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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

windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#88701: Aug 30th 2018 at 9:35:48 AM

Okay and how is he going to do that when he's barely able to hold down Zod? Clark wasn't even able to bruise him during their fight.

Also, we saw A Kryptonian get hurt by heat vision in Mo S and the blast from Doomsday was still enough to knock Clark back.

Even ignoring all the above mentioned, Clark would have to know he's immune to Doomsday's energy blasts despite having never fought him.

Edited by windleopard on Aug 30th 2018 at 9:38:23 AM

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#88702: Aug 30th 2018 at 9:40:02 AM

Hey,wait a minute

This the Marvel thread,why are you guys discussing DC in here?!

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#88703: Aug 30th 2018 at 9:42:57 AM

So thoughts on Balder being in early concept art for the Thor movies? Would anyone have liked to see him in the MCU?

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#88704: Aug 30th 2018 at 9:43:38 AM

We were discussing the relative attitudes and audience reactions to Marvel and DC heroes killing

I will say that the "he had no other choice" argument falls kinda flat because the writers wrote him into that corner

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#88705: Aug 30th 2018 at 9:48:03 AM

And if he'd been given another choice, it would be because the writers gave him one.

"The writers wrote him into a corner" has never worked as a criticism because everything the character does is what the writer wants. We only bring it up when it's an outcome we don't like.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#88706: Aug 30th 2018 at 9:53:17 AM

Yes and audiences didn't like it

That's the point

The writers wrote Superman into a corner where Killing Is The Only Way and audiences responded negatively because that's not the Superman they wanted to view

I'll note that historically audiences resent characters being written into a corner so they have to do a bad thing

The Cold Equation went to great lengths to create a scenario where child murder was the only way and people were very negative about that

Edited by Bocaj on Aug 30th 2018 at 12:54:13 PM

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#88707: Aug 30th 2018 at 9:55:02 AM

DC also kind of encourages the perceived difference by treating those deaths as a really big deal.

Like, they didn’t just have Superman have to kill in self defense (which he’s done before, even if he’s regretted it), Man of Steel explicitly sets up a highly dramatic scene where Superman has no choice but to brutally kill a guy. As noted, the set up is extremely contrived and very clearly constructed to have that effect: we’re very obviously supposed to go “holy shit, Superman just killed that guy” (part of that movie’s attempts to be lofty and dramatic) and so the audience continued to be hyper aware about it.

In contrast, Marvel treats its heroes like action movie protagonists. They gun down mooks like nobody’s business, and all of these are fleeting in significance to the plot. There’s few scenes of outright execution, little to make it personal to the audience: just gunfights, explosions, the standard stuff. While I’d argue that this makes some of them - well, mostly Tony - somewhat unsettling, the audience by and large doesn’t care because they’re used to that kind of storytelling in action flicks and space operas and such.

Though it’s also worth noting that they’re also getting away from it. Tony’s execution style bullet spray bit was changed to rubber bullets (apparently) in Ultron, which made a point of having all the human deaths be indirect (Hulk punches a car into a building, for example. All those bad guys are dead, obviously, but the audience doesn’t see it). Of their current headliners, one is a guy who only kills under extreme duress (Scott), another is a guy who will kill but is conscious enough about his image and world he lives in that he won’t unless he has to (T’Challa), and another is a guy who doesn’t kill period (Peter Parker).

Edited by KnownUnknown on Aug 30th 2018 at 10:13:03 AM

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.
#88708: Aug 30th 2018 at 10:07:09 AM

Yeah, the Man of Steel scene is super contrived. We're supposed to believe that Superman is completely helpless to stop Zod's head from slowly turning despite having him in a headlock, and the only way to stop Zod's slow and inevitable eye lasers from killing this family is to break his neck. Nevermind that Superman has Zod in a headlock and can fly, and has been portrayed throughout the fight as physically stronger than Zod. Nevermind that there's nothing preventing the family from just running away. Nah, we're just supposed to believe that Zod's neck muscles alone are strong enough to overpower Superman's entire body torque, but only very slowly and gradually.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Aug 30th 2018 at 10:07:50 AM

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#88709: Aug 30th 2018 at 10:08:47 AM

Zod never skips neck day.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#88710: Aug 30th 2018 at 10:11:58 AM

Child murder is a bad thing. Killing a genocidal war lord is not. Superman was sad about it because, despite what people say, he isn't a sociopathic monster.

[up][up][up]And you don't think if they didn't acknowledge it, it wouldn't matter? Hell, there's people here who think it wasn't treated as enough of a big deal.

Btw, rubber bullets can still be fatal.

[up][up]physically stronger than Zod? Did you watch the fight at all. Clark was barely able to hold his own against him. And it's not merely about that family. It's about stopping Zod permanently and not dragging the fight out further and doing more damage. You know what people claim Superman didn't do.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#88711: Aug 30th 2018 at 10:13:18 AM

But what if child murder will save an entire planet and its the only way?

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#88712: Aug 30th 2018 at 10:17:07 AM

It's still a bad thing because it involves the death of an innocent. Zod is not innocent.

I really cannot believe I have to explain this to an adult.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#88713: Aug 30th 2018 at 10:18:14 AM

But it was the onlyyyyyyyyyyyyyy wayyyyyyyyyyy

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#88714: Aug 30th 2018 at 10:25:48 AM

Btw, rubber bullets can still be fatal

Whether they could conceivably be fatal in real life is irrelevant, because they weren’t fatal in the film regardless. The point is that scene had Tony’s ammo be different so that the one time Age of Ultron has him gun down a group of humans, it can be clearly established that they’re not actually dead (complete with one liners), in contrast to him definitely killing people with the same move in earlier films.

As for the rest of your response, I’m not really sure what you’re responding to.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Aug 30th 2018 at 10:26:22 AM

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#88715: Aug 30th 2018 at 10:29:56 AM

What bugs me about the act of killing itself is that in order to snap Zod's neck, Superman forces in into the direction from which he tried to keep him away beforehand. If we assume that the family was still in the same place, they got grilled before Zod died.

Not that this is actually the problem with the scene. The problem is that they spend the whole movie telling the audience "this is not the superman you remember", shows him wrecking havoc left and right but then expects it to have the same emotional reaction it would have had if it had been the Superman of the old.

They had three choices to approach the scene:

1. Portraying Superman more in line with what cultural osmosis considers typical for him, so that the audience is able to understand that killing is a huge deal for him.

2. Establishing that even this new Superman still has an intact moral compass and doesn't really want to kill anyone, complete with a scene after the killing in which he feels broken down.

3. Framing the scene in a way which makes the audience to not pay attention to what Superman just did. Worked for Superman II, right?

They did none of it, so the scene doesn't work.

With the Marvel heroes on the other hand, it goes this way:

Ironman gets away with killing in the first movie, because it is established that he deals with bad people who run amok in a lawless zone in which nobody but him is able to intervene. In later movies, he only kills in self-defence and has weapons which hurt but don't kill.

Captain America is established to be a soldier in the first movie, so naturally he kills, he is at war, and every time he suits up, it is treated like a war situation. And naturally people get killed during war.

Thor is established to be a warrior and again, warriors kill, though Thor keeps his killing off-world or to threads from off-world.

Hulk is established to have no control, being a big rage monster, so he is a special case anyway. The first movie was all about him controlling the rage enough that he stops short of killing.

I could go on, but the point is that it is all about framing.

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#88716: Aug 30th 2018 at 10:32:30 AM

Maybe clark should have tried talking to him

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
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.
#88717: Aug 30th 2018 at 10:33:19 AM

He did have his ear.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#88718: Aug 30th 2018 at 10:36:56 AM

"Shhh shhhh shhh Zod, the sun is going down"

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#88719: Aug 30th 2018 at 10:46:51 AM

[up][up][up][up]And people say my view on Steve is Ron the Death Eatering.

Punisher286 Since: Jan, 2016
#88720: Aug 30th 2018 at 11:42:24 AM

I never had a problem with Superman killing Zod, and I never will. I think that some people miss the larger context. Even taking out the act itself, the simple fact is that there was no other way to subdue him at that point. Zod was growing stronger by the second, there's no Kryptonite in that film, the Phantom Zone projector was gone and what you had left was a suicidal psychopath who had made it clear that he was never going to stop until one of them died. So you stop him in that one moment, but the true problem still remains.

Superman absolutely made the right choice there, no question about it for me. Now what they did in BVS and JL however, well that's another story.

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#88721: Aug 30th 2018 at 11:47:29 AM

Has there ever been instance in a marvel movie/comics where the hero killed someone and it was controversial afterwards,like with Zod?

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
#88722: Aug 30th 2018 at 11:49:17 AM

I hear Bucky killed someone controversial

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#88723: Aug 30th 2018 at 11:52:05 AM

Right but he was brain washed and crazy,Clark was'nt so the controversy there is wheather he should be considered a murderer or not

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#88724: Aug 30th 2018 at 12:07:44 PM

[up][up][up]There was Iron Man's killing of the Supreme Intelligence in Operation: Galactic Storm. This led to splitting up the Avengers for a time.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#88725: Aug 30th 2018 at 12:19:32 PM

Though it’s also worth noting that they’re also getting away from it. Tony’s execution style bullet spray bit was changed to rubber bullets (apparently) in Ultron, which made a point of having all the human deaths be indirect (Hulk punches a car into a building, for example. All those bad guys are dead, obviously, but the audience doesn’t see it). Of their current headliners, one is a guy who only kills under extreme duress (Scott), another is a guy who will kill but is conscious enough about his image and world he lives in that he won’t unless he has to (T’Challa), and another is a guy who doesn’t kill period (Peter Parker).

I wouldn't say they're entirely getting away from it. Like I said, Infinity War features Spider-Man, Marvel's #1 Thou Shalt Not Kill Hero, come up with the plan to send Ebony Maw to his icy grave. Spider-Man: Homecoming made a big deal about how freaked out Parker was by "Instant Kill Mode", and then Infinity War's just like, "Yeah, how to kill Ebony Maw, that was all his idea."

Age of Ultron does change Stark's bullet spray, but also makes a funny joke about how many people they just killed in that fight.

  • Nat: Thor, report on the Hulk.
  • Thor: The Gates of Hel are filled with the screams of his victims.
  • Banner: (whimper)
  • Thor: Oh, uh...but not the screams of the dead, of course. No no, uh... wounded screams, mainly whimpering, a great deal of complaining and tales of sprained deltoids and... gout.

Like. All those jokes about Superman snapping necks fans like to make? Age of Ultron made that joke in the movie.

LOL Hulk killed a ton of people and Banner's super-uncomfortable with the bloodbaths he participates in.

That's what makes the dynamic so funny. Marvel's like, "Yeah, our heroes try to be good guys but they will f*cking kill an asshole if that asshole needs to die. Whatever it takes to do their job and save lives." And everyone's fine with that.

The DCEU tries to do the same thing, but catches no end of flak for still being less bloodthirsty than the MCU.

I kind of feel bad for DC. Their movies are dumb, but I can't help but feel a bit of sympathy when it's like, Superman kills a dude ONE TIME and Iron Man's over here like, "Not cool, dude. You should be ashamed of yourself. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a warship full of sentient lifeforms to go blow up."

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 30th 2018 at 1:22:54 PM

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