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Post by twothousandonemark on May 11, 2023 2:51:06 GMT
I'd been waiting until after GotG3 to more properly sum up where I am with the MCU... maybe past, present, & future alike... & I'll use the good, the bad, & the ugly to break it down for myself.
The good... - R rated Blade, Wolverine & X-Men, + Reed Richards & The Fantastic Four... that's a fairly solid trio of IP story arcs we should be seeing soon enough. At least 3 films, a number of ensemble appearances, & of course sequels. That's about 5 or more MCU movies which should at least have the proper care & legacy attention not to be mailed in by Marvel Studios. Not to mention, those latter 2 franchises being ensemble team-ups, which has seemed to be more promising entertainment in the MCU than not. The near future still seems credibly hopeful.
- Captain America: New World Order should be a fresh take, to finally get us back on Earth after all this cosmic weirdness lately.
The bad... - The pre-Infinity War IP franchise/series are now surely done with, & post-Endgame, the ones which continued nearly all seemed surprisingly below par: -Spider-Man: No Way Home, introduced us to the Multiverse, & yet instead of moving forward, we were given a greatest hits with characters from years & years ago. -Dr. Strange had ppl credibly expecting us to dive deep into the next macro arc of the MCU, & well, MoM was a standalone movie which seemed to live up to no one's expectations. -Love & Thunder was a way to keep Thor's (& Taika's) place in the MCU high... only to dive into the most juvenile MCU movie to date, & that's saying something. -Guardians 3 was a solid heft of a movie, a Gunn-a-thon on his way out from Disney to the DCEU; Gamora was nearly unrequired as she was still in Thanos Jr. mode. At least we got Rocket's story. We'll never meet Drax's wife & child, & Star Lord will return... maybe he & Thor can bromance it one more time - they still have a knife fight they can amuse us with.
The ugly... - Marvel Studios seems to be warring with the likes of visual effects production teams who are reportedly burned out & all but fed up with their workload & strict turnover timelines.
- Victoria Alonso, former exec producer with MCU, was terminated in part word is because of her progressive content demands which would not have gone over well with the likes of China. She also apparently broke a contract rule by working on a project with Amazon. She'd been around since Phase 1. She's out now.
- The TV shows seem to be needless & a waste of production time & energies. I got the gist of their content via Wikipedia, & still, I didn't need much of Wanda's info for MoM, nor did Kang's intro with Loki do much for me.
- The Eternals landed with a seismic thud.
- Kang still seems salvageable on the page, yet this is no Thanos. Not yet.
- Post-Endgame was not helped by the sidewinding of its pre-Infinity War plans for the then future... going from an Iron Man led MCU with Captain America, Thor, & Hulk... to a post-EG MCU led by a new north star, Black Panther, with Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, & Captain Marvel. -Black Panther's plans of course sadly changed with Chadwick Boseman's passing. Wakanda is still on the table, & a future Black Panther character remains eligible of course. -Spider-Man seems even more of a Sony puppet than ever. Instead of being lined up as 1A character for the MCU though, now he's had everyone's memory wiped of who he really is. -Dr. Strange seems even less impactful than ever before, & he was being lined up as another Tony Stark personality in his stead. I think that ship has sailed. -Captain Marvel, Brie Larsen appears to be all but done with the MCU & the raining incel horseshit criticism on her existence. I don't blame her either - being trolled online is one thing, having your career & daily work being trolled is another. -Asgardians of the Galaxy lasted merely a very funny Endgame scene, a handful of Love & Thunder minutes, & the search for Gamora led nowhere, or Knowhere? That Soul Stone was the end of Gamora, & now the EG teases of searching for her won't land quite the same.
The AC/DC Iron Man era is well in the rearview now, forever more. The Post-Endgame relay handoff proved clumsy if not all but forgettable. It'll be up to new character films & arcs to keep the MCU alive for me. The grand finale of all this could still have Infinity Saga appearances, & yet I'd bet at the most they're out-of-costume Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, Clint, etc as personal cameos, but I cannot see us going back to them in battle. 2028-2029 seems to be fluttering about for maybe a virtual finish line for everything, & yet nothing's etched.
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2023 17:22:25 GMT
Phase 4 was a classic example of quantity over quality.
There are way too many characters in the MCU now to have a coherent plot for the next Avengers movies and all their “leader” characters like Sam and Carol have half the development that Rogers and Stark had.
The assembly line style has reached its breaking point. Even hardcore fans are getting tired of movies like Ant Man 3 and Black Widow, devoid of style and creative soul. Actual passion projects like Vol 3 are too far and few in between.
Insanely flawed production with severe editing and reshoots are becoming a clear problem. This is almost certainly what made Dr Strange 2 fail. Reports even suggest that Thor 4 was a much better movie in its original cut.
And then there’s the tv shows- which are downright bad, and their required viewing is only going to further push fans away. Watching these feels like homework and has lowered the prestige of the franchise considerably.
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Post by Skaathar on May 11, 2023 20:23:30 GMT
My main problem with Phase 4 is that I feel like Feige gave the directors the MCU template to try and emulate... but then allowed the directors a good chunk of leeway to apply their own directing style anyway. And it just didn't work.
The MCU formula works (most of the time), but in order for it to work it needs a good amount of quality control and supervision to make it feel as if it's part of the MCU family. Problem is the phase 4 movies seemed to have very little quality control or oversight from Feige.
Director artistic-styles can also work (though it's less guaranteed) but it's very hard to do if they're still trying to follow a template.
So what we ended up in Phase 4 was a Thor movie filled with Taika-silliness. Dr. Strange's 3rd act felt like an evil-dead rip-off. She-Hulk felt like it was written by a teenage-girl pretending to be an adult. Black Widow would have been more at home in the early 2000's. Eternals felt like it should have been a DC movie.
They all had the same MCU template but only in the barest sense. None of them had the usual MCU polish because the directors were too busy trying to put their own spin on things. So we ended up with a phase 4 that was incredibly disjointed and without the coherence and overall direction of the previous phases.
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Post by mstreepsucks on May 11, 2023 22:34:36 GMT
I'm not sure where the state of it is at now. All I know is it doesn't look good.
I haven't been following it, I assume it aint good.
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Post by formersamhmd on May 12, 2023 2:10:28 GMT
Phase 4 was a classic example of quantity over quality. There are way too many characters in the MCU now to have a coherent plot for the next Avengers movies and all their “leader” characters like Sam and Carol have half the development that Rogers and Stark had. The assembly line style has reached its breaking point. Even hardcore fans are getting tired of movies like Ant Man 3 and Black Widow, devoid of style and creative soul. Actual passion projects like Vol 3 are too far and few in between. Insanely flawed production with severe editing and reshoots are becoming a clear problem. This is almost certainly what made Dr Strange 2 fail. Reports even suggest that Thor 4 was a much better movie in its original cut. And then there’s the tv shows- which are downright bad, and their required viewing is only going to further push fans away. Watching these feels like homework and has lowered the prestige of the franchise considerably. Uh, Steve didn't have much development at the time of the first Avengers movie. Sam's gone through more than both him and Tony did in Phase 1.
The reason the fans didn't enjoy Black Widow was because they didn't want a Widow movie to start with.
The D+ shows were better than most of Phases 1 and 2. I don't know what the complaining it about, those shows were quality.
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2023 16:26:38 GMT
Phase 4 was a classic example of quantity over quality. There are way too many characters in the MCU now to have a coherent plot for the next Avengers movies and all their “leader” characters like Sam and Carol have half the development that Rogers and Stark had. The assembly line style has reached its breaking point. Even hardcore fans are getting tired of movies like Ant Man 3 and Black Widow, devoid of style and creative soul. Actual passion projects like Vol 3 are too far and few in between. Insanely flawed production with severe editing and reshoots are becoming a clear problem. This is almost certainly what made Dr Strange 2 fail. Reports even suggest that Thor 4 was a much better movie in its original cut. And then there’s the tv shows- which are downright bad, and their required viewing is only going to further push fans away. Watching these feels like homework and has lowered the prestige of the franchise considerably. Uh, Steve didn't have much development at the time of the first Avengers movie. Sam's gone through more than both him and Tony did in Phase 1.
The reason the fans didn't enjoy Black Widow was because they didn't want a Widow movie to start with.
The D+ shows were better than most of Phases 1 and 2. I don't know what the complaining it about, those shows were quality.
Rock on, Sammy. Rock on.
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Post by Rey Kahuka on May 12, 2023 16:37:06 GMT
Phase 4 was a classic example of quantity over quality. There are way too many characters in the MCU now to have a coherent plot for the next Avengers movies and all their “leader” characters like Sam and Carol have half the development that Rogers and Stark had. The assembly line style has reached its breaking point. Even hardcore fans are getting tired of movies like Ant Man 3 and Black Widow, devoid of style and creative soul. Actual passion projects like Vol 3 are too far and few in between. Insanely flawed production with severe editing and reshoots are becoming a clear problem. This is almost certainly what made Dr Strange 2 fail. Reports even suggest that Thor 4 was a much better movie in its original cut. And then there’s the tv shows- which are downright bad, and their required viewing is only going to further push fans away. Watching these feels like homework and has lowered the prestige of the franchise considerably. It's been a bumpy road, to say the least. They have time to further develop their heroes by the time the next Avengers movie comes out, but they need to start putting things into focus instead of constantly expanding. Completely agree that most of the shows are garbage, but I have to disagree on MoM. It was well received by audiences and critics, and made significantly more than its predecessor-- nearly $1B at the box office. Not in my top ten MCU flicks, but not a bad one. Definitely not a failure imo.
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Post by formersamhmd on May 12, 2023 19:36:54 GMT
Phase 4 was a classic example of quantity over quality. There are way too many characters in the MCU now to have a coherent plot for the next Avengers movies and all their “leader” characters like Sam and Carol have half the development that Rogers and Stark had. The assembly line style has reached its breaking point. Even hardcore fans are getting tired of movies like Ant Man 3 and Black Widow, devoid of style and creative soul. Actual passion projects like Vol 3 are too far and few in between. Insanely flawed production with severe editing and reshoots are becoming a clear problem. This is almost certainly what made Dr Strange 2 fail. Reports even suggest that Thor 4 was a much better movie in its original cut. And then there’s the tv shows- which are downright bad, and their required viewing is only going to further push fans away. Watching these feels like homework and has lowered the prestige of the franchise considerably. It's been a bumpy road, to say the least. They have time to further develop their heroes by the time the next Avengers movie comes out, but they need to start putting things into focus instead of constantly expanding. Completely agree that most of the shows are garbage, but I have to disagree on MoM. It was well received by audiences and critics, and made significantly more than its predecessor-- nearly $1B at the box office. Not in my top ten MCU flicks, but not a bad one. Definitely not a failure imo. I love how fickle you are. Folks were talking about how much they loved the D+ shows and all it took was She-Hulk to get the "fans" to so a 180 and say "Oh wait, nevermind we hate them all now".
Even though She-Hulk was still good.
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Post by Skaathar on May 12, 2023 20:16:28 GMT
Phase 4 was a classic example of quantity over quality. There are way too many characters in the MCU now to have a coherent plot for the next Avengers movies and all their “leader” characters like Sam and Carol have half the development that Rogers and Stark had. The assembly line style has reached its breaking point. Even hardcore fans are getting tired of movies like Ant Man 3 and Black Widow, devoid of style and creative soul. Actual passion projects like Vol 3 are too far and few in between. Insanely flawed production with severe editing and reshoots are becoming a clear problem. This is almost certainly what made Dr Strange 2 fail. Reports even suggest that Thor 4 was a much better movie in its original cut. And then there’s the tv shows- which are downright bad, and their required viewing is only going to further push fans away. Watching these feels like homework and has lowered the prestige of the franchise considerably. It's been a bumpy road, to say the least. They have time to further develop their heroes by the time the next Avengers movie comes out, but they need to start putting things into focus instead of constantly expanding. Completely agree that most of the shows are garbage, but I have to disagree on MoM. It was well received by audiences and critics, and made significantly more than its predecessor-- nearly $1B at the box office. Not in my top ten MCU flicks, but not a bad one. Definitely not a failure imo. I think the problem in Phase 4 is not so much that majority of the movies were failures but rather that there were almost no homeruns. MoM and Wakanda Forever were both good, solid flicks, and I personally enjoyed Eternals and Shang-Chi. So really, the only movies that truly pissed me off were Thor L&T and Black Widow. Problem is outside of No Way Home, none of them were really that great either. In previous phases it seemed you had 1 great movie to offset every subpar movie they had. In phase 4, there just weren't enough "greats" to offset the bad. Then it's made all the worse by all the subpar D+ shows.
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Post by Rey Kahuka on May 12, 2023 20:49:40 GMT
It's been a bumpy road, to say the least. They have time to further develop their heroes by the time the next Avengers movie comes out, but they need to start putting things into focus instead of constantly expanding. Completely agree that most of the shows are garbage, but I have to disagree on MoM. It was well received by audiences and critics, and made significantly more than its predecessor-- nearly $1B at the box office. Not in my top ten MCU flicks, but not a bad one. Definitely not a failure imo. I love how fickle you are. Folks were talking about how much they loved the D+ shows and all it took was She-Hulk to get the "fans" to so a 180 and say "Oh wait, nevermind we hate them all now".
Even though She-Hulk was still good.
You've got the wrong guy. WandaVision was boring. I hated Moon Knight with a passion, more than She-Hulk, because I actually had expectations for it. I actually enjoyed She-Hulk as a gonzo comedy until the finale destroyed continuity and made me wonder what the point of watching was. I could only get through one episode of Ms. Marvel before deciding it wasn't for me. F&TWS lost steam as it went along, though I'd still say it was decent overall. What If was hit or miss. Loki was pretty good. Hawkeye is my favorite Disney+ show. All of this is cataloged right here on this message board, it's not like I made some about face and followed the crowd because She-Hulk sucked. Are you aware of your own hypocrisy? You pretend people aren't 'fans' because they criticize some of the projects, while you yourself criticize some of the projects. (How many times are you going to insist phase four was better than much of phase one and two?) Why does every argument you make seem like it was aimed at someone else? Stop using us as a proxy for haters on some other website.
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Post by formersamhmd on May 12, 2023 21:40:24 GMT
I love how fickle you are. Folks were talking about how much they loved the D+ shows and all it took was She-Hulk to get the "fans" to so a 180 and say "Oh wait, nevermind we hate them all now".
Even though She-Hulk was still good.
You've got the wrong guy. WandaVision was boring. I hated Moon Knight with a passion, more than She-Hulk, because I actually had expectations for it. I actually enjoyed She-Hulk as a gonzo comedy until the finale destroyed continuity and made me wonder what the point of watching was. I could only get through one episode of Ms. Marvel before deciding it wasn't for me. F&TWS lost steam as it went along, though I'd still say it was decent overall. What If was hit or miss. Loki was pretty good. Hawkeye is my favorite Disney+ show. All of this is cataloged right here on this message board, it's not like I made some about face and followed the crowd because She-Hulk sucked. Are you aware of your own hypocrisy? You pretend people aren't 'fans' because they criticize some of the projects, while you yourself criticize some of the projects. (How many times are you going to insist phase four was better than much of phase one and two?) Why does every argument you make seem like it was aimed at someone else? Stop using us as a proxy for haters on some other website. I thought WandaVision was a better adaptation of "Dark Phoenix" than any FOX-Men attempt. She-Hulk destroyed continuity no more than Deadpool ever did.
I criticize them without writing off the entirely of the D+ series as worthless, and I keep saying that about Phase 4 because I'm sick of all the "Phase 4 completely sucked in every way!" talk when truthfully you could apply that to Phases 1 and 2 as well.
You want to say "I liked some of Phase 4 but it just can't live up to Phase 3" then go ahead, just don't jump on the Buffoon Hater Bandwagon and expect to get away with it.
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Post by Rey Kahuka on May 13, 2023 0:17:13 GMT
You've got the wrong guy. WandaVision was boring. I hated Moon Knight with a passion, more than She-Hulk, because I actually had expectations for it. I actually enjoyed She-Hulk as a gonzo comedy until the finale destroyed continuity and made me wonder what the point of watching was. I could only get through one episode of Ms. Marvel before deciding it wasn't for me. F&TWS lost steam as it went along, though I'd still say it was decent overall. What If was hit or miss. Loki was pretty good. Hawkeye is my favorite Disney+ show. All of this is cataloged right here on this message board, it's not like I made some about face and followed the crowd because She-Hulk sucked. Are you aware of your own hypocrisy? You pretend people aren't 'fans' because they criticize some of the projects, while you yourself criticize some of the projects. (How many times are you going to insist phase four was better than much of phase one and two?) Why does every argument you make seem like it was aimed at someone else? Stop using us as a proxy for haters on some other website. I thought WandaVision was a better adaptation of "Dark Phoenix" than any FOX-Men attempt. She-Hulk destroyed continuity no more than Deadpool ever did.
I criticize them without writing off the entirely of the D+ series as worthless, and I keep saying that about Phase 4 because I'm sick of all the "Phase 4 completely sucked in every way!" talk when truthfully you could apply that to Phases 1 and 2 as well.
You want to say "I liked some of Phase 4 but it just can't live up to Phase 3" then go ahead, just don't jump on the Buffoon Hater Bandwagon and expect to get away with it.
That's the thing, I didn't.
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2023 2:58:20 GMT
Phase 4 was a classic example of quantity over quality. There are way too many characters in the MCU now to have a coherent plot for the next Avengers movies and all their “leader” characters like Sam and Carol have half the development that Rogers and Stark had. The assembly line style has reached its breaking point. Even hardcore fans are getting tired of movies like Ant Man 3 and Black Widow, devoid of style and creative soul. Actual passion projects like Vol 3 are too far and few in between. Insanely flawed production with severe editing and reshoots are becoming a clear problem. This is almost certainly what made Dr Strange 2 fail. Reports even suggest that Thor 4 was a much better movie in its original cut. And then there’s the tv shows- which are downright bad, and their required viewing is only going to further push fans away. Watching these feels like homework and has lowered the prestige of the franchise considerably. It's been a bumpy road, to say the least. They have time to further develop their heroes by the time the next Avengers movie comes out, but they need to start putting things into focus instead of constantly expanding. Completely agree that most of the shows are garbage, but I have to disagree on MoM. It was well received by audiences and critics, and made significantly more than its predecessor-- nearly $1B at the box office. Not in my top ten MCU flicks, but not a bad one. Definitely not a failure imo. MoM is actually my favorite movie of Phase 4. Saying it failed was definitely too strong a statement. I take that back. I do think it was really damaged by those reshoots though. I can’t watch it without noticing the constant shift between Raimi awesomeness and some of the more mediocre stuff that bogs it down. Early reports suggested Marvel forced Raimi to reshoot half the movie and I think it shows.
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Post by twothousandonemark on May 13, 2023 3:20:13 GMT
MoM is fine, yet the combo ideas of Dr. Stephen Strange as MCU's new Tony Stark alpha, & his sequel being a grand gateway into the Kang macro path... was a letdown when neither transpired for me.
I've been saying for a couple years now that I'd be riding & dying with the pre-Infinity War IP films, & this Guardians 3 being the finale of that era... I don't think I'll be much into Marvel outside of Avengers films now, & of course my highlighted Captain Sam, Blade, X-Men, & Fantastic Four. Everyone else's movies will likely be a skip from me. Still... that's at least 6+ movies this decade if not more.
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Post by formersamhmd on May 14, 2023 12:49:58 GMT
I think this tells us what we need to know...
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Post by Rey Kahuka on May 14, 2023 18:48:40 GMT
I think this tells us what we need to know... Agreed, it tells us you have no idea what you're talking about.
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Post by Skaathar on May 14, 2023 20:43:48 GMT
I think this tells us what we need to know... Look dude, phase 4 is universally the most hated MCU phase. Suck it up and get over it.
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Post by formersamhmd on May 14, 2023 23:29:15 GMT
I think this tells us what we need to know... Agreed, it tells us you have no idea what you're talking about. It's more about how disloyal, fickle and ungrateful the "fans" have become.
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Post by formersamhmd on May 14, 2023 23:29:57 GMT
I think this tells us what we need to know... Look dude, phase 4 is universally the most hated MCU phase. Suck it up and get over it. It was better than most of Phases 1 and 2. The only reason Phase 4 is being given a nastier look is because it decided to not be a White Nationalist's paradise anymore. These "bad movies" would have been seen as good back in Phases 1 and 2.
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Post by Rey Kahuka on May 14, 2023 23:35:03 GMT
Look dude, phase 4 is universally the most hated MCU phase. Suck it up and get over it. It was better than most of Phases 1 and 2. The only reason Phase 4 is being given a nastier look is because it decided to not be a White Nationalist's paradise anymore. Ok. Everybody, back away from the thread. Slowly..
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