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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

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#74977: Sep 26th 2017 at 2:09:30 PM

Oops. Peter is/was the Iron Man ''2'' kid. [nja]

edited 26th Sep '17 2:09:43 PM by Hodor2

eligram Since: Sep, 2009 Relationship Status: In denial
#74978: Sep 26th 2017 at 2:09:48 PM

I believe that was the one from 2, the one with the ironman costume. [nja] [nja]

edited 26th Sep '17 2:10:29 PM by eligram

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#74979: Sep 26th 2017 at 2:20:44 PM

I think most of the Avengers can rally around enjoying Tiger & Bunny and My Hero Academia.

HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#74980: Sep 26th 2017 at 2:25:41 PM

[up]

Tony: See. I told you guys it could work! Japan agrees with me!

cool

One Strip! One Strip!
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#74981: Sep 26th 2017 at 2:28:25 PM

Hell, Robert Downey Jr. literally exists in the former show as Blue Rose's boss. His name is even Robert.

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#74982: Sep 26th 2017 at 2:58:23 PM

[up][up]I was gonna make a Product Placement joke but the MCU is already rife with it.

MedusaStone Since: Jan, 2015
#74983: Sep 26th 2017 at 3:40:26 PM

I'd like to see all of them react to Neon Genesis Evangelion.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#74984: Sep 26th 2017 at 6:58:30 PM

Iron Fist, episode eight!

Uncensored inmate mail! Oooh, Luke's sending Claire letters. From prison, so it's nice to know that his appeal didn't happen in Hollywood Time.

"…Harold?" We're jumping right into Danny's discovery that he's missing, I see. Sweet. I thought I'd have to wait an episode or two before he noticed.

[lol] Ward didn't do a good job cleaning up this crime scene, given the huge blood trail. But maybe that's why he came back. If he's smart, he'll use The Hand as his alibi. He can feign ignorance and Danny will assume The Hand discovered what Harold was up to and killed him.

Wait, that was Colleen that snatched up Claire's phone? Why would she do that? She has no reason to be sneaking around the house as though Claire doesn't know her, and even less reason to prevent her from seeing Danny's attempt at calling her. This assassin fakeout doesn't make any sense.

"What are you even doing here? Where's Dad?" Well played, Ward. Now Danny's not only got no reason to suspect you, but he will actively try to prevent you from seeing the crime scene. In two sentences, Ward has Danny on the defense.

"Why?" "Because of me." This is great. Ward couldn't have asked for a better setup. Danny's so busy blaming himself and The Hand is such a good scapegoat that there's no reason to ever suspect Ward of this. It's the perfect crime. Can't wait to see how he f*cks it up.

"That she'd what? Take her ball and go home? Are you a moron?! You thought you could end a criminal conspiracy by destroying a few test tubes?!" Ward, you drink a cup of human despair every morning and bleed raw malice, but I love you so much right now. Ward Best Pony.

"Well now I need to mourn my father's death for the second time." I mean, to be fair, Ward is a terrible actor. He's too controlled. Too logical. He's feigning anger but there's no anguish in it. Anybody with a halfway-decent bullshit filter would see right through him. Fortunately, he doesn't need to win an Oscar; Danny Rand is just awful at reading people. Just...so, so bad at it. He dump-statted Charisma and it had a devastating effect on his ability to Detect Motive, so even this performance is convincing to him.

"I don't care what you do. Just stay the hell away from me and Joy." … "You're a cancer, Danny." And he's not missing the opportunity to rub salt in Danny's wounds while he's at it, because see above, re: cup of human despair. At long last, he is free from Harold's influence and can kick as many puppies as he likes, and Danny is a puppy he's been itching to kick all series long.

No idea how he's going to get his money back, though. Harold emptied Ward's bank account before he died. He's still penniless.

Yep, cleaning up the crime scene is the reason he's here. Ward has the shittiest luck with timing.

"What if she won't talk?" "She'll talk." You're an idiot.

"Have you stopped to consider that this idea totally sucks?" Yeah! What she said!

"Kinda harsh, Claire." "Not really! For all you know, you're walking into a trap!" Claire is totally right about this. Ward's still playing by Gao's rules. Still letting what she said about his father get to him, drive him, define his course of action. She's playing him.

"You can't believe anything that she says to you." Why can't she be the Iron Fist? tongue #Claire Temple Iron Fist

They could make a whole season about it. The first episode could be titled "A Temple in K'un Lun".

"I'm going with you." A Japanese woman in China. That'll go over well.

"Claire, do not come up for air until you hear from us." "I'm going too!" Damn straight, she is. What, you think The Hand is out for her blood and she's just going to mosey down to a local motel and hang out there, entirely unprotected from murder-ninjas, while you go kick the hornet's nest some more? That's a great way to get her killed!

[lol] Danny's plan is to "grab her". I'm sure that will work out as well for him as it did when Ray Stantz suggested it. Such a stupid plan. [lol] A consequence of having no real motivation and just letting the plot drag him around by his dick is that Danny has no real concept of a Win Condition here. Until he figures out what he actually intends to achieve, he cannot progress towards it.

"I'm sorry." "It's alright." Yeah, you were just flipping out and screaming at your girlfriend. No big deal. …normally, I'd actually be inclined to give him a pass for how stressful this situation is, but he's been so misogynistic in his pursuit of Colleen that he gets no slack from me.

"You're holding our knickknacks hostage?" The show wants us to feel like this is a sinister corporate trick to coerce Ward and Joy into signing their termination agreements, but it's actually business as usual. A terminated employee is expected to leave the premises immediately upon termination, with their possessions boxed up by a colleague and provided to them on their way out the door. It's to keep them from stealing office supplies.

"The severance should be more than generous. $100 million each." That is actually pretty generous. Severance is usually based on a person's salary. The best package I've ever seen offered two months' pay plus an additional two weeks for each year you've been with the company.

Of course, I'd be remiss not to mention that terminated employees generally do not receive severance at all, but the fact that they're even having to sign these agreements indicates that they're not really being fired. People in their position are almost never fired. They're being pressured to resign, which functions differently.

"Enjoy this while you can. When I'm on the other side of this table, I guarantee you won't be smiling." Again, we're supposed to think he's an Evil Corporate Bad Guy doing Evil Corporate Things, but he's right. He's been right. I mean, not about charging a 10x markup, but that wasn't his idea; it came straight out of Ward's forked tongue. But his criticisms about Danny are spot-on.

"Thankfully, we didn't give him a job title so we don't have to offer him severance." "A silver lining!" [lol] Ward is taking perverse pleasure in the thought that Danny's getting f*cked harder than he and Joy is, even as they're getting f*cked. Oh, Ward, you pointlessly evil dickbag. Never change. [lol]

"How could you even consider signing this without discussing it with me?!" What part of your life makes you think any of the men in it cares what you think? You are not a Sexy Lamp, Joy, but that doesn't stop you from being treated like one.

"I worked my ass off to learn this business and then I won the respect of my colleagues." I love this scene. Joy thinks she's less competent than Ward at running the business but she's actually more. Ward has every reason to want to leave. He's just been a glorified errand boy for Harold this entire time. Rand never meant anything to him. But for Joy, it was her career. This was her life. She built her skillset around it, built her lifestyle around being on the Board of Directors. It's a key component of her identity.

Joy hasn't been here as long as Ward has but ever since she got here, they've been doing the same job and yet grown in wildly divergent paths. She thinks it's because Ward is more qualified for this work than she is, but it's actually because he is less, and that's a defining characteristic of his motivation here.

This is a good scene.

Oh, hey, Danny's flying to the city that he was flying too when his plane crashed and everyone died. In a Rand Corporation private jet no less, just like last time. This is a good idea. Danny has such great ideas.

"A gentleman never kisses and tells." A gentleman doesn't do a lot of shit you've done, Danny. Why draw the line here?

"If you find out that Gao indeed killed your parents, you're not going to do anything stupid, right?" "Like what? Kill her?" "For example." Dammit, Claire, you're supposed to be the voice of reason. Yes, kill Gao. Kill her with fire. She's an unholy force of malevolence who leads the undead magic demon ninjas. There is literally no reason not to kill her.

"You really think that you can justify murder?" Pfft, dude already has. He convinced the Triads to gun down a warehouse. They lit up the place with ammunition. Countless people must have been killed as a direct consequence of Danny recruiting killers to fight a war.

Danny's got a body count now. He might not have killed those people himself, but they're still dead because of him. We're not doing that stupid thing from DareDevil where it's not technically Danny's fault because f*ck you, that's why, are we?

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." If somebody's going around poking out eyes, doing nothing makes only the innocent blind.

I hope Claire shows up on the Punisher series. Just for, like, a brief cameo. Just long enough to go, "Wow. Wow. F*ck this guy," and walk out.

"We'll have to see about making some changes in our security personnell." You should probably do that anyways. Those guys are murderers on Harold Meachum's dime. The show completely forgot about that once Danny came aboard Rand.

"Your father would be ashamed if he could see the way his family was falling apart." I love that response to Ward's bribe offer. This guy's awesome! I really feel like the corporate strawman is the best businessman in the cast.

"I always thought the two of you looked after one another. In fact, I envied it. I'm sorry to see I was wrong." Lines like this make me wonder if maybe we're not supposed to hate this guy. I love him, but I assumed that was a Misaimed Fandom reaction.

"You worried Gao won't turn up?" What, your plan is to stare at one corner of the building with binoculars and just hope she'll cross your line of sight? That's stupid even for you, Danny. She might be in the building right now. Hell, she might have concluded her business and returned to New York by now.

Joy's plan to get back into the company is to blackmail the board? I admit, I did not see that coming.

"I hired a private investigator a while ago to start digging. She was worth every penny when she was sober." Jessica!

"Jesus, Joy, are you my sister or my HR Rep?" She's the only person in this cast who actually wants to be at Rand.

"Ward, I love you. Please, there is nothing that you could say that would ever change that. Do you understand?" How about, "I killed Dad"?

"As soon as we know the building's empty, we'll sneak in and we'll burn it to the ground." And then they'll rebuild it. You will have minorly inconvenienced Gao. I'm sure she will have an agitated sigh to spare for your efforts.

You know, for a swordswoman, Colleen sure doesn't use that sword a lot. At this point, I feel like it's purely for decoration.

[lol] I love how the magic ninja's only recourse to Claire starting her ignition was to slap his hand on the glass a few times. You are holding a deadly weapon, numbnuts.

"We should stick together, find Claire, and then figure out what to do." "Hey. I'll be okay." Oh, Colleen. What part of your entire history with this man has ever given you the impression that he cares what you think?

Oh, hey, Colleen's finally using her sword now that she has an opposing swordswoman so it wouldn't be considered an unfair advantage to do so.

Of course, this fight is completely pointless. It's only happening because she got spotted. The only stakes are whether or not her screw-up costs anything.

'Jesus, Colleen got her ass kicked fast and only started doing well after losing her sword. Maybe it is'' purely decorative. Fortunately, Claire was there to save her, because we wouldn't want to think Colleen's able to win fights against mooks. Then she wouldn't need Danny to protect her and what kind of world would that be?!

"I'm quite comfortable here. You can try to make me move, but I wouldn't advise it." Ooo, is this guy a zui quan practitioner? I love that style. It's my favorite martial art.

SQUEEE! He uses zui quan! ^.^ This is my favorite fight scene in the show thus far.

Man, Drunken Master is slaughtering Danny. Can this guy be the new main character? If he kills Danny, he gets to keep his show, right? That's how it works?

Ooh, Danny finally landed a solid hit on him.

"I'm here to stop the greatest threat to my people." "No, you're not! You're here to punish, not protect. You're wearing your oath like a mask." I love this guy so much. I want to keep him. Can we keep him? Can he be, like, The Dragon for Gao? He's made an amazing impression in this scene.

"I didn't ask to be the heir to your Daddy Issues so grow up and stop begging for my approval!" Wow, he changed his tone fast. He was this close to letting Joy in and then he was like, "Nope, it's Dick O'Clock!" instead.

"A shot in the dark rarely finds its target." Gao is so awesome.

I don't know what Claire thinks she's going to do with those claws, given how much she's been like, "Never kill anyone ever, it's not okay under any circumstances, killing is so bad!" Those are bladed implements, Claire. They aren't suited for nonlethal takedowns.

Oh, hey, Danny and Colleen tag-teamed a dude into stabbing another dude. That's totally their kill, even though I'm sure the show is going to be like, "Danny's never killed anyone!" at some point.

Wow, really, Danny? He smashes the door in what I'm sure is supposed to be a moment of heroic restraint but, like, punching Gao's skull in would be entirely justified. Man, even when Danny shuts up and fights, he still can't do anything right.

"Let's go," he said, as if he had control of this situation because a woman capable of flooring him without even touching him is allowing herself to be taken into custody. If Gao wanted to be fighting back, Danny would be on the floor right now. She has literally done that before.

So this was a better episode. There was a lot to like about it. It's starting to get preachy about Thou Shalt Not Kill which is just as obnoxious as it was when DareDevil did it, though. Man, what is it about the magic ninjas that really brings out the "Unreasonable Pacifist Who Still Racks Up a Body Count Anyway" in everyone?

Danny's still white which is annoying when he goes to China to fight actual Chinese martial artists, but the fact that this is the most objectionable thing about him this episode is an improvement.

Meanwhile, Colleen still falls squarely into girlfriend/sidekick territory. I mean, at least they gave her a cool fight, but that's mitigated by the fact that she needed a surprise interruption from Claire to win it and by the fact that it was entirely gratuitous, contributing absolutely nothing towards accomplishing their goal. At least Danny's fight was with the guy guarding the door; Colleen just got busted because she can't do anything right without her boyfriend holding her hand.

Ward was this close to a really interesting scene and then f*cked right off out of it, which honestly feels like padding to me. Still, I'm legitimately surprised by the blackmail twist Joy's taken. The corporate drama's gotten much better now that Danny's out of it.

I could complain at this point about how Danny's abandoned his business to go punch magic ninjas just like Murdock, but honestly, that's the least of Danny's offenses as a protagonist.

But in all, this was definitely a higher quality than the standard set by of the earlier parts of this season.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#74985: Sep 26th 2017 at 7:10:51 PM

The drunken master guy is played by Lewis Tan.

He auditioned to play Iron Fist before Finn Jones was cast.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
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.
#74986: Sep 26th 2017 at 7:14:08 PM

Glad you realized right away that Gao totally let herself be captured. I seem to recall a few people complaining about that when the show was still new-ish.

Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#74987: Sep 26th 2017 at 7:24:50 PM

To be fair, Madame Gao isn't uncaptureable. Everybody lets their guard down around her because they don't expect a little old lady to be able to shove them halfway across the room without even making direct contact, but now that Danny's experienced that she doesn't have the element of surprise anymore.

And the drunken dude is Zhou Cheng, and he is indeed awesome. I'm hoping he'll stick around for future seasons as a recurring frenemy or something.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#74988: Sep 26th 2017 at 7:28:00 PM

[up][up][up] He is awesome and totally should have gotten the role. He is a delight every second that he's onscreen. It's a shame he had to job like that at the end, but I really appreciated the 90% of the fight that was just him beating Danny's ass. That was great, and it's even more emotionally satisfying knowing that bit of trivia.

On an unrelated note, I really hope the show doesn't think that Danny pushing Gao around by the back of her shirt is somehow going to go unnoticed. This is China, in all its xenophobic glory. She's some kind of unholy demon ninja person, but not everyone knows that. A white man, a black woman, and a Japanese woman - three different flavors of unwelcome foreigner - shoving an old Chinese woman around in the streets of a Chinese city is bound to attract a lot of violent attention.

edited 26th Sep '17 7:28:10 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#74989: Sep 26th 2017 at 7:29:01 PM

He's a pretty big character in the comics, played by one of the season's most recognizable actors, who's confirmed not to be dead.

He's probably coming back.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#74990: Sep 26th 2017 at 9:29:33 PM

Yeah, that Drunken Master sequence is easily better than all the fights from episode six (and I suppose, by that token, the rest of the season as well) put together, sadly. Eight minutes with Lewis Tan is better than none, I guess?

Pushing Joy away by being an asshole is the only way Ward knows how to protect her...from himself. Note that even though Harold's gone, Ward still assumes he's got to be an asshole and do shitty things, because he has absolutely no idea how else to function at this point.

edited 26th Sep '17 9:30:44 PM by Unsung

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#74991: Sep 26th 2017 at 10:28:55 PM

So I decided to get caught up with the Marvel Netflixverse. This means I have 2 seasons of Daredevil, 1 of Iron Fist, and then Defenders (in that order). I figured I might as well, since JJ season 2 wrapped up not long ago and I should get ready for it. I've already seen a few episodes of Daredevil, but it's been forever since then so I figured it'd be better to start from the beginning again.

I considered doing a "liveblog" (by that I mean posting episode-by-episode thoughts like Tobias is doing with Iron Fist) like Adric joked about earlier (I know it was a joke, but still), but I don't think I'd have anything too funny or interesting to say on an episode-by-episode basis. I usually prefer to leave detailed thoughts after I've seen the whole season or barring that when I've seen a few episodes and have something interesting/pertinent to say, so I think I'm just going to do that.

With all that being said though I do have to a few miscellaneous thoughts about episode one to share:

- The opening to this show is really good. I mean that in both the actual opening, and the first few minutes of story we get (as far as music goes I prefer Luke Cage's opening, but Daredevil's is still good and I prefer its imagery). I still remember it making a really big impression back when I first saw it years ago. I was really happy, because at the time I was just not really satisfied with most of the MCU movies; I thought most of them were ok films, but felt they were overly safe films desperately afraid of being too dark or dramatic to their own detriment. The idea of a grittier, Darker and Edgier series was something I gladly welcomed because it was basically exactly what I wanted, and it was with none other than Daredevil, who's always been a very well-regarded character who's had multiple legendary runs by talented writers.

- There's some really good direction in this episode when it comes to establishing Matt's powers. None of it is anything that I think would have taken too long to come up with (the heartbeat and voice focus), but it was very effective at communicating his enhanced senses without having to explicitly say anything.

- I'm not really an expert on fight coreography by any means but I enjoyed the action/fights. They're intense, brutal, and convincing. I guess I have something to compare Iron Fist's fights to when I get to watching it, since I've heard they aren't very good due to Finn Jones' martial arts skills not being up to par.

edited 26th Sep '17 10:47:57 PM by Draghinazzo

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.
#74992: Sep 26th 2017 at 10:33:50 PM

Finn's fight scenes aren't terrible in Iron Fist, though they are better in Defenders.

SonOfSharknado Love is Love is Love Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#74994: Sep 27th 2017 at 1:31:01 AM

The episode with the Drunken Master fight was directed by the same guy who did most of the action packed episodes of Ao S, and it shows. He knows how to stage a fight, but also how to works with what he has.

I wasn't actually surprised by Joy being so ruthless, she already shows this ruthless streak when she exchanges organs for business ties (shocking Ward, who is actually not half as ruthless as she is). Anyway, even though the scene consists of a lot of telling, I dig their talk on the bank. Especially the part about Joy being thrown into a job she didn't want, but working hard to make the best out of it and now not being ready to give it up.

Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#74997: Sep 27th 2017 at 9:11:05 AM

Quite appropriate that Ghost would be blurry. tongue

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#74998: Sep 27th 2017 at 10:46:09 AM

Ghost is going to be in... Ant-Man, right?

SonOfSharknado Love is Love is Love Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Love is Love is Love
#74999: Sep 27th 2017 at 1:45:07 PM

It seemed appropriate.

My various fanfics.
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#75000: Sep 27th 2017 at 1:57:06 PM

Since nobody is mentioning it yet, Ao S released a new poster announcing its return in winter. They are mysterious again (which I love) but it looks like they stay in space for a while. Which could be a good thing...the show has a lower budget this season and having it mostly on some sort of fixed set will save a lot of money which is needed for the special effects.


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