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What If? (Spoilers)


Ser Scot A Ellison

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34 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Much like last episode, they seem to ignore the actual ‘point’ at which this timeline diverged. It looked like that’d be a big deal with the way the first episode opened, but I guess not. So Christine and Stephen never separated, or was the crash earlier, when they were still together anyway? 

It’s an interesting series though, in that we can get world building for the MCU proper through alternate events. Nice to know they can completely annihilate a universe too, now we have no idea how any given episode will end.

I just assumed it was Christine agreeing to go to that dinner with him.

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That was the poorest episode so far, for me. Some lovely animation, clever ideas in the Strange vs Strange scene, but the basic text of Strange tempted and corrupted by power because of his inability to accept his loss was... not that interesting of an idea, and not that well executed. It's quite basic, really. Not on the level of the first three episodes IMO.

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I'm just glad we finally got something really dark from the MCU. I mean sure the ending to Infinity Wars was dark, but knowing that End Game fixes this, it's sort of lessened for me. This was easily the bravest episode of the series for me.

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3 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Much like last episode, they seem to ignore the actual ‘point’ at which this timeline diverged. It looked like that’d be a big deal with the way the first episode opened, but I guess not. So Christine and Stephen never separated, or was the crash earlier, when they were still together anyway? 

It’s an interesting series though, in that we can get world building for the MCU proper through alternate events. Nice to know they can completely annihilate a universe too, now we have no idea how any given episode will end.

Last time it was "What if Hope joined Shield instead of going to work for Cross?" They just couldn't open with that or they'd give away the mystery. 

Oddly, this version of Strange became Sorcerer Supreme after beating Dormannu but the main one did not.  at the end of Doctor Strange Wong says they have no sorcerer supreme. 

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On 8/31/2021 at 8:34 AM, Which Tyler said:

No way is Black Widow un-enhanced; however much they may want to claim it, the things she is shown doing are simply not possible for even a peak human.

She might or might not be, but she's maybe enhanced to the point of two, maybe three peak humans? 

There just weren't enough Chitauri to beat all the billions of humans who would rise against them. If they were all enhanced like Black Widow, sure, you'd need fewer of them to beat the Chitauri, but not that much fewer. 

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6 hours ago, sifth said:

I liked this episode a lot, but doesn't it sort of break Marvels "consequence free" time travel rule, that was established in End Game?

Maybe using the Time Stone has different rules than time travelling via the quantum realm? But I did think it was weird for Christine's death to become a fixed point in time when in the usual reality she isn't supposed to die.

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8 hours ago, sifth said:

I'm just glad we finally got something really dark from the MCU. I mean sure the ending to Infinity Wars was dark, but knowing that End Game fixes this, it's sort of lessened for me. This was easily the bravest episode of the series for me.

'Dark' isn't inherently good, or brave. I like dark stuff, but it should be interesting. Apart from the pretty visuals, this rather bored me. I didn't learn anything new about Stephen Strange, nor about any of the other characters. I didn't get a sense of who Christine actually was, what it was about her that Stephen loved her so much. I wasn't able to empathise with Strange in the way the episode obviously wanted me to. We didn't even really get to meet anyone else from that universe, so the ending had no weight. It wasn't awful, but it's pretty forgettable, visuals aside.

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4 hours ago, mormont said:

'Dark' isn't inherently good, or brave. I like dark stuff, but it should be interesting. Apart from the pretty visuals, this rather bored me. I didn't learn anything new about Stephen Strange, nor about any of the other characters. I didn't get a sense of who Christine actually was, what it was about her that Stephen loved her so much. I wasn't able to empathise with Strange in the way the episode obviously wanted me to. We didn't even really get to meet anyone else from that universe, so the ending had no weight. It wasn't awful, but it's pretty forgettable, visuals aside.

I mean you could say the same thing about any dark episode of the Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits that did something similar. It's not really the point at the end of the day. The point is the MCU did something different from it's usual, happy and safe formula. The first two episodes of What If followed that tone, but this episode and the one before it, at least tried to do something a little different, which is a welcome change of pace in my book.

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19 hours ago, sifth said:

I mean you could say the same thing about any dark episode of the Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits that did something similar.

You really couldn't. Some, perhaps. But not any.

19 hours ago, sifth said:

It's not really the point at the end of the day.

It really kind of is. It's good to do something different, but ultimately the point is always that it should be good. And this episode could easily have been much better with just a little more thought put into the writing, a little more character work, a little more insight. It's the weakest of the series so far IMO.

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On 9/2/2021 at 3:35 AM, felice said:

Maybe using the Time Stone has different rules than time travelling via the quantum realm? But I did think it was weird for Christine's death to become a fixed point in time when in the usual reality she isn't supposed to die.

I love how they avoided those exact words. Can't be too similar to Doctor Who I guess :D

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20 hours ago, mormont said:

You really couldn't. Some, perhaps. But not any.

It really kind of is. It's good to do something different, but ultimately the point is always that it should be good. And this episode could easily have been much better with just a little more thought put into the writing, a little more character work, a little more insight. It's the weakest of the series so far IMO.

Agree to disagree, the first episode is easily the weakest for me, for sticking way too close to the plot of The First Avenger.

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The third and fourth episodes were the epitome of What If to me. Maybe they used thinner aspects of the story to tell their stories...but they worked.

I actually especially liked that Strange could see and acknowledged that the Watcher was there...

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That was by far the best episode to me.  I thought the Captain Carter one was kind of disappointing, the 2nd and 3rd were good, and this last one was great.  Was surprised when they went down the dark path, and thought it was really well done.

 

On 9/2/2021 at 1:36 AM, mormont said:

I wasn't able to empathise with Strange in the way the episode obviously wanted me to.

Hmm.  I could actually empathize with him completely.  Probably a big part of why we have such different reactions to the episode, I guess.

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Okay, they’re zombies.  How do they have the same abilities as the originals who were infected?  Much less the will to

 

pull off something like assembling the infinity stones.  And if Thanos had all the stones but the Mind Stone how did he get bitten or not simply immediately cure himself?  Why would Thanos be in Wakanda given that there was no Infinity Stone to recover there before the QuadJet headed that direction?

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