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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.
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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

HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#83076: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:16:31 AM

The only things I like about Iron Man 3 are the main theme and how Tony ultimately proves that it's not just the suit that makes him Iron Man.

But the absolute waste of Ben Kingsley ruins it for me completely.

I don't care about Killian at all, and agree that Maya would have been a better final villain.

Hell, I even think that the Mandarin being a dude behind the scenes is a good idea (because that's literally what Mandarin means), but the execution was lousy.

One Strip! One Strip!
deuteragonist Since: Dec, 2013
#83077: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:18:58 AM

For me, the Mandarin twist kind of goes back into the humor thing. It's a twist that's also played for laughs (and I'd be lying if I said I didn't I find funny at the time), but the movie just really overuses bathos to an almost infuriating degree. And that's even after the twist, right up to the climax.

Iron Man 3 is the last MCU movie I watched, I haven't seen anything more recent than that (barring Guardians of the Galaxy, which is pretty much unrelated anyway).
Hey if you decide to go see another MCU film...the Captain America movies and Black Panther are pretty awesome. Or at the very least, worth watching. Everything else is really at your own discretion of whether you would like it or not. Well, technically the ones I mentioned are too, but you get I what I mean. They're just much more acclaimed than the others.

edited 19th Mar '18 8:21:55 AM by deuteragonist

Sigilbreaker26 Serial Procrastinator Since: Nov, 2017
Serial Procrastinator
#83078: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:24:32 AM

I think the Mandarin twist is great, but then, I don't give a damn about the original comic character and I find the idea of using what didn't work about that character in service of a theme a good idea.

If it purely was comedy I wouldn't care for it but since it ties into the central theme of "creating a villain for the public consumption" I actually thought it was pretty clever. Certainly better than whatever Iron Man 2 was trying to do. Iron Man 2 has humour that doesn't work a lot more for me, it's just fratboy humour (tits! booze! he pisses in the suit lol!) whereas Iron Man 3 is able to at least be a bit satirical (when Rhodey goes to the location and it's full of ladies in Burqas, for instance, I remember wondering if that was a sly dig at the whole trying to find WMD's in Iraq thing). Also, while Iron Man 3 has its confusing elements, Iron Man 2 has flat out plot holes, like with the "why don't you lead with that?" joke with the laser. Like... why does he never use that laser again basically?

edited 19th Mar '18 8:28:30 AM by Sigilbreaker26

"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#83079: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:27:24 AM

Yeah, I'm in the process of watching the whole MCU. I've seen everything up through Iron Man 3 (plus GotG) at least once already, but I'm just rewatching the whole thing from the beginning. Up through Thor so far, Captain America is next.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Sigilbreaker26 Serial Procrastinator Since: Nov, 2017
Serial Procrastinator
#83080: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:28:58 AM

Well, if you've passed Incredible Hulk and IM 2 I'd say you're through the worst of the MCU.

"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#83081: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:29:15 AM

I think one's opinion of IM 3 hinges entirely on whether or not they accept the Mandarin twist as a good idea. That's all I'll say on the matter.

I'd amend that to "hinges mostly on whether or not they accept the Mandarin twist as a good idea and how they feel about Killian as a villain on his own terms".

The general opinion I see here is people liked the political themes behind the twist but dislike Killian for being a boring, uninteresting villain. In fact I would probably say he's one of the worst MCU villains at the end of the day. The "caricature" that Ben Kingsley was playing was far more interesting to watch than Guy Pearce (who I feel was miscast).

I'll probably post some more in-depth thoughts once our troper rewatch gets through IM 3 but I find it to be a mixed bag that's ultimately underwhelming.

edited 19th Mar '18 8:30:30 AM by Draghinazzo

Sigilbreaker26 Serial Procrastinator Since: Nov, 2017
Serial Procrastinator
#83082: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:31:08 AM

Well, I'd say Killain was better than Hammer (who is a walking, unfunny joke) and Whiplash (who is massively boring) in that he has that one good scene at the start. When you start from zero even 0.1 is a big number.

"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#83083: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:35:26 AM

Derp on my part on the trailer, for some reason I’d convinced myself that Soul was purple, things make a lot more sense now.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
deuteragonist Since: Dec, 2013
#83084: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:35:52 AM

I think the Mandarin twist is great, but then, I don't give a damn about the original comic character and I find the idea of using what didn't work about that character in service of a theme a good idea.

The idea and theme itself are totally fine but (as another poster said) the execution sucks. If it wasn't played for laughs it probably would have made for a very interesting turn of events. However, the bathos just really brings down the entire thing for me. And yeah, I don't like Killian at all.

I should also note that I don't care about the source material either. I just want a good film. And that's the case for all of the MCU movies aside from Spider-Man Homecoming. Iron Man 3 is just a mess to me.

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#83085: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:36:39 AM

Hammer's only problem is that they overused him. I get why people complain about him since he gets too much screen-time but he was never supposed to be a serious villain really. I disagree that Killian is any better than Whiplash; Mickey Rourke's acting is pretty good in some scenes (like the intro where his father dies and he buiilds the whip tch) and his banter with Tony (the little there is of it) is genuinely entertaining to watch. He could have easily been a good villain if the film was built more around his conflict with Tony, but IM 2 is just too bloated and has too many threads so he feels wasted.

Meanwhile, Killian starts off the film as an over-the-top caricature of a nerd who feels like he belongs in an 80's movie, making it hard to take him seriously. Then in the present he's just a smug, douchey corporate executive type with pretty much no charisma or presence whatsoever and Stane was sooooo much better in comparison.

edited 19th Mar '18 8:43:00 AM by Draghinazzo

Sigilbreaker26 Serial Procrastinator Since: Nov, 2017
Serial Procrastinator
#83086: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:43:13 AM

I mean, I found Killain's opening scene pretty good and every single one of Whiplash's scenes massively boring.

But after Stane, every single IM film has tried and failed to live up to that level of hammy badass.

edited 19th Mar '18 8:43:46 AM by Sigilbreaker26

"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#83087: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:43:21 AM

Iron Man 3 was my least favorite of the Iron Man trilogy. The idea of Tony dealing with PTSD from the events of The Avengers was interesting, but we already did "Tony hits rock bottom" once, and the rest of the plot was mostly incoherent. Like I literally can't make any sense of it. Something about a virus that makes people explode (unless it gives them energy beam superpowers instead), as masterminded by the Mandarin, except it's not really the Mandarin, except the real Mandarin is actually behind the fake Mandarin after all! (Now why does any of this involve Tony Stark again? I legitimately have no idea.)

I'm going to ignore the stuff about Tony snubbing Killian because that honestly contributes nothing to the film and winds up muddying Killian's motivations by making it look like the entire scheme was about revenge against Tony. Nerdy Past Killian should have just been cut out of the film; literally nothing would change.

What it amounts to is that Killian recruited Maya Hansen to fund her research into Extremis. It's supposed to be this life-saving formula but has a side effect of making things explode. Because comics.

Maya's been trying to wean out the explosion side effect, but Killian started testing on human subjects before that could be achieved. Specifically, he received state sponsorship and began testing on disabled military veterans, giving them back their limbs. Everything was great until one day, one of them exploded, killing himself and several bystanders.

Killian panicked and tried to come up with a scapegoat to make it seem like his formula wasn't responsible for the explosion. So he invented a fake terrorist attack, inventing the character of the Mandarin and appropriating the imagery and name of the Ten Rings. It became his go-to excuse. More clients started exploding and every time they did, it was another terror attack by the dreaded Mandarin, scourge of the West.

At some point, the Vice President became involved with this on the promise of Extremis to restore his handicapped daughter's legs. Presumably, this arrangement is how Killian was able to get state sponsorship and disabled veterans in the first place.

To help sell the illusion, Trevor Slattery was hired to play the Mandarin and Killian started releasing videos online of the Mandarin calling out the Americans and daring them to stop him. He also started courting Tony Stark, first through Pepper and then through Maya, because Tony's the only person he was aware of that could actually solve Extremis's instability. After years of Maya's failure to achieve stability with Extremis, he needed Stark's brilliance to make the explosions stop happening.

But the problem with his fake terror threat is escalation. You know the criticism of the villains in Die Hard trying to disguise a bank robbery as a terror attack, guaranteeing an escalated response they never would have had to deal with in a bank robbery? Yeah. The longer Killian's fake terror threat went on, the harder the Americans, S.H.I.E.L.D., and eventually even Iron Man came down on him. He ran into the problem face-first, and there was only so much the Vice President could do to protect him.

So, out of desperation, he came up with a new plan: seize the Presidency by staging actual terror attacks. Let the Mandarin assassinate the President of the United States. The Vice President can then assume power and lead a fake war against Killian's fake terrorist, placating the public and intelligence forces long enough for Extremis to be solved and for Killian's miracle drug to become marketable.

Ultimately, the entire conspiracy is the result of one really poorly conceived attempt at covering up a devastating side effect spiraling out of control into a savage web of lies to protect a desperate man from having to admit to the government that his product is killing war veterans.

edited 19th Mar '18 8:50:48 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#83088: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:43:41 AM

I didn't mind Hammer — he was stupid, but in a fun way. The only Hammer joke that really annoyed me was the super-duper micromissile thing on the War Machine suit that turned out to be a complete dud. Like, if Hammer's actually that incompetent (rather than "good, just not as good as Stark"), then how the hell does he stay in business?

I don't have any problem believing that The Incredible Hulk is the low point of the MCU, though.

[up]Huh, that actually makes a fair amount of sense (even though it's very silly). Not sure if I legitimately didn't understand most of that when I watched the movie, or I just forgot it after the fact. Probably the former — the fact that we're figuring this out piecemeal along with the protagonists rather than having it laid out all at once like you just did probably made it hard to follow.

edited 19th Mar '18 8:47:15 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Sigilbreaker26 Serial Procrastinator Since: Nov, 2017
Serial Procrastinator
#83089: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:45:53 AM

[up][up] When you put it like that... reminds me of Sword Art Online Abridged for some reason.

"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"
Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#83090: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:56:05 AM

Killian, make-it-up-on-the-go scheme worthy of a Coen Brothers character.

The only Hammer joke that really annoyed me was the super-duper micromissile thing on the War Machine suit that turned out to be a complete dud.

There is an alternate ending where the Ex-Wife works as intended and Vanko has no armor suit.

edited 19th Mar '18 8:57:58 AM by Tuckerscreator

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#83091: Mar 19th 2018 at 8:58:57 AM

One explanation for the Ex-Wife that I've always liked is that Rhodey used it wrong.

It's described as a bunker-buster. That's a hell of a missile. Bunker-busters are designed to be so powerful that they collapse the bunker underneath their point of impact. They're earth-shaking missiles with a massively potent blast. They are not designed to be launched from five feet away from the intended target.

The Ex-Wife malfunctioned because it didn't have time to properly arm its charge before hitting Vanko's suit.

EDIT: And if you're wondering why an experienced soldier like Rhodey would make that mistake, Justin Hammer presumably walked him through how to use it himself. And Hammer's an idiot.

edited 19th Mar '18 9:00:54 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#83092: Mar 19th 2018 at 9:09:00 AM

[up][up]Huh, I actually kinda like that ending better. I was never really a fan of "haha, suddenly I have a power suit too, why not?". Doing things by just low key sauntering up like that seems more in character for Vanko.

[up]That's a reasonable take, though if that was what happened, Tony pointing out the problem would have been funnier than just shitting on it because it's Hammer tech.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Sigilbreaker26 Serial Procrastinator Since: Nov, 2017
Serial Procrastinator
#83093: Mar 19th 2018 at 9:11:05 AM

Does Vanko even need a power suit? They hit him with a car multiple times and didn't even kill him.

"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"
HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#83094: Mar 19th 2018 at 9:12:42 AM

Heh. Hammer being a moron makes sense, but even if Hammer explained it wrong, wouldn't Rhodey realize it himself.

Not that I don't like the idea myself.

One Strip! One Strip!
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#83095: Mar 19th 2018 at 9:14:30 AM

I've not even seen Iron man 2,I totally skipped it

I still need to watch Civil War..

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#83096: Mar 19th 2018 at 9:14:58 AM

[up][up][up]That's the thing, really. He only needs a power suit to take hits, which he never really does. Instead he uses his whips to immediately control the situation. That's what makes the fight interesting — the good guys really only need one good shot at him to end the fight, but he's so effective at keeping them on the defensive that they don't get the chance.

He should probably have some broken legs and maybe a shattered pelvis after repeatedly being hit with a car, though, yeah. Chalk it up to comic book physics.

edited 19th Mar '18 9:16:03 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
deuteragonist Since: Dec, 2013
#83097: Mar 19th 2018 at 9:18:11 AM

[up][up]Civil War is definitely one of the more essential movies in the MCU canon. In fact, it's probably the most important one since the Avengers.

Personally, I still need to watch Thor: Ragnarok, Ant-Man, and Doctor Strange.

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#83098: Mar 19th 2018 at 9:31:48 AM

I keep forgetting that Ant-man and Doctor Strange exist. And I saw Ant-man, albeit only once, which is really unusual for me.

edited 19th Mar '18 9:32:40 AM by wisewillow

Luigisan98 A wandering user from Venezuelan Muscat Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: I <3 love!
A wandering user
#83099: Mar 19th 2018 at 9:33:33 AM

[up] You don't like Ant-Man? Doctor Strange I can understand but the Ant-Man?

The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#83100: Mar 19th 2018 at 9:35:59 AM

I don’t know, it was OK? I just always forget about it. Nothing was really that remarkable or memorable for me.


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