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Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#451: Nov 1st 2024 at 6:09:15 PM

Different needs led to different execution

The gap between the children turning into hands and disappearing was much longer in the comics.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#452: Nov 1st 2024 at 6:11:31 PM

Adaptations do have the advantage of being able to take the best stuff and use it as quickly or as late as they please.

Hindsight is the greatest power ever.

One Strip! One Strip!
KRider Desire Grand Prix Entry from Origin System Since: Feb, 2021
Desire Grand Prix Entry
#453: Nov 1st 2024 at 8:04:24 PM

Finally finished watching the entire series and I really liked this show for being unapologetically and openly queer as well as the twist that The Witches Road was actually created by Billy. I also like how they streamlined how Billy Maximoff survived and became William Kaplan too. The show also reinforced my belief that Marvel made a huge mistake (and yes I include box office hits such as Spider Man: No Way Home and Deadpool & Wolverine in the aforementioned mistake) in focusing on the Multiverse as opposed to building up the various Legacy heroes and new heroes that were introduced throughout Phase 4 and 5.

Regarding Tommy, so Thomas Shepherd was a guy who was killed by a bunch of jackasses in a Deadly Prank and nobody present bothered to help him? Damn that's both a horrible way to go and potentially a terrible life to be reincarnated to.

Set! Avenge! "Henshin." Black General! Bujin Sword! Ready, Fight!
GateStarX The Formatter from The Great White North Since: Sep, 2012 Relationship Status: Buried in snow, waiting for spring
The Formatter
#454: Nov 1st 2024 at 8:21:39 PM

[up]Yeah Tommy's screwed, and not going to have a plesant three years. I have a feeling he's going to be a little pissed off when he see's Billy again.

One thing I wished the show had done though is have William's parents learn that William's dead. It seems incredibly unfair to them, even though Billy didn't do it and they've honestly raised him longer than Wanda did. I just hope they still accept Billy as their adoptive son when they do, as it's not like Billy had his memories when he woke up, so they still had to learn about each other.

It's gonna be fun on the bun!
Bullman Enid Sinclair Since: Jun, 2018 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
Enid Sinclair
#455: Nov 1st 2024 at 8:24:20 PM

To be fair, Tommy in the comics was pretty bad off compared to Billy as well.

Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Theokal3 Since: Jan, 2012
#456: Nov 2nd 2024 at 5:25:36 AM

[up][up][up]I don't know, I feel like the stuff focusing on Legacy characters wasn't particularly good too. Honestly Agatha All Along's strength is just that they actually put some damn effort here and made it good.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#457: Nov 2nd 2024 at 9:40:47 AM

Lack of effort has never been a problem. Quantumania is one of the worst things Marvel's ever put out but not for lack of effort. I'd be remiss to call it a lazy, passionless film that clearly nobody involved cared about making.

There was a ton of effort on display. But it was misplaced. The effort was being put into all the wrong things, creating a film that features nothing that Ant-Man fans actually turned out to see.

They didn't set out to make a bad movie. They were trying to make a good movie and failed.

Agatha All Along blew it out of the park for the same reason its predecessor WandaVision, by the same creator, did: Because Jac Schaeffer understands that the characters are the heart of the story. The magic and worldbuilding and kooky supernatural forces and all that isn't what it's about. That stuff is just the tools you use to tell the story.

The characters, their relationships and personal dramas, and the complicated ideas they interrogate through their journey? That's what the story is about. If your movie just has Spider-Man punch the Rhino in the face and that's it, it's not going to be a very good movie. The audience needs to understand why Spider-Man wants to punch the Rhino in the face, to feel why it's so important to him in a way they can relate to and emotionally invest in.

Your story can be about something big and complex. Iron Man is about the military industrial complex and its relationship to foreign terrorism. Winter Soldier is about the rise of home-grown fascism within the American security apparatus. Thor: Ragnarok is about the shadow of colonialism and the way it poisons the foundations of nations that benefit from it.

It can also be about something personal and emotional. The Guardians of the Galaxy films, all three of them, are first and foremost about damaged people finding community and a support network with one another in order to help each other be more than they were apart. The first Dr. Strange is about embracing humility in the face of a vast, uncaring universe.

But it needs to be about something. In the wake of Infinity War and Endgame's success, Marvel's fallen down the same rabbit hole as so many of their shared universe bandwagon hoppers. Ironically, the MCU itself has become one of the low-quality trend-chasers trying to court the success of the MCU's formula. And it's all because they've become convinced that what people are turning out for is just the spectacle.

They think Spider-Man punching the Rhino in the face, that's what the movie is. That's what people want to see. The characters are simply the vehicles through which we access the spectacle.

But that's not how Jac creates, and the difference is stark. Wanda Vision is about one woman's emotional breakdown, her journey through grief and loss. Agatha All Along interrogates the relationships between parents and their children, and the responsibility that older generations have towards younger. Agatha herself is a complex figure, at once an unapologetic murderer of fellow witches and at the same time a grieving mother who loved her son and emotionally bonds with a boy who reminds her of her own. Two things that never contradict or detract from the other.

Multiverse of Madness, by contrast, utilizes the same characters and ideas to tell a story about how we need to stop the bad lady because she went crazy and is on a killing spree. Wasn't it cool when she turned that guy into spaghetti? Peak character development, right there.

Jac utilizes her world and its fantasy elements and its big spectacle moments as tools to flesh out and build her characters. Other writers in the Marvel space are using their characters as tools to get to the big spectacle moments and world lore. That is why Jac's fare hits so much harder than a lot of other Marvel stuff that's come out since Endgame.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 2nd 2024 at 10:51:33 AM

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HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#458: Nov 2nd 2024 at 10:02:35 AM

I have come to think that beyond taking Ant-Man out of his comfort zone (heist film) one problem of Quantumania was that the director (who I believe was a Rick and Morty guy) was the wrong kind of person for it.

In fact, I'm now beginning to think that maybe they should have stuck to the heist theme and put more emphasis on the maybe stealing the Power Core for Kang's ship like any other Ant-Man movie, with Kang not being the main threat, but a shadow bad guy who Janet thinks is already beaten, until near the end.

But that's not a topic for this thread. So I will say this. Maybe they need to get the guy doing both this show and Wandavision to do some other stuff, and bring his clarity of character to it.

Hell, maybe he should have been more involved with Multiverse of Madness (which I still kinda like, while acknowledging that it did Wanda very dirty) to keep that continuity of character and not set all of Wanda's development on fire.

One Strip! One Strip!
MatthewWayne The Tapestry Weaver from Camp Echo One Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
The Tapestry Weaver
#459: Nov 2nd 2024 at 10:11:11 AM

It's telling that both Multiverse of Madness and Quantumania were both written by Rick and Morty alumni, a show that prides itself on being all about spectacle and parody rather than honest character development.

Let me put it this way: taking familiar characters the audience knows and using them as a vehicle to either visit some crazy places/situations, or flanderize their traits for the sake of doing something unusual to surprise the audience works really well for cartoons and/or sitcoms. Regular Show and Community come to mind. But in a franchise that prides itself on building up and developing characters, the plot beats and arc progression has to be way more complex than the Dan Harmon Story Circle.

Multiverse of Madness suffers from the flanderization part, while Quantumania suffers from the "going to a crazy place for no reason" part.

"I'm Mr. Blue, woah-woah-ooh..."
Bullman Enid Sinclair Since: Jun, 2018 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
Enid Sinclair
#460: Nov 2nd 2024 at 10:14:27 AM

I really don't think we should get sidetracked on this thread about Rick and Morty writers and MCU projects that have nothing to do with Agatha.

Either way, when do you guys think we will see Agatha and Billy again. Or maybe even Rio.

Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
HandsomeRob Leader of the Holey Brotherhood from The land of broken records Since: Jan, 2015
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
#461: Nov 2nd 2024 at 10:22:11 AM

[up][up]Yeah. They definitely needed to focus on stealing Kang's Core for Quantumania then. That and maybe making Kang more subtle rather than having him straight up as the Big Bad.

And Multiverse definitely needing more Wandavision people on it so that whatever we got stayed in line with what that show established (since, as I understand it, the people involved in MOM didn't even see Wandavision, though I think that's also because they were being made around the same time). Maybe they could have still had Wanda getting messed up by the Darkhold, but not for the whole movie. Maybe they could have used an Alternate Wanda, to show her what she could have become if she allowed the Darkhold to get a grip on her.

And she could still sacrifice herself to destroy, maybe with the help of that corrupted Wanda as well, and thus this series would still be set.

Edit: [up] Probably.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Nov 2nd 2024 at 10:23:09 AM

One Strip! One Strip!
Oshawott337 Since: Jul, 2020 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
#462: Nov 2nd 2024 at 11:20:07 AM

Honestly, I kind of wonder when we’re going to see these guys again because it’s hard to see them showing up in the next Avengers movie. In fact, I kind of wonder how they’d incorporate characters introduced in the Disney+ shows into the movies. It’s not impossible but there’s quite a few of them now.

"Let’s see who’s stronger: someone that has something to protect, or someone that has nothing to lose."
Bullman Enid Sinclair Since: Jun, 2018 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
Enid Sinclair
#463: Nov 2nd 2024 at 11:22:08 AM

Why wouldn't they? I mean Billy is a member of an Avengers team?

Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Oshawott337 Since: Jul, 2020 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
#464: Nov 2nd 2024 at 11:29:58 AM

Well, more like he’s the son of a former Avenger. But fair enough, I guess if he learned about it or bumped into the other Avengers, he probably would want to help out. It’s Agatha that’s harder to see, but maybe if there was some reason to make her think it was in her best interest. The bigger issue is establishing the Disney+ characters in a way that makes sense for audiences that didn’t watch them. It’s definitely not an impossible task but there’s a lot of them at this point is all. Though I guess it depends on who they think makes the most sense to involve?

"Let’s see who’s stronger: someone that has something to protect, or someone that has nothing to lose."
MurlocAggroB from the second-most ridiculous province of Canada Since: May, 2015
#465: Nov 2nd 2024 at 11:35:54 AM

Multiverse of Madness, by contrast, utilizes the same characters and ideas to tell a story about how we need to stop the bad lady because she went crazy and is on a killing spree. Wasn't it cool when she turned that guy into spaghetti? Peak character development, right there.

You can not like the movie, but that take is frankly fucking stupid. You cannot just sit there and ignore all of the focus her motivation gets, from her laying out her problems to Strange, her conversation with Wong on Wundagore that ends with her exploding for making a rational point she can't refute, and the climax which literally hinges on Wanda's barriers being broken down by forcing her to actually confront what Strange and Wong have been saying the entire movie.

That's extremely reductionist to just... pretend half the movie didn't happen. Peak bad faith arguing, right there.

regulation pigeon
Bullman Enid Sinclair Since: Jun, 2018 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
Enid Sinclair
#466: Nov 2nd 2024 at 11:41:34 AM

[up][up]Fair but I would note that there are a lot of fans who only watch the Disney plus shows. I can't tell you how many times I have seen someone on Twitter or Tumblr say that they only watch the tv shows and wish that they were in the movies.

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CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#467: Nov 2nd 2024 at 1:32:13 PM

I don't have MOM.

I will say, though, that the movie doesn't interrogate it's themes very well. Literally nothing would change if it was an alternate universe Wanda impersonating the actual Wanda for example.

You could also do a rewrite about Baron Mordo hunting down America Chavez and claiming she's a threat to the multiverse without much difference. Have Doctor Strange interrogate that he's a fuck up on every world and Mordo's ruthlessness works well.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
KRider Desire Grand Prix Entry from Origin System Since: Feb, 2021
Desire Grand Prix Entry
#468: Nov 2nd 2024 at 5:11:26 PM

@Handsome Rob Jac Schaeffer's a woman actually but in any event, all the legacy shows such as Wandavision, Agatha All Along, Ms Marvel and even The Marvels all have compelling and, most importantly (since this keeps getting forgotten w/ all the obsession about villains) fun protagonists/heroes. The big problem w/ the MCU chasing the spectacle of the Multiverse trend is them learning the wrong lessons from No Way Home's success (much in the same way that EA's learned the wrong lesson from Dragon Age: Inquisition's success w/c they assumed that Bioware magic means more crunch). They're becoming too reliant on nostalgia fanservice. But to center this back to Agatha, as exciting as it is for the possibility of Billy and Tommy reuniting, there's no announcement yet on when and where they'll be coming back so who knows when and where will the payoff happen if it happens at all.

Edited by KRider on Nov 2nd 2024 at 5:12:28 AM

Set! Avenge! "Henshin." Black General! Bujin Sword! Ready, Fight!
Oshawott337 Since: Jul, 2020 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
#469: Nov 2nd 2024 at 5:15:54 PM

[up][up][up] I guess, but I was thinking more casual audiences. They tend to be more familiar with the movies.

On another note, I will say I’m kind of surprised this show didn’t get more backlash from the usual crowd, especially since the main couple involves two characters who were straight in the comics. Like, I think there was some review bombing on IMDb after the first couple episodes but the positive reviews have since far outstripped them. Though, I guess I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. It’s nice to be able to talk about something without seeing bad faith discourse everywhere.

Edited by Oshawott337 on Nov 2nd 2024 at 6:22:00 AM

"Let’s see who’s stronger: someone that has something to protect, or someone that has nothing to lose."
Bullman Enid Sinclair Since: Jun, 2018 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
Enid Sinclair
#470: Nov 2nd 2024 at 5:18:51 PM

Or they tend to be more familiar with the shows. Casual audiences tend to watch more tv then movies. It's not so black and white. If Marvel can tap into the causal audience that has seen the shows by actually advertising that the characters from said shows are appearing, I think that would make up for those who don't.

Edited by Bullman on Nov 2nd 2024 at 7:21:50 AM

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KRider Desire Grand Prix Entry from Origin System Since: Feb, 2021
Desire Grand Prix Entry
#471: Nov 2nd 2024 at 5:21:45 PM

A bit of a sidetrack but I'm at least glad that you don't see or hear too much fans posting the Dolph Ziggler "That should've been me!" gif but replace the "me" w/ "Thanos" upon revealing that Rio's Death and was in a relationship w/ Agatha.

Edited by KRider on Nov 2nd 2024 at 5:27:21 AM

Set! Avenge! "Henshin." Black General! Bujin Sword! Ready, Fight!
Bullman Enid Sinclair Since: Jun, 2018 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
Enid Sinclair
#472: Nov 2nd 2024 at 5:23:07 PM

[up] Who is Dolph Ziggler?

I hope that they don't try to connect Rio to Thanos or Wade. It wouldn't make sense for theses versions of the characters.

Edited by Bullman on Nov 2nd 2024 at 7:24:43 AM

Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
KRider Desire Grand Prix Entry from Origin System Since: Feb, 2021
Desire Grand Prix Entry
#473: Nov 2nd 2024 at 5:31:14 PM

[up]Dolph Ziggler (real name Nic Nemeth) is a pro wrestler famous for his time in WWE and is currently in TNA Wrestling as its TNA World Champion. The "It should have been me!" gif was from the time he cut a promo (wrestletalk for a speech) in 2019 turning heel on and starting a feud w/ then-WWE champion Kofi Kingston out of sheer jealousy.

Set! Avenge! "Henshin." Black General! Bujin Sword! Ready, Fight!
Bullman Enid Sinclair Since: Jun, 2018 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
Oshawott337 Since: Jul, 2020 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
#475: Nov 2nd 2024 at 5:51:39 PM

I don’t want her to be involved with them romantically, either, but I wouldn’t mind getting a nod to it in some form. I think it’s be funny if this version of Death didn’t like either of them. Like, maybe she mentions that Thanos killing half the universe and then everyone coming back was just super inconvenient for her since she didn’t ask for it in this verse. Or maybe she sees Wade killing people or something and is like “Ew”. There’s a lot of ways you could do it, though.

"Let’s see who’s stronger: someone that has something to protect, or someone that has nothing to lose."

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