Marvel's Movie/TV Universe v2 (SPOILERS)

[Adami]

So, from what I remember in the comics, Jane became "Thor" when the real Thor became unworthy, couldn't lift his hammer, but Jane could. At that point, again if memory serves, Thor stopped going by the name Thor, since that name was equated with being worthy of lifting Meowmeow. So he started going simply by Odinson I believe and let Jane (who he didn't know was Jane) be called Thor since she was worthy when he was not.

How will the movie deal with this? Well, if nothing else, I trust Taika completely.

[jingle.boy]

I don't get the ... angst? ... with "Thor".  For starters, "Thor" (as in 'Chris Hemsworth') is Thor Odinson. 

Second, I'm surprised debating Marvel canon/written history is up for discussion.  It's like saying 'I don't like that Hulk is green' or 'it's stupid that Wolverine only has three claws when real Wolverines have 5'.

Lastly, the comics have had MANY characters hold the power of Thor (Rogue, Valkyrie, Beta Ray Bill, Jane Foster, Odin to name a few).  "Thor" is indeed both a name, and a title.  Odinson is just the one who has carried it for the bulk of Marvel's history.

[bosk1]

There's no "angst."  Not sure why you feel the need to turn the discussion into something it isn't by saying that.  Just expressing that I personally think it is a dumb idea, whether it is canon or not.  If you love the idea, the fact that I don't doesn't take anything away from you.  I just don't. 

That said, maybe they'll surprise me.  Marvel thus far has a pretty good (not perfect, but pretty good) track record for taking characters I didn't much care for in the comics, and making them work really well onscreen.  So even though the very concept of Jane "becoming" Thor got an immediate eyeroll from me, maybe I'll think it's great.  Or maybe the MCU has simply exhausted my attention span.  Not sure yet until I see where we go from here.

[Lonk]

Meowmeow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Rd8kF89-A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egGrqtIBt_4

[The Walrus]

Look, unless they really just stop trying altogether, even the worst MCU film will still make more sense than the dumpster fire that is the new Star Wars trilogy. I'm here for Jane Thor. Until it's revealed after 10 films that she's actually Dr. Doom's daughter and her real name is Janeway Von Doom. 

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Personally, regardless of what happened in the comics, I kinda doubt the general movie going audience would take to characters switching names around so I can't imagine the movies going that direction.

[Dream Team]

All I know is that if Chris Hemsworth is in it, it’ll be good. The guy is money.

[Lonk]

Opps

https://uproxx.com/viral/chris-evans-penis-dick-picture-twitter-reactions/

I won’t post the picture but it’s not hard to find. The reactions are the best though.

[hefdaddy42]

That's hilarious.

[jammindude]

Tatiana Maslany (of Orphan Black fame) has been cast as She-Hulk, which just made this an instant “must see” for me.

https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/she-hulk-disney.html?fbclid=IwAR1jN6abbkZib6A0ggUqb61vFeROfBulBczI0qSi3X0vs7bOyyfvUT6YQto

[Adami]

Did not predict that at all

100% in. Great casting. Curious how the show will work.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Holy shit, I am now interested in this show.

[lordxizor]

I've been rewatching the MCU movies in release order. In retrospect it's kind of amazing that the MCU got as big as it did given the pretty wild swings in quality early on. It wasn't until Winter Soldier that basically all MCU movies became pretty much universally good movies (apart from Age of Ultron).

Iron Man was great, IM2 was kinda bad, Thor was just OK, Captain America was good but not great, Avengers was really good, IM3 was OK, The Dark World was kinda bad. Really the quality was all over the place to this point.

[Orbert]

Of course, "kinda good" and "kinda bad" are totally subjective.  In terms of story, I completely agree with you.  But in terms of action, special effects, all that big-screen spectacle, they deliver the goods.  And that's what most people seem to care about the most, and those "lesser" movies kept the momentum going.

MCU was still learning and growing, and not everything was going to strike gold.  I know, you realize that; I'm just saying.  In that way, it's kinda like the first season of a TV show.  Not everything is perfect and in place out of the gate.  You have a few clunker episodes while the powers-that-be are still figuring out how it all works and/or how to make it all work.

[lordxizor]

Of course, "kinda good" and "kinda bad" are totally subjective.  In terms of story, I completely agree with you.  But in terms of action, special effects, all that big-screen spectacle, they deliver the goods.  And that's what most people seem to care about the most, and those "lesser" movies kept the momentum going.

MCU was still learning and growing, and not everything was going to strike gold.  I know, you realize that; I'm just saying.  In that way, it's kinda like the first season of a TV show.  Not everything is perfect and in place out of the gate.  You have a few clunker episodes while the powers-that-be are still figuring out how it all works and/or how to make it all work.

Oh yeah, I absolutely get that. It's just interesting that audiences were willing to pay to see a few clunkers and kept the MCU going when it really could have fallen apart if a couple of the duds flopped at the box office. You're right about the big screen spectacle being enough for audiences sometimes.

[jingle.boy]

IMO, it was critical that Iron Man (the first) was as good as it was.  After that, the anticipation of the 'firsts' for Cap and Thor... as the lead up to The Avengers was really the driving force.  If IM was mediocre (ala X3) or downright shit, the whole MCU might have gone to shit.

[lordxizor]

IMO, it was critical that Iron Man (the first) was as good as it was.  After that, the anticipation of the 'firsts' for Cap and Thor... as the lead up to The Avengers was really the driving force.  If IM was mediocre (ala X3) or downright shit, the whole MCU might have gone to shit.

Very good point.

[Adami]

I think it also helped that it wasn’t trying to set up a universe outside of the post credit tease. The movie could just focus on being a movie and not part one of a 22 part story. Marvel screwed that up a bit later on but recovered. Dc and others screwed that up from the beginning but DC seems to hopefully be going in a new direction than copying Marvel.

[Orbert]

Marvel screwed that up a bit later on but recovered.

I'm curious as to what you mean here.  I thought the way they slowly introduced the concept that "there's more to this than just this story" was done brilliantly.  The way the different characters showed up in each other's movies, just as they show up in each other's comic books, I thought was really cool.  Basically, I don't remember any obvious mistakes in the MCU-building, so I'm wondering what specifically you thought were missteps.

I agree that DC kinda got it wrong from the beginning.  They had to play catch-up, and had a lot of catching up to do, and they didn't get the feel right.  Plus, Superman and Batman -- the two anchors of the Justice League and the DC universe -- had already been done to death, so both reboots had to be really strong, and I think we can all agree that neither of them worked 100%.  I do like their take on Aquaman, and I really didn't expect to.  When they announced the Aquaman origin movie after we'd already met the character, it shouldn't have worked as well as it did, but I was surprised to find myself really looking forward to it, and I enjoyed it pretty much.  A few things that didn't quite work for me, but overall pretty good.

[Adami]

I meant iron man 2/ age of ultron stuff. They got too focused on setting up future movies that those individual movies suffered from being less of a movie and more of a set up. I still enjoy them, but they went too far with universe building. Luckily they course corrected pretty quickly.

[Orbert]

While I think Iron Man 2 and Age of Ultron are among the weaker entries in the whole shebang, I didn't really think about why, other than that the main stories were not particularly engrossing or well-written in general.  One might argue that it's because their ability to stand alone as good movies was compromised by all the set-up elements that were shoved in, but I hadn't really thought about them in those terms.  Mostly, I thought both Whiplash and Justin Hammer were pretty lame bad guys, and Ultron kinda boring, despite all of his amazing abilities.  I usually like Sam Rockwell in pretty much anything, but he was wasted in Iron Man 2, and I've never understood why anyone likes Mickey Rourke.  I didn't know that Ultron was voiced by James Spader the first time I saw it, but thought he was boring as hell, and when I found out Spader did the voice, I understood why because I think Spader is boring, too.

[jingle.boy]

@ Bob.. I'm the complete opposite on Spader - absolutely love him, and thought he did an excellent job as Ultron.  I very much enjoy that Avengers movie - sure, it's the 4th in a four horse race, but still a good flick - despite the video game feel of the opening couple of minutes (up to the point all 6 of them converge leaping/flying across the ditch.  That whole segment was just way too over the top.

[Orbert]

Something about the way Ultron spoke just bugged me.  He was obviously very intelligent, and very powerful, but also witty, and something like compassionate in a backwards kind of way.  That's a lot of nuance to bring to a vocal performance, and while he did bring it, the whole thing just felt fake.  I know it's fake; it's a movie about an ultra-powerful robot(-ish) creation starring comic book characters.  But everything about the voice sound perfectly coached, exactly meant to sound very intelligent, and very powerful, but also witty, and something like compassionate in a backwards kind of way.  It was exactly what you expected it to be, and exactly what it was supposed to be, and in that way rather boring.  I know it doesn't make sense.  But because it was so exactly what I'd expect, nothing about it stood out.

[lordxizor]

What I recall disliking the most about Age of Ultron was the hordes of robots being fought hand to hand by the heros. The over reliance on hand to hand combat already bugs me in superhero movies, but when you have guys punching metal robots and somehow not shattering their finger bones, it was just dumb. Plus it was like and endless stream of pretty much useless robots being continually been down by a handful of heros. The ratio of bad to good seemed too big to be even remotely believable to me.

I'll probably get to Ultron later this week, so we'll see if it's as disappointing as I remember it being. I haven't seen it since it first came out.

[ariich]

What I recall disliking the most about Age of Ultron was the hordes of robots being fought hand to hand by the heros. The over reliance on hand to hand combat already bugs me in superhero movies, but when you have guys punching metal robots and somehow not shattering their finger bones, it was just dumb.

Can't say that ever bothered me - the only ones who would have been using their bare hands are Captain America (super strong), Thor (Norse god essentially, so also super strong) and Hulk (strongest of the lot).

[jingle.boy]

New Wandavision trailer is out.  This one's certainly gonna be unique.  I'm looking forward to it.

[ZirconBlue]

I meant iron man 2/ age of ultron stuff. They got too focused on setting up future movies that those individual movies suffered from being less of a movie and more of a set up. I still enjoy them, but they went too far with universe building. Luckily they course corrected pretty quickly.

I was just thinking about how Joss Whedon wanted to cut the scene with Thor in the cave, but Marvel forced him to keep it in to set up future movies. . . and then Thor:Ragnarok negates the whole "Thor goes to search for Infinity Stones" plotline in its first scene.

[bosk1]

  How did it "negate" it?  It fleshed out that Thor was doing exactly that.

[ZirconBlue]

  How did it "negate" it?  It fleshed out that Thor was doing exactly that.

If you're going to force a director to include a scene to set up a search for the Infinity Stones, I'd expect to actually see some of that search, and maybe have him actually find one or two.  Instead we get a few lines to lampshade that they weren't going to do any of that.

[lordxizor]

Watched Age of Ultron yesterday. Not as bad as I remember it being, but still one of the weaker MCU movies. There was certainly a lot of setting up future movies, which makes sense now, but didn't when it was originally released.

[jingle.boy]

This looks interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ODhWjCxydU

[hefdaddy42]

This looks interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ODhWjCxydU

Count me in.

[bosk1]

Maybe I'm just a bit dense, but I don't really understand what it is.

[jammindude]

Maybe I'm just a bit dense, but I don't really understand what it is.

It’s the Marvel version of Disney’s “The Imagineering Story” (which was excellent BTW)

Basically a documentary “look behind the scenes” with some of the artists who work with Marvel. The history of the stories...who did what...the influence they’ve had...the ways they are looking forward...etc etc

[lordxizor]

Rewatched Captain Marvel the other day. Overall it was a really good movie. My only slight annoyance is the over use of 90s references and songs. It got to be a bit much by the end.

Also watched Thor Ragnarok. What a great movie. Honestly the best thing about that movie was that so little of it involved the stuffy, annoying people from Asgard. I found myself happy that Thor's Asgardian team was unceremoniously killed off without any fanfare. Thor is better away from Asgard.

That ends my MCU rewatch. The quality of those movies is remarkably consistent apart from a couple duds. Looking forward tp the next phase.