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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

AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#85251: Apr 22nd 2018 at 7:21:39 PM

I wasn't referring to his grammar in the first paragraph though. I'd meant that his reasoning in there didn't make any sense. I should've made that clearer, my bad.

edited 22nd Apr '18 7:21:58 PM by AdricDePsycho

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.
#85252: Apr 22nd 2018 at 7:22:52 PM

Sure, just like the other 5 or 6 times you've said that today.

AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#85253: Apr 22nd 2018 at 7:23:29 PM

Okay now this is getting personal and I'm going to ask that you stop.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#85254: Apr 22nd 2018 at 7:41:58 PM

[up][up]I mean... I have trouble understanding their English too, a lot of the time :/

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.
#85255: Apr 22nd 2018 at 7:43:53 PM

@Jovian: I wouldn’t describe Ronan’s response as “confused curiosity”, especially since his second “What are you doing?” is one of fury. He’s been thrown completely off his game, and has no idea how to respond - after all, people don’t usually start dance when you’re about to kill them.

Oh God! Natural light!
XJTordecai Watch the seventh wave Since: Jun, 2013
Watch the seventh wave
#85256: Apr 22nd 2018 at 7:53:00 PM

One of my favorite moments in the movie has to be the part where Rocket is weeping over the remains of Groot, and then Drax comes to sit beside him and...pets him. Even without any dialogue (if anything I think it's better without dialogue) the scene is amusing, adorable and touching all in one.

On my wave, passing oooooooon
Nightwire Since: Feb, 2010
#85257: Apr 22nd 2018 at 8:20:10 PM

Re: MODOK: I still want to see A.I.M done right, dammit.

I need the evil beekeeper scientists' organization

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#85258: Apr 22nd 2018 at 8:50:40 PM

Taking Valkyrie to fight the murder god that had killed everyone she had ever known and loved doesn't seem like getting off easy

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#85259: Apr 22nd 2018 at 9:46:09 PM

What I like about Guardians of the Galaxy is that it shows repentance is not an immediate flip, it's a process.
I don't think Guardians of the Galaxy is about repentance at all, honestly. It's not about the main characters starting out as bad people and becoming good people — they're a mix of both from start to finish. It's not an accident that at the end of the movie has Peter asking what they should do next. "Something good? Something bad?" And he settles on "a little of both".

The message there, if there is one, is that you don't have to be a heroic personality to do heroic things. You just have to be willing to step up and do the thing when the time comes. That's what Peter did when he saved Gamora after her pod got shot up, that's what the whole team did when they decided to stop Ronan.

I wouldn’t describe Ronan’s response as “confused curiosity”, especially since his second “What are you doing?” is one of fury. He’s been thrown completely off his game, and has no idea how to respond - after all, people don’t usually start dance when you’re about to kill them.
How to respond is easy: just finish killing them. He was literally a second or two away from wiping out all life on the planet, and he stopped to ask Peter what the hell he was doing. You don't ask a question if you don't care about the answer, and Ronan caring about why any pathetic inferior culture does anything doesn't jive with his characterization in the rest of the movie.

One of my favorite moments in the movie has to be the part where Rocket is weeping over the remains of Groot, and then Drax comes to sit beside him and...pets him. Even without any dialogue (if anything I think it's better without dialogue) the scene is amusing, adorable and touching all in one.
Yeah, that scene is excellent. Rocket, who's never been anything but dismissive and hostile, and Drax, who's been focused on revenge above all else, sharing a moment of grief. What really gets me is that Rocket tenses up when Drax first touches him. The guy was a science experiment — it's not a big leap to think that he has hang-ups about personal space. But you can see him deliberately stop his reflexive response and just... accept Drax's gesture.

On the subject of Age of Ultron: another MCU movie that only really holds together if you accept it at face value and don't think about it too hard. Why does Ultron decide that keeping the peace means murdering everyone? 'Cause that's what rogue AIs do, I guess? Don't worry about it, nevermind the fact that the entire movie rests on that foundation. The fight scenes (other than the first one where they stormed the Hydra base, which was excellent) were largely too long and didn't actually advance the plot at all. Ultron's pseudo-intellectual philosophizing was also a waste of screen time in a movie that was already too long. Had the same problem that Winter Soldier did in that "enemy with unknown capabilities == enemy with infinite capabilities", as Ultron somehow built like thousands of bodies in about three days. Deus Ex Helicarrier was ridiculous. And why the hell did Loki have an Infinity Stone inside his scepter? If he had a goddamn Infinity Stone the whole goddamn time, then why was he even messing around with the Tesseract or the chitauri? Age of Ultron also tried to do too much in general — there were too many plots, most of which didn't get the attention the deserved.

I could go on, but it's late, so I'll stop here for now. There were a bunch of things I did like about Age of Ultron, so I'll talk about that when I have a chance tomorrow. Ultimately I'd put Age of Ultron on the low end of "good", above Iron Man 3 but below The Avengers. For those keeping score, that puts my rankings thus far at (best) Guardians of the Galaxy, the first two Iron Mans, the first Captain America, the first Avengers, Age of Ultron (cutoff for "good movie"), Iron Man 3, Winter Soldier, (cutoff for "alright movie"), both Thors, The Incredible Hulk (worst).

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#85260: Apr 22nd 2018 at 9:48:59 PM
Thumped: This post has been thumped with the mod stick. This means knock it off.
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#85261: Apr 22nd 2018 at 10:18:23 PM

I for my part would be distracted when in the middle of my big speech, there would suddenly someone dancing in front of me. While singing "oh child".

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#85262: Apr 22nd 2018 at 11:50:53 PM
Thumped: for switching the discussion from the topic to a person. Doesn't take many of this kind of thump to bring a suspension. Stay on the topic, not the people in the discussion.
Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#85263: Apr 23rd 2018 at 12:00:31 AM

[up][up] & [up][up][up]

...did two tropers just admit to being Marvel villains all along??

surprised /)O_O(\

edited 23rd Apr '18 12:00:55 AM by Tuckerscreator

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#85264: Apr 23rd 2018 at 12:01:42 AM

Peter’s first inclination upon realizing what’s actually in the orb, is to try to run from it while selling it to someone else.

Well, it's a bit more than that. Peter's first inclination is to try (poorly) to mix altruism with profit: he does legitimately want to keep the galaxy out of jeopardy, so he proposes selling it to someone (presumably the Nova Corps) who wouldn't use it to harm anyone. And then running. Which is still highly selfish, but technically a proposal that would've been good for everybody except Ronan.

The big thing he learns by the second movie - since he's still doing the basic "do good for a profit" thing by the end - is to stop running and face things head on, but he doesn't really become less "good enough, but also amoral" by the end.

edited 23rd Apr '18 12:02:19 AM by KnownUnknown

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#85265: Apr 23rd 2018 at 2:14:31 AM

> ...did two tropers just admit to being Marvel villains all along??

One of them Mysterio

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#85266: Apr 23rd 2018 at 3:45:25 AM

Sure...and my evil plan is to constantly annoy Aldric and Unsung with my opinions in the hope of eventually driving them crazy. But I might rethink this if they dance for me.

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#85267: Apr 23rd 2018 at 3:52:33 AM

How do you even see with that gold fish bowl on your head

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#85268: Apr 23rd 2018 at 5:56:34 AM

[up][up]If you want yo annoy adric, just bring "Wanda is a criminal" agian every know and them for not reason at all, it works like a charmevil grin.

"Taking Valkyrie to fight the murder god that had killed everyone she had ever known and loved doesn't seem like getting off easy "

But helping the Grandmaster in his slave(oh sorry, no paying workers) sociaty is kinda a horrible thing if you ask me,and if you add times, Valkire was helping Odin in his imperalist phase, which add more....awfull implications.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#85269: Apr 23rd 2018 at 6:32:24 AM

....moving on.

So they had some of the Infinity War cast play family feud, with the Russos as host.

It’s very funny.

edited 23rd Apr '18 6:46:50 AM by wisewillow

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#85270: Apr 23rd 2018 at 6:34:08 AM

Do you want her thrown in space jail? Space jail blew up. There is no space jail

Also she helps start an uprising against the Grandmaster and then helps overthrow Hela and then dedicates her life to helping some refugees

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#85271: Apr 23rd 2018 at 6:36:08 AM

First order of business: I checked the listings, and seems like Black Panther is still showing in my local theater until Wednesday. (Makes sense, given that Infinity War starts on Thursday.) I'm definitely planning to see it out-of-order rather than wait for it to hit streaming services or whatever. At this point I've seen every MCU movie up through Age of Ultron — anything after that that I should make sure to watch before seeing Black Panther? I'll probably end up watching Ant Man and Civil War before Wednesday anyway, so it's really a question of whether anything in Doctor Strange, GOTG 2, Spider-Man Homecoming, or Thor: Ragnarok is worth watching out-of-order instead of those two.

To be fair, he was going to replace humanity with robots! Its kind of like leaving a campsite better than you found it! Except by campsite I mean 'all life on Earth' and better than you found it means 'kill it all with nuclear winter, replace with AI'.
...was that his plan? I'm legitimately unsure. At one point he talks about how his problem with the Avengers is that they're stifling humanity's growth by, essentially, being overprotective, and what humanity really needs is a good extinction-level event to inspire some development (and if it actually does wipe out the species, well, then clearly they didn't deserve to live anyway). But then later, he says something about after he's finished, nothing will live on Earth but metal. It's unclear to me whether his goals are changing, or it's just a clarification and by "evolve" he meant "I take over because meatbags are obsolete", or he's just going crazy, or what.

I for my part would be distracted when in the middle of my big speech, there would suddenly someone dancing in front of me. While singing "oh child".
Sure, that's not my complaint. My complaint is that his response isn't dismissive or contemptuous, it's confused and curious (even if that curiosity is wrapped up in anger). He doesn't say "this is your last pathetic attempt at saving yourselves?" or "your inferior cultural customs such as 'dance' disgust me, vermin" or just try to kill Peter for being obnoxious in the middle of his big self-righteous speech. He asks "what are you doing?" and actually listens to the answer, when everything about he character up to that point would suggest that he doesn't care about non-Kree cultures except to destroy them (which he was about to do, but stops, in order to talk to Peter).

But they do develop.
They definitely develop, but "development" isn't the same thing as "redemption". At the start, none of them are really "evil" in the sense that they're willing to hurt innocents for their own gain, and none of them are really "good" in the sense that they're willing to go out of their way to stick their neck out for other people. At the end, they're mostly the same on both counts — even going after Ronan was, in large part, rational self-interest. One of the things Peter points out during their Misfit Mobilization Moment is that they need to care about what happens to the galaxy because they live in it.

Of course, it's something of a spectrum. Gamora is most altruistic about it because she wants to prevent what happened to her own people from happening to other planets. Peter's probably next, because he does want to prevent genocide, but isn't above profiting off of it in the process. Drax mostly wants to kill Ronan, but wants to prevent genocide too, again because of his own experiences. Groot is hard to read but seems to have some sort of principled take on it, given that he agrees to help even before Rocket does. Rocket's definitely the most selfish of the group, but even he's not driven solely by self-interest, being unwilling to abandon his friends when it comes down to it (even though that would be the smart play).

It’s sorta implied at parts that Thanos put the Mind Stone in the scepter without Loki’s knowledge, either to mind control Loki once the invasion was done, or as a backup in case someone steals the scepter and starts to fiddle with it. So the implication is that Ultron was Thanos’s Plan B, hence why the bot defaulted to “KILL ALL HUMANS”. Then that fails, and Thanos is so mad he actually gets off his chair.

But they didn’t do a great job of communicating that.

...is any of that actually in Age of Ultron? Because I didn't get any of that at all. To me, it came off as a ham-handed retcon to make the Infinity Stone arc more convenient and avoid having to do an origin story for the Mind stone. Of course, saying "it was in Loki's scepter" isn't really an origin story and just begs the question "well, how did it get there?" instead. Actually, I'm not even sure if Loki's scepter is the same weapon he had in the first Thor movie (meaning he's had it for who-knows how long) or if it first showed up in The Avengers (meaning he presumably picked it up at some point after fleeing Asgard).

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#85272: Apr 23rd 2018 at 6:38:16 AM

Working embedded link

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#85273: Apr 23rd 2018 at 6:45:11 AM

People had been theorizing that Loki's scepter was an infinity stone for a while before AOU

But no. It's not explicitly stated. You have to make inferences based on stuff like Thanos standing up as a seeming result of Ultron being defeated

And Loki's scepter is different from the Gungnir of Odin's

edited 23rd Apr '18 6:46:49 AM by Bocaj

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#85274: Apr 23rd 2018 at 6:45:45 AM

[up][up][up]Civil War is the only really relevant film to watch before BP because it introduces T'Challa and gives some helpful context to his character.

edited 23rd Apr '18 6:45:55 AM by Draghinazzo

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#85275: Apr 23rd 2018 at 6:48:06 AM

Honestly, fans have been pretty good to guess stuff like this....sometimes I wonder though, how often the fans guess correctly and how often the writers read a fan theory and go "hey, this is actually a pretty nifty idea"


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