Board 8 > How do I watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies for the first time?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Do I really have to watch all of these things. I've heard that The Hulk is very skippable but that's like 1/15.
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in order
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Internet tells me that the list is:

Iron Man (2008)
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Thor (2011)
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Marvel's The Avengers (2012)
Iron Man 3 (2013)
Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Ant-Man (2015)
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Doctor Strange (2016)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

I think the only ones you can outright skip and lose nothing to the overarching plot (and ignoring their actually quality as a film) are Hulk and Ant-Man. Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, and Thor 2 aren't very good and any of the important overarching plot bits could be picked up in a wikipedia article readthrough. Thor 1 isn't very good either but it introduces a major flagship character and a lot of concepts so it's kind of necessary to watch. Everything else is mandatory and also good.
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Skip Thor 2.
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they are all about average. the only ones i'd say to watch are

Iron Man
Dr. Strange
Homecoming

maybe Avengers

who really cares. if i could have the time back from watching most of these i would.

you could also just skip all sequels.

Just watch the cap movies, ant man, and gog tbh

I actually enjoy Thor 2, and I'm surprised KP said Ant-Man is skippable since it introduces...Ant-Man. Good movie too.

I could definitely see skipping Hulk since it doesn't even feel like part of the MCU after the recast. I enjoyed the ending but aside from that it's one of the weaker movies.

Also the movies are made so that you can mostly understand them without watching the others. But I'm a completionist so I wouldn't do that. I think they're all decent and enjoyable at worst. If you hate Thor and want to skip Thor 2, you can do that and pick up 3. If you hate Iron Man 1 or 2 and want to skip 2 or 3, you can. If you hate Captain America 1, do not skip the other two because they're way better. Again I wouldn't want to skip any movie but I understand everyone is different.
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The best way is to skip all of them and use the time to watch movies that exist for reasons other than to set up more sequels.
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Also you don't have to watch the tv shows, they are technically the same canon but they don't bleed over aside from some early Agents of SHIELD episodes.
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Ant-Man introduces Ant-Man but he's also by far the least-important character in the continuity so far. If you're looking to save time he's prime on the chopping block.
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Xeybozn posted...

The best way is to skip all of them and use the time to watch movies that exist for reasons other than to set up more sequels.

ultimately this

If you want it chronologically and with the entirety of the MCU:

Captain America: The First Avenger
Marvel's Agent Carter (S1)
Marvel's Agent Carter (S2)
Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2
Thor
Marvel's The Avengers
Iron Man 3
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S1 1 - 7
Thor: The Dark World
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S1 8 - 15
Captain America: Winter Soldier
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S1 16 - 22
Guardians of the Galaxy
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S2 1 - 19
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Marvel's Daredevil S1
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S2 20 - 22
Ant-Man
Marvel's Jessica Jones S1
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S3 1 - 10
Marvel's Daredevil S2
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S3 11 - 19
Captain America: Civil War
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S3 20 - 22
Marvel's Luke Cage S1
Doctor Strange
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S4 Ghost Rider
Marvel's Iron Fist S1
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S4 LMD + Agents of Hydra
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Marvel's The Defenders
Inhumans
Thor: Ragnarok

Series are in italics, if you want it chronologically though only the first Cap movie matters.
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Xeybozn posted...

The best way is to skip all of them and use the time to watch movies that exist for reasons other than to set up more sequels.

The TRUTH shall set you free.
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Haven't really seen any of them other than Deadpool I feel alright with my decision
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Is Incredible Hulk even considered part of the MCU? I mean I know it was setup after Iron Man, but they replaced Hulk's actor and you could easily skip it unless you somehow don't know how he became Hulk.

ninkendo posted...

Haven't really seen any of them other than Deadpool I feel alright with my decision

This reminds me of when I asked Nanis if there was a single MCU movie he liked, and he said Deadpool.
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Man, so much MCU negativity in here.
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swordz9 posted...

Is Incredible Hulk even considered part of the MCU? I mean I know it was setup after Iron Man, but they replaced Hulk's actor and you could easily skip it unless you somehow don't know how he became Hulk.

It technically is. It's in canon and references and characters from the movie still show up later. It just is kind of divorced from the others a little nit.
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Maniac64 posted...

Man, so much MCU negativity in here.

for real. i like most of these movies.
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They're all good to great. Even the 'bad' ones are good.

Only one of them is a truly phenomenal film though. And that is Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
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swordz9 posted...

Is Incredible Hulk even considered part of the MCU? I mean I know it was setup after Iron Man, but they replaced Hulk's actor and you could easily skip it unless you somehow don't know how he became Hulk.

Thunderbolt Ross comes back in Civil War. I think that's the only other tie to the rest of the Universe.
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You don't
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It's all good.

Except Inhumans.
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Honestly just watch them all

They arent terrible but just a little formulaic, probably not something which should be binge watched but eh
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captain america civil war is by a wide margin my fave, but i've also only seen like 4

i'd say on average the quality that i saw was quite good. the only question is if you really want to watch a bunch of movies whose point, as mentioned above, is to set up more movies

that's not really the type of thing i like paying for personally, but i understand a lot of people disagree
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I disagree with the couple of people said that the point of each movie is to set up more movies. I think these movies stand on their own pretty well and I wish they were MORE reliant on each other.

Unless you mean that the point is to continue to build the franchise and make more money. I can see that.
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yeah, a movie that primarily exists to set up other movies is, like, amazing spider-man 2. people are really exaggerating how much the MCU movies do this.
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most of the time it's just the stingers that set things up

and even then most of time (in the mid-early ones) it's just a chopped down scene from a future movie anyway
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Was going to make a post but KP about covered it in the 3rd post.

Only difference is I'd put Hulk in the "not very good" to the extent that the other ones are. (I think Iron Man 2 and Thor 2 are underrated though)

And I also wouldn't really call Captain America 1 necessary viewing unless you have literally no familiarity with Captain America. It's a good movie, but completely unnecessary as Winter Soldier adequately explains everything you need out of it.

Avengers 2 isn't super necessary either, really-- it introduces some characters and sets the plate for Civil War better, but yeah.
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EndOfDiscOne posted...

Unless you mean that the point is to continue to build the franchise and make more money. I can see that.

this is what i mean, yeah

cool for a tv show that you don't pay for; not my thing in terms of paying for it

i agree that the standalone experiences have been good
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MCU is great. I'm going to watch Thor: Ragnarok in a few hours.
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To give an importance meter for each movie, keeping in mind that this is not a judgment of quality:
Iron Man: 7/10
Iron Man 2: 2/10
Iron Man 3: 1/10
Captain America: 7/10
Captain America 2: 10/10
Captain America 3: 9/10
Thor: 4/10
Thor 2: 3/10
Thor 3: 6/10
Ant-Man: 2/10
Doctor Strange: 4/10
Hulk: 1/10
Spiderman: 6/10

And Guardians of the Galaxy are basically their own thing almost unrelated to everything else. A lot of the movies are totally unimportant except that they introduce the hero who is important in later movies.
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The first Thor introduces a lot of macguffins. I would call it pretty necessary viewing. Probably the most necessary viewing out of any of the single character films, though obviously not the best of them.
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Is Inhumans still on TV or did they cancel that POS yet
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Oh, and people crapping on Iron Man 3 are wrong. That movie is awesome and Shane Black's screenplay is killer. Iron Man 3 is such a ridiculous amount of fun.

Take that with a grain of salt though as I had no familiarity with The Mandarin going into the movie.
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Honestly you can make the case that they all are integral to the plot as origin stories for each character or introducing a device I expect to be critical in the next Avengers movie.

Only exception I can think of is Iron Man 3 but Im probably the only person who likes that movie
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VeryInsane posted...

Only exception I can think of is Iron Man 3 but Im probably the only person who likes that movie

according to the post right before yours, certainly!
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It depends on whether you want to completely immerse yourself in the MCU or you just want the best movies.

The best movies are the Captain America ones, the Avengers movies, Spider-Man, and both Guardians movies. Just got back from watching Thor: Ragnarok, and that was really good, too. They're all enjoyable to varying degrees though.
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I honestly think all three Iron Man movies are pretty equally good in my book, but they're also basically right in the middle of my MCU rankings.
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Iron Man 2 is terrible for so many reasons

I think the MCU is milquetoast in general but that thing is offensively bad on some levels
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I'd actually put Avengers 2 close to the bottom of the MCU rankings myself. Really doesn't hold up at all. Agree with the rest listed generally being the best ones though.
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WazzupGenius00 posted...

Is Inhumans still on TV or did they cancel that POS yet

It's only 8 episodes, airing on Fridays, on a channel owned by Disney. It was never going to be pulled before all episodes aired (last one airs this week). But the ratings are unsurprisingly not good so I wouldn't expect it to be back, unless the Disney/Marvel/ABC connection manages to save it.
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Well, I just watched all the MCU movies for the first time this year because I wanted to be ready for Spider-Man, so I've only seen them all once. Can't say how well they hold up on a rewatch, but on a first watch, Avengers 2 was a lot of fun.
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Avengers 2 felt kinda bloated

I think my top 5 looks something like

Winter Soldier
Guardians 1
Spidey Homecoming
Doctor Strange
Either Iron Man 1 or Civil War
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Doctor Strange is low-key good, too. I liked that one a lot more than I thought I would.
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Avengers 1
Civil War
Guardians 1
Guardians 2
Ant-Man

That's probably my top 5.
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FWIW I havent seen Guardians 2 or Ragnarok yet

Just havent had the time
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Top 5 is something like

Winter Soldier

enormous gap

still a really big gap

really big gap

Iron Man
The Avengers
Guardians of the Galaxy
Civil War (This would be so much higher if it weren't for the airport fight scene that so many people seem to love but feels out of place tonally)
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Top 5.

1. Avengers
1a. Civil War
3. Winter Soldier
4. Guardians of the Galaxy
5. Guardians of the Galaxy 2

Haven't seen Spidey or Thor 3 yet though.
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Maybe I should note that my only experience with the MCU is GotG, which I quit after 20 minutes. I just wasn't feeling the humor. I'll give it another shot since it seems highly regarded (and somewhat independent of the rest).
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