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

AyyItsMidnight Look, just be decent to one another ok? Since: Oct, 2018
Look, just be decent to one another ok?
#112001: Nov 3rd 2019 at 4:45:57 PM

In unrelated news, today's the 3rd anniversary of Thor: Ragnarok's release. Watched it again last month and god I still love this one dearly. Not only was it a much-needed kick up Thor's ass that also really brought out Chris Hemsworth's versatility and comedic chops, I think it also helped solidify my liking for this franchise after Guardians 1/2 and Homecoming sowed some seeds to start. Still firmly in my top 5 MCU movies.

Self-serious autistic trans gal who loves rock/metal and animation with all her heart. (she/her)
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#112002: Nov 3rd 2019 at 5:23:58 PM

His brother for example, he was all "Just because you come from a family of abusive monsters, you don't have to become one." .....Well yeah, but you were also the only one not to get tortured by your mother Thomas, and you also weren't the one (more or less forcefully) recruited by an even more abusive HYDRA agent. Like, I get what they were aiming at, but sometimes it wasn't done quite right.
To be fair, again, in the Framework, when Ward wasn't raised by Garrett to be Hydra, he was a much better person.

Soble Since: Dec, 2013
#112003: Nov 3rd 2019 at 5:28:26 PM

To this day I wonder why the Framework was designed that way.

I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!
alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#112004: Nov 3rd 2019 at 6:16:12 PM

It was an unintentional consequence of the timeline changing in the Framework. It's possible that without Coulson in SHIELD, Garrett was assigned to somewhere else and didn't find out about Ward until Victoria Hand already recruited him.

Edited by alliterator on Nov 3rd 2019 at 6:18:25 AM

ShadowWingLG Since: Dec, 2013
#112005: Nov 4th 2019 at 6:03:20 AM

The Framework was the butterfly effect up to eleven with an eldritch tome helping out.

In removing May's "Regret" she sowed the seed that allowed Hydra's rise much sooner, AIDA then using projection tools crafted a world around that, she also used FUTURE data in her calculations, its not initially shown that the Katya was an Inhuman she was just a child that was killed, that Ward was a Double Agent, that HYDRA was even a part of SHIELD that was all knowledge gained later.

AIDA (or Radcliff for that matter) could have easily said 'No No HYDRA rising is a bad thing remove that, we are building an ideal world afterall' But they didn't Radcliff most likely didn't realize how un-ideal the Framework was until AFTER AIDA killed him.

Soble Since: Dec, 2013
#112006: Nov 4th 2019 at 6:52:44 AM

AIDA (or Radcliff for that matter) could have easily said 'No No HYDRA rising is a bad thing remove that, we are building an ideal world afterall' But they didn't Radcliff most likely didn't realize how un-ideal the Framework was until AFTER AIDA killed him.

I had the implication that everything was the butterfly effect run rampant. It's odd that Radcliffe or AIDA wouldn't have tried to "No More HYDRA" in a world where their prisoners were SHIELD agents.

Edited by Soble on Nov 4th 2019 at 6:54:43 AM

I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#112007: Nov 4th 2019 at 7:17:50 AM

They may have felt that the rigid authoritarian structure of Hydra would make it easier to keep the prisoners from straying.

Like, if I wanted to brainwash a person into thoughtlessly accepting The Matrix, I'd think it's easier to do that if I give that person a "Rigid cog in a machine, does its job without question" mentality, rather than a "Figure out the right thing to do and go do it!" mentality.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 4th 2019 at 8:21:03 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#112008: Nov 4th 2019 at 10:00:46 AM

It fits, honestly. Radcliff means well, but he is also completely divorced from reality. He was all eager to work together with Hive at first, remember?

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
123tbones Since: Aug, 2015
#112009: Nov 4th 2019 at 10:36:03 AM

Michael Douglas confirms Ant-Man 3 to start filming in January 2021 for a likely release in 2022.

I just want a take this moment to say F*ck you Zergnet for your stupid click-baity thumbnails you put on any website that is dumb enough to hire you guys. Saying how Ant-man 3 is not happening and all that shit.

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
#112010: Nov 4th 2019 at 10:42:11 AM

[up]Charming.

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.
unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#112011: Nov 4th 2019 at 10:44:12 AM

[up][up][up]In his defende, he probably didnt realise what a thing Hive was at all.....

I live Bred acting with Hive but I feel he was waaaay to much posturing and little bit, he just stop there until his ass was kick.

H Im killing malick daughter was inecesary and for me a sign that Ward friging tendecy were there bleeding all over Hive.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
comicwriter Since: Sep, 2011
#112012: Nov 4th 2019 at 11:07:09 AM

Falcon and the Winter Soldier has begun shooting.

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#112013: Nov 4th 2019 at 12:44:32 PM

Cautiously excited for this show. Both actors are great, have wonderful chemistry together, I'm quite fond of the characters and the groundwork they've laid for them so far (ultimate fate of Cap himself aside), and the behind-the-camera staff they have on for this show sounds pretty promising as well.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#112014: Nov 4th 2019 at 1:22:59 PM

Pretty much the only thing I have to base any expectations for this show off of are Bucky and Sam's interactions during Captain America: Civil War.

And their scenes together were f*cking hilarious in that movie.

So I have high hopes.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#112015: Nov 4th 2019 at 5:50:50 PM

Martin Scorcese articulates more about his aversion to Marvel movies, first about their craft, second about their ubiquitous media presence. The web news links in the post are in the article.

    Essay in folder 
When I was in England in early October, I gave an interview to Empire magazine. I was asked a question about Marvel movies. I answered it. I said that I've tried to watch a few of them and that they're not for me, that they seem to me to be closer to theme parks than they are to movies as I've known and loved them throughout my life, and that in the end, I don't think they're cinema.

Some people seem to have seized on the last part of my answer as insulting, or as evidence of hatred for Marvel on my part. If anyone is intent on characterizing my words in that light, there's nothing I can do to stand in the way.

Many franchise films are made by people of considerable talent and artistry. You can see it on the screen. The fact that the films themselves don't interest me is a matter of personal taste and temperament. I know that if I were younger, if I'd come of age at a later time, I might have been excited by these pictures and maybe even wanted to make one myself. But I grew up when I did and I developed a sense of movies - of what they were and what they could be - that was as far from the Marvel universe as we on Earth are from Alpha Centauri.

For me, for the filmmakers I came to love and respect, for my friends who started making movies around the same time that I did, cinema was about revelation - aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation. It was about characters - the complexity of people and their contradictory and sometimes paradoxical natures, the way they can hurt one another and love one another and suddenly come face to face with themselves. It was about confronting the unexpected on the screen and in the life it dramatized and interpreted, and enlarging the sense of what was possible in the art form.

And that was the key for us: it was an art form. There was some debate about that at the time, so we stood up for cinema as an equal to literature or music or dance. And we came to understand that the art could be found in many different places and in just as many forms - in The Steel Helmet by Sam Fuller and Persona by Ingmar Bergman, in It's Always Fair Weather by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly and Scorpio Rising by Kenneth Anger, in Vivre sa vie by Jean-Luc Godard and The Killers by Don Siegel.

Or in the films of Alfred Hitchcock - I suppose you could say that Hitchcock was his own franchise. Or that he was our franchise. Every new Hitchcock picture was an event. To be in a packed house in one of the old theaters watching Rear Window was an extraordinary experience: It was an event created by the chemistry between the audience and the picture itself, and it was electrifying.

And in a way, certain Hitchcock films were also like theme parks. I'm thinking of Strangers on a Train, in which the climax takes place on a merry-go-round at a real amusement park, and Psycho, which I saw at a midnight show on its opening day, an experience I will never forget. People went to be surprised and thrilled, and they weren't disappointed.

Sixty or 70 years later, we're still watching those pictures and marveling at them. But is it the thrills and the shocks that we keep going back to? I don't think so. The set pieces in North by Northwest are stunning, but they would be nothing more than a succession of dynamic and elegant compositions and cuts without the painful emotions at the center of the story or the absolute lostness of Cary Grant's character.The climax of Strangers on a Train is a feat, but it's the interplay between the two principal characters and Robert Walker's profoundly unsettling performance that resonate now.

Some say that Hitchcock's pictures had a sameness to them, and perhaps that's true - Hitchcock himself wondered about it. But the sameness of today's franchise pictures is something else again. Many of the elements that define cinema as I know it are there in Marvel pictures. What's not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes.

They are sequels in name but they are remakes in spirit, and everything in them is officially sanctioned because it can't really be any other way. That's the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified until they're ready for consumption.

Another way of putting it would be that they are everything that the films of Paul Thomas Anderson or Claire Denis or Spike Lee or Ari Aster or Kathryn Bigelow or Wes Anderson are not. When I watch a movie by any of those filmmakers, I know I'm going to see something absolutely new and be taken to unexpected and maybe even unnameable areas of experience. My sense of what is possible in telling stories with moving images and sounds is going to be expanded.

So, you might ask, what's my problem? Why not just let superhero films and other franchise films be? The reason is simple. In many places around this country and around the world, franchise films are now your primary choice if you want to see something on the big screen. It's a perilous time in film exhibition, and there are fewer independent theaters than ever. The equation has flipped and streaming has become the primary delivery system. Still, I don't know a single filmmaker who doesn't want to design films for the big screen, to be projected before audiences in theaters.

That includes me, and I'm speaking as someone who just completed a picture for Netflix. It, and it alone, allowed us to make The Irishman the way we needed to, and for that I'll always be thankful. We have a theatrical window, which is great. Would I like the picture to play on more big screens for longer periods of time? Of course I would. But no matter whom you make your movie with, the fact is that the screens in most multiplexes are crowded with franchise pictures.

And if you're going to tell me that it's simply a matter of supply and demand and giving the people what they want, I'm going to disagree. It's a chicken-and-egg issue. If people are given only one kind of thing and endlessly sold only one kind of thing, of course they're going to want more of that one kind of thing.

But, you might argue, can't they just go home and watch anything else they want on Netflix or iTunes or Hulu? Sure - anywhere but on the big screen, where the filmmaker intended her or his picture to be seen.

In the past 20 years, as we all know, the movie business has changed on all fronts. But the most ominous change has happened stealthily and under cover of night: the gradual but steady elimination of risk. Many films today are perfect products manufactured for immediate consumption. Many of them are well made by teams of talented individuals. All the same, they lack something essential to cinema: the unifying vision of an individual artist. Because, of course, the individual artist is the riskiest factor of all.

I'm certainly not implying that movies should be a subsidized art form, or that they ever were. When the Hollywood studio system was still alive and well, the tension between the artists and the people who ran the business was constant and intense, but it was a productive tension that gave us some of the greatest films ever made ' in the words of Bob Dylan, the best of them were "heroic and visionary."

Today, that tension is gone, and there are some in the business with absolute indifference to the very question of art and an attitude toward the history of cinema that is both dismissive and proprietary - a lethal combination. The situation, sadly, is that we now have two separate fields: There's worldwide audiovisual entertainment, and there's cinema. They still overlap from time to time, but that's becoming increasingly rare. And I fear that the financial dominance of one is being used to marginalize and even belittle the existence of the other.

For anyone who dreams of making movies or who is just starting out, the situation at this moment is brutal and inhospitable to art. And the act of simply writing those words fills me with terrible sadness.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Nov 4th 2019 at 5:57:23 AM

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#112016: Nov 4th 2019 at 6:34:53 PM

To summarize his points, he more or less has three.

  • 1) Filmmaking today is almost entirely done at the interests of the companies taking up most of the share: films are market tested and meticulously developed to fit the mold those companies adhere to, and indie filmmakers, those just entering the industry, and so on now face an era where it is difficult for those with vision to be seen or to advance in the industry without conforming to that machine.
  • 2) Unlike the old days where one director with vision controlled the film, films today are made as part of a collective, which loses the element of risk and reward that comes from trusting a singular person's dream.
  • 3) Because of those two things, these films are inherently less interesting and engaging than those made with said vision, and people don't actually enjoy them - they just think they do because they're being shoveled them constantly.

The first is a very good point, and is similar to the point Aniston made a month or so ago about how variety in roles and call for diverse outlets is diminishing on the acting side. The second is also understandable, though on that particular point I'd argue he's being a bit too small minded in the different ways films can be made.

But the third point is exactly the kind of thing that made people dismiss him before, and poisons the rest of his points so thoroughly with the lens of "back in my day" snobbery that the whole thing was kind of difficult to read.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 4th 2019 at 6:35:29 AM

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#112017: Nov 4th 2019 at 6:38:09 PM

The longer essay expands but doesn't ultimately contradict his original statement of "Marvel movies aren't cinema". It makes that statement more grounded and reasonable within context, but it doesn't remove the fact it is wrong.

There are some points I definitely agree with or at least understand his point, namely regarding the visible problem of a over-dominance of major studio releases to the detriment of independent cinema and smaller films as well as smaller theater chains, and he does obliquely acknowledge what I pointed out earlier that the MCU isn't so much of the cause but the symptom of that issue. I also enjoy the parallel between Hitchcock and the MCU as a concept, which is something worth looking into.

Even if we take Scorcese at his definition of "true cinema" regarding the conflicts of the human soul, it would be remarkably easy to defend MCU films on those grounds , e.g half the cast going poof and the villain winning in Infinity War as a "revelation" and/or "surprise" or Robert Downey Jr's performance as Iron Man throughout the MCU films as a anchorship performance akin to Cary Grant's in the aforementioned North By Northwest. It is definitely a defensible argument.

Even if they didn't match any of his criteria, I would not go as far as saying that Marvel films (or really any sort of film, no matter how bad) are not cinema, because that is a fallible, prejudiced and downright dangerous statement to make about filmmaking in my opinion. This is enhanced for me by the fact that Scorcese's conception of "cinema" seems to be directly tied with the old guard's interpretation of "auteur theory", in that it relies on privileging the vision of "a single author" rather than the plurality of visions present in a movie (since all films are a inherently collaborative effort). He even downright says that the lacking of a "individual vision" is the problem in modern cinema, which is the old guard's auteur theory set in spades.

Personally I belong to the "new wave" of sorts of academic cinema theory that leans to the latter much moreso than the former. To me, Scorcese's statement regarding the seeming "death of the individual voice in cinema" is a phantom. It isn't a real. There was never an age of "individual voices", because ever since cinema required more than one person in the room to be made (so, basically, the very first film made), the individual voice was more or less dead and only the collective voice existed. All films in history, I'd argue, were made under outside pressures in varied ways, be them a overbearing studio, not having money, or the four hundred different societal pressures involved in the lives of every film crew member in every stage of production.

I'd argue Scorcese's idyllic "individual voice" era never existed, and it is in fact a toxic concept that we should really stop laying so many offerings at its altar, because it leads to toxic behavior in a multitude of ways (the more obvious example being the Author Worship that gives auteurs the means with which to escape their horrible behaviors by placing them on a pedestal, e.g Woody Allen). The fact the MCU has been produced under the strains of a heavy studio system breathing down its neck makes them no less films than Scorcese producing half his filmography with a dangerous cocaine addiction breathing down his neck. Can the "individual's voice" not be tainted by the heavy use of psychotropics? Are the feverish thoughts induced by the consumption of kgs and more kgs of cocaine not comparable to arbitrary studio mandates? Perhaps not in function, but you could certainly argue in form. My point here is there is no "pure individual's vision". Films aren't made in a vacuum of the outside world and socioeconomical pressures no matter where they're made or how they're made.

Hell, I'd say it is an indicator of one of the problems with auteur theory that we are seeking this amount of vindication from Martin Scorcese precisely because he is one of those very same indicators of auteur.

Have a video by Kyle Kallgreen that takes auteur theory and cuts it to the quick:

So, in summary, cinema should not be defined by Martin Scorcese's idyllic imaginings of "individual voices", even because his voice is merely that of an individual, not of the collective truly responsible for "his" filmography.

MCU films have some problematic side-effects mandated by the over-reliance on a studio system, but they are films. Period.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#112018: Nov 4th 2019 at 6:40:56 PM

So this is a lot more elaborate, and I think helps give some more context to where specifically Scorsese is coming from, but it's really just a longer way of saying what I thought he was saying at first, which is that he thinks Marvel films are just too safe and uninteresting, and that they don't really excite or interest him because they don't really gel with what his idea of cinema should be (he even admits himself that this is just a question of personal taste). He's far more interested in riskier, authorial projects like the ones he grew up with, the films he makes, and the films the people he admires make.

He does go into detail about something Gaon said, which is his worry that these kinds of franchise films are overcrowding the theaters and he doesn't really accept that it's a simple question of supply and demand; "if people only see one kind of film over and over, of course that's what they're gonna want". I have sympathy for his fear but I think this is something that can certainly be debated.

That all being said I still stand by my argument that his initial wording was pretentiously phrased (sorry, but "cinema", or "art", should be a description, not a compliment), and I think he puts way too much stock on the idea of making films for the big screen, and the idea of the auteur. Maybe there's something about it that he understands and I don't, but I rarely go to the theater anymore - there's nothing inherently worse or deflating about making a film for Netflix or another streaming service.

And like, I get preferring films with a strong artistic vision and individuality, but even with that, auteur theory has its limits. You'll find that often directors work with a lot of the same people - the same cinematographers, composers, set designers, etc. And they all contribute to giving the films their distinct personalities.

This isn't even really about Marvel either, honestly. I personally am sympathetic to his opinion in that particular regard because for a very long time I didn't really like or care about Marvel films either. I just don't really care for the kind of artistic gatekeeping his statement implies.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Nov 4th 2019 at 10:48:40 AM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#112019: Nov 4th 2019 at 6:51:29 PM

It's like a Michelin Star chef criticizing the popularity of a chain restaurant like Applebee's or something and saying the food served there is not "real" food.

Edited by M84 on Nov 4th 2019 at 10:52:17 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#112020: Nov 4th 2019 at 6:54:22 PM

Oh God getting Shokugeki flashbacks.

I hate snobs.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#112021: Nov 4th 2019 at 6:59:23 PM

Sometimes I just want a plate of cheap baby-back ribs alright? With the usual Triple Chocolate Meltdown for dessert.

Not every night out has to be at a place where I have to reserve a table days in advance and expect to pay $100+ for a dinner for two.

Edited by M84 on Nov 4th 2019 at 11:00:28 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
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.
#112022: Nov 4th 2019 at 7:02:52 PM

The "auteur theory" is utter bullshit, and I say this as someone who wants to become a movie producer. It's a dumbass fad that was popular for a couple decades, and it didn't exist before that point and it died soon after.

Long story short: a bunch of corporate executives realized they could monetize creativity and save money on hiring people, so they started encouraging directors to write their own scripts and writers to direct their own ideas, and they could market that as "a true and pure representation of the creative vision". The result was a few good movies and a bunch of well-directed movies with shit scripts and well-written movies with shit direction.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Nov 4th 2019 at 8:04:36 AM

Anomalocaris20 from Sagittarius A* Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: Love blinded me (with science!)
#112023: Nov 4th 2019 at 7:12:13 PM

I just tried Applebee's for the very first time a couple nights ago and I don't think your analogy works. More like Crapplebee's.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Nov 4th 2019 at 10:13:05 AM

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#112024: Nov 4th 2019 at 7:13:03 PM

@ Gaon, Draghinazzo, and M84 [awesome]

They already covered what I would've said, and Scorcese is right up to the point where he starts to gatekeep, at which point I object not as an MCU fan but as someone who understands that true art ought to include things that most people including myself can also agree on as awful. The Room being the classic example of this.

slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#112025: Nov 4th 2019 at 7:17:34 PM

I have a Mc Donnalds every week, I love my chicken nuggets with ranch dipping.

I also order chicken wings/nuggets & cheese sticks/balls with ranch or blue cheese whenever I order a pizza.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

Total posts: 186,763
Top