Board 8 > MCU General 13 - The Holiday Special

(+) Yeah! (+)

GotG soon, get hyped.

Just left GOTG (was lucky to be travelling to a country also getting days earlier), like Quantumania was a more serious affair but given the other two movies already dealt with some big threats and emotionally charged issues it at least felt natural. Same fun setpieces and inspired soundtrack cues, and this time they really want you to cry for that psychotic raccoon. The High Evolutionary was intimidating and despicable, but the plot cuts so much away from him that the character didn't have the same impact as Ego in the second one. Even if the final card only said "Star Lord will return", would like to see the Guardians line-up by the end of the movie again (specially because Adam Warlock seems like a character with more potential after being introduced as simply a superstrong idiot).

Wow spoiler tag that post

are you kidding me lol

Just saw it

It was good shit.

Felt like the movie was in its climax for a really long time, but I mostly loved it.

Also greatly enjoyed the f bomb

Just got back from Guardians - it's a solidly upper-mid to high tier Marvel movie.

Good lord is there a lot of shouting in this movie. They're really going out of their way to play up the "dysfunctional" side of the "dysfunctional family that still comes together in times of crisis" trope.

No Sleep Till Brooklyn is going to live in my head for a while, because holy shit that scene whipped ass.

I felt like they did a good job wrapping up the stray plot threads and breaking up the band - everyone's destinations made sense for the characters as they've developed through 3+ movies. During the credits the friend I was seeing it with said "I think Chris Pratt is done with the MCU" and then immediately after that STAR LORD WILL RETURN popped up on the screen. lol whoops

guardians was pretty good. A few questionable things, but they worked out in the story for the most part.

GotG3 was awesome. Good shit!

Guardians 3 was fucking incredible. I wasn't expecting much after the last few MCU movies, and I even considered GotG2 to be bit on the mid-side, but this one really hit it out of the park.
- I loved just how WEIRD it was. The biological space station, Counter-Earth, all the bizarre creatures... it reminded me why I like this franchise more than other sci-fi.
- The High Evolutionary is one of the most despicable villains ever put on screen. Absolutely hateful. What a great job all-around. I was so looking forward to his defeat throughout the entire film.
- I cried. So BADLY. I was shaking. They hit me so hard. An absolute gut-punch. The other emotional scenes, even the positive ones were well done also.
- I liked how every character got some good moment to shine. Starlord and Drax in particular had been really too goofy and dumb too much in past projects and got some nice moments to show they can actually be capable in this one. Rocket's entire story arc was fantastic. I liked how Gamora's plotline wasn't just "have her become the old Gamora again" and she had her own path to follow. I think Adam Warlock got the short end of the stick out of everyone in this, but maybe they'll follow up with more things for him later.
- The way they balance the ratio of jokes and humorous moments in this was much better than in GotG2. My biggest complaints about that was how every single scene seemed like it needed to have a punchline afterwards, even during really dramatic moments. This movie knew how to dial it back when necessary, all while still being a really funny film. A huge improvement.

I really liked Nebula in this one btw, she was fuckin great. She felt far more like the leader than Starlord did. In fact, was Starlord like the 4th or 5th most important character in this?

It's the best Guardians movie and top tier Marvel for sure. Marvel will regret letting James Gunn get away.

I appreciate how this film seemed to take chances and didn't care about alienating its audience. Like I'm sure if it were any other director they would've said "no thanks" to this much simulated animal abuse. I appreciate how pet owners will be traumatized. But also I appreciate how this might give kids nightmares. People were walking out of the Saturday matinee with their kids crying. The MCU has been entirely too safe... the entire time basically, and we finally have one that's willing to push some boundaries.

I could make an argument for this being THE best Marvel film, but I don't actually believe this, and the major reason is Adam Warlock - he just kind of sucks. Like he feels leftover from an earlier idea or something.

But everything else is well done. I really appreciated how they didn't kill any of the crew. Pretty sure everybody expected Drax and maybe Rocket himself to go out in a very stereotypically Whedon-esque way. The idea of Drax becoming a teacher is so extraordinary good and so much better than just having them die for cheap tears (although this movie had plenty of cheap tears).

It sucks that we had to wait so long after IW for an MCU movie to actually push the envelope even a tiny bit, and just when we get this one, Gunn's headed to DC and we've got a full two phase slate off mediocrity / writer's strike delays / real-life actor litigation to look forward to. If this ends up being the last great MCU movie then it couldn't have asked for a better final note. I will miss all of these characters even more than the core Avengers group.

What is your cutoff lines for when you start considering the movies bad

My natural instinct is when you see "The Dark World", you've hit the bottom, but since it's not there I'm assuming that'll be the threshold... but curious to see what he says. Iron Man so low...

not as great at The Dark World though!

Honestly the Quantumania ranking is the one that's sticking out to me but I'm assuming that was already litigated in this topic and I don't want to retread ground on that. I don't know what I expected out of that movie but I really felt like I got nothing at all. But also if the "very very good" tier began above Eternals then I'd be on board with the top tier entrants.

I mean Ulti has Iron Man 2 as the best Iron Man movie. he's got some wild opinions on there.

still, being so wrong brings diversity to life's rich tapestry

My wild Iron Man opinion is that all the movies are basically equally good but if you made me pick I'd go 1 > 3 > 2

For me 2 and 3 are similar quality and 1 is clearly above them.

1 >>2>3 if im doing a ranking.

Everything Marvel has been great in my opinion, some of them just greater than others lol

yeah for the most part I'm pretty satisfied, I think the only stuff I call bad is Black Widow, Thor 2, and just now Quantumania

(I didn't expect to be so very bored out of Quantumania, it's a whole lot of people telling you Kang is a horrifying monster until he finally comes and all he really does is threaten a child)

Iron Man 2 just has so little action, and most of the action there isn't that great. Tony Stark does next to no actual superhero stuff until the end of the movie with the HAMMER Drones, which is really the only good action in the movie. Most of the characters who aren't Tony Stark are half-baked there, except for Justin Hammer who is so awesome and should return.

It's just not an interesting movie at all. Still better than Iron Man 3 though, which is terrible.

Thor 2 is a movie that on a re-watch isn't as bad as I remember though. It at least has a vision and everything seems fleshed out, it has gorgeous visuals, and the action scenes are fun. And it has Thor-Loki scenes too, which carry a lot of the narrative.

It's a flawed movie, and definitely on the lower end of the scale, but I don't think it's a bad film.

Thor 2 is more bland than bad, but I've got time for it.

Love and Thunder is the only MCU content I've ever thought was genuinely bad.

I kind of agree in that I don't dislike the pieces of the whole, but the movie nevertheless consistently gets me to fall asleep so I just accept I don't care for it

I think the only MCU stuff I consider bad are Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Widow, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ms. Marvel, 50% of She-Hulk, and maybe Moon Knight. I don't know how I'd feel after a re-watch of Moon Knight though.

Love & Thunder probably annoys more but I'm still engaged with it and I enjoy the back half well enough. The emotional moments with Jane work for me, the Shadow Realm fight was stunning, and the ending absolutely paid off for Jane & Thor's relationship and I like that fighting failed and ultimately the growth of Thor's relationship is what helped him get through to Gorr.

like yeah obviously it still has problems but it still has enough I can appreciate

UltimaterializerX posted...

Mickey Rourke is incredible in that movie.

Mickey Rourke's character is also terrible in that movie.

Mickey Rourke is abysmally bad in Iron Man 2. Hammer is someone I would love to see more of, though.

Whiplash is a low tier villain

I'd be down for more Justin Hammer though

i agree with Ulti on a lot of marvel stuff but thinking Mickey Rourke as Whiplash was good, let alone incredible, is one of the worst marvel opinions you can have

Great movie, best GotG hands down. I hadn't felt this good with an MCU film since.. Civil War.

Also both Whiplash and Hammer are terrible. IM2 was all about Monaco scene, Black Widow, and ACDC.

Bruh Black Widow was atrocious in Iron Man 2. lol Scarlett Johansson had negative charisma in that movie and flat out seemed like she didn't want to be doing the movie.

GoTG 3 opened with "only" 114 million, which doesn't make it a bomb, but it does seem to affirm that the MCU is in a bit of trouble. I doubt it will have as bad of a drop off as Quantumania, and hopefully positive word of mouth will give it some legs.

Yeah, I think it'll have longer legs than Quantumania because Guardians is a more popular franchise and it seems to have a more positive reception, but I don't know that it'll reach the levels of the first two.

I'm doing my part on Tuesday and taking the kids for an early showing.

took me a sec to remember what's next but I'm hype for Marvels

and looking forward to finally getting some looks at New World Order, both as Sam's first movie and as a backdoor Hulk project

Let us know if they get traumatized.

edit: the kids, of course

colliding posted...

Let us know if they get traumatized.

edit: the kids, of course

For sure, they are pretty resilient in terms of movies. I'm more likely to be traumatized by this one than they are lol

If I wanted LMS posts in this topic, I'd unblock him