Marvel Cinematic Universe thread v3 (no recent spoilers)

[Adami]

True, but it wasn't really explored within the MCU.  Most MCU viewers are not comic readers or even MCU TV viewers, but regular cinema-going types.  Their familiarity with the MCU begins and ends with what they've seen in the movies.  Some people saw the Darkhold and knew exactly what it was and what it meant, but most people saw a book, apparently of magic spells or something.  I'm just saying that it would have helped to get into that a bit more.

I watched every episode of Agents of Shield and knew about the Darkhold, or at least the version of it in the TV series, and I still thought Wanda's turn was pretty sudden and almost ridiculous.  If they didn't really have time to explore or explain that, then that's because of the tendency to cram way too much into each MCU movie.  Wanda went from one of my favorite characters (largely due to WandaVision) to "WTF is she on about?"

Indeed.

It's not about whether or not it makes some logical sense, but if it is a pay off or a surprise.

This was a surprise, not a pay off since there was almost nothing leading up to it.

[Lonk]

There was supposed to be a scene (That didn't make the final cut) in the opening moments of the movie, showing Mordor being killed by Wanda, which was supposed to show us she had been corrupted by the book.

Honestly, her drastic turn doesn't bother me, it was the weak motivation she was given by a weak plot.

[Orbert]

  Her drastic turn bothered me because of the weak motivation she was given by the weak plot.

[Adami]

That really is the crux of it that I forgot.

It's not that it makes NO sense that she could possibly be corrupted by that book. For me, at least, it's that her motivation to go evil directly contradicts her entire emotional arc in WandaVision.

[hefdaddy42]

I watched every episode of Agents of Shield and knew about the Darkhold, or at least the version of it in the TV series, and I still thought Wanda's turn was pretty sudden and almost ridiculous.  If they didn't really have time to explore or explain that, then that's because of the tendency to cram way too much into each MCU movie.  Wanda went from one of my favorite characters (largely due to WandaVision) to "WTF is she on about?"

Her turn WAS sudden and ridiculous.  Kind of like much of the rest of the film.

[MirrorMask]

Catched up on all the latest movies.

The Shang-Chi one was surprisingly cool and fresh, I really enjoyed it.

Eternals was ok I guess but it was looooooooong. Way too long.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was cool, but not as fresh as the first one.

The Marvels is an absolute disaster. By far and away the worst MCU movie. Every movie, if not great, was just good enough to be somehow entertaining, you turn off the brain for a couple of hours and enjoy the ride. This one had no redeeming quality and some seriously "what the hell the writers were thinking" moments. Absolutely irredimeable, Love and Thunder in comparison is The Godfather II.

[jammindude]

Catched up on all the latest movies.

The Shang-Chi one was surprisingly cool and fresh, I really enjoyed it.

Eternals was ok I guess but it was looooooooong. Way too long.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was cool, but not as fresh as the first one.

The Marvels is an absolute disaster. By far and away the worst MCU movie. Every movie, if not great, was just good enough to be somehow entertaining, you turn off the brain for a couple of hours and enjoy the ride. This one had no redeeming quality and some seriously "what the hell the writers were thinking" moments. Absolutely irredimeable, Love and Thunder in comparison is The Godfather II.

Wow. I’m just floored by that assessment of The Marvels.  You could flip The Marvels with Love and Thunder in your last paragraph and that would be accurate for me.

I currently hold that Love and Thunder is the only completely irredeemable “bad” Marvel movie.  The next two worst movies are The Eternals and MOM, and I consider them to be simply there. If I were watching an MCU marathon, I would not skip them. But I think I only own L&T because my collection would technically have a hole without it. That was a terrible film.  The Marvels actually brought me more than just a little bit of joy, and I was sad that such a charming and well made film got raked over the coals like it did.  It’s probably my #3 post-Endgame film.

[soupytwist]

I saw the show mentioned in another thread but makes more sense to put this opinion on here.  IMO Agents of Shield was a much better way for Marvel to run a TV show than the recent MCU shows.  AoS having the MCU movie storylines running in the background of the show, sometimes playing a bigger role was perfect (AoS reacting to the snap would have been interesting!).  The key was there wasn't too much crossover, so while they existed together - they were their own separate identities.  I'd much rather Marvel tried this again, than more 6 episode one shot shows that add way to much lore from the general MCU.

[Orbert]

I liked the idea of Agents of Shield, and mostly thought the execution was pretty good, too.  The problem was that the original concept -- a TV series with stories unfolding in sync with the MCU -- was practically doomed to failure, because it became harder and harder to coordinate the timelines.  It started off great, with the Hydra reveal pretty well synched, but it turned out much easier for the movies to get off schedule, and it turned out that while the guys running the TV show tried to communicate and coordinate with the MCU filmmakers, it wasn't reciprocated.  There was never even an acknowledgement in the MCU regarding Coulson's updated "status".  So Agents of Shield just went off and did their own thing.  But I liked most of what they did.  The Ghost Rider arc was pretty cool, as was the Framework arc.  We even got some reasonably interesting stories with the Kree, and some time-jumping that allowed them to tie in some other MCU characters.