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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

unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#49876: Jan 20th 2016 at 10:59:25 PM

I know is a little latte but in my case I have a good reason to not want Rhoedes death: it will make the conflict to personal.

I mean, for a lot of time I have mock how thick Steven and Tony ho yay are in the comics(lets face, the whole thing looks like a nasty break out between those two) so having Warmachine dying would just up the drama and reduce the conflict into "Cap chose Bucky as his best pal instead of Tony and them kill his BBF making him really mad"...ughh.

Now if they decide to go with that scene anyway, maybe Rhoedes would be injured in the fight and That will convinced Tony that Bucky is to dangerous(after all he was a member of HYDRA) and that Steve is just to blind to see it, that way the drama is preserved without the soap-opera aspect.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#49877: Jan 21st 2016 at 12:10:26 AM

So...the storyline Mike got would have been okay for a white guy, but is not appropriate for a black one?

I am beginning to think that it's not casting which needs to think more colour blind....

BTW, I kind of liked that Sousa used the term "coloured"...it is a nice reminder that this used to be the polite term. Shows how stupid it actually is to police language. It is never about the word used, it is always about the intended meaning behind it.

edited 21st Jan '16 12:12:38 AM by Swanpride

Wackd Since: May, 2009
#49878: Jan 21st 2016 at 12:21:30 AM

Oh, shit, I forgot pointing out racism is the same as being racist. Whoops. I'll try to stop noticing things.

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#49879: Jan 21st 2016 at 1:12:28 AM

[up] Getting passive-aggressively snippy at people, especially people who don't have English as their first language, probably isn't the best way to get them to understand your point.

[up][up] His point is, with the plot-significant white characters, there are enough of them across the MCU to cover a broad spectrum of storytelling tropes, so for any particular one among them to be a repeat is not a problem, as there's only so many kinds of stories one can tell.

Whereas with the smaller pool of black characters, the chances of them each having a storyline that's unique with respect to each other should be much higher, assuming statistically nonbiased random sampling. But instead it seems like most of their storylines are generally recycled from the same base, to the point that it feels like a Cliché Storm with respect to the internal tropes of the MCU.

Like there's a double standard when it comes to the amount of effort put into the thought behind the storylines of white characters versus black characters. It's not racist at all to want a higher standard of quality in your entertainment in the form of more originality in writing.

I hope that makes sense and that I interpreted what Wack'd was trying to get at properly.

edited 21st Jan '16 6:01:48 AM by AlleyOop

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#49880: Jan 21st 2016 at 3:25:02 AM

[up]M Mm...Okay, that makes more sense. I disagree, though. Mike Peterson is a subversion of the hero trope. Trip is a straightforward hero story. Not a particularly well-told one, but he is supposed to be a symbol of what Shield should be. Mack's story is about the constant sceptic, who actually doesn't like the world in which he ended up, but he keeps trying to do the right thing und therefore becomes the rock of the team. Dr. Wilkes story is a commentary about the way black people where treated in the 1940s. Dr. Garner stands for the good person who is overcome by his dark side. And Luke Cage, well, in Jessica Jones he had the role of the love interest, we will have to wait what will happen when he leads his own show.

Those are all different angles. The only think they have in common is that they suffer at one point or another. But that is true for ALL the characters. Sousa lost a leg. Peggy has always to struggle with sexism and with her grief over loosing Steve. May started out as a traumatized character and spend two seasons to get over the trauma, just to experience a new one due to Andrews fate. Daisy grew up an orphan who discovered that her parents both went crazy, discovered that the guy she was in love with was Hydra and she got shot along the way. Fitz - don't get me started on Fitz. Or Coulson.

The only thing to complain about is that for a long time, none of the black characters have been main characters. Therefore they come with certain tropes typical for supporting character (meaning, they are all supportive in one way or another), But since we now get Luke Cage, this will be remedied soon.

MeetTheNewBoss I'm Ruthless. from The Same As The Old Boss Since: May, 2015 Relationship Status: Love is for the living, Sal
I'm Ruthless.
#49881: Jan 21st 2016 at 5:12:18 AM

My problem isn't that is too personal, it would make things go every dark and a good part of the audience sympathy would go to Tony. Arguments would cease to matter once someone is killed. Also, reconciliation would be impossible, or at least not believable.

You claim that God is opressing us, but I see you opressing others without needing a God.
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#49882: Jan 21st 2016 at 7:02:34 AM

I agree with that. Especially if Rhodes was killed in the crossfire between the two sides, rather than being the equivalent of Bill Foster.

If Cap was (even indirectly) responsible for Rhodes' death, the audience would (rightly) be 100% on Tony's side and it would be unrealistic for Cap and Tony to reconcile at the end of the film.

Edit- "So...the storyline Mike got would have been okay for a white guy, but is not appropriate for a black one?"

Maybe?

I was thinking about my complaints about Mike and it did strike me that subverted hero story is also done with Simpson, who is white, in Jessica Jones, and there's probably a political dimension to that as well. Granted, the audience gets to know him more before he goes off the deep end.

I kind of think the issue with Mike is because of the awkward attempt to make a (positive) political point coupled with the aspect of Mike becoming super-angry and violent and having to be shot by what likes a gun.

edited 21st Jan '16 7:07:49 AM by Hodor2

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#49883: Jan 21st 2016 at 7:28:40 AM

You guys are assuming it's Cap who'd be responsible though. War Machine could easily die due to something Iron Man did.

Whowho Since: May, 2012
#49884: Jan 21st 2016 at 7:35:58 AM

The HAMMER Teck the War Machine Suit finally gets around to killing it's user.

LordofLore Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Consider his love an honor
#49885: Jan 21st 2016 at 7:39:55 AM

"What was I thinking leaving a button marked Kill in my suit? It's old HAMMER tech, of course it wouldn't kill my target. I should've used the actual guns that didn't have any problems like this rocket launcher.".

edited 21st Jan '16 8:51:33 AM by LordofLore

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#49886: Jan 21st 2016 at 8:02:28 AM

Hammer gets a bum rap. All the other guns War Machine was shredding drones with were Hammer tech too and they worked fine. The only thing that failed was the Ex-Wife, which was described as a bunker-buster missile; it's not meant to be fired from five feet away from the target. It's meant to be kill an underground facility by collapsing the entire building.

And it's for the best that the weapon can't arm fast enough to hit a target five feet away because, had it actually gone off as it was supposed to, it probably would have killed Tony and Rhodey.

Rhodey's a military guy. You'd think he would know this, but the film needed an opportunity for Tony to make a snide comment on how shitty all of the gear that worked flawlessly at all other points of the climax is.

edited 21st Jan '16 8:04:35 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#49887: Jan 21st 2016 at 8:17:08 AM

"My problem isn't that is too personal, it would make things go every dark and a good part of the audience sympathy would go to Tony. Arguments would cease to matter once someone is killed. Also, reconciliation would be impossible, or at least not believable."

Because it would become personal: "look Cap, bucky was agent of Hydra so he can be danger- you kill rhoedes? HOW DARE YOU!" it become less a rational conflict about power and limits and go stright into a personal drama.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
Wackd Since: May, 2009
#49888: Jan 21st 2016 at 8:21:29 AM

Those are all different angles. The only think they have in common is that they suffer at one point or another. But that is true for ALL the characters. Sousa lost a leg. Peggy has always to struggle with sexism and with her grief over loosing Steve. May started out as a traumatized character and spend two seasons to get over the trauma, just to experience a new one due to Andrews fate. Daisy grew up an orphan who discovered that her parents both went crazy, discovered that the guy she was in love with was Hydra and she got shot along the way. Fitz - don't get me started on Fitz. Or Coulson.
Sousa, Daisy and May have tragic backstories, which isn't really the same thing as repeatedly suffering onscreen. I'll give you Fitz, and Coulson, but it's like what Alley Oop said—"with the plot-significant [non-black] characters, there are enough of them across the MCU to cover a broad spectrum of storytelling tropes, so for any particular one among them to be a repeat is not a problem, as there's only so many kinds of stories one can tell."

Plus, again, in all cases, that suffering is about them. So often the way black characters suffer on these shows is about the characters around them and their reactions.

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#49889: Jan 21st 2016 at 8:50:03 AM

I'm 90 percent sure War Machine gets beat up by Giant-Man or Winter Soldier. It looks like he has his Arc Reactor ripped out like Bucky is trying to do to Stark.

I doubt that'd kill him anyway but that's pretty much a non-lethal way to take him out of the fight.

My problem isn't that is too personal, it would make things go every dark and a good part of the audience sympathy would go to Tony. Arguments would cease to matter once someone is killed. Also, reconciliation would be impossible, or at least not believable.

That's the other huge thing. You have Steve or Bucky kill an Avenger, someone who wasn't doing anything wrong other than trying to uphold the law, and they instantly lose sympathy. The exact thing happened when Tony's dumb ass got Black Goliath killed.

edited 21st Jan '16 8:52:19 AM by comicwriter

kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#49890: Jan 21st 2016 at 9:26:08 AM

[up]Oh, he'd already lost most of his sympathy well before that. Black Goliath was just the final nail in the coffin. (And Space Guantanamo the Negative Zone was the funeral pyre.)

edited 21st Jan '16 9:35:10 AM by kkhohoho

LordofLore Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Consider his love an honor
LordofLore Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Consider his love an honor
#49893: Jan 21st 2016 at 9:40:21 AM

It's Civil War. All dialogue was lame and everyone were jerkasses.

Reed had like 5 excuses for why he worked with Tony and none of them were written well.

edited 21st Jan '16 9:42:39 AM by LordofLore

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#49894: Jan 21st 2016 at 9:46:11 AM

They were all basically variations of, "I did some math and the universe will explode if Tony doesn't win."

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#49895: Jan 21st 2016 at 9:47:12 AM

Sousa, who is constantly insulted by his Co-workers in the first season does not suffer? Daisy, who gets shot, learns that her father is a murderer, learns the truth about her mother not to mention the whole messed up thing with Ward does not suffer? May, who was just so close to finding happiness again just to see it ripped away from her in the worst way possible, doesn't suffer? In which reality?

I think if war machine died without either side being truly responsible for it (or both feeling guilty about it) would be a true gut punch.

LordofLore Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Consider his love an honor
#49896: Jan 21st 2016 at 9:50:37 AM

[up][up]And that story to Spidey about a communist uncle(?) who killed himself(?).

(JMS did his best with the Civil War tie-ins but he was clearly not writing the non-Spider-Man characters like they were in the main event book)

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#49897: Jan 21st 2016 at 9:54:45 AM

Everything about Bill Foster's death was horrible and ill-conceived, both in and out of universe. The storyline tries to treat him as just another C-List Fodder death in a major crisis and have everybody move on after he dies, downplaying the fact that Tony unleashed an unstable superweapon on his friends and longtime allies which eventually murdered one of them.

It should've been the turning point of the entire storyline, the point where everyone realized how far it escalated and the beginning of things going to a head. Instead... yeah. It's treated as just another crisis shock value death. Everybody goes "mmm, yeah, it's a shame" and then forgets about him.

edited 21st Jan '16 9:56:04 AM by KnownUnknown

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#49898: Jan 21st 2016 at 10:08:03 AM

[up][up][up][up][up]The best was him saying that you have to obey the law no matter how unjust it is, because of an anecdote about how he had an uncle who was a writer who had his career destroyed for speaking out against Joe Mccarthy.

Aside from that timeline not making even a lick of sense (Reed is old enough that he remembers a childhood in the late 40's/early 50's???), it's an incredibly cowardly stance. Thank God Martin Luther King also gave up on Civil Rights because discrimination was technically the law!

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#49899: Jan 21st 2016 at 10:11:48 AM

Imo, Reed came out of Civil War looking even worse than Tony. Not even the rewrite they did for Ultimate Alliance, which improved almost everyone else in some way or another, made him look any better.

Zeromaeus Since: May, 2010
#49900: Jan 21st 2016 at 10:18:03 AM

Simmons spents six months on a hostile alien planet with a space slug so evil it brought Grant Ward back.

Everyone in SHIELD suffers. It may as well be in the job description. Right under the clause about appropriate hailing of Hydra.

edited 21st Jan '16 10:18:50 AM by Zeromaeus


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