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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

AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#58401: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:21:02 PM

Be specific.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#58402: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:21:41 PM

Really cool?

edited 3rd Jun '16 1:22:37 PM by comicwriter

Discar Since: Jun, 2009
#58403: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:22:13 PM

Couldn't they have just added a bunch of people of different races to the Hand? Like, make it multicultural or something.

The weird thing is that the Hand was multiracial. There was that one white accountant (who, admittedly, didn't actually know who he was working for), and that one white red-head woman (who definitely knew who she was working for). The Hand would have been vastly improved by just having the ninjas wear normal clothes and having them be multiracial.

Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.
DeathsApprentice The Ultimate Lifeform from The Ark Since: Aug, 2011 Relationship Status: Is that a kind of food?
The Ultimate Lifeform
#58404: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:22:52 PM

Here's America Chavez's fictional biography according to wiki.

She's been a superhero since she was six, I think, and she can kick holes in reality to different universes and dimensions.

edited 3rd Jun '16 1:24:56 PM by DeathsApprentice

When we're done, there won't be anything left.
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#58405: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:23:52 PM

Ragnarok is almost definitely going to be one of the credits scenes for GOTG 2, so technically Thor will be in it.

[up] So is she some sort of alien or magical being or something?

edited 3rd Jun '16 1:24:58 PM by AlleyOop

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#58406: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:24:03 PM

The issue would be offset greatly if there were more heroic Asian people in the shows and movies, which has been one of the sticking points. A lot of people pointed that out when discussing the Iron Fist campaign. There were some Asian bloggers talking about how Asian people don't get to be the hero, but it's totally cool to have them be evil karate ninjas who get beat up by the heroic white people.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#58407: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:24:03 PM

Cargill has every idea what he's talking about. He's talking about his reasons for writing the character, and he wrote her as a white woman. Tilda Swinton has mentioned that when she received the script, there was no mention of the Ancient One being a wise old Asian man. Her role was written for a white woman.

Cargill's statement isn't about corporate intent. He never said, "Marvel forced me to make the character white because the studio is deeply concerned about pissing off China. I know it was a mistake, but I was operating under executive mandate. Marvel wanted a white person, so I gave him a white person." Instead, he goes out of his way to explain his reasons for why he wrote the character as a white person, and why he considers any Asian actor to be unacceptable for the role. He's speaking for himself, not the company.

Feige ordered the character to be a woman because he wanted to get away from the stereotype the Ancient One represents. Cargill wrote the character as a white person because he thinks making the character Asian is a minefield of problems that would piss off all the Asians no matter how you do it. The result is Tilda Swinton arriving at a casting call for a white woman to play a character that was originally an Asian man in the source material.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#58408: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:24:21 PM

Once again, I'll believe it when I see it. Double Speak is a big part of running a company. I put no stock in the official company line in this case.

edited 3rd Jun '16 1:25:18 PM by comicwriter

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
#58409: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:24:39 PM

The term "latino" is kind of murky in these sorts of discussions because most of them are very anglocentric. Like, obviously I know what people mean by it, but it kind of ignores the fact that a number of latin american countries are very diverse and have a bunch of people with no indigenous or hispanic descent living in them. So you have black latin-americans, latin-americans descended from indigenous people, asian latin-americans, and yes white latin-americans as well. They're not really different from the US in that regard.

What people are usually referring to when they say "latino" is usually a person descended from indigenous people or of mixed race between indigenous latin american people, europeans, and africans, because Latino Is Brown. And yes, as far as that is concerned I would like to see more of them, being that I am a latin american of mixed race myself.

AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#58410: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:25:41 PM

My dad is a white skinned Mexican, I know there's a lot of different types of Latino. My big sticking point is to see more representation, regardless of what kind of Latino they include.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#58411: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:25:54 PM

So is she some sort of alien or magical being or something?

Extradimensional. She comes from an reality created by Scarlet Witch's son and is able to traverse various alternate dimensions. She can literally kick holes in reality, basically.

edited 3rd Jun '16 1:26:26 PM by comicwriter

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#58412: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:25:54 PM

Once again, I'll believe it when I see it. Double Speak is a big part of running a company. I put no stock in the official company line in this case.

And I put no stock in people who demand conspiracy even when there isn't even a contradiction to suggest one.

Like I said: be angry for the right reasons. Nothing is solved by angry gibberish.

edited 3rd Jun '16 1:26:23 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
higherbrainpattern Since: Apr, 2012
#58413: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:26:26 PM

America Chavez is a superheroine who also goes by the moniker of Miss America. She's a Flying Brick, and is from a different dimension, basically.

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#58414: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:27:08 PM

And I put no stock

Cool. Sounds like spin to me. I'll continue to think of it as spin.

edited 3rd Jun '16 1:28:17 PM by comicwriter

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#58415: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:27:54 PM

Honestly Feige's comments on the Ancient One do sound a hell of a lot like PR to me. He's not going to outright admit it, but there was likely chatter of it to lead Cargill to make the statements he did, and his backpedaling would be a means of saving face. Hence why though there's no absolute concrete proof of it I'm still highly skeptical that Tibet was a total non-factor in the Ancient One's casting. At the least, Cargill if not Marvel as a whole deserves some fair amount of castigation for his comments and misrepresentation of the problem due to the False Dichotomy he employed.

edited 3rd Jun '16 1:29:45 PM by AlleyOop

DeathsApprentice The Ultimate Lifeform from The Ark Since: Aug, 2011 Relationship Status: Is that a kind of food?
The Ultimate Lifeform
#58416: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:28:05 PM

Would casting a non-Asian POC for the Ancient One have helped at all? I've seen lots of arguments for and against this, but I feel like less people would be pissed off about the choice than they are about a white Ancient One.

When we're done, there won't be anything left.
comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#58417: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:29:19 PM

Probably not. Asians are probably one of the more underrepresented groups in Hollywood, so that'd mostly just be rubbing more salt in the wound. I don't like to play oppression olympics, but there's definitely more parts for black or Latino actors than there are for Asians.

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#58418: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:30:49 PM

[up][up] Probably not, since the issue is one specifically of Asian underrepresentation, which a black, Arab, or Hispanic Ancient One would not have solved. Casting an Indian actor as the Ancient One may have been acceptable though given the demographics of the area and the fact that Indians represent a sizeable chunk of the world population but are also conspicuously absent from the films.

Speaking of which, Raz Malhotra is Indian, and it would not be a bad idea to have him show up in Ant-Man and the Wasp. It would also allow for some semblance of LGBT representation albeit slight. Maybe they could introduce him as an employee of Pym Industries and a friend of Hope and Hank who's a tech expert.

edited 3rd Jun '16 1:36:36 PM by AlleyOop

AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#58419: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:31:56 PM

Indian is Asian, it would've worked.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#58420: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:32:44 PM

Would casting a non-Asian POC for the Ancient One have helped at all? I've seen lots of arguments for and against this, but I feel like less people would be pissed off about the choice than they are about a white Ancient One.

No, it wouldn't have. It's the same move, basically. Casting Tilda Swinton removes representation from Asians but adds it to Women. Both are marginalized groups in Hollywood, but people are not okay with the representation switch because it's still taking away a role from Asians, no matter what the consolation prize is.

Adding another race to the representation switch probably wouldn't have helped matters, because it would still be taking away a role from Asians.

To use the jar of chocolate-covered raisins metaphor that gets passed around these discussions lately, if you take a candy from the Asian bowl, it doesn't matter what bowl you put it in, you still took it from the Asian bowl. The Asian kid is still losing a raisin and s/he doesn't have many to spare. While the white kid is sitting over there with, like, 8x as many as everyone else combined.

The idea that a different form of representation can be used as a consolation prize is rooted in the idea that all social causes are the same cause. That marginalized groups are a hivemind conglomerate where it doesn't matter if it's the Asians or Blacks or Hispanics or Women or LGBT that get the representation as long as someone does. And that's just not so.

edited 3rd Jun '16 1:34:49 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
FictionWriterKing Since: Apr, 2016
#58421: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:33:05 PM

"one-dimensional Evil Magic Ninjas"

I just want to say the Hand, and Snake Root included, are "one-dimensional Evil Magic Ninjas". Their members are characters used as plot devices in the same manner as MCU's Hydra although that does not mean the actual organizations do not have lore/history.

Lastly, you can't separate magic from them. Otherwise there's no point of using them (they introduce mysticism to Daredevil's story).

But yes at least the director highered Asians to play ninjas. It would be curious to know if they were all Japanese too. However, anything that's Mortal Kombaty I am fine with, which season's two Hand and source material's Hand both fall under.

As for where it stands, only Quake and Dr. Cho are the only Asians not obsessed with martial arts/hand to hand combat.

edited 3rd Jun '16 1:39:32 PM by FictionWriterKing

DeathsApprentice The Ultimate Lifeform from The Ark Since: Aug, 2011 Relationship Status: Is that a kind of food?
The Ultimate Lifeform
#58422: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:37:44 PM

[up][up][up][up] I don't think there are any non-bit Indian characters in the MCU, like, at all. -_- But yeah, Raz Malhotra would be a cool character to see. He's the new Giant-Man, right?

@Tobias: Oh, okay, that makes sense. So I guess the only acceptable way to resolve the problem is to rewrite the Ancient One character to make it less stereotypical, which, frankly, Marvel should have been able to do if they'd dedicated more effort and not taken the "easy" way out by casting a white person. :/

When we're done, there won't be anything left.
Whowho Since: May, 2012
#58423: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:37:50 PM

I still find it weird that Maria Hill and Janet Van Dyne (what little we've seen of her) don't appear to be the least bit Latino passing.

(I know that Maria Hill is only 1/4th Latino, but she's usually drawn as passing as Latino)

I'm not sure I know Janet's ethnicity, but I'm used to seeing her drawn brown.

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#58424: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:37:52 PM

They managed to make Rumlow and Pierce pretty interesting characters with the short amount of screentime they had. No reason not to do the same with the members of the Hand.

[up] I think like most heroes introduced int he 60s Janet is supposed to be white. I'm used to seeing her portrayed with light skin, and in the Ultimates continuity she was half-Asian, but as for continuities where she's shown on the brown side I'm not so sure. Chances are it's a matter of Depending on the Artist though. MCU Janet is probably also white or mostly so, going by Hope.

edited 3rd Jun '16 1:41:25 PM by AlleyOop

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#58425: Jun 3rd 2016 at 1:39:37 PM

Kind of weird they have so much black representation but barely any Asian representation.

Going back to this, not really. The reason is that there's a lot more black characters connected to Marvel's bigger franchises than there are Asian or Latino ones, and it's so far been (with a few exceptions) Marvel's relatively bigger franchises that have gotten their own films. Black Panther is one of Marvel's oldest heroes, has been an Avenger since the 60's, and has his own series. Nick Fury is the head of SHIELD, which was the glue holding the MCU together for a long while. And Falcon and War Machine were both partners of A-list heroes and Avengers in their own rights. They were all in positions that made it very easy and kind of inevitable for them to make it into movies.

In contrast, most of the semi-notable Asian heroes are people like Jubilee, Psylocke and Sunfire, all of whom are at Fox. You have Mantis, and honestly, were it not for the Guardians and the fact that James Gunn says she was one of his favorites when he was reading comics as a kid, we probably wouldn't be getting her in the movies at all.

I'm not sure I know Janet's ethnicity, but I'm used to seeing her drawn brown.

Really? She's been white pretty much her entire history. The only exception is the Ultimate Universe, where she's half-Asian (and dead).

edited 3rd Jun '16 1:42:35 PM by comicwriter


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