What does Thor: Love And Thunder say about the state of the MCU?
Mixed reactions to the fourth Thor film suggests that fans are getting impatient for Marvel to connect the dots of their ever-expanding movie and TV mythology
Film Features Thor
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for various Marvel films and TV series.
After a slow but steady decade-long build toward a massive superheroic crescendo with 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has continued to occupy the pinnacle of modern popular culture. Seven films and seven streaming series after Endgame, Thor: Love And Thunder, the fourth solo entry headlined by Chris Hemsworth’s Norse God of Thunder, made a thunderous boom at the box office even though the movie’s reviews were as inconsistent as lightning strikes.
The broad scope of that response—some heralding director Taika Waititi’s deliriously unleashed creativity, others calling it a Ragnarok redux—suggests an uncertain future for this shared cinematic universe, both on screen and behind the scenes. What exactly does Love And Thunder tell us about what’s to come in the MCU? And perhaps most importantly, is Marvel Studios giving fans what they want?
139 Comments
It apparently says that AVClub needs to do a slideshow for meaning, instead of an actual article?
I don’t think “as-yet-unholstered” means what you think it means.
Why write “holstered” when you can write “as-yet-unholstered”?
Not not not-holstered? Not yet not-holstered, yet? N’yet n’yet holstered?
Why the fuck would this be a slideshow. Fuck off.
8 click vs 1.
Or zero
Yea, I expect that for lists, but this seemed like a regular article, so it caught me off guard. Ridiculous. Soon enough, the news will be slideshows
Try this one trick to piss off readers!
How many years in a row are y’all going to ask the same slideshow questions when we all know it’s a directive from the private equity goons who own the parent company? Jesus
Because they suck and there’s a miniscule chance one of those private equity goons might glance at the comments and finally knock that shit off. But mostly it’s just cathartic to bitch about things on internet.
It’s bizarre. Other websites don’t do this! This is a relic of, like, 2005 internet and it’s so strange to see it make a comeback.
Just minimize the window and the slideshow turns into a single page. Easy-peasy
Really? Not working for me
I’m using Firefox. So I just minimize the screen to half-size vertically and then I can scroll down through all 8 pages of stuff I didn’t want to read anyway.
What does the endless parade of slideshows say about the state of The A.V. Club?
Yes, it’s been only. four years since Endgame, which took a decade to build to, but Marvel has also released what, two or three times the amount of story since then? That’s part of why a portion of the fanbase is getting impatient to “see where this is going”: there’s been a significant time investment put in, and they’d like to see it pay off.
It’s never paying off. This is superhero comic book narrative. I truly hope that casual filmgoers who have been sucked into the MCU are beginning to understand the diminishing returns of superhero storytelling. This is why I stopped collecting superhero comics. (Admittedly I was only ever collecting a couple of titles at a time.)
Yup. I stopped collecting any supes comics other than stuff like Astro City – I need beginnings and conclusions to arcs, and if there’s unresolved plot points, I need to know the creator INTENDED that to happen, rather than just keep rolling things on.
I’ve made the comparison before that the MCU right now looks a lot like Marvel and DC books in the late 90s, early 2000s, and that’s not necessarily the best thing.
Doesn’t look anything like that. Ticket sales would have to completely decimated for that to be true.
I hope I’m wrong about it being now, because God knows people need something to look forward to nowadays— but there will come a time where the MCU will flame out. Oversaturation of the market would be one way to do it.
Yep, it’s WWF story-telling. Once you see the cycle it gets stale unless you like the cycle in which case eat it up and enjoy haha.
There will always be arcs or side books from the big two that are really good, but the major arcs are always extremely similar with a different coat of paint, a swapped out big bad, etc etc. It’s very rare that a major arc really does something new.
All of this supposed hand wringing over what’s to come next probably wouldn’t be nearly so bad if people weren’t so desperate for integration of the Fox
properties into the MCU. Even though Feige was pretty clear after it
happened that it would take years to begin, it didn’t stop people from
insisting we’d have both X-Men and F4 characters in Wandavision last
year. And when we actually did get one of each this year, as a clear one-off, it was rightfully dismissed as fanservice.In truth, the story is proceeding at almost exactly the same pace as before. We all know Kang is on deck, and in Loki we got far more of a glimpse of him than we ever got from Thanos. Sometime next year we’ll see him as an actual villain in Quantumania. And by then we’ll probably know more or less what direction we’re going in, because Marvel will certain release a dozen more items on their slate by then. This matches up just fine with the Infinity Saga, where GotG finally set the table in 2014 after 10 movies. The addition of TV shows to the slate is supposed to supplement the MCU, not speedup the larger plot. We’re finally getting the diversity of stories (in more than just the obvious way) that people complained was missing from the MCU in Ms. Marvel and Moon Knight, and people are still complaining anyway.
The addition of TV shows to the slate is supposed to supplement the MCU, not speedup the larger plot.If this is true, it seems to have been done a bit questionably, given that there’s quite a significant amount of crossover between the film and TV narratives for what is supposedly extra content. If, say, Wandavision is just there to flesh out the MCU, then making it in such a way that if you hadn’t seen it you’d spend most of Multiverse of Madness wondering exactly why Wanda is flipping out about kids and turning evil despite this having been no part of her last cinematic appearance seems like a bit of an odd decision, creatively speaking. It certainly seems like the TV shows are supposed to be adding to the larger plot.
So this is a slightly twisty response, but.My parents did not watch WandaVision. They are also retirees who aren’t great at tracking grandiose plot points. And it didn’t bother them that Wanda went evil over non-existent kids. They knew I hated Multiverse of Madness partly because of what you’re talking about and they both felt like the movie “explained it enough”.The thing is, I know plenty of people who would consider themselves “smarter” than my parents. Or more able to track and appreciate the kind of multi-part narratives that the MCU pushes. Certainly younger and more hip. And to that I say, “No. You’re not.” I think there are different levels of self-awareness and connective cognition going on between all the parties in question, so “No. You’re not.” is kind of glib. But people who are convinced that the MCU is “good” storytelling are, in fact, just fooling themselves that they aren’t as gullible to shiny bullshit as my 70 year old dad. Again, that’s probably glib. I’m being a bit of an asshole, I admit. But MCU fandom annoys me in its lack of self-awareness. Competently made, even often FUN, trash is still fucking trash. And pretending that it’s elevated because high quality artists are involved in adapting it doesn’t make it NOT trash. Supporting broader representation in tentpole franchise film and TV is a good thing! I admire the efforts the MCU is making, imperfect though they might be, in broadening character horizons. But. It’s still trash. That any of these IP jerkoff sessions has been considered for an Academy Award is just a sad statement about the state of film. That thousands and thousands, if not millions, of moviegoers would get angry at me for saying that is a sad statement about the state of the audience.And yes, I’m fun at parties. I also enjoy the view from my castle tower and/or high horse.
Supplementing means adding. Telling the story of why Wanda is the way she is helps viewers understand why she is the way she is in MoM (ostensibly, anyway, since a lot of people who watched both seemed to miss a few dots). But it doesn’t help us get there faster. Better to use Loki, since it introduced He Who Remains. But even so, the shows are mostly either virtually inconsequential (What If? and Moon Knight), cleaning up loose ends (Hawkeye and FatWS) or character studies (Loki and Wandavision). There’s more purpose to them that, as there are several seeds for Young Avengers and Thunderbolts, but mostly TV is just a vehicle to tell more stories, not so we can get to the next big thing quicker.
A supplement is added to something else in order to enhance the thing it’s being added to; it’s optional and beneficial but generally not essential. Maybe it’s me, but I’d say that the reasons behind a fairly drastic shift in character motivations would go beyond the supplemental, since having that knowledge is pretty necessary to understand why a character who was acting one way in the previous film is now acting completely differently, with motivations that weren’t present the last time you saw her.
You are arguing two things right now: First, that the TV shows are more essential viewing than promised (a point which I gladly concede out of lack of interest in proving otherwise). And second, you’ve taken a contrary position to my assertion that the amount of story we’re getting is not meant to speed up the rate at which we get to Endgame 2: Endgame. But those two things are not really related in any way. Whether or not the plan to tell half of Wanda’s story on Disney+ worked doesn’t affect the fact that it’s not actually moving the Kang plotline forward or backward. I mean, I agree that if someone didn’t see Wandavision, then there’s a big difference from Wanda fighting Thanos one minute, and Strange the next. But since my point was just because we have seven TV shows doesn’t mean we should be halfway through Phase 5 by now, it seems a little odd that you’d be telling me that.
You may be confusing me with someone else; I haven’t mentioned anything at all about Endgame or where we’re supposed to be re: Phase 5. All I’ve done is question your assertion that the TV shows aren’t supposed to be adding to the larger plot when it seems pretty clear that in fact they are. Which, apparently, you’re willing to concede.
In truth, the story is proceeding at almost exactly the same pace as before.
The addition of TV shows to the slate is supposed to supplement the MCU, not speedup the larger plot
Both of these quotes are from my post you first replied to. I was replying to the first post in this thread that said so many hours of content had been produced that we should have some sort of payoff. I reiterated for you several times that I was talking about the pacing of the MCU, not the amount of plot contained within. I really can’t do anything else for you if you don’t understand the difference between mass and velocity.
First off, maybe dial down the condescension a little. We’re just having a discussion about superhero films, there’s no need to get snotty. Whether I’ve misunderstood you or not, I’ve nevertheless tried to be civil and respectful, so smarmy little put-downs about me not understanding mass and velocity are unnecessary and just make you come off as an ass. You’re defending the MCU, that doesn’t make you Einstein (or Eisenstein, for that matter). Second of all, surely if the TV shows are contributing to the overall narrative of the MCU, like I’ve suggested, then they are therefore part of the pacing of the overall MCU, not just the plotting. If I understand you correctly, you are arguing that the broad overall narrative of the MCU should be considered just the films, with the TV shows basically as extraneous content, yes? The TV shows are helpful but not necessary to the overall narrative of the MCU, in other words. However, accepting your argument would seem to hinge on us accepting the premise that the TV shows are, in fact, extraneous and not contributing to the overall narrative, and this is what I’m unconvinced by. As a case can be made that they are, in fact, contributing to the overall narrative — and in some very significant ways at times — then a case can be made that they are thus contributing to both the plotting of the MCU and the pacing of it. It doesn’t really seem like you can pick or choose — if we need to consider what they contribute in terms of the overall plot, then by definition we need to consider what they contribute in terms of overall pacing.Ironically, for what it’s actually worth, I don’t really have a horse in this actual race. I’m just unconvinced by your argument as I understand it. I’m open to being so, though ideally if you could do so in a less patronising way that would be helpful.
I’m not actually being condescending, I’m being overly explicit because your reading comprehension is very bad. To that point, I haven’t even been defending the MCU; I’ve been defending my words, which, let’s not beat around the bush, you definitely misunderstood several times. And not just the main point I’ve been harping on.To wit, I addressed your sole example of the TV shows supposedly adding to the plot in my first reply to you
Telling the story of why Wanda is the way she is helps viewers understand why she is the way she is in MoM (ostensibly, anyway, since a lot of people who watched both seemed to miss a few dots). But it doesn’t help us get there faster.
Regardless of how you spin it, Wandavision was never intended to add to the plot. It was intended to add to the characterization of Wanda. In a very rough outline Wanda’s story goes: [Family dies>Becomes Villain>Becomes Hero>Brother Dies>Husband Dies>Becomes Villain]. Wandavision doesn’t add anything to that, it simply colors in the gaps. Moreover, since your entire argument relies on the idea that people need to watch the show to understand the movie, and there’s a post by necgray in this very thread that shows that’s clearly not true, I don’t know why you think you can get by trying to dispute my argument with a single bad example, when there’s a very good example right in front of you of why your own argument is not 100% true. Of course, my argument never relied on being 100% unfalsifiable. I even brought up Loki myself, as it does demonstrably move the plot (Very little, and easily skippable, but there it is). In any case, here’s a list of current D+ shows that don’t advance the main plot of the MCU:FatWS
What If?
Hawkeye
Moon Knight
Ms. MarvelAnd of course Wandavision, as explained. These shows have some repercussions on the MCU, and even interact in small ways with the movies. That’s intentional by design. They will have more pronounced effects further out into the future. But none of them are part of a unifying MCU narrative in any meaningful way. Even Loki is meant to be enjoyed on its own, and the inclusion of Kang is only because it’s a convenient place to introduce him. But the Kang that appears in Quantumania is going to be a different character anyway (Spoilers: Loki’s Kang died), and it will have to set him up in a way that ensures people who haven’t seen Loki will still understand him. The implicit effect of that will mean that even the single instance of the TV shows interacting directly with the MCU narrative will be rendered inert.
I’m not actually being condescending, I’m being overly explicit because your reading comprehension is very bad.
I mean, the sheer lack of self-awareness within two sentences is just mind-boggling, frankly.Moreover, since your entire argument relies on the idea that people need to watch the show to understand the movie, and there’s a post by necgray in this very thread that shows that’s clearly not trueI mean, no offence to necgray, but that’s one person’s anecdotal recounting. It’s not exactly overwhelming evidence that the audience is conclusively on your side and that you’re definitely and absolutely right in all things. Especially since I can easily point to cjob3’s response to my post, which would suggest the opposite — that audiences found it baffling and off-putting — as being the truth. We would need to engage in much more in-depth audience research in order to determine which of us was right. I continue to ‘dispute your argument’ because one person saying their parents can follow Multiverse of Madness isn’t the argument-concluding mic drop you seem to think it is. But since, frankly, it’s not worth arguing over, fine. I concede that it is possible for people to watch Multiverse of Madness without having seen Wandavision and nevertheless understand it. Frankly, it feels like pulling teeth to do so, because you have clearly demonstrated yourself to be rather graceless and, yes, condescending in our conversation, and giving you the satisfaction is incredibly annoying. Nevertheless, I concede that point.However:Regardless of how you spin it, Wandavision was never intended to add to the plot. It was intended to add to the characterization of Wanda. I’m not sure the two can be as separated as easily and clearly as you’re making out here; plot stems from characterization and vice versa, after all. And as I’ve repeatedly stated, Wanda’s motivation throughout the film stems from her lost children — a part of her character and narrative that was not present until Wandavision. Had the producers truly not intended Wandavision to add to the narrative of Multiverse and for it to be as meaningless as you suggest, they would have ignored the part about her children entirely and simply focussed on Wanda’s grief over Vision. The fact that they didn’t clearly suggests that Wandavision actually was intended to meaningfully contribute to the narrative of the MCU and is not as unnecessary as you are claiming. But none of them are part of a unifying MCU narrative in any meaningful way. This is just bollocks, frankly. Of course they are. The whole selling point of them is that they are. The fact that you yourself acknowledge they ‘fill in the gaps’ demonstrates that they are nevertheless part of the same unifying narrative. They are introducing character motivations, creating linking narrative threads, and even introducing characters. There are clear crossover elements between TV and the films. That is all being a meaningful part of the same unifying narrative. I’ll concede that they are perhaps more stand-alone than I was suggesting, but equally they are not as divorced and irrelevant as you are making out either.
Also: In any case, here’s a list of current D+ shows that don’t advance the main plot of the MCU:FatWSWhat If?HawkeyeMoon KnightMs. MarvelConsidering that we’re still at a stage that we don’t fully know what the main plot of the MCU is going to be (which is kind of the point of a lot of this criticism, it’s perhaps worth noting), this is a somewhat bold statement. They might not necessarily advance the Kang subplot, but how do we know at this point that’s going to be the only important plot going forward? How can it be said with such confidence that these shows don’t advance the main plot when that main plot is still quite open and unknown?
That was my main problem with MoM. That was such a stupid story decision. We just saw Wanda go insane with grief. That was her whole arc in WandaVision!
No, Marvel hasn’t released two or three times the amount of content as the whole Infinity Saga since then. But thanks for asking.
Ok, correction. It was about 47 hours of content from Iron Man to Endgame. Since Endgame, it’s been 45 hours of content. So it’s been equal. Now, add in what they’ve already announced, and it will be 2-3x pretty soon. Those TV shows add up fast.
But sure, you get your star for catching me in the letter and completely missing the point, which is that the time commitment (and therefore the impact on their lives) people are putting into the MCU has changed drastically.
We’re six movies and seven television series in. It’s fair for people to start to wonder if this is going anywhere bigger or, if not, if they can start noping out of some of these installments, which feel more like homework than anything else.
When I was in High School, I just didn’t do homework when I didn’t want to, I didn’t tell everyone that I was tired of doing homework every chance I got. Be the change you want to see in the world.Since this is the 10,000th time I’ve seen the comparison of MCU to homework, I’m going to have to assume that all of those people who said they were walking off after Endgame didn’t actually do so, and now want to be gently reassured that they can safely leave the zeitgeist. My dude, go ahead.
I liked Endgame and almost everything up to that point (not you, Dark World).
What’s come since, especially Eternals, doesn’t not feel like it was particularly vetted nor necessary.
They can either make the stuff more urgent or they can make it better. It doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request.
I’ve enjoyed everything to come out since Endgame, especially Eternals. That’s why I keep watching this stuff. Does it seem unreasonable to make a choice between watching stuff you like and not watching stuff you don’t like?Also, not to get lost in the metaphor, but how does it feel like homework if it also feels unnecessary? I would think that the part that’s compelling you to watch is that you know it will be necessary. That’s supposedly the homework part, that you know it’s gonna help you pass the test eventually, but it sucks to do right now. Except movies aren’t tests, and homework is dumb regardless.
Also, not to get lost in the metaphor, but how does it feel like homework if it also feels unnecessary?
You had much better teachers than I did.
I would star you a million times if I could. There’s nothing more tiresome than people going on and on about the art they don’t like.
well said…and if people equate watching a whole bunch of inter-connected stories, very simplistic stories too, to homework, then folks y’all got some much bigger problems to solve…
I mean, it is pretty clear we are going somewhere though. It just doesn’t look like it is all in one direction like the Infinity Saga.On Earth:
I can see them going towards a ‘Dark’ Avengers arc featuring Captain America, Bucky, both Hawkeyes, Zemo, U.S. Agent, Abomination, Taskmaster, Yelena, Ghost, and maybe Titania. Maybe even Crimson Dynamo given the planned Armor Wars show with War Machine.
Some kind of arc involving the Earth’s alternate dimensions/secret communities and the return of crazy weapons showcased in Shang-Chi and Ms. Marvel. With the probable addition of The Black Knight, Namor and Wakanda. A possible Skrull invasion
A next generation of Avengers including: She-Hulk, Kate Bishop, Yelena, Captain America (Sam), Bucky, Falcon #2, Thor, Valkyrie, Ms. Marvel, and Shang Chi.
In Space:
Guardians 3 involving Adam Warlock and seemingly closing out Starlord’s arc. The Marvels apparently reuniting Captain Marvel with Monica and including Ms. Marvel.
Extradimensional/Universal:
A probable Kang arc with Ant-Man, Wasp, Sylvie and Loki at the minimum. Another arc involving the return of Gods having an active presence in the setting. This being hinted by Moon Knight and Thor 4.
More multiverse shenanigans thanks to Doctor Strange, Clea, America, and maybe Wanda.
I
mean, it is pretty clear we are going somewhere though. It just doesn’t
look like it is all in one direction like the Infinity Saga.That’s probably true (although I imagine a bunch of these will eventually be daisy-chained together), but the MCU trained people to expect a (for the most part) focused series of movies pointing toward an endpoint.I think the complaining (which I think is pretty muted, really) is mostly folks having a disconnect between what they’ve been trained to expect and what they’re getting.I think if there were clear stepping stones the public knew about (“oh, all this stuff with Falcon and Bucky and Hawkeye and Black Widow is leading to Thunderbolts and Dark Avengers in three years”) there’d be more patience about the parts that are leading to something maybe a decade or so in the future.
That said, it sounds like a lot of this is going to be addressed at Comic-Con anyway, so this conversation will likely be moot in a few weeks.
The only thing that I’d be really ‘worried’ about is Spider-Man. No Way Home kinda left him in a state where he has no real ties. It makes me think that Sony is planning to transition him more towards their side of things with Venom/Morbius… which would be a notable drop in quality (even if NWH ran entirely on no one taking the time to plan out a single spell) .
Yeah, I was pleased with making Peter more of a classic Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (and would love it if that was the name of the next movie), but it does disconnect him from the larger MCU in a way that maximizes portability.
I’ll miss his advanced suits though. The arms/waldos are one of the few things I think should’ve been incorporated into his base costume in comics after both the Iron Spider and Superior Spider-Man runs. Infinity War really incorporated them into his mobility and it worked well.
“I don’t want to do things in the clearly superior way Otto did” is classic Quesada rebooting Spider-Man to something someone from the 1970s would recognize.It’s interesting to see DC enthusiastically abandoning that kind of traditionalism with their new wave of legacy heroes. We’ll see if it lasts and how the books do, long-term, compared to Marvel, where only the X-Men and Fantastic Four are really allowed to evolve.
Every time they reset all of Spider-Man’s progress, I’m forced to sigh. It seems like all the other heroes are allowed to evolve but Spider-Man always winds up reset to being that guy that is brilliant but can’t even pay his rent or keep a relationship going.
And ironically, that’s not even how the largest segment of the audience — MCU fans — knows the Spider-Man franchise nowadays. If anything, if Marvel Comics wants to cling to what the audience knows, MJ needs to be Black and Aunt May needs to be young and sexy.
Marvel is servicing an audience that’s been grossly outnumbered nowadays.
To think, they could’ve gone the two MJ route if NWH didn’t solidify that Zendaya’s MJ was Michelle Jones-Watson. Plus Cindy Moon was in Homecoming but never showed up as Silk.
If history has told us anything, Peter definitely needs a deep bench of potential girlfriends.
But the only people complaining that it “isn’t building toward anything” are the ones who already know where it’s likely to be headed, they’re just mad that Nick Fury hasn’t shown up to talk about the Thunderbolts initiative. They need their hands held.Everyone else, who doesn’t give a shit, is happy to enjoy these movies for what they are and not get so pissed off that they’re not getting a continuous five-year-long orgasm.
Everyone else, who doesn’t give a shit, is happy to enjoy these movies
for what they are and not get so pissed off that they’re not getting a
continuous five-year-long orgasm.
Look, if there’s an option to get a continuous five-year-long orgasm, I want it, so long as I can stay properly hydrated throughout.
Are you listening, Disney? Install saline solution IVs in theater seats.
Personally, I don’t need an Endgame (or Infinity War) in the near future. or explained that is where they are headed. I get it, that took ten years to build. But, at the beginning, it was obvious Phase One was building towards an Avengers team up movie…. I would at least like to know where Phase Four is headed (not necessarily Phase 6)
It says Marvel really needs to increase their VFX budget.
So in the past week we’ve had:- Thor movie review- Slideshow about Thor easter eggs- 2 articles about Thor’s box office haul- Repost of the MCU movie rankings from three years ago. (But it’s been updated! Where’s the new Thor movie? Click through the slideshow to find out!)- 5—count ‘em, 5—slideshows determining the greatest MCU character- Whatever the fuck this useless slideshow bullshit isFolks, I think the Thor/the MCU has been well and truly covered for the foreseeable future.
It still feels like less coverage than Stranger Things had.
Ha! Beat me to it.
I dunno. Is there a fictional band within the new Thor about which AV Club can do an oral history?
You missed…Taika Waititi against a Thor: Love And Thunder director’s cutTaika Waititi would love to annoy fans with another Thor movieNatalie Portman and Christian Bale on working with Taika Waititi
If the AVC couldn’t ride to hype cycle, what would they do for content? Substantive, thoughtful essays? Coverage of unseen (non-Thor) media that perhaps needs voices to champion it? What kind of crazy site would do that? In this (attention) economy?
Who is US Agent John Rogers? I know about John Walker…
I’m not reading this slide show but I saw Thor in Manhattan at 10:30PM on Thursday (Nerd night!) and not one person cheered as the movied ended. You could see the WTF in so many people’s faces.I missed the 3 Movies from last year (Black widow, Shang-Chi and Eternals) But the 3 I’ve seen since.Spider-man NWH A-Doctor Strange 2 C+Thor 4 C-Thor 4 is a bottom 5 Marvel movie to me (from what I’ve seen).
Saw Love and Thunder over the weekend, and thought it was just fine. I’d give it a solid B. It wasn’t as good as Ragnarok, but it was better than the other two Thor movies by far. It blends stories from the comics—Jane as Thor and Gor, etc.—just like many MCU movies do, and it was an enjoyable take on those stories. I personally didn’t mind the perceived wheel-spinning. Some of my favorite comics Marvel did when I was a kid were the “Assistant Editors’ Month” issues of various titles where the stories were on the zany side. Almost by definition, they were one shot stories that typically didn’t tie into any larger mythos or ongoing storylines. Sometimes it’s okay to just enjoy the ride.
I think it just sucks that it feels like theres a lot more room for these movies to be… good, standalone pieces of art? But they just fucking… don’t really care to make a movie that explores its own alleged themes? Black Panther comes close to talking the talk but I think some of the headiness ends up buried under CGI spectacle by the end… it just feels like they underutilize these villains that could be really interesting.Ultron should’ve been an intelligent threat. Becomes quip machine.Wanda’s villain arc undercuts the character work of WandaVision, but even if they’re going to do that, there’s a better version of that somewhere.Gorr should’ve been more sympathetic. The gods were shown to be arrogant / uncaring of their people, and we see his god spit in his face basically. But we’re… not supposed to want him to kill all the Gods? Gorr should’ve been shown purging the world of Gods and people APPRECIATING this!! He should’ve been posed as an anti-hero that went too far into revenge territory (not all gods, etc.). But all his God killing is off screen, and I suppose religious hypocrisy is not a theme Disney wants to touch but… theres something juicier there to explore that could maybe have tied into Thor’s emptiness. I think theres some villains that have been OK to be disposal / one-off / etc., but can’t they mine some genuine drama here? I think Eternals TRIED to maybe do something a little different, but somewhere along the lines (maybe the Marvel formula, maybe just the writing or something else) failed all the same.
TL;DR — make your villains compelling Marvel!
Almost every entry in phase 4 could have done with another iteration on the script, a few more takes on the performances, and several more iterations on the CGI. Quality is dropping and the reason seems apparent- they’re rushing these things out to constantly have new content on Disney+. SLOW THE F DOWN MCU. Trust your audiences not to abandon you just because there’s no content this week.
Hot Take: It doesn’t matter what they’re building to, the new batch of heroes aren’t resonating the way the original Avengers did, and whatever universe ending climax it all eventually leads to will pale in comparison to Endgame because, frankly, we don’t care about these characters. Also, it doesn’t matter if you pick auteurs if you still cripple them with the same boilerplate endlessly derivative stories and they go into each project knowing you’ll just cut anything ‘objectionable’ for foreign markets.
I don’t know that that’s as hot a take as it seems.I *suspect* that part of the issue is Feige et al not understanding that the crossover audience from the comic books to the MCU isn’t anywhere near 1:1. You just have to look at comic book sales vs box office to see that. And the “casual” movie audience isn’t trained to look past Secret Identity swapping in and out of Capes the way that comic readers are. So the movie audience isn’t as willing to buy into Sam Wilson as Captain America because to them, Steve Rogers is Cap. (I’m not saying comics readers are always on board for this, they obviously aren’t, but they’re not as put off as a movie viewer might be.) Or look at Into the Spiderverse. Audiences were mostly okay with Miles as Spiderman because it was an animated film and it directly addressed the fact that Peter Parker is *also* Spiderman, just in different dimensions.It’s hard to deny, too, that some of these actors are just considered/thought of by the audience as more “marquee”. Don Cheadle is a fantastic actor. Is he a “star” on the level of RDJ? Is Anthony Mackie a “star” on the level of Chris Evans? Is Letitia Wright a “star” on the level of Chadwick Boseman? Some of that’s just where the actors are in their career but some of it’s also how they’ve been positioned by pop culture. It’s a shame because they shouldn’t have to “live up” to their peers just because their characters are inheriting titles. But that’s how comics work sometimes.Which is all a long-winded way to say that yeah, people don’t care. But that’s less the fault of the MCU or its material than the mentality of the people in charge and the audience, which is more casual than some people realize.
I mean, the fact that most of the films boil down to a pretty standard template, which at this point is 14 or so years old, certainly doesn’t help. I agree with what you’re saying but in my opinion it goes deeper than just name recognition. The characterization of many of these heroes isn’t as good. The stories are increasingly derivative and now with the multiverse introduced their ability to create any type of meaningful stakes moving forward are severely hampered.
To be fair, actors like Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston were fairly unknown when they started in the MCU too.
The slideshow lost me starting with “marvel unleashing top-tier characters like Iron-Man.”Iron-Man was C list at best in 2007. Why does everything have to be connected? Why can’t stories just be stories? There is not some giant crossover event in the comics every month so why would movies match that?
So, did you guys meet or exceed your quota of Thor/Taika pieces?
This one was a baffling article as it starts with admitting that there are discussions about Marvel’s direction, then all the other slides essentially argue that MCU is actually doing absolutely awesome, no notes, everything is great. Like I was not expecting bashing, nor do I think it would have been correct, but this feels like a puff piece put out by Disney Studios instead of trying to have a genuine discussion what is working and what isn’t.The one argument here, though, that I have to push against here is that Marvel has somehow gone auteur as that is that blatantly false. They have hired filmmakers with their own visual styles, that is true, but they are enforcing a very strict sense of tone of their films and there are clearly limitations on what can be done. The biggest example of this for me, funnily, is Reeves’s The Batman as they would never allow him to make a film like that as a part of MCU. That’s not to argue quality, but rather the tone and choices within the film itself.
Yes, it seems like we’ve had six slides to answer the headline question when someone just writing “It says that the state of the MCU is absolutely great!” would have sufficed.
Yeah, I don’t know that they know what “auteur” means.
I went straight from the headline to the comments. I’m not clicking through no damn slideshow. Looks like I’ll have to stop coming here. 🙁
It’s funny to see Ryan Coogler listed as one of those auteurs, as he only got the job after Ava DuVernay turned it down due to how much the studio would be compromising her vision.
not like DC gave two shits for her vision on New Gods either
Half the MCU movies you name as being auteur-driven were not written by the director. Writing and directing is not a definitive requirement of auteur theory, but I think it’s weird to use that term in this context. In fact, I think the problem is that Marvel is *pretending* to encourage “auteurs” but in truth is just using very talented hired guns to shoot their tightly controlled stories. Even Taika as the writer of Thor is beholden to Feige’s narrative synergy needs. Obviously this is less the case with the TV properties because TV is a writer’s medium but you only have to look at how Multiverse of Madness completely fucked up Wanda to see how difficult the whole integration of the TV properties actually is.
It says WAEK ME WEN GALACTUS.
I’m guessing he’s Phase 5 at the earliest, so you’re going to be waiting a bit.
POSSIBLE ARC STORY THEORIES!Secret Wars, the story where every Marvel Hero gets sucked to a big asteroid to fight, is the story everyone seems to want. And I’m here to say: Secret Wars is boring actually. Like, it’s transparently just a big business ploy, and the story has very little complexity or payoff. But, the X-Men are a kind of big part of it, so you could use it to introduce them maybe?Galactus is cool because big G himself is kind of just a force of nature. He doesn’t hate you, he doesn’t want to hurt you, he just wants to eat your delicious planet and whether or not you can get out of his way doesn’t factor in. The drama comes from the people Galactus pulls into his sphere – helpless victims trying to survive, heroes who try to stop him, and his powerful, enigmatic heralds. Even other villains track along after him like hyenas following lions.Sphinx is a series of reincarnating villains who derive their considerable powers from an ancient Egyptian relic that also binds them to occasional imprisonment outside of time. Created in the 90s to shamelessly capitalize on the popularity of Apocalypse, Sphinx is yet another “ancient superpower too strong for any one modern hero to defeat” character. Where they succeed, however is that the various Sphinxes tend to have their own goals and agendas beyond just seeking power. Sphinx can also perceive when damage has occurred to the “correct” timeline, and an ancient super-baddy who wants to fix broken time sounds like a good fit for the current MCU.So people loved Black Panther, right? But Wakanda isn’t the only high-tech isolationist country ruled by a super. It’s just that the other is Latvaria, home of Doctor Doom. Doom is basically Iron Man if he were also a wizard and also a dictator and also not very nice, but at the same time also begrudgingly accepted the responsibilities of his station. Doom is also the ultimate villain. None surpass Doom. So says Doom! Plus he has a robot army, and directors love having the Avengers hit robots.
Doctor Doom is definitely coming given a FF movie has been announced. Wouldn’t be surprised if Latveria gets established earlier – maybe even as soon as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever later this year.
Hopefully they give us real Doom and not “guy with metal skin” which for some reason everyone seems to want to do
“It’s transparently a big business ploy.”That is the definition of the MCU.
Yeah, this totally outrageous new paradigm seems like a perfect fit, then.
He’s so cranky that your head would be up on a spike at Doomstadt for misspelling the name of his country.
People want the Hickman Secret Wars. The one about incursions, that involved the Illuminati (both of which were mentioned in Multiverse of Madness) and was actually good unlike the shitty 80s one.
WHY IS THIS A SLIDESHOW. WHY.
“Films like Guardians, Ragnarok and Black Panther demonstrated that the MCU greatly benefitted from employing filmmakers like James Gunn, Waititi and Ryan Coogler to bring a truly unique vision and style to the superhero stories they were telling.”That’s overselling the amount of creative space that ‘auteurs’ get/got within the MCU. Though apparently T:L&T is a bit of a departure, with Waititi getting more room to do his thing than in Ragnarok?
every writer on this site should quit in shame. If you want to write terrible clickbait go somewhere else.
Unfortunately for fans of the old AV Club, most of the writers on the site now are new and schooled in clickbait. This genie is not going back in the bottle. The cat’s not going back in the bag. The simile’s not going back in the metaphor. We have to go back, Kate.
Also saying its about “Auters” is pathetic.
I get that people like the big, overlapping story arcs, but if you’re only watching a movie so it sets up the next movie… That’s not good, right? Like, I recall back in the day that a lot of people COMPLAINED the MCU films were only existing to set each other up, and lacked individual substance as a result.Anyhow I’m confused, because I thought Kang was supposed to be the big bad in phase 4, and except for his role in Loki* and Dr. Strange falling through the post-Kang TVA for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it beat in the big fight in Multiverse, they haven’t used him at all. I mean, I loved Loki, and if they want to use Kang as the dude in season 2 that’s fine, but he’s a big enough bad guy to be a threat for a whole “season” of films.*Of course Loki Kang is A Kang, but not THE Kang, which I thought was very clever.
Thanos was only in a few films, as well, so I’m not sure why you would expect more Kang at this stage.
I think people might be overlooking the basic fact that the novelty of the whole idea has worn off. Put it this way – when it gradually became clear that we were going to get a series of interlocking blockbusters set in the same somewhat fantastical universe serving some big overarching story I thought ‘oh, what a delightful innovation in popular entertainment, I’m on board with that!’ So I followed it all the way through to Endgame, and distinctly recall coming out of the cinema after that and thinking ‘OK, that was about as much fun as I was expecting it to be! I’m more or less done now’. I didn’t, and still don’t, really feel there was much more to be gained from getting on the same ride again with a slight change of personnel and scenery. I’m sure I’m not alone.
It’s possible that a lot of people are overlooking an argument that’s constantly been being made since The Avengers (2012), but it seems rather unlikely to me.
If anything the Avengers was the beginning.
Previously it was more or less a trilogy of vaguely linked superhero films. The
original Avengers was the real new idea: the point at which Marvel said ‘we’re
doing this, and you’re on board or not’, and Whedon, for all his many faults,
should be applauded for making something intriguing enough to get so many
people on board.
Endgame, though, had all the signifiers of a narrative
climax. And unless you’re an actual comic book aficionado, used to the endless
reversals and reboots and crises and whatnot that comes with following a fantastical
soap opera that’s been running for nearly three quarters of a century, a
narrative climax is typically where a piece of popular entertainment ends.
The idea that the whole machine sort of rumbles on,
accumulating convoluted interlocking backstories which periodically discharge
themselves in some massive ‘event’ before returning to ground zero and cranking
the whole thing up again is not very familiar to the average enjoyer of Marvel
cinematic product, who probably vaguely recalls reading a few Marvel comics as
a kid but that’s about it. We’ve hit the point where the decision has to be clearly
made about this – either these films are made for fans of the comic books, in
which case the whole thing is going to have to be scaled back because there
just aren’t enough of those to keep the cash rolling in, or they are going to need
to be geared towards the vast majority who, like me, enjoy the bangs and
flashes but don’t particularly want to invest all that much time and attention
in keeping track of some endless, ever-complexifying mythos. At the moment they’re still trying to sort
of split the difference, and making a bit of a mess of it.
What is this argument for? I wasn’t being glib. People have genuinely been trying to say that MCU is over and done since The Avengers came out. It didn’t matter that the movie was a new idea, or that it hadn’t yet reached a narrative climax. There are always prognosticators of doom for everything everywhere. The fact that there’s more people saying the same thing now that I’ve been reading in articles for a full decade doesn’t really matter.
Your problem is that you don’t understand people in aggregate, and you somehow credit movie executives with actual intelligence and normal human motives. Feige is a very clever guy who clearly cares about what he’s doing, and he’s already adjusting his tactics. But Disney as a whole is going to keep printing money as long the machine works, and in case it’s not obvious, it still does. The pandemic hasn’t stopped every MCU movie from landing in the top 10 for the past two years. You’re talking about how they need to make the movies to appeal to you, but have you actually stopped watching the movies yet? It’s been three years since Endgame.
I’m trying to argue that there’s a difference between people saying ‘it will never work’, which, yes, people started doing as soon as the whole concept landed, and the situation we’re in now, where I think a lot of people walked blinking out of the big two film finale and said. ‘Well it did work! That was a blast! Oh, you’re…you’re doing it again? No, you know what, that was delicious, but I’m a bit full now.’This doesn’t mean, I think, that the films won’t be successful in some way, but I think they are going to need to stand on their own merits and not require the viewer to get too invested in something that’s going to pay off several films later. Up to Endgame even in the sub-par films you could find pleasure in the novelty of watching them build to a climax. Now that climax has happened – actually no, I’ve not bothered with anything since Black Widow (which was, frankly, lazily written rubbish) and the new Thor is the first one I’ll go to because I like Waititi and what he did last time and the critical consensus seems largely positive.
I do think Feige is probably fairly canny (or at least his execs are informed by a lot of market research data) and knows this, and I think that’s why he’s keeping the long game vague in a way that frustrates the more vocal comic-book-fan end of the audience who actually like the big mythos stuff. But they are a minority – the new batch of films will do well financially to the extent that they are not listened to.
I’m not sure if people are impatient for the dots to be connected, so much as they are impatient for the movies to be better.
Fuck you for making this a slideshow.
IMO, the issue is equal parts that Marvel hasn’t announced enough and the quality of their content has slipped a bit from Phase 3.During the Infinity Saga, we always had a good idea of what the movies were building to and when the payoff would be. The Avengers was announced shortly after the success of Iron Man and The Avengers (not Thanos) is what all of the other Phase 1 movies built to.Then in Phase 2, we knew about Avengers: Age of Ultron early-on and two of the movies built towards that. And all of Phase 3, including Infinity War, was announced in 2014, shortly after Thanos made his second MCU appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy. A lot of Phase 2 and 3 end-credit scenes developed what was coming in the immediate future vs something coming at an uncertain point in the future as well (only exceptions were Guardians of the Galaxy 2 teasing Adam Warlock and a bunch of other things and Spider-Man: Homecoming teasing Scorpion.)That isn’t there in Phase 4. Audiences who know Marvel comics can pretty easily tell that they’re building towards a number of team-ups like Young Avengers, Midnight Sons/Suns, Thunderbolts, and New Avengers. And it also seems like Secret Wars is being developed as the culmination event for the next few phases. But without any of those team-ups being announced, it all feels so far away and uncertain.Which would be fine if all of the shows and movies coming out are terrific. But they’re not. I personally think Feige needs to pull back the curtain and reveal at least one big event that is coming up for people to get excited about again.
Love and Thunder featured 3 main protagonists, and none of them came off the better for it. By this point Thor didn’t need more developing, if anything this movie regressed a lot of the development he experienced in many of the previous MCU movies. Jane SHOULD’VE been the main character of this movie and instead we got maybe 10 minutes dedicated to her cancer sub-plot. And Valkyrie didn’t advance at all. Who who exactly are they building this movie?Raimi’s campy horror style was all wrong for Multiverse of Madness, and the highschool production of Love and Thunder didn’t work here either. That is the best way I can describe the first half to three quarters of this movie. Most of the inter-character interactions felt like I was watching a stage play. The kind of play you would expect to see in New Asgard.
Raimi made Spiderman 1 & 2, which are two of the most fundamental comic book films to get us to the MCU. I don’t think SAM was the problem with Multiverse of Madness. I think the script was to blame. You know, the one that wasn’t even fucking finished when he got brought on at the last minute to direct.
If you rewatch the Rami Spiderman films, they are pretty much completely different in tone and style then any MCU films. I don’t think Rami was the problem, but I think he just doesn’t fit the house style that the MCU very much clings to, and trying to put him in that box was a detriment to the flick. Especially, as you mention, when he was basically a hired gun.
This is Thor’s movie about over coming his depression from the events of Ragnarok/Infinity War/EndGame. This is as close to a happy ending as Thor was going to get. I agree that we could have used an extra 15 minutes of Jane/Val and Gorr, but ultimately this is Thor’s story. And Thor is mostly definitely in a better place at the end of the movie.
…which would be fine if they didn’t completely undercut that theme with irony and dead-horse-beating jokes near constantly.
“This is Thor’s movie about over coming his depression from the events of Ragnarok/Infinity War/EndGame. This is as close to a happy ending as Thor was going to get. I agree that we could have used an extra 15 minutes of Jane/Val and Gorr, but ultimately this is Thor’s story. And Thor is mostly definitely in a better place at the end of the movie.”I just saw it yesterday and I understand a lot of the criticism but thinking about Thor essentially dealing with his depression and loss of Jane by being a stern but flexible dad is a pretty decent place for him to land. Even if it did take a bit longer to get there than it should have.
My hunch is that at Comic Con there is going to be a major Fantastic Four update. We also know that Blade is now filming and the Halloween special is ostensibly Werewolf by Night and an Echo series is coming which means Midnight Sons and some street-level stuff are all in the works. It seems like they may be poised to have multiple groups as opposed to just one.That said, I suspect that Kang is somewhat of a red herring. He’s going to be a problem and an ongoing one, but he’s going to be the Loki to a larger problem and that larger problem is likely Galactus with a lot of this being table-setting.
Can’t really do Galactus without Silver Surfer, which I expect they’ll do with the FF4, but not in the first movie. It would also be a waste of Kang if he doesn’t become the overarching nemesis, like a Thanos, for this whole multidimensional phase culminating in a big team up movie. A movie that will likely “fix” the multiverse by dragging some of the more newly acquired properties into the main MCU.By then Dr. Doom will be introduced, will likely even help save the universe in some way, and be setup as the next overarching big bad. I don’t think they’d make Galactus the main adversary over a whole phase. Frankly, he’s a bit boring and if they with his origins as Galan his overall motivations are a bit too much like Thanos.
Oh agreed. I see Kang as sort of a Loki. He’s going to be a problem and multiple film problem and growing problem. But then there will eventually be a reveal of a new Thanos level threat. To me, Kang will be the biggest issue of late Phase 4 to early Phase 5 and then we’ll get a reveal of a bigger bad – Galactus or otherwise. But assuming Kang’s storyline wraps up multiverse in general and by then we have at least when FF4 movie and who knows a Disney+ show, I think it could be something they are considering.
They’re a victim of their own successes. They’ve trained the audiences that everything in the MCU matters and its all interconnected, and because there hasn’t been that larger narrative connecting all the tissue, people are wondering what’s the point. All it ultimately means is that you have to make the individual entries more compelling because you can’t rely on just throwing an infinity stone into a movie to make it more relevant
Fuck slideshows. Why.
top-tier characters Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the HulkHow quickly we forget…Iron Man certainly wasn’t “top-tier,” but that particular irony is pretty well-known. But almost everyone forgets just how bottom-of-the-barrel the rest of them were. Captain America especially, who was broadly seen as a complete joke of a character.
Other than Spiderman, I don’t think I’d heard of any other MCU character beside those you mentioned before they were released. Maybe they were bottom-of-the-barrel, but to the casual fan I imagine they were still more well-known than anyone since (e.g., Shang-Chi, Dr. Strange, Eternals).
I loved Love and Thunder precisely because it was so weird and meandering. It wasn’t ALL ABOUT building up to the end fight with the big bad. The stakes were high, but not world ending. They can’t keep doing that and they know it, so I actually think was ultimately a step in the right direction.I think part of the problem was people’s expectations were misaligned. I had only watched the teaser trailer so I got what I expected — a full out comedy with some dramatic touches, instead of the other way around. PS F this slideshow BS
Fuck this website. Unnumbered signing off. It’s been… well, it’s been.
I understand why people are getting impatient about what this new era of the MCU is “about” but I think we should remember that we didn’t really know that the Infinity Saga was leading to Infinity War/Endgame until a few years before they happened and that not *everything* that came out specifically fed into that storyline. It just feels like Phase 4 is aimless because there’s so much stuff coming out so frequently compared to 1-3 so the restlessness is happening sooner. Phase 4 only started last year!
“We’ve been introduced to newbies…”I know you had to focus on turning what should have been a 300 work blog post into a listicle, but a little research goes a long way. None of the characters you mentioned are “newbies.” Kate is probably the newest character but she was still introduced over 15 years ago (meanwhile, Yelena was introduced over 20 years ago, Monica over 40, and Dane was first introduced in 1967)!If this is indicative of anything, it’s that Marvel is starting to run out of bankable characters that aren’t related to the FF or X-Men (who they still are holding off to introduce for some strange reason).
Kamala was introduced in 2014.
“strange reason”I think the “strange reason” is that it takes years to plan, write, cast, and produce these movies, and almost exactly a year to the day after the Fox merger closed, the world was shut down by a pandemic. Tons of stuff got delayed and reshuffled. Nobody was even sure if movie theaters would still be a thing. The stuff that was in production (or essentially done) like BW and the following few movies all got delayed, and everything else got pushed back, too.In a non-pandemic world, we probably would have gotten major announcements of upcoming F4 and (maybe) X-Men movies in mid-2020; Marvel would have been spending that first year planning what they wanted to do, what they’d release when, and starting to look at casting. They may even have worked out some deals of who was going to be cast as what. It’s one thing to cast just Blade, because he’s singular; casting F4 (much less the X-Men) means a bunch of casting work, and it’s much harder and more time-consuming to do correctly because you have to find actors who mesh, as well as who are able and willing to commit to the multi-year Marvel machine.So a COVID-shaped monkey wrench gets thrown into the works, and they decide to hold off on the things they haven’t even announced yet (every TV show and movie released in phase 4 so far was announced before the pandemic, and even a few of the ones that haven’t been released yet). Even by last summer things were still in flux; vaccines were available but the future was still less certain. They already had a public release schedule for all their movies through 2023, so they could afford to wait. At this point, there are only 4 movies left that have release dates, and the only other one we know they’re working on is F4. There’s also 4 TV shows left (not counting the Halloween and Guardians specials), probably running them through the end of 2023.So the likely bet is on F4 and, probably, X-Men announcements at SDCC in a couple of weeks. And probably other stuff too; I’d guess a team-up movie of some kind since they’ve now introduced a bunch of new characters.
“Early on, the MCU cleverly introduced top-tier characters Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the Hulk…” They weren’t top tier. None of their books sold well except for some specific runs. People knew the Hulk from the TV show and made for TV movies and the Ang Lee film but was that popular. The MCU made them popular.
RE: “fans may have lost sight of just how long it took to get there.”——And, apparently, so too have erstwhile fluff article authors, who loose sight of the fact that the formula in effect here TAKES TIME to come to fruition….Marvel has always operated on ‘The Long Game’ premise to deliver solid stories.
So CURB YOUR FAUX WHINING!
So I haven’t watched Thor yet, but I did sit through the new Multiverse of Madness movie, which I think entitles me to ask…. is it possible the movies just aren’t as good?Eternals, Black Widow, Shang Chi, and Strange 2 are passable at best. Spiderman was fun and I enjoyed it but here’s the problem — if you go on D+ right now and try to stream movies from the current phase, the only good one isn’t available, because it’s owned by Sony, and you can’t watch it anywhere unless you buy. So all you have to go on are the TV shows and a bunch of godawful garbage (and also the first half of Shang Chi, which was awesome, but then you might accidentally sit in on the second half). The only bit of excitement I’ve felt since Endgame was when Charlie Cox turned up in Spiderman. Which, again — you can’t watch.
I love Taika Waititi but someone needs to reign him in if he’s going to be making more Marvel and, possibly, Star Wars films.Love and Thunder had some good ideas here that had potential but it’s hard to get invested when even Jane’s cancer is played for yucks from the getgo.Yeah, we get it:chemotherapy is a boring and the sessions are longStage 4 can’t be that bad. Surely there’s a 5,6, 7 or 8. We just haven’t classified those yet.Gor the God Butcher lost his family and the gods spat in his face so he wants vengeance on all gods, which is a great setup for a villain, so what does he do? Kidnap children and perform creepy puppet shows.
A/V Club, what happened?
“Indeed, Marvel seems all-in on auteur theory”. Scott, I’m going to need you to generate a brief essay indicating your understanding of auteur theory.
Fucking slideshow? Really?I don’t think Love and Thunder has much to say about the state of the MCU. I will say it wasn’t very good. Trying to do Mighty Thor and Gorr all in one movie was not a good idea. Both got short changed. I wouldn’t say it was impossible to do, but the movie would’ve actually had to have been focused, and not so meandering, and not spent inordinate amounts of time hamming it up for the sake of it or trying to setup jokes. I really like Ragnarok, though I think Waititi went a bit overboard in slipping in a joke in some scenes that pretty much robbed them of any dramatic heft. Overall though, it gave room to Thor and Loki’s loss, their discordant relationship, and Hela’s reasoning for doing what’s she’s doing, that all revolved around children’s different experiences with the same parent.Love and Thunder, though? Given that Waititi was trying to adapt both Mighty Thor and Gorr, both really dire stories, I thought there might be a course correction to exploring the dramatic aspects a bit more. Yeah, not so much. Tonally, it’s a mess.This is a movie where a child dies of thirst, in her father’s arms, in the first five minutes, which was quite well done, who then coincidentally instantly meets his bafoonish “god,” with emphasis on the bafoonish, which eviscerates all the prior dramatic gravitas leading up to it. It’s not even an uncaring god, it’s a ridiculously silly god. Who also somehow just killed the past user of the Necrosword, the only weapon that can kill gods, and left it sitting there for Gorr to pick up. That was all or Gorr’s backstory in the movie, leaving out all the stuff that made him compelling in the books, like getting cast out of his own people for stopping to believe in their god after his child’s death, or how he even got the Necrosword.Then within the next 20 minutes, because of a ridiculous amount of time spent with Thor being a dumbass with the GotG until the part ways, oh, hey, yeah, Jane also has terminal cancer. You get about one scene where she, or anyone, engages with that before the very end. Instead we get an interminable amount of Omnipotence City, that is nothing but endless amounts of Waititi trying to make clever visual jokes, Thor being naked apparently making women pass out, and Crowe’s Zeus engulfing the scenery. After all this shortchanging of any characters motivations or realities for jokes, Waititi tries to tie it up in one end scene where Jane dies in Thor’s arms so Gorr reflects to his daughter dying in his arms and wishes (don’t even get me started on that) that his daughter comes back to life? And Thor agrees to raise her? That was literally the first moment Thor even understood why Gorr was doing what he was doing. It’s just so disjointed in regards to pace and tone.
After all this shortchanging of any characters motivations or realities for jokes Yeah, I’m outta here with movies that do that crap – which is most movies nowadays. Thank YOU Bruce Willis.
the entitlement of MCU fans is beyond ridiculous. caring about fictional Gods played by millionaires.. I mean, I like this stuff too. but get your priorities right. I saw a guy whine about the portrayal of Zeus to where he said it was an “embarrassment”.. as if Zeus were, you know, real. (Or not raping people in mythology but I digress) none of these films are going to be perfect. They’re fantasy. It’s escapism. Put as much emotional energy and outrage into the REAL people dealing with GOP the Woman’s right Butcher as you do with how the MCU should unfold, and it’ll be better for everybody. You got ‘Endgame’ and you’re still whining?
Well technically Zeus is as real as any other god of any other religion but Christians or Muslims get upset if you mishandle their gods. Zeus was around long before Jesus was invented so what makes believing in Zeus crazy but any of the other gods ok?
Oh, cool, an article.Wait, a slideshow?Nevermind, fuck this site.
What it says is that Sif is still the best of Thor’s long-time Asgardian friends. Christian Bale is best when he can enjoy the role he’s playing.
Also, Thor seems to be having the best character arc of the main Marvel cast. Every one of his solo films is him maturing in some way (dropping his spoiled persona, taking responsibility for dealing with the Aether, understanding his power/dealing with leadership and whats best for his people against Hela, and now managing relationships with his ex, his weapons, other gods/pantheons, and winding up with *spoiler*. Even IW and Endgame had him dealing with failure, loss and grief.
Hopefully they’ll wind up with him becoming Allfather Thor before Hemsworth hangs up his Axe.