Marvel Cinematic Universe Movie Thread

[tristy]

I’m gonna be so pissed if Ant-Man bites the bullet in this one. But it would give some weight to just how much of a danger Kang is and will be.

[Lint]

James Gunn is going to continue his streak of making me cry, isn't he?

[NM!]

I can't wait for Guardians and Ant-Man. With Black Panther, it feels like we're going to get back into the groove of things with Marvel. I didn't mind Strange 2 too much due to the visuals, but Thor 4 is going to be a rare rewatch for me. Guardians is going to fuck me up, I know it.

[Tigerstyle]

I rewatched Thor 4 this weekend and you know what, it ain’t that bad.

[tristy]

I guess this goes here since it seems we aren't splitting the Marvel stuff from everything else this year?

 

My prediction: Hank & Janet die somehow, Scott & Hope are left trapped in the quantum realm, Cassie makes it out (and not in this movie, but she's a big reason the Young Avengers are put together since the Avengers as we know it don't exist - yet). I also bet this is the first movie to have an incursion (his original reality, and some other Earth), because Kang will win in this movie and THIS is the Kang that'll be the main villain.

Edited January 10, 2023 by GoGo Yubari
nah, we've just been using this thread since 2017 and there hasn't been a mandate to split it yet

[Hellraiser]

20 hours ago, tristy said:

My prediction: Hank & Janet die somehow, Scott & Hope are left trapped in the quantum realm, Cassie makes it out (and not in this movie, but she's a big reason the Young Avengers are put together since the Avengers as we know it don't exist - yet). I also bet this is the first movie to have an incursion (his original reality, and some other Earth), because Kang will win in this movie and THIS is the Kang that'll be the main villain.

I hope you're right. They really need to get going on the overarching Kang the Conqueror stuff. The last phase felt almost completely aimless. They need something to work toward.

Edited January 11, 2023 by Hellraiser

[gunnar hendershow]

The CGI in the Ant-Man trailer looks so distractingly bad. Just an entire circling of the drain right now as good VFX work costs more money than Marvel/Disney want to shell out.

I also really just can't get super in to the Kang story and premise only because you know it's going to serve as a cop-out for the foreseeable future. Story gap? It's because of Kang. This actor decided they wanted to come back so we need to shoehorn them back in? It's because of Kang. So on and so forth. I don't particularly care about what the wider audience thinks about stuff but man will that annoy them much more than it annoys me.

[Maxx]

39 minutes ago, damhausen said:

The CGI in the Ant-Man trailer looks so distractingly bad. Just an entire circling of the drain right now as good VFX work costs more money than Marvel/Disney want to shell out.

I also really just can't get super in to the Kang story and premise only because you know it's going to serve as a cop-out for the foreseeable future. Story gap? It's because of Kang. This actor decided they wanted to come back so we need to shoehorn them back in? It's because of Kang. So on and so forth. I don't particularly care about what the wider audience thinks about stuff but man will that annoy them much more than it annoys me.

It's actually because of Kang.

[Colly]

Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

[fourstarfizzle]

Spoiler

Regarding the CGI, I'm now sure if it's just me but the brief clip of Corey Stoll as the unmasked MODOK, seriously looked like some bad Goldeneye meets Gamesmaster face render.

 

[Gabriel]

Wakanda Forever was a beautiful film. There are creative choices that I disagree with, for sure, but nothing that ruined my enjoyment of the movie. The heaviness of Chadwick Boseman's passing lingers through the whole runtime, but they did an amazing job of not letting it dictate the movie, but instead took us through a journey of the different ways that everyone was grieving.

Namor was handled with great care and I cannot wait to see more of him down the line.

[Jimmy]

Wakanda Forever didn't really work for me, I thought the pacing was off and it didn't always feel cohesive to me, but still thought there was some lovely moments and good performances. I can't imagine what it was like having to re-write this film and produce it after such a loss, and while I didn't love it, I very much appreciate that must've been an incredibly hard thing to do and I hold a lot of esteem for everyone involved. 

[Tigerstyle]

I really struggled with Shuri being so front and centre but I loved all the other characters, Ramona, Mbaku, Okoye, Namor and Riri were wonderful.

I just really wish they were able to get MBJ involved properly he’s an absolute mega star that can handle franchises. They’ve not had a villain come here properly in Marvel (Wanda wasn’t really a villain in Ultron) so he would’ve been a great character to work with.

[King Ellis]

I enjoyed BP2 as well, I think the first stood out a bit more amongst all the other MCU films so this one didn't have as big of a wow factor for me. To that end, I was a bit worried when that Shuri/Okoye/Riri section came up that they were going down the same 'zany dialogue' route than get a bit grating (see Thor Love and Thunder).

[Colly]

21 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Wakanda Forever didn't really work for me, I thought the pacing was off and it didn't always feel cohesive to me, but still thought there was some lovely moments and good performances. I can't imagine what it was like having to re-write this film and produce it after such a loss, and while I didn't love it, I very much appreciate that must've been an incredibly hard thing to do and I hold a lot of esteem for everyone involved. 

I think I'd echo this, while the performances in it and some scenes were fantastic, it really didn't need to be as long as that (and I'd argue no superhero film does unless it's an Avengers size thing when they're managing 300 characters doing different things simultaneously) and JLD felt very pointless (bit of a recurring theme for me which is a shame). Letitia Wright is a great actress considering she managed to come across both likeable and pro-science.

I loved Namor, but the Atlanteans just felt like Thanos' goons, mainly faceless behind the masks, so the big battle scenes felt a bit flat. If we're still spoiler tagging, quick thought on them.

Spoiler

I found their new origin a bit weird, it worked quite nicely for the parallels with Wakandan/African history, but the idea of a few dozen guys going into the sea then 200 years later having huge undersea cities and the ability to herd whales felt a stretch. It's a comic movie of course, but it felt a logical stretch just to have that many people.

The emotional beats were great though, Angela Bassett was excellent and that mid credit scene was lovely. Good film, but I'd have to have a chunk of spare time to watch it again.

[GoGo Yubari]

I think it would have been neat if there were little easter eggs in prior phases hinting at the inevitability of Atlantis/Talokan, though I can't remember if Namor was always in play for the MCU or if he was part the overall Fantastic Four package.

Not to repeat myself too much from the Black Panther thread (which is unnecessary now!) but I do think all the JLD stuff makes sense in the sense that one of the real throughlines in the MCU stuff this phase is the US government shaping up to be a big problem. Feel like by and large much of the US-based or partially-set Marvel stuff in the last couple years has had either Val present or a government agency serving as antagonists (S.W.O.R.D. in the back end of Wandavision, Damage Control basically turning into ICE in Ms. Marvel, the CIA in Falcon and the Winter Soldier). But I do hope that all of that stuff becomes relevant in a way that impacts the Black Panther corner of the MCU rather than just being more table-setting for Thunderbolts and maybe the next Cap movie.

Spoiler

The fact that Namor ends the movie confident that ultimately he's going to get what he wants when other nations start making moves against Wakanda anyway makes me hope that's the case.

 

[Colly]

Oops, sorry didn't realise there was a separate thread. Apols if I've retread old ground.

[GoGo Yubari]

 

21 hours ago, Colly said:

Oops, sorry didn't realise there was a separate thread. Apols if I've retread old ground.

Nah, the only reason there was a thread is because spoiler tags were broken at the time, no reason to not have a megathread again now.

[tristy]

On 05/02/2023 at 13:51, GoGo Yubari said:

I think it would have been neat if there were little easter eggs in prior phases hinting at the inevitability of Atlantis/Talokan, though I can't remember if Namor was always in play for the MCU or if he was part the overall Fantastic Four package.

Not to repeat myself too much from the Black Panther thread (which is unnecessary now!) but I do think all the JLD stuff makes sense in the sense that one of the real throughlines in the MCU stuff this phase is the US government shaping up to be a big problem. Feel like by and large much of the US-based or partially-set Marvel stuff in the last couple years has had either Val present or a government agency serving as antagonists (S.W.O.R.D. in the back end of Wandavision, Damage Control basically turning into ICE in Ms. Marvel, the CIA in Falcon and the Winter Soldier). But I do hope that all of that stuff becomes relevant in a way that impacts the Black Panther corner of the MCU rather than just being more table-setting for Thunderbolts and maybe the next Cap movie.

  Hide contents

The fact that Namor ends the movie confident that ultimately he's going to get what he wants when other nations start making moves against Wakanda anyway makes me hope that's the case.

 

Thunderbolts potential spoilers (maybe, lolreddit). If true, it'll directly impact Wakanda and their most precious natural resource.

Spoiler

The US government can't get their hands on vibranium from Wakanda, so they supposedly set up a black ops team to go search for this other weird metal called adamantium. Which so happens to be on an island nation that has formed on the corpse of Tiamut's body (from the Eternals).

I'd love if that's true because it brings in a lot of different components from other movies and sets up some interesting stuff a few phases from now (probably after Secret Wars).

[Daniel Bryan]

That whole excursion to America should have been cut out. It's already difficult to root for Shuri because of the Letitia Wright of it all, but the whole time I'm sitting there wondering what the fuck they're doing. Kidnapping Riri because she knows how to detect vibranium, not only stamping all over the lesson learned from the last Black Panther but also leading the Atlanteans right to her is bad enough, and then they just start casually attacking people and firing fucking rockets at them to get away with it? Then you've got Everett Ross committing treason and funneling information to Wakanda and covering up their involvement and Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the villain for holding him accountable? I get that it's the US government and all, but like, Wakanda was about to try and take over the world a few years ago so they don't exactly have the high ground to just do whatever they want either. Overall just one of the worst cases of protagonist-centred morality I've seen from a superhero movie in ages.

Also, I am extremely done with every hero needing to have their own JARVIS.

Namor was cool, but his backstory is very, very silly. Not the whole concept of Talokan, but having to crowbar all his character traits in there. "The herb let us breathe underwater, but because I was still in the womb it, uh, gave me wings on my ankles. And pointed ears! And one person hundreds of years ago called me The Child With No Love so I call myself N'love! Yes, that will do." Having Talokan just being underwater Wakanda to the point of them having their own Significant Hand Gesture was also incredibly lazy, even more so when Shuri had her Dramatic Realisation that they're the same.

Man, how fucking great is Angela Bassett, though?

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Daniel Bryan