What If...?

[Ryujin]

There are rumors that Wakanda is more than it seems, but the Wakandans work hard to give the world the impression they are a small, third-world, developing nation. Of course, the truth is much different, but the US doesn't know that (yet).

I don't know that the US military could have been convinced to send in their newest high tech toys, if they hadn't been convinced of the need. Even as a test it would have been a waste.

 

[Tonguez]

I don't know that the US military could have been convinced to send in their newest high tech toys, if they hadn't been convinced of the need. Even as a test it would have been a waste.

Shock and Awe? If Wakanda was the backwater Ross expected then the robots would get an easy walk-in, however since the tech was still branded with the Stark logo, he could also rely on plausible deniability if it went wrong.

(Yeah thats probably where the suspension of disbelief starts to stretch)

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I have enjoyed all the episodes so far, but I am starting to feel the same problem I have had with the comic book series of the same name, and that is burn out from the whole "how many ways can we kill off all the heroes, while not affecting the main universe." And this is just from 3 episodes in a row doing this.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The third and on eps have been on the dark side; now I get that's a lean that the comic of the same title had (because exploring how things go to hell without having that wreck the continuity is one of the advantages there) but perhaps its been a few too many in a row.

 

[RangerWickett]

I have enjoyed all the episodes so far, but I am starting to feel the same problem I have had with the comic book series of the same name, and that is burn out from the whole "how many ways can we kill off all the heroes, while not affecting the main universe." And this is just from 3 episodes in a row doing this.

The problem I'm seeing with a few of them is that the point of any story is to have a character undergo a change so at the end of the story they are different than the beginning, and the point of a good what-if story is to show how different circumstances could have led to them having a different change.

Peggy becoming a super soldier kinda changed her, but she had the exact same arc as Steve Rogers. She didn't put much of her own spin on the story of beating Hydra. The story didn't lead to a meaningfully different outcome.

T'Challa as Starlord was great and comical. It made no sense logically, but I enjoyed it. I will not complain about it.

The Nick Fury vs Hank Pym story was fairly interesting in shuffling the pieces around, and we did get Loki winning.

The Doctor Strange story showed a different side of Strange, and the outcome was fun in a Twilight-Zone-y way. But I felt the actual descent into darkness wasn't earned with any actual story beats. Also, I just personally am pretty picky about time travel stories. I mean, c'mon, you can do illusions and time travel. It's not hard to naughty word your way out of a fixed point in time by tricking your past self. But I digress.

The Zombies storyline focused on . . . a variety of characters, and none of them really had an arc. Stuff happened, but that's all it came to.

And Killmonger ended up in almost the exact same place he did in Black Panther, except he wins. But he as a person isn't any different. (And it's dumb for the US to attack Wakanda with robots, and for Wakanda to fight back in melee. People! Use missiles!)

So of these six, #1 and 6 basically didn't change how the story turned out. #3 and 5 had too many characters, so the arcs weren't compelling, even if the mystery or spectacle was neat. #2 was a comedy, and actually was interesting because it gave T'Challa an arc to go back to his people. And #4 showed us a character's darkest side, but I don't think his slip into darkness was really earned.

These episodes mostly don't give us a good character arc. They give us spectacle. And that's missing the point.

 

[MarkB]

The third and on eps have been on the dark side; now I get that's a lean that the comic of the same title had (because exploring how things go to hell without having that wreck the continuity is one of the advantages there) but perhaps its been a few too many in a row.

Also, the "but what if they didn't win and things went to hell?" concept feels pretty much played-out after Infinity War / Endgame. We've seen how that goes. It's canon.

 

[Blue]

The problem I'm seeing with a few of them is that the point of any story is to have a character undergo a change so at the end of the story they are different than the beginning, and the point of a good what-if story is to show how different circumstances could have led to them having a different change.

I disagree that a character is the only thing to change for a story. Procedural dramas (like police procedurals or crime procedurals) can forgo any character development, and many episodic TV shows also can tell a story in an episode without character change. I think in all of the What If...? stories the state of the world at the end was significantly different then in the core MCU Earth-199999.

For example, while Killmonger was the same person, he was in far from the same place. He was accepted as Black Panther, had united power of Wakanda firmly behind them, still led by T'Chaka, with Wakanda's secret as high-tech out and Wakanda ready to move outside it's borders. Iron Man never existed, which has huge ripple effects both directly (no War Machine) and also on the Avenger's Initiative. That world is in a significantly different place than Earth-199999. Could end up better (say Wakanda taking over and then unifying the Earth in benevolent rule) or worse, but it is far from the same.

 

[Rune]

I disagree that a character is the only thing to change for a story. Procedural dramas (like police procedurals or crime procedurals) can forgo any character development, and many episodic TV shows also can tell a story in an episode without character change.

Movies too. maybe not many movies, because character arcs have become kind of a cliché, but two very successful ones (in every sense) that come to mind are Back to the Future and Ghostbusters.

The only character development in the former is that Doc is willing to read Marty’s note. And in the latter? I dunno, maybe Ray will say “yes” in the future if someone asks if he’s a god?

 

[Maxperson]

Klaue is dead. So he's decomposing.

Old joke, I guess I didn't tell it well.

It was pretty rotten.

 

[Tonguez]

..THOR PARTY

well a bit of frat boy comedy after all the dark and dour What if 's was quite cathartic, kinda surprised that Natalie Portman came back for it. Darcy and Howard make a nice couple ...
and I hope the end scene gets a pay off somewhere