Post by DC-Fan on Oct 15, 2017 22:50:50 GMT
1st, before MCU fans here start attacking me with personal insults, I'll point out that I didn't write the following article. Someone else wrote the following article and I'm just posting it here as a courtesy to MCU fans here who might not have read the article yet.
2nd, before the mods decide to change the title of this thread, the title is 100% accurate. In fact, 1 of the subsections of the article is specifically titled "Kevin Feige is Wrong – The Timeline Is Seriously Broken".
So without further ado, here is the article for your reading pleasure: MCU's Broken Timeline
The Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline is broken – that much is certain.
There’s never been an official MCU timeline, but from information in the films, fans have been able to construct intricate and seemingly accurate versions. However, that’s all begun to fall apart in Phase 3. First, Vision suggested Captain America: Civil War took place eight years after Iron Man – true in real time but flawed in-universe due to shifts in the early films (it’s actually seven). Then Doctor Strange spanned years with seeming disregard to the wider Avenger antics (something Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 continued). The whole thing was finally blown open by Spider-Man: Homecoming, where a text card stated it was set eight years after The Avengers, despite following on from Civil War and thus presumably being a mere four.
Confused yet? You should be. As we outlined at the time, there’s no simple way to consolidate the timeline without accepting either a great deal of contradictory retconning or that Homecoming made a knowing change just to allow their teenage characters be old enough to have properly grown up with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in the spotlight.
First things first, it’s worth responding to what Feige’s said about fan perception of the timeline. In his conversations with us and other websites, the producer has claimed the confusion stems from an erroneous belief the movies take place somewhat in real time. As he puts it, “I think people assume that whenever the movie is released is when is when the movie is taking place, and that is not the case.”
Now that is a common assumption by fans, although it isn’t as baseless as the producer makes it sound; in fact, it’s what Marvel has repeatedly said. Scarlett Johansson once stated that The Winter Soldier took place two years after The Avengers and the Russo brothers that Civil War was two years after that. Feige himself even played into this, confirming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (set in 2014) has a four-year gap before Avengers: Infinity War (placing that film in its release year). As far as we’re concerned, the official line from Marvel has been that, unless a detail requires a date shift (such as Iron Man 3, released in May but taking place over Christmas), a movie is set around its time of release.
But even if that wasn’t the case, the dating goes beyond what’s said in the real world. When we constructed our timeline to highlight the Homecoming plot hole, we did so entirely off in-movie context; whether it’s lines or easter eggs, the movies are connected in an intricate web with little leeway. Listing every movie is tricky, but for the sake of Spider-Man argument, Homecoming is set a few months after Civil War, which is a year after Age of Ultron, itself a year on from The Winter Soldier. There’s nothing in-film to say Captain America 2 is explicitly two years after The Avengers, but to not have that leaves a massive gap after Thor: The Dark World and further complicates the Guardians/Infinity War placement. In short, Feige’s movies contradict what Feige is now saying.
Jon Watts said around the time of Homecoming‘s release that Marvel Studios actually had a full timeline scroll. While there’s no reason to doubt him, the fact his movie introduced a major flub to said timeline suggests it’s perhaps not as airtight as one would hope. So, while it’s possible that when the official timeline is released it will be a simple translation of whatever already exists, due to so many inherent contradictions we’re inclined to suggest instead that Marvel will construct a retconned version that undermines a variety of previous plot holes and create a new, overridden version.
That’s how the movies already tend to operate: the most recent, overt instance of events is the truth. For example, while there was an Infinity Gauntlet in Odin’s vault in Thor, that’s been superseded in-continuity by Thanos getting his own golden glove from a different location in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
that’s why we have to conclude that, while it’s good that Marvel are going to address the timeline issues, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to do it in a wholly satisfactory manner; for every recent big plot hole you avoid, another is created in the past.
Perhaps the solution is less about slotting the existing films into place than it is changing the puzzle. The MCU has never had a special edition, but perhaps it’d be just simpler to adjust that “Eight Years Later” title card?
