Meanwhile, Loki is the best MCU content to date.
Series one maybe, two was a bit of a mess imo. I didn’t even understand what the stakes were until everything started turning into noodles.
Look, I love spaghettification porn as much as the next guy, but Loki was a mess. The story was gobbldygook. I could not see any good interpretation of all the stuff about purifying non-übermensch timelines. The Wilson / Hiddleston chemistry was great, really that’s the only reason to keep watching.
But female Loki blabla /s
I mean, in spiderverse they have a pig version of peter parker, i would say anyone really complaining about female loki is really just being sexist
Endgame was shit, infinity war was the actual peak
I don’t think it was total hot garbage like most. I dislike most of everything to do with the final battle, but the time travel shenanigans are fun as fuck
Phase 1 was peak.
iron man 1 and 2 were the peak and they carried the rest of phase 1. avengers introduced the (not so) novel concept of building culture on prior culture that was possible despite all of copyright’s bs because disney bought so much shit, and as such it was innovative at the time, but the only movies actually worth going back to from phase 1 are good for entirely different reasons
Agreed.
Iron man 3 was just… Weird.
They were never good you just had dogshit standards.
Yup, I would have worded it differently but I second this
I get that alot 😄
They hated him because he spoke the truth.
They were never good.
I thought comic book movies were in decline until the Batman came out. The question is if Marvel is willing to part from their generic formula so their movies feel fresh.
Marvel needs some good direction from a management level, they need to build an Avengers team of writers who can really think of an overarching plot and have an end goal. They keep introducing new characters and then just don’t use them at all (where is Shang Chi?), their IP is spread out too much across unnecessary TV shows, they need to get their budget under control because somehow everything costs a billion, and their end product is worsened by the fact that their VFX teams are being overrun. This is Kevin Feige’s time to shine more than ever and he needs to show Disney that he can earn that pay.
Exactly. I was a big fan of the Batman, adapting the neo noir feel really helped it stand out.
Disney is kind of starting to figure this out on the star wars side with Andor and the Mandalorian. Creating unique stories with varying, structure, genre and tone. Every marvel movie just feels so generic and blends into every other, gets boring. Wanda vision had a glimmer of genius before devolving back to generic marvel meh stuff.
Everyone argues with me over it, but The Incredible Hulk (Edward norton) and Iron Man/Iron Man 2 were pretty much it for me.
I did enjoy No Way Home, and Thor Love and Thunder, but the rest were so watered down. Captain America & Bucky VS iron man was the death warrant. He can take a tank round, but not a punch from Cap?
Hulk pissing himself in Infinity War against Thanos with just the power stone? No. Hulk should have smashed him to a pulp.
The two Hellboy movies did the Marval style film before Marvel and it was only second to Iron Man.
This. Civil War’s final fight scene is hugely overrated. Iron man by that point had tangled with multiple fighter aircraft, dozens of missile armed drones, Thor and more. Goes down to two strong guys punching him.
Even before Endgame, there were some stinkers.
It’s one of the reasons why Guardians of the Galaxy was so popular, it changed the formula.
It was also just a straight up James Gunn movie with an ensemble cast of misfits. It’s like…his thing. That’s what’s so weird about so many Marvel movies. They gave them to competent directors and basically said “make one of your movies, but with our characters and setting.” Iron Man 2 was a Shane Black joint: took place at Christmas, lots of witty banter, there were some buddy cop elements. But the shell of it is an Iron Man movie.
You mean Iron Mam 3
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I only remember 2 Iron Man movies.
I’d say this is just nostalgia. The iron man movies where utter trash. I guess you judt were young and impressionable then.
This is another occasion where I really hope the lesson isn’t “Female leads don’t sell”. Probably an obvious observation, but Captain Marvel always struck me as a boring, flawless, invincible hero without much personality.
this is so interesting, we were just talking marvel today with my best friend and she pointed out captain marvel as one of her favorite mcu characters. and it’s specifically because she’s a strong female character who’s allowed to be strong without being hyper-competent or incredibly cerebral or anything like that. she’s just a woman who stands up for things and punches shit occasionally and is allowed to win through sheer brute force.
and yes, she’s way too powerful in many of the same way as superman, which is a narrative defect, but i find it extremely hypocritical how much more scrutiny people point toward captain marvel on that, while superman continues to be one of dc’s most popular heroes, despite marvel using her better than dc uses superman.
Superman is a morality play. His powers have been secondary since the 80s.
He’s Clark before he’s Superman. And Clark is one hell of a good dude who’s been fleshed out incredibly well.
Most people who don’t like Superman don’t know who Clark Kent is, and by that I mean they don’t really read much Superman comics.
Not saying this is you, just commenting on the general stigma Clark seems to catch. Dude isn’t even the most powerful being on Earth by a long shot.
yeah, an important clarification on that is i base my superhero stuff entirely on movies. i made a genuine effort to get into the comics but i just couldn’t – it might just be my luck but i’ve literally only read either canon or good stories from marvel and dc, nothing i tried managed to hit both. but for what it’s worth, i presume the majority of people are the same way, comics just don’t have the same degree of mainstream cultural penetration that movies enjoy.
i do agree with you though, clark is far more interesting than superman. i used to be an ardent superman hater specifically because the movie portrayals sucked and most online fans i interacted with were like “my fictional character could totally beat your fictional character” but i do really enjoy very human stories about the dude. and hell, sometimes his powered stuff can also be kinda cool – but the same applies to captain marvel as well and that’s usually the part that people don’t like to accept.
Yep! I’m not a big fan of any of the modern Superman films, I think there’s way too much punching and not enough super-human feats. And by that I mean rescuing people, or performing “miracles” that only he can in order to help the greater good.
Clark will let a monster punch him in the face dozens of times if he thinks he can save both the people and the creature’s life. That’s what creates dilemmas for me when I enjoy a decent Superman story, an ethical dilemma that can’t be solved by hitting something as hard as possible.
The cool thing about Superman isn’t that he has these fantastic powers, but that the person who wields them will always try to do the right thing, because they know nobody else can.
The original Superman movie nailed that aspect. Clark was confident and maybe even a little cocky because of his abilities… but when his father suffered a heart attack, all the super strength in the universe couldn’t save him.
You are 100% correct in that a lot of superhero discourse online seems to aaaaaaaalways come down to “who would win in a fight”, which has always baffled me, because comic books are LOADED with ethical and moral plays which are suppose to make us question whether violence is even a good answer for anything in the first place.
It’s about using your own strengths to help facilitate the weakness of those who can’t help themselves.
At least to me.
It’s new to me that Superman evades that criticism. There’s a reason Batman gets so much more media than him lately, in large part because of the “What if Batman is actually bad for Gotham” philosophical junk.
Even the Zack Snyder films, for all their flaws, examine the two-toned mistakes of the hero more than the power, eg “Maybe a god X-raying us at every occasion and destroying buildings to fight his rival is perhaps too oppressive” versus “Maybe he should’ve used his X-ray vision to see the bomb in that guy’s wheelchair before he set it off.”
he doesn’t evade that criticism, but there aren’t constant “scandals” around him regarding that. half the time you hear about captain marvel, it’s someone criticizing her for being too powerful (sometimes with accusations of “wokeism” thrown in, but not always). nearly all the time you hear about superman, he’s just there, it’s a regular positive-ish portrayal you’d normally see around any character, with a bit of critique thrown in of course. that’s the difference in scrutiny i’m talking about, the internet doesn’t tend to blow up every time they make a superman movie the same way it blew up for captain marvel because god forbid we see a woman in the same position as supes.
(also, i suppose many of her critics were the same people who criticize stuff like female thor or black captain america by saying go make original heroes – this is the treatment you get when you comply. underprivileged groups always get higher scrutiny, and it easily propagates to otherwise well-meaning people too.)
The Superman problem. Main sources of conflict tend to involve depowering, fighting another godlike, or threatening people they care about. Over and over again.
Actually makes me appreciate so much more that one set of writers managed to make a semi-compelling show that focuses on Lois, including her personal growth, all while discovering that her plucky goodboy intern is in fact the man of steel. (Referring to My Adventures with Superman in case it’s not obvious)
One of the things a reviewer highlighted as very important to that show was that it didn’t praise Lois’ rebelliousness and spunk as having no consequences. I basically just didn’t see any of that journey in the first Captain Marvel movie.
The problem is that even Superman deconstructions get shat on. Snyder tried to do something different but everyone wanted a hokey silver age comic supes
Snyder’s films were crap tho, and he didn’t understand the characters - you can’t deconstruct Superman and Batman if you don’t understand Superman and Batman. Plus the lighting and pacing were awful. That’s why they got shat on
My god End Game was trash. It qas terribly rushed. They should’ve just ended it in Infinity war with a cliff hanger.
I wonder what the impact of that would be on the population psychologically.
Rushed, and yet still somehow way too long.
Shoulda been a trilogy with a proofreader
I mean, I still enjoy ‘em. They ain’t perfect, but nothing is.
Guardians of the Galaxy were the only fun ones anyway. The rest was rehashed trash.
Third one might be my favorite marvel movie ever, and that’s post endgame
For me, the Deadpool movies are the only ones I’ve watched more than once
I forgot that those were from Marvel since they were actually funny.
as an instance admin, regarding your profile picture: fuck you very much lmao
Haha as a QA engineer… I wish I’d not gone and looked.
People sure love yucking other people’s yums.
People are allowed to dislike things
Yup quietly without diminishing others enjoyment…
If your enjoyment is diminished by other people not liking it you are just a hipster.
Maybe you’re just older because they weren’t good to begin with
Marvel films are the popcorn flicks of the 2010s. None of them are masterpieces, but most are just a fun watch.
But now they’re often not even that. Besides a few outliers (No Way Home, GOTG3), they fail to even be entertaining popcorn flicks. I’d say the line is National Treasure. If it’s better than National Treasure, that’s a solid popcorn flick. If it’s worse, then it’s not worth watching.
National Treasure is fucking awful though.
It’s certainly no The Mummy (Brendan and Rachel obviously, not Tom’s shitty effort that killed the whole “Dark Universe” franchise two movies in), which is about where I draw the line on popcorn guff.
You mean the 1999 cinematic masterpiece, The Mummy, with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz?
Not a movie, but both seasons of Loki were also good.
Guardians had the things I hate about MCU but was entertaining enough to be enjoyable, because they leaned in to how wacky it was I think. Rest of MCU was just done to a crisp even then.
There was something to look forward to as all the characters got their movie and then the big team up to fight the big bad guy.
It was never Oscar worthy material, just some nice entertainment.
Nah, the first Iron Man still holds up well.
Does it? Does everyone just ignore big ironman as a villain?
Yeah I’d say they were pretty bad and then got worse. They were agreeable movies for a diverse group at one point, even if they weren’t all Marvel-heads. The Joss Whedon style of quippy self-referencing dialogue and unlikable protagonists is their major weak point, it got old between Firefly getting cancelled and the first Marvel movie but hadn’t been overdone in pop culture yet apparently.
An MCU sex scene:
“That was so hot how you did that thing 3 scenes ago …I guess we’re alone now”
“Yeah… this is the part in a movie where sex happens…”
“I suppose if sex were going to happen, we would start like this…”
“Yes, and then I would do this”
(cheesy montage to an old classic)
“Woah… so that happened.”
Nobody says they were masterpieces. But they were entertaining - and excellent at it as far as cheap entertainment goes -, now they’re just sad to watch. I followed it closely until No Way Home, that was my closing point. From now on, I’ll only watch Spider-Man movies because I’m a huge fan of the character. Couldn’t care less about the multiverse they’re selling
the multiverse they’re selling
Oh they do be selling it that’s for sure. I haven’t checked in to Spider Man since Enter the Spiderverse, which I thought was really cool. Marvel I didn’t even like the style of the first movies, but I felt obligated to see them since I was technically part of what is now “nerd culture,” and I think a lot of us felt the same obligation to see them for nerd cred. Now they’ve just commodified it to shit and milking every drop they can out of it.
Would also recommend GOTG3 if you enjoyed the first two films, I’d personally say it’s my favourite of the trilogy
That and No Way Home were going to be the last I was going to watch, and I’m still trying to work up the energy (?) to watch the latter. I will, eventually, I guess, but with the Spiderverse movies being A Thing, it feels pointless.
Yeah, I was worried because of how shit MCU movies have become, but James Gunn’s still got it.
I thought it was the opening of Lady Gaga’s Poker Face.
That would have been funny too
I didn’t really care for the movies until Thanos made an appearance. Right now is like the prelims. Once we get to the main card when the next main boss comes, I’m going to be hyped again.
Watch Loki. I think we have our big bad.
We’ve known the big bad since the first season of Loki and from Ant-man at least.
Could you spare a spoiler for somebody who has no plans to watch any of the marvel TV shows?
It’s Kang. Two variants of him are in the show.
We should’ve voted for Kodos.
Oh that guy. I’ve only seen season 1 and haven’t grasped how much of a threat he really is.
