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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Spider-Man has covered the entirety of New York with a system of invisible web secretions that only he can see. Every time you see him interacting with anyone, they're actually covered in webs head to toe, but nobody knows but him. And so he knows their every movement. Every last one.
I wrote that and then immediately heard it in Jameson's voice.
Edited by Weirdguy149 on Apr 30th 2020 at 10:29:39 AM
The legend has returned.And then in Ragnarok he's all "What are you the God of?"
Yeah, that really demonstrates the difference in artistic visions over the Thor franchise. That's the kind of thing that happens when you have different creators overseeing different entries of one series. We see it in the comics all the time.
Taika Waititi and his team leaned much more heavily into the Asgardians being actual literal gods than any of the writers in the past had done so. It was a marked departure from what had been the MCU's official word up to that point: Sufficiently Advanced Aliens.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.And Thor's reaction to Doctor Strange was one of familiarity with magic rather than claiming he is doing something different.
The vagueness of his "They are one and the same" dialogue in the first movie just proved how unnecessary the justification really was. He didn't share anything that would have cracked a code for Jane, just philosophical musings.
Not the most original opinion, but it's very striking how for better or worse, the earlier MCU movies were more "realistic" / less "fantastical" compared to more recent movies.
And my sense is that it's a double-edged sword because while I prefer to approach of more recent movies, I don't think the MCU would be as successful if it had started with that approach.
Besides Thor, I'm also struck by how the Mandarin went from being an implied Bin Laden equivalent to being a front, to being established as Real After All in a questionably canonical context, to finally (presumably) ending up as a Chinese martial artist with superpowers.
That's the biggest irony of the MCU's success. The thing that really set them apart from other superhero adaptations, the thing that made them the phenomenon that they became, was because they weren't afraid to embrace the source material. In stark contrast to many other superhero film franchises, it rarely felt like they were apologizing for adapting something as silly as comic books.
Willingness to take risks and defy convention has been an element of the MCU ever since Tony Stark's famous "I am Iron Man" speech blew audience's minds.
And yet, while you could feel the difference between films like Iron Man or Thor or Captain America: First Avenger versus films like the X-Men movies or The Dark Knight saga, you can also feel that same difference between Phase 1 films and Phase 3.
Marvel's mission statement over the years has moved from, "I make superhero movies and I don't have to apologize for them being a little bit silly sometimes," to "SCREW YOU, I make MOTHERF*CKING SUPERHERO MOVIES and you can MOTHERF*CKING DEAL WITH IT." Confidence in their guaranteed success has made Marvel bolder in adaptation.
Edited by TobiasDrake on May 1st 2020 at 10:34:28 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I'm imagining Mandarin will essentially be a one man HYDRA, or like Ra's Al Ghul with even more wizardry. To most of the world, he's a venerable man who advises some of the most powerful people in the world. To Shang, he secretly leads an organization that defeats evil and covertly protects the world.
But in reality, that secret organization is built to prop himself on top, and has toes in all manner of crime - from terrorism, to espionage, to super crime, all with misdirection that keeps anyone, even his own son, from finding out who he really is.
Edited by KnownUnknown on May 1st 2020 at 9:36:07 AM
Guardians of the Galaxy was probably the turning point for the series, when the MCU showed they could adapt almost any property (no matter how outlandish) and have it be a success.
Honest Trailers put it best how Phase One was the equivalent to a rock band finding their voice, Phase Two was their weird experimental period, and Phase Three was their "WOOHOO, we can do whatever we want!" period.
I binge watched the Avengers movies last Christmas, and the shift in tone was quite interesting to see. Especially the first two Iron Man movies, which takes some pain to look as if they could happen in our universe. A few movies after that, and the universes have definitely diverged.
My brother also once remarked to me that, in Phase 1 and 2 at least, each movie was a different genre. The Iron Man films were more technothrillers, Captain America were war or spy films, and Thor was fantasy. Later on the GoG films were space opera while Ant-Man borderline comedies. From Phase 3 onward though, most films began blending genres and verged all into varying levels of Crazy Awesome superhero stuff.
Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.- The Iron Man movies are the most straightforward action movies of the lot.
- The Incredible Hulk has a sci-fi horror feel to it.
- The Thor movies are Shakespearean tragedies, even Ragnarok.
- Captain America has war movie and spy movie intrigue.
- The Avengers are their own mix of disaster movie and action.
- Guardians of the Galaxy is a mix of space opera and asshole comedy.
- Ant-Man is a heist movie with a sci-fi edge.
- Doctor Strange is a mix of surreal horror and arthouse cinema.
- Spider-Man has a coming-of-age story.
- Black Panther is an afrofuturist movie to a t.
- Captain Marvel seems the most like a female empowerment thing.
I think Captain Marvel is at least partly a late 1980's / early 1990's George Lucas Throwback, and the setting has more of a purpose than just to fit it into MCU chronology.
With Carol and Maria's military life,it's basically Top Gun with Les Yay replacing Ho Yay (and there were also a bunch of dramas about military personnel during the same timeframe).
I also feel like the Skrull twist is really clever in that Carol and Fury (and the audience) think she's in They Live! or a dark sci fi movie like Alien (and sequels), but they're actually in Alien Nation or ALF.
I definitely agree that GOTG was THE turning point in terms of the shift in tone. Arguably even more so than the Avengers. The outlandish odd goofy humor and colorful personality basically changed everything. The Avengers was the first time you see the different worlds collide, but it wasn't exactly genre-bending, risky, or weird like GOTG.
In my opinion, the biggest MCU genre-benders (not counting IW or Endgame) are the GOTG movies, Winter Soldier, Ant-Man, Ragnarok, Spider-Man Homecoming, and Black Panther, which is probably why most of those are the more popular films in the franchise.
I love the original GOTG, but I really do prefer the second one.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread

The Kree in the MCU are superstrong and have a healing factor from their advanced genetically engineered blood.
I could believe that the Asgardians were doing a similar thing but for far longer. They have advanced tech that they make look like medieval weaponry because they like it better that way.
Forever liveblogging the Avengers