Board 8 > I want to get caught up on the MCU. Which movies should I watch?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I haven't really followed the Marvel Cinematic Universe at all. The first batch of films just didn't really appeal to me much, so by the time the first Avengers film was the big thing that everyone was talking about I already sort of felt like it had moved past me, and superhero films just weren't my thing so whatever. Captain America and The Hulk are just super disinteresting to me as concepts and Iron Man and Thor only registered a 'meh'.

Now that Avengers Infinity War is out though I really feel like I'm missing out. The characters have gradually gotten more interesting to me (I never got around to seeing Doctor Strange or Black Panther but I wanted to), and I just think it's super cool how many different characters and films have led up to this huge thing. I already know all the spoilers but I still kind of want to see it and then see part 2 when it comes out.

The only MCU movies I've seen are the Guardians of the Galaxy films, which I loved. They're part of the reason I feel like I'm missing out on Infinity War.

If I want to get caught up enough to be able to follow Infinity War, which MCU movies should I watch? Should I just try to marathon all of them to really get the full effect of seeing everything come together, or are there key ones that I should watch to establish the cast while skipping others?

Iron Man 1
Captain America 1, 2, 3
Avengers 1, 2
Thor 1, 3
Guardians of the Galaxy 1, 2
Doctor strange
Black Panther

It's probably better to watch them all, but those are the ones that really matter to Infinity War specifically. And honestly, you could drop IM1, Thor 1, and CA1.
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I think for sure I'll start with Iron Man just because it's the first one and it was really well-received and then go from there - I'm just not sure I want to marathon every damn movie because there's a lot and I'm not really a movie guy so this is a bit of an undertaking, I just want to get caught up enough to feel fully invested in IW part 2

I would just watch all of them but Im definitely a completionist

The Inifinity Stones story arc runs through

Cap1
Avengers1
Thor2
GotG1
Avengers2
Dr Strange
Avengers3
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All of them. There is no film that is completely disconnected and skippable. However, there are definitely different levels of importance. Below bold means essential and italics means desirable, plain text is relatively skippable:

Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2
Thor
The First Avenger
The Avengers
Iron Man 3
Thor The Dark World
Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Avengers Age of Ultron
Ant-Man
Civil War
Doctor Strange
Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2
Spider-Man Homecoming
Thor Ragnarok
Black Panther
Avengers Infinity War

Of course, Ant-Man and Spider-Man Homecoming are great and you should still watch them.
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I would say Ant-man is desirable since it introduces him, and he's a relatively unknown character (unlike Hulk or Spider-Man where a person probably knows a bit about them even before seeing their movies).
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watch Homecoming because it's probably the best one
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your premise is bad
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Lightning Strikes posted...

All of them. There is no film that is completely disconnected and skippable.

I would argue The Incredible Hulk is completely disconnected and skippable tbh, but even Marvel seems to want to pretend that movie didn't happen. That's really the only one, though, I'd recommend watching all the others.
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Iron Man 2 is definitely skippable because it's the only one I haven't seen and I've been managing just fine

I think the only significant thing there is Black Widow being introduced
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Eh this is sort of me also. The traditional superhero movie is really not one that appeals much to me. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that it's really easy to do a traditional superhero movie in a way that doesn't appeal to me, but whatever. My reactions to the first set of MCU movies ranged from poor to slightly above average, and I just never got into the entire series as a result.

The recent stuff however seems much more up my alley (ie. is more than just guy with superpowers vs. villain in popcorn action flick) and thinking about giving the movies another go. I'm probably a bit late to the party, as actually thinking about it I'm pretty sure most of the stuff after the first Avengers looks like stuff that would appeal to me, but I just never watched any of them due to stubbornness or whatever.
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I feel like just watching Avengers 1 and then the stuff after would work fairly well. Avengers 1 does a pretty good job introducing all the characters IMO. Thor 2 is by far the worst of the post-A1 movies.
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Xiahou Shake posted...

Lightning Strikes posted...

All of them. There is no film that is completely disconnected and skippable.

I would argue The Incredible Hulk is completely disconnected and skippable tbh, but even Marvel seems to want to pretend that movie didn't happen. That's really the only one, though, I'd recommend watching all the others.

Not quite! William Hurt's character returns in other films. It also gets referenced a few times, and explains some stuff about Hulk in Avengers 1.
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I would recommend extreme caution with attempting to watch thor 2

it is so bad it literally might cause permanent damage to your eyes, brain, or soul
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MariaTaylor posted...

I would recommend extreme caution with attempting to watch thor 2

it is so bad it literally might cause permanent damage to your eyes, brain, or soul

Thor 2 is indeed really bad, but I'm not sure it's worse than Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2.
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Iron Man 2 upset and offended me on multiple levels.
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iron man 2 is so bad that I actually forgot I watched it
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Haha, I'm glad I reminded you of how awful it is.
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Thor 2 had great visuals but honestly they could have erased every principle actor leaving only a magic hammer fighting CG bad guys and it would have been the same movie

Thor 2 wasn't great but it had Thor and Loki in it so it was worth watching at least
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Thor 2, Iron Man 2 and Incredible Hulk are mediocre at worst.

In Thor 2's defence, it is the best of those three and has some good action sequences and is interesting from the universe perspective. A lot of important stuff was introduced there.

Its main crime is the completely incorrect directions on how to get to Greenwich on the tube (apparently Tom Hiddleston personally protested this, but they kept it in, to the dismay of every London audience).
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Lightning Strikes posted...

Thor 2, Iron Man 2 and Incredible Hulk are mediocre at worst.

In Thor 2's defence, it is the best of those three and has some good action sequences and is interesting from the universe perspective. A lot of important stuff was introduced there.

Most Marvel movies are mediocre at best.
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Just watch the newest one and go in pretending Star Lord is the Main Character
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Lightning Strikes posted...

All of them. There is no film that is completely disconnected and skippable. However, there are definitely different levels of importance. Below bold means essential and italics means desirable, plain text is relatively skippable:

Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2
Thor
The First Avenger
The Avengers
Iron Man 3
Thor The Dark World
Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Avengers Age of Ultron
Ant-Man
Civil War
Doctor Strange
Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2
Spider-Man Homecoming
Thor Ragnarok
Black Panther
Avengers Infinity War

Of course, Ant-Man and Spider-Man Homecoming are great and you should still watch them.

This is about right. Except skip Thor 2 because even though it's plot is vaguely important it's still not worth the effort.
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KamikazePotato posted...

Lightning Strikes posted...

All of them. There is no film that is completely disconnected and skippable. However, there are definitely different levels of importance. Below bold means essential and italics means desirable, plain text is relatively skippable:

Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2
Thor
The First Avenger
The Avengers
Iron Man 3
Thor The Dark World
Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Avengers Age of Ultron
Ant-Man
Civil War
Doctor Strange
Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2
Spider-Man Homecoming
Thor Ragnarok
Black Panther
Avengers Infinity War

Of course, Ant-Man and Spider-Man Homecoming are great and you should still watch them.

This is about right. Except skip Thor 2 because even though it's plot is vaguely important it's still not worth the effort.

Yeah. Thor 2 probably has some of the most info towards the events of Infinity War, and a surprising amount of callbacks, but it's definitely in the bottom of the pile to watch.

If there was some kind of Phantom Menace Jar Jar edit for Natalie Portman, it'd probably be an easier watch.
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I'd only seen iron Man 1, Dr strange, black panther, civil war and guardians of the Galaxy 2 before watching infinity war.

The only other movie I wish I had seen prior was Thor 3, as I imagine it leads in pretty directly

But yeah, if you're not already generally aware of general marvel comic background/lore it seems like it's a good idea to watch as many as you can

Just avoid the actively bad movies, like iron Man 2 and Thor 2.
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Somebody on reddit made this helpful guide to how the movies relate to eachother:

https://i.redd.it/124f0zuvsbu01.jpg

And then someone cleaned it up



So that's kinda neat. Honestly, it's hard to suggest you a "these are the ones that matter the most" guide, because they all kinda matter in their own way. Either watch them all, watch the best ones, or just go into Infinity War blind.

In my opinion, there are some varying levels of quality, with Thor The Dark World, Iron Man 2, and Incredible Hulk at the bottom, but there's 7 films that I personally feel are extremely good, and whenever a new movie has come out, when I think about how good it was, either it's on the level of those good movies and it joins their ranks, and I can't really decide which of htem is better than the other, or they join the middle of the pack, below the good movies but above the three worst movies.

So here's my tier list. I havent' really ranked the movies within a tier against eachother

THANOS TIER:

Avengers: Infinity War

QUALITY TIER:

The Avengers
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Captain America: Civil War
Black Panther
Thor Ragnarok
Spider-Man: Homecoming

YOU MUST BE ABOVE THIS LINE TO BE GREAT TIER:

Iron Man

Good Movie tier:

Doctor Strange
Ant-Man
Iron Man 3
Captain America: The First Avenger
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2
Thor
Avengers Age of Ultron

Mediocre Tier

The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2
Thor The Dark World
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Doctor Strange and maybe Captain America 1 deserve to move up a tier.
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Oh, you also forgot Age of Ultron, which I would personally put in the 'Good' tier.

That infograph is entirely accurate except for how it doesn't have Thor 2 also leading into Thor Ragnarok for some reason.
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Seems accurate to me - Thor 2 doesn't lead in to Ragnarok much like Iron Man 2 doesn't lead in to Iron Man 3. Both sequels get their set up in Avengers movies.
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Eh, the Loki/Odin stuff directly feeds into Ragnarok, though. You can't watch Ragnarok without watching 2 and not be confused
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well yeah but the direct sequels all feed into each other

that's not really what that chart is trying to show
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Well, the chart is showing how the movies relate to each other. I'd argue the other sequels don't like, directly feed into each other as importantly as 2 does to Ragnarok. Like, yeah, Cap 1 feeds into Cap 2, but there are movies in between that build up to 2. That chart is basically having Ragnarok be its own thing that is kinda stand alone, but that's not really true at all.
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Well, the chart is basically displaying which movies lead up to which Avengers.
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Yeah but it's also making a point to show the entire "timeline," including which Avengers lead into which solo movies and so on, which is why it specifically has stuff like Ant-Man and GotG off on their own.

I think they just screwed up a bit
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and I think the point it's trying to make about Ragnarok is that Thor has basically been off doing his own thing for all of Phase 3 up to IW, unlike most of the other Phase 3 movies which are connected in some way
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StealThisSheen posted...

Yeah but it's also making a point to show the entire "timeline," including which Avengers lead into which solo movies and so on, which is why it specifically has stuff like Ant-Man and GotG off on their own.

I think they just screwed up a bit

it doesn't connect movies between phases though so I don't think it's being inconsistent
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LeonhartFour posted...

StealThisSheen posted...

Yeah but it's also making a point to show the entire "timeline," including which Avengers lead into which solo movies and so on, which is why it specifically has stuff like Ant-Man and GotG off on their own.

I think they just screwed up a bit

it doesn't connect movies between phases though so I don't think it's being inconsistent

It connects Ant-Man and Ultron to Civil War though
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yes Avengers movies are always the transition to the next phase which is also the point of the chart

Ant-Man could basically be off completely on its own honestly but they probably wanted to give it a connection somewhere
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Also they made a point to put GotG2 up in Phase 2 above Thor 2 and all that even though it's a Phase 3 movie

Inconsistencies
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well yes Guardians 2 is also the only movie that isn't set in the year it came out but is a direct followup to where the first movie left off

so Guardians 2 is an anomaly in lots of ways

it's a "Phase 3" movie that technically fits in Phase 2's timeline

which the chart accurately portrays
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Right

So if they made a point to accurately portray GotG, they should have accurately portrayed Ragnarok

Inconsistencies
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and they did

good work chart
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But I mean first you said it was only to show which movies go into which Avengers movies and nothing else

But then you also admit it made a point to deal with GotG2 being an anomaly

Therefore they were taking actual movie story/timeline/etc. into account

Which means they just forgot to connect Thor 2 to Ragnarok

It's okay luckily us sleuths on B8 found the inconsistencies and noted them
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I was gonna say they should have a line from Age of Ultron to Thor Ragnarok because of the direct connection between Hulk appearances.
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StealThisSheen posted...

Which means they just forgot to connect Thor 2 to Ragnarok

I doubt they "forgot"

you should watch Age of Ultron before you watch Ragnarok so you don't need a line connecting Dark World to it
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mnkboy907 posted...

I was gonna say they should have a line from Age of Ultron to Thor Ragnarok because of the direct connection between Hulk appearances.

This would also be acceptable
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LeonhartFour posted...

StealThisSheen posted...

Which means they just forgot to connect Thor 2 to Ragnarok

I doubt they "forgot"

you should watch Age of Ultron before you watch Ragnarok so you don't need a line connecting Dark World to it

Yeah but they don't have a line for that either like they do the others!
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mnkboy907 posted...

I was gonna say they should have a line from Age of Ultron to Thor Ragnarok because of the direct connection between Hulk appearances.

well the issue is that they connect Ragnarok with Doctor Strange

Ultron doesn't connect directly to Dr. Strange since it starts off as its own thing and then it makes a connection to Ragnarok
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LeonhartFour posted...

mnkboy907 posted...

I was gonna say they should have a line from Age of Ultron to Thor Ragnarok because of the direct connection between Hulk appearances.

well the issue is that they connect Ragnarok with Doctor Strange

Ultron doesn't connect directly to Dr. Strange since it starts off as its own thing and then it makes a connection to Ragnarok

So then just make both connect to Ragnarok problem solved great work guys let's go have some drinks
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