Marvel's Movie/TV Universe v2 (SPOILERS)

[Orbert]

Bummer about the Nova Corps.  I thought Riley and Glenn Close and company were pretty cool, but I'd never heard of Guardians of the Galaxy before the first movie, so I was going in blind and was able to enjoy it all.  It strikes me that that's why I'm able to rank it higher than some.  Any time you change something from the source material, there's a chance that it's not going to go over with everyone.  But for that matter, you could follow the source material to the letter (as far as you can tell) and it still won't work for everyone.  As an origin story for a somewhat lesser-known Marvel team, it's a pretty good movie.

[Adami]

Changes I’m fine with. Every movie has a ton. Changes for the worse I’m not as fine with.

[Ninjabait]

To be fair, I think everything in the MCU got brought down a few power levels. Hulk, The Sovereign, The Grandmaster, Thor, Ultron, etc. are all much weaker in the MCU than in the movies. Even people like Thanos and his kiddos, who are still incredibly powerful, are a bit weaker. The only characters who reach "comic book level" powerful are probably Graviton and maybe Daisy Johnson from AoS and Daredevil in any hallway.

I think it's mainly because the "everyone is probably universe-endingly powerful, even girls who can talk to squirrels" nature of the comic books won't translate well to live action film and television. It grounds the MCU I feel and the Nova Corps being basically mini Captain Marvels would've been a touch much for all the power degrading that went on between mediums.

But yeah, I think maybe they might have gone too far with downgrading the Nova Corps, given that all they've done really is die.

[Adami]

The power part was not really my main point. It’s all good.

[lonestar]

I just got through Ultron on my re-watch, taking a break to do a thorough GoT rehash before I finish the Marvel run. This month is gonna  be epic.

[faizoff]

It looks like Endgame is going to be 3 hours 2 mins long. Dang that's the longest Marvel movie so far, can't friggin wait for it. Less than a month now.

[Ninjabait]

To put that in perspective:

The first two Avengers are both around 2hr 22min
The Last Jedi is 2hr 32min
Avengers: Infinity War is 2hr 40min
The Fellowship of the Ring is 2hr 58min
The Two Towers is 2hr 59min
Avengers: Endgame is 3hr 2min
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is 3hr 7min
The Return of the King is 3hr 20min
The Fellowship of the Ring (extended) is 3hr 28min
The Two Towers (extended) is 3hr 43min
The Return of the King (extended) is 4hr 11min
Mockingjay Pt 1 + 2 is 4hr 20min
Deathly Hallows Pt 1 + 2 is 4hr 36min

If they ever release an extended edition of Endgame and Infinity War, those could easily be in the 4hr range.

[Dream Team]

I hope they stick to their guns on the run-time, I don’t want any character/relationship scenes cut because they are integral to these characters and the story. MORE is definitely better in this case. Most of the multi-plexes have it on at least 3 screens so they aren’t gonna lose any ticket sales.

[Adami]

Continuing my rewatch, last night was Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2.

Ehhhhhhhh. I remember really liking it when it came out, but I did not so much this time. Right now I'd put it above Thor 2, but not sure what else.

In some ways, it was like the opposite of the first one for me. For instance.

- The serious moments in the first one fell flat like 90% of the time. But the comedy really worked about 90% of the time.
- In the sequel, the serious moments (as few as we had) worked about 90% of the time, but the comedy fell flat about 90% of the time. "I am famous for my huge turds"? Really Drax?
- The team moments in the first one were the best, but the villain was REALLY lame and weak. In the sequel, the team moments were much more meh, but I really liked Ego up til the end when he went all generic villain on us.
- I disliked much of Gamora in the first one, but she was way better in this one. No real complaints on that end.

So what I liked and didn't like, starting with didn't.

- Humor was really lame much of the time, as I mentioned. Just seemed really out of place. Sometimes it worked, but usually it didn't. I didn't feel this way on the first watch, odd.
- Ending was super lame.
- Drax........god dammit Drax. He has been reduced to, not only, a completely one note character, but failing one at that. He wasn't funny. His character was also a complete idiot the whole movie. I love Dave, but he needs MUCH better material in the 3rd. He doesn't have to be an idiot joke anymore. Dude should be much more intelligent and less silly. His comedy in Infinity War worked much better.
- The gold people were just pointless. I love seeing Ben Browder on the big screen, but give him a better role and get rid of the gold people.
- The god damn exposition from Ego. Horribly done on all levels.

What I liked.

- Rocket and groot were great.
- Yondu kind of stole the movie. The Mary Poppins line still was great and funny. His sacrifice was still touching.
- Loved the Gamora/Nebula stuff. When you watch the two movies back to back (with a few days in between) their stuff doesn't seem so random. Nebula killed it as usual.
- Ego was really great til the end. Kurt Russell being awesome and bringing some much needed charisma to a Marvel bad guy.
- BEN BROWDER!
- Stan Lee cameo
- Mantis. I really liked Mantis. Totally different from the comics, but Pom brought such charm and love to her. When she was being serious with Drax, it was really well done.
- The original Guardians of the Galaxy. Not over done, but well done I'd say. Really liked the nod. Wouldn't mind more of them.


Tuesday is Winter Soldier! Really excited for that. In my top 3.

[Orbert]

I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said, but I'm enjoying your recaps of your rewatch of the series.  I kinda feel like I'm reviewing them in my head as well.  Even though I've seen all of them at least once, some of them I've seen only once, so I don't remember a ton of details, and this is a nice refresher.

[King Postwhore]

Winter Soldier is my #1.

[lordxizor]

It appears Endgame tickets are available for presale. I'm trying to get in with the A-List membership to get tix and their site and app are being incredibly slow.

[Adami]

I got tickets at 7am Central time. For opening night (thursday) it was basically all sold out. Going Friday.

Amazing how quick that was.

[Lonk]

lmao im on a waitlist and is telling me it will be more than an hour wait time for tickets.

Edit: Wait time was for Fandango.com, I purchased tickets directly through the regal website and there was no wait time. Also, AMC website crashed,

[jingle.boy]

jingle.son was up until 12:30am waiting for our local theater to have them available.  IMAX 3D, centre of the theater baby!

[MinistroRaven]

TRAILER #3 OMG!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMfuHzeiYW8

I LOVE the part where IM and CA shake hands. I also LOVE that these trailers are not "showing" MUCH.

[The Walrus]

Duuude there are some shots in that new trailer that have me SO hyped for what we're about to see.

My buddy got us IMAX tickets dead center for opening night. I couldn't be happier. Now we play the waiting game.

[Adami]

jingle.son was up until 12:30am waiting for our local theater to have them available.  IMAX 3D, centre of the theater baby!

That pisses me off. I, like an idiot, read and believed that tickets became available at like 8am. So I didn't even think to check around midnight.

Ah well, I got a good reserved seat on a big screen (and no 3D thankfully). I just have to stay out of this thread Thursday/Friday before the movie and off of google essentially since it'll probably be filled with spoilers immediately.

[jingle.boy]

Cool trailer.  Again... bringing a little bit of new stuff to the hype, but not giving away anything huge.

[MinistroRaven]

 

Cool trailer.  Again... bringing a little bit of new stuff to the hype, but not giving away anything huge.

 

[The Walrus]

Okay, I was sure from that new trailer there were some time travel shenanigans all but confirmed but on second viewing I was wrong. Then to make myself feel better I went back to the older trailer and watched the brief clip with Brie Larson about 10 times.   

[bosk1]

Cool trailer.  Again... bringing a little bit of new stuff to the hype, but not giving away anything huge.

Yes, but was there enough new footage to keep the fan theorist sites busy for the next 3 1/2 weeks?  I'm concerned.

Speaking of dumb theories, I'm kinda glad that this cut of the scene with Thor and CM more clearly showed that it was Stormbreaker and not Mjolnir that he was summoning.

[RuRoRul]

Feel as though this trailer actually gave a lot more new or revealing info than the previous released teasers combined. Not a lot but more like the normal amount of information you usually get for a film after early teasers showed very little. But after people have already had a very limited teaser or two for a while the diehards have pieced together a lot already so it doesn't seem as significant to reveal a bit more.

This trailer and the original teaser were very good, enough to get hyped and I wouldn't really want to know any more than that. I think it will be tough to follow Infinity War which actually did live up to the buildup of all the movies before it, hoping this film can pull it off as well.

[MinistroRaven]

Cool trailer.  Again... bringing a little bit of new stuff to the hype, but not giving away anything huge.

Yes, but was there enough new footage to keep the fan theorist sites busy for the next 3 1/2 weeks?  I'm concerned.

Speaking of dumb theories, I'm kinda glad that this cut of the scene with Thor and CM more clearly showed that it was Stormbreaker and not Mjolnir that he was summoning.

I think I read that one of the theories out there is that the Avengers are teaming up with Thanos to defeat a greater threat, correct?

[axeman90210]

I'll wait until the week of to get tickets. There's always an initial frenzy when the first showtimes go on sale a few weeks early, but the theaters will quietly add more screenings the Tuesday or Wednesday before opening weekend once their full schedule for the weekend is finalized.

[bosk1]

Cool trailer.  Again... bringing a little bit of new stuff to the hype, but not giving away anything huge.

Yes, but was there enough new footage to keep the fan theorist sites busy for the next 3 1/2 weeks?  I'm concerned.

Speaking of dumb theories, I'm kinda glad that this cut of the scene with Thor and CM more clearly showed that it was Stormbreaker and not Mjolnir that he was summoning.

I think I read that one of the theories out there is that the Avengers are teaming up with Thanos to defeat a greater threat, correct?

Well, there are TONS of theories out there.  But, yeah, I've seen that one.  And something like that wouldn't surprise me, although I think "team up" might not be the best way to describe it.  I could envision something more along the lines of something or some other threat happening that makes Thanos and the Avengers reluctantly pursuing the same outcome rather than fighting against one another. 

[faizoff]

I'm unable to buy tickets for any show on opening day, the AMC site fails at every stage.

[faizoff]

AMC's site was a waste of time and effort. I bought from Fandango for another Theater and that worked.

[MinistroRaven]

I haven't been able to get tockets either, in fact the local cinemas are posting updates on their social media channels, that they've had more request access to their sites than ever before, more than 19K request per seconds, causing their sites to crush

[jingle.boy]

jingle.son tells me Cineplex (our version of AMC) site has also been down much of the day.

[bosk1]

Looks like we'll be seeing it Saturday of opening weekend. 

I was not planning on that.  We're really busy that weekend, and I also don't want to deal with a jam-packed theater.  My oldest son (16) REALLY wants to see it opening weekend because (1) it's Endgame, and (2) spoilers will abound, and he really doesn't want such a hugely anticipated movie spoiled.  I dunno.  I kind of had mixed feelings about it.  I want to see it--don't get me wrong.  But given all the other stuff going on, I kind of felt like just saying, "Look, we can easily get spoiled trying to see EVERYTHING on opening weekend, and I just don't want to run ourselves ragged having our schedules being dictated by Hollywood.  We have enough going on, and we're just going to wait."  But on the flip-side, we don't do this every time, and there is enough of a window in the schedule to make it work, so...I gave in and chose not to stand on principle just to make a point that doesn't necessarily need to be made right now.  The theater  closest to our house has reserved seating AND I have a $75 gift card, so we drove there and got our tickets and seats for Saturday night.  Looking forward to it.

[The Walrus]

Hell yeah bosk. That's really cool of you. 

I'm seeing it with my best friend who's also a huge Marvel buff. Last year he got me a shirt with the Infinity Gauntlet cover on it so I might wear that to the show. We haven't seen every Marvel film together but we've seen every Iron Man and Avengers movie together in theaters and a couple of the recent ones like Spidey. We're constantly in awe of the MCU and how we didn't see any of this coming when we were juniors in high school heading off to see Iron Man. As cheesy as it sounds, Endgame already means a lot to me. It's gonna wreck me.

[Adami]

Reserved seating is the way to go. I would NOT want to chance my seats for this film.


Also continuing my rewatch, last night was Winter Soldier. God...I....Love....This....Movie.

I remember watching this movie for the first time in theaters. As soon as Cap got on that boat in the beginning and began kicking people 10 feet, I was like....woah. This is different. This is a new face for Marvel. I was so captivated by the visceral, blunt feeling to this movie. It felt like it found that perfect balance between comic book movie and a gritty movie based in realism.

This movie was just such an amazing change of pace. First Marvel film by the Russo's, and the first combination of Russo's and Markus and McFeely. Clearly that team worked for a good reason. They brought everything they had to this movie. And this movie led to that team taking over the Avengers franchise and completely killing it (no pun). So here's what I loved and some problems I had.

Loved:

- Directing: Just such a new approach. The way they shot action was just stunning. The performances they got out of everyone was incredible.
- The pacing: This team knows pacing like it's no one's business. This movie, plus Civil War and Infinity War, they are all perfectly paced. No bloat. No dragging. No Rushing. Every minute is well spent. Which is why I'm excited for a 3 hour movie. These guys make every minute count perfectly.
- Winter Soldier was just so well done as a character. Sebastian Stan played him perfectly.
- The plot of Shield being corrupted after all of this time and having to, and succeeding in changing the status quo and eliminating Shield. Also the social and political commentary was really well done.
- Finding a new way to make Steve Rogers a beacon of morality in a new and interesting context.
- Just about all of the rest of it.

Problems I had (not many)

- Arnim Zola's character seemed......wasted.
- Also they DEFINITELY took an elevator to where they met with Zola and yet after the bomb hit, they're basically right at ground level.
- The most weird plot hole I only recognized because I was a locksmith, but the key in the scene in 1943 or whatever when Bucky hands Steve the key is a Kwikset, which wasn't invented until 1946.


Brilliant movie. Age of Ultron is tomorrow.

[bosk1]

As cheesy as it sounds, Endgame already means a lot to me. It's gonna wreck me.

Yeah, I know what you mean.  This may be one where we even see it twice in theater.  In fact, I think we might HAVE TO because my wife and daughter are going to be off on a field trip 3 hours or so away and probably won't be back in time (it's all good!--the wife said to go ahead and see it).  But I think we'll hit a matinee at the cheaper theater across town maybe week 3 after release or something for the repeat.

Reserved seating is the way to go. I would NOT want to chance my seats for this film.

Yeah, same.  And I told him before we went to the theater box office that if they only had the first 5 rows left for any show times, we were just going to wait, because that is a miserable experience.  Luckily, we got pretty good seats. 

Age of Ultron is tomorrow.

I know a lot of people felt let down by that one, but I loved it. 

[Ninjabait]

As cheesy as it sounds, Endgame already means a lot to me. It's gonna wreck me.

SAME. Honestly, this is a movie I've been waiting years for. It seems like it's one of those events that comes around only once a lifetime. I don't think I've been this excited for a movie (not including IW) since Return of the King came out in theaters. I predict I'm gonna weep like a baby.

On a related note, I bought my ticket to see it opening Saturday, using up the last bit of my gift card.