Board 8 > Star Wars sequel trilogy vs. Multiverse Saga

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Like does he have a car?

I find it interesting the MCU is winning considering when I calculated the movies' Cinemascores, if you assign 1 point for a B, 2 for a B+, 3 for an A-, 4 for an A, and 5 for an A+, the sequel trilogy wins on average. Here's the breakdown:

A+ - Spider-Man: No Way Home
A - Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3
A- - Black Widow
B+ - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love & Thunder
B - Eternals, Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, The Marvels

Probably a case of hype powering Star Wars.

I think the multiverse has some projects that were just clearly better than the sequels. So by that note its been better

but my expectations werent that high for the sequels, and while they were pretty bad, I just didnt really care that much for them to begin with

the multiverse had very high expectations, and reasonably so. They missed that mark by a much greater margin the SW did. Which made it far more disappointing and thus I vote for SW

And while there is still time for the mcu to put out some bangers in this saga, I dont think there is an ability to course correct the entire story at this point. Avengers 5/6 could be super good, but it just wont have the same payoff that 3/4 did. It will be like watching the dolphins and saints have some amazing game in week 12, as opposed to the patriots and packers having an all time overtime classic in the Super Bowl. Cool for what it is, but no farther than that

There's no actual "saga" to the multiverse saga. They've yet to actually be able to build up to anything interesting.

If you just want to say "which has better movies" it's the MCU by far. If you want to say which is the better story, it's weirdly Star Wars ST, despite it being mostly bad.

The problem with the 7-9 is that when compared to the series, they shrunk the idea of glorious space opera to a single planet and reused the overarching plot 4-6 again, but poorly. Not even considering the idea of just throwing around the idiot ball between the new republic, there was nothing of worth to consider plotwise that'd redeem what got destroyed, (including the demolition of the expanded universe)

The sequel trilogy has higher highs (TFA), lower lows (Last Jedi). What's funny about about Rise of Skywalker is it's about on par with any Marvel movies outside of the top tier in terms of both sense making and fun, but it's generally held in lower regard due to the higher expectations and the sanctity of Star Wars lore.

Like folks love No Way Home but tell me how that plot is any better than bringing back the Emperor for no reason other than to see him zap.

MarkS2222222222 posted...

Like folks love No Way Home but tell me how that plot is any better than bringing back the Emperor for no reason other than to see him zap.

Because movies aren't just plot and TROS is a silly, rushed mess

XIII_Rocks posted...

Because movies aren't just plot and TROS is a silly, rushed mess

No doubt, I'm not saying it's good by any means. But I mean, MCU is intentionally silly. It's just a lower bar.

Most of the MCU has basically become a collection of "fun moments" without regard to anything else, and that's essentially what you get with TROS.

But the moments in TROS weren't fun? I think it's possible I hold Marvel to a lower standard, but I know a bad movie when I see one. There's no defending TROS, while I think NWH - for all its nonsense fanservice contrivances - had something to it at its core, whereas TROS is endless nonsense with no impact.

I kind of agree that NWH is just as bad from an asspull angle. NWH is super overrated. The main difference is that the characters in NWH are remaining true to themselves, while the ST had the characters basically floundering from movie to movie.

XIII_Rocks posted...

But the moments in TROS weren't fun?

You saw when he zapped the ships, right? Top 10 moment in cinema

Even as someone whose favorite MCU movie (and third favorite comic book movie of all time) is No Way Home, it is definitely not beyond criticism. However, it's not like any of that movie's "Ass Pulls" cheapened events in prior movies the way Palpatine's resurrection did. Though I also admit I had more of a problem with the idea that Palpatine was somehow pulling the strings of The First Order the whole time than I did with the idea of him being resurrected in and of itself, due to the whole science fantasy aspect...and I also thought Palpatine would be resurrected DURING the movie.

ZeeksFire posted...

The problem with the 7-9 is that when compared to the series, they shrunk the idea of glorious space opera to a single planet and reused the overarching plot 4-6 again, but poorly. Not even considering the idea of just throwing around the idiot ball between the new republic, there was nothing of worth to consider plotwise that'd redeem what got destroyed, (including the demolition of the expanded universe)

Personally I had no problem with the "idiot ball" the New Republic had that caused the trilogy, and the only way I understand people having such a big problem with it is because Star Wars fans want to know how events unfold the way they do and how things work in the universe. On that level they probably find the sequel trilogy to be a neverending parade of frustration. Personally, compared to stuff like an alien somehow being onboard the ship to kickstart the events of Alien 3 despite the previous movie giving no indication how that could be the case, Terminator 3 revealing Skynet somehow rose anyway despite the previous movie without going into detail how, Blues Brothers 2000 revealing the orphanage the title characters worked so hard to save in the previous movie got torn down anyway, and Agent K being brought out of retirement for no apparent reason in MiB2, this is peanuts by Happy Ending Override standards. Even getting into Star Wars lore, the entire prequel trilogy is predicated on the government being stupid so it's not hard to believe that problem still didn't get fixed. Not to mention the New Republic technically lasted longer than the Empire. Not to mention the meta aspect that the prequel trilogy had already tainted the franchise's mainstream reputation so there was probably pressure on TFA to avoid those pitfalls. Heck, about the only creative aspect that remained consistent throughout the sequel trilogy was distancing the franchise from the prequel trilogy. The sequel trilogy is a big middle finger to George Lucas and that's both the best and worst thing about it.

MarkS2222222222 posted...

No doubt, I'm not saying it's good by any means. But I mean, MCU is intentionally silly. It's just a lower bar.

Most of the MCU has basically become a collection of "fun moments" without regard to anything else, and that's essentially what you get with TROS.

The "lower bar" thing is something I noticed at the time, since many of the people who made videos bashing TLJ when it came out moved straight onto bashing Black Panther even though that movie was obviously nowhere near as contentious. Not to mention many of them then seeming to go around specifically targeting movies with female or minority leads for criticism which is a terrible look.

On that note, navigating some of this site's other boards made it seem like many of the people who frequent them are just averse to comic book movies in general given how they seemed to crap all over even acclaimed ones like Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok (not saying those movies are masterpieces mind, wouldn't even call any of them better than decent personally). I was especially floored to find someone who said they thought Wonder Woman was awful and they struggled to get through it, since I feel like even anti-progressives didn't tend to trash that movie. And on that note, I was very disheartened to see anti-progressive talking points regarding Brie Larson get regurgitated there even as someone who's hardly a big fan of her (only know her as Captain Marvel, I can tell she's talented but the MCU doesn't give her much opportunity to show it. Tbf I feel the same way about Scarlett Johansson except I've actually seen her in stuff where she gives good performances, though I think Captain Marvel alone demonstrates Larson is more talented because Johansson was even more stiff and wooden in a similar role as the lead in the live-action Ghost in the Shell).

Oh man I haven't seen a great wall of text like that in many years.

I guess it looks worse since I'm on mobile but still, paragraphs exist for a reason LMS

No Way Home lays out a scenario where it could happen that is directly built to from the previous movie in the series (Far From Home) and gives you a plausible reason why it occurs by side media (Endgame Part 2)

TROS is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsjwVu_ihKU

No Way Home is a wacky fanservice scenario which is awesome just for being a fanservice scenario but it's also one that is very clearly is led into by MCU writing. It's not at all the same.

Yeah part of the reason I liked No Way Home so much was because of how well it followed on from Far From Home. It's the very definition of a crowd-pleasing blockbuster.