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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

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#115026: Jan 30th 2020 at 6:25:53 PM

There's stories that have dealt with time travel in a very consistent way, but it's difficult. Several years ago I tried writing a story with very concrete rules about time travel, but the temptation to break those rules was always there and it was very hard to avoid once a new idea pops into your head. tonguenote 

The time travel in Endgame is really just a device for the film to have a series-concluding clip show, so it operates on what rules would make that more exciting instead of a Boring, but Practical story where the Avengers make several trips for Pym particles then make as many attempts as necessary to rush post-Snap Thanos in his sleep and steal the whole Gauntlet.

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#115027: Jan 30th 2020 at 7:28:46 PM

Introducing time travel into a story that's not explicitly about time travel tends to create logical hiccups. Even if how time travel works is entirely consistent within the story, unless it follows You Already Changed the Past rules, you're inevitably going to get people wondering, "Why don't they use this to solve every problem?"

Discar Since: Jun, 2009
#115028: Jan 30th 2020 at 7:45:02 PM

A friend of mine described Primer as the inevitable result of a true time travel story: The entire story becomes about nothing but the rules themselves, and explaining those rules to the audience. Because time travel is just too complicated for anything else. Most of the time, you have to accept that your time travel is not going to make sense.

Endgame's time travel is relatively uncomplicated, and we're still arguing over it.

Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#115029: Jan 30th 2020 at 7:57:45 PM

To be honest, time travel isn't that complicated, it's just that it's easy to screw up if your not keeping it in mind.

Back to the Future (mostly - there are a few hitches here and there) has well developed time travel, and it's not particularly difficult to follow. Before Dragonball Super, Dragonball had very well defined time travel, and the only thing that makes that difficult to follow is the fact that the timelines criss cross in an interesting way (neither the protags' timeline nor - technically - the timeline the time traveller returns to are the original).

The only thing you need for a good time travel story is defined rules that are consistent, and a good idea of what the changing of time does to your setting. It's identical to writing magic into a story: you can't just have it do anything - it has to make sense, otherwise the flaws become obvious.

The thing is, people use time travel for drama. They don't tend to write drama around time travel the same way they do for magic unless they're going overboard, and there's a perception that it's something complicated as a result. That and people tend to assume time travel has to involve stuff that it actually doesn't.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 30th 2020 at 8:00:21 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
#115030: Jan 30th 2020 at 8:00:44 PM

I'd argue that you don't have to have consistent time travel rules if your story is good enough that people skate by the inconsistencies.

Chrono Trigger is pretty inconsistent on how the time travel works at various points but people don't really care.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#115031: Jan 30th 2020 at 8:02:44 PM

The third Harry Potter book had easy to follow time travel, if barring the Fridge Logic of why it wasn't used anywhere else that led to the author destroying all the Time Turners as insurance.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#115032: Jan 30th 2020 at 8:05:34 PM

[up][up]Chrono Trigger also is one of the more excusable examples since it's very clearly the work of some serious supernatural power.

Disgusted, but not surprised
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#115033: Jan 30th 2020 at 8:09:49 PM

What about that time Spongebob & Patrick defeated Man-Ray with time travel?

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#115034: Jan 30th 2020 at 8:11:06 PM

Time travel is treated as seriously as anything else in that series. Which is to say not very seriously. So it's at least consistent.

Disgusted, but not surprised
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#115035: Jan 30th 2020 at 8:12:27 PM

Did you sympathize with Man-Ray’s confusion over the time travel?

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#115036: Jan 30th 2020 at 8:18:06 PM

As much as I sympathize with anyone who gets caught up in Spongebob and Patrick's antics.

Edited by M84 on Jan 31st 2020 at 12:18:17 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised
chasemaddigan I'm Sad Frogerson. Since: Oct, 2011
I'm Sad Frogerson.
#115037: Jan 30th 2020 at 8:19:14 PM

And that's not getting into how Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has it's own version of time travel with the Monoliths.

HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#115038: Jan 30th 2020 at 8:34:11 PM

The entire thing with Agents of Shield shows how little communication is going on between the show and the films now.

That being said, you could Hand Wave it as Monolith Time Travel functioning differently from Pym Particle/Quantum Zone time travel.

Kinda like different operating systems for a computer. Different paths to the same result.

One Strip! One Strip!
Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#115039: Jan 30th 2020 at 8:36:18 PM

Yeah one involved shrinking and one did not involve shrinking

This isn’t rocket surgery

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#115040: Jan 30th 2020 at 8:38:28 PM

I'd argue that you don't have to have consistent time travel rules if your story is good enough that people skate by the inconsistencies.

Well, yeah. You don't need good time travel to make a good story. What I'm saying is that it's not all that difficult to have both a good story and good time travel.

Nightwire Since: Feb, 2010
#115041: Jan 30th 2020 at 8:41:03 PM

Case in point: Doctor Who has never had good time travel.

Zeromaeus Since: May, 2010
#115042: Jan 30th 2020 at 8:50:10 PM

I'd argue that Doctor Who isn't about time travel. It's an adventure series that can hand wave any setting the writers feel like using.

Weirdguy149 Former King from Lumiose City Since: Jul, 2014 Relationship Status: I'd jump in front of a train for ya!
Former King
#115043: Jan 30th 2020 at 9:07:19 PM

As an outsider to Doctor Who, it just seems like every sci fi trope thrown into a blender, and the result is an inconsistent smoothie. Sometimes it tastes good, sometimes it tastes like garbage.

The legend has returned.
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#115045: Jan 30th 2020 at 9:14:03 PM

Well it’s been running for several decades.

It can’t all be golden.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
KJMackley Since: Jan, 2001
#115046: Jan 31st 2020 at 12:29:29 AM

The simplest way to deal with Time Travel is the Stable Time Loop, as that handles most of the questions regarding Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory and why there are certain consistencies in an Alternate Timeline that was created (ie, Back to the Future has Marty live in the exact same home even though his parents had radically different lives and careers).

Primer is a movie that's internally consistent, but the trick played with in the story is not so much the rules themselves but the layers you can add to each cycle. This makes it different from other time travel stories which try to justify why they have to get it right the first time even though a time machine provides Save Scumming.

Endgame's time travel is somewhat unique in that it's not actually time travel and more about traveling the multiverse with exactly identical universes (Scott's experience was basic Time Dilation, a real world phenomenon, and how it developed into traveling to different periods in the quantum realm is handwaved). But this adds several additional layers of complexity that the movie is not prepared to go into, particularly the ripple effect their interference in the timeline of the quantum universe would play out, and then dropped altogether with what Steve decided to do.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#115047: Jan 31st 2020 at 12:33:37 AM

All this makes me hope that the next major baddie isn't Kang.

Disgusted, but not surprised
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#115048: Jan 31st 2020 at 12:35:04 AM

Well then don't hope.

If you hope it will be taken away like a child's candy.

Edited by slimcoder on Jan 31st 2020 at 12:35:28 PM

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
C105 Too old for this from France Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
Too old for this
#115049: Jan 31st 2020 at 1:50:27 AM

Actually I thought time travel was not handled that badly in Endgame - right up until the end, of course. It was not so much travelling through time as travelling to identical alternate universes (that may or may not branch away from the traveller's depending on their actions), and returning to their point of origin. I think it is the most safe way to handle time travel in that it resolves any paradox or time loop issues, the drawback from a writing point of view is that it also excludes any plot about Setting Right What Once Went Wrong (or, more precisely, makes any attempt to do this simply travelling to a better alternate universe).

But then there is what Steve does at the end which puts all of this out of the window, unless one accepts that Steve will have lived 70 years hidden in Peggy's house without doing anything else.

Anyway, the fun thing about Endgame is that they now can bring back any character they want through time travel, without affecting the prime timeline in any way. I wonder if they will use that for some cameos.

Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.
MrSeyker Since: Apr, 2011
#115050: Jan 31st 2020 at 2:17:59 AM

Old Steve only breaks the Endgame time travel rules is if one insists on interpreting him as having always existed in the MCU timeline we've been following.

Under Endgame rules, Old Steve can be two things:

Our Steve returning from his time travel adventure in the Married Peggy timeline (which can be anything one wants to imagine). This is what the Russos intended.

Another Steve from an alternate universe that has always lived under the radar in the MCU and only now he reveals himself.

This later scenario ISN'T what Markus and McFeely intended when they wrote the script.

In their vision, Our Steve has always lived as Old Steve in the same timeline, which never diverged because the only change he made was marry Peggy and let the time flow as normal otherwise.

Of course that interpretation absolutely destroys the rules established earlier in the movie.

And it creates a thousand troubles as far as Steve's characterization is concerned.

Which is why the Russo insist on the first scenario is what actually happened.

Edited by MrSeyker on Jan 31st 2020 at 2:19:55 AM


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