Marvel Cinematic Universe by Slider_Quinn21 (Page 4 of 15)

I haven't commented on this specific story!!!

Oh...

Wait...

I don't kown whether I should be arguing or agreeing anymore. I'm confused.

Argh. Because redheads are expendable.

Whatever. I think the Marvel universe is fading anyway. Doctor Strange looks really lame, and the problem that they're going to have with Spider-Man is that he has been adapted many times over the years, unlike most of the Marvel characters. If they just release a typical, unremarkable Spider-Man movie, people will just stay home and watch their DVDs. This is a problem that Warner Bros is facing with Batman and Superman.

My question is why they need to raceswap Mary Jane at all.  Why not just make it a new character?  I understand having to raceswap Johnny Storm or Wally West, but is Mary Jane crucial enough to have to include?  The did MJ, they did Gwen.  Create a new love interest.  Denise.  She's in Peter's class.  She's smart and fun and beautiful.  Done.

Thor 3 is going to get some extra buzz because they're mixing in Planet Hulk.  That's a story a lot of comic people would love to see, and I bet it's something that gets more buzz from casual audiences than a normal Hulk sequel.

Civil War did better as an Avengers 2 than Ultron did so while Ultron wasn't that big of a deal, Civil War made up for it.

I expect Doctor Strange will do well.  Not as well as the others but as well as Ant-Man.  It will depend on word of mouth.

Back to the "black Mary Jane" story. 

Is it racist to ask that they just create a new character?  Because I've seen that accusation in the past, and it's not something I really understand.  For certain characters, I get it.  If you're trying to generate diversity among an established group (say, the Fantastic Four), then you have to race-swap someone.  Adding a new supporting character and having them assist the Fantastic Four wouldn't work, and swapping out Johnny Storm for a new black character doesn't work either.

For some, the answer is easier.  Hal Jordan was white.  Guy Gardner was white.  Kyle Raynor was white.  DC wanted a black Green Lantern so they made one.  And now, thanks to the Justice League cartoon, John Stewart is just as popular as any other Green Lantern.  Same with Miles Morales.  Peter Parker dies in the Ultimate universe, and he's replaced with a young black/Hispanic kid.  Now most comic fans know who he is.  It worked.

In some situations, the situation is a bit more lazy in my opinion.  Barry Allen, Jay Garrick, Wally West, and Bart Allen have all been the Flash.  But instead of adding a fifth Flash as a black man, they race-swapped Wally.  It's been shown that if you attach a new character to an existing brand, the new character can be successful.  But instead of elevating the new character to prominence, they altered Wally.

Now I get the challenges of creating a brand-new superhero.  For the most part, there aren't many popular new superheroes (black, white, or otherwise).  Almost all the successful Marvel and DC heroes are decades old. 

But my problem is with Mary Jane.  Mary Jane has been around for a while, and she's a key character in Peter's life.  But I don't know if she's crucial to the character of Peter Parker.  Yeah, he marries her in one continuity, but I don't think she *has* to be included for the character to work.  So why not do something different?  If they want Peter Parker to have a black girlfriend, that's great.  Comic movies do need more black women.

But why not create a new character?  Spider-Man: Homecoming is going to be a successful movie whether or not Mary Jane is in it.  It won't be made or broken by the female lead.  So why not try something new?

They clearly want to make a very diverse movie, and they should have just done Miles Morales.  It's the character and background they seem to want to portray, but I'm certain studios want the Peter Parker name recognition.  I don't think it's necessary to have the name, but studios latch on to stupid things because they think their consumers are stupid.

I think that adding new characters is fine, but if you remove a character that fans want to see, you're just making another mistake. Barry Allen and Iris West may not be on the Clark and Lois level, but comic fans still know them and will reject something that is not a proper adaptation.

I like Iris on the TV series, but it was a mistake to cast another black actress in the role, solidifying that one image. New Wally was rejected by fans in the comics, but they are possibly locking themselves into that rejected version on screen.

The whole thing is a mess at this point. They're trying to force diversity instead of just being diverse. They don't need to be trying this hard. It is just creating more drama than is necessary.

When adapting universes that were created long ago, when all the writers were white and mostly didn't concern themselves with diversity, you either end up with unrealistically white casts or you have to make some adjustments.  Either course will draw criticism.

Again, I have no problem with Peter having a black girlfriend.  Or Barry Allen having a black girlfriend.  White male - black female relationships need to be represented because they're usually ignored in media.  It's a great way to add a level of diversity that no one else seems to be showing.

My point is that Iris West and Mary Jane Watson don't have character identification that's relevant.  Mary Jane is an actress and she's Peter's girlfriend.  Iris is a journalist and she's Barry's girlfriend.  Those are their two biggest descriptors.  So why not let Mary Jane (and Gwen) be students at Peter's school, but in this universe, Peter chooses someone else.  The idea that Mary Jane has to be white is just as laughable to me as the idea that Mary Jane has to be Peter's soulmate.

When you create a new character instead of race-swapping, you show that creating a new character works.  The new black girlfriend would join the ranks of new black characters that were created and stayed around despite the fact that their name wasn't one that was already popular.

It is odd that almost all the race-swapping is white to black.  Very few are white to Hispanic, and even less are white to Asian.  In fact, I can think of more Asian characters that were shown as white than the opposite.  The latest census shows that 13% of the US population is black, 5% is Asian, and 17% is Hispanic.

I think that making a previously Caucasian character black allows SPIDER-MAN HOMECOMING to get some media buzz, make some headlines, spark some chatter and raise the profile in a way the casting wouldn't if they cast Dove Cameron or Sabrina Carpenter to be Mary Jane.

(Yes, I watch LIV AND MADDIE and GIRL MEETS WORLD. Arrested adolescent here.)

Yes!

Or, alternatively, Marvel is so scared about the success of the BvS Ultimate Cut and Suicide Squad that they're going into full panic mode.  And since their movies are so cartoony, they turned to a comedic writer to make everything brighter and funnier.

They can probably salvage Ant-Man.  Everyone loves Ant-Man.

The fact that he got no street creds for Abed alone boggles the mind.

At least a good writer is getting work out of Marvel's death spiral.

Movie Coulson is dead. TV Coulson is alive. They may be played by the same actor, but they're different worlds. People just need to give up on the idea that the movie and TV worlds are the same.

Daredevil does not live in the same world as Agents of SHIELD

Where was Thor during Civil War!?!?! Find out here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPNBKT6JLSU

This is why I like the Marvel Universe. It doesn't avoid absurdity, it embraces it.

I got Civil War from Redbox. I will watch it tonight. I still find the commercials strange and baffling, but hopefully the movie will actually make some sort of sense. We'll see!

My solution: Don't have Spider-Man in the movie. He was only in it because someone thought it would be neat, but his presence presented more problems than it was worth. He is supposed to be an intelligent person, yet he goes into a battle against known heroes with absolutely no comprehension of what he is doing or why. His character could be deleted from the movie with only beneficial results.

As a whole, I'm not sure about him. Hot Aunt May is weird. Squeeky-voiced Beiber-Man... I know some people liked him, but I think he is the weakest big screen Spider-Man I've seen.

Look, we all know that when it comes to the Marvel movies, I'm not a huge fan. I think they're low quality in general, and the films are secondary to the merchandising. It's Disney. That said, I have also proven that I am capable of saying good things about them. I liked Guardians of the Galaxy. It was fun and entertaining, with a solid cast. I liked Ant-Man, because Paul Rudd is a fun guy and he carried the movie. I liked the first Iron Man. I liked the second Iron Man, but less. I didn't hate The First Avenger until they sold it out in order to build up The Avengers, rendering the movie useless. I didn't hate Winter soldier. When you get right down to it, I don't think these movies are great movies, but I only actually hated The Avengers movies, Thor 2 an Iron Man 3. And if we count TV shows, I only strongly dislike Agents of SHIELD, while thinking Jessica Jones was weak. But Daredevil is awesome.

So I am not saying this because of some weird need to hate on Marvel, but...

This movie was crap. Start to finish. Up and down.

It wasn't a story, so much as a series of high-concept scenes. Many of those scenes could be easily removed without damaging the plot. In fact, it would probably strengthen the plot. I was literally cringing from the useless stupidity during the airport battle, which was pretty much the selling point of the movie.

Character motivation was weak and inconsistent. Conflicts and character arcs were once again thrown in because they sounded cool in theory, while not helping the actual plot. The car chase after finding Bucky shouldn't have involved police. It should have been a much smaller, more personal conflict... as much of the movie should have been. Instead, we have a movie with heroes fighting heroes, all because none of them want to stop to have an actual conversation. And it's not because they're not willing to talk. They're talking plenty. They're just using those moments to make attempts at humor, rather than say "We have proof that Bucky wasn't responsible..."

I hate the trope of having entire conflicts revolve around the unwillingness of the writers to have characters speak. And yes, there was a moment in Batman v Superman that was guilty of this same thing, but it was a moment, not the entire plot of the movie.

It's impossible not to compare the movies, because the plots are very similar in many ways. In BvS, we have Superman being forced to answer for his supposed crimes. In this, we have the Avengers doing the same. Except, as they showed footage of those battles, I couldn't help but think it was a stretch to blame the Avengers in most of those cases. In the battle of NY, the Avengers stopped our own government from trying to nuke the city for some unknown reason.
In BvS, everything went into explaining why those characters were fighting and how the plot made sense. Everything was about the bigger story (especially the Ultimate Edition). There was reason and purpose and consideration and real character development. Civil War didn't bother with the little things like that.

So much motivation in this movie doesn't hold up. There were obviously scenes which the writers came up with and put on a board somewhere. Concepts for fights and ideas for cool shots. And the plot was secondary.

At the end of the movie, we have a huge fight between Iron Man, Cap and Bucky. For the life of me, I don't even know why Bucky was fighting. He supposedly carries this guilt. He is supposedly a good guy. Yet, he doesn't want to own his actions and it doesn't make sense! The scene would have been so much more dynamic and emotional if he didn't want to fight it out. Iron Man would be trying to kill him. Cap would be trying to save him. It would be this highly personal battle all around, but also a physical display of Bucky's internal struggle. Instead, we get another bland and generic fight scene. It's big and super, but mean nothing.

A lot of the movie seemed like it was yet another Tony Stark emotional meltdown, this time caused by Pepper leaving. I swear, the guy has been an emotional wrecking ball since Favreau left.

The movie suffers from a lot of the same problems as other Marvel movies. The big action scenes look like scenes from any useless action movie. The fight scenes usually don't let the choreography stand on its own, relying on silly tricks (shaky cam, while speeding up the footage, and throwing in useless CGI!) to sell a fight that honestly could have held its own with just good choreography. The CGI was pretty weak in some spots. There was no sense of weight or gravity to a bunch of the scenes, making it look like a cartoon. The lighting. The directing. But we've been through this. This is the stuff that they always cheap out on, but this is the stuff that turns a silly b-movie into a real film.

Was Chris Evans wearing a ton of makeup? He looked weird in some scenes.

The romance between Cap and Sharon Carter was awkward and kinda gross.

The bottom line is, there was a real story to tell here. There were some great character moments that were right there for the taking. There was emotion and humanity. And the people making the movie shot it in the head as they went about the business of plotting a big action sequence or bringing in as many characters as possible, whether they added to the plot or not.

This was easily the worst of the Captain America movies. It was about the same level as an Avengers movie. I'm kinda bummed. This movie felt more depressing to me than BvS, because it was all so senseless (and not the intentional way). Good guys destroying an airport and legitimately trying to kill each other (well, some of them. Some were apparently just doing it for the sake of goofing around) for no reason is so much worse than Superman causing damage while trying to save the world.

And people might tell me to lower my expectations, because this is a movie that an eight year old is going to. But with the amount of bad language, arms being blown off and good guys trying to murder their own friends, I don't see how this is a movie for kids. The PG-13 rating standards have really changed over the last several years.

Informant, I honestly don't even know where to begin.  We've had our share of discussion on Marvel and DC, and I'm starting to wonder if you're allowing bias to affect your views on these movies.  I could go point-by-point, but I'm concerned we're just going to go in circles again.  I almost feel like you're doing a satire of the reviewers that torch DC movies because they aren't like Marvel.  Especially since you're using arguments that I've seen used (or that *I've* used) against movies like BvS and Suicide Squad.

The worst of the Captain America movies?  Worse than The First Avenger?  That's the movie, as far as I recall, that got you so mad about the MCU in the first place.  You called it a feature-length trailer for the Avengers. 

Could've been fixed by having the characters talk?  They do talk.  But the movie goes to great lengths to show that neither side is particularly right.  The Avengers do save people, but they do cause collateral damage.  They do need oversight, but the oversight could easily be just as bad as the people they're supposed to fight.  And there's tons of history to look back on for both sides.  I've said it earlier in the thread, but I felt like Tony's transformation from the guy at the Senate hearing in Iron Man 2 to the guy arguing for government oversight in Civil War is totally earned in my opinion.

Batman is the world's greatest detective but does almost no investigation into who Superman is.  A throwaway scene about a drone following Superman around in Man of Steel did more investigation than Batman did.  If Bruce had done the work that Lois did in the first movie, he'd realize that Clark Kent has been a pretty good guy his whole life.  End of movie.

Listen, I get it.  Marvel gets the benefit of the doubt and DC doesn't.  DC makes bigger effort to care about building something, and they've gotten hammered for it.  BvS and Civil War can make the same amount of money, and one is a failure and the other is a success.  It sucks to have to constantly defend these movies.  But all your reviews recently have been hyperbole - Suicide Squad is great, Civil War is crap. 

And, honestly, I don't think either of those reviews is what you really think.  Did you like Suicide Squad better?  Sure, and you're free to have that opinion.  But to give all DC movies 10/10 reviews and all Marvel 0/10 reviews makes you just as bad as the crazy people who do the opposite.

Just my $0.02.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ3VQkK6Upo

Honest Trailers for Civil War!

The trailer was pretty good. And it reminded me of another problem! When what's-his-name bad guy went to drown that other bad guy in the laundry room sink, the dude's mouth was totally above the sink line. He could have hung there forever and been totally fine if he wasn't sloshing around in the water.

I just took one of those silly online quizzes, to find out which side of the brain I use more. Am I more artistic and imaginative, or rational and analytical?

Turns out, I'm 50/50. I wonder if that's what my problem is here. I can't just sit back and let the story be fun. It also has to make sense to me, or else it isn't fun at all.

I promise, I don't do it consciously.

I haven't started it yet and probably won't for a while.  I've liked the Netflix series so far, but they need to cut back from 13 episodes.  Daredevil (both seasons) and Jessica Jones have struggled with pacing for that many episodes.  I've read Luke Cage suffers from the same issues.

Absolutely.  I don't know why Jessica Jones wasn't more procedural.  I think it was Alan Sepinwall who said that Killgrave should've developed more slowly.  She handles a handful of cases throughout the first half of the season that all point toward Killgrave.  Then the second half of the season revolves around trying to find and capture/kill him.  Then there would've been less ridiculous moments of them catching him and him constantly getting away.

We don't talk about it much, but I think Agents of Shield has really found its footing.  I actually look forward to watching it each week, and I think it's a lot of fun.  It's annoying that the movies don't care about it, and it's crazy that AoS takes place in the same universe as Daredevil.  But for what it is, I think it's a lot of fun.  Ghost Rider was a fun story, LMD was zany but allowed for some great character work, and I think Agents of Hydra will be pretty cool too.

Bringing back (spoiler) is upsetting, but hopefully they do it right.

I mean, I don't see it as any worse or better than any of the DC/CW shows.  The characters that are still on the show are good, and I like them.  And the show is fun - the action is usually pretty good for TV, and the narrative is usually compelling.

What I've noticed is that they're sorta moving into their own territory.  They don't name-drop the Avengers as much, and when they do, it's usually just in relation to Coulson (like when he talks about getting stabbed by Loki).  They aren't just a clean-up crew for whatever the other movies are doing.  While they're doing a lot of magic this year, I'm pretty sure they haven't had a single mention of Dr. Strange or anything related to him.  At the same time, it feels like the Marvel universe, and it wouldn't be bizarre to have more cross-pollination if that's what the movie side wanted.

But since they don't, I like that the show isn't just filling the gaps of the Marvel movies.  It's its own thing.  And it's a fun show.

Well, the Defenders is only going to be 8 episodes, but I'm pretty sure the contract with Netflix was for 60 episodes total (13 of each of the primary shows and 8 Defenders) so they might not have had a choice in the matter....even if they realized they didn't have enough material for 13.

Although I blame that on writing.  There's tons of stories these guys can tell in 13 episodes.  There are a lot of great network shows that did/do 20+ episodes, and there are a *ton* of great shows that do 13.  There's no magic number of episodes, and all these characters have decades of material to work with.

When it comes to the Marvel shows on Netflix, I don't think that it's necessarily the number of episodes that is the problem. Daredevil hasn't bored me at all. I think Jessica Jones could have been a better series with four or five episodes that were just her doing her job and showing us that she is a detective. Veronica Mars had this format right. They had major, heavy arcs, but each episode usually had its own smaller mystery as well.

Jessica Jones would probably be better off having mostly arc episodes, but with a few detective stories mixed in so that they didn't just repeat themselves (over and over and over), and so they could establish the abilities of the character (as a detective).

Luke Cage, nothing could help. It was like watching paint dry on cold molasses that had grass growing through it. Horrible storytelling. The slow jazz feel did nothing to help their lack of plot. Their arc was all over the place (three primary villains who could have been stopped by Luke in about five minutes). It was just a mess.

Agents of SHIELD, I have never been able to connect with. The characters have always struck me as characters, or actors playing characters. They've never had any chemistry or personality, or anything natural about them. The way they talk is unnatural, the way they are directed through the episodes is unnatural. It's just always been a totally hollow series for me. Even when they had a chance to do something interesting, having Fitz's brain damaged, they didn't even find a clever way to fix it or present the struggle. It was totally disingenuous (much like Felicity being shot on Arrow, during that season that we shall never talk about again).
I just don't get the sense that anyone making the show has ever actually cared about it, or taken it seriously. It's always been paint-by-numbers, visually speaking. And most of the time, you could probably switch around character names in the script and you'd never know it from the dialogue. So few of the characters have unique voices, outside of their basic character descriptions.

On The Flash, which is an absurd show, the actors seem to take their work seriously and there is real chemistry between cast members. The effort that is put into creating the visual style of the show is evident. The show isn't always brilliantly written, but there is always something genuine about each episode.

Likewise with Arrow, when it's done well, there is legitimate chemistry between the actors. There is legitimate effort put into the look and feel of the show.

But I will give you Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl. They are similar to Agents of SHIELD in a lot of ways.

Yeah, I'm guessing that's a new contract.

Regarding the characters on Agents of Shield, I think they've grown into their roles.  They weren't entirely sure what to do with Daisy/Skye, but I think her progression has been mostly organic.  Coulson has been Coulson.  And they've humanized May to the point where she's a character you can sorta understand, especially this season.  Putting Fitz and Simmons together has humanized them to where they aren't just the science team.  I think Mac is a pretty cool character, and putting him with Yo-Yo has shown off his depth.

When you listen to Chloe Bennet talk about how they're virtually ignored by the MCU, you see how proud she is of the show and how disappointed she is that it doesn't get treated the same way.  And I know you don't like LoT or Supergirl, but I think there's a place on TV for those kind of shows - something just engaging enough but also fun.  I think, at it's best, AoS can be as good as Flash or Arrow.  I think Amell and Gustin are just more charismatic and can carry a show.  As much as I like the character of Coulson, he's not strong enough to be the lead, and the ensemble isn't strong enough for it to be completely engaging.

But when it's good, it's pretty good.  And there've been fewer and fewer bad moments the last season or two.  It might not matter because it's on the bubble, and Marvel might want to focus on the Inhumans TV show and their Netflix shows.  But we'll see.