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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

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#34001: May 13th 2015 at 8:34:15 PM

In this instance they're on the money, imo, though I suppose you could spin it as them echoing what fans have been saying for a while.

vandro Shop Owner from The little shop that wasn't Since: Jul, 2009
Shop Owner
#34002: May 13th 2015 at 8:39:26 PM

the article was praising marvel tv properties...

dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
#34003: May 13th 2015 at 8:53:02 PM

Random thought.

I really would like to see a super hero movie, where the super hero gets power and...decides to go "fuck yeah!" and go totally Deadpool on the world.

Continuously reading, studying, and (hopefully) growing.
Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#34004: May 13th 2015 at 8:53:33 PM

Stay tuned for the Deadpool movie then.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
#34005: May 13th 2015 at 8:54:19 PM

I'm getting rather tired of this whole "Great power yadda yadda" thing.

Continuously reading, studying, and (hopefully) growing.
Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#34006: May 13th 2015 at 8:57:48 PM

I understand that Hancock was about a superhero who used his powers selfishly and was generally kind of a dick.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#34007: May 13th 2015 at 9:10:12 PM

"With great power comes...a ton of weird crap you're not prepared to deal with."

higherbrainpattern Since: Apr, 2012
#34008: May 13th 2015 at 9:10:53 PM

[up] I love that quote so much. Oh, Skye. [lol]

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#34009: May 13th 2015 at 9:11:27 PM

That line came back to bite her pretty hard in the second season.

edited 13th May '15 9:11:41 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#34010: May 13th 2015 at 9:32:47 PM

They're absolutely right about Marvel's villain problem, although I don't understand the constant praise for Loki when IMO he works much better as an Anti-Hero or Anti-Villain figure, and the one time he was the villain proper he had the same problems all the other "bad" Marvel antagonists like Ronan and Malekith did except for not dying.

Also they seem to be under the impression that Bucky will be a recurring villain figure in the same vein as Loki or Eddie Brock Venom, and if anything he's got more in common with Fiora from Xenoblade (and nobody would regard them that way). This seems to be a recurring thing with write-ups about the character, and I'm guessing it can be excused by a lot of these people not reading the comics and knowing what happens to him there, but even so, his own movie made it pretty clear what his deal is.

edited 13th May '15 9:36:51 PM by AlleyOop

HisInfernalMajesty Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
#34011: May 13th 2015 at 9:37:00 PM

Loki was pretty fleshed out in the first Thor movie compared to the other villains before him. YMMV on whether he was as detailed as the article makes him out to be, but he was pretty much the Tritagonist of the first movie, and got all of the characterization that would imply.

But I'm a biased fanboy when it comes to the Thor movies so I dunno.

Edit: Though in Avengers, yeah. He had the same problems as everyone else.

edited 13th May '15 9:37:32 PM by HisInfernalMajesty

"A king has no friends. Only subjects and enemies."
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#34012: May 13th 2015 at 9:52:32 PM

At least Avengers Loki has the excuse of being manipulated by Thanos through the Mind Stone. AOU practically confirms this.

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#34013: May 13th 2015 at 10:38:10 PM

Does anyone know where these are from? Or if they're real? They may be edited, or may be not. Would explain that one shot of Steve kicking down the door in Strucker's castle that wasn't in the movie.

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#34014: May 13th 2015 at 10:46:32 PM

Sounds like something a Stucky shipper might've made up. A lot of them are really bitter about AOU and its exclusion of Bucky, some of it justified and some of it not so much.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#34015: May 14th 2015 at 1:42:04 AM

It is too bad that Agent Carter didn't join the fun and went for hacking of legs instead of hands....

Either way, screenrant is basically click-bait, and I totally disagree that Marvel even has a "villain problem" to begin with. They had eleven movies. In three of the eleven movies the villain was the main problem (Iron Man 2 and 3, and especially Thor 2). In two movies Loki was the main villain, and I think we can agree that he is a good one, in one it was Alexander Pierce who was pitch-perfect and I haven't read that many complain about Ultron yet, so I put him on the "mostly liked" pile. That leaves four movies, and I don't think that in either of those the villain is awful. Two of them have a "the villain worked fine until the last act"-problem (Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk), and I have actually zero complains about Red Skull or Ronan. They both work perfectly for the kind of movie they are in.

So no, Marvel has no villain problem, they have only three movies in which the villain didn't work at all. (And they have actually a bunch of compelling villains in the TV-shows). The only problem Marvel has is that everyone wants them to do a version of Loki in every movie, some sort of super-layered and perhaps even slightly sympathetic villain. But that's not what Marvel need. Marvel movies are about the heroes, not the villains. The heroes are interesting enough and the only reason Loki is, well, Loki, is because of the emotional pain he causes Thor.

edited 14th May '15 2:52:34 AM by Swanpride

Ninety Absolutely no relation to NLK from Land of Quakes and Hills Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: In Spades with myself
Absolutely no relation to NLK
#34016: May 14th 2015 at 4:50:11 AM

The first half of Hancock was a fun concept. Shame it wasn't on speaking terms with the second.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#34018: May 14th 2015 at 6:57:52 AM

Bucky wasn't excluded from Age of Ultron. He wasn't present for the film, because he's still an unresolved loose end out wandering the world, but Sam mentions him during the Revels while he and Steve are discussing the battle. Something to the effect of, "You've got your Avengers thing, I'm perfectly happy working on our Missing Persons case."

The implication was that Sam was doing the heavy lifting of trying to find Bucky while Cap was busy tearing down Hydra bases with the Avengers.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Archivist10 Oh for God's sake! Since: Jan, 2013
Oh for God's sake!
#34019: May 14th 2015 at 9:13:51 AM

In fairness, the MCU has been better at handling some of the archenemies by setting them up for possible returns like the Red Skull, or hopefully a proper Mandarin, Loki having a good presence in the franchise, or even the possibility of Ultron coming back (Whedon is a former comic book righter IIRC, giving ambiguous deaths is kinda in the job prescription.)

Also, I've stated to friends that since MCU can't user Doctor Doom, they should use Red Skull as a counterpart for the role of human Big Bad.

Ironically the X-men films have been the best at handling villains or Anti-Villain or Anti-Hero or whatever Magneto is at the time.

edited 14th May '15 9:15:18 AM by Archivist10

Whowho Since: May, 2012
#34020: May 14th 2015 at 9:15:32 AM

I'd appreciate an MCU Falcon comic story looking at Sam's attempts to locate Bucky; because I'm at a loss as to how that would go down and I'd like to see.

A one shot would also work, but, when was the last time we got one of those?

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#34021: May 14th 2015 at 9:16:17 AM

I want to imagine Sam putting up missing person posters

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#34022: May 14th 2015 at 9:27:43 AM

The X-Men films, unfortunately, tend to go back to Magneto as the villain no matter what. Even in films where he wasn't the main villain, he turns out to be the final villain. Hopefully, Apocalypse will rectify this.

Honestly, I don't see Red Skull working as a good recurring villain - Crossbones and possibly Sin, yes, but the actual Red Skull is too cartoonishly evil.

I do wish that in Ragnarok, they will introduce the Enchantress and Skurge the Executioner, two of the best Thor villains. Enchantress is a villain that I can totally see as recurring, Loki-like while still being new. (Plus, Skurge has one of the best Death Equals Redemption stories ever.)

edited 14th May '15 9:28:27 AM by alliterator

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#34023: May 14th 2015 at 9:38:58 AM

Set pics of Mackie, Evans and VanCamp at the funeral. Yeah I definitely am thinking it's Peggy.

Oh, and some of their writers also take constant potshots at MCU stuff like Agents of Shield and Agent Carter.

...They're praising the shows here though. They admit for all their faults, Dottie and Grant Ward are probably better handled and developed than 90 percent of the Marvel movie villains.

edited 14th May '15 9:40:26 AM by comicwriter

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#34024: May 14th 2015 at 9:45:00 AM

I guess having the running time of a tv show lets a character be more fleshed out. That's so crazy.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Galadriel Since: Feb, 2015
#34025: May 14th 2015 at 9:47:44 AM

Marvel's villains are not terrible, but they're consistently flat and mediocre, with the sole exception being Loki (and his status as an exception is disputed by some people here). Winter Soldier was effective, but less because of the individual personalities of the villains and more because of the nature of HYDRA and what it represented (that SHIELD has very seriously headed in the wrong direction, and that you need to look at the actions of the people you're working for and consider whether your side might me the bad guys; that Nick Fury's "security through power" strategy was wrong).

It stands out in comparison to the other comic book franchises who have had some very compelling villains. The best are Magneto, both Mc Kellan's version and Fassbender's version, in the X-Men moves; the Joker in The Dark Knight. Even ones who don't quite reach that level still have a lot of on-screen presence, strong acting, and/or character development: Stryker in X2; Doc Ock or the Lizard in the Spider-Man films; R'as al Ghul in Batman Begins. Ozymandias in Watchmen is another good one. Compared to any of these, the typical Marvel villain is one-dimensional and uninteresting.

The villains don't ruin the Marvel movies, but they've had almost a dozen films by now and they haven't produced any iconic villains, and they've had a lot of very flat, presence-less ones. So yes, it is a problem, and it holds the movies back from being great.

Marvel's best villain thus far is Wilson Fisk in Daredevil. Cal in Agents Of Shield has been pretty great too. Why? Because they've acted well and are fully fleshed-out characters rather than just templates with goals of "World domination!" or "Revenge!" But the strength of the villains in other comic book movies shows that it's not the medium that is holding Marvel back; it's the writing.

edited 14th May '15 9:51:41 AM by Galadriel


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