TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Go To

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

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#78951: Jan 10th 2018 at 8:14:58 PM

God, if I never hear about Budapest again, it'll be too soon.

The arguments that raged in the wake of the film's release killed any and all enjoyment there was to be had out of the Budapest line. It prompted massive discussions about what must have occurred in Budapest for Nat to equate the invasion to it, with many suspecting that there must have been another alien invasion that Nat and Clint thwarted. And the speculations about why Clint would remember it differently ran wild as well, talking about how he was mind-controlled or brainwashed or maybe had amnesia.

The line itself was clearly just a funny gag, with Nat making an awkward attempt at Casual Danger Dialogue that Clint snarkily dismisses. But it launched so many Epileptic Trees from people taking it way too seriously.

Then the comics ran with those Epileptic Trees and had a whole arc about Budapest where Hawkeye was forced to do secret super-black ops missions for S.H.I.E.L.D. and they erased all his memories at the end of them so he'd remember them differently....

Yeah, f*ck Budapest. The joke is dead and I hope to God it never comes up again.

Also, while I'm at it, f*ck the words "red in her ledger" as applied to Black Widow. That's been completely run into the ground too.

edited 10th Jan '18 8:15:42 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Falrinn Since: Dec, 2014
#78952: Jan 10th 2018 at 8:16:34 PM

While I'll acknowledge a up front that I'm a tad biased against prequelsnote , with Captain Marvel taking place in the 90's I'm not sure if it's the right move to have another movie take place in a similar timeframe so quickly.

In addition Marvel has shown a willingness to tell smaller scale stories on the big screen even in the "modern" MCU setting. So you can just have a spy-thriller set after Infinity War where the story makes it clear that calling in Carol Danvers and obliterating the problem with the fury of a thousand suns would just make things worse.

It would be fairly straightforward to create a situation where Black Widow is investigating something (I'm personally hoping for AIM, under new management that brings them more in line with their comic-book counterparts), and by the time it becomes apparent how serious the Evil Plan is, she either doesn't have time to call in the big guns or she doesn't have the means to do so.

AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#78953: Jan 10th 2018 at 8:16:38 PM

They obviously went to Budapest because they were Hungary.

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.
#78954: Jan 10th 2018 at 8:19:49 PM

Yeah, the context of the scene was clearly a joke:

Nat (referring to shooting and getting shot at while taking cover): "Reminds me of Budapest."

Clint (referring to the alien invasion): "You and I remember Budapest very differently."

Done. That's it, that was the joke.

Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#78955: Jan 10th 2018 at 8:19:58 PM

[up][up]I guess they weren't Ankara'n for some Turkey instead?

edited 10th Jan '18 8:20:18 PM by Anomalocaris20

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#78956: Jan 10th 2018 at 8:22:10 PM

Back then, Nat was Russian for some Greece, until she had to pay the Czech.

TheMageofFire Since: May, 2012
#78957: Jan 10th 2018 at 8:23:22 PM

But the food made her sick, so she had to rush for Japan.

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#78958: Jan 10th 2018 at 8:41:58 PM

I just realized that Janelle Monae isn’t in the MCU yet, and now I’m sad. Any ideas of who would be a good character for her to play?

Beatman1 Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Gone fishin'
#78959: Jan 10th 2018 at 9:01:33 PM

[up][up]

Sorry. Too many puns, you know?

[up]They already cast Monica Rambeau, which would have been my first choice.

edited 10th Jan '18 9:05:30 PM by Beatman1

KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#78960: Jan 10th 2018 at 9:14:37 PM

Aren't we just assuming it's Monica? I don't recall them stating it definitively.

Oh God! Natural light!
Beatman1 Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Gone fishin'
#78961: Jan 10th 2018 at 9:20:16 PM

[up]If Monica is free, by all means, cast Janelle Monae. Hell, do a Nextwave series on Hulu or a film of it with her as the lead. Now I just need to figure out who'd play Aaron Stack.

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#78962: Jan 10th 2018 at 9:23:30 PM

Thor: Ragnarok's Home Video Release will include a new short 'Team Darryl' in which Grandmaster Becomes Darryl's Roommate.

Pics of Avengers 4 set, featuring Ant-Man and Cap in his Avengers 1 suit, despite the former taking place long after the latter. Possible Time Stone shenanigans? Or a bit of meta humor?

Beatman1 Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Gone fishin'
#78963: Jan 10th 2018 at 9:54:21 PM

[up]The fact that Darryl is back makes this a must buy.

edited 10th Jan '18 9:54:29 PM by Beatman1

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#78964: Jan 10th 2018 at 10:02:36 PM

I'm guessing the Time Stone makes the character blip around their personal timelines or something.

Kind of like the Time Crash episode of Justice League Unlimited, where the characters would become older or younger at a moments notice, would cease to exist or reexist at random, or would even be replaced by alternate universe versions of themselves.

Which, I gotta admit, would be a pretty awesome way to pull a Continuity Cameo. Imagine the Time Stone going haywire, and for a moment, just a moment, Bucky or Sam is wearing a Captain America suit, Peter disappears and Miles Morales appears instead, or War Machine is replaced by Iron Patriot ( who turns out to be Norman Osborn).

Joking about that last one, but it's still a neat idea.

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#78965: Jan 10th 2018 at 10:05:52 PM

... I now want this very badly. Mostly for 1) Donald Glover as Miles cameo and 2) Peggy Carter throwing a stapler at Thanos’ face.

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#78966: Jan 10th 2018 at 10:13:54 PM

You could even use it to cameo characters who probably aren't ever going to show up in the MCU and aren't all that relevant overall, but would be cool to see for a brief moment, kind of like how GOTG showed us a blip of Eson the Searcher while giving us the more important exposition about the Power Stone. Like, the timestream goes wonky, and for a second we see Spider-Man 2099 or something.

Another entirely joking idea: someone uses the Time or Soul Stone during the darkest hour, and we get every single character who died so the main characters can learn lessons or be better people or whatever. Like, Yinsen, Erskine, Peggy, Peter Quill's mom, Uncle Ben, Odin and/or Frigga, T'Chaka, Mar'Vell probably, and the Ancient One all show up drinking coffee and delivering a trite "go get em" speech or something, as well as Hank Pym who keeps complaining that he's not actually dead. tongue

edited 10th Jan '18 10:15:03 PM by KnownUnknown

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#78967: Jan 10th 2018 at 10:26:31 PM

HEY. Peggy didn’t die to inspire Steve.

Steve died(got frozen) to inspire PEGGY. Peggy died because she was old as balls.

edited 10th Jan '18 10:26:43 PM by wisewillow

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#78968: Jan 11th 2018 at 12:51:53 AM

I have a couple of reasons why I am strongly against a prequel for Black Widow:

1. As a general rule, I hate to go backwards with a character. Captain America and Captain Marvel both being prequels was perfectly okay because those were the first introductions we got to the character. Filling the blanks of the MCU this way works perfectly fine. But taking a character we already know that well and then go back to explain how he ended up being the character he or she was later on is rarely interesting, especially if said character already developed further from this point.

2. In this case it would be particularly questionable because Black Widow is the kind of character I really don't want to know in that much detail. Having a kind of mysterious past is part of the appeal of the character.

3. And then we have to consider what it would actually mean to explore her past for the kind of story the writers can tell. They basically have two choices, to either show her being used and abused by the Red Room until she encounters a helpful male character who sees more in her, or you show her being the puppet for Shield, never really questioning her orders. NONE of those scenarios are particularly empowering, and I think that those who clamour for a Black Widow movie want her to be the heroine of the piece instead of getting another narrative in which some woman has to free herself from oppression or claiming her place in the world. There is nothing wrong with those kinds of narrative, but outside of Ao S, those are practically the only kinds of narrative and/or arcs the female characters got in the MCU so far. I for my part really, really want to see a woman just kicking ass.

unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#78969: Jan 11th 2018 at 11:35:27 AM

"Having a kind of mysterious past is part of the appeal of the character"

Which it only work so far before mysterious past become just vague and stupid, I dont care about black widow past anymore because it was never deliver in any way,shape of form.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
Punisher286 Since: Jan, 2016
#78970: Jan 11th 2018 at 12:04:07 PM

It's sort of the problem that Wolverine's "lost memories" started to have in the comics for me. They constantly brought it up, and teased learning more about it, but the would pull back at the last minute. And you can get away with that for a while, but eventually it just gets old and tiresome. It starts to feel like you don't actually have a set backstory for the character and are trying to hide that fact.

So either really go into it/flesh it out, or stop mentioning it and move on already. Also showing what Natasha was like as a person before Hawkeye "saved her" could potentially be an interesting contrast to who she is now. Heck you could even do both, have the main story set in present-day, but tied into her past somehow and do flashbacks or something.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#78971: Jan 11th 2018 at 12:17:33 PM

Black Widow doesn't have a mysterious past. She has a loosely-established past. There are no real mysteries to her identity. She was with the Red Room, then she did some awful shit. S.H.I.E.L.D. sent Hawkeye to take her out, and instead, he decided to recruit her because he saw potential.

That's not mysterious. It just leaves a lot of details to the imagination which is honestly for the best. Do you really need those details filled in? Will you sleep better at night having actually seen Nat pry a loving father away from his children and stab out his throat while his daughter screams in despair and horror? Will that endear you more to the character?

Right now, Nat's crimes are safely in the realm of backstory where nobody has to emotionally engage them directly and have their impression of the character warped as a result. There is nothing good that can come of prequeling her.

edited 11th Jan '18 12:18:58 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#78972: Jan 11th 2018 at 12:25:02 PM

There's nothing saying a prequel has to be a dark origin story prequel exploring her terrible past in explicit and tearjerking detail.

I was thinking more of a SHIELD focused prequel, kind of like the equivalent of a Bottle Episode, involving a single mission or operation that turns out to be something big - think something like Dredd. Even if it is a prequel about the circumstances of her Heel Turn, there's little reason to go into further detail about her murky past unless her murky past is the actual plot - and again, it doesn't have to be: a deuteragonist secret agent movie where she and Hawkeye are working for opposite ends, only to realize that they should be on the same side.

Maybe it's because I've been watching (and playing) a lot of secret agent fiction recently, wherein characters with complicated histories enter and exit the plot in all manner of roles but primarily introduce complexities to the overarching plotline rather than themselves (because what's important about their backstories is that they're complicated, not what precisely those complications are), that... I dunno, assuming that a Widow prequel has no choice but to be a lurid, tragedy exploring affair about her upbringing seems uncreative.

edited 11th Jan '18 12:32:28 PM by KnownUnknown

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#78973: Jan 11th 2018 at 12:28:32 PM

Yeah, you could always watch Red Sparrow for that. But I'd still like to see when Natalia met Hawkeye, that particular mission. This doesn't have to go full-on Stale Beer and Murder by Ice Pick in a Cheap Hotel Room levels of bleak or anything, but I do think the underlying guilt of the character is part of what makes her compelling on the occasions she's allowed to fully, y'know, compel. A modern-day story punctuated by flashbacks seems like a good way of getting the point across while still leaving room for the somewhat lighter tone of the MCU overall.

edited 11th Jan '18 12:36:57 PM by Unsung

Punisher286 Since: Jan, 2016
#78974: Jan 11th 2018 at 12:34:18 PM

I mean constantly bringing up a character's "dark past" that they feel the need to redeem themselves for, and then not ever really showing any of it, does kind of feel like trying to have your cake and eat it to.

I kind of WANT to emotionally engage with, for it not to be "safely" consigned to anything. Because it's inherently NOT a safe character traits. And if you're going to make it so freaking important, and keep bringing it up, then actually do something with it.

Yeah why not show some of the stuff that Natasha feels the need to make up for? It makes it all the more impressive how far she's come in many ways.

edited 11th Jan '18 12:38:33 PM by Punisher286

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#78975: Jan 11th 2018 at 12:36:20 PM

There's no need to even constantly bring it up. The only movie to do so previously is the first Avengers. Winter Soldier has her as "vaguely complicated" - she did morally ambiguous things, but it's only important in the present because she discovers that her desire to do those things for good reasons was a lie. The second Avengers had her primarily concerned with being infertile. Civil War writes her more as a surprisingly idealistic ambassador who put her spy life behind her.

It's important because it establishes what kind of person she is and where she comes from, but it's backstory. Even in a prequel, there isn't much need to keep it from being backstory. In fact, the lure to explain everything is one of the classic mistakes prequels tend to make.

edited 11th Jan '18 12:38:07 PM by KnownUnknown


Total posts: 186,763
Top