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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

Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#69251: Apr 25th 2017 at 11:45:22 AM

Malekith is supposed to be, like, magic elf Joker, isn't he?

Movie Malekith was just a generic super-serious guy.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#69252: Apr 25th 2017 at 11:45:40 AM

MCU Loki is also the least scheming trickster version in all of media. The Avengers is the only one he seems to truly be becoming a trickster. Everywhere else the MCU wants you to weep for the poor mass-murderer and his sad backstory rather than be amazed at his trickery.

I maintain that there was no satisfying way to do the Mandarin because Iron Man 1 jumped the gun with the "Ten Rings" terrorists. What was intended as a clever Shout-Out became a noose around the character's neck, guaranteeing that he was going to be a shitty imitation of the character readers love no matter what.

We've had this debate several times and I still have no idea why you think that.

edited 25th Apr '17 11:46:54 AM by Gaon

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#69253: Apr 25th 2017 at 11:48:18 AM

I liked the Ben Kingsley faux-Mandarin quite a bit, but I'm not willing to call Killian the Mandarin. If he had any of the Mandarin's other trappings, maybe, but not as is. And I do think I'd have liked the character more if his absolute cynicism rather than his newfound arrogance was his defining trait— somebody who creates something like the Mandarin purely to play upon gung-ho xenophobic antiterrorist sentiment could be both entertaining and deeply unsettling, but we don't really get enough of that back from Guy Pearce, IMO.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#69254: Apr 25th 2017 at 11:49:48 AM

I'd say Dark World actually had the best scheming Loki of the films, low bar though that is. In that he actually pulled off a scheme.

Original Thor Loki seemed to be making things up as he went along, and Avengers Loki was just mindlessly obeying a terrible plan that was put into his hands by Thanos. Dark World Loki actually came up with a clever con and pulled it off under the nose of people who were expecting to be conned.

We've had this argument several times and I still have no idea why you think that.

Because there's basically no way to do "Osama bin Laden with SUPERPOWERS" that isn't going to be a terrible disservice to everything the Mandarin is. That's not the fault of the Mandarin. It's the fault of the guys who thought embedding him in Middle East terrorism was a good idea in the first place.

[up] He's a cunning manipulator hiding behind layers of The Man Behind the Man while trying to reinvent the world to abide by his social darwinist worldview. Basically, all he's missing are the rings.

edited 25th Apr '17 11:51:20 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#69255: Apr 25th 2017 at 11:52:40 AM

Considering Loki causes a lot of his own problems I don't know if the MCU itself is who wants us to feel bad for him. He's mostly tragic because of his own hubris, since his Freudian Excuse is pretty damn flimsy.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#69256: Apr 25th 2017 at 11:55:58 AM

I don't really get a sense of cunning from Guy Pearce's performance as Killian, is what I'm saying. And frankly, the rings would've helped. He doesn't have to wear them on his fingers— on a leather band around his neck or in a box in a display case somewhere— even if all they were was trophies of some sort, that would've done a lot for my appreciation of the character.

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#69257: Apr 25th 2017 at 11:57:53 AM

Because there's basically no way to do "Osama bin Laden with SUPERPOWERS" that isn't going to be a terrible disservice to everything the Mandarin is. That's not the fault of the Mandarin. It's the fault of the guys who thought embedding him in Middle East terrorism was a good idea in the first place.

Why would he be Osama Bin Laden with superpowers, though? You could easily say the Ten Rings is a multinational organization. One of the rings (Raza) is a Middle Eastern terrorism corporation. Maybe the other 9 are all European.

He's a cunning manipulator hiding behind layers of The Man Behind the Man while trying to reinvent the world to abide by his social darwinist worldview. Basically, all he's missing are the rings.

That'd make him, at best, Spymaster. Aldritch Killian is not a social darwinist, and really, neither is Mandarin. Mandarin's concept is that he's a guy who views the modern age and democracy as an insult, he thinks the world was better when it was feudal, ruled by the sword, and this is his objective, to bring the world back to a feudal-medieval-ish era political system under his thumb. Even Matt Fraction's modernized Mandarin has a grand speech about how he has come to view capitalism as a modernized form of feudalism.

I've said this before and I'll keep saying until I die: The Mandarin is not "The Man Behind the Man plus some nifty rings". He's a traditionalist. His conflict with Iron Man is fun because it's a futurist vs a medievalist, tradition vs inovation, magic (or science that looks a lot like magic) vs science, mysticism vs enlightenment. Enter the Mandarin is the best work if you want to get a summation of everything the Mandarin's supposed to be and what his rivalry with Stark is all about.

Aldritch Killian has exactly zilch of that.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#69258: Apr 25th 2017 at 11:59:02 AM

Oh, no, not again the Malekith debate. Yeah, they messed him up, but the problem was not Loki. You really don't need much screentime to establish a great villain, so if they didn't manage to do that in all the time they had, additional scenes wouldn't have changed this.

Concerning Kraven: I actually don't think that we need to see him more than once. It is possible to tell the story with a few tweaks in one movie, especially since it is not really about the character, it is about the notion that someone would go and hunt spiderman so relentless.

Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#69259: Apr 25th 2017 at 12:01:48 PM

I do think that the MCU could use a long-lived Vandal Savage-like villain, so in that sense, I miss the Mandarin and to a greater extent Kang. But yeah, I totally agree with Tobias that the association of the Mandarin with Osama bin Laden in the first Iron Man movie really doomed the character, because as was alluded to by the twist with Kingsley's fake!Mandarin, a played straight version of that Mandarin would be some awful Other figure that hates America for our freedom. It would make ''Homeland'' and ''24'' look Muslim-friendly by comparison.

And kind of similarly to the discussion in other threads RE Hydra and Nazism, there's just problems in general the more you tie a villain to real atrocities, because of some combination of being in bad taste, making for dodgy film policies, and making the villain super-unsympathetic, and not in a good way.

Also, I'll always defend Loki, and one point I like to reiterate is that Loki is to Thor as Magneto is to Professor X. Which is to say that this is a villainous character who plays a central, protagonisty, role in the story, and a big aspect of the character is their friendship with the hero and the question of whether they will become or remain good (or at least continually teasing their pulling a Heel–Face Turn). It makes them different from both villains who aren't central to the story as well as other arch-nemesis characters (i.e. Norman Osborn) who also last long-term, but are not friendly toward the hero.

edited 25th Apr '17 12:07:48 PM by Hodor2

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#69260: Apr 25th 2017 at 12:10:37 PM

Killian's totally a social darwinist. Extremis is darwinism incarnate. Seriously. It is the principle that the strong thrive and the weak die in superpower form. Can you regulate? No? Sucks to be you, bomb person. Should've had a better handle on your superpowers!

The Mandarin is a throwback longing for an age when might made right. Killian, meanwhile, is a man who not only has found a way to bring this age forward to the modern world, but still managed to establish himself as the mightiest of the mighty. We see Extremis manifesting in unique ways for him via his regrettably under-utilized firebreathing. Using a superpower that literally imposes survival of the fittest on your biology, Killian is proud to be the fittest of them all.

Why would he be Osama Bin Laden with superpowers, though? You could easily say the Ten Rings is a multinational organization. One of the rings (Raza) is a Middle Eastern terrorism corporation. Maybe the other 9 are all European.

Because if you're complaining about wasted build-up, that's the only build-up he ever received. Going, "Oh, no, the racial terrorists are just that one sect, all the others are totes respectable villain stuff," is just a mildly different way of awkwardly shuffling away from Iron Man 1 than what Iron Man 3 did.

edited 25th Apr '17 12:11:07 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#69261: Apr 25th 2017 at 12:21:58 PM

@Tobias- You know I hadn't thought of it like this til now, but there's some particularly bad implications if that Iron Man I backstory was more than a nod/joke, because like the Mandarin is supposed to be Ancient precursor conqueror with links to Islamic civilization- So think like Genghis Khan, Tammerlane, Suliemen the Magnificent, Mehemet II, etc.- all of whom were pretty cosmopolitan/tolerant (or depending on how you look at it Wicked Cultured and Equal-Opportunity Evil). And the Iron Man I "backstory" implies that this guy is not only supportive of "Radical Islamic Terrorism"™, he's a major sponsor of it.

edited 25th Apr '17 12:23:15 PM by Hodor2

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#69262: Apr 25th 2017 at 12:23:00 PM

That's stretching it, I think. Killian is just a guy who wants to be rich and influential, and he makes this pretty clear whenever he's talking to Tony or Pepper. He expresses no real philosophical interest in Extremis blowing people up. It's just a unfortunate scientific side-effect, no real "grand philosophical scheme here".

Comics!Mandarin would have made a point to go on length about it. Killian doesn't even share the same speech patterns as the comics!Mandarin. Mandarin talks in very elaborate and sophisticated language because Comics!Mandarin is a drama queen who wants to be seen as God's divine gift to mortals, Killian makes a point to be as informal as possible in every language because he's just a dude trying to get rich.

Killian has a much better claim of being a bootleg Ezekiel Stane (young rich man, motivated by perceived humiliation from a young age) than anything remotely similar to the Mandarin.

Because if you're complaining about wasted build-up, that's the only build-up he ever received. Going, "Oh, no, the racial terrorists are just that one sect, all the others are totes respectable villain stuff," is just a mildly different way of awkwardly shuffling away from Iron Man 1 than what Iron Man 3 did.

Actually, IM II also had the Ten Rings subtlety working in it: they're the (evidently European) guys who get Vanko the passes to Stark's race tracks.

It's not like this kind of reveal would break any screenwriting laws of divine justice. It's completely normal to expand an organization as you reveal more about them.

For instance: In the First Avenger HYDRA's a nazi science division mooks to the Red Skull. In Winter Soldier they're a sleeper cell/cult of neo-fascist intelligence agents. Winter Soldier reveals a bunch of aspects about HYDRA the earlier portrayal did not contain. Ten Rings could easily do the same just without the timeskip (movie could as well open with Mandarin, suit-clad, going to visit the wreckade of Raza's death to complain about how much he failed and then flying to Paris or something).

This also makes sense with the symbolism of the movie itself. The logo the movie Ten Rings use is the logo used to represent the clans Geghis Khan united to form the Mongolian Empire. In a modernized sense, it makes absolutely all the sense in the world it is a cosmopolitan order.

[up] You're actually misremembering. Raza (as you do) looked like a Muslim terrorist but his actual goals were just "rebuilding the Mongolian empire". He never mentioned Islam.

edited 25th Apr '17 12:25:54 PM by Gaon

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#69263: Apr 25th 2017 at 12:42:24 PM

The Ten Rings representative in Ant-Man was also a white man I think.

Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#69264: Apr 25th 2017 at 1:10:52 PM

[up][up] That is a fair point, although I'd say that Raza is not a Muslim Terrorist the same way in which Hydra aren't Nazis. It's kind of a plausible deniability thing and in both cases, I think it's pretty clear in terms of how the audience is supposed to see the hero fighting against/killing them.

RAlexa21th Zettai Ryouiki Enjoyer from California (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I <3 love!
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Galadriel Since: Feb, 2015
#69267: Apr 25th 2017 at 7:09:52 PM

General tone of reviews for GOTG 2 is that it's superficially entertaining but shallow, without much thoughtfulness put into plot or characters, and mostly feels like a way to cash in on the first one's success (e.g., Hangover 2) rather than build on it in a meaningful way (e.g., Toy Story 2).

I wasn't a huge fan of the first one, so I think I'll skip this. Spider-Man is about the only superhero movie this year I'm looking forward to.

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#69269: Apr 25th 2017 at 7:46:40 PM

This is why I waited before commenting on that.

TargetmasterJoe from Velocitron Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: I like big bots and I can not lie
#69270: Apr 25th 2017 at 9:03:09 PM

The cosmic universe will expand moving forward.

Not that I'm against it, but I'm kind of wondering what new cosmic stuff can they use that isn't owned by Fox.

I can think of them bringing in Nova (either Richard Rider or Sam Alexander)...and that's it.

...Fox sucks. tongue

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#69271: Apr 25th 2017 at 9:11:09 PM

Quasar (preferably Phyla). Moondragon. The Kree Skrull War (since the Skrulls are co-owned). They confirmed there's plans to do stuff with Adam Warlock in the future and that also opens up the door for the Magus. Gunn had also expressed a desire to do something with the Spaceknights. There's plenty they could still do and characters as of yet left untouched.

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#69272: Apr 25th 2017 at 9:36:09 PM

Annihilus and the Negative Zone is probably under the Fantastic Four's purview, right? It'd be cool of they showed up as part of the Cosmic MCU's expansion, but that makes it very unlikely.

Though I've always thought the Negative Zone would be a great way to introduce the FF, should their film rights ever fall back into Marvel's hands. In a sort of Ant-Man way, have them have been active some time ago but disappear on an expedition/experiment that turns out to have taken them into the Negative Zone, and the plot of the movie is them escaping and trying to get back home.

edited 25th Apr '17 9:36:21 PM by KnownUnknown

alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#69273: Apr 26th 2017 at 3:31:31 AM

Man, I would love it if they did a Weirdworld movie. Based on the Sam Humphries run, with Becca the Earthgirl and Goleta the Wizardslayer and Ogdeode the Catbeast. Give me some weird science fantasy, please.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#69274: Apr 26th 2017 at 3:57:40 AM

Yes

YES

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#69275: Apr 26th 2017 at 4:22:38 AM

Agents of Shield (still going on strong btw) managed to sneak in another dedication to Paxton. They snuck an event which "commemorates the life and legacy of American Hero John Garrett" (Paxton's Character) into the newsticker of an in-universe Newsshow.

The episode was really cathartic btw. I wish it would be so easy to take down "alternative news" in real life.


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