Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase Three and BEYOOOOONND

[Tjack]

 ——————————NO SPOILERS—————-

  I got up early today and I watched the first episode of What if?  I enjoyed it very much.  They certainly wanted to start off with a bang with the Captain Carter episode. It was tightly written with a lot of action and featured the original actors in most of the roles.  They were well assisted by people such as Bradley Whitford (The West Wing) 

   There were a good number of Easter eggs and inside jokes for the long time fans, but nothing to slow down the story. The only two (very minor) problems were the lack of an after credits scene, (what can I say, I’m spoiled)  and the fact that the show only runs for 30 minutes.  Another half hour would have allowed the story to open up more.

   All in all a very good to excellent first episode, and one I hope all the rest will live up to.

 

[Dr.Device]

Totally agreed. I enjoyed it a lot, and if they can keep that up, the What If series will be a solid success.

[Ternaugh]

That was a lot of fun. I'm definitely looking forward to the next episode.

[Dr.Device]

I'll admit, I took a great deal of pleasure in

Spoiler

watching Peggy (and Steve, a little later) curb stomping a whole lot of Nazis.

 

[Bazza]

What was the monster? Anyone know? 

[mattingly]

I was pleasantly surprised by Iron Steve, the HYDRA Stomper.

[dmjalund]

"I could do this all day"

[Greywind]

"I know you can."

[Matt the Bruins]

I wanted to love it, but while the animation was beautiful and they somehow got most of the principal cast to return for voice performances, the story didn't wow me. Too much cutesy fanservice, too tethered to the original movie's narrative rather than striking out in a new direction (including too much parroting of lines from it, something I despise when I run across it in AU fiction).

 

[dmjalund]

26 minutes ago, Matt the Bruins said:

too tethered to the original movie's narrative

but What If stories tend to do this

[Greywind]

What if this one thing was changed? The rest of the story tends to unfold around that one change. Not spin all out of control with more changes.

[Scott Ruggels]

Disney cutting ties with Scarlet Johansson, and cancelling her projects. 
 

https://wdwnt.com/2021/08/disney-cutting-ties-with-scarlett-johansson-tower-of-terror-film-canceled/

 

Ots definitely retaliation by Disney however I think the lawsuit will result in a possible change of business practices. 
 

However, Black Widow has underperformed, to the point of being the least successful MCU film, to the point of moving the Blue Ray release forward. 
https://cosmicbook.news/black-widow-early-digital-release-disastrous-box-office

 

 

[Pattern Ghost]

Sweet, hopefully they move it to free on Disney+ sooner too.

[mattingly]

8 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

I think the lawsuit will result in a possible change of business practices. 

 

Here's hoping.

[zslane]

12 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Ots definitely retaliation by Disney

 

It's what you do when a former business partner accuses you of breach of contract and sues you for countless millions of dollars. You don't continue to merrily skip to my lou with them. You sever business ties and go into legal self-defense mode.

[unclevlad]

Yah, using 'retaliation' is a bit disingenuous.  Actions have consequences;  this was a readily foreseeable consequence.  This is Disney's leverage...or threat, depending on which side of the corporate/contractor dispute you tend to lean.  The generally pro-labor, anti-corp stance would be that this shows how much courage (or perhaps anger) SJ has, because this move had to be expected.  Flip side, you can impute that Disney used the threat to force their contractors to stay in line.  

 

I figure this is part of putting the entire mess onto the back burner;  a settlement will get reached, and then the whole thing can be shoved into a dark corner and forgotten.

 

 

[archer]

16 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Yah, using 'retaliation' is a bit disingenuous.  Actions have consequences;  this was a readily foreseeable consequence.  This is Disney's leverage...or threat, depending on which side of the corporate/contractor dispute you tend to lean.  The generally pro-labor, anti-corp stance would be that this shows how much courage (or perhaps anger) SJ has, because this move had to be expected.  Flip side, you can impute that Disney used the threat to force their contractors to stay in line.  

 

I figure this is part of putting the entire mess onto the back burner;  a settlement will get reached, and then the whole thing can be shoved into a dark corner and forgotten.

 

 

 

I don't think it should be forgotten. By anyone.

 

This is part of a pattern of Disney intentionally ripping off their talent.

[zslane]

1 hour ago, archer said:

This is part of a pattern of Disney intentionally ripping off their talent.

 

I'd be curious to hear some concrete examples. They would be helpful in determining if this pattern is just a vague impression, or if it has specific relevance to SJ's case.

 

The pandemic created an unprecedented crisis in the entertainment industry, and caused each studio to have to tackle the problem in some way. ScarJo is upset that Disney's solution isn't what she would have done if she was in charge. She wanted the movie to keep getting pushed until theaters were back up to 100% capacity and she could rake in whatever "full amount" she would have been due had there not been a pandemic. It will be up to a judge to decide if the pandemic constitutes sufficient extenuating circumstances to justify Disney's decision, or if Disney engaged in a bad-faith breach of contract. Either way, I would not characterize what Disney is doing here as "ripping off" SJ.

[archer]

8 minutes ago, zslane said:

 

I'd be curious to hear some concrete examples. They would be helpful in determining if this pattern is just a vague impression, or if it has specific relevance to SJ's case.

 

The pandemic created an unprecedented crisis in the entertainment industry, and caused each studio to have to tackle the problem in some way. ScarJo is upset that Disney's solution isn't what she would have done if she was in charge. She wanted the movie to keep getting pushed until theaters were back up to 100% capacity and she could rake in whatever "full amount" she would have been due had there not been a pandemic. It will be up to a judge to decide if the pandemic constitutes sufficient extenuating circumstances to justify Disney's decision, or if Disney engaged in a bad-faith breach of contract. Either way, I would not characterize what Disney is doing here as "ripping off" SJ.

 

Well, we've discussed at length in other threads the fact the Disney isn't paying royalties to book authors for their intellectual properties like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc.

[unclevlad]

Yes, the other major issue was Disney refusing to pay royalties to authors.  Worse still, IMO, was the attempted reasoning:  they bought the properties, not the obligations.  Blatant rip-off there, far clearer than the SJ case, and potentially with far, far greater reach.  Took an author with clout to call them to task, but Alan Dean Foster wasn't the only one.

 

Search on something like "alan dean foster disney lawsuit" for details.

[zslane]

Disney also has a long history of paying visual fx studios only half of what they were contractually obligated to pay them for services rendered and making them sue for the other half. Disney is in many ways the Evil Empire. However, visual fx artists are not unionized. They are much easier to screw over. Actors, (screen)writers, directors, and producers have unions to protect their interests, at least in theory. Every studio in business works hard to exploit every possible loophole in their contracts with the unions, and the unions work hard to enforce--to an absurd degree sometimes, just watch the nonsense that goes on during live action shoots--the terms of those contracts. It is an ugly battle waged on both sides, and if actors aren't "getting their due" then it is either their agents, legal teams, or union reps who failed to negotiate the right deal; the studio is under no legal or ethical obligation to interpret the terms of a contract so as to favor the talent over the studio. In fact, I'm quite certain that there are millions of Disney shareholders who would hold Disney exec's feet to the fire if they ever did so.

[Iuz the Evil]

On 8/11/2021 at 7:19 PM, Bazza said:

What was the monster? Anyone know? 

Spoiler

Internet buzz is that’s MCU Shuma Gorath

 

https://nerdist.com/article/marvel-what-if-tentacled-monster-shuma-gorath-history/

😳

 

 the thinking behind that is pretty sound actually…

 

Spoiler

Haley Atwell is rumored to be cast in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. It’s an opportunity to tie their franchises together. 

I don’t know that buy that but it is a rational observation. 

[Tjack]

On 8/11/2021 at 9:38 AM, Tjack said:

 ——————————NO SPOILERS—————-

  I got up early today and I watched the first episode of What if?  I enjoyed it very much.  They certainly wanted to start off with a bang with the Captain Carter episode. It was tightly written with a lot of action and featured the original actors in most of the roles.  They were well assisted by people such as Bradley Whitford (The West Wing) 

   There were a good number of Easter eggs and inside jokes for the long time fans, but nothing to slow down the story. The only two (very minor) problems were the lack of an after credits scene, (what can I say, I’m spoiled)  and the fact that the show only runs for 30 minutes.  Another half hour would have allowed the story to open up more.

   All in all a very good to excellent first episode, and one I hope all the rest will live up to.

 

   I found out from one of those Easter egg videos on YouTube that Bradley Whitford’s character was actually one he played in the original Agent Carter short film.

17 hours ago, archer said:

 

I don't think it should be forgotten. By anyone.

 

This is part of a pattern of Disney intentionally ripping off their talent.

     You don’t get to be a giant megalithic world dominating corporation by playing fair.

 I said a long time back when Disney bought out both Lucasfilms and Marvel that all they had to do now was buy DC comics and their new slogan could be   “The Disney Corporation, we own your dreams.”

[Scott Ruggels]

Midnight's Edge (YouTube) usually has a much deeper dive in these issues, and the fact that the SJ vs. Disney Lawsuit went public so fast may be because it's a "Wedge", in an attempt to pry Bob Chapek out of the leadership position of Disney. In a similar way that "combat via the Press" was carried out to stop the renewall of Kathleen Kennedy's contract, this may be a similar effort to Remove Chapek from  Disney's leadership.

 

[zslane]

That's an interesting theory, and there may some truth to it. The future of streaming revenue participation is also (potentially) hanging in the balance. Either way, this has nothing whatever to do with poor ScarJo and how Disney is screwing her over financially, or how Disney is trying to squash forward progress for female representation in (action) movies. And if Midnight's Edge is correct, we won't see the end of the misinformation campaign against Disney/Chapek for some time.