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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

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#77501: Dec 4th 2017 at 10:43:33 PM

[up] Yes, the rumour is going around, but I am not sure if it is true. It's not like the contracts are a matter of public record. And as was pointed out earlier, when it comes to the Fantastic 4 Constantine Film might be in the mix, too.

"I feel like this is the result of Dare Devil's second season sucking so hard that it outright hijacked Defenders and made it shittier. That's what this feels like. And it sucks."

THANK YOU!!! Because most people misblame Iron Fist for this, and I feel that this is pretty unfair. For all the faults Iron Fist had, when it comes to the hand I think it actually improved on it. Not by much, but the notion of different fractions was intriguing, and it at least laid down some ground rules for the hand zombies. Naturally than the Defenders came along and absolutely wasted the idea with the different fractions and well as muddling the waters concerning the hand zombies again (as often as the hand leaders supposedly died they should be crazy by now). But all its main problems steam from Daredevil season 2, not Iron Fist. The whole Elektra Plot comes from there, as does the giant hole under New York thing and we still don't know what the Black Sky actually is!

edited 4th Dec '17 10:44:38 PM by Swanpride

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#77502: Dec 4th 2017 at 11:18:10 PM

Eh. I'd say DDS 2 and Iron Fist they share the blame, so it's not really misblamed. DDS 2's second half spends a lot of time spinning its wheels because so as not to spoil the true nature of the Hand any further, but apart from making the Hand (slightly) less of an unfortunate stereotype, Iron Fist doesn't really do much in the way of setting up for The Defenders at all, and yet somehow despite not really doing much with the Hand, both end up robbing The Defenders of a lot of what seems likely to have been meant to be its energy. We never get to know much about the Hand, but the mystery is kind of their whole stock in trade, the thing that makes them intimidating. Without that, there's not much left to work with, and even that has been underplayed— not getting an scene with Sowande taking Luke apart piece by piece, acting on physical pressure points as well as psychological ones, for instance. Or one where we see Murakami on the hunt, tracking the Defenders through the city. Gao comes off the best, because she always does, but even Bakuto returning from the dead has a very limited impact. He's mostly there for few limp taunts and even after his final death, we still don't really know much about his past with Colleen other than that it existed. Alexandra gets some nice little character moments, but they end up only existing for the rug-pull that is Elektra killing her. It's all Tell, and very little Show. We really, really needed those flashbacks here.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#77503: Dec 4th 2017 at 11:26:23 PM

[up] I think it does because all the problems with the Hand in the Defenders are based either on what Daredevil established about it or they are created by the Defenders itself. The two elements they did take from Iron Fist, the different fractions and Gao heading one of them, could have worked just fine.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#77504: Dec 4th 2017 at 11:38:11 PM

Ahem. Bakuto.

Defenders ends up being weirdly overstuffed for something that seems like it ought to have been very simple. Meanwhile Iron Fist is basically all about the Hand from the very start, yet has long stretches where not much at all ends up having happened. The blame's not solely on Iron Fist here, but the show doesn't need a pass for it, either.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#77505: Dec 4th 2017 at 11:57:24 PM

[up] I don't mind Bakuto. I actually feel that he was wasted in The Defenders, too, even though he did provide one of the best moments in it.

Also, no, Iron Fist is not really about the Hand, it is about Harold. The hand is just a side plot, and it is way better handled than in both seasons of Daredevil, despite the show having to spend more time to clean up behind Daredevil than actually being able to built its own mythology.

But whatever you think about Iron Fist's handling of the Hand, the fact is that the problem with it started in Daredevil, and Daredevil was the show which ensured that the Hand is the worst villain in the MCU. Daredevil is the root of the problem, not Iron Fist, so blaming Iron Fist while giving Daredevil a pass is misaimed.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#77506: Dec 5th 2017 at 12:05:57 AM

I'm not giving Daredevil a pass, either— Season 2 dropped the ball. But Iron Fist spends at least as much time on the Hand, via Gao and Bakuto, as it does on Harold, and still manages to fit in a ton of dead air and filler material. Daredevil 2 botched its second half, and it largely kept itself busy with some bad ideas and rushed action scenes, but it used the time it had, for good or ill. Iron Fist spends the same amount of runtime floating vaguely from one unfinished arc to the next.

edited 5th Dec '17 12:24:16 AM by Unsung

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#77507: Dec 5th 2017 at 12:20:34 AM

It's funny, you'd think it should be the individual series that get something like 8-10 episodes, and Defenders gets the full 13 since it's got way more key protagonists.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#77508: Dec 5th 2017 at 12:26:22 AM

8-10 episodes seems to be a pretty solid number for this kind of storytelling. I'd say The Defenders might've been quite a bit better off with even one more episode.

edited 5th Dec '17 12:26:35 AM by Unsung

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#77509: Dec 5th 2017 at 12:48:58 AM

But Iron Fist didn't set off a bomb which finally exploded in the Defenders. It didn't leave other shows with a mess of random plot points to solve. Defenders wasn't forced to pick up Bakuto or anything else set up in Iron Fist, but it was forced to deal with Elektra and the giant plot hole in the middle of New York.

Not that The Defenders is off the hock either. They made the story unnecessarily convoluted.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#77510: Dec 5th 2017 at 1:01:27 AM

Pretty sure Defenders didn't have to 'pick up' Elektra from Daredevil. She kind of had to show up in the Netflix MCU at some point, as soon as Daredevil was added to the slate. And the giant hole at Midland Circle was there from the very first episode of Daredevil. I'd say it being there is less of a problem than how it's used/not used. And in fairness, a hole full of dragon bones? That's no-shit mystical, and even kind of cool as a way of tying Daredevil and Iron Fist together.

The way this stuff is set up in Daredevil, it really seems more like it was the other way around— there was a fairly clear plan, which went of the rails a bit when Daredevil's surprising popularity meant it got a second season they never really planned for. So they borrowed plot points from The Defenders and, I imagine, from their plan for Iron Fist. But these were all things that I feel would've been fairly straightforward for Iron Fist to resolve. What's more frustrating is that it didn't really seem to try. It had its own story, which is fair enough, but that story ended up dragging and not really connecting very well with what ends up being The Defenders, which surely must have been close-ish to finalized by then.

edited 5th Dec '17 10:19:23 AM by Unsung

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#77511: Dec 5th 2017 at 1:29:56 AM

[up] The writers of Daredevil season 2 pretty much admitted that they put the giant hole there simply because they thought it was cool with no plan whatsoever for it. And even in season 1 of Daredevil the whole stuff with the hand was the weakest point, it only worked because they kept it vague. But if they had any idea what the Black sky was actually supposed to be, they would have explained it by now.

I also don't think that this was ever for Iron Fist to resolve because frankly, that show was supposed to be a pure starter show, you are supposed to be able to watch it without knowing the other Defender shows.

edited 5th Dec '17 1:32:36 AM by Swanpride

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#77512: Dec 5th 2017 at 5:47:19 AM

Alright, maybe the whole wasn't there, my bad, but some kind of Mystery Thing was. The montage at the end of Daredevil's first episode says "Black Sky", and they knew a Black Sky was a person, and I'm willing to go so far as to guess they knew it was going to have something to do with Elektra at that point, even if they didn't know exactly how or what it was.

I suspect the original intent, before the Hand and the Steel Serpent retroactively became the same organization, was to have something to do with the Beast, the demon the Hand worships in the comics, but a vault full of the same dragon bones that (presumably) got the Five Fingers kicked out of Heaven is a pretty good fallback. I don't have a problem with that part of The Defenders, anyway.

It was totally there for Iron Fist to resolve. It's the one character that's unabashedly mystical, so if they were ever going to start giving us exposition on this stuff, now was the time. You wouldn't even need any background from the other shows to include it— you contextualize it in the mythos of the Iron Fist and the Hand, and if it happens to explain some stuff from the other series, that's just a bonus. It's like how you don't really need to watch Jessica Jones for Luke Cage, but it adds something if you do. It's soft continuity.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#77513: Dec 5th 2017 at 6:47:00 AM

[up] And they did. They laid down the ground rules for the Hand Zombies (only for the Defenders to go and ignore them) and made it slightly more interesting by introducing the notion of different fractions, while also offering an explanation where the hand soldiers are even coming from. But you can hardly expect them to waste time on the Black Sky and the Chaste, that was on Daredevil to flesh out.

No matter how you try to excuse it, Daredevil was the show which made the mess and it dragged down the Defenders considerably.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#77514: Dec 5th 2017 at 6:48:17 AM

I headcanoned that the Hand fingers were getting the mm good uncut stuff and their ground level zombie ninjas were getting stuff cut with unicorn horn and mermaid scales or something.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
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.
#77515: Dec 5th 2017 at 6:49:18 AM

The dragon bones thing is that one plot twist that really got me hard. The second I saw those, everything clicked into place and I understood everything I needed to about the Hand's backstory.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#77516: Dec 5th 2017 at 6:51:17 AM

The thing with the dragon bones was the one thing which kind of worked, though it begs the question why the hand felt the need to put a giant building on top of it.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#77517: Dec 5th 2017 at 6:52:27 AM

Easiest way to hide the excavation, I guessssss?

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
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.
#77518: Dec 5th 2017 at 6:56:15 AM

It's easy to hide a project like that when you own the land and can prevent anyone else from seeing it. Also, time and money are barely issues, not ones they're used to dealing with, at least.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#77519: Dec 5th 2017 at 7:03:59 AM

@Swanpride I don't excuse DDS 2 for what it did (and failed to do) to the Hand, and I don't discount what Iron Fist did to rehabilitate them as a credible, interesting threat. But Iron Fist was always going to be the show that eased us into the more mystical side of the MCU, and as the last solo show and one dealing most directly with the main villains of The Defenders, I don't think it was asking too much for it to set a few pieces on the board in such a way that The Defenders could've used the series as a jumping-off point, ultimately to the benefit of both IF and Defenders.

Iron Fist is a show that spent five whole episodes on Danny stumbling around the city barely doing kung fu and not really doing anything to get his company back— seriously, he's barely gotten started with Hogarth when Harold just has Ward hand the company back to him. If the show couldn't even be bothered to kick its own plot into action, it gets no pity from me.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#77520: Dec 5th 2017 at 7:11:33 AM

I feel like there's a False Dichotomy here with regards to DD2 and IF. Neither one of them is wholly at fault for every problem in the Netflix MCU.

DD2 is to blame for Elektra and The Hand. IF is to blame for Danny and Colleen. They are both heavily flawed in ways that soaked into Defenders. Appropriately, Defenders is the sum of its parts, including the shitty ones.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
TargetmasterJoe from Velocitron Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: I like big bots and I can not lie
#77521: Dec 5th 2017 at 7:32:56 AM

The Disney-Fox deal is closing faster than we thought. We could hear the final result by next week at the earliest.

"The estimated value of the deal is $60 billion."

surprised


Related: Why does everyone or most everyone think Marvel will go hog-wild on Wolverine? The guy got an definite end in Logan, didn't he? If Feige's smart, he would oppose the idea of milking Wolverine and be more in favor of exploring the other X-Men who aren't him.

Also, does anyone else think that because Deadpool (2016) and probably The New Mutants are only connected to the X-Movies in the broadest sense, there might be some wiggle room to say the very basic events of those movies happened in the MCU, if you're clever enough?

edited 5th Dec '17 9:16:56 AM by TargetmasterJoe

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#77522: Dec 5th 2017 at 7:36:38 AM

Keep them separate and then do a crisis on two earths

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
shatterstar Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: I wanna know about these strangers like me
#77523: Dec 5th 2017 at 7:47:32 AM

[up][up] It's interesting to see that the main motivation for the buy-out is indeed because of the comic book characters. If this go through, we might finally see an X-Men film that actually respect its female characters for once. And Bryan Singer won't likely be involved anymore given the BTS drama lately.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#77524: Dec 5th 2017 at 7:52:52 AM

I don't think IF is solely at fault, for what it's worth, and in not trying to imply Swanpride is claiming the same of DD.

Got me thinking, though. I'd have been more than happy to cede DD 2's Hand plot to IF in its entirety. Part of me suspects Elektra would've been a better character if she's been Danny's foil, another rebelling (anti-)Chosen One, almost from the beginning, rather than being consigned to the role of an agency-free love interest. Maybe even taking on something of Colleen's role as The Mole, freeing the latter up to do other things.

I still think IF should've done more to set the stage for The Defenders, though. Not even to come down on IF— but if Danny absolutely must be the Chosen One here, at least lean into it, justify it, build that into the plot.

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.
#77525: Dec 5th 2017 at 7:52:53 AM

[up][up][up]Agreed. It's really the best to consolidate the two universe's wildly divergent timelines.

edited 5th Dec '17 7:53:10 AM by PushoverMediaCritic


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