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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.
  • Spoilers for new releases should not be discussed without spoiler tagging for at least two weeks. Rather, each title should have a dedicated thread where that sort of conversation is held. We can mention new releases in a general sense, but please be courteous to people who don't want to be spoiled.

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

BlackYakuzu94 CHADhan Player. from Easy Coast/NY Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
CHADhan Player.
#143476: Jul 5th 2022 at 12:32:15 PM

Its interesting to see how mixed Phase 4 has been. Just saw a Tweet complaining about how forgettable it seems.

Think people are just getting fatiqued and the market is looking oversaturated.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
uncertanSearcher It's always Season of the Witch from Germany Since: Oct, 2017
It's always Season of the Witch
#143477: Jul 5th 2022 at 12:35:36 PM

For years Superhero fatigue was just some buzzword people were throwing around but now some people might actually start to feel something akin to it.

DarthNoxIsCool Since: Jun, 2022
#143478: Jul 5th 2022 at 12:42:32 PM

"Probably not. The MCU take on Kid Loki was basically nothing like comic Kid Loki."

The only way they will use Young Loki or Kid Loki is that our loki has been cloned before he died, because if they use the one from the series, it would be an adaptation in name only.

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#143479: Jul 5th 2022 at 12:52:06 PM

I don't think the term superhero fatigue still applies as much as a possible MCU fatigue (The Batman was very well-received and made a lot of money, after all). The factors here are down on a mix of the "Marvel formula" (inasmuch as it exists) getting tiresome at the same pace that attempts to make something more outside the wheelhouse also receives swift backlash by a traditionalist fandom. It's both too familiar and too different.

They're trying to do different things in small steps while also clinging to the more tried-and-true approaches so at the end it feels like a tug-of-war for the MCU's soul.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
DarthNoxIsCool Since: Jun, 2022
#143480: Jul 5th 2022 at 12:55:27 PM

The term fatigue has been used since 2012 so I have no idea when it's time to take it seriously.

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#143481: Jul 5th 2022 at 12:57:24 PM

Fatigue as a concept isn't really as pervasive as people tend to believe it does. There's always going to be people who enjoy a genre of film, especially the MCU's generalist action approach. Likewise, the MCU dipping into other genres for their films heads off that issue in part.

If people aren't reacting well to the current glut of films, it's not because people are tired of action movies, it's because the current glut of films haven't been that great. But generally speaking, if a bunch of lackluster films turn away an audience, that audience will typically come back in force once a good film comes along.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jul 5th 2022 at 12:59:02 PM

uncertanSearcher It's always Season of the Witch from Germany Since: Oct, 2017
It's always Season of the Witch
#143482: Jul 5th 2022 at 1:09:08 PM

I was personally hoping Love and Thunder would be that film but right now it unfortunately does not seem like it will be.

Though since I still plan on watching it I should probably wait untill I actually see it before I keep judging it. Now that my expectations are dampend a bit I might even get positivly surprised.

SAwatching from south africa Since: Oct, 2017 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#143483: Jul 5th 2022 at 1:09:26 PM

Hasn't the MCU always been a bit of Genre Roulette? I think that all the complaints about Phase 4 are just that it's really post-infinity saga, a new thing stage.

Sincerely S Awatching.
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#143484: Jul 5th 2022 at 1:14:50 PM

I do admit I kinda some movies to be a bit more like The Batman or even Dune in terms of tone.

The comedy, comedy nature of the MCU gets annoying. You wanna see good action and epicness, but instead you get bad jokes and annoying bathos.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#143485: Jul 5th 2022 at 1:17:23 PM

I think what the MCU needs is proper competition from their competitors to keep them on their toes,make them work for people's attention.

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
DavidMerrick from Ottawa, ON Since: Jun, 2018
#143486: Jul 5th 2022 at 1:20:40 PM

[up][up][up]

Not really. They may adopt some aesthetics of certain genres, like spy thriller with Winter Soldier or martial arts flick with Shang-Chi, but structurally and tonally they're basically all the same MCU formula, most of which turn into CGI-fests by the final act that you wouldn't find in any of the genres they're paying homage to.

Contrast that with The Batman, which really is shot and written like a dyed-in-the-wool neo noir, with even its action sequences fitting that genre. And The Suicide Squad is every inch the kind of darkly comic Troma-style exploitation war movie Gunn grew up on.

Edited by DavidMerrick on Jul 5th 2022 at 4:48:02 AM

dcutter2 Since: Sep, 2013
#143487: Jul 5th 2022 at 1:22:13 PM

I do admit I kinda some movies to be a bit more like The Batman or even Dune in terms of tone.

The comedy, comedy nature of the MCU gets annoying. You wanna see good action and epicness, but instead you get bad jokes and annoying bathos.

How the pendulum swings. Back at the start of the MCU it seemed pretty fresh compared to superhero movies that were selling themselves on taking themselves so seriously.

I like comedy but it's got to be a blend. Got G and Ragnarok leaning more and more to the funny I didn't enjoy as much.

uncertanSearcher It's always Season of the Witch from Germany Since: Oct, 2017
It's always Season of the Witch
#143488: Jul 5th 2022 at 1:22:41 PM

[up][up][up]Well Slimcoder just brought up The Batman wich is a very good example of how to pull off a darker superhero movie, something DC ironically screwed up several times before.

Edited by uncertanSearcher on Jul 5th 2022 at 10:23:01 AM

Synchronicity (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#143489: Jul 5th 2022 at 1:23:37 PM

I think everyone here's right to some extent, little bit of this little bit of that. The vibe is getting a little stale and the overall plot progression is feeling a little aimless. Even in Phase One we knew the Avengers were coming, then after that we knew Thanos was coming, and you'd get very clear signals as to what was Important to the plot (eg. an infinity stone showing up here, a superstrong powerhouse character being introduced, Wakanda being a source of magic tech) even as everyone did their own thing (not counting the 'sub-canon' works like AOS and Daredevil).

OTOH currently we're 12 projects out from Endgame with 2 more coming out in the near future, and we're still kinda going like, "something something multiverse and that weird guy at the end of Loki"

I also agree that the pendulum will back if/when it starts to make sense

Edited by Synchronicity on Jul 5th 2022 at 3:25:17 AM

slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#143490: Jul 5th 2022 at 1:25:59 PM

[up][up][up] After well over 30 movies the MCU has fallen into a serious house-style.

Which actually is a comic thing as well. Generally the most well-received comics tend to be the more experimental stuff which eschews the house style that goes on in a lot of books.

The MCU could use some good competition to keep them on their toes. Man if only those Valiant movies turned out well but instead we got Vin Diesal in Bloodshot.

Edited by slimcoder on Jul 5th 2022 at 1:27:16 AM

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Mizerous Pet Owner from Hell Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: Brewing the love potion
Pet Owner
#143491: Jul 5th 2022 at 1:32:37 PM

DC should be stiff conpetition yet...

Just Makima.
Synchronicity (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#143492: Jul 5th 2022 at 1:34:42 PM

They have truly good competition on the TV front; I actually think most of the D+ shows have been mid compared to what else has been coming out. I want that energy translated to the box office.

slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#143493: Jul 5th 2022 at 1:40:48 PM

Hell I think the Peacemaker show has been better received than most of the D+ shows.

Its even praised for being very self-contained with no major reference or set-up of future projects.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#143494: Jul 5th 2022 at 1:48:54 PM

"Post infinity-saga" is definitely one of the chief reasons. The MCU's bread-and-butter was to weave films into a larger, serialized narrative marching directly to a endpoint (The Avengers at first and then the Infinity Saga). I think what they're doing now, taking a step back and doing less interwoven film pointing at several different directions rather than a single unified myth arc, is the right idea. If you interlock all these properties too much they're going to collapse into a mush of intercontinuity and interchangeability. But this is a Devil of the MCU's own making, they fed an audience with hitherto unheard of intercontinuity and crossreferences, so of course people are always going to want more and more of it. The discussion about Doctor Strange 2 was a point where it reached the apex of the absurd where some people wanted every single element of the MCU to be present in it in some fashion and were actively enraged that the finished product is an actual film and not a slideshow of references to other MCU films (not helped at the fact the Illuminati showing up only to be brutally butchered felt like a fairly gentle jab towards that mentality that people received like a personal insult).

It's a bit of a catch-22 scenario where they can't break ranks too much nor stick too much to them. The half-and-half approach where they're both nudging towards relatively different approaches (with Eternals and Multiverse of Madness both trying relatively different aesthetics) while keeping the fanservice and familiarity at the core is so far still working but has some diminishing returns.

I'm of the opinion they need to really rip off the band-aid and do some movie that's completely different. They got Sam Raimi back in the saddle, the man who basically laid the foundations for the MCU in so many ways (the "character drama with unabashedly absurd superheroism" approach that the MCU works with was very much based on Raimi's Spider-Man and Darkman experiments, IMO). They need to just give him something he can do whatever he wants free of charge rather than "listen Doctor Strange 2 is about to collapse after Derrickson left, please save this film".

They have truly good competition on the TV front; I actually think most of the D+ shows have been mid compared to what else has been coming out.

In this topic I actually want the D+ things brought to the films. Moon Knight alone felt like it was trying to do much more inventive things than any MCU film since Infinity War.

Edited by Gaon on Jul 5th 2022 at 1:53:37 AM

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
MatthewWayne The Tapestry Weaver from Camp Echo One Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
The Tapestry Weaver
#143495: Jul 5th 2022 at 2:14:48 PM

[up] I agree that I'm more invested in Marvel's D+ works than I am the theatrical films. Not every show hits the mark perfectly, but I find that their semi-slow burn pace rather than bug escalation off the bat is really cool.

"I'm Mr. Blue, woah-woah-ooh..."
Synchronicity (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#143496: Jul 5th 2022 at 2:22:16 PM

The first flush of premise unfolding is always fun but somehow they all have meh endings, leaving me with a more negative impression than I might have walked away with. Either "interesting psychology was so penultimate episode, let's have a cgi slugfest" (WV, MK) or "lol wtf why did they do this to [beloved character]" (TFATWS, Hawkeye, Loki). Maybe Ms Marvel will buck the trend by having a meh second act and a great third act.

On the topic of the Distinguished Competition everything TFATWS did well (racism in America and how that ties into superheroing) Watchmen (2019) had already hit with much more clarity two years prior.

Edited by Synchronicity on Jul 5th 2022 at 4:24:07 AM

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#143497: Jul 5th 2022 at 2:33:56 PM

They seem to have more room for experimentation. Even Falcon and the Winter Soldier, god-awful as it was, still managed to be a trainwreck in relatively interesting ways. Hawkeye was the only one that so far felt to me like going through the motions.

Wandavision and MK having climactic showdowns didn't really bother me as much as it did with some people. One of the few near-omnipresent tropes of a incredibly elastic "parasitic genre" (that is, superhero stories) is the final showdown between good and evil (or whatever's close to those categories in the confines of the story). I think the struggle is more with making them distinct among one another, but the confrontation itself never bothered me. Both WV and Moon Knight felt a bit 50-50 on that with relatively inventive parts of the showdown (Visions settling their beefs with a intense philosophical debate, Moon Knight having a good old-fashioned fistfight with Harrow) and the comparatively more bog-standard MCU thing (Agatha vs Wanda being just a laser fight and the big kaiju battle in MK). But a showdown is what I'm here for. The moment superhero stories draw a line in the sand and you see the ideals represented by the characters literally marshal to battle in a hypersigilized narrative clash is one of the most powerful things in the superhero mechanisms.

Amusingly, one of the best superhero shows ever made that paved the way for much of the striking current crop of more "surreal and silly" superhero properties was a Marvel property, just one no one cares about: Legion (2017).

Edited by Gaon on Jul 5th 2022 at 2:35:57 AM

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
uncertanSearcher It's always Season of the Witch from Germany Since: Oct, 2017
It's always Season of the Witch
#143498: Jul 5th 2022 at 2:39:59 PM

The first Doctor Strange movie of all things does have a climax that is not only extreamly unique but is ultimately more about the heroes character ark then it is about spectacle.

slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#143499: Jul 5th 2022 at 2:42:04 PM

Shang-Chi does have the often stated problem that the climax basically ends once Wenwu dies because he was the emotional centerpoint of the film and the final battle with the demon leaves you with feeling nothing.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
dcutter2 Since: Sep, 2013
#143500: Jul 5th 2022 at 2:44:00 PM

Hawkeye is the one I most enjoyed. I'm not sure what was going through the motions about it. but I am partial the character and glad he finally got a chance in the spot light.

It is suffered from just a lack of confidence In Hawkeye as a lead though seeing as they felt the need to throw Kate, Echo, Yelena and Kingpin in the mix.

Weirdly Loki although one of the more original concepts, is completely forgettable to me. It doesn't help that it has by far the least reason to exist beyond Tom Hiddleston still being popular so him coming back was contrived.


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