f13.net

Teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt_UqUm38BI

May 2022.

The nod to What If? In the intro crawl. *shivers*

Shuma-Gorath! Though he looks like a monster of the week rather than a nearly-omnipotent extra-dimensional menace.

What If? is now officially canon, and that's bad.

However, this could be good. I have faith in the movie makers.

Soon as you bring in a multiverse everything becomes canon.

No Way Home made all the Sony movies MCU canon, so...

It was always canon. They said it in interviews and pretty much stated we should expect cameos from some of the characters at the very least (they've seemed most interested in doing stuff with Captain Carter).

That said, like you suggest people can take shit characters, stories, concepts, etc... and do good things with them. I wouldn't expect what Raimi is doing in this movie to be anything like the dumbfuckery of What If.

Shit, I didn't even realize Raimi was doing this one. I thought it was Derrickson.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWzlQ2N6qqg

May 7th.

Motherfucking Cybermen????

I heard a certain professor's voice there at one point...

Can't really figure out what Multi-Armed Boy is there at the end though.

Thought those were Ultron drones?

I hate to say it, but I'm not looking forward to anything Marvel. After Endgame that was "ok" and Eternals that was horribly terrible, I think I've burnt out. I'm hoping the new Batman is a good DC flick, but it seems like Batman is (usually) all they can do well (ok, Shazam and Aquaman were good films)

Spiderman Enter the Spider-verse and No Way Home were both very good. I'd say most of the TV series they've put out have been very, very good (Winter Soldier was meh but even that was at least watchable). I'm actually quite excited for what they could do with the Multiverse. Disclaimer: I haven't watched Eternals and am not particularly interested to based on reviews but it sounds like it's the first really big misstep since the Marvel juggernaut properly got going.

We've been on 'wait for it to be on TV' mode since winter soldier, for us that was the moment the rails became just slightly too visible.

But I'm still looking forward to all of them, just with 'movie to watch on TV' level expectations.

Trailer looks amazing though. I'm fascinated to see how much the film assumes you know what Wanda did in the TV show.

In general I'm not excited about anything Marvel but Sam Raimi directed this and even his lesser movies are extremely creative and fun to watch. You could say he has his schtick and uses it too much but I enjoy that. Besides, if Sam Raimi is directing that means we're getting a Bruce Campbell cameo at some point. That alone is something I look forward to. I wasn't super impressed by the first Doctor Strange but even putting aside my Raimi fandom this looks like it's going to be a better movie. The script could still let it down though so time will tell.

On the DC front, you left off The Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman. Both of those were great films and I'd say The Suicide Squad is easily my favorite DC movie since the Dark Knight.

Well, yeah. Comic book style Ultrons. They look like goofy ass cybermen though.

I am not 100% certain that anything Wanda did in the TV series will be super important though, other than "she became the Scarlet Witch".   Like, 90% of what happened in the TV series was basically self contained, aside from a handful of things:
- Wanda expanding her powers by officially becoming "the Scarlet Witch" (which we largely don't actually know what that means in terms of the MCU yet as it basically happened right at the end of the series).                     
- Introducing / Empowering Monica as a new character.               
- Setting up the "Blank Slate Vision" for whatever they may decide to use him for in the future.
- A bit of development for Darcy and the Scooby gang, which we don't know what they will do with going forward.

Outside of that, basically everything that happened in WandaVision was entirely self contained within the series and mostly revolved around character building for Wanda as she worked through her grief over losing Vision.   There wasn't really anything in the series that Wanda "did" that had much of an external effect that I can remember.

Created children from thin air?

I think the big thing is that if they really are going all out with the Young Avengers plans, Wanda's fake kids from the series need to become real kids, and if this is the movie where that happens somehow, they're going to need to do at least a bit of exposition on what happened in the series.

But also imagine that you just go to the Marvel movies--the last time you saw her character it was in Endgame; she was furious and despairing about the death of the Vision (not undone by the UnSnap) and fought Thanos and that's the last you know of it. So I think they're at least going to have to do the equivalent of those little yellow caption boxes they used to litter through Marvel Comics and say "As seen in Wandavision #3--Fabulous Friendly Feige, natch" or some such when she first appears. Plus she's going to say she knows something about the Multiverse--we hear that in the trailer--but that's actually kind of a red herring in terms of the actual show that they were using to sucker fans like me into thinking that the Multiverse was already live. In the end, she's really only dealing with the actual Multiverse at the very last moment of the show, when she's trying to research the Darkhold about whether her kids could actually be real somehow.

Pretty sure the children poofed along with the Hex when she turned everything off at the end of the series.  Same way the "Vision" she had created did.   Far as I remember, the only thing that remained altered by contact with the Hex / Wanda's powers was Monica (and I guess Agatha, but she was a special case to begin with).

slamming the quote button before moving on

Shang Chi was fucking great and Marvel hasn't lost a beat. I don't understand this attitude at all. Being burnt out is your problem, not theirs.

yeah dude, the kids were magic

The children proofed. But she wasn't accepting that in the credits scene.

Exactly. I mean, she sounds conversant with the concept of a multiverse in the trailer; that's not based on anything in Wandavision *except* the postcredits despite all the red herrings during the series to the contrary.

Which could easily be a scene in MoM, it's not unprecedented. A mysterious moving light was edited out of that scene after the first week, without explanation.

--Dave

Anyone who's watched any of the following TV shows:

• Sliders
• Rick and Morty
• Star Trek
• Red Dwarf
• Doctor Who

is conversant with the concept of a multiverse.  And we've already established that Wanda grew up watching a lot of old TV.   :awesome_for_real:

I'm always obsessed by genre universes where they have OUR genre pop culture because the genre characters should recognize and model themselves on the genre culture referents. Like "Oh man we live in a multiverse, Doctor Strange? When do I meet my evil self?" should be the first thing you say.

Marvel's stuff has established that there are DC Comics in the MCU, which is just kind of mind-blowing, because then you'd think that the MCU public would have been going "oh man actual people who are like Batman and Superman" right around the time of the Avengers. (Or someone like Moon Knight would have to deal with people going 'so, what is this? Batman cosplay? you got the costume way wrong, champ').

That's just one of those conceits you need to hand wave away when making genre adaptations to screen.  Despite whatever comic book in jokes or easter eggs you may see, it's obvious in the MCU that the concept of super heroes or anything out of the ordinary wasn't really a thing to the general public until Ironman.  Even Captain America, who they established was a major pop figure in the MCU ever since WW2, was never shown actually having a comic book about him despite showing he had trading cards and just about everything else.  Same reason in almost every zombie movie nobody knows what the fuck a zombie is despite zombies being a major pop culture thing for 70 years now.

Genre-savvy character meta is hard to do as anything but a joke, and a joke that provokes fridge logic while the buts are still in the seats only works in parody.

--Dave

Twitter is arguing whether it's Tom Cruise Iron Man or Maria Rambeau Captain Marvel in the trailer.  :why_so_serious:

Also e-sleuths think Deadpool and Captain Carter make an appearance.

Supposedly Ryan Renolds posted a pic of himself in the Deadpool costume in what appears to be a set dressing area with the Dr. Strange costume lead fussing over something in the background behind him, and then promptly deleted it a few minutes later.

There's also a picture floating around of one of the official movie posters where you can clearly see the Cap Carter shield in a shattered reality fragment.

So odds are, the e-sluths is probably correct on both counts.

Gonna say that The Princess Bride proves you can do genre-savvy meta super well if you're so inclined.

But the thing is, if you don't want to do genre-savvy meta, don't have your superheroes mention comic-books and Star Wars, because it raises All Kinds of Questions. The only person to answer them seriously ever was Alan Moore with the pirate comics in Watchmen.

Well, Deadpool can go as meta as you want, because it's his shtick, he doesn't even take his own character seriously. But if Thor suddenly starts directly referencing his comic book versions as anything but a coincidental Easter egg (the "umbrella"), his whole premise falls apart.

--Dave

I'm going to say that Ikaris acknowledging someone referencing him as Superman is pretty close to the edge, then.

Close? No. He pretty much said "I'm a Superman espy and I don't care. Deal with it or go walk to your car, because it gets worse."

Oh, so much worse.

--Dave

Ikaris (and that whole movie) is about as far as you can get from having a meta sense of fun, at least. Hell, Thor could get closer to doing meta funnies (including acknowledging Superman) in Ragnarok without it being jarring because the basic mood is being funny. Eternals is about as funny as a funeral, so any kind of meta humor doesn't really fit.

Kingo and his valet had some funny lines, but overall the movie was far below your standard MCU fare goes as far as humor.

Referencing your own genre when writing in series fiction is a weird thing. I had to have a real think about it when I was writing my Lovecraft series. In the end, I chose to go with "Lovecraft didn't exist" because being set in the mid-2010's, the minute someone said "Cthulhu" the character would have gone "Oh, shit, it's an Elder God," which would have ruined any of the mystery I had tried to set up. Zombie films/TV shows all trying to come up with new names of zombies without ever saying zombie works once or twice, and then you're just like "just fucking call them zombies, FFS."

Unless you are playing it for funsies, it's not really worth doing more than one-liners about.

It's been speculated that we may see the full "Illuminati" group in this one:       
- Exaviour's voice in the trailer.         
- Rumour that the actor they used for Black Bolt in inhumans is in this.             
- Rumour of Tom Cruise as Superior Iron Man.                   
- Likely Cumberbatch as an "alternate universe" Strange in one of the 6 chairs.               

Which just leaves Namor and Reed Richards.   We know FF is coming, and I think the casting has already been decided, so entirely possible Richards shows up.

Someone also joked that if they wanted to really play up some laughs, they should have Chris Evans reprise his role as Human Torch in a cameo, and just have someone randomly compliment his ass.

Pretty sure Namor is going to be in the next Black Panther movie.

"I know that it's confusing. It is one thing to question the official story and another thing entirely to make wild accusations or insinuate that I'm a superhero."

So yeah, superheroes are a concept people in the MCU are familiar with going back to the first Iron Man. Also given that Cap was operating publicly during WWII superheroes have been established as a real thing to some degree for a long time in the MCU prior to Iron Man, and Cap himself would probably be inspiration for a number of comics.

yeah BUT that's the whole thing, a universe where Captain America in WWII (and HYDRA and the Red Skull and laser weapons etc.) were completely real and verified and reported on, comic books would have had a different history than they did. So like you have Superman and Batman pre-Cap? Sure. Do you have Silver Age superhero comics post-Cap? I cannot bend my head around that.

Sam, that's my schtick  :awesome_for_real:

There are stories that I enjoy because of all the rich worldbuilding, and then there are stories I enjoy despite the attempt at it.   :awesome_for_real:

This was not the movie I thought it was going to be based on the trailers (and I mean that in a good way, although it's not like I had low expectations or anything).

That's good to hear, because the trailers don't look like the movie I expected  :grin:

We're in a dilemma because the old lady REALLY wants to see this in IMAX 3D (we saw the first one in that format and she still talks about it). However, we live in the middle of the epicenter of the current wave of covid.

This was a lot of fun.  I intentionally knew very little about this going in and didn't realize Sam Raimi was directing.  His style definitely shines in a few places.

Well he already does that for every Sam Raimi movie, so it would be a little derivative.

Seeing tomorrow morning. Looking forward.

It's good!

It's extremely Sam Raimi.

Fuckin hated it.

It's extremely Sam Raimi.

You’re just mad that you rewatched What If for no reason.   :why_so_serious:

Glad I watched it without having anything spoiled, because there were a lot of fun surprises. 

Seeing schild's hatred here and on Discord, my main disappointment now is that they couldn't work in bringing in an alternate universe Tony Stark just to kill him off.

Honestly, there was a moment I thought it might happen.  When they introduced “the smartest man in the world” I was expecting Tony, but realized half a second later there was no way they got RDJ to show up for this. 

Reed was absolutely their stand in for stark here.


I didn't rewatch what if. I narrowed the MCU down to like 7 core movies.

I bet they filmed that scene with both Krasinski and Cruise.

Given what the Illuminati was brought in for in this movie, I'd be surprised if Cruise was ever actually even considered for an appearance there.

The illuminati is Strange, Xavier, Reed, Stark, Black Bolt and Namor so if anything the stand ins were captain carter and captain marvel. They could just have had a different stark, frankly anything goes in a movie like this.

This is the first Marvel movie post-Endgame I actually have interest in seeing and it's because Sam Raimi directed it. I figure this is my best chance to ever Bruce Campbell in a Marvel movie. Also, hopefully Sam Raimi's car cameos in it somewhere.

I wasn't looking for the car cameo, but I bet it's in there since there were plenty of opportunities.

The thing he did that was very him that I think worked especially well in this movie was (spoilers, seriously):


It was cheesy in a lot of ways, yeah, but it was a type of cheese that we don't usually get in this kind of movie and I appreciated that.

It's only the second case of "possessed by evil" in the MCU so far.  

Hey I know I like to get tied up in details, but there was one thing that stuck out to me right away.
Also:

Maybe also because it would have been a little too Rick Sanchez for anyone to take seriously.   :why_so_serious:  Maybe there just aren't THAT many universes (hey, they're only numbered with three digits) so there doesn't happen to be one that's quite that perfect for this particular use case.

go fanboi out, because it's real trash

The movie was originally SUPPOSED to be a horror movie.

That might've actually been good since I think Derrickson could've made a Marvel movie. Instead we got not-horror schlock that only felt like Raimi directing MCU fan fiction that somehow has serious ramifications for the MCU.

This wasn't the outcome of What If. It was a fucking 2.5 hour long episode of What If.

also man i want to answer khaldun's post but I think he knows the answers (bad writing that would dissolve conflict) and also he just missed the fact mordo hated strange even though it's literally the stinger for dr. strange

I actually think my Rick Sanchez scenario has just as much conflict, it just takes more Monkey's Paw writing.

Mordo honestly doesn't seem to dislike Strange that much in the first film until near the end; what drives him over is not Strange himself, it's the revelation that the Ancient One is only Ancient because they also were cheating with the Time Gem. Which I thought was one of the few neat twists to the classic origin. Sure, he doesn't like Strange's cocksure attitude and he doesn't like how fast he is to master stuff (which also is a good deepening of their incipient rivalry). I'm just interested that they

If I remember right, it wasn't the time gem, but rather that the Ancient One had been tapping the power of the Dark Dimension after basically explicitly forbidding everyone else from doing so.

Ah, that's right. Mordo is first disappointed to find out that the Ancient One has been drawing power from the Dark Dimension (Strange realizes it long before Mordo does) and then he's REALLY pissed when Strange uses the Time Gem.

It's a nice reversal of the comics, actually--Mordo is the one who sees the potential in Strange and argues strongly that he should be taught, Strange is the one who realizes there is more going on, Mordo is not power-mad or evil but instead actually just very stiff-necked. He's more Inspector Javert than Duplicitous Villain.

Currently at 75% on Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/doctor_strange_in_the_multiverse_of_madness

That puts it near the bottom of MCU movies (above Iron Man 2, just below Age of Ultron): https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/all-marvel-cinematic-universe-movies-ranked/

Not hurting at the box office, though: https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/weekend-box-office-results-doctor-strange-conjures-up-a-monster-debut/

Reading on social media, it feels like there's one big slice of MCU fans who wanted other cameos/more cameos and who aren't liking the way that the Phase IV films seem disconnected from one another. I think this is the kind of fan who really went nuts for stuff like the Hydra/Shield storyline up to Winter Soldier, then the big Civil War cross-over, and then Infinity War/Endgame. They want a sense of movement towards something, more Easter Eggs that point to the next big crossover, etc. I'd think that kind of viewer would like this movie, but judging from lots of threads, apparently not. I think Eternals may turn to have been a significant momentum-killing mistake in that it not only wasn't a good movie, it didn't seem to have any point, and it's maybe eating into the trust of one segment of the MCU audience.

I did feel that this film had surprisingly little reference to Spider-Man--the trailers implied that Wong was really pissed with Strange about what happened in that film but I don't really recall anything coming up in this film about it. Strange doesn't seem to have learned anything about the multiverse from it, nor did his mistake in NWH have any causal relationship to the events in this film, at least none that's acknowledged. Though as I think on it, the explanation for that has to partly be that Strange's NWH spell affected even him; e.g., he can't remember Peter Parker and thus can't remember that he cast a spell for Peter Parker and thus can't remember the multiversal chaos that caused, and neither can Wong. Which prevents them even from doing any exposition about it. I guess. But it still feels odd--two films so directly proximate to each other and so similar thematically (if not in terms of directorial approach) involving some of the same characters in which the second film doesn't reference the first directly at all.

RT's Audience Score has it at 87%, which is well above average for an MCU movie.  It's fascinating reading the negative reviews -- some of them complain that it was too much of an MCU movie, some of them complain that it wasn't enough of an MCU movie, some of them complain that the prominent LGBT character is wokeness gone amok, some complain the LGBT character wasn't centered and that's very problematic...

Yeah, I've seen more than one complaint that was along the lines of "even though I watched WandaVision, I think it's bad that this movie assumes people have watched WandaVision".

I'm giving this movie a solid C+. This is probably the goofiest of the marvel movies and I mostly blame it on Sam Raimi's taste for camp but I found myself wanting to laugh at the last 30 minutes of this movie which isn't a bad thing per say but after seeing so much death and destruction I can't help but feel "meh". Like at this point I'm beyond expecting the average MCU movie to be a B- at worse, there's clearly a A,B,C teams when it comes to these films and the drop in quality between say widow and strange 2 versus shang-chi and eternals is jarring.

widow and strange 2 felt like the same tier of trash

shang-chi was great

eternals was a dc movie with the wrong branding

It is kind of a problem with the entire idea of "incursions" that they are so abstract. Every single one of them is worse than what Thanos did (well, on round #2, it's what he was proposing doing, more or less) but when everybody in a universe dies, it means nobody who cared about them is left around to mourn. It's so total that nobody is sad. Maybe it was a shit universe in the first place, or it was a universe where Elon Musk was Iron Man, and then you're almost grateful. It should be awful--not trillions but so many more sapient beings died. (Say your average planet of sapients is 10 billion in an MCU universe; there's 100 billion planets in the Milky Way and even if only 1 percent of them have sapient life that's a billion planets of 10 billion sapients, and then there's 100 billion galaxies in the universe--that's a LOT of sapients dying when a universe dies). But there's not much you can do with that so it's just ash and swirly shit in the sky.

The music battle might have been the single worst thing in the MCU but Raimi haters were done by the not-beholder battle.

Bruce Campbell nailed the coffin shut long before the music battle.

Shang-chi just needed one catchy music number to be a Disney princess movie. It was bad. I never got the "Eternals" isn't a marvel movie mantra. Its definitely a marvel movie, one that has more in common Iron Man 2 or Thor 2 than any of the good ones.

Also try not to think too hard about Doc Strange 2, the movie will not reward you for your efforts.

Not a Raimi hater or lover but they should have taken the L on the eyeball monster and let Suicide Squad have it, at least they earned the campy goofyness of it. Shang chi was great fuckers.

I hate to say it but the eyeball monster is a direct visual quote straight out of the comics. Though in the comics, he's not a goon demon working for someone else, he's a god-level demon in its own right. He's also kind of a Lovecraft-derivation/Robert E.Howard derivation--very pulp.

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Shuma-Gorath_(Multiverse)

That's doesn't make it better in a world where Raimi has final say on the visuals.

Yes, obviously it was a thing from the comics but there are a million other dumb things from the comics they could have used instead.

I'm not sure you guys would have liked the other dumb things any better.

not with raimi in charge, no, he would've figured out how to get the eye out of anything

Not unless it was the precise dumb thing that proved the pet MCU nerd theory they developed over the course of months based on three pixels from the teaser trailer, anyway.   :why_so_serious:

Only reason I thought it was dumb was because it looked just like the Suicide Squad bad guy.

The giant starfish? Not from where I sit but ok.

Probably you could do a more genuinely horrific monster but that's part of the point of the movie--the demons and monsters are kind of secondary, the bad shit is really inside of people.

The movie is literally about external forces changing the nature of man. Specifically, the darkhold. It's not about the call coming from inside the house. Yes desperation is pliable, but something must push for it to pull.

Also it's a raimi movie, the demons and bullshit are Never secondary for him. The dude is the opposite of layered.

All the magic book stuff was just an excuse to not go to therapy.

I've been trying to think of an MCU movie where the main character has as much personal growth as Strange did in this one.  The examples I can think of where the hero has an "arc" it's really just them getting a cool superpower/gadget at the end that they can use to punch/zap the bad guy, rather than any change in their own personality.  This one was about Strange deciding to be the version of himself that could trust someone else with the knife.

Iron Man 1
Iron Man 2
Iron Man 3
Winter Soldier
Black Panther (though it wasn't the main character)
Guardians 1 and 2 (literally every GOTG is about personal growth for the entire crew and a bunch of secondary characters)

you know what, you're struggling because it's almost all of them

Also Thor and Spiderman stand out.

The iron man films, rewatching them one of my issues was that he had the same growth in all of them, then just reset for the next movie.

The actual iron man sequels were the Avengers films.

Doc Strange 2 is like the worst examples of a character arc in the entire MCU, the last two MCU movies and probably Captain Marvel beating it out.

The problem with the central emotional crux of the movie is deconstructing a character trait that hasn't shown up since the very beginning Doc Strange 1.... In fact Steven Strange learned the lesson that this movie trying to teach him in act II of that movie.. Which means that Doc 2 is playing with a version of the character that hasn't existed beyond the opening act of a movie made 6 years ago. We have literally watched him let other people hold the knife for half a decade...

God this movie gets worse the more I think about it.

I can't think of how he grows in any of them.  He goes through a story arc of overcoming adversity, but that's not the same thing as character growth.  He just keeps doing the same thing he always does (building and/or fixing his iron man suits) until it eventually works.

(edit) Thor: Ragnarok was one of the ones I thought might be an example, but on reflection, the big conclusion of his arc in that movie was "you don't need the magic feather, the power is within you".  Which is the same as Starlord in GotG 2, and Captain Marvel, and I don't know how many others.  That's the thing I was referring to when I talked about the "Now I Have the Power to Punch the Bad Guy" ending.  It's become a pattern.

(I haven't seen Doc Strange yet)

Thor, Loki and Wanda are probably the only characters I think have any sort of arc.  I guess Ant Man.  Hulk?  Yeah, I guess Hulk also.  I hope we're not done with Hulk.

Thor: smug, naïve, violence solves everything --> a bunch of stuff --> realizing that he barely has ANYTHING figured out and should probably get to work on that
Loki: I mean, c'mon, do I need to type anything here?  Narcissitic sociopath --> hero who sacrifices himself to try to save his people/brother
Wanda:  Probably the most interesting arc, but maybe I say that because I haven't seen Doc Strange 2 yet (and her arc isn't done).

Peter is just growing up, I don't really see that as an arc (yet).

Civil War as an example of growth seems odd.  The entire tension there is Steve sticking to his Captain America ideals in spite of the world (as far as he knows) becoming a much more morally gray place to be.  It's interesting to watch Steve because it's the world that changes, not Steve.

Iron Man fails to change regardless of apparently learning his lesson in every movie.  Even when he develops PTSD.  He always seems the same to me; I'm smart, I'm right, I'm going to try to use how clever I am to phone it in, but in the end I'll do the right thing because, underneath my smug smartness, I'll sacrifice myself to do the right thing. All along the way I'll be borderline villain because so often the amazing things I create either directly or indirectly endanger people.

I think Thor has growth between Ragnarok, Infinity War and Endgame, it's just that it's negative--it's Now I Have Power to Punch the Bad Guy, then Now I Have Power to Kill the Bad Guy, I Fucked Up and Missed, I'm Just Going to Go to Waste Here, Oh Ok I Guess I'll Help Whatever I'm Useless.

Winter Soldier I think Captain America has real growth, in that he decides that doing his thing requires making his own judgments about right and wrong and not working for anyone. Which leads straight into Civil War where he finds out that's a bit messier.

Stark has an arc, it's just really spread out over the entire MCU up to Endgame, it's not really contained in any single movie. He's a different person by the time he gets back to Earth in Engame.

GOTG has some arcs and they're substantial. They're not always consistent or thought fully through--Drax in 1 and 2 doesn't really add up, for example.

But I do think Dr. Strange 2 actually has a really nice character arc worked out through the two themes: are you happy? and you're the one who has to hold the knife. I'm not sure they can stick to it--that was the same problem with the Iron Man films where Stark learns the same thing three times and resets. Strange has already had to learn humility once and though this particular lesson is a bit different, the temptation is going to be to reset him to arrogance the next time he's meeting up with other superheroes, it's sort of his niche.

I expect this as well, and will be really pleasantly surprised if they don't do that.

Right. Sure, he can let someone else hold the knife IF they're one of the few someones he recognizes as a peer in his area of specialization--so Wong, yeah. Maybe Clea now. Heck, maybe Blade too whenever that arrives.

But deferring to New Captain America or Captain Marvel? Doubt it.

I'd personally love it if he just took a left turn into Dude/Buddha-esque detachment and started transitioning into more of the wise mentor character (with some stumbles along the way) rather than being the one who has to be in control of everything.  After another movie it'll be time to start thinking about retiring the character anyway, and that'd be a more fun way to do it than having him die heroically or disappear into an alternate timeline.

i expect them to keep raimi and for 3 to be a piece of shit

Are we forgetting that Doc Strange left the fate the universe to Iron Man? I don't know what moment Strange didn't trust someone else to make the right call, even when he disagreed with Peter he ultimately left the fate of the multiverse in the hands of a moody teenager...

I thought about that too, but in that situation, Thanos was the knife.  Strange gave up the time stone because he was confident that everyone else's actions after he was out of the picture would follow along the exact trajectories that he'd foreseen.  (And to be fair, he was right, but that's not what we're talking about here.)  He wasn't really putting his faith in the other Avengers, he was putting it in his own omniscience.  That's why they brought it up at the start of this most recent movie; it was just another example of Strange being sure that he could control every outcome.

The contrast between that and what he did in this movie was that he didn't have that type of control.  He'd had a few chances to absorb the lesson that the "if I just take this little bit more power I will be able to fix everything no matter the cost" approach is a trap and so instead when he was faced with the same choice that another version of him had been presented with, he took a leap of faith, which, as very firmly established in his first movie, is absolutely Not His Thing.

That doesn't sound like the control freak this movie is implying that he is. Especially since most of those timelines had the avengers losing. Now we can say "Well steven strange is so arrogant he simply assumed that everything will go according to plan even without him being there!" but I didn't get that from the movie. That requires me to splice in his comic book personality and juxtapose it over the cool uncle figure we've gotten over the last 6 years of movies.

I also don't see "literally seeing the future" as "thinking he could control every outcome". That's not being a control freak, it was just following a predetermined set of actions that would lead to the only victory possible.

His comic book persona is actually pretty varied. In his own comic, he's been served up the lesson of humility about six or seven times over the years in various ways--that he's too unapproachable and too controlled, that he takes too much responsibility, that he's arrogant or doesn't consult with anyone else leading to bad outcomes. But he's also been upbraided occasionally for chickening out when it's time for him to take charge because he's too attached to the idea of being someone's apprentice--he defers to the Ancient One, he defers to Kaluu, he defers most notably to Doom when it's Doom, Strange and the Molecule Man up against goobers who are going to destroy the entire Multiverse and then agrees to stooge for God Doom for a long time.

Depending on who is writing him, he's either Mr. Sexy Times who puts the movies on all the ladies or he's Mr. Way Too Reserved and Controlled who can't really love anyone.

He's either a control freak reacting to his bad childhood (including one version where Mordo travelled through time with monsters to torment him at night) or he's just a natural talent who got used to the adulation of others and let it go to his head.

I think the one consistent thing is that he's a hell of a fast learner whose upward boundary of potential in any system that combines deep knowledge and practical skill is effectively unlimited.

Maybe also that he's not a good friend and not a very good teacher, though the absolutely 100% best Strange story ever since his early days ("The Oath") makes him out to be very loyal to Wong, though that's the old Oriental manservant Wong. (That story also introduced him to his absolutely best romantic partner which later writers dropped, more's the pity, which is Night Nurse; the version who ran an urgent-care clinic for superheroes on the QT.)

It took Marvel many decades to notice a resemblance between Stark and Strange, which is interesting--they didn't really see it fully until RDJ cemented his take on Stark after the first Iron Man movie. It also took them a surprisingly long time to recognize that Strange and Doom had some interesting connections and alignments.

Finally watched it on Disney+. I'm so glad I didn't waste money on it at the movies. It was trash on a Captain Marvel level. Even Thor 2 was better. A shit ton of talent and a mediocre story.

You really shouldn't make 'TV' that good that resolves in 'movies' that meh.

--Dave

Edit: Also, I am disappointed that world-eater Strange did not appear. Corrupted Strange was weak sauce.

what was wrong with captain marvel

it was basically middle of the road as far as mcu went and it was pretty fine as far as its placement went in the order

strange 2 was just a hot fucking mess that doesn't belong anywhere

Captain Marvel just didn't work for me, I never felt invested enough to care for the character. Exactly how I felt about Strange, America, and Wanda. I just didn't care what happened to any of them. If you'd asked me prior to this film, I would have told you that Strange and Wanda were solid characters .

I still think they are solid characters.

But this film is just an exposition block ahead of one of those awful comic book apocalyptic 'events'.

I honestly think the cast do a great job projecting their characters over the top of it.

And this is nowhere near Thor 2 tier. Nothing else in the MCU is that bad.

I watched this on Disney+ and enjoyed it much more than the first one. I'm not sure where I'd rank it in the MCU. Upper middle maybe? Better than say Antman and Thor 1 and 2 and Captain America 1 but not as good as say Thor Ragnorak or Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2. It was quite enjoyable.

Eternals?

This you?

(https://i.imgur.com/G4xWCck.png)

"once" and "fuckin bad" are both clearly meant in a strictly figurative sense.

I wish I'd never seen Incredible hulk

But I'm ok with having seen captain marvel once

Strange 2 is several rungs lower than marvel for me

2Strange2Spurious

Edit: As time goes on i actually get angrier and angrier about strange 2 and I guess that's raising all boats. Marvel is, at this point, very middle of the road for me. I also will not watch it again (outside of 100% speedruns)

This was just goofy MCU fun, nothing special but certainly not bad. I think they could have gone a much more interesting way, and maybe thought about it, when that guy at the start asked if there really was no other way to beat Thanos and then in a different universe they have a statue of Strange after he died stopping him. Of course that actually did not happen, so bleh.

I can make it through watching Incredible Hulk, and it gave us Tim Roth in the MCU. Thor 2 and Ant Man & Wasp are the only two MCU movies that are just so eye glazingly dull that I actually have trouble sitting through them.

I think Thor 2 and Iron Man 2 are the only ones I really just cannot endure. I'll zone through the others if I'm flicking around and hey presto! one is on.

We just rewatched Dr. Strange 2--my kid hadn't seen it yet--and it was fine. I was still entertained. I think it loses a bit if you've also seen Everything Everywhere All At Once in the interim, just because there's some visual and narrative strategies that would have served this film well and going with Raimi was maybe going for the familiar play as opposed to taking a bigger risk.

But definitely the Marvel films are segregating now into "always great to watch", "sure if nothing else is on why not", "oh why not", and "no come on, there's got to be something better to watch or do". There's not much in the last but there's a few. I'm still not sure they've ever made an unambiguous shit film under their own banner, unlike the Warner people with DC.

In fact, in light of Ezra Miller's difficulties, I almost wonder if the DC people opened a forbidden tomb somewhere or otherwise had a curse on them. It almost goes beyond "we have the wrong executives in charge".

liking iron man 2 less than strange 2  makes everything you've ever said suspect

Strange 2 is better than Iron Man 2.

Edit:

Just going to repost my personal rankings from over on Discord from best to worst (and going to add some breaks in between what are essentially the tiers to me):

Iron Man
Endgame
No way Home
GotG
Winter Soldier
Ragnarok

Avengers
GotG 2
Infinity War
Black Panther
Shang Chi
Cap 1

Homecoming
Dr. Strange 2
Civil War
Iron Man 3
Dr. Strange

Far From Home
Age of Ultron
Captain Marvel
Iron Man 2
Thor
Ant Man

Incredible Hulk
Black Widow
Eternals
Ant Man & Wasp
Dark World

no

My god, there are more reasons to suspect everything I've ever said than that.

Anyhoo, I like Velorath's rankings, more or less.

I don't understand why people downrate Cap 1 often; the stuff that's dumb in it, it's supposed to be dumb, that's the point.

I would probably put Iron Man 3 lower because it tries to be more permanent than it is in terms of resolving Stark's status quo.

Yeah, but that's also not out of character for Stark that he keeps wanting to get to a point where he doesn't feel like he needs to be Iron Man anymore.

Same goes for Thor 1. It's just that people are wrong about stuff a lot.

Thor 1 I mostly just find that it drags in a lot of parts. Obviously it gets a lot of points for casting, but Hemsworth and Hiddleston don't really start getting their characters down until Avengers (although in the context of the Thor 1's story those characters are both still developing so it makes sense). It's fine.

There is almost nothing good about Iron Man 2 except Downey and Roarke. Black Widow is fun a time or two as well but she's far from the character she develops into. Really, Tony Stark works much better as an ensemble character with the exception of his first film and even that has a pretty weak ending.

I liked it, thought it was entertaining.  I expected to hate it given this thread, but I was entertained all the way through and when Bruce Campbell says his line in the post-credits scene I laughed and said, 'oh fuck you'... you know, like you are supposed to in these movies.  I mean, the movie is about an evil book, and has a giant eye monster as the first (well, sort of), big bad.  It is in no way subtle.  It is in no way an action movie.  I cannot fathom why y'all try to compare this to any other MCU movie. 

Iron Man versus DS: MVM?  They both have action?  Sure, I guess... but no, not all.  That's stupid, WHY would I compare those two movies?  They are trying to do completely different things.  Would I compare Die Hard to American Werewolf in London?  Why? Why would I do that?

I appreciate them doing it because I think it was 'not safe' (I won't go so far as to say, 'bold') to do this movie in the MCU.  I'd say if you wanted to gauge this movies quality you need to compare this to the Evil Dead 2 (allowing for differences due to budget size and thirty years) to determine whether you thought this was successful or not.  OR you say, "I don't like Evil Dead (series), so of course I don't like this, I'm not the target audience."  So it was a risk, but was it a good choice for this IP?  I'd say yes, definitely, because they pushed the boundaries of (MCU fans) audience genre-expectation and they picked a genre that has a strong element of humor.

 :why_so_serious:

My biggest problem with the movie had more to do with its place in the MCU. Both No Way Home and this movie promised series repercussions for the MCU in terms of the multiverse, especially based on what we'd seen in Loki as well as what we were set up for in Wandavision. And then it just didn't deliver. It was a very self-contained, self-referential story that I don't think really stood on its own all that well. It meandered especially in the middle, but rather than do so by showing us lots of different multiversal changes, we got what... glimpses in montages and only really 1 or 2 universes that had any depth to them. In the context of a solo movie, it was meh to me. It's not Dark World bad and forgettable, but it's probably Black Widow or Eternals level of unfortunate. And Black Widow's stinger had more impact on the overall MCU than anything in Multiverse other than maybe the introduction of America Chavez.

You can't really pull MCU movies out of the context of the MCU because the first 3 phases specifically trained the audience to try to put whatever movie it was into the larger context. They are built specifically as vehicles to advertise the next MCU movie (or one down the road). It's ingenuous, but when it doesn't work, the movie feels somewhat empty.

God forbid we violate our conditioning.  This does help explain why some of y'all are so obsessive about the ranking and "fitting them into the order" or whatever, but man, I just don't have any of that, luckily for me.

Every movie before infinity War, with the obvious exception of Thor 2, works fine as a movie on its own.

Since then not so much.

Wholeheartedly agree that people get way too fussy about continuity though.

I just watched it last night. It was great and I enjoyed it all the way through. I honestly don't know what all the bitching is about.

Two lines of thought occur to me after reading this; a pragmatic question about movie making, and a self-reflective question about what type of audience am I? Is this film for me?  And, after you've answered that last questions, how do you think about the films and film-makers that make films that just aren't for your audience demographic.

Do you ever ask yourself the pragmatic question, "how is the MCU going to attract top-tier talent if all their movies focus more heavily on advancing the MCU rather than on trying, and allowing, film-makers to create one-off experiences in the MCU"?  A studio that takes chances and works outside it's comfort zone all while conducting a massive experiment in continuity (I'm talking about the MCU phases and continuity) deserves a large amount of respect and a level of humility from the audience that not every film will be "for them" AND that not simply repeating the same formulas IS good film-making regardless of whether any individual film is widely adored.  I would only ask you this question because you write books.  You engage in an artistic process, so I assume you have some interest in the theory of that.  And here, my point is, "fucking seriously?  You, an artist, can't cut them some slack because you, the comic book lover, wants every MCU movie to move the MCU forward in a way that is satisfying TO YOU?"  I'd suggest that maybe you try to get over yourself, or if you can't get over yourself, at lease try to step outside of yourself as an intellectual exercise and judge films through the eyes and (supposed) intent of the film-makers trying to make those films.

Second question is, "Am the target audience?"  Ms Marvel isn't capturing my attention because it's a teen/young adult film and I'm old.  There isn't a problem with either of those things.  It's appropriate that teen/YA entertainment is primarily for teens/YA.  Humans get old.  I feel like the only comment about Ms Marvel that I should make is something along the lines of, "I was pleasantly surprised, they made this appeal to a broader audience" or "I wasn't the target audience".  I feel like a lot of you either forget that, or it just never occurs to you.

In that same vein, I'm thinking that if you liked the Evil Dead series, but you don't like DS: MoM maybe you just aged out of that genre.  Go back and watch Evil Dead 2 (if you ever liked it), and try to be honest with yourself about whether you still like the movie now, or whether you mostly like it because you are remembering how much you loved it.

I'd have a hard time trying to call any two MCU movies completely different things, let alone movies starring the MCU's two arrogant heroes that come from privilege. That said, they're both movies so it's pretty easy to compare them in the same way that a perfectly made deep dish pizza, and completely burnt grilled cheese sandwich are two different kinds of food but I can clearly acknowledge finding one better than the other.

For the record, I much prefer American Werewolf in London to Die Hard.

It was a direct sequel to WandaVision so I'd be hard pressed calling it self-contained. Presumably it's set things up to bring that thread to a close at some point since we all assume Wanda's kids will eventually have to show up again when the Young Avengers are brought together.

It also brought in a character who can cross between dimensions as her main power, so that has some potentially big ramifications moving forward.

Maybe I didn't pay attention to marketing talk or something but I had no idea that these two movies were intended to advance the overall MCU narrative. I figured, at most, they'd be a means of easing the audience into thinking about the multiverse since it feels like Phase 4 is moving that direction. I didn't expect either of them to have a major impact as that has traditionally been reserved for the Avengers films and arguably even then it's not really until IW and EG that we get long lasting impacts. Avengers 1 and 2 had some fallout that played out in solo movies but they didn't massively change the MCU and I'm hard pressed to think of any solo movie that did to be honest. The solo movies generally act as little building blocks and ways to bring in new characters and make incremental changes to existing characters.

I won't lie. I'd like to see a Rated R cut of DS2:iMoM that leans a bit harder into the horror side of things but sadly the MCU is just no there for their mainstream heroes.

It's a pretty deeply ingrained nerd trait. I'm not saying it's one to be proud of, mind you, but it certainly colors my expectations on these movies.

EDIT: And again, if it's going to do that, fine, but it also needs to be entertaining in its own right. It wasn't nearly as entertaining as it should have been. I enjoyed the first one a lot more than this one, including the unique visual motif of the final set piece.

TBF, I am absolutely the target demographic for this movie. I am a long-time comic nerd, I've mostly liked Sam Raimi movies including the Evil Dead movies and specifically Ash v. Evil Dead most recently, and I like the horror/supernatural genre (though not as much as schild). I don't have any problem with Raimi as a director, though I do agree he's kind of leaned pretty heavily on his old visual tricks that he started using the in first Evil Dead. It's just that those visual tricks haven't really aged well, nor has he evolved them much at all - the scene of creeping evil in ED1 is done in almost the exact same way as Wanda's presence in her counterpart's dimension in DS: MoM. The only real difference between the two was resolution and film quality - everything else about those tricks is 100% the same. What's worse, is that it absolutely felt out of place even within this movie. I had the same sort of criticism for Raimi in the scene in Spiderman 2 when Doc Ock first uses his mechanical arms. It's shot in a very similar fashion to a number of shots in both Evil Dead movies. That's been what... 20 years since Spiderman 2?

MCU movies can be from wildly different genres. Comics often have a wide range of genres. You bring up Ms. Marvel and that's a very good example. Both the comic and the TV show are firmly in the lighthearted teen angst drama with mild superhero antics genre. Both the comic and the TV show work for me as a nice "palate cleanser" type of show, a light contrast to the more naturalistic style of say Falcon and Winter Soldier or the darker, more violent DS: MoM. They still have to execute. Ms. Marvel could have easily been CW level of shitty teen angst, but it isn't.

Nothing wrong with the MCU experimenting with things, I hope they do, because I can easily see the formula getting stale. And there's no reason that solo movies can't also be mostly isolated from the MCU proper or its phase flow. They still have to execute an entertaining movie and unfortunately, both DS: MoM and Eternals have fallen very flat for me. Whatever experiment they were trying with either one didn't work. Neither are bad, but I also don't feel an overriding desire to watch either of them again.

I don't know that the Ms. Marvel show is any more specifically teen/YA targeted than say, Spider-man or that it's not capturing your attention because you're old.

I do see why people thought both Spider-Man and Multiverse of Madness would completely pop the cherry on the Marvel Multiverse, but:

a) you know, that shit is actually tiresome when it goes full out and becomes the bases of the continuity unless you're building a setting that is meant for it from the beginning; Marvel's comics continuity long since shark-jumped on excessive multiversal stuff because it's the only way, along with time travel, to let characters change and evolve when intellectual property investments demand that they otherwise always return to default
b) Easter Eggs that get devoured like Augustus Gloop just got locked into Cadbury Egg warehouse aren't a story with characters and a narrative, they're a revolting orgy that ends in diarrhea and sadness
c) Honestly, it's freaking expensive to make an asston of superheroes appear convincingly on-screen for just a few minutes or a cameo

I'm 100% in favor of restraint on all of this. I think the one thing they could be doing better at this point is some slight sign-posting of where it's all going. That might really be the problem--so many people enjoyed Endgame, both the nerds and the normies, that everybody's kind of eager for another gigantic everything comes together beautifully movie/movies.

Thanks for the thoughtful response, I appreciate it.  I thought you were saying, "neither of these movies moved the MCU forward, which is what I wanted/expected", but you were saying something different and I didn't pick up on that.

I think it very much did setup the end of Phase 4 and Phase 5 by making {spoiler} such a major plot point.

Ms Marvel definitely is not limited to YA appeal. I can probably accept that it has less to positively attract a single adult living away from family. But it makes none of the lazy compromises of a typical YA product.

As for this film, it got a bit flabby in the second half but was decent throughout.

Probably is a good example of why the MCU attracts the talent it does, because the whole cast had an opportunity to show off and do fun stuff.

I honestly give no shits about impact on the continuing MCU because you guys are massively overstating the degree to which 'the continuing MCU story' is more than fun easter eggs and shared MacGuffins.

Fwiw  Wanda's Ultron-> Infinity War - > Wandavision -> Strange2 arc is probably the most meaningful multi title character arc in the series.

It's worth noting that Feige recently that the direction of phase 4 at least would become a lot clearer once Love and Thunder releases, and Marvel Studios is going to be doing a Comic-Con presentation next month for the first time in three years I think.

I liked it better on the second watch, but still bugged about a few things.
I'm not putting it down with Thor 2/IM3, but for what was pitched as the linchpin of Phase 4, it did not deliver.

--Dave

All of my hatred aside, since everything in the movie could be thrown away, I'd say it did absolutely zero for phase 4. It was possibly less relevant than No Way Home.

You're the second person that said this was pitched as a linchpin and I went into it without ever having heard that. Was this from some Kevin Feige interview or something?

I dunno but right now it's hard to say what they've got in mind in terms of something that brings everybody together and creates some of the fun and smart interactions that popped up as everything converged towards Infinity War. That sense of "densification" that really kicked off in Civil War added some pop and fun to many of the films as well as a sense of an overall steering current heading towards something. Right now there are a lot of threads that don't feel at all connected. There's Loki and the TVA and Kang which doesn't seem to have much of anything to do with anything--I guess maybe that will pay off some in the next Ant-Man film (an odd place for it to go, but hey). There's the Falcon/Cap and Winter Soldier kind of stuff, which doesn't seem to have any weight or relevance to anybody else, even the less cosmic characters. There's the strange lack of connection between the Spider-Man film and Strange 2, which looked from outside as if they'd link up but they didn't. There's Shang-Chi, whose solo film doesn't seem to have been of any importance to anybody but him despite the fact that it features an entire group of people who could be at least as cross-connecting or cross-relevant as the Wakandans. (Except for Wong showing up. Wong is sort of becoming the Fury of this Phase.) Then there's Eternals, which felt as if it should have been hugely important and instead was an irrelevant wet fart of a film.

Even when MCU films haven't really had a plan, they've felt as if they had a plan. Right now they just do not feel like they have a plan. I suppose that dismays some fans just because the consequences of a lack of a plan are so very evident in other major franchises.

The Star Wars series is a good example of what happens when you worry more about "how do we make sure this movie connects to all the other movies as much as possible" than "how do we make a good movie".

I kinda understand why they didn't want to come out directly after the 11 year Infinity Saga and not say "ok, here's the next big thing we're building up to". They've got some long term storylines running (Young Avengers, Thunderbolts/Dark Avengers or whatever, Kang, Celestials). They've got GotG wrapping up with the 3rd movie. It's anybody's guess how much longer any of the current MCU actors will be around for. I also think they're running low on unused characters worth building movies around until they're ready to get the X-men up and running.

If I had to guess, I'd say they're building up a number of Cosmic threats and whatever storyline that builds to will take most of the Phase 1-3 characters off the board, allowing them to put a heavy focus on the Mutants after.

Young Avengers and Thunderbolts are a good example of where it almost feels like the slow burn is a bit too slow--by the time they make a Young Avengers movie they're going to be Thirtysomething Avengers.

I think it feel that way partly because the pandemic put a big gap between Endgame and Phase 4, and also because with the launch of the D+ shows there's an order of magnitude more MCU content getting released each year than there used to be. It's worth noting that WandaVision started in January of last year, and Black Widow came out almost exactly a year ago. In that time we've had Kate Bishop, Eli, Billy and Tommy introduced, and announced Cassie Lang's recasting. For the potential Thunderbolts, we've had Val working with Yelena and U.S. Agent and there are a number of others who would potentially fit in.

Phase 2 was just over 2 years long, and Phase 3 was 3 years. Phase 4 extends out until at least July next year with the Marvels, possible longer depending on where FF, Blade, and Cap 4 fit in. The D+ stuff is a little murkier because there's around a dozen live actions shows and specials announced at least, but only vague or no release dates for half of it.


Edit: Another interesting point of comparison for people who think that it was always clear where each phase was heading: Avengers released in 2012 ending Phase 1. Phase 2 started in 2013 with two MCU movies released that year, which were Iron Man 3 and Thor: Dark World. The former was almost entirely ignored by the rest of the MCU movies until Trevor was brought back in Shang Chi, and the latter is typically widely considered possibly the worst MCU movie. It wasn't until just about a year after the phase started that Winter Soldier came out.

I'm pretty sure people just drew that conclusion from the title explicitly having the word 'multiverse' in it.

DSatMoM is a pretty bad title though.

Dr Strange : Dreamwalker or some shit might have been a better name. But marvel have never been good at movie titles.

I would have thought Ant Man is going to provide even more crossover exposition, if that is your kink.

Ant Man should weave in Kang.

I think it's going to. So maybe yes this is the long breath before the next metanarrative plunge.

A little of this is the consequence of a certain kind of fraught success. MCU audiences are getting high off the same supply that turned out to be one of the two great original properties of Marvel Comics when they first came out: that the characters very much existed in the same universe, interacted in very ordinary ways, referenced each other, etc., long before there were giant company-wide cross-over events. Spider-Man tried to join the Fantastic Four and got turned down; Loki brought the Avengers together but the Hulk quit and became an enemy quite early and then allied himself to the Sub-Mariner briefly; the Black Widow was romantically involved with different superheroes in different titles (at different times, ahem), and so on. (The other original property was that most of the heroes had 'ordinary' hassles to deal with in their private lives--work-related problems, relationship issues, money troubles, illnesses, hang-ups; oddly, the one exception to that is Doctor Strange, who didn't have any narrative room to develop a private life until three or four years into his original series of adventures).

So folks want to see that sense of simultaneity--that these things are all happening at once, bouncing off of one another. But the MCU does some of that in a kind of postmodern ironic mode (Strange and America's conversation about whether Spider-Man shoots webs from his ass) and it is also constrained in a way that the comic-books weren't, because it has to tell stories in an expensive format that takes months or years to make where audience attention is a precious thing and narrative coherence is important. Four panels in a Fantastic Four story that shows them trying to reach the Avengers, SHIELD, and the X-Men to help with Galactus only to find that they're all busy (usually via an editor's note) doesn't derail the story, but it would get tedious fast in a two-hour film. (Imagine a scene where Strange is trying to find Thor, Captain Marvel, and the Hulk to help with defending Kamar-Taj and he can't get a hold of any of them. That just feels like a waste of time in an already overstuffed narrative.)

I think they could have a one-off line or two in the next movie(s) where two+ of those characters end up teaming up; Strange giving an Avenger shit for not being available to assist holding off Wanda, and comedy/drama/tragedy that comes out of that.  So, not a one-off, but something that could drive a B or C plot line.  MCU did a fair amount of that kind of friction in Avengers, which was really one of the main challenges they had to overcome. I think that worked well, especially with newer teams, or non-team heroes having to work together.

Watched it with the old lady, who is a Cumberho and has to date only seen Dr Strange as far as MCU stuff goes. It...didn't go well. I didn't expect it to. The reason she likes movies, and I tend to agree, is the human elements. The original Dr Strange had a lot more character building and dialog that made it an interesting movie in between the fight scenes (which were pretty creative but still ended up being CGI slogfest #14 etc).

So she didn't know who basically anyone was that wasn't in the original movie. She felt the stuff with Rachel was very phoned in/tacked on, it lacked any sort of human element. The Wanda stuff felt completely flat and she thought the character was unlikable and confusing with no dimension (ironic given the effort put into making her situation have some depth).

So many action scenes. It's a reason I feel the big movies tend to be the worst, much more summer action movie than character studies.

I enjoyed the movie, but it was definitely a weaker one overall compared to Ragnarok (which also has some shit fight scenes that are basically placeholders imo) or the original Cap movie which to date the only MCU film I've asked her to watch, given that she loved the Peggy Carter show. Her experience with the new Strange movie probably means she's done with the MCU. As for me, the further they get away from characters I know from reading comics, the better the movies have to be. Ms Marvel has been a pleasant surprise, so I'm hopeful we can continue to get good stuff through the shows. The next Ant-Man will be telling, as I've enjoyed those movies a lot despite their many flaws. If they lose the good stuff from those and try to focus too much on the 'crossover event' (that ironically built their MCU empire but was also where they over-reached in the comics time and time again)...

You guys realise the 'meta narrative' in the vast majority of the first 20 films that weren't called 'Avengers' was just a credits scene showing a glowy thing in a box, right?

This film was about as meta as MCU movies get and almost certainly more meta than they should.

Yeah, I mean the last two movies were built around the main character asking another hero for help.

Yeah, it's just that the fandom wants a ticker that tells them where everybody else is while this shit is going down.

I do agree that I really didn't care for Strange's connection to Christine in this film--that feels forced. It's not just that Strange has to hold the knife, it's that he has trouble making strong relationships to anybody. There's a version of this film where he's realizing that more generally, and how becoming a sorcerer didn't really help him with that problem. He decided to do something about Dormammu with the Time Gem without asking or telling anyone about it, despite the fact that he could have discussed it. He made a play on the Thanos situation without talking to anybody about it, he made a call about doing something for Peter Parker where he didn't tell Peter what he was going to do until he was already doing it, etc.

I think if they'd worked that more strongly and just cut Rachel Adams out of it altogether, then what's more important is the friendship he forms with America and the respect he learns to show to Wong. Which might be exactly what gets him ready to form a true partnership relationship with Clea when she shows up.

From what I've dug up so far it looks like the actual word "linchpin" did not come from Feige / Marvel Studios and is a media creation. However Feige did call Doctor Strange the "anchor" (https://www.thenewsfetcher.com/feige-called-doctor-strange-the-anchor-of-the-mcu/) of the current MCU and pre-Disney+ launched called out how DS2 would link to WandaVision and Loki (https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/loki-officially-connect-doctor-strange-multiverse-madness/). And at one point DS2 was going to end Phase 4 (https://cosmicbook.news/doctor-strange-2-marvel-phase-4), making it the transition movie between Phase 4 and Phase 5.

At one point DS2 was going to be before Spider-Man: No Way Home (and America Chavez was also going to be in NWH), with DS2 releasing May 2021 and NWH releasing July 2021, but that all changed thanks to SARS-CoV-2. That might explain why there's only some throw-away dialog in DS2 regarding NWH.

I mean, Strange having to forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man might be so powerful a spell that he forgets that Spider-Man came to him asking him to erase public knowledge of his secret identity (because to remember that is to remember that he used to know what it was) and hence forgets that the entire adventure ever happened at all, but that gets back to the nerding out I was doing over in the NWH thread. That's a hell of a spell that almost has to cause some mental illness in some of the people most affected by it. Wong wouldn't have to forget, so he must remember that Strange cast a really powerful spell that involved the multiverse in nearly disastrous ways. What happens when he says something about that and Strange can't remember? There must have been video of the sky over Manhattan during the final battle of NWH, and I would think that Strange must be in some of that video.

There's an old issue of Dr. Strange where they fix a continuity problem about Strange's history of battling Dracula. There's the famous original battle between Strange and Dracula where he leaves the battle thinking he not only won, but destroyed Dracula. When he hears years later from Hannibal King that Dracula is (un)alive and well and seeking the Darkhold, he's like wait a sec, because he's getting a nagging feeling that there's something he forgot. He probes his own memory magically and recalls that he fought Dracula a second time with the Defenders and that a demon erased his memory in order to protect Dracula from Strange.

I would basically think Strange is as capable of tracking down magical meddling with his own mind in the MCU, especially if turns out he's the one who did the meddling. The moment anybody says wow, all this stuff about the multiverse recently and that stuff you were doing with Spider-Man, you're the guy we need to talk to, he's going to go "what stuff I did with Spider-Man? I barely know him."

I'd switch Shang Chi and Civil War, but overall this is a pretty good order.

I might swap Eternals for Ant Man & the Wasp, which wasn't unpleasant to see once.

I think this is partly a "would I watch this if I came across it while channel-surfing despite having seen it before"? grouping.

In the first group, always, they're just going to grab me. (I'd move Avengers into that group, despite having uninvolving stretches.)  Second group, almost always? Not sure I'd rewatch all of Shang Chi that compulsively, for example.

In third group, not really. If it's at a favorite moment, yes. Like, Civil War? I'll rewatch the airport fight or the end fight, but not the earlier stuff. Iron Man 3, maybe the conclusion?

Fourth group, generally not. Maybe idly for a bit. Trying to remember this or that thing.

Last group, nope. Though I guess out of curiosity/perversity, parts of Incredible Hulk do draw me for 10-15 minutes if it's on.

That airport fight is so very bad. For me it blots out my entire memory of that film.

I watched it again not so long ago, was definitely better than I remembered, mostly because iron man didn't do the same chartacter reset and repeat the same growth he usually goes though. Also zemo is a decent villian.

But my god that terrible airport fight.

Yeah he was great, he also actually won.

I think Eternals for me was at least interesting in its failure. Ant Man & Wasp has perhaps the biggest villain problem in the MCU (which is saying something) in that you've got Ghost who doesn't really get to develop much of a character, and then as the movie's only unambiguously evil villain you get Walton Goggins playing that popular Marvel villain... Sonny Burch? Laurence Fishburne gets kinda wasted as the (former) Giant Man, and the plot revolves around rescuing a character we only care about because of Hank and Hope.

the eternals felt like a dc movie

And as such I have it as the 3rd worse, but I'd rather watch it again than either of the two movies I have below it.

ant man and wasp is trash but michael douglas and paul rudd and discount john leguizamo are more entertaining than anything in eternals

they are both VERY bad movies though

At least the comedy heist movie made me laugh a lot. Super-epic LotR prequel was just...I can't be bothered to find a metaphor.

--Dave

The airport fight is kind of trash but I sort of love it anyway.

Ant-Man & the Wasp is bad at the lowband cheaper end of the Marvel pool. Eternals to me is worse because it announces itself as a Big Deal and has Lots of Talent and because I knew from the beginning that it was a strange and interesting choice of a property to put money into but I just kept saying 'gotta trust them' and then it jumps off the high board and belly flops hard into the pool.

When it comes to movies in general I always prefer to watch the ambitious or interesting failure as opposed to the ones that play it safe and still miss the mark. Ant Man and the Wasp was Payton Reed's (a director previously best known for Bring it On) second time with the franchise after the whole Edgar Wright situation with the first movie, so this was really his chance to settle in, and it ended up being worst than the first movie. This makes me a little nervous that he's going to be handling the Kang situation in the next one.

For Eternals, Chloé Zhao wasn't yet an Oscar winner when she was picked to helm the movie, but there was some buzz around her. Also the few previous movies she had done were all the opposite of super hero epics. They're these inexpensive movies following some regular person as they deal with personal hardship and journey through the heartland of America. In hindsight maybe that wasn't a great choice but I can see what the thinking might have been when it comes to telling a story about aliens that end up integrating with Humanity and having to decided if it's ultimately worth saving. On top of that, Eternals is dealing with the Celestials and telling a story that stretches across thousands of years so it has to deal with a scope well beyond what most MCU films are doing.

I could actually flip Dark World and AM&W depending on my mood. Dark World at least progresses the relationship between Thor and Loki, gives us a little insight into Loki (he genuinely seems to care about Frigga), and introduces an Infinity Stone (I think it's actually the first MCU movies where they start to explain what the stones are).

I'm not a big fan of Peyton Reed but am mystified by people who think AM&W is a lesser movie to the first one. It's a fun movie and I enjoyed the villain being sort of sympathetic and how the movie in general felt like it was a more personal movie as opposed to having epic stakes.

Movies I prefer AM&W over:

Shang Chi - My biggest disappointment of Phase 4. (I haven't seen the Eternals!) I had high hopes but something about it just didn't fully click with me. I liked most of the characters and the martial arts scenes and such but it was just a let down for me personally. I expected more.

Iron Man 3
Dr. Strange
Captain Marvel
Iron Man 2
Thor
Ant Man
Dark World

The problem with And Wasp is it is basically the same jokes as Ant Man. And Ant Man already really drops off on a second viewing.

not sure what i think about this movie. there's just no MCU payoff. the things that happen mostly I hope wont be referenced anywhere going forward because its all just sort of whack? the movie on its own was ok? kinda fun. but i would have been crazy annoyed had a braved covid and saw this in theater at release. if it wanted to be a horror movie or a comedy it could have leaned into those directions. instead it felt like the movie itself wasn't sure what it was meant to be, played it safe, tried to please everyone everyway and just fizzled along the way. Wanda was good I guess? Sadly she suffers from Capt Marvel power issues where the movie people themselves seem unclear wtf she can or can't do so all their fights are sort of weak on the fight choreography cleverness side for me.

All the illuminati people/things felt really lame.

Def felt like the first marvel movie made much more for zoomer sensibilities maybe? when i think of it that way all my discomfort with it that i can't quite square suddenly makes sense. People do pretty funny/cool/interesting things on tik tok but im still left sort of annoyed and cold by anything on tik tok. idk. get off my lawn or something.

No fucking shot IM2 is worse than this though. Fucking high as balls take. Put some respect on the Stark Expo.

Iron Man 2 has Sam and Mickey being fucking awesome. Fuck the haters.

Phase E of the cinematic universe is at steak!   :why_so_serious:

The only MCU movie worse than Iron Man 2 is Thor 2. Though I haven't seen the Eternals and I hear it's pretty terrible. Mickey and Sam are awesome in the movie. But they're not enough to save it by themselves.

Thor 2 and Eternals are definitely worse than IM2.

The problem with eternals is that it really should not have been a movie.  It should have been a 12 episode series or something where they would have had way more time to work on character intro / building / exposition etc.  It should have been done as a Loki style character driven backdrop to expand the universe / introduce the characters.  It fails as a movie because 2 hours just isn't enough time to cram that many brand new characters into AND make you really care about them AND have a "big event" happen all at the same time.

This movie was uninteresting.

I'm old and can't use the edit button.