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Welcome to the main discussion thread for the Marvel Cinematic Universe! This pinned post is here to establish some basic guidelines. All of the Media Forum rules still apply.

  • This thread is for talking about the live-action films, TV shows, animated works, and related content that use the Marvel brand, currently owned by Disney.
  • While mild digressions are okay, discussion of the comic books should go in this thread. Extended digressions may be thumped as off-topic.
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If you're posting tagged spoilers, make sure that the film or series is clearly identified outside the spoiler tagging. People need to know what will be spoiled before they choose to read the post.

    Original post 
Since Thor and now Captain America came out this year, I wanted to get what Tropers thought of the concept and execution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in general. Personally I love the idea and wonder why this idea hasn't been seriously tried before. It sorta seems to me like the DCAU in movie form (And well, ummm, with Marvel), and really 'gets' the comic book feel of a shared universe while not being completely alienating.

Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#141426: Apr 14th 2022 at 10:05:06 AM

Oh so THAT'S why I saw all those jokes about Moon Knight being Rorschach from Watchmen

Aside from that and their shared mental instability, the makeshift cloth mask he wears in prison gives him a even more Rorschach vibe for the duration of that story.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#141427: Apr 14th 2022 at 10:07:03 AM

The art-style is amusingly anime

Marc looks like a Shonen protagonist

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
MatthewWayne The Tapestry Weaver from Camp Echo One Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
The Tapestry Weaver
#141428: Apr 14th 2022 at 10:15:58 AM

I really, really hope that Marvel starts small when rebooting the X-Men into the MCU. Part of the reason the Fox-men films began to suffer exponentially was the utter exhaustion of having to deal with world-ending threats like the Sentinels, Apocalypse and a shoehorned Phoenix saga (AGAIN), while barely giving the actual X-Men any character development. Even when they took away the spotlight-stealing Wolverine, I still barely felt connected to the other students and professors.

And yeah, small-stakes stories are good for that reason, which is why I liked the Ant-Man and Iron Man films. The fact that Quantumania is planned to have Kang as its Big Bad though...hmm.

The small-scale stories don't always work in my opinion (I'm still of the mind that Homecoming was weaker than it should have been, in part thanks to shoehorning Stark into the plot), but at least it's not world-ending shit shoehorned in every other week. Like, why exactly did Shang-Chi need to fight a giant-ass CGI dragon that was going to eat everyone's souls? The whole "father is a crimelord, we need to stop him but also reconcile with him" was already a good dynamic imo.

"I'm Mr. Blue, woah-woah-ooh..."
HasturHasturHastur from Wheah the fahkin baby wheel is, Jay Since: Nov, 2010
#141429: Apr 14th 2022 at 10:18:55 AM

I mean, with Kang around, Apocalypse is almost definitely going to happen. With Shang-Chi's inevitable sequel, I'd like to have things actually end amicably with Fin Fang Foom - Shang-Chi and the dragon man slug it out, F3 is impressed and praises Shang-Chi for his strength, skill, and honor, and they call a truce. That could actually be a small-scale one if F3 just keeps his focus to finding the Rings and getting them back.

Edited by HasturHasturHastur on Apr 14th 2022 at 10:22:40 AM

Weirdguy149 Former King from Lumiose City Since: Jul, 2014 Relationship Status: I'd jump in front of a train for ya!
Former King
#141430: Apr 14th 2022 at 10:20:29 AM

So random trivia I realized: Groot is the only surviving Guardian of the Galaxy that did not meet Tony.

The legend has returned.
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#141431: Apr 14th 2022 at 10:23:19 AM

Like, why exactly did Shang-Chi need to fight a giant-ass CGI dragon that was going to eat everyone's souls? The whole "father is a crimelord, we need to stop him but also reconcile with him" was already a good dynamic imo.

The movie is weirdly uninterested in condemning Wenwu for being a crime boss. Like, that is basically a minor facet of his character. A footnote to the story. What matters is him being Shang-Chi's dad first, and him going to war with a magical kingdom second to release a world-ending CGI dragon second.

A Million Is a Statistic but a billion is a suitable third-act climax, I suppose. Wenwu committed crimes on an individual level, a mass level, and a total level, and the movie only cares about the first and third while being totally blasé about the second.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 14th 2022 at 10:24:24 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
HasturHasturHastur from Wheah the fahkin baby wheel is, Jay Since: Nov, 2010
#141432: Apr 14th 2022 at 10:27:59 AM

Wenwu is a complicated man with conflicting priorities who honestly does seem to greatly regret the life he chose (not just because it cost him his family), but feels like it's the only real path for him.

MatthewWayne The Tapestry Weaver from Camp Echo One Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
The Tapestry Weaver
#141433: Apr 14th 2022 at 10:31:05 AM

I think maybe both Marvel and Tony Leung wanted to avoid as many similarities to Fu Manchu as possible, and so didn't want to show him as some kind of one-dimensional mystical crimelord to avoid those Unfortunate Implications. The problem is, being a crimelord is the entire reason the Mandarin is a thing.

Not focusing on the importance of his criminal enterprise is like trying to depict a President without actually going over what he did in the White House. You're kind of missing the whole point of who he was and what kind of person he became through his position of power.

Edited by MatthewWayne on Apr 14th 2022 at 10:33:03 AM

"I'm Mr. Blue, woah-woah-ooh..."
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#141434: Apr 14th 2022 at 10:40:09 AM

Like. Imagine a movie where the main bad guy is Bolivar Trask. Trask created the Sentinel program and has mass-murdered countless mutants in the past few years while under the approving nod of the President and Congress. Mutants now live in a state of fear and hiding.

Is this an X-Men movie? No, it is not. It's a Spider-Man movie. See, Peter Parker just learned that Trask was the man who shot Uncle Ben, so now he wants to bring Trask to justice. While trying to uncover the truth of Ben's murder and bring Trask to justice, he learns of Trask's true intentions: To reactivate Ultron and finish the global annihilation of the planet. Cue epic sky-beam battle against the reactivating Ultron-Sentinel units commanded by Trask.

But sometimes we see Sentinels burning mutants in the background of scenes.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 14th 2022 at 10:41:23 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#141435: Apr 14th 2022 at 10:43:17 AM

Mysterio kinda subverted that too

Heck, Mysterio was arguably a parody of the idea. The whole concept behind his plan was that the world as so desensitized to world ending events beyond the ken of humanity that they would easily buy a fake, manufactured one as part of the ultimate con.

I loved that about him, and wish they had continued the theme of Spidey’s MCU villains as people taking advantage of living in a world of superheroes and supervillains.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Apr 14th 2022 at 10:44:11 AM

Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#141436: Apr 14th 2022 at 11:28:13 AM

Although some of it (maybe more than a little) is a Villainy Discretion Shot to keep Wenwu relatively sympathetic, I had the impression that Shang Chi was drawing on tropes of noble gangsters who never do anything gangstery. Or if they do, it's limited to them running a gambling den or Bikini Bar or something like that. Sometimes this also overlaps with treating an organized crime family as more akin to a prominent noble family.

And like the movie definitely makes deliberate choices to have the Ten Rings as pretty "family friendly", including the endearing take on Razorfist (especially if you consider deleted scenes) and the fact that they attack the Hidden Elf Village with non-lethal weaponry, and ultimately help save it as heroes.

So, I guess my take is that it's not so much that the movie ignores Wenwu's crimes. It's more that it doesn't really frame him or the Ten Rings as being all that evil, beyond his shitty parenting.

slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#141437: Apr 14th 2022 at 11:39:38 AM

Its maybe a martial arts movie thing, at least I feel like it is.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#141438: Apr 14th 2022 at 11:49:34 AM

In general the Wuxia genre loves having heroic or antihero/antivillain criminals to contrast with Lawful Evil formal authorities.

HasturHasturHastur from Wheah the fahkin baby wheel is, Jay Since: Nov, 2010
#141439: Apr 14th 2022 at 12:14:23 PM

Shang-Chi having to answer for things his father did should be a future plot point.

Weirdguy149 Former King from Lumiose City Since: Jul, 2014 Relationship Status: I'd jump in front of a train for ya!
Former King
#141440: Apr 14th 2022 at 12:19:21 PM

Yeah, this feels like a Shang-Chi 2 thing.

The legend has returned.
Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#141441: Apr 14th 2022 at 2:38:18 PM

One of the reasons Ant-Man and the Wasp is one of my favorite MCU films is precisely how it's one of the lowest-stakes Marvel films (the life of Janet van Dyne weighed against the life of Ava Starr) yet still somehow feels grander than that.

The whole world won't end if the heroes fail, but their world will. Hank and Hope will lose a dear family member, and Scott may go to jail for good. Ghost, meanwhile, has the nefariously evil plan of... not wanting to die or be in constant physical pain.

This is also why Sonny Burch is one of my favorite MCU villains for the role he plays; his comedic aspects fit the film's more comedic tone than other MCU films, and it's amusing to write him off as out of his depth in a superhero setting, yet he still manages to be a credible threat during the film's third act, and his victory would actually be worse for the world than Ghost's victory.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Apr 14th 2022 at 5:39:07 AM

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
HasturHasturHastur from Wheah the fahkin baby wheel is, Jay Since: Nov, 2010
#141442: Apr 14th 2022 at 2:55:09 PM

Which is why I think the second Shang-Chi should focus on the personal side of coping with his father's legacy and the many enemies he inherited from him, while Fin Fang Foom looks like he'll be a huge threat to the world but is satisfied with a good fight and is like "alright, you know what, you seem like a good dude and you're worthy of the Rings, I'll call this settled". The big dragon man is satisfied, but the same can't be said for Wenwu's old enemies.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#141443: Apr 14th 2022 at 3:07:46 PM

A dude who just wants to fight is very martial arts

In that my major lens is dragon ball and I have no idea what I’m talking about

But it would be refreshing to see in a superhero movie

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
HasturHasturHastur from Wheah the fahkin baby wheel is, Jay Since: Nov, 2010
#141444: Apr 14th 2022 at 3:12:45 PM

I'm thinking he shows up looking for the Rings and causes a lot of carnage, Shang-Chi shows up and tries to talk him down just so he stops wrecking shit, and he takes a liking to him and agrees to settle the matter through combat.

fanman "To watch it all burn." from Earth-Prime/Earth-1218 Since: Feb, 2022 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
"To watch it all burn."
#141445: Apr 14th 2022 at 9:13:21 PM

Also, the Dweller-In-Darkness was a Doctor Strange villain. When I saw Shang-Chi in theaters, I got confused when they got to the Dweller being a generic trapped demon.

Zeromaeus Since: May, 2010
#141446: Apr 14th 2022 at 10:01:11 PM

I was thinking about the Fantastic Four coming back again. I hope we see something like the blue city on the moon this time. That's the kind of weird, borderline Twilight Zone sci-fi shenenigry I'd like to see them explore.

MatthewWayne The Tapestry Weaver from Camp Echo One Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
The Tapestry Weaver
#141447: Apr 14th 2022 at 10:22:37 PM

I watched the Tim Story films a long time ago (I refuse to watch Fan4stic), and briefly played one video game and read some informational stuff about them, and a crossover story with Spider-Man as a kid. That said, my knowledge of the Fantastic Four is admittedly kind of lacking. Like, I know each of the family's main powers, that they bicker a lot, and that they've fought people like Galactus, Doctor Doom, and some dude who looks like a mole.

I'm definitely curious to see what the MCU could do with them, now that they can really swing to the fences.

Edited by MatthewWayne on Apr 14th 2022 at 10:23:01 AM

"I'm Mr. Blue, woah-woah-ooh..."
Weirdguy149 Former King from Lumiose City Since: Jul, 2014 Relationship Status: I'd jump in front of a train for ya!
Former King
#141448: Apr 15th 2022 at 6:17:48 AM

My main experience with the Fantastic Four was Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes.

The legend has returned.
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#141449: Apr 15th 2022 at 6:22:00 AM

I remember that show, that was fun.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
XMenMutant22 The Feline Follies of Felix the Cat Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Hoping Senpai notices me
#141450: Apr 15th 2022 at 6:48:56 AM

The art-style is amusingly anime

Marc looks like a Shonen protagonist

Amusingly, the official Japanese page of Marvel Studios teamed up with Sui Ishida to do Tokyo Ghoul X Moon Knight promo art.

“Dark Hero ‘Moon Knight‘ and ‘Tokyo Ghoul‘ the main character ‘Kaneki’. Sui Ishida, newly drawn by the teacher, the special visual of ‘Those who live in the darkness’ has been unveiled”.

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fqsqez3auaigm_e.jpeg


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