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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

Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#38851: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:19:18 PM

Ronan is seen bathing in cold blood and later they kill him, does that count?

edited 23rd Jul '15 12:26:37 PM by Anomalocaris20

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#38852: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:19:20 PM

The MCU shines light on the actions of the heroes all the time (with the exception of Steve, who tends to be right by default, but that's a good thing...he is the moral compass). Taking down the helicarrier is portrayed as the right action, because there is so much more in stake (never mind that Steve goes and informs the people working on them about the Hydra threat before the attack). That is above all shown in Steve himself, who has to fight Bucky until the last microchip is inserted because the life of all the targets have to get rescued first, and only after he fulfilled his mission he allows Bucky to beat him up because at this point, it is only his own life on the line.

In Age of Ultron, there isn't a lot time to dwell on Tony's actions, but there is no doubt left that he acted rash and irresponsible. Even before he creates Ultron the movie clarifies that his actions wouldn't be approved by other avengers. I am actually more concerned that the movie never addresses Bruce's culpability in all this (aside from one throw-away line), but that's what it is. And Wanda...well, she gets the "heroic sacrifice which she survives" redemption. (Never mind that she pays a high price for what she did).

Ant-Man actually addresses the theme of morality, too. During the whole movie, Hank is pretty much portrayed as a hypocrite. A well-meaning one, but he is not the moral compass of the movie. Hope is. Hank is the guy who first lectures a thief about changing his ways and then sends him stealing. He is the guy who knows what is at stake if Cross sells this technology, and yet he isn't ready to brief the person who has the best chance to stop him, simply because he would rather allow the world to fall in chaos than loosing his daughter. It is not like his actions aren't understandable, but as much as Hank scoffs over Tony creating Ultron, he created his own monster, too, in Cross. He also doesn't really care. He has a bunch of ants which he uses however he pleases, but he only gives them numbers. Scott on the other hand gives them names and does care if they die or not. In my eyes, the movie doesn't portray Hank as a Myagi-like mentor figure. He is not meant to be one. He is meant to be the flawed mentor who delivers his knowledge to the next generation which hopefully will do better with it.

Wackd Since: May, 2009
#38853: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:22:42 PM

I mean, those ants are only gonna last a few months at best. Probably best not to name them.

I'm with you on the rest, though.

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
spashthebandragon thebandragoness from USA Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
thebandragoness
#38854: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:29:54 PM

Yeah, I thought the fact that Hank numbered his ants instead of naming them was so he wouldn't get attached, considering how often they die. Which makes since considering he lost his wife and probably couldn't emotionally handle losing loyal pets on a constant basis.

edited 23rd Jul '15 12:30:16 PM by spashthebandragon

I've got fanfics for Frozen, Spectacular Spider-Man, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon.
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#38855: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:31:43 PM

I totally agreed with Hank on not naming them. Like, maybe in special cases, sure. Scott had Ant-ony who was the one ant he always rides, but even Scott wasn't able to come up with an entire hive's worth of names.

I mean, it's just pragmatic. A colony has thousands, sometimes even millions of ants. I dare you to come up with 10 million individual names and remember which ant each one applies to.

A few key ants, maybe, but a whole colony? Who has time for that?

edited 23rd Jul '15 12:32:09 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!)
#38856: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:34:18 PM

Oh, on the subject of ants, I've been meaning to ask.

The swarm that rushes into the final battle on Cassie's toy table were all bullet ants, right? Or were there ants besides the four (Crazy, red, bullet, carpenter) that we're introduced to?

I wonder if getting bitten by that one that got super-sized would be even more painful than normal. Cassie better be careful with it.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
xbimpy Since: Jul, 2015
#38857: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:35:00 PM

Star Lord killing random people would not give him meaningful flaws. That would just be senseless dark and edgy. The meaningful flaws come from everyone's personality rather than their course of actions taken. Scale (amount of things accomplished) vs content (who the person is). Why they do it matters more. Motivations, wants, and needs that all conflict with each other. Anyway if you make how more extreme it would lessen the idealism this verse thrives on

edited 23rd Jul '15 12:36:20 PM by xbimpy

TenebrousGaze Dark Eye from A Shaded Face Since: Sep, 2013 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
Dark Eye
#38858: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:35:50 PM

[up][up][up]Yeah, it was kind of excusable for a singular one (it did give him extra incentive to practice flying him I guess) but they're weak, short-lived and plentiful so the numbering makes more sense as a rule.

edited 23rd Jul '15 12:36:39 PM by TenebrousGaze

spashthebandragon thebandragoness from USA Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
thebandragoness
#38859: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:38:08 PM

It's always weird for me to see Ant-Man get so attached to his ants when he's basically hijacking their nervous system and forcing them to do what he wants. If ants have any capacity to feel terror, they must be terrified every time he controls them.

Scott: "Come on, Ant-tony, let's go fight some bad guys! Wheeeee!"

Ant-tony: "Oh god what's happening to my body someone heeeeeeeeeeeeelp!"

edited 23rd Jul '15 12:38:38 PM by spashthebandragon

I've got fanfics for Frozen, Spectacular Spider-Man, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon.
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#38860: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:44:16 PM

They're drones. Functioning as an extension of someone else's body is what they exist to do.

Ant-Man is basically the hive queen.

edited 23rd Jul '15 12:44:37 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!)
#38861: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:44:40 PM

[up][up]He isn't hijacking their nervous systems, he's communicating with them via signals.

As for why they obey his commands, the implication is that he's using the same communication method other ants use to relay orders and objectives (i.e. "Go over there, we found food"). It's not entirely accurate, ants are more individualistic than that and certainly couldn't comprehend complex orders, but that's how the movie works.

[up][nja]

edited 23rd Jul '15 12:44:56 PM by Anomalocaris20

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
#38862: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:47:33 PM

Pym actually mentions in the movie that ants can't pull off complex orders without someone in the field.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#38864: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:48:18 PM

You at least need to watch Winter Soldier to understand what the heck's going on within the first few minutes.

The opening conflict is just "Avengers versus Hydra". The fall of SHIELD is recapped few times in the film, enough that many of my friends who hadn't seen Winter Soldier understood it fine.

Victin Since: Dec, 2011
#38865: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:50:48 PM

Hank explicitly says that Darren has become too much like himself. I wonder if Hank would go too far, like Darren did, or if he already did but luckily didn't harm anyone in the process.

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#38866: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:51:33 PM

Strictly speaking you wouldn't know what Hydra is without the Captain America movies but I think the story does a good enough job establishing the fact that they're an evil terrorist organization.

Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#38867: Jul 23rd 2015 at 12:52:19 PM

I imagine Hank caught himself and that's part of why he retired his Ant-Man persona. Cross had no intention of getting off nor any degree of self-awareness (Or if he did, he didn't care).

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#38868: Jul 23rd 2015 at 1:32:46 PM

I mean, yeah, the heroes all have flaws. But they're flaws that don't actually prevent them from being heroic as far as the narrative is concerned. Got G is a good example. We never see Rocket or Star-Lord do anything really unsympathetic, like, say, killing a guy in cold blood or something.

Yeah, I don't think "killing a guy in cold blood" is the type of flaw I'm talking about. But we do see Drax nearly kill Gamora. And then Drax and Rocket get drunk and get into a fight on Knowhere. And then Drax drunk dials Ronan, which basically means that Drax is the reason he gets the Infinity Stone in the first place.

Oh yeah, the Guardians of the Galaxy have a ton of flaws. In fact, Drax fully realizes his flaws...and then continues with them anyway at the end of the movie! He says that he chooses to mask his grief with anger and apologizes to Rocket and Groot...and then at the end of the movie, he says that Ronan was just a pawn of Thanos and that it's Thanos he needs to kill (getting a sigh from Gamora). Because he's still using anger to cover his grief.

Rocket has flaws from thinking everyone else is mocking him; Star-Lord has emotional issues concerning intimacy (stemming from the fact that he couldn't hold his mother's hand while she died). The only ones really presented without flaws are Gamora (she was already trying to do the right thing) and Groot (he is always awesome).

Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#38869: Jul 23rd 2015 at 1:46:58 PM

I love that we all refer to that as Drax drunk-dialing Ronan now. tongue

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
spashthebandragon thebandragoness from USA Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
thebandragoness
#38870: Jul 23rd 2015 at 1:49:57 PM

[up][up]Okay, I think this debate's drifting a little too far from the actual point. When I say "flaws," I mean flaws that actually make them unlikable. This all started because people were complaining Hank Pym is a bad person or something.

edited 23rd Jul '15 1:50:07 PM by spashthebandragon

I've got fanfics for Frozen, Spectacular Spider-Man, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon.
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#38871: Jul 23rd 2015 at 1:53:33 PM

Why should they want to make their heroes unlikable? (Though Hank Pym isn't the hero of Ant-man....Scott is)

alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#38872: Jul 23rd 2015 at 1:56:10 PM

[up][up]So your problem is that nobody is completely and utterly unlikable?

...huh? I mean, yeah, I understand that. None of the heroes are unlikable. You like them, flaws and all, even when they make mistakes and screw up. But that's...sort of the point. They are flawed people, but not irredeemable.

I mean, I'm pretty sure none of the main characters in Suicide Squad are going to be unlikable either. We are going to like them, even if they are darker than the Marvel characters. (I'm not talking about the Joker here, because he's not one of the protagonist. He is, clearly, an antagonist.) I mean, we even see Deadshot hugging his daughter. He's clearly likable even though he's an anti-hero.

So I'm not sure what the complaint here is actually.

edited 23rd Jul '15 1:56:24 PM by alliterator

spashthebandragon thebandragoness from USA Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
thebandragoness
#38873: Jul 23rd 2015 at 2:02:07 PM

Here, just let me go get my old post for you:

I honestly have no idea why people are even bothering to discuss this. There's no such thing as moral ambiguity in the MCU movies. The good guys are good and the bad guys are bad. The writers obviously don't want you to ever think Hank Pym or Captain America or even Star-Lord are bad people. If you ever interpret events in such a way that makes the heroes look completely unsympathetic, you're not doing what the writers intended, which means for the purposes of the greater narrative, you're just wrong.

Captain America jumped on a grenade. That was the writers' way of showing the audience that Cap is Incorruptible Pure Pureness who will be a good guy forever. Darren Cross turned people into goo at the slightest provocation. That's the writers' way of showing he's a Card-Carrying Villain who wakes up every morning and puts evil cream in his evil coffee while he plots how to destroy the world.

Now, is this dynamic a bad thing? No. I actually think it's incredibly entertaining, like Marvel decided to film a bunch of super high quality Saturday morning cartoons. But it doesn't lend itself to a great deal of character depth. A MCU movie's never, ever, ever going to make me think or change my greater perspective on the world. And on the rare occassion that the movie tries to make me think like Age of Ultron did, it just turns into a trainwreck since there's not enough time for an adequate discussion of the worth of humanity in a movie about superheroes bashing in an army of robots.

MCU movies are the potato chips of cinema. And, again, that's not a bad thing, but it makes these arguments about whether Hank Pym is a good or a bad guy really, really tedious. Yes, Hank Pym is a good guy, end of story. Unless the writers ever decide to have him kill an innocent puppy or something, in which case, then he'll be a bad guy.

Heck, I wouldn't bat an eyelash if Civil War ends with Tony realizing he's wrong, and then he high-fives Cap so they can team up for Infinity War, because Robert Downy Jr just makes way too much money to not be in that movie, so he obviously can't do anything that evil in Civil War.

(Also, note that I specified movies. The Daredevil TV show got pretty darn morally ambiguous. But what works for a Daredevil TV show doesn't necessarily work for Ant-Man or any other hugely popular mainstream Marvel movie.)

edited 23rd Jul '15 2:02:54 PM by spashthebandragon

I've got fanfics for Frozen, Spectacular Spider-Man, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon.
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#38874: Jul 23rd 2015 at 2:05:11 PM

Right, but you seem to be changing the goal posts now. That post was about "moral ambiguity."

"There's no such thing as moral ambiguity in the MCU movies."

When I went and refuted that and provided some examples, you changed it to "unsympathetic" and when I provided examples of that you said "unlikable."

Let me put it a different way: moral ambiguity does not equal unlikable.

For instance: it's clear that Matt Murdock being Daredevil is morally ambiguous. But he still remains completely likable.

edited 23rd Jul '15 2:06:15 PM by alliterator

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#38875: Jul 23rd 2015 at 2:05:57 PM

I don't see why the heroes have to be unlikable to make a point of moral ambiguity. First rule of cinema is that the audience has to like the protagonist on one level or another.


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