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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

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#66251: Feb 8th 2017 at 8:57:10 AM

Feige is totally right. It doesn't matter if the villain is good or bad as long as the villain serves the story. That is my main issue with Malekith and Whiplash. They are only a distraction from a much better story - and, btw, Ronan and Zemo really don't deserve to get listed with them. I get that some people want complicated villains, but Ronan is a wonderfully corny and yet threatening opponent. And I get that some people want comic book villains with powers, but I take a smart villain like Zemo over a flashy one every day.

Feige is also right that The Dark Knight focusses more on the villains than the actual hero. Batman is practically a side character in his own movie.

windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#66252: Feb 8th 2017 at 9:14:25 AM

The Joker had 33 minutes of screen time in a 2 hour film. In no way was he more focused on than Batman

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#66253: Feb 8th 2017 at 9:21:46 AM

[up] "Villains" not "Villain"....between Joker and Two Face/Harvey Dent, there isn't really that much screentime left which is actually focussing on Batman.

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#66254: Feb 8th 2017 at 9:47:08 AM

I would highly disagree with that assertion. Joker and Harvey do have a lot of screentime but to claim they dwarf Bruce's time onscreen is an exaggeration.

shatterstar Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: I wanna know about these strangers like me
#66255: Feb 8th 2017 at 9:54:40 AM

[up] I think the audience feels that way is because a majority of the screentime Bruce did have centering about reacting to the villains' action rather than building his character.

And I agree with Feige's assertion to focus on the heroes. Bv S and SS tried to focus on the villains and they all turned out to be horrible distractions from the movies (Joker, Enchantress, Luthor, Doomsday)

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#66256: Feb 8th 2017 at 9:55:40 AM

The Joker may not be onscreen at all times, but it's decidedly his show, as is traditional with the Joker, and really, most of Batman's rogues gallery at this point. I don't even think it's a criticism to say so. The point of Batman is for him to stoically endure all the insanity Gotham throws at him, to prove one man can make a difference without compromising his personal sense of justice. Not changing or developing is kind of his thing, so like in a lot of murder mysteries, it's the criminal who gets most of the onscreen development.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#66257: Feb 8th 2017 at 10:02:46 AM

For the record, I don't think that focussing on the villain is necessarily a bad thing. It can work, as The Dark Knight proves. It just has the downside that once you do a sequel, you either have to find a reason to have the same villain turn up again (and keep him interesting) or to invent a new, equally interesting villain. Focussing on the hero has the advantage that the audience will keep coming back for this particular character, and not for his rogue gallery.

PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#66258: Feb 8th 2017 at 10:07:43 AM

I agree that the hero should be top priority, but I've always thought that the villain deserves more focus than the supporting cast.

Marvel's hierarchy: protagonist, plot, supporting cast, antagonist.

My hierarchy: protagonist, antagonist, plot, supporting cast.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#66259: Feb 8th 2017 at 10:09:03 AM

You're usually doing both, with Batman. He's a very dark, closed-off, hard-to-read character by nature. He finds definition in his foes, so that's what a lot of Batman stories are about. Focusing on his enemies focuses on Batman as well, in that the story is all about how he reacts to them.

edited 8th Feb '17 12:26:43 PM by Unsung

KJMackley Since: Jan, 2001
#66261: Feb 8th 2017 at 9:29:35 PM

It's rather disconcerting to hear confirmation that the MCU is deliberately creating ineffective villains. A villain personifies the conflict and accentuate the the heroes own journey. The weaker the villain the less impressive the hero. The few villains that have worked, even a little, are the ones who leave a tangible physical or emotional impact. Saying the heroes don't need good villains is a problem.

It is true, the Joker in TDK was a rather dominant force of strength and personality that Bruce's personal strife just didn't compare. It is also the nature of the beast that once the hero's origin villain is out of the way most films struggle with making the hero relevant in their own story beyond being the solution to the problem.

alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#66262: Feb 8th 2017 at 10:41:04 PM

It's rather disconcerting to hear confirmation that the MCU is deliberately creating ineffective villains.
They are not deliberately creating ineffective villains — they are focusing their stories on the heroes, which has the side effect of making the villains not as fleshed out as they could be. Honestly, though, I think Zemo worked well in Civil War and Loki was already one of the best villains. But because the villain isn't the focus (like the Joker was in focus for quite a bit of The Dark Knight), they are often underutilized or underwhelming.

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#66263: Feb 8th 2017 at 11:27:14 PM

Streamlining the villain makes sense for side films like Guardians of the Galaxy or The First Avenger where the focus is on the protagonists' growth. But for big Crisis Crossover events like Age of Ultron with pre-established heroes, the villain had better have some real effort put into them.

Speaking of which, here's something I wrote a day ago regarding Avengers's and Age of Ultron's action scenes.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#66264: Feb 8th 2017 at 11:39:48 PM

So far they have given us a wide rage of villains, from the Disneyesque prancing fanatic to mastermind in the background. Honestly, the whole "the MCU hasn't any good villains" complain is greatly exaggerated anyway. All the TV shows have great villains, because they have time enough to built them up step by step. And the movies have a track record you can expect in a movie franchise - it's not like we remember every Bond villain either.

[up] Good point.

edited 8th Feb '17 11:41:02 PM by Swanpride

KJMackley Since: Jan, 2001
#66265: Feb 9th 2017 at 1:18:34 AM

Feige straight up admitted the movies are in service of the hero(es), which is why the villains end up underbaked. By sheer numbers they've managed a couple of decent villains, but the sad part is that most of them had potential to be really good and memorable if the movie was willing to take the attention off the hero for a moment. Killian in particular was strangled by the plot twist. Vanko ended up just being a nuisance at two different points in the film, his entire subplot with Hammer was just to justify a big battle at the end. For me Zemo was about the same as Pierce, an interesting and complex character but not exactly a highlight of the movie (the most clever thing was the base idea of recognizing he could agitate the heroes into fighting each other, the rest of his plan relies too much on coincidence).

One of the reasons Loki became a comparatively stronger villain is because the movie was willing to sit with him and grow his motivations, not turning it into an expositional rant squeezed in between action scenes, a big mistake Doctor Strange did with Kaecilius. The tv shows are a different beast, and are generally ignored when it comes to talking about recurring issues with the MCU. You're able to slow things down, as such if the villain is underdeveloped you can't say you didn't have the time.

^^ I felt from the start that AOU relied too much on giving everyone completely equal screentime, and the easiest way to do that was big team fights against faceless enemies or big team fights where some deal with the main problem while others deal with arbitrary problems (like when Ultron derailed the train). Hulk vs. Hulkbuster was the only action sequence that stood out because it was okay dropping away from the others for a few minutes, imagine if they frequently cut away to show what the other Avengers were doing at that moment. The biggest struggle with team-based stories is that when everyone is on the same page (figuratively or literally in the case on comic books) their individuality ends up lost, so I was immediately not a fan of The Oner that opened AOU. Ironically, the narrative would have been strengthened to give us an Avengers Assemble sequence and introduce the characters again one at a time instead of one sweeping action scene.

PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#66266: Feb 9th 2017 at 1:33:21 AM

[up][up][up]Uh, no? Age of Ultron had vastly different fight scenes. From 'whole team fights human soldiers in bunkers and superpowered kids while breaking into a fortress' to 'smaller battle involving a small group of robots while our heroes are off-guard and unprepared' to 'Hulkbuster vs Hulk' to 'car chase heist assault' to 'epic battle in city against army of flying robots', Age of Ultron really isn't lacking in unique fight scenes.

edited 9th Feb '17 1:35:55 AM by PushoverMediaCritic

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#66267: Feb 9th 2017 at 2:03:13 AM

It's more than just a change of setting to make a fight scene unique. The Avengers fights felt like they were from different genres of movie, with Tony vs Thor as a technology vs god showdown, or Black Widow vs Hawkeye in a grittier knife fight that one doesn't usually picture in a "typical superhero movie". Different opponents, different fighting styles, shot like from different movies, and the horde war saved for last.

AoU instead does mostly horde wars, to the point that the opening scene would look near same as the climax with swapping human soldiers for bots. And it doesn't help that the Ultron bots are pathetic foes who shatter from unaugmented punches and whose repulsor blasts do no damage. Seeing them crushed five scenes in a row is three too many.

It's a shame there's only one fight proper against Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, as their powers could've inspired more unique duels.

edited 9th Feb '17 2:08:45 AM by Tuckerscreator

PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#66268: Feb 9th 2017 at 2:26:06 AM

Again, car chase heist and giant robot vs giant monster pseudo-kaiju battle.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#66269: Feb 9th 2017 at 2:29:14 AM

[up][up][up][up] You seem to think that writing the villains in a way that it serves the hero is a bad thing. It is not. Loki got more development than the other villains because the plot demanded it, we had to understand his relationship to Thor and Odin in order to feel the betrayal Thor felt, while still having an inkling why Loki acted that way. But most villains don't need that kind of development, they above all need to be threatening.

The problem with Whiplash or Killian is not that there was focus put on the hero, the problem is that they don't serve the plot. The whole Whiplash plot only seems to exist because someone at Marvel thought that the audience would be dissatisfied to see a movie about Tony struggling with his personal problems and they needed an excuse to add fight scenes - and that is all what Whiplash is, an excuse for some punching, take him out of Ironman 2 and the actual truly meaningful scenes are still all in it. And Killian just wasn't threatening enough. I blame executive meddling of the bad kind for this one.

[up][up][up] I think what Ao U is actually missing is a scene in which Cap is giving out different jobs....he does it in the Avengers when he orders Thor to the wormhole, Hawkeye to the roof aso. The last battle in Ao U is a little bit unfocussed because all Avengers do basically the same, they are either all busy rescuing people or all protecting the centre against the robots. They do it differently, but they are still doing basically the same, there isn't this clear: "See, that is the strength of this character, but this one does this better" scene.

edited 9th Feb '17 2:32:37 AM by Swanpride

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#66270: Feb 9th 2017 at 5:56:53 AM

[up][up][up]Agreed. One of my big problem with the movie is how there was way less effort put into making inventive action scenes this time.

edited 9th Feb '17 5:57:10 AM by comicwriter

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#66271: Feb 9th 2017 at 11:54:40 AM

Good point about the fight scenes. Reminds me of another video about how to make effective fight scenes:

The Ultronbots might look nice from a technical CG perspective but they didn't offer much in the way of advancing the narrative or engaging the viewers on a meaningful level, the way a more carefully crafted fight scene like the ones in the first movie did.

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#66272: Feb 9th 2017 at 11:55:41 AM

I think what Ao U is actually missing is a scene in which Cap is giving out different jobs....he does it in the Avengers when he orders Thor to the wormhole, Hawkeye to the roof aso. The last battle in Ao U is a little bit unfocussed because all Avengers do basically the same, they are either all busy rescuing people or all protecting the centre against the robots.

That too. I've said this in the past, but I disagreed with the complaint in The Avengers that "Captain America looks weak and useless, all he did was fight infantry and stop some bomb." To me, his job was essential, because he was the one on the ground saving civilian lives personally. So AoU had to try to "correct" it by making everyone take down waves equally, (though thankfully there was still a big emphasis on evacuation efforts.) It doesn't say something good that viewers would define heroism by "who kills the most bad guys" instead of "who saves as many people as they can."

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#66273: Feb 9th 2017 at 1:30:27 PM

He gets that really good scene with that car falling though

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#66274: Feb 9th 2017 at 2:02:51 PM

Cap's strongest superpower is that he is a natural leader and smart tactician. One shouldn't forget that he has total recall. He isn't half as dumb as some make him out to be.

KJMackley Since: Jan, 2001
#66275: Feb 9th 2017 at 2:33:34 PM

I wasn't saying villains serving the heroes is a bad thing, in fact I was saying that the villains should reflect, emulate and even push the heroes along their personal story. The problem I'm pointing out is that characters should not be written as plot points, which is just bad writing. All the best scripts, and the movies made from them, treat every character as a Hero of Another Story. Coen brothers movies are especially good about this.

What Avengers did well was dividing up the action sequences in order of difficulty. The final battle was clearly the biggest fight of the movie. AOU opened so big and kept trying to top itself that by the end most of the action just blended together. Their smallest action sequence was the brief Avengers tower skirmish and it was just a taste of the robot doubles fight the rest of the movie was going to throw at us.

Something that Justice League did that was really smart was not feel the need to put every character in every episode, it kept characters from standing around with nothing to do. Instead of putting Batman up against the same enemies that give Superman trouble, he was more often used for strategy, manipulation and espionage, and tension is built when Superman is occupied with something else and Batman has to figure out how to get it done. If anything, Captain America's action sequences have been some of the most exciting of the MCU but next to Iron Man he seems inefficient. Iron Man should be directed to take care of the tanks while Captain America clears out rooms. His semi truck fight with Ultron should have been the most epic one of the movie, but instead they are rather evenly matched and there is little tension (all the Avengers needed to do was distract Ultron from downloading his brain into the Vision body, which they did the moment the fight started).


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