Topic: The Marvel Thread

@Ralizah I really agree with your analysis and I understand what you’re saying about your disappointment with SW: TFA. In a way the setting in which Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher return to the screen is quite unlike the way Garfield, Macguire, Dafoe, Molina, Foxx, and co. return. I think you’re right in the sense the TFA tried to intermix the classic heroes with villains and characters that were subpar and it cheapened the effect of being back the nostalgia. In SM: NWH the return of old characters was more in line with keeping them consistent with who they were in their original respective movies and just putting them into this new setting, as opposed to TFA where it was supposed to be years later and essentially all the classic heroes’ roles and personalities seemed to have changed (especially Luke) and it made for a jarring incongruence on top of the other bad characters like Kylo. With the SM characters, they mostly seemed to act and behave just like they did back then, except for maybe Jamie Fox’s character. The movie made a joke of his change in personality and appearance but I remember his character acting differently in his original film.

I did appreciate the fact that the movie doubles down on self-awareness and pokes fun at its own concepts and short-comings. For example the gag when Maguire is trying talk up Garfield and repeatedly telling him “You’re amazing…” Clearly a nod to not only the fact that Garfield is perceived as the weakest Spider-Man in the modern film and is frequently maligned by fans, but also a reference to his films actually being named “The Amazing Spider-Man”. It’s like the filmmakers had to choose which references to the old films would work and which they would have to be forced to just make fun of. The Garfield Spider-Man saving MJ in the manner he was not able to save Gwen was a great moment, for example. But the frequent use of the “With great power comes great responsibility…” quote by Aunt May as she is dying and again by Maguire was just borderline eye-rolling, especially when Into the Spider-Verse had already made fun of the line’s frequent use throughout the movies. I can see why they’d want to include the quote, as it has become the Spidey movies’ version of “May the Force be with you” but it still fell flat for me

But overall, I think you and I are of a similar mind in the movie and how it was a fun time, if not flawed. I also found Dr. Strange’s behavior kinda… strange 😅. And had a hard time coming to grips with his poor judgment and ineptitude.

@ralphdibny Glad you enjoyed it, as did I, and part of the fun was trying to find and identify Easter Eggs and nods to prior Spidey properties. I’ll need to check out some of the articles before I have a reviewing of the movie so I can pay attention or pause the show to pick up the less overt references.

I did wonder if F.E.A.S.T. was somehow in one of the movies and I missed it. I don’t think so. It’s a clear reference to the video game, or maybe the comics which I think had Aunt May and Miles volunteering there first… maybe? I haven’t read any of the comics so I could be wrong. If F.E.A.S.T. is a creation of the Sony produced video game, then this is a real boon for how culturally important they felt the game was. Also, the line “I was just hoping you were a black Spider-Man” (or some line to that effect) made by the Fox’s Electro character was surely a wink and a nod to the absence of Miles Morales in this smash up of different Spidermen. As a fan of Into the Spider-Verse and the games I picked up on that, whereas those who’ve not partaken in the Sony Spidey output may not see that reference.

Like you say, the movie could have gone even further with the concept, but at 2.5 hrs it probably a good thing they didn’t. Also, if they brought back too many characters it might just turn into one of those cheap reboots like Fuller House or The Brady Bunch Reunion Christmas Special 😂. But it would’ve been interesting to see Sally Field interact with Marissa Tomei or Kirsten Dunst mix with Zendaya. Or better yet, try to get Neil Patrick Harris’s Peter Parker from an animated point of view. As it turned out, they had some restraint and kept things consistent with the narrative.

@nessisonett Honestly not a fan either, but in this case I’ll allow it. Just pure hype.
@Ralizah I thought it started off slow, but just went strength to strength after. Literally once Dr Strange was out of the picture the movie picked up imo.

@RogerRoger a break could have been nice but I think the new "saga" is just missing a couple of the lightning in a bottle aspects that the Infinity Saga had. One is all of the heroes under one roof for the first time, the second is a clearly defined overarching villain (Kang strikes me as more Ultron than Thanos in his current guise).

That being said, I think Spider-Man: NWH shows that Disney/Sony are looking to pay off the smaller things in this phase. The challenge of creating a mixed media franchise is done and also streamlined. They can afford to let go a bit, play fast and loose with continuity and go in directions hitherto unseen. 😅

@Th3solution just make sure you watch Hawkeye before you go on those articles unless you have already!! I'm looking forward to watching it this weekend/bank holidays. Should be a good'un!

I honestly don't remember FEAST from anything other than the video game. Maybe it's in the comics, I'm not sure. I don't recall it in the 90s cartoon. I don't think it would be a spoiler to say this but I suspect any similarities to the video game are wholely intentional. Not because of its cultural significance but because of its monetary success. Sony as a parent company can be incredibly proud of what they've produced in conjunction with Marvel in recent years so it's no surprise for them to double down on their best output and cross pollinate the media.

I won't say whether it happened but before I watched it, I was hoping to see an animated Miles pop up. Just would have been cool even if it didn't gel with the live action!

@RogerRoger I didn't even know they'd announced a major crossover yet. Every show and film basically has crossovers now so I guess your talking about an Avengers level crossover.

That Secret Invasion programme could be it or maybe it could lead into an early Avengers style film, who knows!

@ralphdibny @RogerRoger I've not seen any of the Disney+ shows, but thanks to YouTube, there could be a crossover at the end of Hawkeye . I could be wrong though.

@Th3solution I'm of a mixed mind about the self-awareness, personally, insofar as it's often a little too 'wink, nudge, wink' for my liking, as with the meta-commentary about the reception to Garfield's Spider-Man films. But yeah, I do agree this film does a much better job of drawing from and commenting on the past without shamelessly exploiting it.

Ultimately, I wanted something more in line with previous Spider-Man films: grounded, imaginative, charming, and almost deconstructive in its approach to the genre without being obnoxious about it. Instead, they gave us the ultimate cinematic Spider-Man fanservice film. It does a good job at that, though, so I can't really be too harsh on it. Aside from Strange's role in the film, I don't think it has too many actual flaws.

@Fight_Teza_Fight The beginning was my favorite part of the film, by far. But, temperamentally, I'm not the sort of person this film was designed to appeal to, even if I had a good enough time watching it.

Hawkeye finished tonight and did actually pull it together at the end. Still felt like it could have done with a few more episodes but hey, season 2 hopefully! I was always going to hold it to a ridiculous standard as its basing itself off the very very well regarded comics and it didn’t really live up to them but it’s definitely one of the better offerings since Endgame.

@JohnnyShoulder sorry, had to duck out of this thread because I hadn't watched Hawkeye yet (the email notification doesn't display spoiler tags 😅 but I appreciate them nonetheless!)

Finally watched it though and loved it, great show!

Hope you had a good Xmas!

@ralphdibny No worries, and glad you enjoyed it!

Does anybody know if I need to watch Wandavison before the next Dr Strange film? I know a trailer for the latter dropped recently which I've not seen, but she appears in all the thumbnails I've seen.

@RogerRoger Cheers. Looks like I will begrudgingly be renewing my subscription to Disney+ soon then.

@Keith_Zissou The run’s just the 2012-15 series by Fraction and Aja. It’s collected into 4 volumes which you can get basically everywhere too.

@RogerRoger Hmmmm, not sure on that one. The end of The Mandalorian season 2 kinda soured the experience for me. Too fan servicey for my liking.

Binged Hawkeye earlier in the week. It was a fun time, but between setting up Kate, following up on Black Widow's post credit scene, and finally deciding to recognize the Netflix shows in some capacity (without getting too spoilery), it seemed to have a lot going on for it's runtime.

Sorry for the double post, but I just finished binging the back half of What If?.

I had procrastinated on watching this one (started last weekend), but I'm glad I got around to it. The first couple episodes were a bit slow, but I thought it picked up by episode 3, and then by episode 4 (the Doctor Strange one) it was absolutely fire. There were some ups & downs after that, but the last few were absolutely amazing.

A couple notes:

• I was surprised to see Spider-Man show up given the whole rights juggling act. I assume that since it's a TV series instead of a movie (and animated) that it lets them bypass whatever rights Sony has? It certainly wasn't Tom Holland voicing him, that's for sure.
• It would be an absolute shame if the show's events (or at least some of it's universes) weren't at least referenced in Multiverse of Madness. I think a version of "Evil" Strange is confirmed to appear, so here's hoping.
• Just a neat observation. Under the tab where they list all the MCU movies/series in timeline order, they have What If? listed right after Loki, which is neat given that the latter ends with the multiverse being unleashed.

Watched Eternals this morning.

Certainly very visually accomplished and the fight scenes could definitely be kinetic, but it felt a little slow & bloated (and I don't think any of them really stood out in terms of personality other than Kingo).

I feel like if you're the kind of person to really like the first two Thor movies, you'd probably like this. More of an epic/drama feel without much of the trademark MCU humor/quips (though there is some).

Gave Eternals another go since it was added to Disney+. It was a little better on second viewing but still kinda rubbish. Overly bloated with exposition (a title crawl these days is laughable) and the high concept nature makes it all feel a bit like a Syfy Channel made-for-TV movie. I wouldn’t even say that the actors did anything wrong, they were all pretty decent but it was more just fundamental issues with the structure, the expendable nature of newly-introduced characters and the messy writing.

@RR529 @nessisonett Mediocre as it sounds, I think I’ll try to watch Eternals this weekend if I get the time. Obviously not because of the glowing praise I’ve seen, but rather because it’s an MCU movie and I’m a fan of the franchise. Hopefully Disney/Marvel isn’t getting lazy with their output since they know there are millions of us that will watch it just on the affiliation of the MCU. Thankfully the movies before it (Shang-Chi) and after (No Way Home) were both excellent so maybe this is an aberration.

I have started Hawkeye, and watched two episodes so far. It much better than I was led to believe. It captures the Marvel fun and personality much better than Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I like Kate Bishop a lot more than I thought I would. Why they used that font for the title and branding I’ll never know. It’s a subconscious (or in my case, a conscious) turn-off.

@Th3solution The Hawkeye font and marketing is lifted from the comics it was based on!

@nessisonett Ah, well I guess that at least makes some sense. I’d thought Disney had lost their branding and artistic edge with this one. I can respect that they are trying to stay true to the comics then.

It’s just that it looks like the art design you’d see for a kids show on Nickelodeon or the packaging on the Barbie Playhouse box. Hawkeye is supposed to be this Ronin badass, not some cosmopolitan softie.

Perhaps back in the day, there was only so many fonts to choose from 😛