Marvel Cinematic General Discussion 7

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, red snow said:

I didn't mean my comment to come off as nothing of consequence happened but that doesn't stop it from feeling inconsequential. Sticking a big moment as a post credits scene highlights that. When you have characters constanly mocking the genre it feels like nothing of weight occurs. An example that doesn't even involve the humour is how Thor's little gang of asgardians are killed off as if they were redshirts and I don't recall Thor ever being upset about their deaths (even when he wouldn't be aware of it until the end of the film). Those 3 dying were ultimately inconsequential as no-one within the film gave a shit about their death.

Don't get me wrong - I've yet to watch a Marvel film where I'm bored while watching them but increasingly I'm finding no reason to watch them again. Which is absolutely fine for a popcorn film and 2 hours of entertainment. But a week after seeing Blader Runner 2049 I'm still thinking about that film. I'm not really thinking about the deeper ramifications of Thor - other than it was a fun watch.

Ok yes there were missed opportunities for some emotional weight. I'm not really looking for Marvel movies to be deep and meaningful, so I don't mind all that much that the movies are light weight in this regard. I think in some respects the DCEU trips up by trying to inject too much deep and meaningful stuff into the movies. But ultimately this movie should be viewed as a comedy action with some dramatic elements, which is a subtle departure from most other MCU movies that are action movies with some drama and comedy elements. People should not be looking for too much dramatic depth or phlisophical heft.

I think I should continue to respect that US folks haven't seen the film yet so I don't want to talk specifics. But we all know Thor's hammer is destroyed. I think Thor is more emotionally attached to Mjolnir than any particular Asgardian, though he is attached to Asgard. And I think that's kind of in-keeping with his movie persona. Thor is more about himself than others. 

In terms of the other thing Thor loses:

Spoiler

Does losing an eye suggest Thor now becoming king and effectively taking on the Odin spirit pave the way for lady Thor in Phase 4? King Thor can't afford to be hiving off adventuring with his Avengers mates. A king must rule his people and not be an absentee monarch. I know it's not about the losing of an eye, but rather the symbolism of that being Thor transitioning to a new phase in his life and responsibility.

 

[williamjm]

I saw the film yesterday. I definitely enjoyed it, although I think there are some significant flaws with it. I think one of the fundamental issues is that it felt like two different films had been squashed together and they were tonally inconsistent. The portion of the film set on Asgard was mostly fairly serious but it was hard to really feel much sadness for the destruction Hela was causing when the film kept cutting to the silly comedy of the Planet Hulk storyline. I did think the film was genuinely funny at times even if not every attempt at humour worked and it was consistently entertaining but as @red snow said above it meant the film did feel a bit weightless. I think to some extent the film managed to overcome that for the finale where the plotlines do start to converge, and the final battle was quite well done (even if it did yet again feature Marvel's favourite trope of an army of faceless CGI monsters for the heroes to fight).

Some more spoilery thoughts:

I agree that having the Warriors Three being killed off in such an abrupt way did feel a bit jarring after the previous films had spent a fair bit of time on them. I guess the idea is to show how big a threat Hela is, but her destroying Mjolnir had already shown that. I guess Sif was elsewhere? At least Idris Elba finally got something significant to do after three films.

Something else that was abrupt was the break-up between Thor and Jane, I know it's presumably because Natalie Portman didn't want to reprise the role and I don't think she'd have served much purpose in the film, but it felt a bit jarring to have her character dismissed in a sentence after the previous film had portrayed her and Thor as having this epic romance.

Cate Blanchett seemed to be relishing chewing the scenery, it was a fun performance but there's not a lot of depth to her character.

[Which Tyler]

20 hours ago, red snow said:

I didn't mean my comment to come off as nothing of consequence happened but that doesn't stop it from feeling inconsequential. Sticking a big moment as a post credits scene highlights that. When you have characters constanly mocking the genre it feels like nothing of weight occurs.

Any chance we could please keep spoilers behind spoiler tabs when talking about a film you know people are yet to see?

[RumHam]

Oh hey, does he get the hammer back at the end? 

Cause he has it in Infinity War. So if it doesn't get reforged by Odin or something in this movie that could be another indication that we will be seeing alternate realities in Avengers 3/4

[lessthanluke]

On 30/10/2017 at 11:25 AM, Calibandar said:

this Waititi guy has a poor sense of humor. I never need to see another film from him again.

 

Maybe if you have no sense of humour. What We Do In The Shadows is comic genius.

[Calibandar]

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

Oh hey, does he get the hammer back at the end? 

 

  Hide contents

Cause he has it in Infinity War. So if it doesn't get reforged by Odin or something in this movie that could be another indication that we will be seeing alternate realities in Avengers 3/4

 

 

At no point does he get his hammer back. And I hope we're not in for some multiple realities shit with Avengers, keep it simple guys, there's 60 plus characters in that film as it is.

 

17 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

 

In terms of the other thing Thor loses:

  Hide contents

Does losing an eye suggest Thor now becoming king and effectively taking on the Odin spirit pave the way for lady Thor in Phase 4? King Thor can't afford to be hiving off adventuring with his Avengers mates. A king must rule his people and not be an absentee monarch. I know it's not about the losing of an eye, but rather the symbolism of that being Thor transitioning to a new phase in his life and responsibility.

 

I'm not sure we can take anything away from it because we will see him again soon in Avengers and the story there will probably determine Thor's appearance in future movies. 

21 hours ago, red snow said:

I didn't mean my comment to come off as nothing of consequence happened but that doesn't stop it from feeling inconsequential. Sticking a big moment as a post credits scene highlights that. When you have characters constanly mocking the genre it feels like nothing of weight occurs. An example that doesn't even involve the humour is how Thor's little gang of asgardians are killed off as if they were redshirts and I don't recall Thor ever being upset about their deaths (even when he wouldn't be aware of it until the end of the film). Those 3 dying were ultimately inconsequential as no-one within the film gave a shit about their death.

Don't get me wrong - I've yet to watch a Marvel film where I'm bored while watching them but increasingly I'm finding no reason to watch them again. Which is absolutely fine for a popcorn film and 2 hours of entertainment. But a week after seeing Blader Runner 2049 I'm still thinking about that film. I'm not really thinking about the deeper ramifications of Thor - other than it was a fun watch.

Good point about the Warriors 3. I honestly hadn't even noticed it, so inconsequential and quick were their deaths.

But for me the whole film felt that way, including the inevitable confrontation with Hela.

[The Anti-Targ]

On 10/31/2017 at 2:50 AM, Eggegg said:

Ooooh. Thats a bit of a shame. I haven't seen it yet, I'm king of avoiding it as I think I'm done with loud bright CGIfests. But I could imagine that the movie could have gone either. Its a fine line between not taking itself too seriously and just being a lame unfunny jokeathon to cover a lack of drama. 

Thats basically how I view a lot of the Guardians of the Galaxy moments, some occasionally funny moments, but mostly just tumbleweed humour and loud flashy colours. I'm not sure I'd want to see more of that.

So see my disappointment when I saw the black panther trailer and it looked like more of the same!

I wouldn't necessarily put all your eggs in the basket of one person's opinion. The vast majority of critics and movie goers liked the movie albeit with some criticisms. Not all senses of humour click with people. Perhaps before seeing Thor you should see 'Boy', 'What we Do in the Shadows' and 'Hunt for the Wilder People' to see if you click with Taika's style of humour. If you don't connect with those movie's humour then you might also not like Thor.

Taika and a lot of the actors claim 80% of the final cut is improv dialogue. Not sure I totally buy that, perhaps 80% of the scenes contain some improv lines. But improv doesn't always come off as well delivered as fully rehearsed lines with multiple takes to get the delivery exactly right.

End of the day this is a comedy with action and some drama. If you are looking for Action and drama with a bit of comedy (which is what pretty much al the other MCU movies are) then you are going to be disappointed.

I'm not particularly invested as a comic book fan, so I'm less attuned to any disrespecting of the source material.

[The Anti-Targ]

On 10/31/2017 at 0:25 AM, Calibandar said:

Ouch. Saw Thor Ragnarok last night and I simply didn't see coming that it would be such a shit film.

We were looking at each other astounded for the first 15 minutes of the film. Is this a spoof of a Thor film? Will it get better? Surely at some point it has to get more serious and focus more on the story and events than on taking the piss and laughing at Thor?

Damn. What a massive wasted opportunity. It genuinely seems like a film made by someone who hates Thor and the Thor franchise. It's a mockery. It also failed to be funny, this Waititi guy has a poor sense of humor. I never need to see another film from him again.

Even towards the end when it was supposed to get going it remained uninspiring. I did not care for Blanchett as another generic Marvel villain, she really hammed it up. Her "army of the dead" was the most obvious form of cannon fodder and thus seeing Thor mow down rows and rows of dead makes no impact at all on a viewer. This director had no idea what to do with Loki, he was never more useless than he is here. You simply cannot believe that he was a powerful antagonist in Avengers 1 when you look at how he is portrayed here.

A special award to the Valkyrie girl  with the "I'm so cool" look on her face, the heavy drinker gal. She was deeply annoying in every scene that she was in. Did she at any point look as if she could actually fight and could have been a valkyrie? Nope, she looked like a little brat. Even the Hulk looked worse than he did in previous films, a different sort of character and a different look due to the CGI. Heimdall in a new role was also very average. And unfortunately Odin is hardly in the film, and the way his story was "resolved" was sudden and deeply unsatisfying.

All in all a clear mistake by Marcel to give this property to someone who's main intent was to be "different" and who simply wanted to do a Thor satire. My rating: 2 stars out of 10. This guy threw the baby out with the bathwater.

Man, I'm sorry you had a bad experience when you were very much hyped for this. Here's hoping Black Panther will deliver for you. Had you seen previous Waititi movies before this? If you had then you might have realised going in that you had a sense of humour mis-match. Such a bummer.

To your last point: I think it was Marvel who wanted to take Thor in a different direction because of a widely held perspective that Dark World  took itself too seriously and was generally regarded as the weakest MCU movie (and I realise you have the opposite view on Dark World). They then hired a writer and director accordingly. There is simply no way Marvel would hire Waititi to direct and expect a continuation of the tone and style of Dark World. They wanted different (and specifically more humour), and they got different. It seems to have worked for most people, but clearly there is a group of Marvel / Thor fans who will be very disappionted.

One thing I do wonder about is the general direction the MCU is headed with the cosmic movies, being that they are generally lighter and more comedic. Captain Marvel is going to be a cosmic movie, but somehow that feels like it needs to be a bit more serious and weighty, closer in tone to the Earth bound MCU movies. Though I don't want it to be super serious. I think humour being part of all the MCU movies is part of what makes the MCU so reliably successful. Carol Danvers seems like quite a serious character, so maybe some of her supporting characters will provide some comic relief. I expect we'll see Yondu and crew in Capt Marvel and possibly even a young Peter Quill. We probably won't see Ego, since Ego is meant to be looking for his son but doesn't find him until about 20 years after the events of Captain Marvel. Damn, I can't get my head around the fact that the mid-90s was over 20 years ago.

[polishgenius]

I really liked it. There were only really a couple of moments where the flippancy distracted from the moment for me. And Watiti showed a great sense of scale.
 

 

I was disappointed by the Skurge plotline though. Nowhere near the epicness of the original 'he stood alone, at Gjallerbru'.

[ljkeane]

I’m sort of reaching my limit with comic book films, especially Marvel ones with the template they tend to follow. I was thinking about maybe giving this one a try after not bothering with the Spider-Man film but it sounds like more of the same. I’ll probably wait and see if Black Panther sounds a bit more original.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Just now, ljkeane said:

I’m sort of reaching my limit with comic book films, especially Marvel ones with the template they tend to follow. I was thinking about maybe giving this one a try after not bothering with the Spider-Man film but it sounds like more of the same. I’ll probably wait and see if Black Panther sounds a bit more original.

Yeah, I've been in the same spot the last couple of years regarding superhero films in general, not just Marvel films. I wait to read reviews here and in a couple of other spots before picking my spots. I'm glad I saw Wonder Woman and the 2 GoTG films for instance, but those were the last 3 that I truiy enjoyed. Going to skip Ragnarok, at least until it's on cable anyways. Interested in Black Panther as well as I've always loved that character, but I'm going to follow the same routine. If it gets raves, I'll shell out the 10 bucks.

[polishgenius]

10 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

I was thinking about maybe giving this one a try after not bothering with the Spider-Man film but it sounds like more of the same.

I dunno, it might be worth a go. It's still clearly a Marvel film but it's also taking the piss out of the Marvel formula a bit. I mean, it's no NEXTWAVE (we so need a Nextwave film) but it's got a bit of a sendup of the formula.

[WarGalley]

I thought the first 2 Thor movies were among the worst of the lot and the last comic book movies I saw in theater were Civil War and I think Age of Ultron (definitely skipped GotG2 and Spiderman). I'm tempted to see this one though -- 96% RT rating out of 129 reviews is out of line with what I'm reading in this thread and seems too good to be true. I guess the main reason I intend to see Ragnarok is because of Cate Blanchett and the way she was featured in the trailers as well as the Hulk to a lesser degree. I really do hope Blanchett gets adequate screentime and is not a repeat treatment of Malekith's character in Dark World.

As for Black Panther, we'll see when the reviews come out. It's probably going to be a dealbreaker for me if the main villain is someone wearing a Black Panther suit colored like a spotted jaguar. 

[Argonath Diver]

Wow, I really would like to read this thread without spoilers for a movie that isn't out yet. Red Snow please spoiler your stuff. 

I am looking forward to seeing it, Ill check back here in a few weeks. In the meantime, thanks for nothing.

[red snow]

9 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah, I've been in the same spot the last couple of years regarding superhero films in general, not just Marvel films. I wait to read reviews here and in a couple of other spots before picking my spots. I'm glad I saw Wonder Woman and the 2 GoTG films for instance, but those were the last 3 that I truiy enjoyed. Going to skip Ragnarok, at least until it's on cable anyways. Interested in Black Panther as well as I've always loved that character, but I'm going to follow the same routine. If it gets raves, I'll shell out the 10 bucks.

The cool thing about Black Panther is that it reminds me of the kingdom in "East of west" which I'm sure is Hickman's take on Wakanda.

8 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

Wow, I really would like to read this thread without spoilers for a movie that isn't out yet. Red Snow please spoiler your stuff. 

I am looking forward to seeing it, Ill check back here in a few weeks. In the meantime, thanks for nothing.

Shit. Really sorry about that. Got mixed up with it being general discussion which tends to be spoilery when discussing 10+ films. But it doesn't say SPOILERS so I'm totally at fault there. Sorry. If you read it then hopefully you at least find it as inconsequential as it was treated in the film.

 

[Eggegg]

10 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I wouldn't necessarily put all your eggs in the basket of one person's opinion. The vast majority of critics and movie goers liked the movie albeit with some criticisms. Not all senses of humour click with people. Perhaps before seeing Thor you should see 'Boy', 'What we Do in the Shadows' and 'Hunt for the Wilder People' to see if you click with Taika's style of humour. If you don't connect with those movie's humour then you might also not like Thor.

Taika and a lot of the actors claim 80% of the final cut is improv dialogue. Not sure I totally buy that, perhaps 80% of the scenes contain some improv lines. But improv doesn't always come off as well delivered as fully rehearsed lines with multiple takes to get the delivery exactly right.

End of the day this is a comedy with action and some drama. If you are looking for Action and drama with a bit of comedy (which is what pretty much al the other MCU movies are) then you are going to be disappointed.

I'm not particularly invested as a comic book fan, so I'm less attuned to any disrespecting of the source material.

I wanted to like 'What we do in the shadows', but I found the humour didn't hit the mark. I'm a massive fan of Jemaine Clement and Flight of the Conchords but this wasn't anywhere near as funny as I was hoping for. I have seen a bit of Hunt for the Wilderpeople and enjoyed what I saw, but again its not laugh out loud funny. 

There has been a massive trend towards improv style comedy in movies these days, and when it works its hilarious. But it needs good quality comedians and comic actors to make it work, and they need direction. If you watch the Ghostbusters remake you can see how it can all fall flat on its face if the talent isn't there. ( I don't mean Kristen Wiig btw who is someone who can do it) 

[Calibandar]

11 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Taika and a lot of the actors claim 80% of the final cut is improv dialogue. Not sure I totally buy that, perhaps 80% of the scenes contain some improv lines. But improv doesn't always come off as well delivered as fully rehearsed lines with multiple takes to get the delivery exactly right.

End of the day this is a comedy with action and some drama. If you are looking for Action and drama with a bit of comedy (which is what pretty much al the other MCU movies are) then you are going to be disappointed.

I actually find that easy to believe, that 80% of the dialogue is improvised, because it felt that way.

It feels like the guys are on set, joking around, and sometimes it's a bit funny ( like the "Thor is like smouldering water" joke) and sometimes it's not. I'm not surprised by that claim. It rhymes with the description they gave of this film a year ago, of it being a Thor and Hulk buddy movie.

I agree with you, it's a comedy film first, and action and drama second. This did not work for me, obviously, it feels too weightless and spoof like as a result, inconsequential, and very much out of tone with the first two Thor films.

11 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Man, I'm sorry you had a bad experience when you were very much hyped for this. Here's hoping Black Panther will deliver for you. Had you seen previous Waititi movies before this? If you had then you might have realised going in that you had a sense of humour mis-match. Such a bummer.

To your last point: I think it was Marvel who wanted to take Thor in a different direction because of a widely held perspective that Dark World  took itself too seriously and was generally regarded as the weakest MCU movie (and I realise you have the opposite view on Dark World). They then hired a writer and director accordingly. There is simply no way Marvel would hire Waititi to direct and expect a continuation of the tone and style of Dark World. They wanted different (and specifically more humour), and they got different. It seems to have worked for most people, but clearly there is a group of Marvel / Thor fans who will be very disappionted.

One thing I do wonder about is the general direction the MCU is headed with the cosmic movies, being that they are generally lighter and more comedic. Captain Marvel is going to be a cosmic movie, but somehow that feels like it needs to be a bit more serious and weighty, closer in tone to the Earth bound MCU movies. Though I don't want it to be super serious. I think humour being part of all the MCU movies is part of what makes the MCU so reliably successful. Carol Danvers seems like quite a serious character, so maybe some of her supporting characters will provide some comic relief. I expect we'll see Yondu and crew in Capt Marvel and possibly even a young Peter Quill. We probably won't see Ego, since Ego is meant to be looking for his son but doesn't find him until about 20 years after the events of Captain Marvel. Damn, I can't get my head around the fact that the mid-90s was over 20 years ago.

You have to think Marvel knew what they were getting into when they hired Waititi. Clearly some of what we see in this film must have been the sort of new direction they wanted, I agree. I'm not sure that they wanted the director to go this far,it feels like he threw the baby out with the bathwater, but maybe this is exactly what Marvel wanted, they had oversight after all.

 

[denstorebog]

Don't worry guys, Calibandar is dead wrong on this one.

After being obsessed with the MCU during Phase 1, I've felt the fatigue with a lot of the later standalone movies. Ant-Man did nothing for me, and while Doctor Strange and Spider-Man were entertaining enough, I also immediately knew that these were movies I didn't want to rewatch.

Thor 3 is the first one I'm definitely going back to the theater to see again in a long time. While there's a lot of the formula in there, there's also more originality than I've seen in the last three MCU movies combined. And the humor and the chemistry between the main four heroes is dynamic and fun in a way that we haven't seen since Avengers 1 outside of GotG. Tessa Thompson is great, so we actually have an entirely new secondary team of heroes that I would love to revisit again and again. That's a pretty good asset for Marvel and the universe to have.

Cate Blanchett falls right into the box of "great performance, but nothing to work with". There was a lot of potential here given what we're told about Hela, but they dropped the ball on that. So I'll give Calibandar that one. That said, she was always enjoyable to watch and visually stunning.

Anyway, best Thor movie (I liked the first, hated the second), and definitely in the upper third of all MCU movies (which says a lot at this point given how goddamn many there are at this point).

[Argonath Diver]

Red Snow, I apologize for the vitriol in that post. I would blame the whisky, but as a bartender, I know that's really not an excuse to be mean. You're a great poster here and don't deserve snark, I know you didn't mean anything, and what I read won't really affect my enjoyment of the movie. Cheers, mate.

I should count myself lucky, I won't have time to watch more Stranger Things untll the weekend, and have somehow managed to hide from all conversations about it all week! (Knock on wood)

[RumHam]

Not really part of the MCU, but apparently New Warriors is looking good and won't air on Freeform

Quote

The pilot — which stars Baby Daddy grad Derek Theler as Mister Immortal and This Is Us' Milana Vayntrub as fan-favorite Squirrel Girl — is said to have tested through the roof and caught the attention of high-level Disney executives. Insiders note that Freeform — which is expanding original programming to four nights a week in 2018 — could not find a slot for the show next year as it had originally intended. Marvel then asked for New Warriors back as the comic book powerhouse wants it to premiere in the new year. Freeform obliged. 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/marvels-new-warriors-wont-air-freeform-series-will-be-shopped-1052696