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  • Accidental Aesop:
    • The moral presented in the first act — which kicks off Strange's entire journey — is "don't use your cell phone and drive", even though this has little to do with the movie's overall message. That being said, there is a message telling audiences not to text and drive in the credits, so perhaps this isn't as incidental as it initially appears.
    • While Strange has a certain proclivity for it, the way he got his magical power was by studying hard, training harder, and generally maintaining a good work ethic. Though this is something of an Accidental Space Whale Aesop, since none of us are learning magic anytime soon.
    • Supposedly forbidden magic can be used for benevolent purposes, as The Ancient One demonstrates in defending Earth from the invasion of Dormammu using power from The Dark Dimension. Indeed, Dr. Strange used the Time Stone to prevent a crisis that probably could not be averted otherwise.
    • Always save before a boss fight. There's no shame in Save Scumming.
  • Anvilicious: Near the beginning of the movie, Strange engages in a degree of distracted driving seen in Public Service Announcement advertisements. There is a warning against distracted driving at the end of the credit roll. The consequences — primarily the damage to the driver's hands — drive the plot immediately following the accident in a believable way, and even at the end — after going up multiple ranks on the Super Weight scale — the main character has still not recovered full use of his hands.
  • Awesome Music: The first released sample of Giacchino's score, "The Master of the Mystic End Credits," has received much praise for its unique blend of instruments and styles, with the end result being just as grandiose, majestic, and trippy as one would expect for a film about the Sorcerer Supreme. It has been compared favorably to Pink Floyd, among other things.
    • Giacchino's score as a whole is this, deftly combining action bombast with mysticism in a manner appropriate to the character.
  • Base-Breaking Character: Some have argued Kaecilius is a decent antagonist due to an understandable/well-defined motivation and a menacing performance by Mads Mikkelsen, while many others have contested that he and his backstory simply aren't given enough screen-time for him to fully make an impact, and that he's further marginalized when it turns out he's merely a pawn of Dormammu.
  • Broken Base:
    • The casting of Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One has been divisive since it was first announced. While many are glad to have a powerful character be portrayed by a female actor, especially one as accomplished as Swinton, others are upset that the original Tibetan version isn't being used, mostly because at the time it was released, the MCU had yet to feature a heroic Asian person in the films.note  It hurts that at the same time, the delay in a casting announcement for Iron Fist prompted a discussion of whether he should be Asian in contrast to the white comics character, accused by some of being a Mighty Whitey (only getting worse when Finn Jones was confirmed to play the titular Iron Fist). Then the teaser came out and revealed Swinton was still dressed in a distinctly Asian style, prompting yet more questions of why they didn't just cast an Asian actor. Co-writer C. Robert Cargill's comments on it being done to prevent the movie from being Banned in China due to a potential positive portrayal of a Tibetan character (which the studio itself later denied) added more controversy. He also didn't help things by accusing all the people upset over it of being "Social Justice Warriors", though he later backpedaled on it and said everyone absolutely has the right to have issues with it.
    • The humorous tone of this movie. Some people enjoyed it, other people would've preferred more seriousness and others like some of the humor but didn't cared much for the other. It shouldn't help that the trailers made the movie looked more serious without hinting at all the humorous moments.
  • Captain Obvious Reveal: Especially for comic-book readers, the revelation that the Eye of Agamotto is one of the Infinity Stones (the Time Stone, specifically) is no great surprise.
  • Cargo Ship: Dr. Strange/The Cloak of Levitation. It obviously likes Strange and cares about him, and although the film doesn't make it seem truly romantic, there's a not-inconsequential portion of the fanbase who ships them (whether seriously or as a Crack Ship).
  • Complete Monster:
    • Dormammu, lord of the Dark Dimension, is an "ego run amok" who seeks to assimilate all life in the multiverse and make them an eternally tortured extension of himself. Dormammu is the one who manipulated Kaecilius and his Zealots into evil, preying on Kaecilius's desire for eternal life so Kaecilius will destroy the Sanctums keeping him at bay from Earth. Dormammu only relents from torturing Dr. Strange to death for all of eternity at the realization Strange would trap him in an endless time loop, and leaves after dragging his Zealot followers into the "eternal life" he had promised them.
    • Alexander Irvine's novelization: The Dread Dormammu is the ruler of the Dark Dimension and seeks to bring all of existence into his realm of eternal torment, having already captured countless planets to subject them to endless torture. Reaching out to Kaecilius and manipulating him into becoming a willing servant, Dormammu has him attack the three Sanctums across the world, weakening the magical barriers around Earth enough for him to invade. Attempting to suck all of Earth into his hell dimension and only being stopped by Dr. Stephen Strange trapping him in a time loop, Dormammu repays Kaecilius for his efforts by trapping him and his Zealots in the Dark Dimension, with Strange witnessing countless of Dormammu's previous followers having already been trapped in the same manner.
  • Crack Ship: Dr. Strange/Everett Ross due to the fact that the latter is played by Martin Freeman, who costars with Cumberbatch on Sherlock.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Strange's first death at the hands of Dormammu is horrifying. Before his second death, you realize what he's doing. Then you laugh at Dormammu's plight and the various over-the-top deaths afterwards.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Despite the Cloak of Levitation being simply an accessory for Strange, it has gained quite a good amount of popularity for being an Empathic Weapon who tends to act more competent than Strange himself during the battles. It also has engaged in some Silent Snarker with Strange himself, providing a lot of laughs when it does.
  • Evil Is Cool: Dormammu, who's an Eldritch Abomination (or more like an Eldritch Location personified) with an Evil Sounds Deep voice and is essentially omnipotent, only losing thanks to a "Groundhog Day" Loop scheme created by Doctor Strange.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: Going by AO3, Strange/Mordo is easily the most popular ship in the fandom.
  • Fan-Preferred Cut Content: There is a sizeable number of viewers who felt that the death of Strange's sister Donna (played by Lulu Wilson) should have remained in the final cut as it gave Strange more depth than the supposedly arrogant and materialistic neurosurgeon that we see at the start of the film. Sentiments only increased following Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness where Donna gets briefly namedropped without any build-up.
  • Fandom Rivalry: Even before she was named, Palmer received heat from Claire Temple's fans from the Netflix shows for being rumored to be the Night Nurse. Reasons are ranging from being a Replacement Scrappy (especially after Claire was actually called the Night Nurse in Luke Cage (2016)), the racial diversity problem in the film that was already fired up over the casting of the Ancient One, to the casting of Rachel McAdams in the part, who is much more known for being in romantic films rather than action films (which also drew bad comparisons to fan-favorite Rosario Dawson). In the comics, Palmer is indeed an incarnation of the Night Nurse in the comics, although beyond an homage to the The Oath miniseries, she does not assume the identity, leaving it open for Claire Temple and thus appeasing fansnote .
  • Fanon:
    • A common fan-theory is that the man with intense spinal damage that Strange was told about early in the film is the very unlucky Hammer Industries pilot who had his spine twisted 180 degrees due to a malfunction while testing out a knockoff of the Iron Man suit. Adding further credence to it is that the accident is explicitly mentioned to have been caused while testing a power suit, but it's not entirely clear if it was that specific test or another similar case (multiple attempts have been made to rip off the Iron Man suit, after all). Other fanon assumed that it was referring to Colonel Rhodes injury in Captain America: Civil War, but Kevin Feige likewise jossed the latter theory, as the film is chronologically set before the events of Civil War.
    • Thanks to this gif of Chiwetel Ejiofor petting a cat, fandom (or at least the Strordo shippers) depicts Mordo as a Kind Hearted Cat Lover with a fondness for rescuing street catsnote .
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • After Strange traps Dormammu in a "Groundhog Day" Loop via the Eye of Agamotto, Dormammu reminds Strange that he cannot win this way. Strange counters that he can still lose time after time, meaning that Dormammu will be a prisoner in this loop. Cue episode 4 of What If…? (2021), where Strange tries to save Christine from a fatal car crash by using that device. Unfortunately, she still dies with every attempt, eventually leading to Strange destroying the entire universe in one last attempt, trapping himself in a tiny crystal dimension. In other words, Strange did lose again and again, and thus became a prisoner to time, both metaphorically and literally.
    • Strange's frustrations about how warnings tend to come after the spell become this big time after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home after he fails to properly warn Peter of the consequences of casting the amnesia spell, resulting in Peter's panic derailing the spell, and ultimately causing a considerable amount of pain for poor Peter.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Ho Yay: Mordo worries about Stephen's heart during the multiverse sequence, and when Strange enters the Dark Dimension in the finale, Kaecilius has an interesting choice of words to taunt Mordo with: "Even Strange has left you".
  • I Knew It!: A lot of folk had already deduced that the Eye of Agamotto is an Infinity Stone, and more specifically the Time stone, since the first good look at it, based on such things as its color, comments by Feige on its abilities, and the fact that with the Infinity War film fast approaching, the then-unknown stones would need to be introduced somewhere.
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
    • One of the most common criticisms of this movie is that it's very similar to the past MCU movies in structure, plot, and focus. In particular Stephen Strange's personality and character arc feels like a retread of Tony Stark's in the first Iron Man note .
    • The score has received mixed reactions, with some saying that it feels too similar to the work Giacchino did for the Star Trek films.
  • Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Doctor Stephen Strange is shipped with Christine, Mordo, Wong, Tony Stark, the Cloak of Levitation... Needlessly to say, he's become this.
  • Like You Would Really Do It: Given that Wong had been confirmed to appear in Avengers: Infinity War around the time the movie was released internationally, those that paid attention to the announcement knew that his death would be undone before the end of the movie. On a meta level, given that Wong was only put in the film to offset the criticisms of making the Ancient One white, it's highly unlikely they would then kill him off permanently and make the issue even worse.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • The set photos of Strange and Mordo battling Kaecilius in the streets of New York (many of which look very Narmy out of context and without visual effects) have already become fodder for jokes. Some fans have even edited footage of the airport fight from Captain America: Civil War to include shots of Strange awkwardly prancing about while the other heroes rush into battle.
    • Photos of Benedict Cumberbatch buying Doctor Strange comics while in full costume are making the rounds on message boards, usually captioned along the lines of "You may be cool, but you'll never be Benedict-Cumberbatch-buying-Doctor-Strange-comics-while-dressed-as-Doctor-Strange cool."
    • Doctor Strange's "Teach me" at the end of the trailer is quite memetic. A pretty popular joke with it is pointing out how the Ancient One is Marvel while Doctor Strange is DC, begging to be taught how to make a good movie.
    • "[Dormammu], I've come to bargain" has been a pretty popular saying ever since the movie was released, especially in the context of Marvel Studios attempting to reacquire the film rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four ("20th Century Fox, I've come to bargain!").Explanation (spoilers) 
    • Ever since Cumberbatch was cast, the joke that he and Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark should have a conversation that results in one saying "No shit, Sherlock." has become rather popular.
    • It's become commonplace that because of Doctor Strange's brief stint of being a Time Master calls forth him setting clocks back an hour for Daylight Savings Time (even Marvel got into it) and becoming friends with Barry Allen.
    • Following the endings of WandaVision and Loki Season 1, it has become popular to joke about Strange's reaction to the ensuing events (especially the unraveling of the Multiverse). It helps that both shows tie into Multiverse of Madness, with Elizabeth Olsen and Tom Hiddleston slated to appear in it.note 
  • Moe: Oddly enough, the Cloak of Levitation. Many people who saw the movie found it to be adorable.
  • Moral Event Horizon: See here.
  • Narm: See here.
  • Older Than They Think: This film is usually credited as the point when the MCU embraced magic, as Thor and the Asgardians were treated as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens. However, this is only true for the films. The second season of Daredevil introduced The Hand, who perform supernatural feats, although keeping the mystery of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane. Agents of SHIELD then introduced Ghost Rider, who was openly and explicitly supernatural.
  • Portmanteau Couple Name: Stephenie (Stephen Strange/Christine Palmer) and Strordo (Stephen Strange/Karl Mordo).
  • Questionable Casting: The casting of Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One, who is Tibetan in the comics, is hugely divisive. Some people like it for being an interesting new take on the character while others hate it for the same reason. Then you've got people applauding it for using Ability over Appearance/Gender Flip to increase female representation in the MCU, or a good way to avoid the baggage of the original character, while others hate it for considering it a gratuitous Race Lift that whitewashes a member of a heavily underrepresented minority group. The first trailer, which indicated that the Magical Asian traits would remain after all, led to an increase in the latter group.
  • Rooting for the Empire: At least one review sees Strange as a supervillain while sympathizing with Mordo.
  • Signature Scene:
    • Strange's confrontation with Dormammu is easily the most memorable part of the film, due to the sheer creativity put into their "fight" in comparison to other MCU climaxes.
    • Coming in a close second is Doctor Strange and Mordo trying to escape Kaecilius in the Mirror Dimension, showcasing the sheer surrealness the Mirror Dimension is capable of.
  • Spiritual Adaptation:
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: Michael Giacchino's main theme bears quite a similarity to his work on Star Trek (2009).
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The Ancient One's origins being changed from Tibetan to Celtic has caused no small amount of anger on the Internet, with commenters saying that Marvel, in the pursuit of maximum profits, is trying too hard not to offend the Chinese government and cinema censors. Though once the film came out, the reveal that casting the role as Asian would have meant the film killing off its only Asian character (considering Wong was only put in after this decision was made) in favor of a white guy led some to grudgingly accept it as the least bad option.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Kaecilius; the prequel comic released before the movie revealed exactly why he wanted to gain access to the Dark Dimension and use the power of Dormammu: to save his family. In the film, however, this is not mentioned; he talks about immortality for everyone, and deliverance from the pain of loss, but without his backstory, his emotional rhetoric holds less weight.
    • The Dread Dormammu is also another case of this. He is constantly hinted at throughout the movie, especially when they mention how corruptive the Dark Dimension is, but he only appears when Strange confronts him through the wormhole in the Hong Kong sanctum. On top of that, Dormammu is made so huge that all we see of him is his head (which unlike the comics is not on fire) and one of his arms (which may or may not be his actual arm, given its size compared to his head). Dormammu also never talks with any of his followers, unlike in the animated movie that predates this one, and he actually did manage to reach our realm in that one as well. However, it is fair to say that the Dormammu of that movie was also a Greater-Scope Villain as well as a Final Boss, similar to the one in this film, but the psychedelic route they went for the effects could have made their conflict even more insane than the animated movie.
    • Christine Palmer doesn't have much of a role in the movie other than as Strange's temporary love interest. Case in point, she doesn't even get to interact with any other characters other than Strange, even though she is directly involved in a few of the movie's major plot points, such as helping Strange to defeat one of Kaecilius's followers in the astral realm and trying to save the Ancient One.
    • The film's main Aesop is that the passage of time, and with it death, are natural things that must be accepted in order to live a full life. It's pretty glaring that Strange's backstory, wherein his sister Donna drowned when they were children, was relegated to a deleted scene, since this is exactly the sort of thing that would tie the movie's message to Strange's own arc.
  • This is Your Premise on Drugs: The visuals of the other dimensions are extremely trippy, to the point that Dr. Strange first asks the Ancient One what was in the tea she served him. Even once he (and the audience) understands what he's looking at, it's still a bit like being trapped in an Escher painting when the walls start folding around.
  • Unexpected Character:
    • Mads Mikkelsen's character was expected to be an iconic Doctor Strange villain, such as Nightmare or Dormammu. Instead, he's Kaecilius, a servant of Baron Mordo in the comics.
    • Likewise, it was a shock that Rachel McAdams would play Christine Palmer. Many assumed that she would be playing Clea, given the MCU's tendency to use the most iconic Love Interest from the comics.
    • Even though she only appears unidentified in a brief cameo, nobody expected Tina Minoru, a Runaways character (and mother of Nico Minoru), to show up in this movie. Same goes for Daniel Drumm, who is at least tied to the comic book Strange's supporting character Brother Voodoo.
  • Vindicated by History: The film wasn't considered bad by any means during it's initial release, but the general consensus was that while it did include some breathtaking special effects, it was mediocre story with a forgettable villain. After the extremely divisive reception of its sequel however, many have looked back on this film in a much more favorable light. With a lot viewers appreciating this film's more quiet and introspective tone, especially in the first half and the script being a lot tighter and more focused. Some now even consider it to be one of the best MCU origin stories.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: Needless to say, the effects work for both the magic and alternate dimensions are spectacular. It quickly joined Gravity with numerous people urging that even if you dislike 3D movies, this one should absolutely be seen in the format.
  • WTH, Costuming Department?: Some people assumed that the Ancient One would be Celtic themed since the character herself is Celtic, but were disappointed that the character still dresses like a Tibetan monk.

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