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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.
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    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
#76026: Oct 29th 2017 at 5:42:59 PM

Count me as one of those who genuinely likes the first Thor movie. As I said previously, I feel it kind of unfairly gets lumped in with the second movie, and now that everyone is loving Ragnarok so much, I fear it's gonna be consigned to history as part of "Those two Thor movies that got made before the good one."

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#76027: Oct 29th 2017 at 5:46:08 PM

My opinion on Thor 1 shifts up and down. It's not bad. Right now I do like it more than Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and The Avengers: Age of Ultron.

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#76028: Oct 29th 2017 at 7:08:36 PM

I also genuinely like the first movie. I’f be more interested in watching it than Incredible Hulk or either of the Iron Man sequels, at least

Nightwire Since: Feb, 2010
#76029: Oct 29th 2017 at 7:31:42 PM

Count me in also as someone who genuinely likes the first Thor. It's disheartening how much it got ragged on.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#76030: Oct 29th 2017 at 7:38:31 PM

I like the first Thor.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#76031: Oct 29th 2017 at 7:52:21 PM

I liked it too! I don’t know why everyone hates the Earth stuff so much. I thought Jane and Darcy (and Sif) were great. They’re the first major MCU women besides Pepper, and they’re both pretty... normal? I liked that. Also, female gaze on Chris Hemsworth. Thanks, Kenneth Branagh.

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#76032: Oct 29th 2017 at 7:54:02 PM

I didn't dislike Thor, but I liked The Dark World a lot better. It was able to hit the ground running, instead of spending a lot of time on people discovering what's up with Thor and Asgard and everything when the audience had already been given all that information earlier in the movie.

Nightwire Since: Feb, 2010
#76033: Oct 29th 2017 at 7:56:10 PM

Also, I am not averse to Thor/Jane and the whole "Thor on Earth" stuff as many people are. I know great things could be done with it. My first Thor comic is Thor The Mighty Avenger (which is really, really fucking good and everyone should read it), whose main plot is basically "Thor gets stranded on Earth, learns about stuff and develops his relationship with Jane", and it's done really well and endearingly!

The movies... didn't do so great on that front.

edited 29th Oct '17 7:59:26 PM by Nightwire

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#76034: Oct 29th 2017 at 8:02:43 PM

I don’t know why everyone hates the Earth stuff so much.

I just found it kind of trite and boring. I'm surprised to hear Jane being popular all of a sudden because she made no impression on me whatsoever and she's been regarded as a mandatory love interest for as long as I've known, an opinion which I agree with. Darcy I'd heard people liking before but I don't remember her being a highlight of the film either, I don't remember her period.

Because I find the Earth characters and the fish out of water comedy to fall flat, Thor's whole character arc doesn't really resonate for me; he's supposed to be making a connection with these people, but *I* have no connection to them. The film completely failed to sell me on Thor being a compelling character.

edited 29th Oct '17 8:05:51 PM by Draghinazzo

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#76035: Oct 29th 2017 at 8:06:38 PM

I don't have a problem with what Thor is going for in theory, but there are just too many characters and not enough for them to do. Earth itself isn't the problem, it's just that not very much is allowed to actually happen there. If you got Thor to Earth a lot sooner, and got the casts from the two separate worlds together a lot earlier, I think that would've spread the weight a bit better.

There's the germ of a good idea in The Dark World, too. It's just...execution, man.

edited 30th Oct '17 5:11:50 AM by Unsung

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#76036: Oct 29th 2017 at 8:11:10 PM

Yeah I don't really have a problem with the general idea/setup of Thor either, including them going to Earth. It just needed to be executed better.

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#76037: Oct 29th 2017 at 8:11:46 PM

This article [1] sums up why I love Jane, and also why the original Thor movie is pretty feminist.

edited 29th Oct '17 8:14:07 PM by wisewillow

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#76038: Oct 29th 2017 at 8:13:23 PM

I liked the first Thor too, although I think it's more of an "in spite of" situation, a sympathy pat for a film that didn't always do the ideas it seemed to want to convey justice. I appreciate it for having more narrative ambition than the technically more accomplished but creatively bankrupt TDW, so I think it's unfair to treat the two as that comparable. I watched TDW first and was bored by it the majority of the time, so going back to the first Thor I was pleasantly surprised by how much the film was able to hold my attention in comparison. I think if the first Thor had a do-over it could become a genuinely great movie, whereas TDW would need to back to the drawing board completely.

At the same time, while I'm glad Stevenson liked Thor 1 for those reasons, IMO they're pretty minor, even negligible aspects that get dwarfed by the rest of the film's overall mediocrity. I thought GOTG had a bunch of absolutely fantastic aspects about it that I loved, but that's still not enough to save it from being near the bottom of my personal MCU movies list.

[up] Technically anything can be argued to be feminist or not if you put enough effort into the discourse, so if that's how they see it then good for them, but it's not enough for me. As long as they're not one of the people who proclaim that Jane is one of the best characters in the MCU and if you disagree with them or are happy she's not going to be in Ragnarok then you're just a Fake Feminist suffering from internalized misogyny.

edited 29th Oct '17 8:34:05 PM by AlleyOop

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#76039: Oct 29th 2017 at 8:27:04 PM

These articles about Thor and Jane specifically don't really improve my opinion of the film at all, but it's interesting to see that people got something out of it I guess.

edited 29th Oct '17 8:28:25 PM by Draghinazzo

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#76040: Oct 29th 2017 at 8:39:53 PM

Jane’s characterization definitely suffered in TDW. I didn’t like how she had given up on her research, and the Aether macguffin possession didn’t work for me. Darcy was hilarious in TDW, though her intern was unnecessary.

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.
#76041: Oct 29th 2017 at 8:47:06 PM

Darcy gave us Mewmew as a nickname for Mjolnir, which will never be forgotten.

edited 29th Oct '17 8:47:33 PM by PushoverMediaCritic

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#76042: Oct 29th 2017 at 8:49:04 PM

Yeah, I definitely can agree that even if I wasn't amazed by Jane in the first Thor she was at least decently functional as a character, then TDW basically robbed her of her compelling traits.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#76043: Oct 30th 2017 at 1:59:36 AM

It bears repeating: The main problem which hinders Jane in Thor 1 is Selvig. For one I don't see why the one female scientist in the MCU (at this point...and no, I don't count Betty, because Betty is apparently not able to use the data she stole and look into a cure for her boyfriend even though she worked on the same project he did) needs a male mentor to hold her hand and two, I absolutely loathe the bar scene in which he does the whole "If you hurt her than..." speech. How dare he! It is bad enough that every father and every brother in Hollywood movies do this and nobody has yet understood how insulting that is towards the young woman in question, but Jane isn't even a relative of Selvig.

But that aside, take Selvig out, and you can have the whole "is Thor really Thor" discussion between Jane and Darcy instead of Jane and Selvig (perhaps even with Jane as the sceptic), you can have Jane or Darcy convincing SHIELD to let Thor go and you can have Jane and Darcy behave a little bit more like grown ups in general instead of feeding into the stereotype that young scientists are overgrown children. Add in a few conversations in which Jane and Thor discuss earth customs, especially why it is not cool to attack another group of people just because so that Thor actually has the opportunity to understand why the battle field isn't just about glory, and you actually might end up with a working story.....

But what do I know.

DeathsApprentice The Ultimate Lifeform from The Ark Since: Aug, 2011 Relationship Status: Is that a kind of food?
The Ultimate Lifeform
#76044: Oct 30th 2017 at 4:59:25 AM

I've seen you make that point before, and I totally agree. Didn't Selvig not even exist in the comics prior to Thor 1, anyway? (I could be wrong, but even if I am, your point still stands.) Jane should have had his role too, that way she wouldn't have felt like a flat love interest as much, and would have been more interesting, IMO.

When we're done, there won't be anything left.
VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#76045: Oct 30th 2017 at 5:22:59 AM

It's been discussed before, but simply dumping Selvig would make Jane a better character.

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#76046: Oct 30th 2017 at 5:49:11 AM

Yeah. He’s really not necessary. And his part in TDW is gross.

Although, that would make Avengers super weird, if Loki had Jane enchanted.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#76047: Oct 30th 2017 at 5:52:13 AM

I get wanting to have one token Scandinavian in a movie that's based on Norse myth (and I actually do like Stellan Skarsgård), but he's just another excess character the movie doesn't really have time for, who makes Jane feel like the lesser of two experts. He gets a big part in The Avengers, too.

Maybe they should have just had Jane, Darcy, and Selvig all be the same person, just talking to herself, leaving voice notes like Agent Cooper. That might've actually been a good fit, looking at the direction they went with for Ragnarok.

edited 30th Oct '17 8:09:40 AM by Unsung

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#76048: Oct 30th 2017 at 5:54:40 AM

Darcy is essential comic relief and I will hear no argument to the contrary. :P

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#76049: Oct 30th 2017 at 6:00:09 AM

Don't get me wrong, I like her too. I'm just thinking, like, what if she'd been the female lead? What if that basic character was Jane?

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#76050: Oct 30th 2017 at 6:07:09 AM

I think giving Jane some of Selvig’s character while keeping Darcy would have worked. The more women, the merrier :-)


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