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.
Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
The Soul Stone probably has killed fewer people than the Power Stone or Space Stone have for random example. What with being on a dead planet in the middle of nowhere space that only a handful of people know about and they're not going to be telling.
Its no great moral failing to put the Soul Stone back where nobody had found it for thousands of years.
Edited by Bocaj on Jun 11th 2019 at 2:34:50 PM
Forever liveblogging the AvengersAlso the idea that love is this pure, objectively-good thing and Thanos being capable of it means the narrative has declared him righteous is kinda silly and one-dimensional.
Kilgrave genuinely loved Jessica Jones, and look how that turned out. For everybody else and in the end even himself.
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!Being capable of love doesn't mean you aren't still an abusive, genocidal villain.
No, it does not. But it does not condemn him for it, either. Indeed, the writers intend for you to feel bad for him, which is itself a telling window into their treatment of the character.
He murders his daughter to advance his genocidal ambitions, and you are meant to take his side and feel bad for his "sacrifice". You are meant to believe that he truly loves this person whose life he threw away for a chance at murdering half the universe, and to cry for his "tragic loss".
And that, right there, is the problem of Thanos. As I said before, the writers want you to see him as a tragic and complex figure. Even as he consistently does horrifying things, the film refuses to actually condemn this atrocity of a person. Thanos is a monster. But the film refuses to treat him as one.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jun 11th 2019 at 12:37:08 PM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Its no great moral failing to put the Soul Stone back where nobody had found it for thousands of years.
A loaded gun will deal less damage than a bomb but it’s still irresponsible to leave one lying around.
![]()
![]()
![]()
It's... eh. It's basically all of Season 1's small flaws cranked up to eleven, with none of the stuff that actually made the show good in the first place. At least the other poorly-received Netflix seasons still had some flashy fight scenes to keep you entertained amidst the muddied plots, while JJ S2's greatest sin is being unbearably boring on top of everything else.
I'd still recommend it if you plan to watch Sesaon 3, since no doubt it'll be important there, but if you're not interested in getting the full JJ experience then yeah, just stick with Season 1.
Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Jun 11th 2019 at 2:43:53 PM
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!I actually found Thanos really.... anticlimactic as a villain. Like the snippets of him in prior films worked, especially in Got G, but... he just didn’t work for me in IW and Endgame. The build up led to nothing for me. Ego? Horrifying and compelling reflection on selfishness. Vulture? Scary and understandable (his motivations read to me as pretty standard entitlement; I have been Wronged so now I do crime). Killmonger? Oh damn, the charismatic but violent end result of what loss and systemic oppression can create.
Thanos, though? We see him too much, and he’s diminished. His motives and speeches just didn’t work for me. He’s not a scathing indictment of something real; he’s half-baked and there’s no substance. He felt Nolan-esque, and I mean that in that I felt like fancy dialogue and Very Self-Important Framing replaced actual theme, development or emotion.
Either don’t give him a backstory/motive, and let him be a terrifying unknowable power who likes killing, or give him a better backstory that comments on something real. There’s so much to say about the end of Titan- themes about environmentalism, or societal collapse, or even commentary on how overpopulation panic IRL is a completely racist scam that ignores that less than 1% causes most pollution and distribution of resources is the problem, not the number of people, but just... they do nothing with it.
“Titan ended because too many people; I said kill half, they said no.”
That’s not a commentary on anything. It’s way too vague. Everything looked fine in the flashback; what happened???? It’s incoherent. And it makes Thanos unsatisfying because all we get is “killing half good and I’m self-righteous and stubborn.”
![]()
This also really bothered me. I thought they’d follow up/prove him wrong re: Gamora’s planet and Titan in Endgame and they never did.
Edited by wisewillow on Jun 11th 2019 at 11:49:42 AM
Tobias, I'm normally respectful of your contributions, but this has gone too far. If you can't or won't see the fundamental flaws in your argument, I'm just going to prohibit it.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!""A loaded gun will deal less damage than a bomb but it’s still irresponsible to leave one lying around."
Vormir is practically the opposite of lying around.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersSo it goes.
Regarding Jessica Jones: The first season was phenomenal, but I can't really recommend the second. It starts off pretty cool, but the latter half of the season goes in some really weird directions.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I haven't actually watched any of the Netflix shows but from everything I've seen people say about them they seem so very... inconsistent. Like weirdly so.
This song needs more love.Here's the lowdown on the Netflix shows:
- Daredevil Season 1 and 3 are great. Season 2's first-half is excellent, but putters out in the second half with what I call "the Hand is boring" problem.
- Jessica Jones Season 1 is amazing, but Season 2 has issues. The more the season goes on, the more those issues crop up and you realize that Season 1 also had these issues, but the amazing performances by Krysten Ritter and David Tennant made up for them. Season 2 only has David Tennant for one episode and the villain of the season is...kind of bland, so the flaws are way more apparent.
- Luke Cage Season 1 has a great first half, but an okay second half. There is a villain switch that...doesn't quite work. Season 2 handles things better and gets a lot more interesting, but is also one of the slowest seasons.
- Iron Fist Season 1 has a lot of problems. A lot. Still, it's fun, especially the latter half (and especially Ward and his father). Season 2 is a 200% improvement, with better writing, better action, and better acting, plus an ending that almost nobody saw coming and really fixes what was a fundamental problem with Iron Fist. I love Iron Fist Season 2 so much and am super sad that it will probably never continue it's storyline.
- The Defenders has an exciting first half and a boring second half.
- I haven't finished The Punisher, but, from what I've heard, it's good, but its decidedly non-Punisher-like.
Edited by alliterator on Jun 11th 2019 at 12:50:03 PM
And then there's The Defenders, which is a lot more shallow than the deep storylines and character beats of the respective shows, but does deliver what it promises, at least: crazy crossover action.
Edit: You
-edited it in.
Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Jun 11th 2019 at 3:51:07 PM
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!Yeah, The Defenders also falls into "the Hand is boring" problem, but amplified because there is no other villains. Well, okay, there's Elektra, but she's pretty much barely there.
Also, I am eternally sad that we will almost never get a Daughters of the Dragon spin-off. I want it sooo bad.
Edited by alliterator on Jun 11th 2019 at 12:52:26 PM
Man, I'm going to have to watch those at some point.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

And all that tells you isn’t that he loves Gamora, it more specifically that what he considers to be love is good enough sacrifice for the Stone. It doesn’t inform any of his actions. It doesn’t even follow from that that sacrificing Gamora is actually just even if he loves her.
This is why I’ve pointed out that that interpretation requires Cherry Picking: you have to, specifically, approach the scene with the perception that being good enough for the Stone makes you a good person, the assumption that the Stone is the arbiter of good and evil in the film, and the exclusion of the everything about both the scene itself and the film beyond what supports that interpretation.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 11th 2019 at 11:35:28 AM