Marvels Phase 4 Flaw: the multiverse MUST be comedic or contained

[Stalker0]

Minor Spoiler warning for Ant Man 3.

The latest Ant Man movie is…not good. I may make my own thread about that movie in the future. But it points to a more fundamental problem with marvels phase 4…the multiverse is just too big.

We humans are a tribal lot. We care about our families a lot, our country a decent amount, and our planet…some. But the entire multiverse is just too damn big to care about.

Sure avid comic book fans have been cutting their teeth on multiversal threats for decades, but the average movie watcher just doesn’t give a damn. Cassie in the latest ant man is begging her father to care about the quantum realm…but really she’s begging us to.

And I don’t…I don’t give a damn.

CONTAINMENT
Infinity war and endgame may have affected the entire universe, but the movie was grounded on earth. We saw the effects of the snap, on earth. The final battle…on earth. Generally when scenes were in other worlds, they involved major character defining moments (black widows death, Thanos sacrificing his daughter, star lord realizing he would kill gamora to save her from her father), or just awesome battles…after which the plot moved back to earth.

While the movies grew in scope, they were still grounded in either the characters we care about, or the world we care about.

Ant man 3 is a “drama” with no dramatic stakes, because it’s about people and places I just don’t care about.

COMEDIC
Thor Ragnorok was a great movie because it was total comedy, and comedies can simply get away with things dramas can’t. The plot doesn’t have to 100% make sense, I don’t need that same dramatic grounding, I just want to laugh and have a zany time.

So yeah Thor went to places and met with people I honestly don’t care about it…but I didn’t need to. I was there to laugh, and that’s what the movie did. The zany worlds were there for humor, and it did it’s job well.

Now love and thunder wasn’t a great movie, and I’d argue it’s because they tried to stick drama into my comedy. Talking about the big C, having a pretty serious villain in the god butcher…it’s those dramatic elements that start to pull the movie bsck down…and now suddenly all those plot holes and other elements start to matter again.


MARVEL NEEDS TO CHOOSE
If marvel is going to keep going with the multiverse, then it needs to choose. You can go total comedy, give me a zany adventure in the multiverse, no big stakes just raw run. That’s fine. You can go dramatic with a grounded adventure on earth, that while involves the multiverse is still ultimately happening in my back yard. That’s fine too.

But anything else just doesn’t work. Ant man 3 as a movie just doesn’t work well, and I feel like the problem has just gotten worse for marvel over time. The multiverse is too big to be taken seriously, so either make it smaller, or make it funny.

The other option is the slow death of the MCU

 

[MarkB]

The other option is the slow death of the MCU

I feel like that's what we've been witnessing ever since Endgame. Nothing really gels, nothing really sticks.

Every Marvel movie up until Endgame I've watched and enjoyed multiple times, even the less-good ones like Thor II and Age of Ultron. And some of them are my go-to movies for fun or excitement - Iron Man, Avengers, Winter Soldier, Ragnarok.

And they all feel like a coherent, building storyline that hangs together well even when some of the plotlines of the individual movies tend to get ignored in the ensemble pieces.

Every Marvel movie or TV series since Endgame just hasn't had that glue, that sense of a unified purpose or plan, and the only things I've watched a second time were Loki and Spider-man No Way Home. There's been nothing I'd consider a go-to when looking for something to watch on a bored Sunday afternoon, and the idea of stringing some of them together over a few evenings to follow any kind of over-arching plot line is simply laughable.

You may be right that the stakes and setting are part of the issue (I can't comment on Quantumania in particular as I haven't seen it yet) but to me, the major problem is that the MCU no longer feels like a coherent universe - it just feels like a bunch of disconnected projects and storylines with very occasional tiny nods to each other.

 

[pukunui]

I’ve been feeling the same way. I’ve enjoyed most of what they’ve put out since Endgame, but it does all feel very messy and disconnected.

That said, aren’t we officially in Phase 5 now?

I didn’t bother to see Wakanda Forever in the theater. Gonna watch it this afternoon on Disney+. I’ll probably do the same with Ant-Man 3. It looks like a movie that ought to be seen on the big screen, but all the reviews I’ve seen so far have been negative. I don’t want to spend the $$$ taking the kids to the theater for something that’s going to leave a sour taste in our mouths.

I also have my reservations about the multiverse as a whole concept. I expect all the variations of Kang will get confusing, and there’s also very low stakes if a beloved character dies because you can just bring in a variant of them from a different dimension (e.g. Wanda) or time (e.g. Gamora). I mean, if RDJ or Scarlett were up for it, there’s no reason the MCU couldn’t bring in variants of Stark or Natasha even, which I think would really cheapen their deaths and everything that’s come after. (So I really hope they don’t do that.)


I also feel like they’re dragging out the teasers too much. I feel like with Phases 1–3, one movie tended to tease the next one, whereas now with all the D+ shows as well as the movies, the teasers get left dangling for ages with no one really knowing when the pay-off is coming (or, if we do know, it’s years down the track …)

 

[trappedslider]

I’ve been feeling the same way. I’ve enjoyed most of what they’ve put out since Endgame, but it does all feel very messy and disconnected.

That said, aren’t we officially in Phase 5 now?

I didn’t bother to see Wakanda Forever in the theater. Gonna watch it this afternoon on Disney+. I’ll probably do the same with Ant-Man 3. It looks like a movie that ought to be seen on the big screen, but all the reviews I’ve seen so far have been negative. I don’t want to spend the $$$ taking the kids to the theater for something that’s going to leave a sour taste in our mouths.

I also have my reservations about the multiverse as a whole concept. I expect all the variations of Kang will get confusing, and there’s also very low stakes if a beloved character dies because you can just bring in a variant of them from a different dimension (e.g. Wanda) or time (e.g. Gamora). I mean, if RDJ or Scarlett were up for it, there’s no reason the MCU couldn’t bring in variants of Stark or Natasha even, which I think would really cheapen their deaths and everything that’s come after. (So I really hope they don’t do that.)


I also feel like they’re dragging out the teasers too much. I feel like with Phases 1–3, one movie tended to tease the next one, whereas now with all the D+ shows as well as the movies, the teasers get left dangling for ages with no one really knowing when the pay-off is coming (or, if we do know, it’s years down the track …)

correct, we are in phase 5 now. As for the reviews, audience scores seem different than the critics.

Marvel Studios Slowing Down Production With Only Two Disney+ Series Now Being Released in 2023

According to a new report, the number of Marvel Disney+ releases is about to be drastically pulled back to focus on quality over quantity.

movieweb.com

 

[Older Beholder]

They’ve been setting up a bunch of different things recently…

Kang
Thunderbolts
Secret Invasion

all of which I’m pretty excited for.

Personally I find the latest phase some of the most rewatchable.
I’ve probably watched Shang-Chi, Multiverse of Madness and Black Widow more than any other Marvel film.

I like the new Ant Man film but I can see why others might not.
For a movie with a lot of exposition it still felt like there was a lot that wasn’t explained.

 

[wicked cool]

It’s a total disaster and the tv shows are a disaster. Disney marvel tv is not in the top rankings of viewership. I was excited based on the trailers for Antman but the overall reviews consensus is the effects are awful and it’s just not good. I like the character and I like the stars and it’s a real shame
People aren’t sick of superheroes because the last Spider-Man plus Batman were really good and the boys is clearly a hit
You have an entire phase of movies that are just not as good as phase 3.I’m hoping guardians 3 will be good as the tv special was good

 

[cbwjm]

Man, I loved the new antman movie, I thought it was a fun watch and I'm keen to see it again, Kang was awesome, Cassie finally became her Dad's superhero partner. I can't wait to see what they do with the multiverse, the next doctor strange gonna be cool, the marvels should be awesome, though I don't know if that is a movie or a series. So many seem disappointed with what's coming out, but I'm loving it.

I think the next marvel movie coming out is guardians 3, and that looks like it is gonna be awesome as well.

I'm not saying everything they've put out has been great, I couldn't get into Ms Marvel and I still haven't seen Wakanda Forever, but Quantumania was not one of the bad ones.

 

[ART!]

I'm trying to keep in mind that probably every MCU movie and show we've seen since Endgame had it's production screwed up by COVID. Messing with production schedules and protocols usually makes the end product feel uneven, clunky, or otherwise "off".

I get what the OP is saying, though: the multiverse is too big to care about, and too full of potential re-dos and resuscitations for the stakes to feel real - not without really good writing and/or not taking itself too seriously. No Way Home made it work in part because of the built-in jokiness of Spider-man, Tom Holland's take on Peter's awkwardness and earnestness, and the fun they had with the previous Spider-mans.

 

[tomBitonti]

I really like Loki, which is about the multiverse. I think Quantumania is meh. It’s about the multiverse, too.

I’m thinking Loki is just better made. QM suffers in many ways: Jarring takes. Mis-used graphics — which are badly attached to the character images. No time given to settle in to the quantum realm and take in its grandeur. Hectic battle scenes which don’t work very well at either the epic or personal scale.

A villain who is on the one hand showing a depth of character and being a bad-ass, while on the other having truly comedic security and a paper fortress.

I could go on.

TomB

 

[wicked cool]

Igor came out today and said loki and secret invasion are only definite 2023 shows even though ironheart is done filming. Looks like they may go the bat woman route and just can the stuff that will just lose money. Not a suprise imo