Marvel: The Echo of Profitability

[Kalbear]

Pfft so unrealistic, everyone knows women can't surf

[Jaxom 1974]

12 hours ago, Heartofice said:

To be fair to Peltz, all he said was "Why do I have to have a Marvel that’s all women? Not that I have anything against women, but why do I have to do that? Why can’t I have Marvels that are both? Why do I need an all-Black cast?". He even says you could make a Marvels movie! 

He doesn't seem to be suggesting you don't make Marvels or Black Panther movies, only that you don't have to make them in the way you made them. 

Wouldn't a Black Panther movie with an all white cast, excepting the token black CIA agent, be just such an interesting thing...or something...a modern take on just about anything else ever...  

[Myrddin]

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

And lots of furious masturbation. 

Enter the new Rule 34 subgroup: Shinies

[Heartofice]

38 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

A woke continuity. Amirite? C'mon. 

No, he said a different universe.

[Myrddin]

9 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

No, he said a different universe.

So are they going to say Earth 90210 is the "woke" multiverse?  

 

_{*don't read too much into the zipcode choice. Just pulled the first funny number I could think of.} 

[Durckad]

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

And lots of furious masturbation. 

Hey, no judging...

[polishgenius]

3 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

The Deadpool movies have always been a bit of an outlier anyway. They're not really superhero films, they're R-rated superhero parodies. 

 

That would still make them superhero films, but I wouldn't say they're parodies at all. They're pretty sincere movies, ultimately - they just have loads of black comedy. 

Deadpool himself was originally a parody of Deathstroke, of course, but he'd been way past that stage long before the film became a thing. 

[DaveSumm]

I started rewatching the MCU recently, I’d taken a long break and figured it was time. It’s really weird how people say it’s too much work to keep up with Phase 4 and 5, when actually the opposite is true; continuity was much more of a thing back in the beginning. It’s what it’s missing now IMO, some bonafide consequences and shake ups for the whole universe. Moments that, both in and out universe, make people think “OK this changes things”.

Phase 1 is full of tie ins to other stuff, and it goes out of its way to flex that it’s part of a universe. Then Avengers basically reveals to the world that aliens are a thing, which is pretty huge. Phase 2 presses home this change, with every film referencing that the world is a different place after NY. Then Winter Soldier casually wipes out S.H.I.E.L.D, up to now the glue that’s been holding everything else together. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D obviously had to pivot hard after that, then Ultron basically ruins Stark’s whole vision of how he wanted to protect the Earth. Then with Thanos rumbling in the background, oh SHIT the Avengers just broke up… oh and now Asgard just blew up. Fuck. Then the snap speaks for itself obviously. Pretty shocking that they did it, but nothing compared to the fact that they had to live with it for five years. 

Each phase has a distinctly different status quo that informs the films in it. And there’s where the multiverse saga falls down; Loki was pretty good, but it takes place in a weird pocket of time. How much does it affect Earth 616, on the ground in the present? It doesn’t. Neither do any of the Disney+ shows. Black Widow? Nope, set in the past. Eternals leaves a corpse they famously don’t reference, which again, doesn’t actually change much. Even Kang’s existence and the existence of a multiverse isn’t actually a pivotal thing; the audience learns of them, but they were always there. F4? Different universe. X-Men? Probably a different universe. Nothing consequential seems to happen anymore. 

Which is all a long winded way of saying the multiverse works for some stories, but as a way of moving the entire franchise along I don’t think it works. It’s all too abstract, and they really need to remind audiences what’s actually going on in the universe they built - like, telling us who the Avengers are or if there even is a team right now or have someone mention this as a problem would be nice. It’d lay the ground for Thunderbolts and Young Avengers much better if this was in response to a lack of actual Avengers.

[sifth]

5 hours ago, Rhom said:

Like the Not Another Teen Movie of the Superhero world!   

I think they're more like The Boys or Invincible.

[Jaxom 1974]

3 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

That would still make them superhero films, but I wouldn't say they're parodies at all. They're pretty sincere movies, ultimately - they just have loads of black comedy. 

Deadpool himself was originally a BLATANT RIPOFF of Deathstroke, of course, but he'd been way past that stage long before the film became a thing. 

Fixed that for you. Let's not let Liefeld get away with too much altruism/common sense...

[Heartofice]

8 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Which is all a long winded way of saying the multiverse works for some stories, but as a way of moving the entire franchise along I don’t think it works. It’s all too abstract, and they really need to remind audiences what’s actually going on in the universe they built - like, telling us who the Avengers are or if there even is a team right now or have someone mention this as a problem would be nice. It’d lay the ground for Thunderbolts and Young Avengers much better if this was in response to a lack of actual Avengers.

Good post. I think it just shows that the real issues plaguing the MCU are more strategic and coming from a higher level, and this all just feeds down into making worse movies as well. 
 

The Multiverse concept was just a bad choice on a number of different levels, but primarily I think because it removes any sense of continuity within the MCU, which was actually maybe its greatest strength. If nothing that happens actually matters then why bother even watching it.

Where audiences might go see a 3/5 movie simply because it all ties into the big picture before, now all they have is isolated 3/5 movies.

I looks like business decisions overrode creative ones somewhere. Multiverses allow for more content, they make it easier to tie in concepts and characters owned by other studios, they give you an out if you kill off a popular character. Doesn’t mean that’s what people want to see though.

[IlyaP]

3 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

The Multiverse concept was just a bad choice on a number of different levels, but primarily I think because it removes any sense of continuity within the MCU, which was actually maybe its greatest strength. If nothing that happens actually matters then why bother even watching it.

There was an interview with....gods, I can't recall offhand right this moment, but at some point, there was an interview with someone involved with the MCU, where they stated that part of the intent of the multiverse project was to be able to make movies that didn't have to be tied into other movies or be semi-serialised the way previous films had, and thus allowing for audiences to not feel like "oh I have to have done homework before watching X". 

Creatively, that makes a bit of sense to me. You don't want to have people thinking that proper appreciation of a film would require the viewing of 20+ previous movies. Clearly though, that path didn't work out. Between Covid and Disney+ causing issues and changed business needs/approaches/models, it's clear that something isn't/wasn't working. 

[Heartofice]

21 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

There was an interview with....gods, I can't recall offhand right this moment, but at some point, there was an interview with someone involved with the MCU, where they stated that part of the intent of the multiverse project was to be able to make movies that didn't have to be tied into other movies or be semi-serialised the way previous films had, and thus allowing for audiences to not feel like "oh I have to have done homework before watching X". 

Creatively, that makes a bit of sense to me. You don't want to have people thinking that proper appreciation of a film would require the viewing of 20+ previous movies. Clearly though, that path didn't work out. Between Covid and Disney+ causing issues and changed business needs/approaches/models, it's clear that something isn't/wasn't working. 

Yeah, I'm sure that is true, but it also kind of misunderstands one of the greatest pulls of the MCU was that it was all tying together and it rewards viewers who can 'do their homework'. I'm sure Disney execs were looking at numbers and charts and seeing all this untapped potential of people who don't normally go to watch Marvel movies and were thinking about how they can pull those people in. 

Which misses the point, because if you lose your core audience, and don't really manage to bring in a new audience, then you are going to lose out. 

[sifth]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

The Multiverse concept was just a bad choice on a number of different levels, but primarily I think because it removes any sense of continuity within the MCU, which was actually maybe its greatest strength. If nothing that happens actually matters then why bother even watching it.

 

You have to think of it from the POV of a child, if you want to understand why they choose the Multiverse for their next major arc.

"How do we make Kang a bigger threat than Thanos"?

"Well Thanos only destroyed half the universe, we'll have Kang be even more dangerous, by having him responsible for the destruction of multiple universes"

[sifth]

4 hours ago, IlyaP said:

There was an interview with....gods, I can't recall offhand right this moment, but at some point, there was an interview with someone involved with the MCU, where they stated that part of the intent of the multiverse project was to be able to make movies that didn't have to be tied into other movies or be semi-serialised the way previous films had, and thus allowing for audiences to not feel like "oh I have to have done homework before watching X". 

 

Yet so far, none of these MCU multiverse stories, have taken place in other universes. They all have used characters from the sacred timeline and reference events from it. Heck in No Way Homes case, you have to do homework from 3 different franchises, to understand it completely.

[Maithanet]

2 hours ago, sifth said:

Yet so far, none of these MCU multiverse stories, have taken place in other universes. They all have used characters from the sacred timeline and reference events from it. Heck in No Way Homes case, you have to do homework from 3 different franchises, to understand it completely.

Yes, in terms of "new homework" No Way Home is probably the worst MCU movie.  They have references to 6 other movies that previously weren't relevant to anything.  And yet, No Way Home was the most successful superhero movie since they killed Thanos.  I personally had never seen Venom or AS2 or Far From Home, but I had seen previews so I could follow the plot and who Jamie Foxx was just fine.  I'm sure I missed things, but whatever.  People like having ties to other things, even if they miss some of them.  Unless it is just such a tangled mess that the movie doesn't make any sense, then those sorts of ties are basically always a good thing. 

[Rhom]

The two movies that were the most multiverse centric were SpiderMan and Dr Strange… and they were the two best movies of the “phase.”

The worst movies were… well, crap… I was going to say Thor and Eternals… but then I remembered that Antman and Marvels are things… and then you just have Shang Chi and Wakanda just sort of there.

My point though is this:  The problem ain’t the multiverse.  People loved seeing Patrick Stewart and Jim from the Office Richards get slaughtered.  The fact people now sorta want Amazing Spider-Man 3 speaks for itself.

The problem is bad movies.  

[polishgenius]

Watched the Marvels. It's alright. Bit messy and scrappy and overstuffed, but fun. 

 

One thing I did appreciate is the dynamics going on. I've been complaining for ages that MCU films seem to have forgotten the art of random camaraderie or character building that isn't part of, you know, The Arc. This film had a fair bit of that. 
 

[3CityApache]

Yeah, Marvels is definitely better than the box office would suggest. It has quite a bit of humor and semi-coherent plot at least. I wasn't expecting much, and - for what it's worth - was satisfyingly entertained.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

It's shit. It had its moments, but it's still shit.