Board 8 > MCU General 13 - The Holiday Special

(+) Yeah! (+)

That looks really fun and I can already tell Kamala is going to be the best part of it.

It looks good. Glad they're finally letting Captain Marvel have a decent personality now.

I dunno, I think I hit the point where the MCU has been kind of a let down in a lot of areas recently that I'm not as excited for this as I ought to be. I'll see it, but I miss when I would watch a trailer like this and become incredibly excited.

I'm even not as excited for Guardians 3, and I know that's going to be a banger.

I feel like my excitement isn't as high because of them pulling back how frequent releases are. The last couple years every release my excitement would be so high to see all the world building and think about how everything is going to be brought together but with the drought of stuff on D+ lately and moving forward I feel a bit let down.

Sometimes less is more. There was TOO MUCH MCU stuff in the last few years.

I feel that the recent MCU has had three basic problems:

1) Too much content too quickly, impossible to catch up and loses the event feeling.

2) VFX crunch, awful for workers and films.

3) Generally less quality control due to high volumes and tight schedules.

So far 1 has been dealt with. 2 might have been dealt with. Hopefully that means that 3 will then take care of itself as a result. I certainly dont think the MCU is in terminal decline, but it does need to right the ship.

I really liked having all that MCU stuff while lockdowns were still going on. After it became too much though.

I think a lot of it for me is about trust.

Do I trust they'll do a good job with Captain Marvel? I was extremely excited for the original movie, but that ended up being a let down because they seemed to have a misunderstanding of the character's personality. This one seems to get it more by the trailers but I'm still weary.

Do I trust they'll do a good job with Ms. Marvel? That TV show was a freaking disaster. Ms. Marvel the character is endearing enough but it still feels like a fumble.

Put together the fact that MCU hasn't been as strong lately. With failures of the handling of Thor, Moon Knight, and She-Hulk, I don't feel as confident in them as I was in the past.

Really hope they can start building up confidence again in the MCU.

Big issue with Ms. Marvel was them trying to stuff two different series into one that gave you complete whiplash and made both sides of the story completely underwhelming. A proper movie I don't have that concern and one thing the show at least did was making me love the character and her family which I'm happy to see again in the trailer.

Wow I'm actually excited about The Marvels now, the hook seems like a lot of fun and the chemistry between the cast already seems great

I think Biscuit's point about trust is interesting. I was kind of meh on everything after Endgame. To me, Wakanda Forever was their chance to win me back with what should've been a sure-fire success. And I just found it kind of okay. Since then I just don't care.

colliding posted...

I think Biscuit's point about trust is interesting. I was kind of meh on everything after Endgame. To me, Wakanda Forever was their chance to win me back with what should've been a sure-fire success. And I just found it kind of okay. Since then I just don't care.

I didn't bring up Wakanda Forever since some people liked it a lot more than I did.

But that movie was so boring and I think it's just a far less interesting direction to go with Shuri whose personality just turned into a dull, serious character in grieving as the lead rather than just re-casting T'Challa. Which isn't as much of a mess as others... but it didn't instill a ton of confidence in me either. Especially with how bad that final act was.

This isn't to say they haven't done some good stuff. I greatly enjoyed Spider-Man, Wandavision, Doctor Strange, among others. I even really liked Quantumania--but that movie had a ton of issues with it as well. But I don't feel like anymore when I watch an MCU movie or TV show I'm absolutely going to have a great time. And I think that before this Phase 4, I pretty much felt I was going to 90% of the time. That number is far less now.

TotallyNotMI posted...

I feel like my excitement isn't as high because of them pulling back how frequent releases are. The last couple years every release my excitement would be so high to see all the world building and think about how everything is going to be brought together but with the drought of stuff on D+ lately and moving forward I feel a bit let down.

Yeah, this is me. There's so many characters to keep up with now, and they're still introducing more, but due to them scaling back, it just means the gaps between seeing them again are getting longer and longer. It's just frustrating and I find it's killing my enthusiasm to a degree.

mnk posted...

Yeah, this is me. There's so many characters to keep up with now, and they're still introducing more, but due to them scaling back, it just means the gaps between seeing them again are getting longer and longer. It's just frustrating and I find it's killing my enthusiasm to a degree.

Building on this, post credit scenes seem almost worthless now unless they're setting up the next movie. I was so hyped to see Starfox, Clea and Hercules, but uh, when are we going to see them again...?

We gotta get Clea within the next 2 years if they're dealing with convergences and we're heading into Secret Wars

It is weird that the end credits scenes used to set up for the actual next couple MCU movies coming out, but now it's just setting up for movies that we don't even know if they'll ever exist.

Our next movies after Marvels are Cap 4, Thunderbolts, Blade, and Deadpool 3. Starfox, Clea, and Hercules absolutely don't fit into any of those.

TV-wise we have Loki Season 2, Ironheart, Echo, Agatha, and Daredevil. And honestly, it feels like the only one of those three who has a shot of showing up again is probably Clea in Loki Season 2.

And all of these Young Avengers and not a single hint that they may actually be doing something with them teaming up and that drives me nuts because the Young Avengers are not getting younger!

There's another Dr Strange in the works.

Be like Raimi Spiderman 2 where all the high school kids were in their mid 30s

No - go bolder. Be like Wet Hot American Summer's prequel and have them all in their mid-40s.

Be like the Obi-Wan show and don't even try to make them look like the age they're supposed to be

I gotta recap on the Phase 4 endings

WandaVision - Monica Skrull scene for either Marvels/Secret Invasion, then Darkhold, setup for Strange next year
Falcon - Valentina starting Thunderbolts (2024), and Sharon Power Broker (lol) maybe Cap 4 tease for 2024 again
Black Widow - Yelena vs Hawkeye, taken care of that year
Loki - technically everything Kang ties to Quantumania, but the ending specifically to Loki 2 obviously also this year
What If - Captain Carter finds Steve again, so What If s2 which is this year... also variant Captain Carter has appeared in Strange 2
Shang-Chi - Wong/Marvel/Bruce study the rings... no idea where that's going yet but on the side it did preview the human Bruce form we got in She-Hulk. Also Xialing's Ten Rings for Shang-Chi 2 that's still unconfirmed
Eternals - Black Knight, Blade 2024 (to be fair Blade got pushed back for being shit). Eros... who knows beyond maybe one of the Avengers movies touching up on everything.
Hawkeye - Post-credits was uh the musical but it did close on Kingpin setup for DD/Echo
Spider-Man - Venom symbiote crossing over, no idea where that's going yet, maybe Spidey 4? 2024
Strange - Cleo, definitely part of Secret Wars, and I agree possibly Loki... then pizza pops
Moon Knight - Jake Lockley, a season 2 is still unconfirmed, next potential chance to come up would maybe be Blade but would only be an easter-egg for Midnight Sons at most
Thor - Hercules, probably Thor 5 that's still unconfirmed, ditto for Jane Valhalla scene
Ms. Marvel - literally a scene confirmed to be in The Marvels itself
She-Hulk - Wong freeing Blonsky, to obviously return in either Thunderbolts, Cap 4, or both
Black Panther - T'challa II... I can't see how this possibly comes up again for a long while, aside from again Avengers just touching on literally everything

She-Hulk also had whatshisname kid Hulk with bad haircut, for possible new Hulk movie that's been rumored for awhile now with Disney possibly owning the rights again.

oh yeah I had it on my mind to mention but yeah Skaar

but basically anything Hulk is likely to come into Captain America 4 which is essentially a backdoor Hulk movie

Oh right now I remember the rumored villain for that and yeah.

Wow I just cant imagine seeing Ms Marvel as a disaster, while having a second show in the middle of the show was a bizarre structural decision as GMUN said, the lead and fown-to-Earth aspects were great.

Also MCU credits scenes have rarely set up the very next or next but one film. Even Iron Man 1 was setting up a film four years away.

IIRC:

Iron Man - Avengers (four years later)
Incredible Hulk - Avengers (four years later)
Iron Man 2 - Thor (the next film)
Thor - Avengers (the film after next)
First Avenger - Avengers (the next film)
The Avengers - Infinity War (six years later)
Iron Man 3 - One-off gag
Thor The Dark World - Guardians of the Galaxy (the film after next)
Winter Soldier - Age of Ultron (the film after next)
Guardians of the Galaxy - One-off gag
Age of Ultron - Infinity War (three years later)
Ant-Man - Civil War (the next film)
Civil War - Spider-Man Homecoming and Black Panther (two and four films later)
Doctor Strange - Thor Ragnarok and a semi-abandoned MoM plotline (four and fourteen films later lol)
GOTG2 - Mostly GOTG3 (six years later)
Spider-Man Homecoming - Seemingly abandoned plotline with Scorpion
Thor Ragnarok - Infinity War (the film after next)
Black Panther - Infinity War (the next film)
Infinity War - Captain Marvel (the film after next)
Ant-Man and the Wasp - Endgame (the film after next)
Captain Marvel - Endgame (the next film)
Endgame - No post-credits scenes
Spider-Man Far From Home - No Way Home and Secret Invasion (two and a half and four years later)

So only half of them were teasing one of the next two films (usually because it was Avengers) and they have been teasing far-off projects from the start. I think Hercules will be in Avengers by the way, as his inclusion and casting were Kevin Feige decisions not Taika Waiti decisions.

Ms. Marvel was absolutely the worst thing the MCU has produced. The story is a mess, the villains are insanely weak, and it just suffered immeasurably from bizarre pacing and plotting. I'm pretty sure it's fairly commonly recognized as subpar.

I like that Strange 2 was originally going to kill off Mordo without at all addressing his Strange 1 post-credits plotline

by like i mean it makes me lol

I wouldn't call Ms. Marvel a disaster, but it wasn't good after the first episode. Very odd plot structure and two separate villain factions competing to see which one was more awful.

Thankfully we can ignore everything that happened and never reference it again because we can just pull the main character out of it and never look back.

From a viewership perspective, it couldn't even pull in a million households per episode by the end of the series in the five-day viewership category. That's shockingly low.

I do agree that the movie has a real advantage of putting the entire story in the rearview mirror, however. I guess it's just sad to me that the quality of the first arcs of Kamala's comic run couldn't be reproduced.

Ms. Marvel started off really well but then the Clandestines came in and the show ran away from all that it was doing well. Clandestines plot even ended abruptly like shit and then they had to return home for a finale to a half-baked New Jersey setting

it's frustrating to end up so down on the show but at the same time very much look forward to its future because I like Kamala and her family... just please god stick to one story and just follow it through

I agree that the family was great, and Kamala's actress is excellent, especially for a first-time performer. Really, this all goes on the directing, writing and editing.

Well the viewership was mainly to do with it getting buried by Obi-Wan. Which goes back to how much Disney were hurting themselves with oversaturation.

Another loose plot thread from Wandavision is White Vision

And can we please find out if Wiccan gets to actually exist or not?

he gets to exist but he manifests as an adult that doesn't have to worry about aging out of roles

It is important to remember that the MCU has always been fairly ramshackle in what its building towards, especially at the start. Most famously Thanos was just thrown in to the end of Avengers 1 with no plan. We are much more likely to see all of these elements back soon and I doubt we will see another instance of Scorpion just disappearing.

Wait nvm Mia Goth is going to be in Blade. The MCU is back babyyyyy.

Ant-Man is available to buy on VOD now. Still no D+ release date.

so jonathon majors got dropped by his agent and pr team

how soon do we get a variant kang showing up

well Loki already finished filming back in October so uh that appearance's gotta be locked in

post-credits scene he gets murdered by a variant

^That'd be great lol

Post-credits scene, the Council of Kangs are scheming what to do next after two Kangs have been defeated, then Galactus shows up and eats their planet.

The Kangs all turn on each other and have a war far away from the MCU, eventually all killing each other

Or their plan is far reaching in nature and so they won't actually implement it for many centuries

Doom and Galactus are weak plays. Go all in on the Exiles shutting down the Kangs.

There are some rumors Kang will be recast with Damson Idris.

Spider-Man Homecoming is hitting Disney+ in the US on May 12. (Raimi trilogy and Amazing 1 are tomorrow, Venom same day as Homecoming.)

No word on them, Amazing 2, Venom 2, or Morbius yet, but it seems safe to assume they'll follow eventually.

JonThePenguin posted...

No word on them, Amazing 2, Venom 2, or Morbius yet, but it seems safe to assume they'll follow eventually.

I think I read they might join later this year.