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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.

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    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

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#28851: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:00:19 PM

[up][up] Two reasons.

1) Tony fished the college bots out of property he actually owns. Getting his property back from under the oil rig he was trespassing on is a stickier wicket, especially since he can't just circumvent legal procedure and go down in his Iron Man suit to get it because he blew up all his suits.

2) Even in the best case scenario, given how high the suits were and how violently they exploded, finding all the pieces would be incredibly difficult for anyone. There's going to be Iron Man debris scattered far and wide on and around the oil rig.

And on that note, there's also that one Iron Man, Igor, holding up the oil rig that either never self-destructed, or DID self-destruct and then the oil rig collapsed offscreen. We never found out what happened to that one.

edited 8th Mar '15 2:03:20 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Wackd Since: May, 2009
#28852: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:02:29 PM

[up]So your argument is that these pieces exploded on private property and are incredibly difficult to retrieve without an Iron Man suit, to say nothing of the improbability of finding all the pieces, and that therefore it is criminally irresponsible of Tony to have detonated them because other people could easily use these irretrievable, desperate pieces to build an Iron Man suit?

I mean, granted, this all sounds like an ecological nightmare, but that hasn't been a point you made.

edited 8th Mar '15 2:05:22 PM by Wackd

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#28853: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:03:09 PM

I find it amusing how divisive, especially 3, the Iron Man trilogy is.

I like all three, personally, but recognize that 2 has some serious issues. I still wouldn't consider it "bad" though.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#28854: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:04:22 PM

I'm just going to assume that the self-destruct is based on the arc reactor blowing up into teeny shrapnel and so the fragments mostly don't matter.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#28855: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:06:20 PM

[up][up][up] You're oversimplifying. My argument is that Tony peppered the area with pieces of extremely dangerous technology he dedicated an entire movie to keeping out of criminal hands, in such a fashion that it would be difficult to retrieve any part of that technology outside of criminal means, and even a single part of said technology would have tremendous benefits to anyone attempting to do what Stark dedicated an entire movie to other people not being able to do: building their own Iron Man.

For Stark's objectives to succeed, he would need to reclaim 100% of all Iron Man tech in and around the rig.

For people who want to build an Iron Man to succeed, they just need to find enough pieces of the 35+ suits to reverse-engineer the technology from.

Thus, detonating all of his suits in midair over property he does not own was extremely stupid of Stark and counterproductive to everything he spent the first and second movies on. Best case scenario, the military confiscates as much of it as they can find, which allows Stark to equal out at 0 because they already have an Iron Man.

edited 8th Mar '15 2:08:55 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
MousaThe14 Writer, Artist, Ignored from Northern Virginia Since: Jan, 2011 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
Writer, Artist, Ignored
#28856: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:07:17 PM

I'm still amazed IM 3 is so divisive, I mean different opinions I get, but the fact that some see it to be as awful or worse than IM 2? Surprising.

The Blog The Art
Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#28857: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:08:55 PM

War Machine/Iron Patriot being left in the government's hands show he isn't too concerned. He seems convinced that only he could build a working arc reactor even with a working model. Fragments are going to be so far removed from anything he is worried about.

And again assuming that the self-destruct wasn't specifically designed to thoroughly blow up the parts of the suits he doesn't want people to have.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#28858: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:09:35 PM

[up][up] The Mandarin twist I presume is the basis for a lot of it, and I knew that some people were going to hate it from the moment I saw it.

edited 8th Mar '15 2:13:39 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Oh God! Natural light!
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#28859: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:10:44 PM

Yeah, and if he's lucky, the military will be the ones who confiscate it and not Insert Private or Criminal Group here.

"News of the hour! Hammer Industries buys random oil rig!"

The best case scenario of this is that all Stark did was burn billions of dollars of equipment for no good reason.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#28860: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:11:56 PM

Grand romantic gesture plus fireworks is a great reason when you have more money than sense.

Plus, it doesn't take a huge leap of logic to think that SHIELD or the military is going to crime scene that whole refinery considering that it was almost the scene of an assassination. I mean, seriously.

edited 8th Mar '15 2:13:01 PM by Bocaj

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Ekuran Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
#28861: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:12:21 PM

Pretty sure they're not that expensive.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#28862: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:12:36 PM

For me all the stuff related the shield is the saving grace of movie 2 for me...to be honest, I think I would have been perfectly satisfied to watch a movie in which Shield actually does manage to imprison Tony in his own home while he figures out a cure, while the threat of Vanko is slowly looming over it and building up in the background. It would have been fun to see Coulson keeping Tony in the house like an unruly child. But I guess they needed all the explosions inbetween, and Tony pissing into his suit....

Sáme with Iron Man 3...the thing everyone is complaining about, the Mandarin twist, is the one thing I actually like about the movie, aside from Tony actually investigating something for a change. But I don't like the true villain or his motivation, I don't like that they just had to add a child in there (the only good thing one can say about that is that the child is at least not too annoying) instead of, you know, creating a movie in which Pepper and Tony are working together on Tony's issue for a change (isn't that the point of being in a relationship?) I hate that Pepper gets kidnapped (and put in a bra), and I especially hate the removal of the arc reactor.

The action scenes...the one with the Skye jumpers is great, everything else is too long and too drawn out for my taste.

edited 8th Mar '15 2:12:56 PM by Swanpride

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#28863: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:15:56 PM

Of course they're going to crime scene the refinery and collect any pieces that landed there and probably Igor, assuming Jarvis wasn't stupid enough to blow that one and collapse the refinery after Stark short-sightedly told him to blow all the suits.

It's the water around the refinery that's the problem.

edited 8th Mar '15 2:18:43 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Mukora Uniocular from a place Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Uniocular
#28864: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:17:08 PM

I love Iron Man 1, 2 is good, but not the best, and 3 is my favourite in the series.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."
LordofLore Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Consider his love an honor
#28865: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:17:37 PM

Chances of the remaing Guardians showing up in 2 from the top to bottom:

  1. Adam Warlock: We've seen his cocoon and those who know the comics should know that having Warlock means that Magus is probably going to happen at some point and since Adam played a part in both Infinity Gauntlet and Infinity War...
  2. Phyla-Vell: Connection to a major Marvel classic hero, a chance to show that all who comes from Hala aren't bad(I don't think they are going to have White Kree in the MCU btw), lesbian, well liked character from the Guardians and one of it's primary founders along with Nova, Peter and Adam.
  3. Moondragon: Will probably not be Drax's real daughter in the MCU but she has major connections in the comics to the Avengers, Thanos, the Guardians and is one of the few Marvel characters that is openly bi.
  4. Mantis: Now an alien. Nothing more needs to be done to change her for the MCU.
  5. Major Victory: If they are dealing with the time gem they can still have him as coming from the future.
  6. Cosmo: Would probably have talked in the first one if he was going to be a major player in the second.
  7. Jack Flag: No humans because Quill has to be special(which was part of Gunn's reasoning for why Nova wouldn't show up in a movie by him along with thinking the helmets are stupid)!
  8. Angela: Sorry, but I don't think the MCU is going to crossover Guardians with Thor this early. A movie with Angela pretty much has to focus on her past as the older sister of Thor and Loki that was thought killed centuries ago. It's still somewhat likely since the Asgardians are aliens in this verse so the Guardians might run into them along the way. Still makes more sense to introduce her in a Thor movie and then have her leave for space to think.

As for the Future Guardians I think Nikki could show up and/or Starhawk is Quill's father.

edited 8th Mar '15 2:18:35 PM by LordofLore

Khfan429 Since: Aug, 2009
#28866: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:19:36 PM

I don't mind the twist in theory. On the face of it, having Ben Kingsley play this ominous, menacing terrorist figure only for it to turn out he's a puppet is absolutely brilliant.

But the movie falls completely flat with its true villain, who is bland, uninteresting, petty, and boring to listen to. His connections to Tony are tenuous at best, completely overriding the movie's opening statement that "We create our own demons" (really, if Tony's prank pushed him over the edge, it was only a matter of time before he concocted this cuckoo scheme anyways), and his obsession with Pepper seems forced and shoehorned because we're only told of their previous connection with a throwaway line here and there.

Iron Man 3 gets under my skin because it completely wasted the Mandarin name and image. They tried to get the best of both world, but Killian fails so hard as an interesting character that it all rings hollow.

Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#28867: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:22:52 PM

Iron Man 3 is a lot funnier if you replace every instance of "The Mandarin" with "The Mandarin orange".

It becomes about Tony Stark's adventure to buy produce from a grocery store.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Mukora Uniocular from a place Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Uniocular
#28868: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:24:06 PM

Having read about the Mandarin, but admittedly never really read anyhing with him in it, I'm kinda glad they "wasted" his name and image.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#28869: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:25:53 PM

You know, I can agree with Killian not really fitting the "create our own demons" theme. If anything, Iron Man 2 played that theme better, as everything that happened was a product of Tony creating the Iron Man.

I really liked Killian, but his connection to Tony and Pepper was nebulous at best, and his character actually would have fared better for that element to be excised completely; because then, it wouldn't distract from his actual gameplan and result in the popular Alternate Character Interpretation for people hating on the film that he was just doing it to spite Tony.

Killian, in my opinion, was a fantastic Mandarin; he had the megalomania, the social Darwinism, the manipulative cunning, even the Mandarin's propensity for putting other faces before his own and only revealing himself when forced to. His use of Extremis was a perfect embodiment of the Mandarin's philosophy that the strong rise and the weak die, and the scene of him firebreathing as well as his Rasputinian Death gave him an opportunity to demonstrate how he is the strongest of them all, exhibiting superpowers and a level of durability that far exceeds the other Extremis users.

It was the attempts at being Killian that weakened his character.

edited 8th Mar '15 2:30:16 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#28870: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:29:34 PM

I thought it was pretty obvious that his plan was independent of his grudge against Tony. Taking Pepper and using her as leverage to get Tony's help was practical, since they needed him to fix Extremis. The fact that he gets to rub Tony's nose in it is just a fringe benefit.

Vanko, meanwhile, is motivated solely by his hate-on for the Starks, which is made quite clear in the scene where Tony talks to him in prison and asks why he didn't go sell his design.

edited 8th Mar '15 2:31:44 PM by Anomalocaris20

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Khfan429 Since: Aug, 2009
#28871: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:30:11 PM

Personally, I would have preferred Maya be the true villain and the one behind everything. It would have taken some adjustments to the backstory, but I think it would have fit the theme of the movie quite a bit better. And given Tony another adversary on his intellectual level, as Killian's intelligence felt like a serious case of Informed Ability.

Also I would have thrown in the alien-tech rings, give the Iron Legion some serious competition.

edited 8th Mar '15 2:31:27 PM by Khfan429

Wackd Since: May, 2009
#28872: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:31:28 PM

Moondragon: Will probably not be Drax's real daughter in the MCU but she has major connections in the comics to the Avengers, Thanos, the Guardians and is one of the few Marvel characters that is openly bi.
I mean this is pretty much the reason why I want her to be in it. I do not like having another Tough Guy Taking Revenge for Dead Women in fiction. I certainly don't like that trope having cropped up in an otherwise fun Marvel movie.

Cosmo: Would probably have talked in the first one if he was going to be a major player in the second.
I swear to god if he isn't voiced by Walter Koenig...

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
LordofLore Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Consider his love an honor
#28873: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:31:37 PM

[up][up]That was the original story's big reveal(Killian didn't give the terrorists Extremis alone before killing himself because Maya planned it all to get a defense contract after the military got the chance to see what Extremis can do in action) and one of the scrapped scripts for IM 3.

Killian should have been Ezekiel Stane.

edited 8th Mar '15 2:35:38 PM by LordofLore

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#28874: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:35:20 PM

The Mandarin twist was fine, it was after that when the films gave me some problems.

edited 8th Mar '15 2:48:45 PM by VeryMelon

LordofLore Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Consider his love an honor
#28875: Mar 8th 2015 at 2:48:08 PM

Actually now that I think about it, IM 3 should have been an adaption of The Five Nightmares arc of Invincible Iron Man by Fraction.

  • Tony's past comes back to haunt him.
  • A.I.M(or rather A.G.M) plays a big part.
  • The villain is better than Tony when it comes to improve on old designs(like Extremis).
  • If Tony hadn't beaten Stane to the point that he killed himself years ago his son wouldn't have even cared about Tony.
  • Pepper is wounded in a terrorist attack and later gets her own suit.


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