Marvel's Multiverse of Maddening Returns

[SpaceChampion]

Jonathan Majors trial wrapped up:

* He was found not guilty of intentional assault in the third degree and not guilty of aggravated harassment in second degree.

* guilty of reckless assault in the third degree and guilty of harassment.  I think these are both misdemeanor charges.

I watched a lot of the evidence and it seemed to me a lot of reasonable doubt.  The jury asked for the charges to be clarified a number of times and I don't know if they got it right.

Edited December 18, 2023 by SpaceChampion

[mormont]

Kang died on the way to his home planet.

[Heartofice]

From what I’ve read and heard he seems like he has a lot of issues and is a total shit. No matter what, there was no way he was doing another movie for Disney. 

[mormont]

How’s that Kang Dynasty script coming along? Good, good. Um, a few tiny changes…

Edited December 18, 2023 by mormont

[sifth]

53 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

From what I’ve read and heard he seems like he has a lot of issues and is a total shit. No matter what, there was no way he was doing another movie for Disney. 

Those text messages were just sick. He would frequently threaten to kill himself, unless his girlfriend did what he told her to do.

Edited December 18, 2023 by sifth

[sifth]

37 minutes ago, mormont said:

How’s that Kang Dynasty script coming along? Good, good. Um, a few tiny changes…

Just recast, let's not pretend this is the first time the MCU had to do it.

[DaveSumm]

Marvel is in such a weird place right now. They kinda want the Multiverse saga to just be over and start fresh (no, I don’t mean reboot) with F4 and X-Men. But I don’t think they can just abandon a whole saga. Recast is my best guess, but even the character of Kang isn’t that promising right now. He’s been in two seasons of a decent-ish-ly received series and a poorly received movie. I’d actually respect them quite a bit if that just scrapped the whole idea, declared Phase 5 the end of that saga and move on.

[IlyaP]

20 minutes ago, sifth said:

Those text messages were just sick. He would frequently threaten to kill himself, unless his girlfriend did what he told her to do.

*Blink*

...what? Seriously? That's emotional fucking abuse and emotional blackmail and gross as hell. Pardon my language, but holy forking shirtballs man! 

[sifth]

This has got to be a PR nightmare for Disney and possibly one of the biggest screw ups for the MCU as a whole. Does nobody vet these actors, before giving them multi film deals? Also does Disney still have to pay Majors, for the two films, he will not be staring in? He signed a multi film contract after all.

[Heartofice]

I actually would prefer they just ditch the whole Kang thing entirely.

Kang wasn’t even  an interesting villain, the idea of an almost infinite number of Kangs is just not tangible enough to find intimidating, and up to this point they have done nothing to make Kang seem all powerful. He got beat by a bunch of ants ffs.

The only thing elevating Kang as a character was Majors’ performance, he was so watchable at the end of S1 Loki. Although he was forgettable in Ant Man 3. 
 

If they don’t have Majors then really they don’t have anything IMO.

Now whether they were planning on using Kang as a tool to wrap up the multiverse thing and tie it off so it doesn’t ruin the MCU, I don’t know, but surely they can find other ways to do that. The end of Loki seems to have in some ways fixed that problem for them. 

[Corvinus85]

39 minutes ago, sifth said:

This has got to be a PR nightmare for Disney and possibly one of the biggest screw ups for the MCU as a whole. Does nobody vet these actors, before giving them multi film deals? Also does Disney still have to pay Majors, for the two films, he will not be staring in? He signed a multi film contract after all.

How exactly can one vet for this kind of things? These were private text messages, not posts on social media. I would like to believe that they do look at people's recent(ish) social media history. And Majors was getting all kinds of good gigs in recent years, he was a hot commodity.

[Werthead]

7 hours ago, Myrddin said:

While The Marvels looked fun, it was Ant Man 3 that kept me home. And Secret Invasion. And Eternals. And Thor 4.

Costs too much to see a movie in the theater to drop money on meh.

I saw Thor 4 and GotG 3 in the cinema and they have both made me very wary of dropping future money on MCU films at the cinema. Those should have been slam-dunks.

I did see the last Spider-Man at home and that was fun (if a bit overwrought), I'd have been okay seeing that at the cinema. And Secret Invasion I think is the worst MCU project to date, bar none. Genuinely baffled by how they fucked up that one.

[IlyaP]

44 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I actually would prefer they just ditch the whole Kang thing entirely.

Gods, yes please. Hey HOI, can you take over the MCU please? I like your ideas <3

44 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Kang wasn’t even  an interesting villain, the idea of an almost infinite number of Kangs is just not tangible enough to find intimidating, and up to this point they have done nothing to make Kang seem all powerful. He got beat by a bunch of ants ffs.

...did he...really? I never saw Ant-Man 3. Really? Ants? REALLY?  

44 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

The only thing elevating Kang as a character was Majors’ performance, he was so watchable at the end of S1 Loki. Although he was forgettable in Ant Man 3. 
 

He was, I'll admit, somewhat engaging in Loki season 2, but really, I was there for Owen Wilson and Wunmi Mosaku, who have the most amazing keys, and Natalie Holt's *cough* marvellous score*. 

44 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

If they don’t have Majors then really they don’t have anything IMO.

Now whether they were planning on using Kang as a tool to wrap up the multiverse thing and tie it off so it doesn’t ruin the MCU, I don’t know, but surely they can find other ways to do that. The end of Loki seems to have in some ways fixed that problem for them. 

Totally concur. The story was never interesting - or engaging - to begin with. And it all felt a little like Fringe but with a gigantic budget. I think they made a mistake in wrapping the story around the bad guy rather than wrapping the story around characters encountering some kind of external force and slowly putting the pieces together and working out that it was some trans-dimensional/trans-timelinenial (trans-reality?) hopping nut bag with ambitions to do...what exactly? How was he going to rule? What kind of administrative systems did he have in place to manage his conquests? Was he more like Ghenghis Khan and Alexander the Great, who failed to establish systems of lasting rule after their passing, or more like conquering Visigoths or the Soviets? 

They really dropped the ball on the narrative structure, and reversed the order of narrative significance. 

* I'm not even sorry.  

[IlyaP]

4 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I saw Thor 4 and GotG 3 in the cinema and they have both made me very wary of dropping future money on MCU films at the cinema. Those should have been slam-dunks.

I know GotG 3 was reasonably well-received, but the wife and I just could not work up the energy to bother with it or Thor 4 - especially after we saw Taika's needlessly nasty comments about the CGI, which turned us both off him a bit after that. Like, make fun of yourself? Sure. Slag the crew working for you? Dude bro. 

4 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I did see the last Spider-Man at home and that was fun (if a bit overwrought), I'd have been okay seeing that at the cinema. And Secret Invasion I think is the worst MCU project to date, bar none. Genuinely baffled by how they fucked up that one.

Secret Invasion sounds like a drinking game to be honest, like the ID4: Resurgence of miniseries. (A friend and I got through 6 beers before the half-way point of ID4 and knew we were clearly in trouble.)

[sifth]

18 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

How exactly can one vet for this kind of things? These were private text messages, not posts on social media. I would like to believe that they do look at people's recent(ish) social media history. And Majors was getting all kinds of good gigs in recent years, he was a hot commodity.

Talk to other people who've worked with them; other actors, other directors, other producers. Talk with the persons family and friends. Ask if they have any problems the studio should know about. Do they drink too much, do they have a temper, to they work well with others. That sort of thing. In the next few days, I expect we'll be hearing quite a few stories, from people who have worked with Majors in the past.

[sifth]

5 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

I know GotG 3 was reasonably well-received, but the wife and I just could not work up the energy to bother with it or Thor 4 - especially after we saw Taika's needlessly nasty comments about the CGI, which turned us both off him a bit after that. Like, make fun of yourself? Sure. Slag the crew working for you? Dude bro. 

Secret Invasion sounds like a drinking game to be honest, like the ID4: Resurgence of miniseries. (A friend and I got through 6 beers before the half-way point of ID4 and knew we were clearly in trouble.)

I'll just go on record and say, I loved GotG vol 3. The entire film is James Gunn just showing how he's the most creative mind in the whole MCU.

Comparing it to that turd that was Thor 4, just feels insulting. GotG vol 3, just had so much more heart and soul in it, especially the ending. Part of me almost wishes those characters weren't in IW/EG, since the Russo Brothers clearly didn't love them, the same way James Gunn did.

Edited December 19, 2023 by sifth

[IlyaP]

4 minutes ago, sifth said:

Talk to other people who've worked with them; other actors, other directors, other producers. Talk with the persons family and friends. Ask if they have any problems the studio should know about. Do they drink too much, do they have a temper, to they work well with others. That sort of thing. In the next few days, I expect we'll be hearing quite a few stories, from people who have worked with Majors in the past.

Didn't a bunch of classmates from his university pipe up over the last few years, with many saying "this guy has anger issues and a raging ego and is dangerous"? 

[Werthead]

9 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

I know GotG 3 was reasonably well-received, but the wife and I just could not work up the energy to bother with it or Thor 4 - especially after we saw Taika's needlessly nasty comments about the CGI, which turned us both off him a bit after that. Like, make fun of yourself? Sure. Slag the crew working for you? Dude bro. 

GotG 3 wasn't as awful as Thor 4, which really was inexplicably terrible on a very basic level, but it did have some problems. Very saccharine, the film slows down every 5 minutes for everyone to talk about family (it got to the point I thought it was teeing up a punchline with Groot saying "family" as his first non-Groot word, with a nod and a wink because it's Vin Diesel), and it felt like it had become a bit of a parody of the first film (similar issue with GotG 2). It wasn't horrible, but yeah, it felt a bit phoned-in, like Gunn was like, "Well you guys fired me and the reasons were pretty dubious, so I'm just riding my contract here, fuck you and I'm off to DC. Good luck with that Star Lord solo film."

Probably being a bit harsh there. It was okay, and among the better Phase 4/5 films, just a letdown compared to a lot of Golden Age MCU films.

Edited December 19, 2023 by Werthead

[sifth]

1 minute ago, Werthead said:

GotG 3 wasn't as awful as Thor 4, which really was inexplicably terrible on a very basic level, but it did have some problems. Very saccharine, the film slows down every 5 minutes for everyone to talk about family (it got to the point I thought it was teeing up a punchline with Groot saying "family" as his first non-Groot word, with a nod and a wink because it's Vin Diesel), and it felt like it had become a bit of a parody of the first film (similar issue with GotG 2). It wasn't horrible, but yeah, it felt a bit phoned-in, like Gunn was like, "Well you guys fired me and the reasons were pretty dubious, so I'm just riding my contract here, fuck you and I'm off to DC. Good luck with that Star Lord solo film."

I mean that's a blatant lie. Gunn was fired by Disney, but came back out of loyalty to the cast, who actually stuck up for him when he was fired. I imagine many will be showing up in his DC universe, as a result of their kindness towards him, during what was no doubt one of the worst periods of the mans life.

I also found the film to be quite amazing. Possibly one of Gunn's best works. He gave us a villain we could truly hate, who was memorable, an insanely emotional backstory for Rocket and completed everyone's arc in a satisfying way. Literally the entire message of that third film, is being able to move on to the next stage of your life, with your head held high. Also the music was awesome, but I can say that about nearly every film Gunn has made.

[sifth]

7 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Didn't a bunch of classmates from his university pipe up over the last few years, with many saying "this guy has anger issues and a raging ego and is dangerous"? 

If so, I don't recall reading it. It wouldn't shock me however.