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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

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#54226: Mar 31st 2016 at 2:08:42 AM

Oh, please! He is just trolling...again. Remember when he claimed that he didn't know if he would be around for Ragnarok?

LDragon2 Since: Dec, 2011
#54227: Mar 31st 2016 at 2:25:31 AM

I'll be honest. I kinda think Loki is a bit overused in these movies. Heck, his added screentime may have been behind several of the problems in Thor The Dark World.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#54228: Mar 31st 2016 at 2:41:09 AM

[up] Oh, please, not this discussion again. The scenes with him are the only good thing about this movie. Thor fans might not like to hear it, but the one reason his franchise is still going is because people want to see Loki, not him.

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#54229: Mar 31st 2016 at 6:29:12 AM

Meh. Why other people like the stuff they do isn't my concern. I liked both Thor films for reason that have nothing to do with Loki and that's all that matters to me.

MousaThe14 Writer, Artist, Ignored from Northern Virginia Since: Jan, 2011 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
Writer, Artist, Ignored
#54230: Mar 31st 2016 at 6:58:55 AM

In some ways Loki saved a good portion of the Dark World. His pathos and banter gave it much needed life.

The Blog The Art
Wackd Since: May, 2009
#54231: Mar 31st 2016 at 7:49:11 AM

Marvel really should bite the bullet and just start making Loki movies already.

I'd say to adapt some of Gillen but I'm sure Marvel would regard only using Hiddleston as the voice of a talking bird as a tough sell.

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#54232: Mar 31st 2016 at 8:01:18 AM

Above all, Loki's conflict with himself is way more interesting than...whatever the rest of the movie was about.....

MousaThe14 Writer, Artist, Ignored from Northern Virginia Since: Jan, 2011 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
Writer, Artist, Ignored
#54233: Mar 31st 2016 at 8:14:19 AM

I recently tried watching rewatching he Dark World like two months ago but I got interrupted half wya through but couldn't muster up the interest to finish it. I wasn't excited to see what was happening next or to refresh my memory. I didn't hate it, I just didn't feel like bothering. And it was at the point when Loki was "dead" too. I mean at that point all the interestinf stuff happened, the breaking out of Loki and Thor, Sif, and the Warriors... Two doing stuff themselves against Odin's orders.

I saw Iron Man 3 at least thrice, same with The First Avenger and Winter Soldier. I don't know why but I've been able to sit through Thor about three times as well. The Avengers even more than any of those.

After the first Thor movie I have always been of the view that the sequel should have been some grand fantasy epic of "Thor, Sif, and The Warriors Three".

edited 31st Mar '16 8:15:42 AM by MousaThe14

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
#54234: Mar 31st 2016 at 8:21:53 AM

Like Lord of the Things, just a bunch of dudes and Sif being dudes and Sif

A journey across the nine realms to thwart some great evil

What do you mean you left the ring back in Asgard, Volstagg. What do you mean we have to go back for it. Actually yes I do agree the real enchanted evil artifact that we need to destroy is the friendships we strengthened on the journey.

-drinking ensues-

Now put Valkyrie in there annnnnnnnd... Darcy. For no reason. Because she makes me laugh.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
MousaThe14 Writer, Artist, Ignored from Northern Virginia Since: Jan, 2011 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
Writer, Artist, Ignored
#54235: Mar 31st 2016 at 8:26:11 AM

See Bocaj, you just made it even better. This is the Thor movie we deserve, but for some reason not the Thor movie Marvel needs.

The Blog The Art
DarthSion Statement: All meatbags must die from Slokovia Since: Mar, 2016 Relationship Status: All is for my lord
Statement: All meatbags must die
#54236: Mar 31st 2016 at 8:26:54 AM

Maybe he'll get reborn as kid loki

Cut off one head 2 more shall take it's place! Hail Hydra
ultimatepheer Since: Mar, 2011
#54237: Mar 31st 2016 at 8:29:06 AM

Kid Loki who hallucinates older Loki because Tom Hiddleston sells goddamn tickets.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#54238: Mar 31st 2016 at 8:31:55 AM

In some ways Loki saved a good portion of the Dark World. His pathos and banter gave it much needed life.

Debatable. A film is only as intelligent as its villain and The Dark World had an awful villain, but it was also a villain who had much of his characterization carved out to make room for Loki. If Loki hadn't stolen all his screentime, Malekith might have made for a better film.

But on the other hand, that totally works from a meta level. It is exactly like Loki to slip into someone else's film and twist it into "The Story of Loki, who is hilarious and awesome, and also some other assholes who don't matter and are stupid."

If you like The Dark World, it's probably because of Loki. If you don't like The Dark World, blame Loki; he mischievously snuck in when nobody was looking and stole the spotlight for himself. It's not the first time his silver tongue has charmed someone into their own doom, and it will not be the last.

edited 31st Mar '16 8:36:03 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Cross (Don’t ask)
#54239: Mar 31st 2016 at 8:36:39 AM

Everytime this comes up I pretty much say thing, if you remove the Earth bits for Malekith and had the Dark Elves's invasion be part of Thor's motivation for being the guardian of Midgard the movie might have been stronger.

edited 31st Mar '16 8:38:32 AM by Cross

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#54240: Mar 31st 2016 at 8:38:20 AM

I don't necessarily agree.

You can have a barely there or excuse villain. Sauron in LOTR is mostly felt by his presence and being a really angry eye.

You can have a thin villain but he needs to have presence and menace.

And once you have your looming Bad Thing Over There then you can have wacky Loki-Thor shenanigans and also the Warriors Three Plus Sif Plus Valkyrie and Darcy Is There Too.

If its not the destination, its the journey.

I'd say Dark World's problem is that it was retooled when a lot of it was already done. You get problems like this when a movie changes focus halfway through production.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
wehrmacht belongs to the hurricane from the garden of everything Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
belongs to the hurricane
#54241: Mar 31st 2016 at 8:50:23 AM

I actually think that the way they went about setting up Asgard and Thor missed out on some really interesting storytelling opportunities.

In the comics, Thor has been interacting with humanity for a very long time. In God of Thunder, he talks about how it's like to live for so long, how there are a lot of things he doesn't remember anymore, and he grows over the course of centuries. There's a LOT of mileage you can get out of the god concept with him, but it's not really possible to do since the Asgardians are aliens and Thor might as well have been alive for as old as Hemsworth is.

This also means adapting Gorr wouldn't make much sense ):

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#54242: Mar 31st 2016 at 9:03:09 AM

Thor is centuries old. He's old enough that the Vikings have met him (though there's a bit of Writers Cannot Do Math there, as he's explicitly a child after the time where the Asgardians met the Vikings).

edited 31st Mar '16 9:03:19 AM by KnownUnknown

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#54243: Mar 31st 2016 at 9:03:38 AM

Because the original focus was f... boring. Who cares about some dark elves who practically defeated themselves in the past?

You know what the best comic book movies have in common? They are, at the end of the day, not about the big battle in the end, they are about personal stakes. Iron Man is not so good because we are so interested in Tony fighting Stane. It is so good because we care about his personal struggle in the cave, how he manages to survive and then turns his life around. The Avengers is not so popular because the battle of New York looks so cool, but because we want to see how the Avengers fit together. The Winter Soldier is not so praised because we really, really needed to see some good action (though the action in the movie is all kind of awesome), but because our heart breaks when we see Steve coming to terms with his whole world falling apart a second time and him having to fight his best friend in order to rescue million of innocent lives. Guardian of the Galaxy is not so popular because it is funny, but because the fun is offset with genuine tragic beats. Drax, Gamora, Rocket, Groot, Peter, those are all characters who are utterly alone, having to deal with a really sh... past, and when they find each other and decide to step up for something good for the first time in their life, we cheer for them. It's about personal stakes.

So what are the personal stakes between Thor and Malekith? There aren't any, other than the contrived desire to rescue Jane's life, even though it might be better to just let her die for the protection of everyone else. You could have built some engaging conflict around it, if the movie had cared more about the different views Odin and Thor have on how to lead properly, but this conflict is more an afterthought. The only personal stakes to be truly engaged in is Loki. The relationship to his mother, his grief when his actions lead to her death, his desire to be loved while pushing everyone who does so away, his complicated relationship with Thor...that's the heart of the movie. Remove it, and the only thing left are action beats and visuals.

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#54244: Mar 31st 2016 at 9:06:25 AM

Because the original focus was f... boring. Who cares about some dark elves who practically defeated themselves in the past?

You say that all the time, but it's impossible to know how Malekith and the Dark Elves could've been handled if done more competently because we had most of their scenes cut.

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
#54245: Mar 31st 2016 at 9:33:00 AM

Personally, Loki is the only villain in entire MCU that I genuinely thought was great, along with Alexander Pierce.

Continuously reading, studying, and (hopefully) growing.
wehrmacht belongs to the hurricane from the garden of everything Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
belongs to the hurricane
#54246: Mar 31st 2016 at 10:12:28 AM

That's because they're the best ones yes. If it wasn't for Loki Thor 1 would have had like no redeeming qualities to it whatsoever for me.

ultimatepheer Since: Mar, 2011
#54247: Mar 31st 2016 at 10:15:11 AM

The thing is, I think that they gave Hiddleston a LOT more to work with than the actors of the other villains. He got some really memorable scenes and made them count.

But still, I don't think a lot of other actors could have managed it.

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#54248: Mar 31st 2016 at 10:24:51 AM

Yeah, it's kind of a self-reinforcing cycle with him. Loki's the best villain in the MCU because he's already the best villain. Other characters don't even get that chance.

wehrmacht belongs to the hurricane from the garden of everything Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
belongs to the hurricane
#54249: Mar 31st 2016 at 10:26:54 AM

The thing is that Thor broke the mold by virtue of having a movie where the villain got just as much focus as the main character. Combined with Hiddleston's performance they ended up creating an actually good character rather than simply just another villain, so by virtue of that he had a huge leg up on everyone else. Marvel could just as easily do that again if they had a movie structured in a similar fashion as Thor. Marvel has more or less proven that if they actually care about the villain as a character in their own right, they do pretty well.

edited 31st Mar '16 10:28:07 AM by wehrmacht

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#54250: Mar 31st 2016 at 10:38:40 AM

Marvel really should bite the bullet and just start making Loki movies already.

That would be for the best.


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