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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.
  • 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

alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#110276: Sep 26th 2019 at 8:29:30 AM

My biggest gripe with Thanos in Endgame is just that the 'real' Thanos dies so non-chalantly and early within the movie.
I actually love that subversion. Thanos wins and even killing him does nothing to change that. Stopping the bad guy, which is what worked in the first two Avengers movies, does nothing here, so they have to live with their pain for five years...until they realize how to use the past to move on.

It's like a metaphor come true!

...okay, perhaps I'm looking into things too much.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#110277: Sep 26th 2019 at 8:30:47 AM

Sometimes self care is killing a guy who hasn’t yet ruined your life

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#110278: Sep 26th 2019 at 8:38:44 AM

Captain Marvel could have 3 or even 4 successful movies under her belt, and the usual suspects would still try to claim the character is a failure.

Disgusted, but not surprised
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#110279: Sep 26th 2019 at 8:52:01 AM

I actually love that subversion. Thanos wins and even killing him does nothing to change that. Stopping the bad guy, which is what worked in the first two Avengers movies, does nothing here, so they have to live with their pain for five years...until they realize how to use the past to move on. It's like a metaphor come true!

...okay, perhaps I'm looking into things too much.

They don't really use the past to move on. They use the past to hit an Undo Button that reverses all of the trauma and tragedy and lets life return to the way it was forever.

I like the theme of dealing with pain and loss. But. Like. Maybe this wasn't the right place for it. When you're mourning the death of a loved one, you don't get to end your mourning period by having that loved one come home and then everything goes back to normal. Endgame was always destined to end in a Reset Button, which made it a bit of an inappropriate choice for "The movie about mourning tragedy."

It's a good theme, but the wrong movie to use that theme in.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 26th 2019 at 9:52:46 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#110280: Sep 26th 2019 at 9:04:04 AM

It’s true to comics at least

Mourning a loss is often fixed with reset button

How did Dick Rider get over Namorita’s death? He found a version of her from another time and brought her back

Edited by Bocaj on Sep 26th 2019 at 12:05:26 PM

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#110281: Sep 26th 2019 at 9:08:26 AM

There was a comic during Fear Itself where Black Widow had a chat with a journalist about that. The journalist's position was that it's f*cked up for superheroes to always get to come back to life when normal everyday people just die and are lost forever.

Nat's perspective was that it's super f*cked up to have to live in that situation. It makes the mourning process so much harder. Imagine it's your wife or husband and they died. Do you move on? Can you move on? What if you move on and then, next year, they're suddenly alive again? What if you spend the rest of their life waiting for them but they're C-List Fodder and the revival never comes? It is so hard to figure out how to grieve for that kind of Schrodinger's Death.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 26th 2019 at 10:08:34 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#110282: Sep 26th 2019 at 9:10:45 AM

Wasn’t it retconned that Bucky was alive the whole time and Nat knew that and was keeping his cover and yelling at a person to get over their dead loved ones is incredibly fucked up in that perspective?

Although click bait is also bad so they were both wrong

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#110283: Sep 26th 2019 at 9:14:40 AM

Scarlet Witch got no Reset though.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#110284: Sep 26th 2019 at 9:19:46 AM

Maybe this wasn't the right place for it. When you're mourning the death of a loved one, you don't get to end your mourning period by having that loved one come home and then everything goes back to normal.
I think that was actually the point — that the Snap killed so many people that the Avengers couldn't move on without undoing it.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#110285: Sep 26th 2019 at 9:21:21 AM

If FFH is much of an indication just having the people come back isn’t going to erase the trauma either

It was a messy fix and there’s going to be scars

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Theokal3 Since: Jan, 2012
#110286: Sep 26th 2019 at 9:34:35 AM

Google News is an aggregate news site. It doesn't actually report on anything — nobody works for "Google News" — instead it uses your internet history to link a variety of news articles it thinks you might like to read. If you've ever searched for Marvel, MCU, or superheroes, it will give you links to articles about those things...including articles from sites that are, shall we say, not reputable. Google News does not distinguish between a "good" news site (like Comics Beat or io9) and a "bad" news site (like Cosmic Book News or any of the other "anti-SJW," Comicsgater websites that are basically echo chambers for their racist, sexist beliefs). So I would be careful about what you read and believe on Google News — always check the source and then see what other people say about that source. Also, like the others have said, Captain Marvel made over a billion dollars. Even if Blu-Ray sales were low, it doesn't matter, because over a billion dollars is not something that they are going to drop.

Thank you. I feel reassured now :)

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#110287: Sep 26th 2019 at 9:45:55 AM

I think that was actually the point — that the Snap killed so many people that the Avengers couldn't move on without undoing it.

So the theme is that if you're hurting really badly from a loss, then there's no possible way to move on with your life and the only option is to use magic space physics to bring back the dead?

That's consistent with Captain America's final outcome too, not just the Snap. But it's exactly what I'm talking about when I say that this was the wrong film for that theme. "Moving on is hopeless; unwrite the loss instead!" is a bad message for a film about tragedy.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 26th 2019 at 10:47:39 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#110288: Sep 26th 2019 at 9:53:11 AM

Maybe we should just try and stop searching for real life messages in obvious larger-than-life fiction?

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
fredhot16 Don't want to leave but cannot pretend from Baton Rogue, Louisiana. Since: Jan, 2015 Relationship Status: Too sexy for my shirt
Don't want to leave but cannot pretend
#110289: Sep 26th 2019 at 9:55:08 AM

[up]No, thank you. I've never been fond of just saying "a thing is just a thing". It may has it's places but please make an argument rather just saying "you're looking into it too much".

Edited by fredhot16 on Sep 26th 2019 at 10:02:27 AM

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#110290: Sep 26th 2019 at 9:57:48 AM

So the theme is that if you're hurting really badly from a loss
The Snap victims weren't a "real" loss, though, they didn't really "die." They were just erased from existence. As Rocket points out to Thor, "Now, I get you miss your Mom. But she's gone. Really gone. And there are plenty of people who are only kinda gone. But you can help them."

They still have to deal with loss and trauma — Thor with his mother, Tony with his father, the death of Natasha, and so on — but by going through that and dealing with it, they regain the people who were "only kinda" gone.

It's not a great metaphor, to be sure, but I like it nonetheless.

Edited by alliterator on Sep 26th 2019 at 9:59:27 AM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#110291: Sep 26th 2019 at 10:07:26 AM

The Snap seemed to be an extremely amplified (by the Power Stone) and targeted (with the help of the Mind and Soul Stones) application of the Reality Stone's power spread out across the universe (thanks to the Space Stone) that averted the limitation that alterations only last for a short time thanks to the Time Stone.

Disgusted, but not surprised
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#110292: Sep 26th 2019 at 10:09:04 AM

You're right, it's not a great metaphor. Especially since it's used to regain someone who's actually really gone. Winter Soldier gave us a scene of Captain America meeting Peggy again, and then Civil War gave us a funeral. Peggy Carter was really gone. And Endgame still saw fit to have Cap cope with her loss by using magic space physics to un-lose her.

Just like how it used magic space physics so that Nebula could un-lose Gamora.

You're not wrong when you said that this IS the point. "Just un-lose the dead" is not an unforeseen flaw in the message; that IS the message. That was always the message.

But it's a bad message. Endgame isn't a film about coping with tragedy. It's a film about turning back the clock to reverse tragedy. It's not a Broken Aesop, it's a Space Whale Aesop. A lot of people have been in that position where it feels like there's no way to move forward. But you can't just undo 9/11. You can't just undo Katrina. You can't just undo a mass shooting.

And that is why a film that is inevitably going to be about undoing the previous film's events shouldn't be a film about coping with tragedy. Endgame was always going to be that movie first and foremost. From square one, that is what the movie was going to be. Trying to work in a theme about coping with loss in that movie is disrespectful to people with actual losses. You can't be a movie about moving on from loss AND a movie about resurrecting the dead.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 26th 2019 at 11:11:36 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#110293: Sep 26th 2019 at 10:19:16 AM

[up] I fundamentally disagree with you. I prefer a film that's about coping with tragedy, even if they then bring this people back. I much prefer to a film like Infinity War, where there really is no message and it's just a bunch of scenes strung together.

But you can't just undo 9/11. You can't just undo Katrina. You can't just undo a mass shooting.
Well, then it's great the Snap isn't anything like those real tragedies. The Avengers aren't bringing back people who were killed in a massacre or in 9/11 — they are specifically bringing back people who were turned to dust by Thanos. You might call it a Space Whale Aesop, but when the thing they are trying to undo is a Space Whale Disaster, I don't really care.

But it's a bad message.
I don't think you get to decide that for everybody. People can see the message in ways you apparently can't and they can think it's a good message.

tldr; a story about grief and trauma is better than a story that disregards those things, no matter the outcome.

Edited by alliterator on Sep 26th 2019 at 10:21:00 AM

Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#110295: Sep 26th 2019 at 10:24:38 AM

While I still think that reading too much into this is senseless, I agree with Tobias on that thing.

Why are a ton of people being dusted by a cosmic weapon less "legitimately dead" than people who got

  • murdered by alien invaders
  • murdered by space elves
  • murdered by superpowered-nutjobs

etc

There is no distinction. None at all. It's just the scale that was bigger with Thanos' atrocity.

[up] have fun! Still like it more than most

Edited by Forenperser on Sep 26th 2019 at 7:27:31 PM

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
Weirdguy149 Former King from Lumiose City Since: Jul, 2014 Relationship Status: I'd jump in front of a train for ya!
Former King
#110296: Sep 26th 2019 at 10:26:17 AM

Ultron himself is a good villain. Everything else falls flat on its ass.

The legend has returned.
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#110297: Sep 26th 2019 at 10:28:46 AM

Ultron was sadly just too weak.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
AyyItsMidnight Look, just be decent to one another ok? Since: Oct, 2018
Look, just be decent to one another ok?
#110298: Sep 26th 2019 at 10:30:05 AM

[up][up][up][up]I forgot to say this earlier when you were watching Guardians of the Galaxy but damn I love that movie, always have. First MCU movie I ever saw. It's fun and delightful and touching and, like Winter Soldier, was a much-needed kick in the ass for the franchise.

And now you're at Ao U, which is uh, pretty bloody divisive. I'd say more but I haven't seen it in full since it was in theaters.

Edited by AyyItsMidnight on Sep 26th 2019 at 10:30:25 AM

Self-serious autistic trans gal who loves rock/metal and animation with all her heart. (she/her)
Andrei_Bondoc Since: Jan, 2019
#110299: Sep 26th 2019 at 10:37:18 AM

I forgot to add an observation or two for GotG:

  1. The film is so much fun! And it's also, *sob* so emotional...*sob*
  2. Hmmm... the soundtrack is made out of songs from The '70s and The '80s, I assume. While I never heard most of them, I enjoyed them greatly!

As I said, I loved space and spaceships as a kid! Duck Dodgers, Chicken Invaders, Star Wars: The Clone Wars etc.

[up]We all forget sometimes something...

"Scooby Dooby Doo!"
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#110300: Sep 26th 2019 at 10:42:25 AM

> Ultron was sadly just too weak.

He needed patching and a hotfix

have a listen and have a link to my discord server

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