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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

HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#119651: Jul 28th 2020 at 9:49:57 AM

And people like Sue a lot more anyway.

Reed takes a lot of flak for some of his decision. Some of that is because of how things were at the time. Some of it is someone not getting his character and writing him OOC, but there's still some legitimate stuff there.

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
#119652: Jul 28th 2020 at 9:59:07 AM

And there’s a lot of examples in media where the smart person of the team isn’t the leader

And the leader will pull them aside and go “give me some options”

You do have a kind of problem where the team is named after Reed but that’s a minor thing

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#119653: Jul 28th 2020 at 10:07:31 AM

I would prefer if Sue were a scientist or at least someone contributing to the intellectual heavy lifting in the movies and that is unlikely to happen if they go with the "lost from the 60s" route. So I prefer them to be a modern team.

Well that's the thing, they're a team of futurists. It'd be perfectly in-character for them to be outrageously egalitarian by their time. You could in fact make that an arc where they're sort of outcasts in the 60's for their "outrageous progressivism", then they arrive in the 2020s and are delighted to see how much the world advanced rather than sad for the time they lost (and of course a follow-up where they also realize even though a lot of change happened, under the skin this brave new world is just as full of bigotry as the old one).

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#119654: Jul 28th 2020 at 10:08:29 AM

....Is Reed's middle name either Fantastic or Four?

Cause otherwise, I'm not sure how it's named after him. Maybe if he came up with the name Fantastic Four, but that's not an issue.

One Strip! One Strip!
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#119655: Jul 28th 2020 at 10:12:38 AM

I'd prefer if there wasn't a pecking order in the group, tbh. Instead of there needing to be a clear cut leader, they should approach things together like a family.

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#119656: Jul 28th 2020 at 10:15:45 AM

He chose the name Mr Fantastic and then the team was called the Fantastic Four

Also we can’t prove that Reed’s middle name isn’t Fantastic

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
VampireBuddha Calendar enthusiast from Ireland (Wise, aged troper) Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
Calendar enthusiast
#119657: Jul 28th 2020 at 10:19:16 AM

Whatever the era, I would have Reed and Sue already married at the start.

I don't see why Sue can't be a scientist. Off the top of my head, Marie Curie won Nobel prizes in the 1900s and 1910s, and her first daughter won one in the 1930s.

If the F4 are displaced from the 60s, we can have an interesting look at how much things have changed in some ways, and how little in others. Maybe they're considered liberal in the 60s, but societal shifts have rendered them centrist by the 20s; Reed might even be considered conservative in the modern age. Seeing how people who lived in the anticommunist milieu of the 60s suddenly find themselves in a time when being openly socialist is acceptable on the left wing of politics has potential.

Sue can be involved in Reed's research, at the very least as an assistant but it would be better if she was an equal partner, facing 60s pressures to Stay in the Kitchen while wanting to actually be part of his life and accomplish things outside the home.

Then when they get to the 20s, it initially looks like that won't be an obstacle. Various women's publications want to interview Sue ostensibly as a feminist role model... but Sue finds they're more interested in her sense of style and how she balances a career and a marriage, prompting her to lament that things haven't changed nearly as much as people think.


The question was asked a while back as to how to keep 60s Doom the same age as the F4. My idea is that the infamous experiment he was doing was an attempt to make a Philosopher's Stone. The experiment exploded, as Reed warned him it would, and horribly scarred him, but also resulted in him ageing much more slowly. Thus he can still look about the same after 60+ years.

Ukrainian Red Cross
HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#119658: Jul 28th 2020 at 10:24:20 AM

[up][up]

Oh right. Mr. Fantastic. How do I forget these things?

One Strip! One Strip!
eligram Since: Sep, 2009 Relationship Status: In denial
#119659: Jul 28th 2020 at 10:30:33 AM

[up] I blame Dr. Doom always screaming RICHAAAAAAARDS instead of Mr. Fantastic

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#119660: Jul 28th 2020 at 10:42:45 AM

Mr.Fantastic is the leading rival of the brand Mr.Muscle

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
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.
#119661: Jul 28th 2020 at 11:17:43 AM

I miss the MCU. I was really looking forward to watching Black Widow, and the rest of Phase 4. I want them to just release the films online already.

Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#119662: Jul 28th 2020 at 11:20:09 AM

1 year without any MCU film is indeed quite strange.

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chasemaddigan I'm Sad Frogerson. Since: Oct, 2011
I'm Sad Frogerson.
#119663: Jul 28th 2020 at 11:45:00 AM

Assuming Black Widow's release date isn't pushed back, this will be the first time since 2012 that there's only been a single MCU film released that year.

If it is pushed back to 2021, 2020 will be the first year since 2009 not to have a single MCU film released in the theaters.

Edited by chasemaddigan on Jul 28th 2020 at 11:45:30 AM

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#119664: Jul 28th 2020 at 12:28:00 PM

I can see the value in doing a Fantastic Four movie that opens with them already having their powers and being a fully-formed team of explorers/superheroes/adventurers. But I can't see the value in doing that while also doing the displaced in time/space thing.

Presumably, if you have the FF be from 1960's Earth, you're going to want to use 1960's Earth, if not as the main setting of the adventure, then at least as something that informs who these characters are. That requires spending time developing who these characters were before being bombarded by cosmic rays and having their lives turned upside down. If you begin with them already removed from 1960's reality and fully adjusted to their new selves ... then what's even the point of it?

That said, after thinking on it, there is a way to have the Fantastic Four be both lost in space and displaced in time, and still address all the concerns I've mentioned.

What you do is, rather than debuting the FF in their own movie, you have them debut in a Thor movie or a Captain Marvel movie, or some other flick that's set in the deep reaches of the cosmos. There our spacefaring hero encounters a crew of long-lost 1960's astronauts who, whether through time anomalies or suspended animation, are barely aware of any time having passed.

And, this is crucial, when our hero meets these four in the depths of space, they don't have superpowers yet. They're just a team of astronauts with an off-beat, dysfunctional family dynamic, and knowledge of Earth that's humorously rooted in the 1960's. They'd aid in the film's plot by being scientific adventurers, with us getting to know them along the way. It's only late in the movie (possibly during the climax, or maybe as late as a post-credits scene) that the four astronauts get exposed to the cosmic rays that transform them.

It's then that you do a proper Fantastic Four movie, with the FF returning to Earth, having gotten the hang of their powers on the voyage home. You wouldn't need to spend time developing who these characters are, since we got to see that in the last movie. You can thus open with them going through culture shock on modern Earth and adjusting to the whole superhero thing, without it feeling like you're skipping over an important foundational element.

BOOXMOWO Since: Mar, 2013
#119665: Jul 28th 2020 at 2:31:47 PM

[up][up][up][up][up][up] In fairness to Doom, shouting "FANTASTIC!" while enraged after being bested would send mixed messages.

MedusaStone Since: Jan, 2015
#119666: Jul 29th 2020 at 12:30:00 AM

And now, for something completely different: Remember back when all we knew about Endgame was that it was the final Avengers movie? And they wouldn't tell us the movie's title because they said it was a spoiler for the film? Did we ever figure out why they thought that? Because I still don't see it spoiling anything other than the fact that it was the last movie, and we already knew that.

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#119667: Jul 29th 2020 at 12:32:15 AM

NVM

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jul 29th 2020 at 12:32:30 PM

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#119668: Jul 29th 2020 at 12:47:30 AM

Either they changed the title or it was all just fake claims to promote Twitter trending and advertising hype from sites that turn a single quote into a dozen articles and hour long videos.

IronScope STOP. RESETTING. MY. DISPLAY. OPTIONS. from Somewhere Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: I like big bots and I can not lie
STOP. RESETTING. MY. DISPLAY. OPTIONS.
#119669: Jul 29th 2020 at 12:57:48 AM

Secrecy creates buzz.

This place is careless.
ShadowWingLG Since: Dec, 2013
#119670: Jul 29th 2020 at 6:40:45 AM

The Russos also claimed that Time Travel wouldn't be involved in the plot after shots of Scott standing with Cap in the 2012 Avengers Suit were leaked. They were desperate to try and keep the film under wraps

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#119671: Jul 29th 2020 at 7:09:15 AM

I mean, if you're trying to prevent spoilers, why not just blatantly lie? They're under no obligation to satiate our ravenous curiosity.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
chasemaddigan I'm Sad Frogerson. Since: Oct, 2011
I'm Sad Frogerson.
#119672: Jul 29th 2020 at 7:21:26 AM

I remember at one point, some people the Endgame leaks where attempts at misdirection. Like, the set photos showing Steve in 2012 New York was thought to be a stunt to trick people into thinking the movie had time travel when they were planning on something different.

Would've been an incredible waste of resources, but it would've been impressive if it was true.

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#119673: Jul 29th 2020 at 12:15:44 PM

I remember that time Samuel L Jackson lied that Captain Marvel could time travel just to mess with people.

TheAirman Brightness from The vicinity of an area adjacent to a location Since: Feb, 2011 Relationship Status: Historians will say we were good friends.
Brightness
#119674: Jul 29th 2020 at 12:56:59 PM

Technically speaking she can in way. Since Captain Marvel is capable of FTL, time dilation is an actual thing for her. She's still travelling forward in time, but differently than the rest of us.

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Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#119675: Jul 29th 2020 at 1:24:48 PM

Relativity is not a thing in the MCU, so that's not actually true. In real physics, FTL is impossible, but if she were to get very close to the speed of light, her personal clock would be extremely slow compared to ours. A year could pass for us while minutes pass for her, but that's not what most people think of when they discuss time travel.

If you do the math and ignore physics, traveling faster than light should allow travel backwards in time according to certain reference frames, but even then it's not cut and dry. So no, just because you have FTL doesn't mean you have time travel in the classic sense.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

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