MCU: Phases? What Phases???

[Corvinus85]

3 hours ago, mormont said:

This is, sorry to be blunt, a completely wild statement. The Partition was huge in terms of Ms Marvel's plot, thematically and culturally important to showing who Kamala is and to her role in representing that culture, and a chance to highlight an important real world historical event that has been swept under the carpet in Western media. Saying 'they focused on the Partition, so they could have focused on the Blip too' is not comparing like with like and it's not fair. Lots of stuff had to be cut from the show already: why does Ms Marvel have to have this implied burden of showing the things that make it unique and also addressing the issues that other series have already covered?

I didn't say focus, just that it could have been shown more. The Partition affected generations of people. And yes, it was important to show it. But the Blip was huge in this universe, and while it doesn't have to be the focus of every show, I don't think it should just be forgotten. I don't believe Ms. Marvel even made any mention of it, not even an Easter egg. Was Kamala's family affected by it at all? Was her community affected?

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

I didn't say focus, just that it could have been shown more. The Partition affected generations of people. And yes, it was important to show it. But the Blip was huge in this universe, and while it doesn't have to be the focus of every show, I don't think it should just be forgotten. I don't believe Ms. Marvel even made any mention of it, not even an Easter egg. Was Kamala's family affected by it at all? Was her community affected?

I think this is the key here.  The Partition is obviously everything mormont said it was and it is important to see that in a show like Ms. Marvel, however the Blip is a bigger and more recent event in the MCU.  Obviously, we can't compare in the real world... but we aren't talking about the real world, we are talking about a made up world where half the population was turned to dust and then came back.

From what we saw in Spiderman, its entirely probable that many of Kamala's friends and classmates are now either five years younger than her or older.  The Mosque would likely still be dealing with the community ramifications of it.

I get that we don't want it to take over every show from here out, but I do think it deserves some sort of mention.

[Myrddin]

I flip back and forth on this (as you can probably track back trough these threads and see). On the one hand, I don't want every show/movie moving forward to be a deconstruction of the Blip and its impact on society. On the other hand, I do think it should be layered in organically to not necessarily drive story, but still feel its echo.

Rhom's point about classmates is a great example of how to show not tell post-Blip reality.

Which might have happened without me realizing it, as Kamala's friend running for council seemed much older than the rest of the friend group?

[SpaceChampion]

24 minutes ago, Myrddin said:

Which might have happened without me realizing it, as Kamala's friend running for council seemed much older than the rest of the friend group?

That could be possible, perhaps a lot of teens took a few years off school during the blip due to depression from losing all their friends, so maybe they're starting grade 12 when they're 20.

[Kalbear]

Really for the MCU the problem is that they focused on the blip at all. Wandavision and Hawkeye showed it first person and some of the chaos, but that was effectively an action scene and didn't really affect the plot. But falcon made it a major story of the worldbuilding - and once you do that it needs to be done as that because they've established in universe how important it is.

IE, it can either be in universe a huge deal (like it was in FaWS) or it can be an interesting chaotic but trivial mess (Hawkeye or wandavision) but it can't be both.

[mormont]

5 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

The Partition affected generations of people. And yes, it was important to show it.

In many ways the Partition was what the show was about. The main conflict was set against the backdrop of the Partition and was a barely-disguised allegory for how that trauma affects generations of Pakistanis and Indians even today.

Saying 'it was important to show it' doesn't cover the case. Take the Partition out of Ms Marvel and there is no show.

If you want a show that's about the Blip, on the other hand, there is one. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is about that. Ms Marvel is about the Partition.

5 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

But the Blip was huge in this universe, and while it doesn't have to be the focus of every show, I don't think it should just be forgotten.

Something is not 'forgotten' just because it isn't mentioned. Think about, say, the pandemic. How many shows set in our world ignore it? How many shows made in our world in the early '00s didn't discuss 9/11, because that wasn't what that show was about?

5 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I don't believe Ms. Marvel even made any mention of it, not even an Easter egg. Was Kamala's family affected by it at all? Was her community affected?

I don't need to know that for the story to work. And as noted, we already had to lose background material explaining the antagonists' motivations, character work for secondary characters, and other material. It's hard to justify both in storytelling terms and in practical terms making room for Blip references when you had to cut story-relevant material.

I get what you're thinking here, but this is a story and stories leave stuff out. In fact it often makes the story stronger to do so. This story wasn't about the Blip and didn't need to mention the Blip. Just as tFatWS didn't mention the Battle of New York, but Hawkeye did.

[RumHam]

It didn't have to be either or. One line about how maybe they liked the instagram girl better when she as five years younger than them or something. Or better yet something about how say Kamala's brother was the only family member not snapped and his fiancee helped him get through that dark time. They didn't have to dwell on it.

I'm fine with not every show mentioning it. It does create a lot of interesting story possibilities though so it'd be nice if they worked it into more character's backstories. Like somewhere I'd love to see a character who got blipped and came back to find out their spouse had moved on and remarried.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Yeah, the blip can't be compared to 9/11, hell not even the pandemic. There was no event in the history of the world remotely similar to half the living beings in the universe die suddenly.

 

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

It didn't have to be either or. One line about how maybe they liked the instagram girl better when she as five years younger than them or something. Or better yet something about how say Kamala's brother was the only family member not snapped and his fiancee helped him get through that dark time. They didn't have to dwell on it.

I'm fine with not every show mentioning it. It does create a lot of interesting story possibilities though so it'd be nice if they worked it into more character's backstories. Like somewhere I'd love to see a character who got blipped and came back to find out their spouse had moved on and remarried.

Yeah, I agree. I imagine an explosion of mutant appearances will be explained by the snap though.

[mormont]

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

It didn't have to be either or. One line about how maybe they liked the instagram girl better when she as five years younger than them or something. Or better yet something about how say Kamala's brother was the only family member not snapped and his fiancee helped him get through that dark time. They didn't have to dwell on it.

But in the latter case, you do. You've introduced a whole new dynamic into the family and if you don't explore it, people will ask why you didn't, just as Corvinus is asking now why nobody referenced the Blip.

And besides, this is just not how you write TV or for that matter films. You don't put in dialogue that serves no purpose other than to head off complaints from people who like to see continuity references. Dialogue is there to communicate themes, character, plot points: to tell the story. Ms Marvel is set in the MCU and every single person watching it already knows that the Blip happened in that universe and therefore that this was something these characters lived through but the things they're going through now are the point of the series. The absence of an explicit reference to the Blip doesn't hurt the storytelling in any way at all. Quite the reverse.

Unless we are going to introduce a checkbox system where every Marvel project must discuss the effects of the Battle of New York, the Sokovia Accords, the Blip, the Celestial sticking out of the planet, and whatever multiversal shenanigans we get next, we just have to take this to heart:

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

I'm fine with not every show mentioning it.

 

[DaveSumm]

Much as I love the MCU, I just don’t think it’s capable of pulling off any actual in depth look into the blip. I’m certainly glad it happened, it was great to see something so seismic happen and Endgame was all the better for it. But the magnitude of losing 50% of the population is one thing; then coming back to a world that has had 5 years to adjust? Into houses that people have moved into? An entire global supply and demand now only equipped for half the numbers? It would completely cripple the world for decades, and the MCU just doesn’t really want to confront that. 

[Jaxom 1974]

Obviously, the solution seems to be that the Hulk needed to actually want to snap the missing people back, keep the five years that had passed so Tony doesn't lose his daughter, but also give everyone the memories of what they missed...would have  solved all these problems.  Hulk didn't think it all through...

[Raja]

2 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

it’s capable of pulling off any actual in depth look into the blip.

Look, it's easy.

Step 1: Finish watching Endgame

Step 2: Watch The Leftovers

Step 3: Watch your favourite Marvel TV shows

You're welcome, everyone.

( As an aside, curious about Ms. Marvel now given that it's about the Partition - especially as outside of South Asians, very few people know too much about it at all, even though we still see sociopolitical consequences of the britsh occupation of India & Partition till today)

[Heartofice]

I think the Blip was probably a bad idea for the MCU because it hasn't really been able to do it justice in subsequent tv shows and movies. The Leftovers was basically what came to mind if you want to introduce an event as seismic as the Blip into the world. People would be trying to get over it for decades, and yet for the most of the MCU it's kind of forgotten about, Peter Parker goes back to his life and school, everyone is going about their day with more important things to worry about. 

The MCU really isn't a proper shared universe, it's only superficially one. There is enough continuity to allow for more movies to be made and reasons for stories to happen. There is enough of an issue with proper storytelling already, to make it worse if every writer has to also throw in references to every event in that has happened since Iron Man, plus the need to advertise the next Disney + show in their story.

[sifth]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I think the Blip was probably a bad idea for the MCU because it hasn't really been able to do it justice in subsequent tv shows and movies. The Leftovers was basically what came to mind if you want to introduce an event as seismic as the Blip into the world. People would be trying to get over it for decades, and yet for the most of the MCU it's kind of forgotten about, Peter Parker goes back to his life and school, everyone is going about their day with more important things to worry about. 

The MCU really isn't a proper shared universe, it's only superficially one. There is enough continuity to allow for more movies to be made and reasons for stories to happen. There is enough of an issue with proper storytelling already, to make it worse if every writer has to also throw in references to every event in that has happened since Iron Man, plus the need to advertise the next Disney + show in their story.

I often think, the connective nature of the MCU, is both it's greatest strength and it's biggest weakness. I view it as a strength, because it allows characters you wouldn't expect to cross paths and have fun interactions, but it's a huge weakness, because it results in a lot of plot holes. Take for example the recent Thor film; the macguffin of that film, seems like one that could of easily fixed the Blip and it's one Thor himself knew existed, heck his weapon was its key. 

[Heartofice]

11 minutes ago, sifth said:

I often think, the connective nature of the MCU, is both it's greatest strength and it's biggest weakness. I view it as a strength, because it allows characters you wouldn't expect to cross paths and have fun interactions, but it's a huge weakness, because it results in a lot of plot holes. Take for example the recent Thor film; the macguffin of that film, seems like one that could of easily fixed the Blip and it's one Thor himself knew existed, heck his weapon was its key. 

Yeah, the idea of interconnectedness is great, but in reality it just leaves everything open ended, each movie or tv show being just a vehicle to introduce something else. I’m sure we’d be getting better stories if there wasn’t this constant need to set up something else next. Would Wandavision be a lot better if it was allowed to just be the examination of grief it promised to be rather than throwing in Monica Rambeau to appear in the Marvels  , Agatha to get her own series and Wanda to become a villain in Dr Strange. I wonder what a smaller peice that didn’t do all that stuff would have looked like, it for sure would have been better.

[RumHam]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Yeah, the idea of interconnectedness is great, but in reality it just leaves everything open ended, each movie or tv show being just a vehicle to introduce something else. I’m sure we’d be getting better stories if there wasn’t this constant need to set up something else next. Would Wandavision be a lot better if it was allowed to just be the examination of grief it promised to be rather than throwing in Monica Rambeau to appear in the Marvels  , Agatha to get her own series and Wanda to become a villain in Dr Strange. I wonder what a smaller peice that didn’t do all that stuff would have looked like, it for sure would have been better.

To be fair I don't think they were planning the Agatha show when they wrote Wandavision. People just responded to the performance I guess and the decided to give her a show.

[sifth]

11 minutes ago, RumHam said:

To be fair I don't think they were planning the Agatha show when they wrote Wandavision. People just responded to the performance I guess and the decided to give her a show.

I have no idea how that show is going to work. Granted I said the same about Loki.

[Heartofice]

11 minutes ago, RumHam said:

To be fair I don't think they were planning the Agatha show when they wrote Wandavision. People just responded to the performance I guess and the decided to give her a show.

Hard to say, the writers admitted they changed Agathas role in the show during production. Initially she was more of a mentor and later they realised they needed a villain so switched her. How much of that was notes from Disney which also wanted to create more content for Disney+ we won't know. I do suspect there are decisions being made in these shows which are not for the benefit of creating a good story in one piece.

[Werthead]

15 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Obviously, the solution seems to be that the Hulk needed to actually want to snap the missing people back, keep the five years that had passed so Tony doesn't lose his daughter, but also give everyone the memories of what they missed...would have  solved all these problems.  Hulk didn't think it all through...

I think he did think it through to some extent. For example, when he wished the people back, he also presumably wished for there to be enough food to feed everyone (otherwise half the people who came back would die of starvation; a world that's had 5 years to downshift to feeding 3.5 billion people suddenly can't upshift to feeding 7 billion again overnight), and I believe the writers have said that people who were on planes or boats or in space appeared back on land (and they're obviously not materialising in open space due to the planets moving etc).

One thing that was vaguely annoying was the helicopter crash in Infinity War. Thanos wished for 50% of the universe's population to vanish, not 50% + 10% extra who died because some of the 50% were piloting vehicles or in the middle of carrying out life-saving surgery or mid-way through an explosives demolition, so I would have assumed he would have taken that into account. Maybe the helicopter pilot was fine but his passengers suddenly all vanished and he freaked out?

[RumHam]

1 hour ago, sifth said:

I have no idea how that show is going to work. Granted I said the same about Loki.

Yeah, me neither. She was a fun character but I never would have thought to give her her own show. That and Echo are kinda puzzlers to me.

13 minutes ago, Werthead said:

One thing that was vaguely annoying was the helicopter crash in Infinity War. Thanos wished for 50% of the universe's population to vanish, not 50% + 10% extra who died because some of the 50% were piloting vehicles or in the middle of carrying out life-saving surgery or mid-way through an explosives demolition, so I would have assumed he would have taken that into account. Maybe the helicopter pilot was fine but his passengers suddenly all vanished and he freaked out?

Or everyone on the helicopter vanished? Though it still could have hit someone on the ground.