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On May 17 2018 05:02 andrewlt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 17 2018 03:09 Plansix wrote: The best thing the MCU did was nerf all the heroes. Ironman is far more compelling as a powerful character that Captain American might be able to beat if he could get him on the ground long enough. And if they can make Dr. Strange work in the movies, they can have Captain Marvel do her own thing. Her flight powers might be the hardest part, since floating heroes are generally bad action scenes(looking at you Vision). Well, Iron Man, War Machine and Thor can fly too. It's not that big a deal if you don't make them do it too often. Captain Marvel, I assume, is going to take Thor's role in the team since I think the original cast members (Evans, Downey, Hemsworth) aren't returning after Infinity War 2. Making Scarlet Witch essentially Marvel Girl-lite worked out too. All of those heroes have a clear source propulsion that drives them through the sky. When they float(or don’t in the case of Thor), it is clear they are holding themselves up with jets and could be knocked down given enough force. There is fragility to their flying that makes it dynamic and appear to obey some knowable laws of real world physics.
We will have to see what happens post Avengers 4. This is comic books, so not one is really dead. No one really leaves the series. We just might see less of them or they might appear in supporting roles. Retirements are only a lead up to a dramatic return to action.
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They've said Captain Marvel will be the most powerful character in the MCU, so it sounds like they're actually upgrading her from the comics (though she is very powerful in the comics).
I can see her going binary against Thanos, given it would be a) an awesome visual and b) arguably make sense. Depends if they make it clear she can absorb energy in her own movie.
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Considering how they have depicted Thor, who is one of the more powerful characters, I’m not that concerned. So long as they don’t go full Man of Steel level of untouchable, it will be fine.
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On May 17 2018 17:45 iamthedave wrote: They've said Captain Marvel will be the most powerful character in the MCU, so it sounds like they're actually upgrading her from the comics (though she is very powerful in the comics).
I can see her going binary against Thanos, given it would be a) an awesome visual and b) arguably make sense. Depends if they make it clear she can absorb energy in her own movie. Super strength, speed, flight and laser beams already makes her stronger than all the other heroes in the MCU. It's not a very competitive field (which is fine).
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Netherlands45349 Posts
I thought power creeps and stuff would bother me but in the MCU and in Avengers it seems to have been handled quite well (granted Thor was quite powerful in Infinity but that was so badass damn). I mean after all Black Widow and Hawkeye are just random ass humans basically. Yet it didn't bother me in any of the earlier Avenger movies (Also issn't Scarlet Witch supposed to one of the strongest players out there).
I was much more bothered by it in Justice League actually, there was quite a bit of an emphasis on that there.
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United States15275 Posts
Power creep would be really unwieldy to depict in an CGI-filled movie, especially at the scale that is common within the comics. Thor has done outrageous shit in the past (busted planets, contained black holes, tanked explosions that would devastate solar systems, etc.) but the sheer cost of replicating those feats on-screen would eat up most of the budget. Besides that it would force the MCU to constantly resort to cosmic-level threats for any sort of narrative tension.
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United States15275 Posts
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: But there is no follow up to Infinity War that has the same scope. Maybe the new iteration of Secret Wars/the recent Infinity storyline. It's possible Secret Wars might end up being Captain Marvel 2 or 3, assuming her standalone does well enough for sequels, of course.
Of course, a Galactus story is also their next possible destination.
The question is whether the scope of the story or the crossover itself is the draw. Civil War was a small scale story that did massive numbers based on the crossover aspect (and being a good movie).
I'm not sure Marvel Studios wants to replicate the plan they had executed over the last 5 years. It took a lot of movies to set up Infinity War, which was relatively simple given the thrust of the plot. The character dynamics and establishing the locations of the stones were the primary concerns for those preceding movies; Thanos and his schemes were barely touched upon prior to the movie.
By contrast, Secret Wars is immensely complex. When Hickman was tasked with it, he utilized an immense amount of planning to make sure all the storylines made comprehensive sense. He introduced 10-12 new concepts and fleshed them out over several years across multiple comic books (even his FF run was essential to getting the Incursions) so they could converge into the primary storyline. And it's largely abstract shit that would turn off a mainstream audience. The MCU would have to massively simplify the entire thing to fit it into their current model. And that assumes the FF comes into play: Doom and Molecule Man are integral to Secret Wars. The prospect of escalation after their most successful venture may be too intimidating.
I think the crossover aspect takes precedence for fans. We might see that come into play if a Galactus story is the endgame; given the importance of Celestials to the X-Men, Inhumans, and recent FF runs, they could be the next big baddie in Phase 5.
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: I'm not sure that's fair. Falcon is solidly slotted in as Captain America's supporting character. There's no buzz for him getting a solo movie because... he's a supporting character. Same as there's no buzz for Drax getting a solo movie.
That's my point. Falcon is a supporting character and lacks the mythos + connotations that made Black Panther a much better sell. What BP represents as a concept is what made his movie so insanely popular.
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: I don't know if I'd agree with your suggestion that it's 'spurious'. Given how much talk there is about how risk averse Marvel is, to the point that the Avengers had only one character and an all-white cast when the comic Avengers has always been diverse (The Wasp being one of the founding members, for example, and Monica Rambeau being both one of its core and most powerful members for a good while). Black Panther was definitely a bit of a risk, given that the character isn't a high profile Marvel figure, despite the length of time he's been around.
The assumption was that audiences would not watch a black cast in a superhero movie built around notions and explorations of black identity, not that BP was a niche property. Marvel had already proven via GotG and Ant-Man that audiences would show up regardless of the relative popularity of a character in the public consciousness, as long as they trusted the brand's reliability. I'd argue that the race angle was a spurious, self-serving narrative promoted by the media. A movie marrying the pyrotechnics of a superhero movie with the social prestige of a 'topical' film was a gold mine waiting to happen, especially in the modern era. It was only a risk if one believed we were living in 60's Georgia.
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: If everyone said the same thing you'd be right, but there are tons of reviews from professional film critics saying he's a) the best bit of movie and b) sympathetic, and audiences have reacted the same way. So while it didn't work for you it clearly did for a lot of people.
Really it's just Josh Brolin putting in a grade-A performance with B-B+ material, and thus raising it, same way Heath Ledger raised The Joker in The Dark Knight (not that the Joker was poorly written or anything).
By not work, I mean Thanos' rationale doesn't hold water under the very philosophy he advocates. But that would require a moderate understanding of utilitarianism to debate and well...bluntly, most professional critics are not very good at their craft. They either follow each other opinion's sheep-like or operate along a very narrow set of prejudices; most don't even know the technical aspects of filmmaking. These are the same people who praised The Last Jedi purely on its progressive 'merits' while ignoring all the plot, character, and thematic flaws.
I mean, doesn't any good performance necessarily rise above the material? The screenplay and setting acts as a base, but only really great actors can find something beyond what's on the surface. This even applies to your revered works like Death of a Salesman.
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: But they didn't write optimistically funny stories. They wrote dark miserable ones. The WRITING didn't change, the characters did. I put it down to nostalgia myself, at first, but over time I can see it's far more that the X Men as a comic series is about younger people with abilities, and if they get too old it just doesn't work anymore.
Most of the misery is about seeing their hopes for the future dashed by the reality of the present. They fervently believed mutantkind could overcome prejudice by the time they were adults. However, these comics are innately more optimistic as they treat this as something to fix instead of the norm (remember the sheer grimdarkness of X-Force?) Even recent team-ups like in Uncanny X-Men firmly reject human-mutant division when ~5-7 years ago, it was treated as a malleable question. I've also noticed the reintroduction of certain types of humor that were completely absent during the previous era.
While the series followed a group of young mutants, story-wise the X-Men were nothing without the older players. Professor X, Magneto, Apocalypse, etc. were all mirrors reflecting their potential choices as they grew up.
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: Well, you say it can't last forever, but they've stretched it out far further than anyone thought possible and they're still raising the ceiling on how much money they can make with these properties. There must, logically, be a point where people stop going to see them... but we haven't seen it yet. For me, if there's no precipitous drop-off after Infinity War part 2, it might just be that the only thing that can kill superhero movies is uninspired film making.
No narrative movie trend has ever lasted more than 20 years in its heyday. Noir, Westerns, sci-fi dystopia, they all came to an end at some point. In microcosm the same thing will happen to the Avengers franchise, so it's smart for Marvel Studios to expand their repertoire in advance.
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: The Fantastic Four can easily work if you get Doctor Doom right. But people keep screwing him up. They're not that hard to do. The only obvious problem is that they don't have standout stories quite the same way most other properties do, outside run-ins with Galactus or Doom, and many of those were crossovers. I think a lot of people would struggle to name a signature FF story arc that wasn't Galactus or Doom related.
As a potential movie franchise, the FF doesn't fit the typical mold of a superhero film. Their problems mostly come from internal dynamics, various characters feeling disconnected or useless in the grand scheme of things; those are eventually solved by their innate trust and acknowledgement of being a balanced family. In a sense they'd fit a costume drama more than a blockbuster. The FF are explorers at heart and all their relevant story arcs come from unpleasant encounters with the unknown. Any decent stab at tackling the property needs to focus on that first and foremost. The recent attempts tried to work off the origin story, but that is easily the most tedious and limited aspect of their backstory.
Finding the right tone for Doom is also a nightmare for screenwriters (seriously, just hire Hickman as consultant and be done with it). It's easy to focus too much on the melodramatic, megalomaniac aspects while ignoring the more interesting characteristics that elevate the villain above a stereotype. His stringent sense of honor, being an actual capable leader, his ability to concoct interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge - even Richards admits he cannot understand how Doom synthesizes magic with science - his weird mixture of affection and respect for Valeria, his subconscious desire to replace Reed in the FF family, these have been pointlessly ignored in the past for HAHAHA I'M EVIL inanity.
I think for the sake of meaningful conflict without homogenizing the basic premise of the FF, the movie versions would have to skip the origin story and start with Valeria and Franklin already existing.
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: And you can't deny, Infinity War itself was a risk. Bordering on insane, actually. A movie built up to after ten years of other movies, counting on the entire genre not losing momentum and all of those movies being at least good enough to keep building interest in the next ones? And that it ends with - at least on screen - killing everyone? Obviously we comic fans know what happens next, but a lot of people don't and didn't. There's plenty of accounts of people breaking down in theatres or shortly afterward.
I mean risk-taking in terms of narrative. Marvel Studios doesn't need to rely on the Dark Phoenix saga, Secret Wars, Secret Invasion, or any large-scale comic book event as the building block for the MCU. Most of their fanbase are casual fans or newcomers to the genre. They can do anything they want as long as it results in a palatable story.
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: Speaking of taking bigger risks, though, have you got your eye on the New Mutants? Looks like a straight up horror story so far.
I'm keeping close watch on it. I'm curious what the threat will be and what type of horror they're going for. Will it be Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Takashi Miike's The Box? I can see both at the same time with some weird mashup of the Necrosha story arc.
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: As to X Men: I don't think they'll recast Hugh Jackman. Wolverine filled the part so iconically - in the real sense of the word - that I don't know if anyone will accept someone else as Hugh Jackman. It seems more likely they'll run with Laura and see if she works out. There seems to be some genuine buzz, and the actress nailed it. Plus it can literally be a role she grows into. We'll see, though.
Hmmm, it depends on how popular Wolverine remains in the cultural zeitgeist. At his height Wolverine was in 3 Avengers teams and multiple X-Men teams simultaneously: his popularity from the movie trilogy made his appearances free cash, and he was still recognized enough to have multiple spin-off movies. So it's likely they'll recast Wolverine for the main cast while retaining X-23 whenever they want to employ some subsidiary team like X-Force. She was never meant to permanently replace him as Wolverine even during his death.
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: How likely is it that the deal gets blocked in the end, by the way? I've checked but I can't see much in the way of updates.
Getting the rights of the FF and X-Men? Disney acquired 20th Century Fox back in December, so they already have the rights on lockdown. The problem is Marvel Studios has planned out their schedule years in advance so we're not getting those properties in theaters anytime soon. The fine details won't be completed hashed out until 2019 either, so they probably won't work on a FF or X-Men movie until after Phase 4 finishes.
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Marvel has its plan most likely complete until phase 4 completes. Since it has acquired fox, they dont necessarily have to introduce doom to the story for secret wars right? They can use thanos' mindset of doing what it is for the world to ascend to 'godhood' and create battleworld by pulling from the resources of other realities. Which could then introduce xmen and ff into the mcu later. If and when it concludes, the heros at the end would be the original avengers going outside of the multiverse to restore the damage thanos has done like what the ff did in the comics. It doesnt have to use the same characters for the whole of secret wars. That way when all is send and done the mcu permanently could have a newly created history that contains mutants in the world. Just a thought. I dont need to be right on this. I just think disney could do this as it doesnt really kill anyone. Compared to secret invasions where they may need to kill major characters on screen before a later reveal that they were shape shifters.
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On May 18 2018 14:57 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: But there is no follow up to Infinity War that has the same scope. Maybe the new iteration of Secret Wars/the recent Infinity storyline. It's possible Secret Wars might end up being Captain Marvel 2 or 3, assuming her standalone does well enough for sequels, of course.
Of course, a Galactus story is also their next possible destination.
The question is whether the scope of the story or the crossover itself is the draw. Civil War was a small scale story that did massive numbers based on the crossover aspect (and being a good movie). I'm not sure Marvel Studios wants to replicate the plan they had executed over the last 5 years. It took a lot of movies to set up Infinity War, which was relatively simple given the thrust of the plot. The character dynamics and establishing the locations of the stones were the primary concerns for those preceding movies; Thanos and his schemes were barely touched upon prior to the movie. By contrast, Secret Wars is immensely complex. When Hickman was tasked with it, he utilized an immense amount of planning to make sure all the storylines made comprehensive sense. He introduced 10-12 new concepts and fleshed them out over several years across multiple comic books (even his FF run was essential to getting the Incursions) so they could converge into the primary storyline. And it's largely abstract shit that would turn off a mainstream audience. The MCU would have to massively simplify the entire thing to fit it into their current model. And that assumes the FF comes into play: Doom and Molecule Man are integral to Secret Wars. The prospect of escalation after their most successful venture may be too intimidating. I think the crossover aspect takes precedence for fans. We might see that come into play if a Galactus story is the endgame; given the importance of Celestials to the X-Men, Inhumans, and recent FF runs, they could be the next big baddie in Phase 5.
The question, surely, is how much of the complexity can be dealt with by adaptation. The fundament is 'alien shapeshifter invasion', at its core not much more of a complex plot than 'EGADS, SHIELD HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER BY HYDRA!!!!' In Winter Soldier. Only it turns out it's actual heroes instead.
There's also such huge narrative/drama possibility to a Secret Wars movie, because all the 'heroes' and heroes will be fighting each other. There's fight scenes possible there that are almost impossible in all other situations. I'm not wedded to it, just if they're specifically bringing in the Skrulls for Captain Marvel... I have to think Secret Invasion is in the back of their minds somewhere.
On May 18 2018 14:57 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: If everyone said the same thing you'd be right, but there are tons of reviews from professional film critics saying he's a) the best bit of movie and b) sympathetic, and audiences have reacted the same way. So while it didn't work for you it clearly did for a lot of people.
Really it's just Josh Brolin putting in a grade-A performance with B-B+ material, and thus raising it, same way Heath Ledger raised The Joker in The Dark Knight (not that the Joker was poorly written or anything). By not work, I mean Thanos' rationale doesn't hold water under the very philosophy he advocates. But that would require a moderate understanding of utilitarianism to debate and well...bluntly, most professional critics are not very good at their craft. They either follow each other opinion's sheep-like or operate along a very narrow set of prejudices; most don't even know the technical aspects of filmmaking. These are the same people who praised The Last Jedi purely on its progressive 'merits' while ignoring all the plot, character, and thematic flaws. I mean, doesn't any good performance necessarily rise above the material? The screenplay and setting acts as a base, but only really great actors can find something beyond what's on the surface. This even applies to your revered works like Death of a Salesman.
The issue is never that a villain's rationale makes sense, it's that he can convince you it makes sense to him. If the villain's rationale was watertight they wouldn't be a villain, they'd actually be a hero.
I'm not a fan of The Last Jedi, but I can see why it won over the critics. They were blown away with how 'surprising' it was, by going in all kinds of unexpected directions. I can see that, especially since they're all going in there with 'okay, another Star Wars movie' on their minds. Never mind that the reason some of the decisions in TLJ were surprising is because they were exceptionally dumb ideas (see: Holdo plot, entire Finn storyline)...
To a degree yes, but I think there's lines to be drawn between material that is itself good that only a bad actor could ruin, and material that's good but won't work without an excellent actor to deliver it. I think Infinity War Thanos is the second category. I would say Dark Knight Joker is the first category, material so good that it would have taken a bad actor to screw it up. And then of course there's bad material that only good actors can save, which the Star Wars movies have often specialised in.
On May 18 2018 14:57 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: But they didn't write optimistically funny stories. They wrote dark miserable ones. The WRITING didn't change, the characters did. I put it down to nostalgia myself, at first, but over time I can see it's far more that the X Men as a comic series is about younger people with abilities, and if they get too old it just doesn't work anymore. Most of the misery is about seeing their hopes for the future dashed by the reality of the present. They fervently believed mutantkind could overcome prejudice by the time they were adults. However, these comics are innately more optimistic as they treat this as something to fix instead of the norm (remember the sheer grimdarkness of X-Force?) Even recent team-ups like in Uncanny X-Men firmly reject human-mutant division when ~5-7 years ago, it was treated as a malleable question. I've also noticed the reintroduction of certain types of humor that were completely absent during the previous era. While the series followed a group of young mutants, story-wise the X-Men were nothing without the older players. Professor X, Magneto, Apocalypse, etc. were all mirrors reflecting their potential choices as they grew up.
I wouldn't say they were 'nothing'. In fact there were years of good to excellent storylines in the post-X post-Mags world. It's more that Professor X and Magneto filled such important, specific roles in the ideological spectrum of the X Men mythos that if you don't have them, you pretty much have to create them, as they eventually did with Schism, when Cyclops became ersatz Magneto, and Wolverine ersatz Professor X. As you say, in the end they became the mirror.
The X Men dynamic simply works better with Professor X around. Which is a pain because they clearly don't want to bring him back, but he was on page for like three panels in a recent X Men Blue storyline and it was immediately better for him being there. Watching the X Men bumble around being clueless is thrown into sharp relief when put up against the rock of moral/intellectual clarity, and it actually cuts through some of the annoying BS they indulge in. I never really thought I'd want him back, as I felt when they killed him it was absolutely time, with the X-verse having outgrown him completely and so many storylines having assassinated his character metaphorically, but they really are missing something without him there.
On May 18 2018 14:57 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: The Fantastic Four can easily work if you get Doctor Doom right. But people keep screwing him up. They're not that hard to do. The only obvious problem is that they don't have standout stories quite the same way most other properties do, outside run-ins with Galactus or Doom, and many of those were crossovers. I think a lot of people would struggle to name a signature FF story arc that wasn't Galactus or Doom related. As a potential movie franchise, the FF doesn't fit the typical mold of a superhero film. Their problems mostly come from internal dynamics, various characters feeling disconnected or useless in the grand scheme of things; those are eventually solved by their innate trust and acknowledgement of being a balanced family. In a sense they'd fit a costume drama more than a blockbuster. The FF are explorers at heart and all their relevant story arcs come from unpleasant encounters with the unknown. Any decent stab at tackling the property needs to focus on that first and foremost. The recent attempts tried to work off the origin story, but that is easily the most tedious and limited aspect of their backstory. Finding the right tone for Doom is also a nightmare for screenwriters (seriously, just hire Hickman as consultant and be done with it). It's easy to focus too much on the melodramatic, megalomaniac aspects while ignoring the more interesting characteristics that elevate the villain above a stereotype. His stringent sense of honor, being an actual capable leader, his ability to concoct interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge - even Richards admits he cannot understand how Doom synthesizes magic with science - his weird mixture of affection and respect for Valeria, his subconscious desire to replace Reed in the FF family, these have been pointlessly ignored in the past for HAHAHA I'M EVIL inanity.
They need to get the dynamic between Doom and Richards correct. It's that simple. It's also such a simple dynamic that I don't understand why all the others completely fuck it up. Both men are geniuses. One is selfish and egotistical. One is altruistic and humble (YMMV). One both fears, and is disgusted at the thought of, being inferior to the other. The other is willing to admit the other might be his better. There you go. It's the basis of everything else.
Of course, the Doctor Doom we all deserve does require a lot of work to get just right, and I hope Marvel gives it to us (after Thanos, I'm relatively certain that they will). Not least because if they get him right they could use him in multiple moves across different parts of the franchise, just like in the comics, where I think he's faced every single marvel hero at some point or other. Even Squirrel Girl. ESPECIALLY Squirrel Girl.
On May 18 2018 14:57 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: As to X Men: I don't think they'll recast Hugh Jackman. Wolverine filled the part so iconically - in the real sense of the word - that I don't know if anyone will accept someone else as Hugh Jackman. It seems more likely they'll run with Laura and see if she works out. There seems to be some genuine buzz, and the actress nailed it. Plus it can literally be a role she grows into. We'll see, though. Hmmm, it depends on how popular Wolverine remains in the cultural zeitgeist. At his height Wolverine was in 3 Avengers teams and multiple X-Men teams simultaneously: his popularity from the movie trilogy made his appearances free cash, and he was still recognized enough to have multiple spin-off movies. So it's likely they'll recast Wolverine for the main cast while retaining X-23 whenever they want to employ some subsidiary team like X-Force. She was never meant to permanently replace him as Wolverine even during his death.
I assume the Dark Phoenix movie is still going to happen since it was in situ before the buy-out, so I support we'll see, as that will be the first x-men movie without even a hint of High Jackman shenanigans in it. If there's a significant drop off from Apocalypse, we can probably assume Hugh Jackman is very important in some form, and they'll recast the role. But there's been no hint of it so far.
On May 18 2018 14:57 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: How likely is it that the deal gets blocked in the end, by the way? I've checked but I can't see much in the way of updates. Getting the rights of the FF and X-Men? Disney acquired 20th Century Fox back in December, so they already have the rights on lockdown. The problem is Marvel Studios has planned out their schedule years in advance so we're not getting those properties in theaters anytime soon. The fine details won't be completed hashed out until 2019 either, so they probably won't work on a FF or X-Men movie until after Phase 4 finishes.
Do they, though? I thought the deal itself could be annulled on Monopoly laws? If that happened wouldn't the rights revert to Fox?
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Star Wars movies and good actors?! Come on now, you're really stretching it.
E: let's face it, no amount of acting would have made the casino planet plot make sense. Rose and Finn did fine. The plot was just absurd, and you either take that in stride, or decide the movie is irredeemable shit based the various parts of the plot not actually making sense.
That tangent aside, so far the MCU has actually done an amazing job of maintaining internal coherence. Actually, a lot better than the comics :D
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United Kingdom13774 Posts
I liked the casino part honestly. It was kind of stupidly pointless in the larger plot of the movie but it was pretty fun on its own.
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Even if Hugh Jackman isn't playing the current wolverine, they can still bring him back as some time-displaced Old Man Logan a few years from now. Just make his hair even greyer and say he's from -yet another- alternate future.
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United States15275 Posts
On May 18 2018 17:36 17Sphynx17 wrote: Since it has acquired fox, they don't necessarily have to introduce doom to the story for secret wars right?
No, but any revision would suffer from the awkwardness of substituting characters in key roles that lack the motivation and capacity to pull off said roles. Infinity War is lesser from this to an extent as the scale of the MCU universe was never established. You'll likely have to throw out all of Hickman's self-introduced ideas like Black Swans, Black Priests, Builders, The Garden, the new Beyonders, The Bridge, blah blah blah as they would require introductions in previous films. And frankly, the plausibility of Secret Wars requires characters with a level of intellect that don't exist in the current MCU; so far, only Stark has developed groundbreaking tech attributable to him alone. The movies have heavily downplayed Banner's and T'Challa's acumen. I can buy a guy who won a 4-dimensional chess gambit against virtually omnipotent beings to create Battleworld from scratch, not Thanos.
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: The question, surely, is how much of the complexity can be dealt with by adaptation. The fundament is 'alien shapeshifter invasion', at its core not much more of a complex plot than 'EGADS, SHIELD HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER BY HYDRA!!!!' In Winter Soldier. Only it turns out it's actual heroes instead.
There's also such huge narrative/drama possibility to a Secret Wars movie, because all the 'heroes' and heroes will be fighting each other. There's fight scenes possible there that are almost impossible in all other situations. I'm not wedded to it, just if they're specifically bringing in the Skrulls for Captain Marvel... I have to think Secret Invasion is in the back of their minds somewhere. Secret Invasion is a simple premise. Secret Wars II is really complicated, arguably the most ambitious thing Marvel has tried in the last 30 years. It took immense coordination to even get the pieces (e.g. The Garden, Future Foundation) in place to make the run smooth.
I see it being the natural followup if Infinity War: Part 2 doesn't reverse the effects of the gauntlet on a universal scale. The original invasion occurred after the Annihilation Wave destroyed the Skrull Empire, with Galactus eating the Skrulls' Throneworld. The decimation of Infinity War is a serviceable substitute and Captain Marvel + later GotG can provide the Skrulls' backstory.
However two issues will become a problem:
- Secret Invasion was a long-term infiltration of Earth preceding the Kree-Skrull War. That story was published in 1971-1972. The in-universe explanation was that the Skrulls had years, perhaps decades, to plant sleeper agents in advantageous positions. Where is that going to be accounted for in the MCU, where superheroes have only been recognized and identified for a couple of years? Making them a sneaky version of the Chiaturi defeats the entire purpose of the story arc.
- How do you ante up after erasing half of the universe's population? Infinity War is an amazing success but it sets the bar so high that anything below its scope threatens to be a letdown. This can be solved by limiting crossover events to Earth or magical threats, but the Skrulls are neither.
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: The issue is never that a villain's rationale makes sense, it's that he can convince you it makes sense to him. If the villain's rationale was watertight they wouldn't be a villain, they'd actually be a hero.
I'm not a fan of The Last Jedi, but I can see why it won over the critics. They were blown away with how 'surprising' it was, by going in all kinds of unexpected directions. I can see that, especially since they're all going in there with 'okay, another Star Wars movie' on their minds. Never mind that the reason some of the decisions in TLJ were surprising is because they were exceptionally dumb ideas (see: Holdo plot, entire Finn storyline)...
To a degree yes, but I think there's lines to be drawn between material that is itself good that only a bad actor could ruin, and material that's good but won't work without an excellent actor to deliver it. I think Infinity War Thanos is the second category. I would say Dark Knight Joker is the first category, material so good that it would have taken a bad actor to screw it up. And then of course there's bad material that only good actors can save, which the Star Wars movies have often specialized in.
What distinguishes good from evil has little to do with logical validity more than the prevailing sentiment and morals of their time. Comic books are notorious for rendering heroes ineffective in the long run or failing to use their powers to promote greater flourishing in society, both being a combination of plot convenience and lack of imagination. A villain's logic should be either unassailable if we assume his premises are correct or eminently relatable; gut instinct makes us side with the hero by design.
What I don't buy is that Thanos' rationale is compelling enough to either:
A) justify him as more than a brick with a decent game plan B) act as anything other than a mildly interesting driving force for a villain, contrary to the praise surrounding it as some sort of philosophical revelation.
I'm not so convinced The Dark Knight is that type of material. Nolan's scripts are notorious for being on-the-nose, and most performances rarely rise above serviceable as subtext is forced into the open. In that movie Heath is on another level compared to the rest of the cast (except for Oldman).
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: I wouldn't say they were 'nothing'. In fact there were years of good to excellent storylines in the post-X post-Mags world. It's more that Professor X and Magneto filled such important, specific roles in the ideological spectrum of the X Men mythos that if you don't have them, you pretty much have to create them, as they eventually did with Schism, when Cyclops became ersatz Magneto, and Wolverine ersatz Professor X. As you say, in the end they became the mirror.
The X Men dynamic simply works better with Professor X around. Which is a pain because they clearly don't want to bring him back, but he was on page for like three panels in a recent X Men Blue storyline and it was immediately better for him being there. Watching the X Men bumble around being clueless is thrown into sharp relief when put up against the rock of moral/intellectual clarity, and it actually cuts through some of the annoying BS they indulge in. I never really thought I'd want him back, as I felt when they killed him it was absolutely time, with the X-verse having outgrown him completely and so many storylines having assassinated his character metaphorically, but they really are missing something without him there.
Do you mean after New X-Men #150, where Cyclops and Emma take over the school?
By the X-Men, I meant the original lineup. They, unfortunately, lived in the shadow of Xavier and company throughout their shared history and the foreseeable future. Most of the post-2004 storylines I enjoyed e.g. Supernovas arc by Mike Carey, Peter David's X-Factor, largely ignored the authority figures and focused on the newer generations. Even major players like Rogue never really transcended their original roles. Perhaps the exception is Emma Frost pre-Dark Reign.
On May 14 2018 19:30 iamthedave wrote: They need to get the dynamic between Doom and Richards correct. It's that simple. It's also such a simple dynamic that I don't understand why all the others completely fuck it up. Both men are geniuses. One is selfish and egotistical. One is altruistic and humble (YMMV). One both fears, and is disgusted at the thought of, being inferior to the other. The other is willing to admit the other might be his better. There you go. It's the basis of everything else.
Of course, the Doctor Doom we all deserve does require a lot of work to get just right, and I hope Marvel gives it to us (after Thanos, I'm relatively certain that they will). Not least because if they get him right they could use him in multiple movies across different parts of the franchise, just like in the comics, where I think he's faced every single marvel hero at some point or other. Even Squirrel Girl. ESPECIALLY Squirrel Girl.
They attempted that in the first two films and the subsequent relaunch. I don't think it works since it also parallels the basic divide between superheroes and supervillains. "Altruistic and humble" relative to the bad guy describes 90% of all setups. It's too broad for that relationship, which is specifically rooted in circumstance. The stark dichotomy is a decent basis for an origin story, but the dynamic doesn't really turn interesting until the 1990s.
- Reed is an obsessive space cadet who's the best at diagnosing a particular problem and working out a solution. All his best creations do one specific thing: he builds the world's greatest scalpel. Doom can build the world's best OR by contrast.
- However, he has a family that balances out his less agreeable traits. Johnny is the impulsive, emotional one; Thing is the down-to-earth everyman; Sue is level-headed and responsible. He relies on them and a mostly caring relationship within his father for guidance. Meanwhile Doom's father and mother died in his youth, and henceforth all his exploits were those of a self-made man. Naturally he's individualistic and confident in his abilities. His main counsel is a sycophantic heir and allies who can turn into enemies at any second.
- Reed wants knowledge for its own sake. Doom desires knowledge for the sake of power, in order to bring about a better world (on his terms).
- Reed is an optimistic adventurer who shies away from direct involvement - Doom is a pragmatic aristocrat that practices realpolitik.
- Doom is jealous that Reed has a family who loves him despite his flaws; in almost every alternate universe story (Heroes Reborn, Secret Wars II, his dream during the Marquis of Death arc), he marries Sue and adopts the children as his own. Those become the only people to whom he confesses his fears and weaknesses. Reed is conversely jealous and apprehensive that his darling daughter connects with, and emulates, Doom more than himself. In general he struggles to connect with his children. Even Franklin gravitates more towards Sue in temperament and trust.
So for me Marvel Studios should not introduce Doom as a villain in the first movie, unless they are willing to ditch the origin story as a starting point for a possible franchise. Otherwise he should be a secondary character that sets up the primary conflict in later movies. The most intriguing points of contention between Reed and Doom developed over time.
You mean Squirrel Girl, the most powerful character in the Marvel universe?
On May 18 2018 17:36 17Sphynx17 wrote: I assume the Dark Phoenix movie is still going to happen since it was in situ before the buy-out, so I support we'll see, as that will be the first x-men movie without even a hint of Hugh Jackman shenanigans in it. If there's a significant drop off from Apocalypse, we can probably assume Hugh Jackman is very important in some form, and they'll recast the role. But there's been no hint of it so far.
At this point in X-Men history, Wolverine isn't truly integral to the team. He's a peripatetic character that comes and goes without being fully affiliated with the Xavier School. I'd consider him tertiary to the Dark Phoenix arc, but he's familiar enough at this point that Marvel Studios won't want to replace him with another character. He's one of those comic book characters that exists in the mainstream consciousness like Hulk or Iron Man.
On May 18 2018 17:36 17Sphynx17 wrote: Do they, though? I thought the deal itself could be annulled on Monopoly laws? If that happened wouldn't the rights revert to Fox?
Acquisitions and mergers are quite common in film studio history, and this would have to be especially egregious to violate the Clayton Act. But since 21st Century Fox is one of the six biggest studios I expect regulators to at least try and challenge it. I don't know enough about the fine details to know if Disney can acquire the rights piecemeal in case they can't get the whole package.
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I think that super hero movies and Game of thrones have a very similar arc to them. Once the original content runs out then things are going to nosedive really fast. Marvel has been burning through major storylines really really fast and one day they're going to get to a point where they're going to have to consider doing totally original stories.
I mean at the end of the day its Disney money and infrastructure so its not going to have a hard landing as they'll always have the funding to do a good movie. Pirates 5 was affectingly bad but it was well made.
I don't think the government is ever going to threaten Disney with monopoly talk until they go anticompetative. They exist in the same space as everyone else and DC is always going to be out there.
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I recommend Deadpool 2 The clips during the credits, the cameos, the references, and the fourth-wall breaks are great! Personally, I liked Deadpool 1 a bit more than Deadpool 2, possibly because I didn't have any particular expectations but was happily surprised (which is similar to my experiences with Guardians of the Galaxy 1 vs. 2).
Marvel theorycraft but spoiler alert if you haven't watched Deadpool 2 yet: + Show Spoiler +With Cable's timejumping tool fixed, and Deadpool's clear willingness to use it to save his girlfriend in the credits (which is confirmed to be canon by the writers/ directors, so she's alive), it would be amazing if Deadpool and Cable used it again to undo Thanos's universe-snap in Avengers 4. Imagine if, after Deadpool's girlfriend was saved, she disintegrated seconds later due to the finger snap and Deadpool is like "wtf okay let's do this again!" If Marvel could actually pull off Deadpool's fourth wall breaks and find an ideal compromise for his potty mouth that fits him into a PG-13 Avengers film, that would be insane. I'm not sure if Deadpool/ Cable + Captain Marvel would be "too much" though, although Marvel did an excellent job at mashing up plenty of heroes in Infinity War. Would be odd to have Deadpool and no X-Men though, considering how closely Deadpool 2 tied them together.
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On May 21 2018 01:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:I recommend Deadpool 2 The clips during the credits, the cameos, the references, and the fourth-wall breaks are great! Personally, I liked Deadpool 1 a bit more than Deadpool 2, possibly because I didn't have any particular expectations but was happily surprised (which is similar to my experiences with Guardians of the Galaxy 1 vs. 2). Marvel theorycraft but spoiler alert if you haven't watched Deadpool 2 yet: + Show Spoiler +With Cable's timejumping tool fixed, and Deadpool's clear willingness to use it to save his girlfriend in the credits (which is confirmed to be canon by the writers/ directors, so she's alive), it would be amazing if Deadpool and Cable used it again to undo Thanos's universe-snap in Avengers 4. Imagine if, after Deadpool's girlfriend was saved, she disintegrated seconds later due to the finger snap and Deadpool is like "wtf okay let's do this again!" If Marvel could actually pull off Deadpool's fourth wall breaks and find an ideal compromise for his potty mouth that fits him into a PG-13 Avengers film, that would be insane. I'm not sure if Deadpool/ Cable + Captain Marvel would be "too much" though, although Marvel did an excellent job at mashing up plenty of heroes in Infinity War. Would be odd to have Deadpool and no X-Men though, considering how closely Deadpool 2 tied them together.
Well, if I were to hazard a guess. I would say they could do something like this after Avengers 4 comes out (assuming for a Deadpool 3 coming out after Avengers 4 here).
+ Show Spoiler + Wade and Cable of course live after Thanos is defeated in Avengers 4. But since Wade didn't get any name recognition from the Avengers, he would want them to notice him. So instead of who ever "last hits" Thanos, they will do the superimposition thing with Deadpool and Cable to make them appear in the Scene.
Then Thanos turns to look at Cable and says, "You... What are you doing here?!" Before he is "shot" by the two of them.
Then deadpool teleports to Stark/Avengers Towers and leaves his application form for the Avengers along with a selfie with how "they" defeated Thanos in the final fight.
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Remember that Deadpool isn't a 'Marvel' movie; it's a Fox movie. It's non-canon as far as the MCU is concerned, and has no bearing on its universe.
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17Sphynx17, that would be pretty awesome
On May 21 2018 16:58 iamthedave wrote: Remember that Deadpool isn't a 'Marvel' movie; it's a Fox movie. It's non-canon as far as the MCU is concerned, and has no bearing on its universe.
I know Maybe years from now ^^;;
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Deadpool was an okay watch. Less is more in terms of breaking the 4th wall, although I did enjoy all of them.
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On May 22 2018 11:20 Emnjay808 wrote: Deadpool was an okay watch. Less is more in terms of breaking the 4th wall, although I did enjoy all of them. The music was GotG level and the CGI was definitly top notch. They had the disney machine behind it so it carried a lot of the same issues and benifits that goes with it.
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