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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
A certain Brit
was at the premiere of Shang-Chi...
Now to speculate on what his cameo will be. The Mandarin brandishing his severed head?
I'm a little ashamed to say that I have no inherent enthusiasm for Shang Chi or The Eternals other than that they are MCU films, and I suspect most people are in the same boat. One thing that Marvel has done a fantastic job of is introducing characters in ensemble films and then spinning them off into their own properties. That could have been useful here, especially since a lot of people are staying home and aren't getting exposed to trailers in cinemas.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Blame that on pre-COVID planning not really viable now. I'm excited for Shang Chi to a degree, it looks like a fun movie. The Eternals doesn't do it for me at all honestly. Maybe a better trailer will come out later, but the current one isn't that good IMO.I really think they added that last scene (discussing who will lead the Avengers) just to ensure everyone knows its a MCU release.
I’m only excited for one aspect of each of these: The real Mandarin for Shang-Chi and Lauren Ridloff for Eternals.
The legend has returned.The thing with Shang-Chi is that it's essentially following the steps of Ant-Man and Doctor Strange in terms of introducing a completely new corner with a completely new hero. It's actually quite similar to the former in regards to both banking off a connection to an existing thing (SHIELD, Ten Rings) and having surprise cameos (Falcon, Abomination and Wong). And in those regards I honestly think in a normal environment Shang-Chi would've done pretty well. The current response has been a bit tepid because they've been conservative on showing the action scenes (which I'm taking as the biggest draw) and they've been ramping up the marketing quite a bit lately. I'd expect more to emerge as more screenings come out and we get more social media reactions and eventually reviews. Free Guy wound up doing the same thing and I think that's what helped it do as well as it's done and if the RT score's matches current reception then I see a similar result.
It'll still probably be on the lower end of the MCU in absolute terms, but no sane man worth their salt is going to judge it out of context of the pandemic. Literally every movie last year, this year, and for the next two-three is going to have giant asterisks next to them because of it. At this point what matters is that it's short-term successful enough to at least make Disney happy which I'm honestly convinced it will; if there's anything truly upsetting it's that Asian-Americans won't be able to enjoy the runaway box office success with Shang-Chi that black Americans enjoyed with Black Panther.
To me the real test both for Free Guy and Shang-Chi is going to be how their legs are. Black Widow, Jungle Cruise, and The Suicide Squad all immediately plummeted after the first week or two, and all signs point to most people opting for streaming instead. We'll need to see how strong the FOMO is but I'm skeptical how large the "The movie looks great, can't wait until it eventually goes on a streaming platform" crowd truly is.
I'm slightly excited for Shang-Chi, but less so for the fights than everything else in it. Because I don't watch Marvel for the action since it all looks pretty damn samey, with the exception of a few movies like TWS and Civil War. I'm still interested in the civilian scenes involving Shang-Chi and his dad at least, as the life of the diasporic and assimilated overseas Chinese is a thing that's very interesting to me for self-evidently personal reasons.
Speaking of Shang Chi, it seems the first reactions are positive
.
I'm real curious about Shang-Chi for a few reasons, one of which is that we get to actually see what it is the Ten Rings do in the MCU after disappearing in Iron Man 3. I also feel obligated to watch it in part due to Simu Liu being a fellow Canadian, and because San Francisco is involved in the film. And dammit do I miss SF.
I am a little worried that there won't be as many non-Asians who want to watch this film though. There's a lot of misinformation about China and the pandemic out there, and a lot of idiots have taken to blaming that on Asian Americans for some reason. Combine that with China's dislike of the promos, and that doesn't seem like a good sign.
But I really want to see this film. I dunno if I'll be able to get tickets as soon as it drops since I'll just be starting school again on it's release date, but I'm willing to brave it. I'm fully vaccinated and I'll wear a mask at the theater.
And hey, if the reactions are positive, that gives me more incentive to go. Here's hoping.
Yep, the early reactions
are positive. I'd also add the Reel Rejects reaction on Youtube
to this list (for context, they did not like BW but liked this one).
Edited by Asherinka on Aug 17th 2021 at 11:04:35 AM
Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous.He dunt want it. He Nevah has.
The character bios are real nice, gives us info on the characters. So Sersi is the main character.
"She's interesting because she is this immortal being, but she's very grounded as well," Chan says. "She's a little bit of a free spirit and just loves being amongst humans."

It's good to finally get a sense of what the action looks like in this one. As a martial arts film, what the action looks like is essential to the whole thing.
In true Marvel fashion, there's a few too many cuts (and it doesn't help that there's a couple great Jackie Chan scaffoldign fights to compare it to). But it's still pretty great. I hope the whole movie keeps the fights more martial arts based, and that it doesn't devolve too heavy into CGI superhero fighting when the final battle comes along.