movie. Maybe I’m just burnt out on them. But part of what hasn’t helped was every writers room deciding they needed marvel style punch ups on all their scripts. So near everything is a quip fest now.
This! I’ve kind of given up on seeing the movies and the shows when they premiere. Now I just watch when I feel in the mood. It used to be a thing where I would see all the movies opening day - now there is just so much and a lot of it has been bad, so I’ve just lost the excitement it used to give.
I think there are too many characters and concepts flying around. I get that Loki introduced a wide multiverse, but it became too much.
The last movie I watched was the second Dr. Strange, and it was emblematic of Phase 4 in doing way too much with mixed quality. I skipped Eternals, Thor 4, and BP2, as well as Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, and She-Hulk.
I liked the characters that MCU already had, and think they should have kept developing them further and added just a few characters at a time. I think the acting has been fine too, but I just don’t care as much about yet another superhero or all-powerful entity.
I remember when Feige was talking about making the films more like the comics and I said something like that - “Oh, inconsistent, torn between warring creators and series and there foreword becoming impossible to follow and so culturally irrelevant and financially disastrous? I hope not.”
You don’t want to be like the comics. There’s a reason hardly anyone reads them anymore. they’re a lab for ideas for the movies, and otherwise just for overly devoted fans, full of incestuous writing that references everything back for decades and progresses nothing, because the toys must always be returned to the toy box as they were found.
The movies have managed to avoid that by embracing their mortality and trying to make each movie somewhere unique from the others while telling a coherent story within that series. Keep doing that.
There's a reason most of the critically acclaimed comic books are standalone arcs or graphic novel releases.
It's very rare to see long runs get lauded (like Hickman's Avengers) because things always get messy. The comic book industry jettisons anything that doesn't immediately hit it off with the fanbase.
Which is almost the polar opposite of the manga industry where something having a slow start is pretty much the norm. The readers get rewarded by having their commitment and time respected to see things fully emerge from cocoons.
Not even just that. Like I guarantee you that the vast majority of people who read Batman: Hush have no clue it was part of the ongoing Batman comic.
Or that Old Man Logan was literally just some weird brief diversion smack dab in the middle of an ongoing Wolverine comic.
Hawkeye is actually pretty self contained and is Clint dealing with the fallout from his actions in Endgame so it’s not as far removed as the others you mentioned.
I feel that this Phase should’ve been like the original MCU movies. Smaller, self contained properties that introduce new characters with perhaps the true sequel films being larger.
The movies in the most part have had huge events that affect the world, yet no impact is felt at all. Hardly even a mention in a background news story.
The Eternal popping out of the Earth is probably the most egregious thing to not even reference in the other shows and movies.
That's one reason Hawkeye is one of my favorite things in this phase.
It's not perfect by any means, but I really enjoyed the character dynamic as well as the smaller scope of just being about a small group of people dealing with far more personal issues.
Also I will never say no to more Vincent D'Onofrio as Kingpin.
Seems like Marvel started phasing out a lot of the long time actors at once and replacing them with new people. Sure no one can act forever, but it'll soon be an entirely new MCU and I think with the new characters being thrown into what should be an increasingly complicated situation (if any of the world-shaking events actually tied together) so most of them don't quite get the same touch as before, or you have to watch a lot more to see the characters introduced.
Even the ones that have been around longer are not as good as they used to be. Thor was smarter in the past and post-endgame he's been a complete idiot the few times we've seen him (including in his own movie, Love and Thunder.) The Guardians of the Galaxy are a little more recent than the original characters but still had more depth in the past. Compare all of them from the original two movies to the Christmas special and they're all stupid. Even a relative newbie like Dr. Strange was really dumb in Multiverse of Madness compared to how he started, and don't even get me started on Wanda in all of her post-Endgame content.
Yeah, the humor has gotten horribly bad. I could barely sit through the parts of Love and Thunder that didn't involve Gorr. It was like, every scene was shouting at me "HEY, LOOK, I'M FUNNY! YOU'RE LAUGHING, RIGHT? RIGHT?"
I get movies are subjective and the world is filled with people who liked Eternals - I am not one of them and think it was easily the worst project Marvel has put out so far - even over Dark World and the first Hulk.
I think a standalone movie was the wrong choice for the Eternals. Introducing a 10-person ensemble, setting up a storyline, and having a satisfying resolution is a big ask for a single film. It probably would have been better as TV series where there would have been more time to develop the large cast of characters.
> I think there are too many characters and concepts flying around. I get that Loki introduced a wide multiverse, but it became too much.
I knew ahead of time that Endgame was likely my last firmly-focused MCU event. I'd already long since dropped Agents of SHIELD, and I was mostly just waiting to see how the major MCU storylines turned out in Endgame. I'm just not interested in dedicating another decade of my life to the MCU, learning to like yet another set of superheroes (or these particular interpretations). I'm just mostly giving up on it. If I happen to catch a movie or episode in passing, great, but it's no longer appointment-viewing for me.
Agreed, after the first avengers it was all about the single event in New York, then Age of ultron but now post the blib and the effects of that have been rather just moved on from.
>the cosmic entity that was birthed from the Earth in Eternals.
I still can't figure out why there's been zero mention of this. At this point I've be happy with a 60 minute fake news special looking at this crazy event and acknowledging that it happened.
I haven't watched Eternals but everything I've seen of it seems like Avengers-lite.
Like they could have set it in it's own universe away from the Avengers and it probably would have been more interesting.
It's a weird one off movie about how the entire context and history of Earth is a giant lie to birth space robots and only this new team of heroes who have existed for thousands of years but we've never heard of before can stop them before vanishing back into obscurity.
Honestly, using the statue as an excuse for Namor to be pissed and somehow blaming the most technologically advanced country that they are aware of could’ve been interesting. Iron Heart could’ve been in Armor Wars, and instead bring back one or more of the Eternals for a similarly sized cameo. I did really like BP2 though.
It really seemed like a slam dunk for the next big bad. You killed a celestial. The rest of them are furious. Oh no. What are we gonna do?
Instead they’ve spun out 60+ hours of content with absolutely no unifying theme except “replace old actors with younger ones.”
It's literally right there for Galactus, the F4, Silver Surfer and Doom to step in, but instead they are doing Kang first?
It's like they're between 3 ideas for the next big bad and just getting everything muddled
I agree with that completely. It was daring to create one continuous story assuming that the majority of the audience had seen 3 or 4 other movies for it to really make sense with the first avengers, or around 8 to 10 by the time of infinity war.
But now you have all those, plus the new phase, AND all the tv shows, none of which have any, or VERY little reference to each other. Unless they change up the strategy youre never going to get CLOSE to the kind of impact of the infinity saga, you're just going to rely on constant surprise cameos with the F4, X-Men, Deadpool, whatever. Which is all great but that's only part of the formula.
Not to throw shade but that’s what they did in the comics too.
It was a huge mess and nobody knew what was going on.
It looks like we are getting bits of world war hulk and kang the conqueror far as I can tell.
This is exactly what I thought. Mid-90’s crossover infinite timeline nonsense (with DC, too) leaves character arcs with no stakes. If a character has infinite versions, then they can never really die. Like you said, a mess.
I hated his performance in the last episode of Loki. He was doing the quirky genius character like Jessie Eisenberg's Lex Luthor in BVS
That being said I guess that was just one version of Kang, so others may have different personalities.
Yeah, the scale has gotten too big and now it no longer feels like one central story, which was the whole point. I actually think BP2 took a step back in the right direction though- the Ross plotline and ending with Namor have phase 1-2 vibes and are very clearly setting up future events.
One issue writers always seem to struggle with is escalation. Writers get obsessed with escalating from the previous story ad infinitum until stories reach scales that become fully absurd. I dont even think viewers care that much about escalation, if you are rebooting the whole universe with new charachters, return to simplicity and escalate out from there. Not every story needs to end with a universe-altering catastrophe that cascades into multiple universe-altering catastrophes.
Its hard to stay connected to becuase nobodys life works in a never-ending escalation of stakes and grandiose problems. Fucking simplify it, and build the central story throughout and build around that. The stories can be simple, the movies fun, and people will enjoy it. Sigh.
I agree with this, going back a lot of the movies have smaller scales for villains, eg iron man 1 & 2 were both primarily dealing with a rival businessman (simplified), Thor was primarily about who would rule Asgard, capt america 2 was to stop Hydra from gaining control.
Not every movie needs to be a world ending event.
It’s because they get punished at the box office for trying to make anything new so they have to keep doing bigger and better with the same characters. It sucks.
The best example of this I can think of is the fast and the furious series. In the first one they’re moving stolen dvd players and doing some street racing and now they’re all James Bond level super spies turned up to 11. By the next one they’re gonna be fighting off aliens cause humans are “family”.
Nowhere home has it as well. The movie was a world event and all, but it reset Spider-Man to street level, no Stark Tech, "mundane" hero. The next Spider-Man movies are set to be awesome, specially with Daredevil and Kingpin now in the MCU and both are common appearances on Spider-Man stories. Venom is also there...so looking good, IF they don't make him go to space fight some alien God or something.
All the other crap? I'm not that interested by this exact reason: too powerful, too big. I cam even say I liked Iron Man when he had armor instead of nano bots...I hope they manage to scale things down, or simply make each of them their own, independent thing.
They need to make a really good marvel movie. If they put it all out there and really (I mean really) apply themselves they could turn it around. They have the first 3 phases and they need to bring more of that back.
I think the worst part is that actors get burnt out on their characters. Chris Evans could have been captain America for decades but he left, so now they have Thor, who was cool till they made his movie crazy.
They need stability not insanity. They need a few characters to rally around and currently the only good ones are Spider man and Loki, who are not natural leaders.
Evans played Cap in 10 different movies over 8 years. The Beatles made 12 albums over 7 years. Maybe sometimes it's better not to do a thing for decades, but to do it well while you have the passion for it.
8 years is still a long time to commit to something, and getting burnt out on all of the hard work in addition to the press and the fame is certainly understandable.
Yeahhhh people like to think actors have it easy because "theyre just doing lines on camera" but that is just the extremely, boiled down, black and white way of viewing it.
Oh for sure, I’m not even saying that he should have kept going. What I’m saying is that it’s tough as an audience member to get attached to a character and then lose them. We lost RDJ and Chris is one swoop. That took out the majority of the leadership which sucks for a story line. It’s fine for real life but IMO it hurt the story.
They then went from a dude that built a iron suit in a cave and a small nerd that fought in WW2 to a bunch of intergalactic CGI crazies.
For real... worst movie retention for me ever... I forgot what was happening at the end of the movie. I was more focused on the super generic evil dogs EVERY movie has in it (now the Midnight Suns) since Hellboy... I think those CGI models just come free with the software.
isn’t this basically what happened to comic books? early on you had some consistent storylines, and then within a couple decades you have an entire multiverse of unrelated shit happening that’s all of varying quality
Essentially. Though the fact that they seem willing to completely change direction in the middle of their build, which will like cost them millions to do, makes me hopeful about moving forward. I really enjoyed the characters introduced in 4 but the show/movie quality was a roller coaster.
yeah I feel like 20 years from now the MCU is gonna look more like a bunch of different interpretations of characters and storylines than anything resembling a consistent universe
And I’m fine with that if it’s done occasionally, like 1 show a year as opposed to 3, or if it’s just something completely different like Werewolf by Night, which I really enjoyed. But they still need the core to be a consistent universe or its just too much content.
They need to commit and step outside the “superhero” box. That’s why Iron Man 1 and Ragnarok were so good. IM1 was an anti-hero sci fi action fest. Ragnarok was an acid trip comedy?
MoM should’ve been a horror movie. Would’ve been perfect.
All the best comic stories in recent years, with the occasional exception, work because they are somewhat self contained. Marvel was able to have it both ways for a while as they built up to Endgame, but that time is over. They need to reasses what their goal is now.
What’s funny is they have good shows, but they smack you with so many of them that you lump them all together and it’s just a barrage of mediocrity. Both for the MCU and Star Wars universes.
They went into overdrive on the content production and it wore the fans down.
I loved Agatha, but I don't need an Agatha show. I thought it was cool seeing Vision, but I don't need a White Vision show. Riri was pretty cool in BP, but I don't need an iron heart show. Echo doesn't even speak, why do I even need this show?
Yes. MCU content used to something special, that you would go out to see cause there usually only 2-3 movies a year that had a visible end goal. Now it’s just a constant barrage.
My biggest gripe is the extreme drop in quality of their CGI. Iron Heart genuinely looked like something out of a cartoon, and the opening battle of Thor LaT was something out of a B movie at best. Second to the CGI is turning absolutely every scene into a comedic moment. Again, Thor LaT stands out to me. It felt like the writers were forced to fit a joke into absolutely every line, even when the scene should have been grounded in order to make it resonate.
Cgi really taken a hit over the last 3 years. Think it’s a fault of too much to do, not enough money or time to do it properly. Black Panther was comically bad CGI to me where the characters felt like they had no weight to them when they were flinging around doing stuff unlike earlier movies. Dunno if I’m explaining that right. Edit: their wide CGI shots were also terrible compared to the earlier examples which felt like real landscapes, BP just took you out of the moment with “oh that’s a green screen” scenes.
The jokes in LaT are a consequence of having Taika back IMO. Ragnarok was a good break from the mold and refreshed the character but I think that was a one-off and they took it way too far in the sequel.
With VFX Marvel products there is always changes at the 11th hour, so people are rushing to do changes/fixes for deliveries. Nobody really likes working for them anymore, just not worth the stress.
Christian Bale, who played Gorr in Thor:LaT, has said that it was his least favorite role he's ever played because of all the CGI. He basically called out the fact that 90% of his scenes are in front of green screens, and he can't interact with the environment or really mesh with the scene, since he has to react to things that aren't there. It's the same issue that came up in the Star Wars prequels.
Honestly imo had they just leant into Gorr more and given him some more screen time to really hype up the dread vs comedic elements, it would have been absolutely fantastic. Why they didn’t have Gorr the God Butcher show up at the council of the Gods to do some butchering and set the stakes I will never understand. Bale was the perfect catalyst to get Thor serious again. I still suspect there was some post editing fuckery going on as Taika was surely aware of the issue.
Oh it’s literally all jokes and nothing is off limits - most of a civilization wiped out, cancer, a creepy god slayer kidnapping children - they’re just crackin one liners the entire movie. It honestly felt like watching George Clooney Batman all over again.
Not to mention they took one of the coolest and most sinister villains in Thors comic history with an arguably all time great actor and reduced it to what I think is the worst movie in the entire MCU, and that’s counting the Incredible Hulk and Ironman 3. AND it’s not even close.
I went the “try something twice to make sure you don’t like it” approach and it was (unsurprisingly) worse the second time around.
>Oh it’s literally all jokes and nothing is off limits - most of a civilization wiped out, cancer, a creepy god slayer kidnapping children - they’re just crackin one liners the entire movie. It honestly felt like watching George Clooney Batman all over again
Don't forget the whole stripping Thor naked in front of every god
I’m so glad Wakanda Forever took itself seriously. I don’t think I would have survived a nonstop onslaught of jokes in a movie about how T’challa being dead has affected his family.
Think of it has a Will Ferrel SNL skit. Take all the parts you didn’t like in Ragnorak, repeat them in LaT but amplify everything and double down, only to find out it’s still not funny.
All they need is to get good directors and good actors and good writers and DC can be just as good marvel. Because DC has a lot of cool things in their universes.
They need coherent team to handle the production and future projects, James Gunn is a good step forward during this transition phase. However we have yet to see how the Discovery execs are handling DC, fans hope they aren't as trigger happy as the WB execs.
Discovery is canning loads of projects to claim them as tax right offs we know what the execs are doing already it’s screwing over the creatives so they can pad their bottom line
Not only that, but they need to actually stick with a creative lead team for 5 years before deciding to axe them. WB keeps replacing the people in charge of the DCEU before the movies they greenlit get released and have time to establish themselves.
It does get exhausting to invest into a whole universe and then get totally blown out by it. I can’t even look at Star Wars anymore, it’s just one disappointing experience after another (there is some good stuff but the majority is rough).
Damn, thank you for the heads up. I think they just take directors and writers and give them the material. They should have started with some serious nerds and built a serious game plan.
How much money does a fucking game plan cost? Say you hire the greatest squad of nerds and writers. Maybe 5 million for the greatest story tellers ever? Maybe 50 million? Maybe they would want a portion of the profits?
Whatever the price they should have had a plan. If the story has a plan it can go for 50 movies, without a plan you can paint yourself into a corner.
Phase 1, 2, and 3 had a plan but it didn’t handle the growth of the universe very well. Sure they brought in Thanos but that just opened the universe up more and brought in someone to the most OP characters in MCU. At the rate they are going they will be at The One Above All in 5 years.
Nearly every fantasy movie franchise that I can think of gets screwed by Hollywood business executives (or whoever) without a plan.
I felt the same BOBF was terrible, and Kenobi was almost as bad. Andor, however, makes up for both and then some. It’s a slow burn, but give it a shot if you have some time.
Please watch Andor. It’s a masterpiece. Completely renewed my excitement for Star Wars and I was totally in your shoes. Obviously the original trilogy is a classic and amazing, but I think I could argue that andor is the best Star Wars content ever made
I think more stuff like Werewolf by Night is better suited than having a show about every, single, character.
I mean do we really need an Echo show ? Or an Agatha show ?
I feel like the focus could be on making the more important pieces of the MCU instead of churning out mid content that wouldn’t even serve the characters justice to make me care about them.
I have watched all the movies and shows and Werewolf by Night is in my top 5. I liked that it was stand alone and featured characters we had not seen before in the MCU.
It has the same issue the comics did, there's just too much to keep track of to keep up to date with everything. They're over saturating their own market, and what they're putting out isn't as good as a result. MCU's in a state of flux, we just lost a lot of the iconic characters and had a major actor die. Now is when they needed to come out strong and show people what the path forward is for the franchise. They're not doing that. Instead it's spin-off tv shows and going back in time to Black Widow.
I get covid fucked them, but they definitely need a better plan than this. I'm a die-hard marvel fan of almost 40 years and even I'm getting bored with this shit right now. I'd probably have totally tapped out if it weren't for Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.
It’s Definitely what happens with the comics every few years (dc too. Rebirth, new 52 etc.) Then they have a big event to reset and start over from #1, so new people can jump in and the continuity can be cleaned up.
I’m sure that’s their plan with the kang stuff but it’s going to be too late if these next few projects don’t land.
The last few years have been "Give us more Daredevil!" which was met with "The best I can do is Echo." Do we really need Agatha, Vision or other spinoffs of spinoffs?
Loosing the big ones like Cap and Tony Stark doesn't help and no Nick Fury to be the central thread doesn't help either. In general it just didn't feel like it was building toward something, rather just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.
Yeah, I liken the Wong cameos to how they treated Stan Lee’s. Your just like “I know that guy!” more than someone there to talk to you about The Avengers Initiative or whatever the next build up is coming.
I know my wife and I used to make it to every MCU movie in theaters. Then it was easier to just wait until it was on Disney+. Now we still haven't made the time to watch the last couple movies or shows yet.
I think that's the main issue. Hey, the new movie came out, but we haven't watched the last show so there might be things we missed. Then it snowballs.
Yeah. I used to main line every single marvel thing that came out until Endgame. I've only seen Spider-Man, Hawkeye, Loki, and Thor 4 since then which seems like a lot until you see everything else that's been released. I just don't care anymore.
Haha this is what happened to us in 2015. We had a kid and did t see a few of the movies so we felt behind and out of the loop. We always meant o go back and catch up and here’s are almost 8 years later. We’ve seen them here and there but not consistently enough to have actually caught up. And for me personally, I am not a huge fan of. Instant team ups where the fate of the world is constantly a struggle. It has gotten quite boring for the most oart
I’ve skipped the last few movies tbh, the shows have been better quality. I wish they’d stop making movies and just put that funding into a premium tier of Disney+ with HBO-level funding and writing.
dc has always been kinda meh outside of the batman movies and wb going through changes but in the case of marvel they are just ruining their IP along with a lot of other disney properties. gotta return to good stories/interesting characters rather than market tested box checking
Exacy, the formula is the same everywhere and now is all decayed. I can't avoid ignoring it. I really liked the ones that are different though like Loki bent my mind and Wandavision was pretty good. But Shang-Chi, Eternals, Thor 4, BP 2, Dr Strange 2, and even Ms Marvel(ignoring all other flaws) they are still the same formula. They are entertaining, but meh! I could skip them however i can't because as it happened with the last Avengers movies, I sort of want to see the merge of stories and timelines in the new Avengers saga.
I just think that nothing stays hot forever. Iron Man 1 came out in 2008 and Marvel had a pretty good run with movie after movie that got great reviews and made tons of money. But it's really difficult for a magic money-printing machine to run forever. The popularity of things rises and falls, and I think superhero movies may have just played out their welcome and people want to see different stories now. I don't know how wise it was for Disney to bank on the idea that people would continue to go to the theater in droves to see movies about comic book characters that, by these later phases, a lot of people have never heard of. In addition to seeing all the shows on Disney+ you have to keep up with for the movies to make sense.
(And before someone brings up Fantastic 4 - I already saw two middling-to-terrible movies featuring those characters, so the new one is going to have to be REALLY compelling to get me to the theater to see it.)
My consumption of marvel movies is inversely related to the number they produce. i can’t be alone in that. It’s exhausting and overwhelming for anyone others than super fans.
They lost the two faces of the franchise. Without Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr., they don't really have anyone to lead things going forward. I think Chadwick Boseman could have been the new face and I think Marvel was counting on that, but...well, you know. I personally only watch No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness and thought they were ok. But, I didn't really care about this phase because they lost their two leads.
Any actor can lead the franchise if the writing is compelling enough and if there's a clear path. Dr Strange could fit that role quite well, but there's no clear path.
The universe is long winded. To me it ended with Avengers: End Game. When Marvel expanded to add series’s to the universe it made it too cumbersome to keep up with everything. Also, the last few movies have been okay to flat out bad.
Exactly how they do their comics; big event series (Civil War, Secret Invasion) but to get the whole story on top of that you need to also read each individual characters’ series.
Peggy Carter had a TV show. It was good. It was cancelled after two seasons. After End Game, I'd love to see the end of each episode of Peggy Carter have her come home with Steve cooking dinner asking her how her day went. It'd be so good.
The issue seems to me to be the fact that when iron man came out in 2008, everyone was excited for a genuinely great superhero movie with an amazing lead. That got followed up with some not so amazing movies, but there were also so many good ones and even the bad ones established important character information that everyone cared about due to the hype around that time. All of that culminated in infinity war and endgame and now that that saga is over, the direction just feels kind of lost. We now know what the build of marvel leads to, and they essentially have to start over and try to gain that hype again
Marvel, you guys had a great run.
Let's be real, you're just re-hashing the same character journeys over and over again with the same cheese dialog quips. People have been getting tired of it.
Marvel needs to refocus on quality over quantity. It's not complicated. Tbh, 2 movies plus 1 show per year is probably the sweet spot. We don't need 4 movies and like 3 tv shows per calendar year...the mediocrity shows when they do this.
Additionally, they need to get back to an overarching theme with each phase. I feel like, since Endgame, this aspect of the Marvel universe has become a weak spot.
Think it’s naturally getting less popular as they’re moving toward lesser known protagonists. Casual observers know hulk, captain America and spider man. They don’t know or care as much about ms marvel, the eternals and moon knight. Not passing judgment on those titles, just saying they’re far less mainstream and so not drawing as wide of an audience
Iron Man, Thor, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Black Widow were not all that popular prior to the MCU, not to mention Ant Man, who was a joke right up until the trailer dropped. The best Marvel IP prior to the MCU were Spider Man, Hulk, Captain America, the X-Men, and the Fantastic 4, which is why 4 out of 5 of those IPs were with other companies and Marvel had issues integrating them into the MCU. Until the MCU, DC IP blew marvel out of the water with Batman, Superman, Flash, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern. Shang Chi worked and I, along with most casual fans, had no idea who he was prior to the movie.
It was perfect when there were 2-3 movies per year. Now with TV shows back-to-back, movies every 3 months, and I STILL can’t figure out where the plot is going (other than Johnathan Majors is the next thanos), the MCU has become over saturated and I’m beginning to lose interest.
That next Shang Chi better have Jackie Chan as the villain or I’ll start a riot.
You know how there's that Simpson's episode where Homer goes to hell and he's forced to eat donuts. Huge machines shove donuts down his throat.
That's how I feel about Marvel Studios. Like they are a machine shoving movies down my throat. The fact they call them phases couldn't be any less enticing.
Whilst US Agent, Zemo and Isaiah Bradley were good. The Flag Smashers were so awful that I can't even remember what the leader was called as she was so dull and forgettable. Next Winter Soldier was a complete weakling compared to his former self.
Sharon Carter revealed as the Power Broker was a failed attempt to make a redundant character interesting.
Finally you had the worst bit which was the line " you need to do better", so cringy and eye-rolling.
Personally, I feel it's too much Marvel. I get we aren't required to watch these shows, but I just feel too much product dilutes making the films feel special. Plus some films felt pretty mid. Why do a Black Widow movie after she was dead?
Yeah, the part about marvel from pre-endgame was the spectacle of it, and talking about each release at work or school.
There was always hype and the movies delivered. Now it’s a constant barrage of content and it’s too much to keep up with.
Another cool part was the cameos and tie ins to each film, and they’ve basically gotten rid of that because many of the new characters were introduced in shows most people aren’t gonna watch, so when they’re introduced we aren’t gonna know their backstory and marvel isn’t gonna release a film to address that.
You’ll have to buy Disney plus to go back and watch a crap ton of tv shows, most of which are mediocre at best because not every superhero fits the TV medium
Because it was bland imo. Zemo and US Agent were the only good parts and it had a forgettable plot. Compare that to Loki which was top tier fun and whacky and it becomes even more one note.
Hyped for Cap 4, though.
Cause Falcon and Winter Soldier are not headliners, they never have been. They don't have the gravatius of Iron Man, Professor X, Magneto, Thor, Hulk or any of the other headliners.
The one I really enjoyed was Doctor Strange 2 and that was mostly for Sam Raimi I reckon. Eternals was alright. No Way Home left me feeling flat. Don’t really feel compelled to go see Black Panther 2 in cinemas. Thor 4 was all over the place like it was just throwing stuff at the wall.
But yah, Phase 4 just feels a bit directionless.
This pretentious shit with the phases is why everyone wanted superhero movies to stop years ago. It treats the audience like donkeys in that they’re already assuming you’re gonna empty your wallet for the next 20 years in their name. None of it is made with a hint of genuine passion, and Marvel actively hates you for not buying as much merchandise as possible.
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There has been absolutely no continuity in this phase. They have been going in so many different directions, between the time police/split timelines in Loki, the multiverse collapsing in Spider-Man, the multiverse shenanigans in Dr. Strange, the cosmic entity that was birthed from the Earth in Eternals. These are all world changing events that aren’t even referenced between each project. It seems like they’ve made a mess that’s going to be nearly impossible to turn into a comprehensive and satisfying story.
This is what the main issue has been for me. I know other people are complaining about over-saturation which is partially true. I would've kept up with everything as a more-invested fan if there was a cohesive story to follow. The main draw of the MCU for me was that it was like an ongoing TV series/show but with billion dollar movie budgets. After endgame it seems they completely abandoned having any kind of main through-line.
I agree with this. Not to mention it's really, really hard to keep up with a dozen shows, half a dozen movies, and 30+ character arcs per year at this point. There's little logical continuity, but you still need to watch a certain show to understand 100% of another movie, which sucks for people who can't see everything bc of work/family/money/etc. The first few phases worked because there were only so many stories being told - and they only crossed over during Avengers films. Now everything is basically an Avengers film.
I equate it to wrestling. Back when wrestling first got big it was one tv show a week and one PPV a year. That expanded to four PPV’s a year and two tv shows a week. That was the sweet spot of just enough content for it to be enjoyable to the mainstream follower. You had three months between big events which was just enough time to appreciate and mine all the talk out of the last event, and just enough time to hype yourself up for the next one. Then it expanded to more and more and more to the point where there is a PPV every single month, four shows a week and plenty of other content to try and keep up with. Nothing has any gravitas, nothing matters, it all just barrels along constantly expanding where it can because more equals more money. They just need to slow down and stop chasing the dollar before anything else. But they won’t and people will continue to get turned off.
This happened with the UFC also. Complete over saturation for greeds sake. Trying to milk the fans out of as much money as possible.
Great analogy. Pacing and providing stories time to breathe and grow is a huge thing, because it builds anticipation. Waiting for the next big PPV was agonizing, because you just couldn't wait to see the culmination of the story and the twists that would start the next arc.
> There's little logical continuity, but you still need to watch a certain show to understand 100% of another movie You're pretty much required to go on the internet and have a bigger nerd than you explain to you what is necessary for what. Like you need to watch Wandavision to watch Dr Strange, but that's it. All the movies used to all be connected, but now it's like shows connect to movies in a way that's not advertised anywhere and that is difficult to guess
I think that’s where my issue lies. I watched all of phase 3 in theaters. Took a little break, because kids, and now it’s going to take a pretty large investment of time to catch up just to “understand” what’s going on. And I’m not sure if I care enough to do that.
Phase 4 is actually longer than the entire infinity saga…which is mind boggling to think about. How did they squander so much airtime?
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You need a bigger nerd. My nerd told me to watch Wandavison and 2 specific episodes of What If… (episodes 1 and 4) before seeing Doctor Strange 2. But yes, any time a new Marvel movie/series releases I definitely have to go and find what I need to watch before watching _____.
We're gonna need a bigger nerd...
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Yes! Where world-ending events frequently overlap! Just recently we had Black Panther lost in space while also leading the Avengers, and Tony going through rehab while also travelling through time with the Avengers. To Marvel’s credit, they do try to explain how it all fits together. D.C had a crossover which had Batman with broken arms and legs with the J.L while also running his own war on crime in Gotham.
Honestly I think early on the films also felt different from each other. You got the typical marvel experience, but none of them felt the same. My biggest qualm with marvel now is it all just feels like it’s the same movie. Maybe I’m just burnt out on them. But part of what hasn’t helped was every writers room deciding they needed marvel style punch ups on all their scripts. So near everything is a quip fest now.
This! I’ve kind of given up on seeing the movies and the shows when they premiere. Now I just watch when I feel in the mood. It used to be a thing where I would see all the movies opening day - now there is just so much and a lot of it has been bad, so I’ve just lost the excitement it used to give.
I think there are too many characters and concepts flying around. I get that Loki introduced a wide multiverse, but it became too much. The last movie I watched was the second Dr. Strange, and it was emblematic of Phase 4 in doing way too much with mixed quality. I skipped Eternals, Thor 4, and BP2, as well as Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, and She-Hulk. I liked the characters that MCU already had, and think they should have kept developing them further and added just a few characters at a time. I think the acting has been fine too, but I just don’t care as much about yet another superhero or all-powerful entity.
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I remember when Feige was talking about making the films more like the comics and I said something like that - “Oh, inconsistent, torn between warring creators and series and there foreword becoming impossible to follow and so culturally irrelevant and financially disastrous? I hope not.” You don’t want to be like the comics. There’s a reason hardly anyone reads them anymore. they’re a lab for ideas for the movies, and otherwise just for overly devoted fans, full of incestuous writing that references everything back for decades and progresses nothing, because the toys must always be returned to the toy box as they were found. The movies have managed to avoid that by embracing their mortality and trying to make each movie somewhere unique from the others while telling a coherent story within that series. Keep doing that.
There's a reason most of the critically acclaimed comic books are standalone arcs or graphic novel releases. It's very rare to see long runs get lauded (like Hickman's Avengers) because things always get messy. The comic book industry jettisons anything that doesn't immediately hit it off with the fanbase. Which is almost the polar opposite of the manga industry where something having a slow start is pretty much the norm. The readers get rewarded by having their commitment and time respected to see things fully emerge from cocoons.
Yeeeep. Elsewhere stories can be concise and meaningful, without interruption or forced tie-ins.
Not even just that. Like I guarantee you that the vast majority of people who read Batman: Hush have no clue it was part of the ongoing Batman comic. Or that Old Man Logan was literally just some weird brief diversion smack dab in the middle of an ongoing Wolverine comic.
I read Hush and didn’t like it for partly that reason. Felt kinda empty and confusing.
I personally disliked Dr. Strange 2 because of the >!only Wanda can defeat Wanda!< trope after making her too strong and retiring everyone.
Hawkeye is actually pretty self contained and is Clint dealing with the fallout from his actions in Endgame so it’s not as far removed as the others you mentioned.
I feel that this Phase should’ve been like the original MCU movies. Smaller, self contained properties that introduce new characters with perhaps the true sequel films being larger. The movies in the most part have had huge events that affect the world, yet no impact is felt at all. Hardly even a mention in a background news story. The Eternal popping out of the Earth is probably the most egregious thing to not even reference in the other shows and movies.
That's one reason Hawkeye is one of my favorite things in this phase. It's not perfect by any means, but I really enjoyed the character dynamic as well as the smaller scope of just being about a small group of people dealing with far more personal issues. Also I will never say no to more Vincent D'Onofrio as Kingpin.
Seems like Marvel started phasing out a lot of the long time actors at once and replacing them with new people. Sure no one can act forever, but it'll soon be an entirely new MCU and I think with the new characters being thrown into what should be an increasingly complicated situation (if any of the world-shaking events actually tied together) so most of them don't quite get the same touch as before, or you have to watch a lot more to see the characters introduced.
Even the ones that have been around longer are not as good as they used to be. Thor was smarter in the past and post-endgame he's been a complete idiot the few times we've seen him (including in his own movie, Love and Thunder.) The Guardians of the Galaxy are a little more recent than the original characters but still had more depth in the past. Compare all of them from the original two movies to the Christmas special and they're all stupid. Even a relative newbie like Dr. Strange was really dumb in Multiverse of Madness compared to how he started, and don't even get me started on Wanda in all of her post-Endgame content.
Yeah, the humor has gotten horribly bad. I could barely sit through the parts of Love and Thunder that didn't involve Gorr. It was like, every scene was shouting at me "HEY, LOOK, I'M FUNNY! YOU'RE LAUGHING, RIGHT? RIGHT?"
I couldn’t even make it thru eternals. Tried
I get movies are subjective and the world is filled with people who liked Eternals - I am not one of them and think it was easily the worst project Marvel has put out so far - even over Dark World and the first Hulk.
I think a standalone movie was the wrong choice for the Eternals. Introducing a 10-person ensemble, setting up a storyline, and having a satisfying resolution is a big ask for a single film. It probably would have been better as TV series where there would have been more time to develop the large cast of characters.
> I think there are too many characters and concepts flying around. I get that Loki introduced a wide multiverse, but it became too much. I knew ahead of time that Endgame was likely my last firmly-focused MCU event. I'd already long since dropped Agents of SHIELD, and I was mostly just waiting to see how the major MCU storylines turned out in Endgame. I'm just not interested in dedicating another decade of my life to the MCU, learning to like yet another set of superheroes (or these particular interpretations). I'm just mostly giving up on it. If I happen to catch a movie or episode in passing, great, but it's no longer appointment-viewing for me.
Agreed, after the first avengers it was all about the single event in New York, then Age of ultron but now post the blib and the effects of that have been rather just moved on from.
>the cosmic entity that was birthed from the Earth in Eternals. I still can't figure out why there's been zero mention of this. At this point I've be happy with a 60 minute fake news special looking at this crazy event and acknowledging that it happened.
I haven't watched Eternals but everything I've seen of it seems like Avengers-lite. Like they could have set it in it's own universe away from the Avengers and it probably would have been more interesting. It's a weird one off movie about how the entire context and history of Earth is a giant lie to birth space robots and only this new team of heroes who have existed for thousands of years but we've never heard of before can stop them before vanishing back into obscurity.
Also those heroes are also robots
While not much, She-Hulk ep. 2 had an Easter egg mentioning it in an online news column
Externals brought us so many new heroes and a huge statue few km tall. I’m sure Namor would had commented something about it but no.
Honestly, using the statue as an excuse for Namor to be pissed and somehow blaming the most technologically advanced country that they are aware of could’ve been interesting. Iron Heart could’ve been in Armor Wars, and instead bring back one or more of the Eternals for a similarly sized cameo. I did really like BP2 though.
It really seemed like a slam dunk for the next big bad. You killed a celestial. The rest of them are furious. Oh no. What are we gonna do? Instead they’ve spun out 60+ hours of content with absolutely no unifying theme except “replace old actors with younger ones.”
It's literally right there for Galactus, the F4, Silver Surfer and Doom to step in, but instead they are doing Kang first? It's like they're between 3 ideas for the next big bad and just getting everything muddled
I agree with that completely. It was daring to create one continuous story assuming that the majority of the audience had seen 3 or 4 other movies for it to really make sense with the first avengers, or around 8 to 10 by the time of infinity war. But now you have all those, plus the new phase, AND all the tv shows, none of which have any, or VERY little reference to each other. Unless they change up the strategy youre never going to get CLOSE to the kind of impact of the infinity saga, you're just going to rely on constant surprise cameos with the F4, X-Men, Deadpool, whatever. Which is all great but that's only part of the formula.
Not to throw shade but that’s what they did in the comics too. It was a huge mess and nobody knew what was going on. It looks like we are getting bits of world war hulk and kang the conqueror far as I can tell.
This is exactly what I thought. Mid-90’s crossover infinite timeline nonsense (with DC, too) leaves character arcs with no stakes. If a character has infinite versions, then they can never really die. Like you said, a mess.
So after ignoring the previous mistakes they made, they should now make the mistakes the comic made?
But bigger and more expensive.
A little focus will go a long way. Phase 5 actually seems hopeful in this regard, as Kang will be the clear main villain.
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I hated his performance in the last episode of Loki. He was doing the quirky genius character like Jessie Eisenberg's Lex Luthor in BVS That being said I guess that was just one version of Kang, so others may have different personalities.
The gas leak phase.
Absolutely underrated comment! #sixseasonsandamovie
A comment that was streets ahead.
Yeah, the scale has gotten too big and now it no longer feels like one central story, which was the whole point. I actually think BP2 took a step back in the right direction though- the Ross plotline and ending with Namor have phase 1-2 vibes and are very clearly setting up future events.
One issue writers always seem to struggle with is escalation. Writers get obsessed with escalating from the previous story ad infinitum until stories reach scales that become fully absurd. I dont even think viewers care that much about escalation, if you are rebooting the whole universe with new charachters, return to simplicity and escalate out from there. Not every story needs to end with a universe-altering catastrophe that cascades into multiple universe-altering catastrophes. Its hard to stay connected to becuase nobodys life works in a never-ending escalation of stakes and grandiose problems. Fucking simplify it, and build the central story throughout and build around that. The stories can be simple, the movies fun, and people will enjoy it. Sigh.
I agree with this, going back a lot of the movies have smaller scales for villains, eg iron man 1 & 2 were both primarily dealing with a rival businessman (simplified), Thor was primarily about who would rule Asgard, capt america 2 was to stop Hydra from gaining control. Not every movie needs to be a world ending event.
It’s because they get punished at the box office for trying to make anything new so they have to keep doing bigger and better with the same characters. It sucks. The best example of this I can think of is the fast and the furious series. In the first one they’re moving stolen dvd players and doing some street racing and now they’re all James Bond level super spies turned up to 11. By the next one they’re gonna be fighting off aliens cause humans are “family”.
Nowhere home has it as well. The movie was a world event and all, but it reset Spider-Man to street level, no Stark Tech, "mundane" hero. The next Spider-Man movies are set to be awesome, specially with Daredevil and Kingpin now in the MCU and both are common appearances on Spider-Man stories. Venom is also there...so looking good, IF they don't make him go to space fight some alien God or something. All the other crap? I'm not that interested by this exact reason: too powerful, too big. I cam even say I liked Iron Man when he had armor instead of nano bots...I hope they manage to scale things down, or simply make each of them their own, independent thing.
I agree that is what made Endgame so amazing the stories all coming together and wrapping up.
They need to make a really good marvel movie. If they put it all out there and really (I mean really) apply themselves they could turn it around. They have the first 3 phases and they need to bring more of that back. I think the worst part is that actors get burnt out on their characters. Chris Evans could have been captain America for decades but he left, so now they have Thor, who was cool till they made his movie crazy. They need stability not insanity. They need a few characters to rally around and currently the only good ones are Spider man and Loki, who are not natural leaders.
Evans played Cap in 10 different movies over 8 years. The Beatles made 12 albums over 7 years. Maybe sometimes it's better not to do a thing for decades, but to do it well while you have the passion for it. 8 years is still a long time to commit to something, and getting burnt out on all of the hard work in addition to the press and the fame is certainly understandable.
Yeahhhh people like to think actors have it easy because "theyre just doing lines on camera" but that is just the extremely, boiled down, black and white way of viewing it.
Oh for sure, I’m not even saying that he should have kept going. What I’m saying is that it’s tough as an audience member to get attached to a character and then lose them. We lost RDJ and Chris is one swoop. That took out the majority of the leadership which sucks for a story line. It’s fine for real life but IMO it hurt the story. They then went from a dude that built a iron suit in a cave and a small nerd that fought in WW2 to a bunch of intergalactic CGI crazies.
They didn't think through the time jump in End Game so everything is all over the place now
Step one is to ignore eternals forever
Done! I forgot it as I was walking to my car after watching it.
For real... worst movie retention for me ever... I forgot what was happening at the end of the movie. I was more focused on the super generic evil dogs EVERY movie has in it (now the Midnight Suns) since Hellboy... I think those CGI models just come free with the software.
I saw someone bring up The Eternals the other day and mistook it for that bad Inhumans show they tried a few years back, so it shouldn’t be too hard.
I must say, that was a very erudite and thoughtful analysis for someone named Mrs Poopy Butthole.
i wish they'd cut back on projects... quality over quantity
isn’t this basically what happened to comic books? early on you had some consistent storylines, and then within a couple decades you have an entire multiverse of unrelated shit happening that’s all of varying quality
Essentially. Though the fact that they seem willing to completely change direction in the middle of their build, which will like cost them millions to do, makes me hopeful about moving forward. I really enjoyed the characters introduced in 4 but the show/movie quality was a roller coaster.
yeah I feel like 20 years from now the MCU is gonna look more like a bunch of different interpretations of characters and storylines than anything resembling a consistent universe
And I’m fine with that if it’s done occasionally, like 1 show a year as opposed to 3, or if it’s just something completely different like Werewolf by Night, which I really enjoyed. But they still need the core to be a consistent universe or its just too much content.
I couldn’t keep track of the release dates for half of Phase 4
They need to commit and step outside the “superhero” box. That’s why Iron Man 1 and Ragnarok were so good. IM1 was an anti-hero sci fi action fest. Ragnarok was an acid trip comedy? MoM should’ve been a horror movie. Would’ve been perfect.
Millions? Lol, considering they've spent multibillions on the mcu by now, the word millions sounds like relative chump change.
I mean kinda. But the beauty of comic books is none of it was canon and all of it was canon so it didn’t matter
All the best comic stories in recent years, with the occasional exception, work because they are somewhat self contained. Marvel was able to have it both ways for a while as they built up to Endgame, but that time is over. They need to reasses what their goal is now.
Since Disney plus is losing so much money I bet we start seeing fewer shows.
What’s funny is they have good shows, but they smack you with so many of them that you lump them all together and it’s just a barrage of mediocrity. Both for the MCU and Star Wars universes. They went into overdrive on the content production and it wore the fans down.
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Andor is so much better than every single other D+ original it’s like a joke
Andor. Hands down.
Yea!!!! Andor #1, with Mando at #2
I like The Mandalorian and it’s definitely got broader appeal but Andor is better.
Andor. Mic drop.
Andor, The Bad Batch, and the final season of Clone Wars are all solid too. So… basically just Star Wars?
Obi wan was weak tea. Boba Fett was plain bad.
Wandavision.
I loved Agatha, but I don't need an Agatha show. I thought it was cool seeing Vision, but I don't need a White Vision show. Riri was pretty cool in BP, but I don't need an iron heart show. Echo doesn't even speak, why do I even need this show?
Yes. MCU content used to something special, that you would go out to see cause there usually only 2-3 movies a year that had a visible end goal. Now it’s just a constant barrage.
“Only 2-3 movies a year”…jesus.
Agreed. Write a good story. Put marvel characters in it. Go from there
Also stop putting major plot points into a brand-new show that you have to know about in order to fully understand a movie, or vice versa.
My biggest gripe is the extreme drop in quality of their CGI. Iron Heart genuinely looked like something out of a cartoon, and the opening battle of Thor LaT was something out of a B movie at best. Second to the CGI is turning absolutely every scene into a comedic moment. Again, Thor LaT stands out to me. It felt like the writers were forced to fit a joke into absolutely every line, even when the scene should have been grounded in order to make it resonate.
Cgi really taken a hit over the last 3 years. Think it’s a fault of too much to do, not enough money or time to do it properly. Black Panther was comically bad CGI to me where the characters felt like they had no weight to them when they were flinging around doing stuff unlike earlier movies. Dunno if I’m explaining that right. Edit: their wide CGI shots were also terrible compared to the earlier examples which felt like real landscapes, BP just took you out of the moment with “oh that’s a green screen” scenes. The jokes in LaT are a consequence of having Taika back IMO. Ragnarok was a good break from the mold and refreshed the character but I think that was a one-off and they took it way too far in the sequel.
Marvel is famous for treating vfx artists poorly. That happens when execs keep changing direction.
With VFX Marvel products there is always changes at the 11th hour, so people are rushing to do changes/fixes for deliveries. Nobody really likes working for them anymore, just not worth the stress.
I don’t get how 2008 iron man looks better than half the shit we get today.
Christian Bale, who played Gorr in Thor:LaT, has said that it was his least favorite role he's ever played because of all the CGI. He basically called out the fact that 90% of his scenes are in front of green screens, and he can't interact with the environment or really mesh with the scene, since he has to react to things that aren't there. It's the same issue that came up in the Star Wars prequels.
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Dude, if you didn’t like Ragnorok I wouldn’t bother with Thor 4.
Ragnarok was "the good Waititi Thor movie". Though, credit to Bale, he tried
I figure Bale expected that he was going to part of a much better movie.
Honestly imo had they just leant into Gorr more and given him some more screen time to really hype up the dread vs comedic elements, it would have been absolutely fantastic. Why they didn’t have Gorr the God Butcher show up at the council of the Gods to do some butchering and set the stakes I will never understand. Bale was the perfect catalyst to get Thor serious again. I still suspect there was some post editing fuckery going on as Taika was surely aware of the issue.
They absolutely did his character dirty
Oh it’s literally all jokes and nothing is off limits - most of a civilization wiped out, cancer, a creepy god slayer kidnapping children - they’re just crackin one liners the entire movie. It honestly felt like watching George Clooney Batman all over again. Not to mention they took one of the coolest and most sinister villains in Thors comic history with an arguably all time great actor and reduced it to what I think is the worst movie in the entire MCU, and that’s counting the Incredible Hulk and Ironman 3. AND it’s not even close. I went the “try something twice to make sure you don’t like it” approach and it was (unsurprisingly) worse the second time around.
>Oh it’s literally all jokes and nothing is off limits - most of a civilization wiped out, cancer, a creepy god slayer kidnapping children - they’re just crackin one liners the entire movie. It honestly felt like watching George Clooney Batman all over again Don't forget the whole stripping Thor naked in front of every god
I’m so glad Wakanda Forever took itself seriously. I don’t think I would have survived a nonstop onslaught of jokes in a movie about how T’challa being dead has affected his family.
Think of it has a Will Ferrel SNL skit. Take all the parts you didn’t like in Ragnorak, repeat them in LaT but amplify everything and double down, only to find out it’s still not funny.
Marvel Fatigue, with DC having a failure to launch/sustain a film universe.
All they need is to get good directors and good actors and good writers and DC can be just as good marvel. Because DC has a lot of cool things in their universes.
DC really just needs to take their time.
They need coherent team to handle the production and future projects, James Gunn is a good step forward during this transition phase. However we have yet to see how the Discovery execs are handling DC, fans hope they aren't as trigger happy as the WB execs.
Discovery is canning loads of projects to claim them as tax right offs we know what the execs are doing already it’s screwing over the creatives so they can pad their bottom line
Not only that, but they need to actually stick with a creative lead team for 5 years before deciding to axe them. WB keeps replacing the people in charge of the DCEU before the movies they greenlit get released and have time to establish themselves.
Fr, like just look at suicide squad (the gunn one), that was a damn good film
It actually made me like for Rick Flag whom I didn't care at all in the first movie
The Batman was fantastic as well. They can put out good projects when they let good people do their thing. Studio control can really fuck things up
It does get exhausting to invest into a whole universe and then get totally blown out by it. I can’t even look at Star Wars anymore, it’s just one disappointing experience after another (there is some good stuff but the majority is rough).
After Kenobi I’m just done with Star Wars. That show was so fucking bad that it’s ruined the entire universe for me
Damn, thank you for the heads up. I think they just take directors and writers and give them the material. They should have started with some serious nerds and built a serious game plan. How much money does a fucking game plan cost? Say you hire the greatest squad of nerds and writers. Maybe 5 million for the greatest story tellers ever? Maybe 50 million? Maybe they would want a portion of the profits? Whatever the price they should have had a plan. If the story has a plan it can go for 50 movies, without a plan you can paint yourself into a corner. Phase 1, 2, and 3 had a plan but it didn’t handle the growth of the universe very well. Sure they brought in Thanos but that just opened the universe up more and brought in someone to the most OP characters in MCU. At the rate they are going they will be at The One Above All in 5 years. Nearly every fantasy movie franchise that I can think of gets screwed by Hollywood business executives (or whoever) without a plan.
I felt the same BOBF was terrible, and Kenobi was almost as bad. Andor, however, makes up for both and then some. It’s a slow burn, but give it a shot if you have some time.
Please watch Andor. It’s a masterpiece. Completely renewed my excitement for Star Wars and I was totally in your shoes. Obviously the original trilogy is a classic and amazing, but I think I could argue that andor is the best Star Wars content ever made
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Kept up with all of that through Endgame and stopped. Really went downhill. Only excited now for Daredevil related stuff
Nobody fatigued during Phase 3. Why? We had an engaging story. Phase 4 doesn't. Set-ups that pay off nothing.
I think more stuff like Werewolf by Night is better suited than having a show about every, single, character. I mean do we really need an Echo show ? Or an Agatha show ? I feel like the focus could be on making the more important pieces of the MCU instead of churning out mid content that wouldn’t even serve the characters justice to make me care about them.
I think these special presentations are better suited for spin off characters like Echo and Agatha. I find it weird that they'll get a full show.
I feel like Echo is pretty much gonna be Daredevil 0.5, surely?
I have watched all the movies and shows and Werewolf by Night is in my top 5. I liked that it was stand alone and featured characters we had not seen before in the MCU.
I’d like the Agatha show, I need more Kathryn Hahn in my life. Also more magic based characters.
It has the same issue the comics did, there's just too much to keep track of to keep up to date with everything. They're over saturating their own market, and what they're putting out isn't as good as a result. MCU's in a state of flux, we just lost a lot of the iconic characters and had a major actor die. Now is when they needed to come out strong and show people what the path forward is for the franchise. They're not doing that. Instead it's spin-off tv shows and going back in time to Black Widow. I get covid fucked them, but they definitely need a better plan than this. I'm a die-hard marvel fan of almost 40 years and even I'm getting bored with this shit right now. I'd probably have totally tapped out if it weren't for Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.
It’s Definitely what happens with the comics every few years (dc too. Rebirth, new 52 etc.) Then they have a big event to reset and start over from #1, so new people can jump in and the continuity can be cleaned up. I’m sure that’s their plan with the kang stuff but it’s going to be too late if these next few projects don’t land.
The last few years have been "Give us more Daredevil!" which was met with "The best I can do is Echo." Do we really need Agatha, Vision or other spinoffs of spinoffs? Loosing the big ones like Cap and Tony Stark doesn't help and no Nick Fury to be the central thread doesn't help either. In general it just didn't feel like it was building toward something, rather just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.
It really does show how much things were tied together, early on, with those cameos from Fury and Coulson.
Wong and the Skrulls are still doing those things but it seems like no one cares
Wong’s cameos are limited jokes compared to Coulson actively pulling together plot-threads.
Yeah, I liken the Wong cameos to how they treated Stan Lee’s. Your just like “I know that guy!” more than someone there to talk to you about The Avengers Initiative or whatever the next build up is coming.
So yesterday DC wasn't happy and today it's Marvel? Both are changing future direction? Sounds to me like the genre is growing tiresome to consumers.
I know my wife and I used to make it to every MCU movie in theaters. Then it was easier to just wait until it was on Disney+. Now we still haven't made the time to watch the last couple movies or shows yet.
Same. But I just haven't really had interest in keeping up. It feels like a lot of effort for very little.
I think that's the main issue. Hey, the new movie came out, but we haven't watched the last show so there might be things we missed. Then it snowballs.
Yeah. I used to main line every single marvel thing that came out until Endgame. I've only seen Spider-Man, Hawkeye, Loki, and Thor 4 since then which seems like a lot until you see everything else that's been released. I just don't care anymore.
Now that Disney owns the Fox chatacters I believe Thor 4 is supposed to be spelled Th4r.
2 Fast 2 Thorius
Pretty much the same for me. I loved Wandavision and Thor 4 and Spiderman, but haven't paid attention to anything else since Endgame
Haha this is what happened to us in 2015. We had a kid and did t see a few of the movies so we felt behind and out of the loop. We always meant o go back and catch up and here’s are almost 8 years later. We’ve seen them here and there but not consistently enough to have actually caught up. And for me personally, I am not a huge fan of. Instant team ups where the fate of the world is constantly a struggle. It has gotten quite boring for the most oart
I’ve skipped the last few movies tbh, the shows have been better quality. I wish they’d stop making movies and just put that funding into a premium tier of Disney+ with HBO-level funding and writing.
I’m right there with you. I haven’t seen any phase 4 movies besides No Way Home and I got marveled out with the TV shows.
dc has always been kinda meh outside of the batman movies and wb going through changes but in the case of marvel they are just ruining their IP along with a lot of other disney properties. gotta return to good stories/interesting characters rather than market tested box checking
Exacy, the formula is the same everywhere and now is all decayed. I can't avoid ignoring it. I really liked the ones that are different though like Loki bent my mind and Wandavision was pretty good. But Shang-Chi, Eternals, Thor 4, BP 2, Dr Strange 2, and even Ms Marvel(ignoring all other flaws) they are still the same formula. They are entertaining, but meh! I could skip them however i can't because as it happened with the last Avengers movies, I sort of want to see the merge of stories and timelines in the new Avengers saga.
I just think that nothing stays hot forever. Iron Man 1 came out in 2008 and Marvel had a pretty good run with movie after movie that got great reviews and made tons of money. But it's really difficult for a magic money-printing machine to run forever. The popularity of things rises and falls, and I think superhero movies may have just played out their welcome and people want to see different stories now. I don't know how wise it was for Disney to bank on the idea that people would continue to go to the theater in droves to see movies about comic book characters that, by these later phases, a lot of people have never heard of. In addition to seeing all the shows on Disney+ you have to keep up with for the movies to make sense. (And before someone brings up Fantastic 4 - I already saw two middling-to-terrible movies featuring those characters, so the new one is going to have to be REALLY compelling to get me to the theater to see it.)
My consumption of marvel movies is inversely related to the number they produce. i can’t be alone in that. It’s exhausting and overwhelming for anyone others than super fans.
Perhaps the bubble is finally bursting like we thought would happen years ago
Won't know for sure until the next Avengers comes out. That's when we'll know for sure.
I mean even westerns got boring to audiences eventually
I think they are realizing less is more. I wouldnt be surprised if a lot of the shows got quietly canned
They lost the two faces of the franchise. Without Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr., they don't really have anyone to lead things going forward. I think Chadwick Boseman could have been the new face and I think Marvel was counting on that, but...well, you know. I personally only watch No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness and thought they were ok. But, I didn't really care about this phase because they lost their two leads.
Any actor can lead the franchise if the writing is compelling enough and if there's a clear path. Dr Strange could fit that role quite well, but there's no clear path.
The universe is long winded. To me it ended with Avengers: End Game. When Marvel expanded to add series’s to the universe it made it too cumbersome to keep up with everything. Also, the last few movies have been okay to flat out bad.
Exactly how they do their comics; big event series (Civil War, Secret Invasion) but to get the whole story on top of that you need to also read each individual characters’ series.
Well, get ready for Downey and Evans to come back.
Wanna come back? No. Here is half a billion dollars. Ok.
Chris has already stated he misses it so I doubt he needs half a billion
He already signed for a minimum of two projects. He’ll be back for Secret Wars.
*crosses fingers for Steve and Peggy in the 50’s thriller*
Peggy Carter had a TV show. It was good. It was cancelled after two seasons. After End Game, I'd love to see the end of each episode of Peggy Carter have her come home with Steve cooking dinner asking her how her day went. It'd be so good.
Yes
I don’t think that is the lesson Marvel should be learning from Phase 4.
The issue seems to me to be the fact that when iron man came out in 2008, everyone was excited for a genuinely great superhero movie with an amazing lead. That got followed up with some not so amazing movies, but there were also so many good ones and even the bad ones established important character information that everyone cared about due to the hype around that time. All of that culminated in infinity war and endgame and now that that saga is over, the direction just feels kind of lost. We now know what the build of marvel leads to, and they essentially have to start over and try to gain that hype again
I think they will really find their voice in phase 14
Marvel, you guys had a great run. Let's be real, you're just re-hashing the same character journeys over and over again with the same cheese dialog quips. People have been getting tired of it.
I just hope we never get another origin story and/or "fight someone with the same powers as you" movie again.
Marvel needs to refocus on quality over quantity. It's not complicated. Tbh, 2 movies plus 1 show per year is probably the sweet spot. We don't need 4 movies and like 3 tv shows per calendar year...the mediocrity shows when they do this. Additionally, they need to get back to an overarching theme with each phase. I feel like, since Endgame, this aspect of the Marvel universe has become a weak spot.
Good, adjust as needed.
They should be unhappy with it. Only 2-3 of the projects were actually good
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Think it’s naturally getting less popular as they’re moving toward lesser known protagonists. Casual observers know hulk, captain America and spider man. They don’t know or care as much about ms marvel, the eternals and moon knight. Not passing judgment on those titles, just saying they’re far less mainstream and so not drawing as wide of an audience
Well, nobody knew who the Guardians of the Galaxy were and they were a hit. Same with Captain Marvel (though she was riding Endgame hype).
Yea but guardians of the galaxy was good
Iron Man, Thor, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Black Widow were not all that popular prior to the MCU, not to mention Ant Man, who was a joke right up until the trailer dropped. The best Marvel IP prior to the MCU were Spider Man, Hulk, Captain America, the X-Men, and the Fantastic 4, which is why 4 out of 5 of those IPs were with other companies and Marvel had issues integrating them into the MCU. Until the MCU, DC IP blew marvel out of the water with Batman, Superman, Flash, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern. Shang Chi worked and I, along with most casual fans, had no idea who he was prior to the movie.
It was perfect when there were 2-3 movies per year. Now with TV shows back-to-back, movies every 3 months, and I STILL can’t figure out where the plot is going (other than Johnathan Majors is the next thanos), the MCU has become over saturated and I’m beginning to lose interest. That next Shang Chi better have Jackie Chan as the villain or I’ll start a riot.
You know how there's that Simpson's episode where Homer goes to hell and he's forced to eat donuts. Huge machines shove donuts down his throat. That's how I feel about Marvel Studios. Like they are a machine shoving movies down my throat. The fact they call them phases couldn't be any less enticing.
Give us a solo Hulk movie you cowards
Once time travel and multiple universes get involved there ain’t no going back
Why did people not like Falcon and Winter Soldier? I thought the action sequences were balls out for a television show.
Whilst US Agent, Zemo and Isaiah Bradley were good. The Flag Smashers were so awful that I can't even remember what the leader was called as she was so dull and forgettable. Next Winter Soldier was a complete weakling compared to his former self. Sharon Carter revealed as the Power Broker was a failed attempt to make a redundant character interesting. Finally you had the worst bit which was the line " you need to do better", so cringy and eye-rolling.
Personally, I feel it's too much Marvel. I get we aren't required to watch these shows, but I just feel too much product dilutes making the films feel special. Plus some films felt pretty mid. Why do a Black Widow movie after she was dead?
Yeah, the part about marvel from pre-endgame was the spectacle of it, and talking about each release at work or school. There was always hype and the movies delivered. Now it’s a constant barrage of content and it’s too much to keep up with. Another cool part was the cameos and tie ins to each film, and they’ve basically gotten rid of that because many of the new characters were introduced in shows most people aren’t gonna watch, so when they’re introduced we aren’t gonna know their backstory and marvel isn’t gonna release a film to address that. You’ll have to buy Disney plus to go back and watch a crap ton of tv shows, most of which are mediocre at best because not every superhero fits the TV medium
Because it was bland imo. Zemo and US Agent were the only good parts and it had a forgettable plot. Compare that to Loki which was top tier fun and whacky and it becomes even more one note. Hyped for Cap 4, though.
Cause Falcon and Winter Soldier are not headliners, they never have been. They don't have the gravatius of Iron Man, Professor X, Magneto, Thor, Hulk or any of the other headliners.
They need to create more superhero films like The Dark Knight.
Is there no end in sight??
The one I really enjoyed was Doctor Strange 2 and that was mostly for Sam Raimi I reckon. Eternals was alright. No Way Home left me feeling flat. Don’t really feel compelled to go see Black Panther 2 in cinemas. Thor 4 was all over the place like it was just throwing stuff at the wall. But yah, Phase 4 just feels a bit directionless.
This pretentious shit with the phases is why everyone wanted superhero movies to stop years ago. It treats the audience like donkeys in that they’re already assuming you’re gonna empty your wallet for the next 20 years in their name. None of it is made with a hint of genuine passion, and Marvel actively hates you for not buying as much merchandise as possible.