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MCUniverse: Into the Spider-Thread


SpaceChampion

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8 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Alongside the thematic inconsistencies and typical MCU problems with its villains, it's also *incredibly fucking annoying* that for a movie about "Russians", they couldn't be bothered to cast a single fucking native Russophone or teach the cast how to speak Russian in a way that sounds authentic. Every time someone spoke Russian in this movie, I raged a little on the inside. 

Yeah, Ray Winstone was fucking terrible. I mean, he's always been a bit shit, but this was something else. Appalling. 

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9 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Yeah, Ray Winstone was fucking terrible. I mean, he's always been a bit shit, but this was something else. Appalling. 

It's definitely a movie that I'd put alongside Thor 2 and Iron Man 2 as being one of the weaker entries in the MCU. If not the weakest.

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I heard about the accent complaint before I watched, and thought “ah, I can live with a dodgy Russian accent or two” … I didn’t realise pretty much the entire cast was supposed to be Russian and they all have bad accents for slightly different reasons. It is quite jarring.

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One thing I will say is that while I didn't necessarily need the finale to be lower-key and more down to earth, they did misuse what they did have. 

Probably because obviously it was almost entirely shot on greenscreen and interior location, so obviously the overview of the whole station wasn't actually there, but when you've got a setup like that for an action scene you really should be using the physical presence of the flying fortress itself as a factor in the action, which they very rarely did. There was no connection between one exploding part and another exploding part. A full  external shot of the whole thing with a clear demarcation of where each person was and where the runway they were all running to was could have added a lot towards making something really tense and threatening. 


Doubly notable because in the prison scene they did pretty much do that. The actual choreography of that scene was just okay, but it was lifted a bit by the way they used the space.

 

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Did it bother anyone else that we never get an explanation to how

 

Dreykhov and his daughter survived. We're never given a clear view of events on what happened exactly, only that Natasha planted a bomb on his daughter and set it off. Yet for two people who were caught in a massive explosion, both characters survived and in relatively good shape. The daughter has a small scar on her face and we're told needed a chip in her brain, but that's it. I mean Nate tells us there was nothing left of him, to identify his body and from what we see the explosion is rather big. He just survived "somehow", same with the daughter, lol

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1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

 

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I'm pretty sure the implication is that Dreykov was never actually there.

 

Spoiler

Really? I missed that, I thought he was sat at the desk. It all makes Nat look a bit incompetent if she blew up a child when she wasn’t sure he was in the room.

 

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58 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:
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Really? I missed that, I thought he was sat at the desk. It all makes Nat look a bit incompetent if she blew up a child when she wasn’t sure he was in the room.

 

I mean there's no getting around that Nat bollocksed it up.


Having looked again it does show him at the desk though so you're right.

 

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Watched Black Widow last night, and I enjoyed it. Sure, it had its weak parts and you can nitpick it to death if you are so inclined, but the same can be done for pretty much every superhero movie.

One thing that did bother me is that a movie where all the main characters are Russian has zero Russian actors in it. It's strange that no-one seems to care, particularly after the controversy when Johanssen was cast in the Ghost in the Shell.

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6 hours ago, Gorn said:

Watched Black Widow last night, and I enjoyed it. Sure, it had its weak parts and you can nitpick it to death if you are so inclined, but the same can be done for pretty much every superhero movie.

One thing that did bother me is that a movie where all the main characters are Russian has zero Russian actors in it. It's strange that no-one seems to care, particularly after the controversy when Johanssen was cast in the Ghost in the Shell.

Which still to this day makes no sense to me, especially after watching that film.

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On 7/11/2021 at 12:28 PM, IlyaP said:

Alongside the thematic inconsistencies and typical MCU problems with its villains, it's also *incredibly fucking annoying* that for a movie about "Russians", they couldn't be bothered to cast a single fucking native Russophone or teach the cast how to speak Russian in a way that sounds authentic. Every time someone spoke Russian in this movie, I raged a little on the inside. 

To be fair, David Harbour is almost Russian. After all he is stuck in a Russian chain-gang building railroads in Stranger Things. That's got to count for something.

/s

I agree, if we want to be even handed about representation (characters being played by the same type of person the character is representing) in movies and TV then nationality as well as ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation matter. It's often not possible to be 100% in all situations, but a bit of effort to cast a few people from the demographic concerned should be possible in almost all situations.

On 7/11/2021 at 7:00 PM, DaveSumm said:

Ah, fair point. Although it’s telling that I forgot that - I don’t think Johansson really sells it that this is a huge deal to her. She seems locked into playing BW as cool as a cucumber about everything, and this should have been a movie that really rattled the character as it dealt with her family. Possibly a weird comparison but Picard was usually cool and professional, which made it awesome in First Contact when he clearly loses perspective and smashes up his model ships. The events went right to the core for him and it broke him; Natasha treats all this as just another professional job she has to do. We needed to see her visibly disturbed and out of character on that revelation. But she doesn’t seem to care that much, so why should we?

I definitely got the sense that finding out these revelations about her past actions knocked her around emotionally. It was definitely an emotional journey for BW.

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47 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I agree, if we want to be even handed about representation (characters being played by the same type of person the character is representing) in movies and TV then nationality as well as ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation matter. It's often not possible to be 100% in all situations, but a bit of effort to cast a few people from the demographic concerned should be possible in almost all situations.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was able to surround Cate Blanchett with Russophones throughout the entire movie. It's really not that difficult to find native Russian speakers. I don't know why Marvel (seemingly) didn't try and do this. 

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David Harbour as off-brand Captain America if he was played by Homer Simpson and Florence Pugh as exasperated Lisa Simpson if she was a spy/assassin is a dynamic I did not know I needed in my MCU movies, but I do now. Pugh's character was excellent throughout, even if it mostly boils down to "younger Black Widow but she does snark metacommentary over everything."

I do like the continuing issue in the MCU where nobody can remember Ant-Man's name.

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15 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was able to surround Cate Blanchett with Russophones throughout the entire movie. It's really not that difficult to find native Russian speakers. I don't know why Marvel (seemingly) didn't try and do this. 

But Cate Blanchett is playing the lead Russian character. Kinda still demonstrates Hollywood is not putting linguistic representation high on the priority list for leading characters. I guess the have the excuse with David Harbour that the conceit at the start of the movie is they are pretending to be Americans. Also David Harbour is a pop culture favourite right now because of Stranger Things, so he was a good get. Ray Winstone on the other hand, that casting pick is a head scratcher. Even if you were determined to insult Russians but casting a non-Russian, why would you cast him? I can't imagine he was their first choice, possibly not even on their A-list.

Winstone's role was significant enough to give an unknown actor a bit of international profile, but not so significant that it is necessary to have a recognised name play the part. Though TBH, the only name actor needed to carry this movie is Johanssen herself, every other role could have been filled by a hidden gem. This movie will raise Florence Pugh's star a lot. So it will be good to see where she goes. I wonder if she wants to become entrenched in the MCU or if she will, possibly wisely, just do the Hawkeye series and then move on to other things.

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1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

But Cate Blanchett is playing the lead Russian character. Kinda still demonstrates Hollywood is not putting linguistic representation high on the priority list for leading characters. I guess the have the excuse with David Harbour that the conceit at the start of the movie is they are pretending to be Americans. Also David Harbour is a pop culture favourite right now because of Stranger Things, so he was a good get. Ray Winstone on the other hand, that casting pick is a head scratcher. Even if you were determined to insult Russians but casting a non-Russian, why would you cast him? I can't imagine he was their first choice, possibly not even on their A-list.

Winstone's role was significant enough to give an unknown actor a bit of international profile, but not so significant that it is necessary to have a recognised name play the part. Though TBH, the only name actor needed to carry this movie is Johanssen herself, every other role could have been filled by a hidden gem. This movie will raise Florence Pugh's star a lot. So it will be good to see where she goes. I wonder if she wants to become entrenched in the MCU or if she will, possibly wisely, just do the Hawkeye series and then move on to other things.

Pretty sure most of the MCU acting contracts come with future options/conditions, excepting when the creatives and execs know a particular role is a definite one off. 
 

Florence Pugh has been on the rise for a while, regardless. Off the top of my head her performances in Lady MacBeth and Little Drummer Girl probably put her way up on casting lists.

 

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5 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

Pretty sure most of the MCU acting contracts come with future options/conditions, excepting when the creatives and execs know a particular role is a definite one off. 
 

Florence Pugh has been on the rise for a while, regardless. Off the top of my head her performances in Lady MacBeth and Little Drummer Girl probably put her way up on casting lists.

 

Indeed, I think the biz definitely knew she has acting chops. This gig massively boosts her public profile, which is the difference between a quality actor, and a quality actor who regularly gets leading roles in big productions and earns big money. My guess is Pugh was the cheapest get out of Marvel's faux family. She won't be the cheapest get anymore. 

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32 minutes ago, Quijote Light said:

I didn’t read the article, but did see a headline that said Marvel was no longer signing actors to the same lengthy contracts they did during the earlier going. 

I read that as well. I'm not sure if that's a great idea to be honest.

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