What do you think of the post-Endgame Marvel movies? [[the mega poll!]]

[Stalker0]

Also, after the amazing world-building they did with Wakanda in the first Black Panther movie, while they didn't exactly drop the ball on it this time, they didn't really add much to it either.

I actually think the world building in WF is better frankly. We had nations calling out Wakanda for not doing enough around the world, we had Wakanda dealing with foreign forces and spies and keeping their secrets in check, you actually saw governmental agencies reacting to the world order that Wakanda brought with its reveal.

So perhaps its less world-building, than world-connecting. I liked that T'Chala's choice to reveal Wakanda wasn't just a "oh this happened, and we move on" thing. It has real world implications for both the world and Wakanda, some good, some bad. The movie actually gave them more than just quick lip service and I appreciated that, as it happens way too often in MCU movies that are all supposed to be about this connected universe.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

We also got a version of Atlantis that wasn't just four-color Plato.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I agree that the world building in WF was good. The production design was lovely. Really enjoyed the look of Atlantis.

Where it failed was with the plot. They missed out by not using the Contessa as the villain who manipulated the events from behind the scenes. The whole Riri Williams sub-plot was a waste of time. Shuri's character arc was confused too.

I'd hoped for much better.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Part of the problem is that they're falling into the trap everyone else's universe-building does: Riri is going to be important in the future (they are clearly setting up a Young Avengers/Champions team in future, even if none of the movies are called that), but sometimes, we get cameos as guest appearances in the meantime that are just ... there.

They're getting to the point where they have a pretty deep bench of these characters, so hopefully we won't be seeing a lot more of that in future.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Part of the problem is that they're falling into the trap everyone else's universe-building does: Riri is going to be important in the future (they are clearly setting up a Young Avengers/Champions set-up in future, even if none of the movies are called that), but sometimes, we get cameos are guest appearances in the meantime that are just ... there.

They're getting to the point where they have a pretty deep bench of these characters, so hopefully we won't be seeing a lot more of that in future.

Yeah, I didn't object to Ironheart, and this didn't seem to be a terrible place to introduce her, but its hard to argue she really brought anything useful to the story. As depicted the character wasn't interesting enough in this context to justify the time taken.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I get that they wanted to introduce the character. But they dedicated, what, 30 - 45 minutes of their runtime to it? In a movie where they also had to introduce Namor and the whole of Atlantis. Plus farewell Chadwick Boseman. Plus tell a damn story.

Hulk, Ironman, Thor, and Cap; they all got individual movies to intro them. No reason Iron Heart couldn't have gotten one of her own. They could have name dropped Riri Williams as an Easter egg and left the actual introduction for another movie.

 

[MarkB]

Introducing characters for future movies is something Marvel has plenty of experience with, to varying degrees of success, so they should be good at it by now. Civil War managed to introduce both T'Challa and Spider-man in an already crowded movie and did it seamlessly. There's no good reason they should be dropping the ball on it now.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Introducing characters for future movies is something Marvel has plenty of experience with, to varying degrees of success, so they should be good at it by now. Civil War managed to introduce both T'Challa and Spider-man in an already crowded movie and did it seamlessly. There's no good reason they should be dropping the ball on it now.

The reason is probably the same as any number of things that are similar: Nobody bats a thousand. As DrunkonDuty says above, they already had a busy movie and one more element was just too much to give the attention it needed. And they probably thought this was the best place to do it.

 

[Voadam]

The reason is probably the same as any number of things that are similar: Nobody bats a thousand. As DrunkonDuty says above, they already had a busy movie and one more element was just too much to give the attention it needed. And they probably thought this was the best place to do it.

This seems to be a bit of a theme lately.

Love and Thunder combines the Killer of the Gods storyline from the comics with the Lady Thor comics storyline. Lady Thor with Jane's Cancer, Becoming Lady Thor, Being Lady Thor, and Dying, would probably have been a much better arc as its own dedicated movie or series. Instead it is a bit of a tertiary storyline in Love and Thunder behind the big storylines of the now comedy protagonist Thor and the villain Gorr.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This seems to be a bit of a theme lately.

Love and Thunder combines the Killer of the Gods storyline from the comics with the Lady Thor comics storyline. Lady Thor with Jane's Cancer, Becoming Lady Thor, Being Lady Thor, and Dying, would probably have been a much better arc as its own dedicated movie. Instead it is a bit of a tertiary storyline in Love and Thunder behind the big storylines of the now comedy protagonist Thor and the villain Gorr.

While I understand the position, I think that was the least of LaT's problems, where the Ironheart part was the only real issue I had with Wakanda Forever.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hulk, Ironman, Thor, and Cap; they all got individual movies to intro them. No reason Iron Heart couldn't have gotten one of her own. They could have name dropped Riri Williams as an Easter egg and left the actual introduction for another movie.

Ironheart is getting her own show. Putting her in Wakanda Forever, at this point, just seems to be a random choice. Maybe the TV show will explain show why it was necessary.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ironheart is getting her own show. Putting her in Wakanda Forever, at this point, just seems to be a random choice. Maybe the TV show will explain show why it was necessary.

Well, they will be able to, effectively, land running (unlike what they had to do in Moonknight). Whether that's a good reason is a question, but it potentially is a reason.

 

[DorkForge]

Riri in WF was there for two reasons: the main one is to Spiderman her. We didn't get a Spiderman intro story, he just showed up in Civil War as an established (but realtively inexperienced) hero. This was Marvel's answer to avoiding the endless origin stories we get and what they did with Riri.
We get shown she's an intelligent character, the first time we see her suit it's already built and has passed the flying test (aka like halfway through the first Iron Man). We also get some justification to make her plausible as a character. Tony Stark was a billionaire and owned his own empire, we don't blink that he has a workshop and resources. We see Riri has to scrape parts from the trash, trade favours for workshop space etc.
They put her in Wakanda Forever as an easy way to shoehorn her into a bigger stage with the detector, and to play off the cultural notes. The pace of her intro and the smashing over the head with slightly cringey Int brags was a bit of a mistep. And it would have been nice to highlight some hole in her knowledge she can overcome.

 

[Stalker0]

Riri in WF was there for two reasons: the main one is to Spiderman her. We didn't get a Spiderman intro story, he just showed up in Civil War as an established (but realtively inexperienced) hero. This was Marvel's answer to avoiding the endless origin stories we get and what they did with Riri.
We get shown she's an intelligent character, the first time we see her suit it's already built and has passed the flying test (aka like halfway through the first Iron Man). We also get some justification to make her plausible as a character. Tony Stark was a billionaire and owned his own empire, we don't blink that he has a workshop and resources. We see Riri has to scrape parts from the trash, trade favours for workshop space etc.
They put her in Wakanda Forever as an easy way to shoehorn her into a bigger stage with the detector, and to play off the cultural notes. The pace of her intro and the smashing over the head with slightly cringey Int brags was a bit of a mistep. And it would have been nice to highlight some hole in her knowledge she can overcome.

I would argue the reason bringing in Iron heart was a bad idea for WF was the detraction from Shuri. Now as our main character, we want to build on her and prove to our audience that she can be a good replacement for our beloved former black panther …and her mechanical genius and intellect is one of her key traits. Ideally you want to show shuri as a great black panther, in part because her mind brings something new to the table thst her brother couldn’t provide.

Adding iron heart just muddies that water, you don’t need two mechanical geniuses in the movie. Now once shuri is firmly in the main character driver seat after a movie or two, then you can do the buddy genius thing (ala Tony/Bruce), because shuri is confidently established.

In summary, either establish a different character in WF that doesn’t have the same qualities as your main character, or delay the introduction until a Black Panther 3 buddy genius type movie

 

[ART!]

Love and Thunder combines the Killer of the Gods storyline from the comics with the Lady Thor comics storyline. Lady Thor with Jane's Cancer, Becoming Lady Thor, Being Lady Thor, and Dying, would probably have been a much better arc as its own dedicated movie. Instead it is a bit of a tertiary storyline in Love and Thunder behind the big storylines of the now comedy protagonist Thor and the villain Gorr.

Part of the let down of LaT is that Ragnarok balanced the drama, action, and comedy so well (for some, myself included).

Also, I've only seen LaT once, but did they tie together the death and grief themes of Gorr's story and Jane's?

Riri in WF was there for two reasons: the main one is to Spiderman her. We didn't get a Spiderman intro story, he just showed up in Civil War as an established (but realtively inexperienced) hero. This was Marvel's answer to avoiding the endless origin stories we get and what they did with Riri.
We get shown she's an intelligent character, the first time we see her suit it's already built and has passed the flying test (aka like halfway through the first Iron Man). We also get some justification to make her plausible as a character. Tony Stark was a billionaire and owned his own empire, we don't blink that he has a workshop and resources. We see Riri has to scrape parts from the trash, trade favours for workshop space etc.
They put her in Wakanda Forever as an easy way to shoehorn her into a bigger stage with the detector, and to play off the cultural notes. The pace of her intro and the smashing over the head with slightly cringey Int brags was a bit of a mistep. And it would have been nice to highlight some hole in her knowledge she can overcome.

I just felt like Riri had no personality and was a complete nothing burger in WF. She left no impression on me other than she was there. I think somewhere around halfway through the movie everything had gotten kind of muddled.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I just felt like Riri had no personality and was a complete nothing burger in WF. She left no impression on me other than she was there. I think somewhere around halfway through the movie everything had gotten kind of muddled.

Well, to be fair, part of the problem is two-fold, I think.

1. Ironheart does not seem to have as distinctive a character as Spider-Man. Its probably not a surprise for a character who's had years to develop in the parent source rather than decades.

2. The actress, while certainly competent, isn't Tom Holland. While he might not be everyone's cup of tea, he embraced the character with brio, and from the moment you see Spider-Man on the screen in CA:CW, you have no doubt who he is and what he's about.

I do think the poster who argued that the mentor/student dynamic between Tony and Peter was stronger because of the former being more well established than the one between Shiri and Riri is on to a little something too.

I don't think the net effect was a terrible failure--Thorne didn't phone it in--but it made a weakspot in a movie that I actually thought was otherwise fairly strong.

(Though that said, handing out new power suits to some already established characters in the movie, even late in it, does the tech-character-with-power-suit no favors).

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Riri in WF was there for two reasons: the main one is to Spiderman her. We didn't get a Spiderman intro story, he just showed up in Civil War as an established (but realtively inexperienced) hero. This was Marvel's answer to avoiding the endless origin stories we get and what they did with Riri.
We get shown she's an intelligent character, the first time we see her suit it's already built and has passed the flying test (aka like halfway through the first Iron Man). We also get some justification to make her plausible as a character. Tony Stark was a billionaire and owned his own empire, we don't blink that he has a workshop and resources. We see Riri has to scrape parts from the trash, trade favours for workshop space etc.
They put her in Wakanda Forever as an easy way to shoehorn her into a bigger stage with the detector, and to play off the cultural notes. The pace of her intro and the smashing over the head with slightly cringey Int brags was a bit of a mistep. And it would have been nice to highlight some hole in her knowledge she can overcome.

I agree that those are probably the reasons why they put Riri in the movie.

I think they made a mistake doing it. Her back story could have easily been done in the TV series.* I mean, it's not complicated: She's a tech genius. Unlike Stark, Riri wasn't born with a silver spoon and has to work for a living. The way she was introduced in WF would cover it nicely.

But by doing it in the movie they took away time from an already crowded runtime. And @Stalker0 makes some very good points about her character detracting from Shuri's spotlight.



*which, by the way, Yay! I like the character and I'm keen to see what can be done with her. Although giving her buddies in the Wakandan royal family is going to detract from some of her story. In fact, it will probably require some sort of lame work around as to why she doesn't just take up a research job in Wakanda.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

*which, by the way, Yay! I like the character and I'm keen to see what can be done with her. Although giving her buddies in the Wakandan royal family is going to detract from some of her story. In fact, it will probably require some sort of lame work around as to why she doesn't just take up a research job in Wakanda.

Yeah, it's taken us three Spider-Man movies and three Avengers movies to get us to the point where we will soon get to see Peter Parker making web-shooters and fluid on his own, which feels very backwards.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Also, I've only seen LaT once, but did they tie together the death and grief themes of Gorr's story and Jane's?

Not that I noticed.

Again, another too busy movie shoe-horning in too much stuff. I like Torg, Valkyrie, and the Guardians of the Galaxy but they got way too much screen time for no noticeable benefit.

 

[MarkB]

Yeah, it's taken us three Spider-Man movies and three Avengers movies to get us to the point where we will soon get to see Peter Parker making web-shooters and fluid on his own, which feels very backwards.

He'd already made his own before Stark showed up. He webs Stark's hand to a door in their first scene.