Spoilers THUNDERBOLTS* (spoilers I guess?)

[Horwath]

Again, it has an asterisk i the title with

(spoilers I guess?)​

Can we please stop gaslighting with what's written in the thread title? What does "I guess?" mean to you?

honestly, if you didn't watch the movie, you should not open any topic about it on the internet, spoiler warning or not.
in this case, it was a clear warning, but even if there is not, there always one guy that says one thing too many, maybe even without thinking about what was written and then ruins it for all.

 

[Stalker0]

Also interesting that similar mechanisms (feelings) were used in this and BNW, but this one doesn't get the same hate for it.

I think BNW is just a worse movie (not garbage but just pretty meh). But the other part is that

Spoiler

Ross’ anger in BNW was artificially induced, so it doesn’t translate in the same genuine way as Bob who suffered real long standing demons

 

[Mannahnin]

At least they had her at all. Considering she hasn’t been seen since ant msn 2 (literally 10 years ago!), I could see the argument to take her out early and keep taskmaster (who is a much more recent character)

Both are boring characters - a lot of people expected both to be killed off. But when you shoot a movie, you shoot a lot more scenes than make it into the finished movie. Then you include the more interesting ones. I'm afraid Pugh literally acted her off the screen.

I think she didn't have a lot of space to develop, but I liked what we got of her.

Taskmaster had less existing personality, more overlap with Yelena in terms of backstory, and also a less distinct power suite. Ghost gives the team something other than more punching and shooting, as Yelena called out/lampshaded.

I was thinking about this movie some more this morning, and while I think it does a good job addressing mental health overall, there’s one thing I think it gets wrong.

When Yelena goes to visit Alexei, he is watching an old TV clip of himself being cheered during a parade. He later admits to Yelena tells that he was happiest when he was popular back home in Russia, and he suggests she will be happy too if she seeks a more public-facing role, something that her sister “understood”.

This message is later reinforced during the climax when Yelena perks up when she notices the bystanders clapping and cheering for her.

The idea that someone who is depressed and lonely should seek happiness through the attention of adoring crowds is not a good mental health message.

True happiness needs to come from within – and through genuine human connections, not superficial ones.

I know this is a superhero movie, but there’s so much literature about how deeply unhappy many popular celebrities are. They seek the adoration of others to fill the hole inside themselves.

Being a popular superhero isn’t a sustainable long-term solution for Yelena’s depression.

It’s an interesting one. I really liked that first scene, because while Alexei has a point - being a freelance murderer for the CIA is a terrible career and Yelena would be better off trying to do something more altruistic and less nihilistic with her life - he also has the wrong end of the stick, in that he conflates being a hero with getting fame and glory.

But Yelena does at least talk to Valentina about changing her work conditions to involve less crime and murder, and it’s actually Valentina who uses the term “public-facing” to mock her (and thinking Yelena won’t notice because she’s too stupid because she’s just some gig economy assassin, not management like her), while of course planning to have her killed, because what’s the point of a Doordash murderer who isn’t really into murdering any more?

And then the tables turn and Valentina needs someone to pretend to be a hero for the cameras, and Yelena and the Thunderbolts will do for now. That’s not necessarily what any of them actually want (OK, maybe Alexei and John are super into it, but I doubt Ava, Bob, or Bucky actually love it), including Yelena, but at least she’s doing some version of what she’s good at and she’s doing some good, so hey, why not. It’s not her happy ending, it’s a work in progress.

Yes, agreed. Alexei wants fame and glory, but he also had a kernel of it right in seeing that Yelena needed to be doing something more meaningful and helping others.

Nice insights from both of you.

 

[dbm]

According to...

Apparently her necklace charm also looks very similar to Songbird’s character symbol, too

 

[chuckdee]

I think BNW is just a worse movie (not garbage but just pretty meh). But the other part is that

Spoiler

Ross’ anger in BNW was artificially induced, so it doesn’t translate in the same genuine way as Bob who suffered real long standing demons

I think that BNW had a good movie in there- they should have just gone with less is more if they weren't going to go all the way. Sidewinder was a nothingburger and those parts pulled it down, for all that Giancarlo Esposito put into it. If there had been less with such a star they could have relegated all of that to background noise like the chapel fight and worked on making it tighter. There was a good movie in there- it was just layered under all the cuts. For example, they reduced Ghost's role and removed Taskmaster's, which I think was a good call to make it tighter.

And his rage wasn't artificially induced - it was just linked to the transformation. That was the whole point of it- sort of like Bruce. They just didn't do a good job of separating those demons from what was being done to him to make that clear.

 

[Stalker0]

I think that BNW had a good movie in there- they should have just gone with less is more if they weren't going to go all the way. Sidewinder was a nothingburger and those parts pulled it down, for all that Giancarlo Esposito put into it.

Spoiler

Agreed. I also think they retreaded a bit of the "your not Steve Rogers" and "are you worthy of Captain America?". I think Sam fully went through that arc in F&WS, so no need to bring up those beats again.

And the villain was a classic Marvel MCU villain, interesting premise, but feel completely flat. When your superpower is supposed to be hyperintelligence....well....you need to showcase some hyperintelligence

If I were to redo the movie from scratch, would have loved to do a more CA2 spy type movie where Wakanda is secretly sabotaging the treaties to stall out the mining of Adamantium (which is a direct threat to their monetary reliance on Vibranium). Since we got some Dora Mélange in F&WS we could have kept up those relationships.

 

[chuckdee]

which is a direct threat to their monetary reliance on Vibranium

I don't think that it is a monetary reliance - they rely on it for their tech, which they use to drive their economy. They don't export it, so not sure that other than it giving others the ability to start to try to catch up/keep up, that the idea would hold water.

I like the angle that they used. It was just that it was more tell than show for a lot of it. I think instead of the retread of F&WS, they needed to lean more into the breaking the ties that bind the Avengers to the US Govt, especially with how the Thunderbolts* ended to bring it back around to this thread.

 

[Older Beholder]

I liked Thunderbolts*

Positives:
All the characters had great chemistry and I'd be happy just watching them riffing off each other for the movie's runtime.
I liked that it avoided a CGI heavy fight at the end.

Odd Stuff:
It had a strange vibe, in that it felt like a small scale team-up film.
It also felt like it went from the first act straight to the third (Not as bad as 'Venom 2')
The whole Taskmaster thing, it felt like she was removed after the film was made or something, not sure what went on there.

One thing I've noticed with the last couple of MCU films, I always feel like I'm more keen for the next film then the one I'm about to see. They showed the Thunderbolts trailer before Captain America :BNW and I was way more excited for that. This time we got the Fantastic 4 trailer, and I felt the same thing again. And then we get the two Avengers movies, Doomsday and Secret Wars after that.
I think I read that Doomsday and Secret Wars will be the only Marvel films for 2026 and 2027, basically 1 film per year. Probably not a bas idea.

 

[pukunui]

The whole Taskmaster thing, it felt like she was removed after the film was made or something, not sure what went on there.

Yeah, that's basically what happened:

Apparently, the original screenwriter had Taskmaster surviving and only find out she didn't make it at an early screening! And an interview with the director explaining why they decided to kill off Taskmaster.

 

[Older Beholder]

Yeah, that's basically what happened:

Cheers, I'd missed that.
Still seems like a really odd choice to make after filming the movie.