Board 8 > MCU General 14 - Nick Fury is back

(+) Yeah! (+)

Grimlyn posted...

Everett Ross is another very weird use of a character in this show. He literally existed only as an introduction to the concept of Skrulls, seeing him getting rescued in the ending is just like... man you could've actually had a role.

although most of these 6-ep series end up feeling that way

He would have been better as the main character.

But really, this should have been an Avengers movie that went full-out with almost everyone being Skrulls. Or have that be Spider-Man 4 - he's the only one not a Skrull because everyone forgot about him.

xenosaga posted...

I feel like that's kind of by design, they don't want to have people worrying about catching up on 10 shows to understand what's going on in the next big blockbuster.

Yeah, I agree with that. It's just all a little confusing/frustrating in retrospect.

I feel like the show concept works for characters that aren't going to be in the "main" MCU. Stuff like Moon Knight, What If, maybe She-Hulk? The ones where they can go a little crazy without worrying about the end result.

With characters that touch the "main" MCU, you realize that only a portion of the audience is going to watch, so the result has to be able to be encapsulated and explained in just a few minutes. Okay, fine, they can add flavor and background. Except, they're not even less expensive to produce than the movies! So you've got a product that's just as costly to produce but has a smaller and generally disappointed audience.

Am I wrong in saying Netflix Marvel > D+ Marvel? I know they all weren't tremendous, but they sometimes worked off each other (in the cameo sense) and did something tangible and weighty.

Seanchan posted...

I'm piling on here a bit from the bad taste left in my mouth but it really feels like you could cut out all the D+ shows entirely and be no worse for it. They all feel like unnecessary or unneeded branches off the "trunk" movie MCU arc that you could catch movie-only viewers up in 5-10 minutes max.

This feels slightly harsh, it is definitely true for some but Loki is still one of the more pivotal MCU entries in this current saga, Wandavision of course was pretty important, even Hawkeye and She-Hulk definitely seem like theyll have their impacts felt, FatWS and Ms. Marvel introduced recurring characters for the films and so on. On the other hand some of the movies seem less important even my beloved Eternals. With that said there are definitely too many shows and a lot do feel like relative trifles to the movies.

Grimlyn posted...

FatWS is another one I'm not that jazzed about, but even then decapitation scene was an absolute banger

Yeah FatWS had some high highs like that, the Isaiah Bradley stuff, the boat scene, and some of the action set pieces. Even though it was structurally a mess at least you could feel the production values. This was structurally a mess and seemed like it was made for a quarter of what it was!

Of course with that said maybe I just warmed to FatWS because I can only remember the good parts lol.

Overall I have liked the Disney+ shows but there have been too many and after 2021 (when many cinemas were still closed) I feel like the movie in six parts format has run its course. Either do the full She-Hulk and commit to the TV format fully or just make a film now.

Seanchan posted...

Am I wrong in saying Netflix Marvel > D+ Marvel?

I think I'd go early Netflix (DD1+2, JJ1) > Disney+ >>>> Later Netflix

Iron Fist, Defenders, Punisher, and Luke Cage (aside from 1st half of season 1) all felt like a slog to get through.

I was doing a DD rewatch but I mistakenly threw Punisher in before getting to DD3 and that made me stop

tho I'd also place DD2 worse than most D+ offerings, it really messed up juggling Punisher & Elektra plots

xenosaga posted...

I think I'd go early Netflix (DD1+2, JJ1) > Disney+ >>>> Later Netflix

This but with AoS at the top for me.

I think Marvel has stretched themselves too thin with all the shows and it's a good thing they seem to be stepping back from the quantity approach to some degree.

Also if you want to see this exact plot done well, watch the two part storyline The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion from series 9 of Doctor Who. Its literally a paranoid sci-fi spy thriller about an alien race of shapeshifters integrating into the population without public knowledge where they take the place of people by putting them in pods and the main villain is an extremist faction that wants to start a war. Those episodes are great (with an incredible Peter Capaldi performance) and cover much more ground with a fraction of the budget and time.

MartinFF7 posted...

Still looking forward to Loki S2 but am worried it will be lower-tier too.

I have a feeling there's going to be a bit of a drop-off here. I think Loki has the most potential out of all these shows, but I can't help thinking it would be so much better if it was Tom Hiddleston playing a new character.

I'm always here for more Loki

Probably notable that both FatWS and Secret Invasion both had to have heavy story rewrites late in production because of world events.

But honestly, I can't imagine the original version of Secret Invasion working anyway. Back when it was first announced people assumed it would struggle if it wasn't this epic story with tons of known characters being duplicates and it would lose a ton of intrigue with a tv budget and small cast and... they were completely right.

Bit of an awkward stretch of shows centered on minor characters after Loki with Echo, Ironheart, then Agatha

still don't know what on earth to expect for the last one

Those show ideas sounded fine when we were getting five shows a year, but now that they're being spread to only three, it feels a bit painful, lol. I do have some hype for Agatha at least.

I wonder if the Wakanda and Ten Rings shows are still gonna happen or if they've been quietly scrapped. I think they were announced before Wonder Man, but afaik, they haven't moved into production phase yet?

I'm so hyped for Agatha.

Ironheart and Echo... eh.

Echo's at least attached to Daredevil & Kingpin which are really hyped up right now, but I also remember hearing about troubles during production.

All I know is She-Hulk better make at least a couple appearances in Daredevil.

Looking forward to seeing if they make Hood an soft bad boy and then hating everything.

Ironheart doesn't seem promising, especially since Riri wasn't great in Wakanda Forever.

a thought I just had that will now haunt me:

skrulls transform into fully clothed people so like, can they take those clothes off? Could you figure out someone is a Skrull by just forcing them to take off their hat?

if a Skrull puts on a real shirt and then transforms where does the shirt go

how does any of that work

in the Gravik-Talos scene where a bunch of Skrulls turn into Gravik you can see some like purses and accessories hanging from their chairs that presumably they morphed into existence when they copied the random casual diner people they were first pretending to be - but when they turn into Gravik those purses / accessories don't change or go away, they stay hanging on their chairs

but also episode 1 when Gravik is taunting Fury by morphing into a bunch of different people... one of those people was a little girl with a big inflatable ball that also disappears when he changes

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/0/2/AATFBfAAEs7a.jpg

They have no idea what they're doing.

So the real Rhodey isn't paralyzed? That's good news...!

Leonhart4 posted...

So the real Rhodey isn't paralyzed? That's good news...!

Oh no he is. Its supposed to be that he got swapped right after the injury. That's why he is in a hospital gown when rescued.

Secret Invasion survived.

I think the only thing I got out of this series was that I am glad Emilia Clarke reportedly had fun making it.

I wonder what they originally had planned for G'iah. There was a screenshot (from a trailer?) of her cradling Talos' dead body during the presidential ambush, which puts her in a very different place from where she actually was in that episode.

Rhodey's paralysis does raise questions - if he was switched out before recovery then that would mean the Skrull had to have been faking recovery for most of their undercover stint?

Civil War is 2016, since then he's shown doing physio with Stark, who develops his leg braces... keeping in mind being a Skrull surely means he can't go under any surgeries without being caught, or surely with the development of his leg braces Tony would perform some level of analysis on the state of Rhodey's physiology that would find them to be faking. Infinity War is 2018 he's still wearing braces.... booting up Endgame he's still wearing them in 2023, including at Stark's funeral. FatWS, 2024.... he's wearing a suit, I'm seeing some people claim they can see the light from his braces still so he may be wearing them, it's a dark scene so I can't really tell. But it seems like Secret Invasion is when Skrhodey stopped wearing them.

Or new question: does a Skrull transforming into someone with a spinal injury give themselves that same spinal injury? Could that recreated spinal injury also be controlled to gradually heal just as the real injury would? Like how Varra could make her fake body age. Maybe Skrhodey hasn't been faking it, they just happened to have actually finally recovered from their forged injury in 2024 with Secret Invasion after 8 years.

I promise you that you gave this more thought that anyone affiliated with Marvel Studios.

Yeah, it's a very short-sighted and inept way to make that seem like the invasion was planned out way in advance.

The most hilarious part about that would mean that Skrodey was there on that lovely uninhabited planet when they killed Thanos at the beginning of Endgame, but decided not to tell anyone about it when he got back.

Yeah Im just going to ignore that interview unless it is stated in the MCU directly and assume that Rhodey was replaced from the hospital after the battle in Endgame meaning that it was Skrodey in FatWS but the real Rhodey before that. Otherwise it is just far too illogical. Maybe they thought of that - it wouldnt be the first time MCU directors and writers have disagreed about the content of their own production.

https://twitter.com/disneyplus/status/1685022476663922688

That's too many minutes.

UltimaterializerX posted...

Yep.

Funniest part is "use superhuman DNA to make better soldiers" was originally a Hydra (nazi) plot. Now they want us to pretend it's fine when the good guys do it.

I feel like Fury has been morally gray from the start

https://youtube.com/watch?v=dug56u8NN7g

Oh, that looks good!

Imagine starting the MCU and having Loki of all characters becoming the best character in the MCU.

Had no idea where they would go with a S2, watched the trailer and still have no idea. Excellent.

Oh while checking to confirm how many episodes there'll be (6 again) I saw the press release saying Echo releases November 29 and they're releasing all its episodes at once. That's the first time they've done that for a D+ series right? I wasn't planning to watch it but I'll need to give it a go now (maybe that was part of the all-at-once strategy, lol)

Typically "all at once" is the no confidence content dump.

Yeah I took it as either that, or they're tired of being savaged on a weekly basis by streaming ratings, unsatisfied reviewers etc. Especially since part of its hook is "Daredevil and Kingpin show up", if that doesn't happen until the finale (5 episode series) you get it out of the way on a Day 1 binge rather than waiting for a month.

Then again I'm already second-guessing myself since I'm in a position to binge the other series I skipped and feel no desire to, and Echo was by far the least-liked part of the Hawkeye series for me so... already second-guessing my plans here.

Its basically impossible to know why theyre doing it, all reads of the situation are fairly compelling.

Loki season 2 looks great.

Loki 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dug56u8NN7g

omg I entirely forgot Ke Huy Quan's here and I'm so fucking happy with his involvement

Hard not to keep your mind trained for the Elephant In the Room so it feels very noticeable that they kept Kang's appearance to a minimum. I think there's at least a couple scenes there where the camera was turning to Kang as the footage cuts away. But yeah this is the perception watching a trailer with unresolved Major's drama tucked in the corner of your mind.

UltimaterializerX posted...

We need to go back to full season dumps instead of this episodic trash. That was the entire selling point of streaming in the first place.

Yes but thats the goal of capitalism. Fuck the competition by offering something better to consumers, then fuck the consumers to pay your shareholders.

Apparently Adam Driver turned down the Mr. Fantastic role. good for him.

Good for me too.

Adam Driver's great but he's very far away from what I think of Reed Richards

I think he'd have done a great job. Hope he does something else in the mcu

actually i remember the bigger rumour about Adam Driver was on casting for Doom, not Richards

hm