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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Does J. K. Simmons as Jameson stand the test of time, at least?
The Raimi films have aspects that haven't aged the best, so I can see why people wouldn't necessarily be so fond of them now, but here's the thing: sure the MCU movies have more modern sensibilities and do better in certain regards...but as far as being especially meaningful, we only really have Iron Man 1 and Winter Soldier, and in terms of being ambitious mostly just the latter.
Homecoming is kind of emblematic of that: in many regards it's an enjoyable film that's hard to dislike, but it doesn't feel especially meaty or meaningful outside of Michael Keaton's Vulture.
edited 30th Sep '17 4:55:22 PM by Draghinazzo
J.K. Simmons as Jameson is absolutely a gem. It's not without reason that he's provided the voice acting for the character in basically every animated rendition and video game Marvel's ever produced since. The ones he appears in, anyway.
Spider-Men come and go, but J.K. Simmons is J. Jonah Jameson forever. The two are as inseparable as RDJ and Tony Stark.
edited 30th Sep '17 5:09:17 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Honestly, it's downright uncanny how spot-on he is.
EDIT: So, I started DD season 2, and one thing I will give this credit for is that, if nothing else, Frank Castle has a really strong introduction. He's honestly pretty damn intimidating, and they even made his codename sound scary.
edited 30th Sep '17 5:24:03 PM by Draghinazzo
You spelled Stick wrong, Tobias.
As for Spider-Man and Homecoming, for the more liberties Homecoming takes with its material, it sinks its teeth much more into the spirit of Spider-Man comics than Spider-Man 2. Pete himself is characterized in a much more "hero of the neighborhood" Straczynski-ish way (which I feel is the "truest" spider-man) that resembles much more his personality and role in most comics, Vulture having a lot more echoes of his comic book history, the story itself being set in a much more typical Spidey story, e.t.c
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Homecoming was fun, but it didn't feel thoughtful in the way that most of the earlier Spider-Man films at least attempted to be (most successfull in Spider-Man 2). Peter seemed to be doing his Spider-Man stuff more at a tryout for Avengers than out of a desire to genuinely help people. Stark's large role removed most of Peter's tech abilities and undermined his status as underdog, which is pretty essential to the character.
I didn't like that no female characters had major roles in the plot, but I did like that Peter's first crush at high school was really just a crush, and not built up as the love of his life. Things ended badly for both of them, but it was more in the category of "sad" than "epic tragedy", which fits a high school story better.
Spider-Man 2 (despite Maguire not being a fantastic Spider-Man) and ASM 1 are still the best ones, in my opinion.
edited 30th Sep '17 6:30:22 PM by Galadriel
I really dislike ASM 1 personally. Andrew Garfield is a fine actor but the way Peter's character was written completely sunk the film for me, not to mention the "been there, done that".
You have my firebreath!
That's worth more than a whole Fellowship by my estimation.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Spider-Man 1 and 2 will always be among my favorite superhero movies of all time but I will absolutely concede that Homecoming is a better constructed movie than both of them.
This song needs more love.As someone who saw the entire Raimi Spider-Man Trilogy and both not-so-Amazing Spider-Man films, I skipped out on Homecoming due to burn-out induced lack of interest. I'm certain that Homecoming is better than Spider-Man 3 and both Amazing films from what I heard of it though,
edited 30th Sep '17 7:31:12 PM by VeryMelon
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But not worth more than a Dale bowman, as I recall.
edited 30th Sep '17 7:29:37 PM by Gaon
"All you Fascists bound to lose."I don't really remember tech skills being a big thing in the Raimi films either.
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
In fact I'm pretty sure the rationale behind giving him organic webbing is that they thought him building web-shooters would break the suspension of disbelief or something like that. The reboot tried to split the difference by having him design the web-shooters, but the webs themselves being something made by Oscorp.
I can agree that having him be so reliant on Tony did undercut him to some degree but I'm pretty sure that's the point, hence the ending of him rejecting the suit and the spot on the Avengers.
Of course, they look to be going back on that in Infinity War. The perils of a shared universe....
edited 30th Sep '17 7:54:46 PM by comicwriter
Dude, the guy is gonna fight Thanos, he needs every advantage he can have! Or did you not see the guy cracking Thor's head in the trailer?
As for Daredevil S2, it's quite obvious they put so much effort into the Punisher's arc that the rest of the Season suffered. I mean, I love the Punisher, but when I'm watching a show with the name Daredevil, maybe I want to see the guy with the horns rather than the guy with the skull, y'know? So why not make sure he's the one with the more engaging story?
I'm pretty sure they were trying to. It's just that The Hand was so terrible and the writers were seemingly unaware of how Matt was coming off.
There's a common problem related to Protagonist-Centered Morality that I like to call Assumed Sympathy. Writers assume that because X character is the main character, you are automatically inclined to take his side and thus no effort must be made in convincing the audience that he's right. He's the Good Guy, so he's right by default.
Matt had this problem with regards to Thou Shalt Not Kill. He spends many episodes talking about it, but the show never makes the effort to show Matt's rightness through positive tangible results. That his philosophy is correct is taken as a matter of fact, and all of the screentime is instead dedicated to the conflicting philosophies of Stick, Elektra, and Castle against him.
Castle, in particular, gets a ton of time dedicated to why he is the way he is, because it's something that has to be explored and explained when the character is approached from the perspective of Matt's Assumed Sympathy. After all, if Matt is inherently, fundamentally, indisputably right, then how could a man like Frank come to see things so differently?
It's ultimately the same problem that Danny Rand has in Iron Fist; the show appears written from the perspective that he is always right and so no effort has to be put into actually presenting him as a sympathetic, likable person with well-reasoned beliefs and whose actions have a generally positive impact on the people around him. It's not as glaring for Matt as it is for Danny, but it's certainly there.
If what I'm hearing about Inhumans also holds water, it would seem that this strange, Doylist version of Tautological Templar is becoming quite the problem for Marvel TV.
edited 30th Sep '17 9:05:04 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I'll have more to say about that most likely when I'm done with DD s2 and Iron Fist, but that's a pretty common problem with bad stories. If you're going to have really flawed characters the audience is supposed to disagree with but empathize with, you have to communicate that properly. Having it be an accident usually has results that range from bad to disastrous because the emotional core of the story isn't working.

The Raimi trilogy is like Star Wars. It has a lot of nostalgic value and did things that had never been done before, at least for the audiences that enjoyed it. Consequentially, it holds a special place in a lot of people's hearts.
But they haven't really aged as well as fans think. There's so much that just blows them out of the water these days. These films were amazing for their time, but I'd much sooner watch an MCU film than any of them. Yes, even Spider-Man 2.
edited 30th Sep '17 4:34:22 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.