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

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#84726: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:02:52 AM

they took all of Hulk money,all of it!

no wonder he was so mad

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#84727: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:04:15 AM

The action scenes have no tension or flow, the plot is incoherent, the lighting/color is miserable, the film doesn’t build on characters arcs from the phase 2 solo movies, the jokes are as constant as they are unfunny, and the resolution is inept at best.

unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#84728: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:07:09 AM

Funny thing is, Civil war does kinda make a discontinuity from AOU, I mean the whole accident in negeria look like the russo wanted to the whole south africa fight from a diferent angle.

Adric: mostly because he is out of reach of people being acused, is kinda hard to cared what he did since he is another place in the moment.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#84729: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:07:10 AM

Plus Brucetasha is utter garbage, Ultron's motivations make no sense and he's derailed by having his threat constantly diminish, Whedon has no grip on writing the characters, Thor is shafted horribly, Quicksilver's death is stupid, and honestly? Taking back my earlier praise of Hawkeye's farm, he's kinda boring. I like the idea of it but Hawkeye as a character is honestly kinda dull and the whole "lol psych the guy who we all foreshadowed would die winds up not dying" thing is so fucking dumb and not clever at all.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
LordVatek Not really a lord of anything Since: Sep, 2014
Not really a lord of anything
#84730: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:21:09 AM

...Is Cap the only Avenger to come out of Age of Ultron completely unscathed?

This song needs more love.
Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#84731: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:23:08 AM

Hawkeye did ok for himself or at least got a step up from Avengers

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#84732: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:24:07 AM

[up][up]

No, Cap is wildly out of character in the movie.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Aleistar Since: Feb, 2018 Relationship Status: Hugging my pillow
#84733: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:27:04 AM

[up] 's been a while since I've seen Age Of Ultron, so what is it that makes him OOC there?

AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#84734: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:31:37 AM

They amp up his whole "stick in the mud conservative" persona that Whedon already gave him in the first Avengers. Stuff like him blurting out "Language!" when Tony curses (which is bullshit because Cap was in the army, who doesn't curse in the army?) or generally coming off as this uptight, sort of pompous ass.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#84735: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:33:37 AM

I liked Cap immediately regretting saying that

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#84736: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:33:37 AM

Eh, still OOC. And the joke, which wasn’t funny to begin with, then gets beaten into the ground.

Plus Cap being a Shipper on Deck for Bruce and Natasha is all kinds of awful.

[down] Uh... the joke does happen during a battle...?

edited 17th Apr '18 10:36:02 AM by wisewillow

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#84737: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:33:55 AM

The point with the cursing is that Captain America was'nt in a battle so the cursing was inappropriate to him

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#84738: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:35:11 AM

He says it while they're cutting down Hydra agents, they were in a battle.

And Cap curses in other movies, doesn't he? Him complaining about foul language and then them running that into the ground with an unfunny running gag is stupid.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#84739: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:35:49 AM

I forgot,whoopies

Either way,I'm not bothered by it

edited 17th Apr '18 10:36:33 AM by Ultimatum

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Cross (Don’t ask)
#84740: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:38:30 AM

I can judge the Vision thing for being a major narrative mistake. Tony's supposed to have an arc about not meddling with shit, right? Vision completely shits the bed on that because instead it's "Oh lol Tony knows what he's doing after all, guys" and it's complete bullshit. Tony learns nothing and Whedon goes for a clean ending that is completely unfitting for the film.

Vision was pretty confirmation to me that something clearly went wrong with Ultron, but nobody bothered to understand what. The film seem to make less of a point about Tony meddling with shit, but meddling with that shit behind the others back. The fact he pretty just accepts it makes it seem like they ignored an important question.

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#84741: Apr 17th 2018 at 10:39:00 AM

There's also the fact that they use Vision lifting Thor's hammer as a shortcut to actually developing his character, which has always bugged me. It isn't until Civil War that he actually gets characterization.

edited 17th Apr '18 10:40:01 AM by KnownUnknown

Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#84742: Apr 17th 2018 at 11:09:21 AM

Both Whedon movies have quotes that are various values of witty but which (IMO of course) don't seem like something that the characters (or possibly anyone) would actually say:

I think the "he's adopted" line in the first movie is really funny but doesn't really fit with that movies' take on Thor which plays up him not fitting into a contemporary setting. And it's also kind of out-of-character because Thor really strongly thinks of Loki as his brother.

Similarly, Cap's "God doesn't dress like that" comment envisions a rather less ecumenical Steve.

As far as Age of Ultron goes, besides the issues with the "Language!" quote, I think one reason why Tony's Droit du Seigneur quote is so infamous is because besides being rather more skeevy than fits Tony's personality, it seems unnatural as dialogue because the practice is most commonly known by that name in English, probably because it was written about (and to some extent invented by) 18th century French authors who called it that. So, while the Latin term for the practice, "jus primae noctis" is also used in English, it's more obscure and therefore less likely to be used by Tony or anyone. it's kind of like how there is apparently a Greek term that means the same thing as Schadenfreude ("Epicharikaky"), but we don't really use it in English anymore because the concept was codified in Germany.

I'm also not a fan of Cap's empathetic comment about Wanda and Pietro that compares them to himself and by extension compares Erskine and Strucker. Although this is actually something seemingly intended to show Cap as a good guy and it does seem in-character for him to be empathetic. And yeah, I also know that Strucker in the MCU is not the scary overt Nazi guy of the comics.

But that being said, Cap and probably everyone else would not make a comparison between a (likely Jewish) scientist who fled Nazi Germany and one who was a Nazi. It's pretty close to saying something like "German scientists did a lot of shady things during World War II. There was Einstein on our side and Mengele on theirs". Someone who says that needs a punch in the face. And it's the kind of comment someone would make who was deliberately trolling. Not someone who was being empathetic and definitely not a World War II veteran from the Lower East Side.

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#84743: Apr 17th 2018 at 11:12:33 AM

To be fair, the comparison between Erskine and Strucker in Cap's quote is indirect and entirely incidental, and whether that comparison in their circumstances (which he isn't actually making) isn't identical doesn't diminish the actual comparison between himself and the twins, which is the point of the line itself.

Cap isn't saying "Erskine and Strucker are the same, so the twins submitting to his experiments is okay," he's saying "the twins' motivations are similar to mine, and we came to similar decisions despite our different situations."

It's actually one of the few moments in Whedon's movies where Cap is the most like he is in The First Avenger, despite the rest of his characterization. He had a similar "you're from an enemy nation, but we're very similar" initial reaction to Erskine.

edited 17th Apr '18 11:20:50 AM by KnownUnknown

comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#84744: Apr 17th 2018 at 11:18:42 AM

I can give Whedon a pass on the first Avengers since it was produced before Captain America's movie was even released, so it makes sense that his handle on the character was not as good as it could've been (such as playing Steve off as very stuffy and rule-oriented, which is really not what he was like in his solo flick).

But yeah by the time we got to Age of Ultron, it was way more obvious that he didn't have a good handle on Steve.

unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#84745: Apr 17th 2018 at 11:28:34 AM

To be fair, cap being uptight is PART of is chararterization, it just the context.

with Whedon it make him more Mild version of is ultimate self which is somewhat fixed on is ideas and confrontational about it.

Meanwhile the russo version make him someone with kinda a messiah or hero complex, which is a little bit problematic in general.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#84746: Apr 17th 2018 at 11:39:17 AM

@Known Unknown- Yeah, I can see that and I guess I'm reading a bit too much into it, especially because it's like Whedon's only good Cap scene.

But I still have some issues with the quote because of the origin that the movie gives Wanda and Pietro. Which as I understand it, kind of makes them composite characters with the Fenris twins. And like while I'm not really a stickler for the idea that Wanda and Pietro need to be explicitly Jewish or Romani, I'm kind of not a fan of the implications of tying them to Hydra and Nazism.

Overall, I think that the movie obviously wanted to set up things down the road, including Wanda being a reformed supervillain and the power of the Mind Stone/the broader Infinity Wars plot. But it did so in a questionable way, so I'm happy to treat it as Broad Strokes, just like subsequent movies chose to.

edited 17th Apr '18 11:48:49 AM by Hodor2

AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#84747: Apr 17th 2018 at 11:42:33 AM

[up][up]

How is the Russo version problematic?

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#84748: Apr 17th 2018 at 11:43:21 AM

[up][up]I dont because there wasnt any waring about it and it come as Civil war try to whitewash her action that result in sokovia destruction while putting all of it in tony.

[up]Oh sorry, no problematic in the social sense but in the chararter sense: Cap have this idea that he cant just turn away of being a hero and helping other, even if that can be doing something worst.

and alas, he got right into zemo trap because of it.

edited 17th Apr '18 11:44:26 AM by unknowing

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#84749: Apr 17th 2018 at 11:55:11 AM

Age of Ultron doesn’t properly develop a lot of its arcs, and while many of Cap’s moments are embarrassing (including that one bizarre bit where he becomes Joss’s mouthpiece to tell Bruce to date Widow), I did like the nightmare struggle they set up for him. It’s a fascinating idea, the dark side of Steve’s persistence resulting in him not knowing what to do with peace. And it develops well from his characterization in The Winter Soldier, where he was happiest during fights but struggled to imagine with Sam what he’d like to do outside of his job as a soldier. But yet again, AOU raised it then dropped it.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#84750: Apr 17th 2018 at 11:57:36 AM

I actually think that Whedon has more trouble with Thor than with Cap. Yeah, the language joke doesn't really work for him, but everything else he does in Age of Ultron does, and the wood chopping scene is excellent.


Total posts: 186,763
Top