Gunn and Waititi are the ones who do this the most, have too many characters make jokes to undercut things being too serious - and I think amazingly Gunn controlled his urges to do that more than Waititi in the MCU. So while Deadpool and Tony are meant to be annoying and caustic at times, their characters use that to hide their emotions/pain as kind of man-children - so in those instances the character is undercutting the situation for themselves but it tells us about them, while for Gunn and Waititi they do it with characters in a way that undercuts the emotion of the actual story. Which is frustrating at times.
Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies and Streaming Series Discussion
- Thread starter Ru1977
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That was all fine with me, actually. I had zero problems with the story of this particular Steve Rogers ending that way. I didn’t like all the movies he was in, but I truly loved the character of Steve Rogers as presented in the MCU. He was always a pleasant surprise, especially in movies I otherwise didn’t like at all.
That’s the part that I see going to places I won’t enjoy.
Steve having a kid off-camera as part of his “ending” makes perfect narrative sense, but further stories of “Daddy America and Child” are just not the Steve Rogers stories I would ever ask for, and they also have no precedent in other Cap media (unless you count Bucky as a teenager, I guess). And pinning his “return” on “imma dad” motivations (as the teaser suggests) does indeed seem a cheap, manipulative cop-out to me, just as it was with Tony in Endgame. And definitely making Doom’s motives “he’s stealing the kids, he’s stealing the babies” is just . . . sigh. Like I was totally charmed by the Fantastic Four movie, just really really enjoyed it, but there were these little plot bits starting to circle around Franklin where I was like “aww, shit, they are gonna lean HARD into ‘magic kids’ with Doomsday” and just . . . argh.
Disney’s gonna Disney, I guess. And I do want a less-macho, kinder MCU. But I don’t want kids and babies all over the damn place. I barely want actual established teen sidekicks. I didn’t want the “cute kids” when I *was* a cute kid.
JakeEkiss
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"If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses"
Thing is, since Endgame the only headlining new characters with their own movies were: Shang Chi, Eternals, and Thunderbolts (I suppose FF, but they've had 2 earlier swings at bat under Fox). Far as I can tell, two of those are broadly liked. They may not have been getting Avengers numbers, but two of them also came out mid-pandemic during a broader era where film attendance as a whole is dropping off a cliff. I don't think there's a world where we can really say what the fans want except to stay at home. That's not a problem with the new characters, it's a problem with film as a legacy medium.
Either way, three attempts and then everything else is either an old character or at best a shared movie with an old character headlining. Old headliners are getting 3x as many movies even if you add FF into the new folks list. And most of what they've been putting out are focus-tested into the ground. This is part of the same thing that happens that allows companies to claim women can't headline action movies, or that people don't want to watch big original scifi movies anymore. That's all bullshit. It's just that art is not a science and nothing you put in front of people is guaranteed to work. There is always a failure rate. But if you want a whole new set of heroes to take over, you gotta actually put some enough out there to find the hits. Disney isn't doing that anymore. They're soft-selling new characters in 8 hr tv shows gated behind their walled garden streaming service. That ain't gonna work if you want theater attendance. Those are overlapping, but not at all identical audiences.
I definitely think there's blame to go to fans, largely the online fanbase who is the loudest. But I don't think it's impossible to make new characters marketable. Iron Man was a b or c lister before his movies. And I don't think Shang Chi is noticeably worse than the original Thor if you go back and watch them both side by side. I'm told a lot of folks liked Thunderbolts and FF. I can't say on those because I'm terminally behind on film watching and MCU stuff is lower on my priority list than other things, but I'm sure they're about as good as any MCU film.
I dunno, this just feels very meh to me. It feels like all the other lega-sequels out there, but nowhere near as much time has passed.
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Agreed with all this.
Ru1977
The Irishman
I also agree with that point. The hits and misses, to me, in the last couple phases were about equal to the hits and misses in the first couple phases.
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Yeah I can’t think of any MCU thing I’ve seen since Endgame that I didn’t enjoy at least in part, and probably more of my “these are good, actually” MCU things are post- rather than pre-Endgame.
While its true IM, Cap and Thor were probably a step down from Spidey and the X-Men in popularity and name recognition at the launch of the MCU (although I think that Cap probably was pretty close to Spidey in casual knowledge the character existed), they are characters that had their own titles for nearly 50 years, had been in cartoons and on t-shirts and lunchboxes and toys and so were not total unknowns.
I think it was a much bigger lift to get Ant-Man, Shang-Chi, Eternals etc., to basic recognition of "oh, yeah, a film with that character might be worth seeing" - those characters I suspect did not have much name recognition outside of geek circles.
I think it was a much bigger lift to get Ant-Man, Shang-Chi, Eternals etc., to basic recognition of "oh, yeah, a film with that character might be worth seeing" - those characters I suspect did not have much name recognition outside of geek circles.
This got me thinking, is the MCU deviating more from the basic outlines of classic stories more than it did at the start? Not they did adaptations, but I feel like they have been using less of the legacy stories as starting points. The original comics were doing a lot of the heavy lifting of plots, motivations, bad guy goal, etc., for the screenwriters.
Ru1977
The Irishman
Maybe not, or it may just be that characters like Capt Marvel, Shang-Chi, Ant-Man, etc., don't really have the "recognized classic" to draw from that Thor did with Gorr, for instance.
Ru1977
The Irishman
And for what that's worth anyway.
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That’s actually an ongoing and escalating complaint I have. I think the MCU currently references *itself* more than any comic stories as it crafts its media now. Now, I can see that that could be perceived as a feature, rather than a bug, if their primary “way in” is the MCU itself, but I personally think it keeps the MCU “small” and leads to things like the perception that the Avengers didn’t really go on “regular” missions together but rather only convened for “events”.
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It absolutely is. But, while we can rail at the sky about it, we KNOW that these billion dollar studios are not going to say 'less is good enough.' They WANT to hit those big numbers and if it seems like bringing back Steve Rogers is going to do that, they will do that instead of introducing a new character. If fans -reject- this idea (and if it was causing massive outcry at the mere suggestion) Disney would absolutely want to go a different direction.
But it didn't cause mass outcry. There were like.. online campaigns to convince Chris Evans to come back. This is what 'the people' wanted and that seems to be borne out by the overwhelmingly positive reception to the Dadcap Teaser.
And Disney is going to sidestep that as best they can by going back to the well on what they knew worked and what is getting the best reactions rather than trying something different. That's just where they are right now. And fan reaction 100% makes it worse and reinforces to them that they should be doing this. If Doomsday comes out and does the best numbers since Endgame, we know what that's going to tell Disney.
Totally agree.
Oh no, it definitely isn't. But corporations are famously lazy. If it's obvious that doing the same old thing will make the -most- money, and then it DOES, then that's the end of the discussion. And fans have to take their share of responsibility for feeding that system.
We have to be fair, though; are people still willing to accept that level of quality? Thor has to be taken in its proper context as the MCU still figuring itself out. They didn't even know what the PLAN was yet beyond 'we gotta get the Avengers together.' This is when they still thought the Avengers movie might close out the entire MCU project.
But we've moved on from that and done really crazy stuff since then, and there's a publicized plan in place for like the next fifty-six years of MCU content. So NOW if something comes out and it's on par with the quality of 'Thor,' - I'm not sure that's a glowing endorsement of why anyone would even want to watch it.
It's like saying you should buy a Playmates Ninja Turtles figure TODAY because it's just as good as it was in 1987. I mean... we've come a long way since then, so if that's the best comparison then I think I'd rather have something else, thank you.
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As a piece of architecture of the MCU?
Yes.
As a film of “quality”, artistically speaking?
Nah.
I think many, if not most folks would say that several early MCU films are of excellent quality *as films*. They may not serve the MCU narrative as effectively as some later films, for the reasons you mentioned, but that doesn’t mean that the films themselves are of lesser quality. The first Iron Man film still makes “best of” lists, and I personally think that the first Captain America film is an absolute banger in or out of the MCU. I’d say the comparison between Thor and Shang-Chi *as films* is apt: both are fun, well-made and a lot of people enjoyed them . . . and neither is going to top any “best of all time” lists. I’d call them both “solid mid-carders”.
On the flip side: Age of Ultron serves the narrative of the MCU *very* well: much of its purpose seems to be to set up coming events in the franchise. And yet, many folks would not count it as a “good” movie on its own merits. I definitely wouldn’t. It made me want to see upcoming MCU stuff, though!
But seriously: if Shang-Chi, a character totally outside of any mainstream appeal prior to the film, can hit a similar quality to a better-known character with an actual mythological origin in a film directed by a “prestige” director, that’s a commendable achievement.
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That's my point, though. Where I think Thor tends to lose people is the overall connection to the franchise. Stand-alone it's a perfectly fun movie. But I think after huge events like Infinity War/Endgame, Disney is going to struggle to get the same level of engagement from a film that's on par with Thor -- a mid-tier film that's mostly just 'fun to watch.' I suppose I'm arguing that we have a problem with escalation, and fans, really at no fault of Disney, may be struggling to be interested in things that don't seem to know where they want to exist in the franchise yet; a problem that got a pass back then that probably doesn't get a pass now.