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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

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#67326: Mar 19th 2017 at 2:26:13 PM

[up][up][up]The entire Goblin situation in TASM 2 could have been cleared up by someone having the brains to say "Okay, Harry, I'll give you the blood you need to save your life, but we need to thoroughly research it first to make sure it doesn't have any side effects."

Heck, the original idea was that Peter did give the blood to Harry and that's what ended up mutating him and transforming him into the Green Goblin. Which still has the same problem (WHY WOULDN'T YOU RESEARCH IT FIRST) but at least isn't entirely contingent on Peter basically going "LOL NOPE" when his dying best friend is asking him to help save his life.

The finished movie still has the nonsensical series of Conflict Ball coincidences that turn Harry into a villain, and the fact that it's incredibly rushed to fit a 2 hour movie where he isn't even the main villain. The worst of both worlds, basically.

edited 19th Mar '17 2:29:13 PM by comicwriter

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#67327: Mar 19th 2017 at 2:29:27 PM

I actually had a fairly strong impression that before he went completely insane, the Norman Osborn of the Raimi movies was (surprisingly) a warm and loving father— albeit one with a dark side, a la Two Face. Certainly Harry's devotion to him only really makes sense if he's remembering the man he was, rather than the villain the papers are telling him he became.

Whereas in ASM 2, Harry and his father are apparently pretty distant, and I'm similarly not fully convinced from what we see that Harry and Peter are still friends. Plus he's not even dying yet— his father lived well into what looks like his sixties or seventies. There's no reason he couldn't have taken more time to research a cure.

edited 19th Mar '17 2:43:20 PM by Unsung

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#67328: Mar 19th 2017 at 2:30:11 PM

Gwen's death was a fridging because her death wasn't about her. It was only about Peter and Osborn.

The term was coined to describe the trend where female characters were killed, maimed, and de powered to serve a male characters narrative

Gwen didn't even have a presence beyond a potato sack in her own death. We don't see her POV. She's unconscious the whole time. None of her actions really factor in.

Arguments about it being well written or unprecedented don't really come into it.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#67329: Mar 19th 2017 at 2:36:10 PM

I agree that not something that should go on happening and shouldn't necessarily be adapted unironically in a modern work, but the question was why Gwen Stacy gets more of a pass than other examples, and I think the only real answer is that it was a different time, and that it wasn't something that was happening consistently in the medium before that point.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#67330: Mar 19th 2017 at 2:37:43 PM

Also, tropes aren't bad. There is a good way to handle it and a bad way.

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#67331: Mar 19th 2017 at 2:39:20 PM

It's worth noting that Gwen was initially a fairly unpopular character. Not a Scrappy, but Mary-Jane and Peter were the Fan-Preferred Couple and Gwen viewed by fans as not having much personality. So in a way, the story succeeded in pushing her and Peter together as the One True Pairing, but by killing her. It's only been in recent years that Gwen's become popular as a character in her own right, via Emma Stone, Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Gwen, Gwenpool, etc.

And apparently there were talks of killing Aunt May or Mary-Jane but they were turned down.

I (Gerry Conway) suggested that if we were going to kill somebody, it should be Gwen or Mary Jane. [This was] based on Milton Caniff's trick. Caniff used to take very important female characters in Terry and the Pirates and knock them off regularly every four or five years.

Gwen's death may not be specifically fridging per se, but it falls in a long history of exploiting women's deaths that's much older than Green Lantern.

edited 19th Mar '17 2:39:53 PM by Tuckerscreator

KJMackley Since: Jan, 2001
#67332: Mar 19th 2017 at 2:40:02 PM

The ambiguity of her death was maybe not vital, but it is certainly a lot more interesting. If it was obvious the web line snapped her neck because of the sudden stop then it was simply a physics mistake that Spider-Man made. But not knowing one way or the other goes to the heart of the situation, that Gwen was put in danger because of her association with him. He doesn't know if he ever had a chance to save her. That's what hurt.

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#67333: Mar 19th 2017 at 2:48:33 PM

Gwen's death doesn't get as much of a pass as people think. If you're questioning it, you aren't giving it one yourself, and plenty of people here are doing just that.

PincerMove Since: Feb, 2017
#67334: Mar 19th 2017 at 2:52:21 PM

actually had a fairly strong impression that before he went completely insane, the Norman Osborn of the Raimi movies was (surprisingly) a warm and loving father— albeit one with a dark side, a la Two Face.

Didn't he regularly mock Harry, saying he was a screwup in a really awkward bit of exposition explaining why the son of a guy who is richer than god was going to a public school?

The entire Goblin situation in TASM 2 could have been cleared up by someone having the brains to say "Okay, Harry, I'll give you the blood you need to save your life, but we need to thoroughly research it first to make sure it doesn't have any side effects."
Because he's dying, and he doesn't have the time to allow people to research it and come up with a safe way around the problems. You may as well ask why Norman Osborn didn't allow his lackey to take the super soldier serum back to formula and instead just used him as a test subject - because he didn't have the time to do that.

I thought the HISHE was funny too, but they did go over this stuff.

It's worth noting that Gwen was initially a fairly unpopular character. Not a Scrappy, but Mary-Jane and Peter were the Fan-Preferred Couple and Gwen viewed by fans as not having much personality. So in a way, the story succeeded in pushing her and Peter together as the One True Pairing, but by killing her. It's only been in recent years that Gwen's become popular as a character in her own right, via Emma Stone, Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Gwen, Gwenpool, etc.
I like how compairing Kirsten Dunst to Emma Stone has finally made everyone realise that its Mary Jane who doesn't have a personality.

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#67335: Mar 19th 2017 at 2:55:40 PM

[up]Thing is, as someone else pointed out, that itself was stupid. Norman seemed to have lived with the disease for quite some time. There's no reason Harry couldn't have waited for conclusive research results. The movie didn't bother saying his strain of the disease was worse and would kill him by Tuesday if he didn't get Peter's blood.

The Thor: Ragnarok figures from Lego. Looks like Hulk has tattoos. He's gone full millennial now.

edited 19th Mar '17 2:55:56 PM by comicwriter

KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#67336: Mar 19th 2017 at 2:55:47 PM

[up][up] I think Mary Jane does has personality, actually.

It's just that the Raimi films didn't really capture it.

(Though I've only seen the first one, so I can't really comment about the whole trilogy.)

edited 19th Mar '17 2:56:40 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Oh God! Natural light!
AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#67337: Mar 19th 2017 at 2:58:16 PM

Nah, they never really give her much of a personality through the whole trilogy.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
PincerMove Since: Feb, 2017
#67338: Mar 19th 2017 at 2:59:12 PM

[up][up][up][up]Yeah, they did. There were scenes of him showing the symptoms even at his age, indicating that it was affecting him rapidly. Even while I was watching this, I got that part. It feels like a lot of plot holes just came from people missing parts of the movie.

[up][up]How does endless screaming, whining, and being bad at her job catch you?

edited 19th Mar '17 2:59:39 PM by PincerMove

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#67339: Mar 19th 2017 at 2:59:18 PM

The Raimi trilogy's Mary Jane is very little like the one in the comics. And Kirsten Dunst has a certain shy reserve in those movies that I suspect was a deliberate choice on Dunst and Raimi's part. It's more naturalistic than most superhero movies would opt to go.

[up]If you're talking about Norman, I was talking about Harry. Isn't Norman already dead by the time Harry gets around to asking for Spider-Man's blood? Haven't seen the movie since it was still in theatres.

edited 19th Mar '17 3:00:37 PM by Unsung

LordVatek Not really a lord of anything Since: Sep, 2014
Not really a lord of anything
#67340: Mar 19th 2017 at 3:00:22 PM

I've never read the earlier comics but haven't the newer takes on Gwen been completely non-indicative of how she was before said takes revamped the character?

This song needs more love.
PincerMove Since: Feb, 2017
#67341: Mar 19th 2017 at 3:00:37 PM

Shy reserve? She keeps willingly making herself the center of attention. She gets on Peters case in the third movie because she wants to be more famous than Spider-Man.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#67342: Mar 19th 2017 at 3:02:18 PM

[up]Character development. Not all character development is positive, after all (also the third movie was pretty bad, and like ASM 2 I haven't seen it since it was in theatres), but she was pretty shy in the first movie, and I'm assuming that's what people are referring to when they say she had no personality.

edited 19th Mar '17 3:03:33 PM by Unsung

KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#67343: Mar 19th 2017 at 3:04:04 PM

How does endless screaming, whining, and being bad at her job catch you?

I was referring to comics MJ, who as I understand it is very different from the Raimi films' MJ.

Oh God! Natural light!
Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#67344: Mar 19th 2017 at 3:18:42 PM

I watched episodes 7-9 of Iron Fist today.

Everybody who was anxiously hoping that it was just the first six episodes that were bad, and that the show's back half would pick up the pace? You were right.

It's a lot more interesting now, and even the fights feel a lot better. Especially that fucking ridiculous fight with a very drunk yet very badass Zhou Cheng. That was the best thing Marvel-Netflix has ever done. tongue

The whole "Harold Meachum wasn't just resurrected, he's functionally immortal and losing his shit over it" subplot is drawing me in too.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
PincerMove Since: Feb, 2017
#67345: Mar 19th 2017 at 3:18:44 PM

[up][up][up][up][up][up]No, I was talking about Harry. His skin is flaking off and his eyes get sunken throughout the movie, and he spends half of act 3 with a patch of scales by his left eye.

[up]Did they fire Finn Jones and replace him with Aaron Paul yet?

edited 19th Mar '17 3:20:33 PM by PincerMove

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#67346: Mar 19th 2017 at 3:22:09 PM

What, after he's already mutated himself? That's *why* he should have held off and done the research before injecting himself with some untested 'cure'. He didn't seem to be dying before then.

PincerMove Since: Feb, 2017
#67347: Mar 19th 2017 at 3:25:36 PM

The first half of act 3 looking like that. When he walks into the Oscorp building with Electro, the guy looks like a meth addict. Then he injects the venom, and looks way freakier.

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#67349: Mar 19th 2017 at 3:30:09 PM

[up][up][up]And we have nothing to compare that too since his dad was already like that when we saw him. Again, the stakes with the disease are never clearly defined. The movie just sloppily expects you to sympathize with him needing the cure right fucking now to excuse to Plot Induced Stupidity of nobody taking three seconds to say "Okay you can have the blood but it needs to be tested first."

That's lazy writing, which goes back to my initial point about Harry's development being way too rushed to fit the movie. They should've given him a supporting role and tried to do the Green Goblin plot in Part 3, but stupid Sony needed him to be the Goblin now because they wanted that Sinister Six spin-off to happen.

edited 19th Mar '17 3:31:20 PM by comicwriter

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#67350: Mar 19th 2017 at 3:30:52 PM

Was that in the third act? Huh. I remembered him looking fine until he mutated himself, but if you say so. I still think that's sloppy writing— he should have had as much time as his father to research this, and having him suddenly turn into the Green Goblin just in time to upstage Electro for the final battle was lame.

edited 19th Mar '17 5:07:20 PM by Unsung


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