Marvel Cinematic Universe

I was thinking more of a Spielberg-esque live action adventure movie, tbh.

From what I know about the Power Pack and the kind of stories that property covers, shunting them over to live action - IE, not allowing them to be in the MCU - just because they're kids would be something of a waste.

Last we heard of the Power Pack movie was a few years ago, and it was that the Guardians 2 Producer was directing it and was aiming for a "Spy Kids-esque" tone. Which sounds great, I've always wanted a Power Pack movie, though a tv show in the same artstyle as their recent comics would work great, too.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Mar 6th 2021 at 2:40:02 AM

New FATWS tv spot.

The fight to see who is THE best friend

Cap went back to the past and left behind some really grumpy exes.

People seem to be really skeptical for this one.

Huh really why ?

It contains a pretty fan favourite cast.

Follow up is always harder and it’s a more conventional summer blockbuster style than Wandavision was. I know Anthony Mackie has had interviews where he’s expressed stress over the quality of his output.

Edited by Beatman1 on Mar 6th 2021 at 2:08:20 PM

If you mean the trailer, the audio mixing is pretty iffy.

If you mean the show itself? It seems like it would for a good action series on the front of it, and the Buddy Cop Show approach is a fun one, but writingwise I'm a bit more skeptical.

The two are pretty beloved characters because of what the Cap trilogy and especially The Winter Soldier established about the two of them, but for those same reasons there are also so many ways it could go south. Attempting to be politically topical is always going to get them side-eyed no matter what stance they take. It directly follows up on Cap's controversial ending, which came with seemingly aggressive attempts to no-homo the Steve/Sam and and Steve/Bucky friendships, which were already textually platonic and thus not in need of it, into nothingness on top of its many lore-related issues. There is a lot more increased scrutiny towards Disney's handling of social issues in general after The Rise of Skywalker doing similar things to no-homo Finn and Poe (again, also textually platonic and not in need of it) plus the barely noticeable lesbian couple, and the ways that the Avengers duology displayed other Unfortunate Implications in how it treated several of its heroes. Their off-stage chemistry might just not translate to a full show, given how popular Thor and Valkyrie were as a duo but how poorly received Men in Black: International was. Or the show could turn out to be brainless explosions and spectacle without much substance, because while Kolstad did write for the acclaimed John Wick films, a lot of their appeal was in the choreography and other nonverbal storytelling.

Edited by AlleyOop on Mar 15th 2021 at 12:14:30 PM

Lots of people are also butt-hurt that Sam got the shield instead of Bucky. For 'some' reason.

The bad-faith ones can be safely ignored, but the other arguments for how the films were seemingly building up to Bucky being the natural heir and that it was a bit of a swerve, or that the Word of God reasons given by the Russos, Markus and Mcfeely ran into ableist Unfortunate Implications regarding mental health and unintentionally dissing Sam too in the process make sense. I like Sam and I also think they're a little distasteful.

Ideally I'd have preferred it if they presented a Watsonian reason beforehand where Steve did offer it to Bucky, but Bucky's reasons for rejecting the call were of weariness rather than what they did go with, which was "he's still too psycho, lol!" (what the hell was all that Wakanda stuff all about, then?) and that Steve's choice of Sam was implicit sloppy seconds.

Edited by AlleyOop on Mar 6th 2021 at 6:41:33 AM

They could’ve discussed it more, but I think it’s much better for Steve to have chosen Sam to wear the shield because giving it to Bucky suggests the only person who can carry on the ideals of Captain America is another guy from the 40s rather than anyone from the modern day.

I'd be wary of any outwardly political stuff. The Flag-Smasher thing could be handled really poorly if done wrong.

I think having Bucky there is a way to address the lingering feelings, and there's a lot that he could do or say that wouldn't be cringeworthy. "I don't want to fill the role my best friend had, I'm not the kind of guy comfortable with being a symbol", all sorts of things that fit with his personality and don't feel...off.

I for one just don't think these 2 characters have been particularly interesting so far. That could easily change now, sure.

Bucky didn’t seem super eager to jump back into things in Infinity War so that may have been what Cap was thinking

He was perfectly happy herding goats

Along with everything @Alley Oop said, I think the skepticism can also be chalked down to a show about Bucky and Sam not being particularly as hookworthy as the other properties.

Wanda and Vision were in desperate need of more development, but their show also offered new and exciting possibilities for the MCU as a whole. Loki, on the other hand, is the most popular MCU villain outside of Thanos and the first property to really focus solely on a villain. Sam and Bucky, while popular enough, are often discussed in their relationship to Cap and in a way are pretty normal in comparison to other characters. Normal doesn't always mean boring, but...eh.

Also, the whole two manly straight Buddy Cop Show shows about two men who don't get along at first but eventually grow to trust each other pretty much are a dime a dozen. Not to mention, the very contentious theme of American law enforcement in this current climate won't exactly peak everyone's interest.

Then again, it's the MCU so hopefully they'll do something different with it.

Edited by deuteragonist on Mar 6th 2021 at 12:09:16 PM

I liked the petty rivalry between two best friends to see who was the one who was closest, so I'm excited. But that's just me.

Were the rest of the movies building up to Bucky becoming Captain America, or was this just the case of it happening in the comics making people enter a frenzy looking for any evidence that the MCU would adapt that as well?

Because the latter happened more than once, in fact that's the whole reason so many comic readers said Wanda Vision "pulled a GOT Season 8" because at the end there was no Mephisto or multiverse shenanigams and Quicksilver turned out to be exactly what he seemed: a fun casting gag.

And saying that Endgame "no-homoed" Sam, Bucky and Steve feels..rather harsh? I mean the criticism that it devalued Peggy I don't agree with but I see where it's coming from, but it's not like they gave Steve a new love interest out of nowhere just to go "see, he's straight!" like I heard they did with Poe in ROTS.

I could see why Civil War would've got that complaint, but not Endgame.

I do think that The Winter Soldier's political commentary aged surprisingly well given the circumstances and the other films, so it's not impossible for them to pull something meaningful with these characters after all. But this is a different team of writers/directors (granted, the writers astute enough to give us TWS also gave us Fat Thor, so maybe that's a good thing). And since the show is rated PG 13, it's probably going to have to pull a lot of punches relative to the Netflix series and their social commentary.

Probably a combination of the fact that each of the solo Cap films emphatically showed Bucky picking up the shield for himself, and the idea that Steve believed he could be redeemed. Aside from that, I don't remember.

For the no homo thing it's more that after several films building up Steve's friendship with the two, he's barely shown to interact with them even as casual friends despite it being established that he does care about them a lot. So there's little closure even on a basic friendship level, which when combined with the overwhelming emphasis on his love for Peggy (which as you mentioned comes with its own independent set of issues), makes the latter come off as compensating and the former as if they were afraid of showing him get too close to his male friends because they didn't want there to be anything that could so much as be mistaken for gay.

I suspect that's because of Mackie and Stan's Running Gag of making fun of Holland. Which they've pointed out is a joke.

Edited by AlleyOop on Mar 6th 2021 at 3:27:53 PM

I'm reminded of this one story my sister told me about 2 Holland fan-girls telling Mackie that hes not important.

Well whos laughing now assholes.

I feel it's just because Caps appareances after Winter Soldier are simply in pretty crowded movies.

While Civil War had a big emphasis on Cap and Bucky it was still Avengers 2.5, and Infinity War and Endgame go without saying.

Only so much screentime to go around.

Which, sure, you can still feel was a bit of a waste, and it is certainly a pity the MCU never did TV shows before where such relationships could be better explored, but I hold it that any "no homo" going around was, if anything, accidental.

I do hope for a few flashbacks or at least the two reminiscing over their time with Cap, though.

As for "TWS/Fat Thor", good writers make mistakes, and bad writers can sometimes strike gold, it's not like it's a "either/or" situation.

(I liked Fat Thor, but just to adress that, I feel like people sometimes can't see writers as anything other than either completely good or unforgivably bad)

Edited by HailMuffins on Mar 6th 2021 at 5:28:51 PM

And perhaps I should clarify, if you'll forgive the double post, that I'm not actually hyped for Falcon, because I never get hyped for anything live-action these days, I just felt the lack of interest stroke me as weird considering this a a generally pretty enthusiastic fanbase.

This is the MCU show I was looking forward to the most, but I’m feeling more skeptical on it because the flag-smasher stuff could be really poorly done.

Why does any show that might speak to real right-wing threats feel the needs to make up fake, strawman left-wing threats for “balance”?

I'm also not very hyped for the Falcon & Winter Soldier show, but I'm quite willing to try it, if only because nowadays it is almost impossible to ignore any MCU show without missing something later on. And these two were interesting as secondary characters, so maybe having them as main characters will be good, though if I had had to choose a secondary character to be promoted as main character I'd have chosen Rhodey instead.

Edited by C105 on Mar 6th 2021 at 9:41:39 PM