MCUniverse: Into the Spider-Thread

[Rhom]

41 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

I have never experienced a drop off of interest on anything as much as the new slate of films.  

 

That’s kind of where I am.  I will watch them because I am a sheep.

But the only ones that grab me are Spider-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy.  

[BigFatCoward]

Same here. I just feel it finished well and I can't be bothered committing another 10 + years to something new. Will watch them with an open mind (who thought GOTG would be so good?). But there is nothing that grabs me.

Loki TV show is probably what I'm most keen to seen.

[Heartofice]

The issue so far is that none of the slated movies really seem all that interesting.

They are either just continuations of stuff we’ve seen before, like GotG, in which case I’m not all that excited. Black Widow could be good but as a character who I know is dead I’m less interested.

Then there are some new properties such as Eternals which so far don’t  appear to grab the imagination at all. I still don’t get what that movie is or what makes it unique in any way. What about it is supposed to be exciting?

Shang Chi looks to be the blandest most non descript of all the marvel movies so far. Feel like it is some cynical cash grab to hit the Asian market. 
 

Maybe a fantastic four movie could make me wake from my slumber because the backing of Marvel to do it correctly could be great.

[DMC]

I mean, I'm definitely not as hyped as I was for Endgame or even Infinity War, but that was the case with most of the other movies too.  Generally played it by ear, read reviews first, didn't even see quite a few in theatres.  So, in that way it's kinda back to normal.

[Which Tyler]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

I have never experienced a drop off of interest on anything as much as the new slate of films.  

 

Yup. The story is told now.
Not helped by talk of taking the big steps that comics take that put non-comic readers off. All this talk of multiverses for example seems to excite comic fans; but has plenty like myself just shaking our heads in despair.

Time travel and resurrections they can probably get away with, but it needs to be one and done. They may have already gone too far in combining both of those items.

They need to tread very carefully from here - and they may do; but I'm not holding out much hope.

[DaveSumm]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Then there are some new properties such as Eternals which so far don’t  appear to grab the imagination at all. I still don’t get what that movie is or what makes it unique in any way. What about it is supposed to be exciting?

ScreenCrush did a good Easter egg video for the brief clips we saw from Eternals, which got me more interested. It spanning 10,000 years and dealing with potentially the whole history of humans could be cool. Plus I read Chloe Zhao pushed constantly for real locations over CG, so I’m hoping that combo of a grand overarching story with grounded locations will work well.

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Shang Chi looks to be the blandest most non descript of all the marvel movies so far. Feel like it is some cynical cash grab to hit the Asian market. 

I wasn’t too impressed either, although it struck me as the Shang Chi trailer (the character) and we may get a more Ten Rings focused one to follow, hopefully that’s more interesting.

It’s hard to know how much the delays have taken the wind out of the sails of the Marvel train, maybe if these had already long been out I might have felt differently. I’m definitely excited to see what Feige does with movies and TV at his command now, the MCU has the scope to get so much bigger now.

[Heartofice]

Maybe Feige’s focus has been on the TV shows, because they seem to be pushing boundaries and attempting to do more interesting things than any of the upcoming movies.

[BigFatCoward]

24 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

 the MCU has the scope to get so much bigger now.

Thats my problem. I was happy to commit to 2 hours once every 6 months. But keeping up with it all now, and having to watch every single thing to make sure you know the full story just fucks me off. 

[Rhom]

35 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Maybe Feige’s focus has been on the TV shows, because they seem to be pushing boundaries and attempting to do more interesting things than any of the upcoming movies.

I think that’s natural though.  Much bigger risk in theaters vs the small screen.  Movies are basically major blockbusters or they are nothing now. TV let’s them explore more.

[Jaxom 1974]

3 hours ago, Rhom said:

That’s kind of where I am.  I will watch them because I am a sheep.

But the only ones that grab me are Spider-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy.  

I won't go that far.  I'm still interested and invested.  I think there is some interesting ideas about what the MCU could be floating out there, though I admit that it is harder to see how it might work at this point. 

The Shang Chi trailer helped raise my interest, as it's a character I know little of from the comics.

Eternals is something I want to see succeed.

I'm absolutely on board with the continuations of Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Doctor Strange.

I'd be more skeptical of the next Thir movie if the third one hadn't been so damn near perfect. So that's a yes too.

Only one I don't care about? The third Guardians of the Galaxy movie. I'm among the rare folks who think the first two are really not that great. Neither would rank in my top 10, and might have trouble getting into the top 15...

 

[Winterfell is Burning]

4 hours ago, Rhom said:

I think that’s natural though.  Much bigger risk in theaters vs the small screen.  Movies are basically major blockbusters or they are nothing now. TV let’s them explore more.

Surely that's a factor, but ultimately this phase is really killing time until the F4 and specially the X-men arrive. 

 

  

16 hours ago, ithanos said:

With the Eternals movie coming out later this year I watched this video essay on the director Chloé Zhao to see what style of film we could expect from her. I've yet to watch any of her films but I came away from the video liking her style and approach. Unfortunately I have doubts about it working within an MCU movie. I hope I'm wrong and look forward to it being proven so, but I'm somewhat reminded of how Ang Lee, accomplished as he was with his period films, handled Hulk.       

If Eternals is as good as Ang Lee's Hulk, although with much, much better CGI, I'd be a very happy man. If it's as good as the MCU Hulk movie, then I won't.

[RumHam]

Someone broke their NDA from an Eternals test screening a while back, and the snippets from that recent trailer seemed to confirm it was legit. It sounds interesting. At the very least it's not "recruit the heroes and fight a CGI army of aliens or robots." Plus the director just won an oscar if that means anything to you. 

[mormont]

Eternals has always, even in comics, been a property Marvel has struggled to make work. They're definitely one of Kirby's lesser creations. Even Gaiman couldn't get people to care about them.

Due to a retcon, Thanos is technically an Eternal in the comics but I don't know if that will be referenced: outside of Thanos, even I would struggle to name more than three Eternals, and I think only one of those is in this film. But I am willing to give it a chance, purely because so far Marvel have managed to find something to work with in every property they've adapted so far.

As for the wider point, my impression is that while up to now the MCU has been a big overarching story with side stories, going forward it's going to be more spread out - not every film will need to link to every other film. But we'll see.

I'm looking forward to Shang-Chi, and yeah, it's probably a property they like for marketing reasons but what's wrong with that? All of the films are, really. Marketing to the Asian (including Asian-American) audience is just as legitimate as marketing to a white American audience. Not every film will be marketed at the same audience forevermore, with others just an afterthought. Enjoy the diversity, I do.

[polishgenius]

10 minutes ago, mormont said:

Even Gaiman couldn't get people to care about them.

 

Which is a shame coz his miniseries is actually really good.

[Myrddin]

This crop of films look fun, but I'm really looking forward to when the X-Men make their way into the MCU.

I can totally see Rhom's point of view. Endgame as a solid ending. I really liked Wandavision and enjoyed most of Captain Falcon America and the Winter White Wolf Soldier, but they felt more like epilogues, even though they clearly set up the next phase of the titular characters. Black Widow for all intents and purposes is more of a belayed curtain call.

Shang-Chi looks fun, but not "Marvel" so far, or at least MCU connected. Eternals looks pretty, but no substance to judge by yet. I was iffy on GotG too, initially. I forget when I started getting interest in it. Maybe second trailer? It definitely won me over. We Are Groot as far as I'm concerned. Maybe Eternals will win me over too. I know Spider Man will be on par with the first two. No fear of repeating Spider-man 3 here.

BUT it's pretty clear everything is pointing to Dr. Strange formally kicking off this next phase. Everything we're seeing now could be obvious setup in hindsight. 

[polishgenius]

What it looks like to me is that they're setting up at least two potential major through-threads for the next phase- the multiverse thread, possibly with Wanda as a villain, which we'll know more of in Strange, and Secret Invasion. And then a bunch of other stuff potentially that doesn't necessarily around building up to a threat.

[Jaxom 1974]

42 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

 

If Eternals is as good as Ang Lee's Hulk, although with much, much better CGI, I'd be a very happy man. If it's as good as the MCU Hulk movie, then I won't.

Wait.  Was Ang Lee's Hulk good? I never watched when it initially came out.  I know the CGI is suspect.  But it was on last weekend and I tried watching for a little while and it was...cringey...

The, "official" MCU Hulk movie...meh...

36 minutes ago, mormont said:

Eternals has always, even in comics, been a property Marvel has struggled to make work. They're definitely one of Kirby's lesser creations. Even Gaiman couldn't get people to care about them.

Due to a retcon, Thanos is technically an Eternal in the comics but I don't know if that will be referenced: outside of Thanos, even I would struggle to name more than three Eternals, and I think only one of those is in this film. But I am willing to give it a chance, purely because so far Marvel have managed to find something to work with in every property they've adapted so far.

 

Guess I've never thought of Thanos as an Eternal as a retcon...

As for referencing him? Based on some speculated spoilers I've seen, they have room to do so. And in such a way to give these Eternals some more MCU cred...but I'm willing to see how they do it.

[WarGalley]

1 hour ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Wait.  Was Ang Lee's Hulk good? I never watched when it initially came out.  I know the CGI is suspect.  But it was on last weekend and I tried watching for a little while and it was...cringey...

There are a couple of cool action sequences mostly involving fights with the Hulk (Hulk vs army, Hulk vs laughable poodles, Hulk vs final villain) but otherwise forgettable.

[DMC]

I thought MCUniversal's Hulk was a much better film than Ang Lee's Hulk...

Anyway, I'm excited for Thor and GOTG and intrigued by Eternals.  In each case, that's predominately because of the directors/talent involved.  As for the rest, I'll wait and see.  I get the argument that covid might have derailed the hype train a bit for MCU, but there was always gonna be a hangover from Endgame (at least for me).

[Winterfell is Burning]

MCU Hulk is the most generic film in the history of the planet. Every single scene can be described as "transformation scene-fight scene-romantic scene with Betty-some exposition-repeat". There's no life in it, no wit, nothing that indicates any of the people involved weren't ready to clock out as soon as the director said cut.

Ang Lee's Hulk was very different from anything that came before in superhero movies- a real attempt to understand what goes through the head of someone like Banner and do something outside the norm, and it (mostly) works. It is hampered by really, really bad CGI though, and it's not just a problem of the era because the LOTR movies were doing much better around the time.

Anyway, the problem with Shang-Chi is not because it's a clear cash grab (since all MCU movies are to at least some extent), but that it looks awfully generic. Eternals has a problem that it never managed to connect with anyone (not the same case as GotG, which was very popular among a niche, though never a big hit) in the comics and there are no characters that seem very marketable.