Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase Three and BEYOOOOONND

[Lord Liaden]

8 hours ago, Dr. MID-Nite said:

 

I'm curious as to what you consider to be big misses. Not saying it isn't true...just curious.

 

Sure.

 

Note that I'm not saying I agree with all criticisms, but there are some I continually read and hear from both professional critics and fans, reflected in declining viewership. Often, though, what I have a problem with matches those criticisms.

 

The most frequent complaint I hear is about heavy-handed humor forced onto characters at inappropriate times. The She-Hulk series, and Thor: Love and Thunder are the outstanding recent examples, but I've seen the same trend with Shang-Chi, Multiverse of Madness, Quantumania, and the Moon Knight series. I happen to also find that trend distasteful, as I feel it disrespects the characters and what the fans have invested in them.

 

Another complaint that I'm inclined to agree with is making films and series around established characters, which are really just vehicles for highlighting new characters, to the point of stealing focus from the title heroes: Kate Bishop in Hawkeye, America Chavez in Multiverse of Madness, Cassie Lang in Quatumania. Adding in She-Hulk, Shuri as the new Black Panther, Layla in Moon Knight, Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel, and the upcoming movie The Marvels, highlights another common complaint, that recent projects are leaning heavily into a "girl power" motif. I for one consider adding more gender balance to be a positive thing in principle, but I have to agree that Marvel doing so much of it at once is becoming distracting, particularly when the "empowerment" is displayed in such an obvious fashion, like playing "I'm Just a Girl" during a fight scene in Captain Marvel, or Cassie Lang suddenly becoming such a genius that she can build super-advanced tech as a hobby in Quantumania.

 

Awkward writing, plot holes, and inconsistent characterization are flaws that any movie or series can have, but in general I notice them creeping into more and more Marvel projects.

[mattingly]

Loki season 2 is off to a great start.

 

[Bazza]

 

[Dr. MID-Nite]

10 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

The most frequent complaint I hear is about heavy-handed humor forced onto characters at inappropriate times. The She-Hulk series, and Thor: Love and Thunder are the outstanding recent examples, but I've seen the same trend with Shang-Chi, Multiverse of Madness, Quantumania, and the Moon Knight series. I happen to also find that trend distasteful, as I feel it disrespects the characters and what the fans have invested in them.

 

That's totally fair. I did find good things in most of those projects minus Love and Thunder...which was just a huge miss. (I wasn't fond of the overly silly Ragnarök either so no surprise that leaning into the humor even more was...bad.) I actually liked the first episode of She-Hulk, but then it went almost completely off the rails in terms of narrative.

[Old Man]

11 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Another complaint that I'm inclined to agree with is making films and series around established characters, which are really just vehicles for highlighting new characters, to the point of stealing focus from the title heroes: Kate Bishop in Hawkeye,

 

Renner was quitting the MCU.  (And then he got run over by a tractor.)

 

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America Chavez in Multiverse of Madness,

 

40 minutes of screen time in a 140 minute film.

 

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Cassie Lang in Quatumania.

 

23 minutes out of 124.

 

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Adding in She-Hulk, Shuri as the new Black Panther, Layla in Moon Knight, Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel, and the upcoming movie The Marvels, highlights another common complaint, that recent projects are leaning heavily into a "girl power" motif.

 

And this is a bad thing because...?

[Lord Liaden]

Time on screen is not the sole measure of the impact of a character. The degree to which the plot of a movie revolves around that character is at least as big a determinant.

 

3 hours ago, Old Man said:

And this is a bad thing because...?

 

15 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

I for one consider adding more gender balance to be a positive thing in principle, but I have to agree that Marvel doing so much of it at once is becoming distracting, particularly when the "empowerment" is displayed in such an obvious fashion, like playing "I'm Just a Girl" during a fight scene in Captain Marvel, or Cassie Lang suddenly becoming such a genius that she can build super-advanced tech as a hobby in Quantumania.

 

 

[Old Man]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Time on screen is not the sole measure of the impact of a character. The degree to which the plot of a movie revolves around that character is at least as big a determinant.

 

I mean it's just really weird that all the examples you picked out were women.  Didn't the plot of WF "revolve" around Namor?  Didn't Quantumania "revolve" around Kang and the guy who invented Pym Particles?  Didn't they literally blow up Black Panther's dad in Winter Soldier?

 

The MCU has been doing this all along--introducing new characters in films that headline someone else.  Going all the way back to IM2 at least.  It's blatantly obvious by now that Feige is setting up the Young Avengers; we've now seen Wiccan, Speed, Patriot, and Kid Loki as well as the characters you already listed.

 

 

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Another complaint that I'm inclined to agree with is making films and series around established characters, which are really just vehicles for highlighting new characters, to the point of stealing focus from the title heroes: Kate Bishop in Hawkeye, America Chavez in Multiverse of Madness, Cassie Lang in Quatumania. Adding in She-Hulk, Shuri as the new Black Panther, Layla in Moon Knight, Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel, and the upcoming movie The Marvels, highlights another common complaint, that recent projects are leaning heavily into a "girl power" motif. I for one consider adding more gender balance to be a positive thing in principle, but I have to agree that Marvel doing so much of it at once is becoming distracting, particularly when the "empowerment" is displayed in such an obvious fashion, like playing "I'm Just a Girl" during a fight scene in Captain Marvel, or Cassie Lang suddenly becoming such a genius that she can build super-advanced tech as a hobby in Quantumania.

 

This still doesn't explain why "girl power" "becoming distracting" is supposed to be a serious problem.  To me, what's distracting is the degree to which Hollywood movies, and especially superhero movies, have been male-oriented to date.  The source material, the actual comics, have led the way in equalizing representation for like fifty years, so I get really confused when the movies finally catch up and people act surprised and "distracted".  Like when Cassie Lang, who in the comics was experimenting with Pym Particles by 2005, does so in the movies in 2023 and that's supposed to be... weird?  Or wrong?  I don't get it, sorry.

[Lord Liaden]

Like I said, I don't wholly agree with all the complaints, but if what I've written about frequency, concentration, presentation and emphasis doesn't compute for you, I don't know how to explain it more clearly. For my part, I don't object if you don't get it.

[csyphrett]

7 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

  Like when Cassie Lang, who in the comics was experimenting with Pym Particles by 2005, does so in the movies in 2023 and that's supposed to be... weird?  Or wrong?  I don't get it, sorry.

Cassie Lang has only been on screen four times and only has access to the particles in the last movie. And she has not been depicted as some genius kid in her other three showings. I mean eighteen year olds who survive an almost world ending apocalypse that is fixed by their time traveling dad and his friends might pick up some tricks maybe.

 

It was a little weird that Cassie became Stature in the comics because the age seems off, and the fact that she hardly saw her dad at all. But I posted a link to a thread from CBR where they were trying to figure out the DC  kids' ages and how they related to each other and it looked like a lot of history resets going on. So the same thing could have happened to Cassie depending on Marvel's sliding timeline.

CES 

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

Full disclosure, I've had very little contact with comic books that have come out in this millennium, so some of these characters I only hear of through their film and television appearances. Therefore I react to them rather like the audience that don't know comics. But if Marvel is trying to bring their live-action characters in line with their comic analogues, they need to set the ground work for them in their live-action products. Otherwise they'll get the "Huh?!" reaction that they have been getting.

[Hugh Neilson]

I found Quantumania, in particular, to be very comic-booky. The ensemble cast (Hank, Janet, Hope, Cassie and Scott) all had relevant parts to play, they interacted with the setting (motivating the natives to join the fight) and the villain (a major character on his own). In prior Ant-Man movies, Hank and Hope were significant players, as was at least one of Scott's prison buddies. The characters don't live in a vacuum.

 

America was clearly a major player in MoM.  I wonder if an equally important role for Clea would have drawn as much ire, or been overlooked since she is already a big part of the lore.  No one griped about Wong, Mordo or the Ancient One having big roles in the first movie.  No one complained that the third Avengers movie was more about Thanos than the Avengers either - villains are allowed to be a major focus, but not other heroes (or supporting cast?).

 

I wonder if the issues of "other characters got focused attention" would have been as big a deal if Marvel had just removed "Ant-Man" and "Dr. Strange" from the movie titles.

 

I think what we are really seeing is that the growth of the MCU is making for a lot of different projects with different themes and different feels, as well as struggling with 21st century inclusivity issues - both very much like their source material.  One difference is that few of us would consume the entire Marvel publishing line every month, but 3 movies and half a dozen TV miniseries a year is a much smaller commitment.  Another is that, with fewer offerings, a lack of diversity/inclusivity in a single offering (or leaving a couple of characters out of this movie) feels like a much bigger gap.

[Old Man]

3 hours ago, csyphrett said:

Cassie Lang has only been on screen four times and only has access to the particles in the last movie. And she has not been depicted as some genius kid in her other three showings.

 

She was seven and ten years old, I'm not sure when her genius was supposed to start being depicted.  She had access to a giant ant at seven and was being shrunk at 10.

 

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I mean eighteen year olds who survive an almost world ending apocalypse that is fixed by their time traveling dad and his friends might pick up some tricks maybe.

 

Cassie had way more access to tech and brilliant scientists than Peter Parker did.

[Christopher R Taylor]

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I wonder if the issues of "other characters got focused attention" would have been as big a deal if Marvel had just removed "Ant-Man" and "Dr. Strange" from the movie titles.

 

It would have been a great deal more honest.

[Hugh Neilson]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

It would have been a great deal more honest.

 

It may have been a bit more accurate, but I could have seen MoM appearing in Dr. Strange comics and QM showing up as an Ant-Man storyline. The challenge for movies is that we don't get three years of monthly comics - we get one movie.  So the movie wants the biggest story, with guest stars and impact on the broader universe.  And you can't leave out supporting cast favourites - no big deal if they miss one week on TV or one issue of the comic, but they're gone for 5 years or more if thy miss one movie.

[csyphrett]

On 10/9/2023 at 12:33 PM, Old Man said:

 

She was seven and ten years old, I'm not sure when her genius was supposed to start being depicted.  She had access to a giant ant at seven and was being shrunk at 10.

 

 

Cassie had way more access to tech and brilliant scientists than Peter Parker did.

She didn't create the ant or control the shrinking. Cassie had access maybe to Hope, who may or may not be a brilliant scientist before her dad got put on house arrest and the Pyms went on the run for ten years.

 

Peter Parker on the other hand went to a school known as the Midtown School of Science and Technology which had its own television studio, laser gun, and chemical lab, worked with the Avengers and SHIELD, and had Tony Stark as his personal mentor as well as mentoring himself.

 

it's okay to say Payton Reed created an older character different from a younger character in a way that created plot holes/inconsistencies. It happens all the time.

CES 

[Hugh Neilson]

We previously saw Cassie on screen at ages 7 and 10, briefly, as the child who established that Ant-Man was a Dad.  If I briefly met you at your parents' house when you were ages 7 and 10, and you then went to your room/the basement/outside to play, do you think I could accurately predict who you would be at age 18? By definition, I would say taking a character who appeared briefly as a 7 yo and 10 yo, largely as background scenery, to an 18 yo we actually get to know is creating a new character.  What did we know about "child Cassie" that was inconsistent with "young adult Cassie" rather than simply unknown from her prior appearances?

 

5 hours ago, csyphrett said:

Peter Parker on the other hand went to a school known as the Midtown School of Science and Technology which had its own television studio, laser gun, and chemical lab, worked with the Avengers and SHIELD, and had Tony Stark as his personal mentor as well as mentoring himself.

 

Peter Parker was a poor to average kid in NYC and he had access to enough resources to design his webshooters before he met Stark or the Avengers.  Peter clearly would not have been sent to the finest of private schools. We have no indication he had any contact with brilliant scientists during his upbringing. Do we know where Cassie went to school? 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2023 by Hugh Neilson

[Christopher R Taylor]

Peter Parker building his webshooters is an offshoot of his personal ability as a scientist that showed up his entire life before that.  As a character he was established as a geeky science kid as part of his identity.  Obviously nobody could create webshooters (nobody ever has) but it was consistent with his persona.

 

They just turned Cassie into Wonder Science Girl #3 because they needed her for the plot and wanted to push STEM girls but its a bit tedious and forced in an otherwise pretty lame movie.

[slikmar]

Don't forget, regarding Cassie, that at age 10, her father, Hope, and the Drs. Pym disappeared for 5 years. She already knew about the quantum stuff through her father being Ant Man, though not sure she had met any of the Pyms. Having said that, i could see her spending those 5 years trying to learn everything she could about Pym's research in trying to find out what happened to them.

[Starlord]

Cassie Lang in the comics routinely experimented with Pym Particles.  In the MCU, her father has a Master's in EE and has the genius to also understand Pym particles and the Quantum Realm.  She's surrounded by some of top minds in the MCU and has been around the particles since she was 6 yrs old.  Let's stop acting like its out of the question she could be a super-scientist..its quite reasonable considering her established comics background, her MCU background and the genre itself.

[Christopher R Taylor]

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Cassie Lang in the comics routinely experimented with Pym Particles.

 

All they had to do in the previous movies was have even one line mentioning her being interested in science or how pym particles worked.  They didn't because they were relying on previous knowledge from comic books or just assuming it happens because that's how they did it in the comics.  Its bad writing when you don't set up a major shift like that.  Having her be the bestest evar better than Hank Pym himself and smarter than them all leaves a bad taste in people's mouths.

 

And having three girls suddenly show up out of nowhere as super genius uber scientists better than everybody else feels like a pretty forced pattern, as well.  Yes, the comics do it too, and its lame there, as well.

[slikmar]

Cassie and Janet (who was established in Ant Man as working right along with Pym and has been gone for 20 years), but who is the third. Can't be the girl from MoM as it is pretty established in the movie she is from an alternate dimension.

I am not trying to argue as I do think that their PC push for female characters is over the top pendulum swing response.

On a similar thing, was funny. My wife and I were watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Pitt and Jolie movie, 2005) and once the secrets come out and they start comparing careers, it was ridiculous how much better she had been. The scene with the "how many people have you killed" happened and I looked at my wife and said when the movie came out, that was funny, but now it feels like they could have done a better job of making them close or equals.

[slikmar]

Interesting article on the marvel tv shows and changes coming: https://gizmodo.com/marvel-daredevil-born-again-tv-disney-kevin-feige-1850917768

[Old Man]

31 minutes ago, slikmar said:

Interesting article on the marvel tv shows and changes coming: https://gizmodo.com/marvel-daredevil-born-again-tv-disney-kevin-feige-1850917768

 

Well that's promising at least.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I was not happy with what I was hearing about that show and certainly not with how hornhead was shown in the awful She Hulk show.  Still, the same knuckleheads will be involved with a new take on the show so... I dunno if there's any cause for hope.

 

However the big read I am getting from this information is that Marvel was running things kind of sloppy and arrogantly.  They would come up with a show idea, hire people to make it, and film a season or two, then throw it out and assume it would make a billion dollars because that's how it used to work.

 

It sounds like Disney is changing how things work and making them have to pitch a pilot and decide if the show will be greenlit from that or not based on the merits of produced work.  And that's getting stuff in progress scrapped and rebooted, like Daredevil.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Christopher R Taylor

[csyphrett]

The Bobs did switch around again. The new Bob wanted a lot of stuff like contracts that only covered one movie, and caused Scarlet Johansson to win her lawsuit, and green lit a lot of stuff for the streaming service. They got rid of him and brought back the old Bob to steer the company since he got the money back from the failure of the Lone Ranger and John Carter.

CES