The Marvel Cinematic Universe TV Thread

[Maxx]

Disney+ insists on using DolbyVision, which is a huge pain in the ass for dark TV shows.  You can use DolbyVision Dark where the CGI will look good, but any dark scenes, your TV might as well be off.  Or you can use Dolbyvision Light and get the joys of terrible soap opera effect.  The final episode for Obi-Wan was horrenous for this, the ending in the canyon was unwatchable on DolbyVision Dark.

[Colly]

You don't do Disney films in Dobly.

[Chris2K]

Just a side note - Secret Invasion is really, really good. If people don't like Samuel L Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn and Olivia Coleman trying to act circles around each other I don't know what people are ever going to like.

[IDOL]

On 05/07/2023 at 17:17, Chris2K said:

Just a side note - Secret Invasion is really, really good. If people don't like Samuel L Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn and Olivia Coleman trying to act circles around each other I don't know what people are ever going to like.

Just watched the first three episodes after reading those early reviews describing it as the worst MCU entry ever. WTF is up with the reviews like this? Is hating on MCU content just the norm now? I’m enjoying the show very much

[GoGo Yubari]

Without having seen this one (one episode to go on She-Hulk and then I'll probably start Secret Invasion within the month?) yet, yeah, I think there is a general sensing of blood in the water and general audience fatigue with the MCU that is probably influencing writing about it to a certain degree. I guess I haven't read a full review of it (maybe I read Alan Sepinwall's, I don't remember) but I didn't really see anything saying this was the worst one so much as people saying it was boring but I don't doubt it's out there.

[Daniel Bryan]

I watched the first episode and found it very boring, so I can see that. It's got a real sense of trying to be prestige TV and failing because it's work-for-hire; Disney bringing someone in to just go through the motions and "do the Secret Invasion show", not because anyone involved has any kind of connection with the material or interest in telling the story. The actual events felt like a collection of clichés, and Fury's dialogue in particular sounds like somebody's trying to write for Jackson in Pulp Fiction. I dunno about the worst MCU show (because that's a high bar) but it certainly didn't give me any desire to watch the rest of it.

[Benji]

On 10/07/2023 at 13:21, IDOL said:

Just watched the first three episodes after reading those early reviews describing it as the worst MCU entry ever. WTF is up with the reviews like this? Is hating on MCU content just the norm now? I’m enjoying the show very much

Yeah it's like GoGo says, people smell blood in the water and they're trying to get the clicks. I watched She-Hulk the other week and honestly really enjoyed it. I'm definitely not about to run head first into watching the shows straight away any longer, but that's true of most shows I watch outside of wrestling or shows you absolutely can't avoid spoilers for. I'm much more willing to wait a good year after release to watch and see if things get renewed because of all the cancellations going on in streaming these days. It's like the old Fox trick, they cancel shows because they didn't give them time to find an audience or give them notice to give a satisfying ending, then wonder why newer shows aren't getting an audience at all.

[GoGo Yubari]

I finished She-Hulk yesterday. First half is the most fun I've had with an MCU Disney+ series since Hawkeye, second half I think falls off (exception being the Daredevil/Leapfrog episode. Charlie Cox being back in the MCU is so very welcome and he adjusted his performance to the tone of the show really well); the humor's not as strong, there's a lot of ideas that don't really feel committed to, the whole incel gamergater villain thing feels less like a real comment on that whole portion of the fandom and more like Marvel trying its damnedest to drive up engagement. I respect the ambition of the finale but I think the fourth wall-breaking to that extent kind of comes at the wrong time in the lifespan of the MCU, a lot less fun to have algorithm jokes when the MCU algorithm is on a bad run of form.

But man, what a breath of fresh air to have one of these Disney+ shows that actually feels like it wants to be a TV show and not a "seven-hour long movie."

[Ruki]

Secret Invasion certainly was a show.

[Gabriel]

11 hours ago, Ruki said:

Secret Invasion certainly was a show.

I quite enjoyed it, and so did my partner (who isn't huge on comic book stuff, but watches them all with me anyways). She typically enjoys watching most of it once-through, especially because of how excited I get, but there are a few shows and movies that she's really enjoyed. Most of them are the obvious ones like Guardians and Thor, where it's just more zany and fun, so it was quite surprising that she came out of Secret Invasion wanting to see where it goes.

Myself, I think that it's a great companion piece that sets up some potentially major events in upcoming films. There were some touching moments, and the plot point of the world's xenophobia being so central comes at a very interesting time, when the MCU is awaiting the arrival of the X-Men.

A lot of people complained that it didn't follow the comics enough, but in order to do that, you're looking at needing at least a trilogy of 3 to 4 hour movies with a cast that would cost more money than we've ever dreamed of. I really like what they did with Secret Invasion here. It was different from the other MCU stuff, feeling much more like The Winter Soldier than anything else, and it sets up some pretty cool possibilities for future projects.

[Hellraiser]

Secret Invasion started out strong and got worse with each episode. That finale was garbage.

[Ruki]

Loki season 2 hasn't been that great, eh? Like, it's fine, not as good as season 1. I'm wondering if it's quality dipping or if I'm starting to lose interest in the MCU.

[Skummy]

I'm struggling with Loki, it just seems all a bit pointless. There's none of the intrigue that drove the original series, and not enough fun bits to make it work without that. It feels like content for content's sake.

My issue with Loki in general has long been that none of it really feels like it needs to be Loki at the centre of it, if that makes sense. It's an interesting sci-fi concept, but the outsider caught up in the TVA's business being the Norse God Of Mischief doesn't actually add anything to that idea, and if anything detracts from it. It's one of the MCU properties that feels like it would be a more interesting series without the Marvel trappings, compared to what little it gains from having them.

As much as I love the aesthetic, of time travel being managed by drab Cold War bureaucracy, it's always felt like a Doctor Who two-parter stretched out to series length, and the second season feels even more like that. I just don't know what I'm supposed to be rooting for or caring about. 

[GuyIncognito]

I've not watched Secret Invasion, mainly in part due to the awful reviews/comments I've come across. And I really am in no rush to see Loki either, as pointed out above the idea was really twee and the first season was great, but another season of it doesn't feel like must see telly.

The idea they're just going to thrust Fantastic Four and X-Men into things out of nowhere with an excuse of 'because multiverse' just makes me so disinterested. Would rather they just end the current timeline then reboot it with X-Men and Fantastic Four at the core of the new MCU or what have you. Crowbarring them in now just won't work, and given how lame most things have been since Endgame, I don't have faith in Feige/Disney to pull it off.

[Ruki]

I am with you there, I am all for a full on reboot of the universe. 

[gunnar hendershow]

My friend suspects that assuming The Marvels bombs as hard as it looks like it could there will be a bloodletting and reboot, with Downey, Evans, etc. being offered get away with murder money to come back.

I think the general magic has worn off nevertheless, only so many times you can go back to the same well. It's a tad bit like wrestling, you'll always have diehards who appreciate nuances but for most people it's the same experience after a set amount of times.

[JasonM]

Honestly for as shocking the twist was at the end of Infinity War, they really didn't do anything interesting with it other than pretty much doing a backflip over the shark with the timetravel plot to effectively undo (except Natasha's death, because contrivances) all the things that made it shocking in the first place.

MCU has always been tame by a few degrees, with most major plot points being wrapped up within a film, maybe two in rare cases. And honestly the lack of really sticking with the major shocks has caused the franchise to sputter, because status quo was king.

You had HYDRA taking over SHIELD and the world government's, but that got wrapped up neatly and the loose ends never mentioned again. There was the registration stuff and the civil war, but the former was never really mentioned again and never became a point of interest, and the latter also ended on a whimper because the film afterwards you had Thanos show up to snap the universe in two.

Then you had the whole snap thing, but again, that got cleaned up the next film, and the whole culture shock of half the universe showing back up unchanged 5 years later hasn't been delved into other than cursory glances in the series, which historically have never really been treated as part of actual continuity unless in the rare cases it is deemed interesting enough.

But the issue with returning to the status quo every time is that things just get stale, and the franchise is extremely stale right now. And the departure of Downey Jr. and Evans have left a vacuum that Marvel hasn't found an alternative to. Thor and Ant-Man seem to exist in their own bubbles, as were the Guardians which may or may not be done. Semi-Major characters like Sam Wilson, Bucky, Cpt. Marvel, and others just haven´t gotten the chances to really be those centering posts either.

After four years, The Marvels is the first post-Endgame film that highlights a major character, but it doesn't seem to be a film that will truly put Cpt. Marvel in the center like Iron Man or Captain America were. So again it'll probably still keeps struggling.

It honestly is very reminiscent of pro-wrestling to me, with everything always coming back to a handful of names, and the moment they are no longer there it becomes painfully obvious they never bothered to put anybody in a position to replace them, when they had all the talent and opportunities to do that earlier.

Part of me feels Boseman would've been a huge part of the post-endgame Avenger dynamic, and his death took everyone by surprise. But it's honestly just been too little narrative/world growth as a whole, and the cracks are clear as day now that the momentum has clearly evaporated.

[Maxx]

They waited way too long to get moving on Fantastic Four and X-Men.  The seeds should have been planted the moment they secured those rights.  For all the amazing planning they pulled off in the Infinity Saga, they had such a weak slate of things going forward from that.  Gone are most of the popular characters you built that saga on the backs of, and they're replaced with what exactly?  Our new heroes were Shang-Chi, no idea when we'll see him again and The Eternals who most people don't care if they ever see again.

They devoted far too much time to cleaning up their shop.  A Black Widow prequel?  What purpose did that really serve?  Refusing to recast T'Challa means you need to devote a movie to explaining that and you just end up going forward with a less popular version of the character.  At least that got us Namor.  Guardians 3 was great and a nice cap one that series, but it didn't push anything forward and was more just tying up loose ends.

We got a bad Thor movie, which again didn't add much to the mix.  I'm not sure even the the most ardent Marvel fans will care about having Hercules added to the MCU.  We got a fan service Spider-Man film, good enough but Disney is still clearly on edge about Sony owning the character rights to ever really build around Spidey.   Here comes Doctor Strange, which people didn't like, to FINALLY get us cooking on this multiverse idea, but at this point the excitement is waning, the explanations aren't great and the execution is iffy.  Next is Jonathan Majors killing it as Kang and then immediately ruining plans for the character by being a scumbag...but did they really leave Kang in a good place anyways?  The much feared multiversal slayer of Avengers was beat by Ant-Man.  A big bad this is not.

Now we're on to Marvels which looks painfully generic, and doesn't seem to have anything to do with whatever this multiverse story is trying to be. 

Follow that up with Deadpool 3, and we have no idea how a Disney produced Deadpool  is going to go, but he's not the kind of character you build your saga off of, so once again we'll get no forward momentum on the overarching story of this phase. 

This is followed up by sequels to Captain America and the Winter Soldier, which wasn't exactly a super popular series.  I don't think Brave New World is going to be successful. 

Thunderbolts might be even worse because holy shit, that lineup is the lamest, most generic team of highly trained soldiers/assassins you could create.  And I say that as someone who loved Wyatt Russell's US Agent and enjoyed Red Guardian and Yelena.  But that team is exceedingly one note, with none of the fun that's supposed to come from a team of villains forced to do good. 

Blade?  Yeah I'll believe it when I see it at this point.  Don't know how that film has spiraled out of control like it reportedly has, but here we are.  Sounds like that movie might never get made.

Then we're at Fantastic Four, how's that cast looking? Oh right.  And then somehow, it will be time for two big saga capping Avengers films.  Even if the Majors shit hadn't happened, what the hell was the story of Kang Dynasty going to be?  It felt like it even under the best of circumstances, it was being cobbled together last minute, and we are well beyond the best of circumstances.   Good thing the final movie is Secret Wars, because that's got a legacy of either being a big crossover designed to sell toys, or a massive hodge podge of whatever random, disconnected elements Jonathan Hickman felt like throwing into a pot. 

It's looking more like the Infinity Saga was just an incredible mix of luck and everything aligning at just the right time.   Because this phase is starting to get as messy as DC's attempts at a cinematic universe.

[gunnar hendershow]

22 minutes ago, JasonM said:

Part of me feels Boseman would've been a huge part of the post-endgame Avenger dynamic, and his death took everyone by surprise. But it's honestly just been too little narrative/world growth as a whole, and the cracks are clear as day now that the momentum has clearly evaporated.

Wakanda Forever was in many ways a standalone Black Panther movie with or without him. He was certainly going to be front-and-center but much like Captain Marvel that front-and-center was still going to drag out for years whereas Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor were front-and-center all but immediately (and teaming up in just a few short years). With or without the pandemic they were going to spend a couple years just meandering about, putting a ton of their focus into making sure people subscribed to Disney+, and then kickstart the new saga. That maybe got delayed a year tops, and the complete confusion of what anything is/why we should care would've instead just happened a year earlier.

Anyway, sounds like it is just a big fucking mess. https://variety.com/2023/film/features/marvel-jonathan-majors-problem-the-marvels-reshoots-kang-1235774940/

[Lint]

 

Rated TV-MA, basically the TV/streamig equivalent of an R rated