What If…? proves that Marvel Studios will never be able to tell a stand-alone story
Even Marvel's anthology series on Disney Plus can't resist becoming a little cinematic universe.
TV Features What If...?
There are a few things about Avengers: Endgame that set it apart from the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe canon, and one of them is the fact that it’s the rare movie in that series that has an ending. It is an ending, really. Endgame went to so much trouble resolving nearly every ongoing plot thread and character arc that it very much could have served as the final Marvel movie: The end to the grand experiment that started a decade earlier when Nick Fury showed up during the credits of Iron Man. But there will never be a final Marvel movie—at least, not if the studio has anything to say about it.
Marvel Studios and Sony had to get back together to plot what Tom Holland’s Spider-Man would do next. Marvel had to dip back in for more stories with Wanda and Loki and Sam Wilson. Even the trailer for Chloé Zhao’s Eternals—a movie about characters who exist far above and beyond the concerns of the Avengers—had a winky reference to the Avengers.
Black Widow was all about filling in a gap in the timeline while also introducing new characters to the larger mythology, and Shang-Chi snuck in a handful of familiar faces from the other movies (just on the off-chance you forgot you were watching something that was part of a larger universe). Even Venom: Let There Be Carnage, a movie tangentially related to the MCU, couldn’t resist the appeal of becoming slightly less tangential.
Disney+’s animated series What If…? seemed like a step away from this, or at least an opportunity for Marvel Studios to show that it can tell stories that aren’t all interconnected dots that reveal some grand design when you pull back far enough. However, last week’s episode effectively crushed any chance of that ever being true. Marvel Studios could tell standalone stories, but it won’t.
Before it premiered, What If…? was touted as an anthology series about alternate realities within the MCU’s multiverse. If the stuff that happens in the movies is one reality, specifically a reality where everything happened the way it was supposed to, then What If…? would feature multiple different realities where things happened differently, like Steve Rogers getting injured before he can become Captain America, Odin never adopting/kidnapping Loki, or Doctor Strange turning evil after realizing that no amount of magic could stop a specific tragedy from happening. Like “What If” stories in the comics, it offered a chance to tell stories that simply wouldn’t work in the main continuity—or maybe any continuity in the case of the Doctor Strange episode, during which his entire universe is wiped out.
But last week’s episode, “What If… Ultron Won?,” revealed that Jeffrey Wright’s The Watcher, the show’s “passive” narrator who has vowed to never, ever intervene in the affairs of the universes he’s tasked with watching, is now very close to breaking that vow. The evil Doctor Strange actually survived the complete disintegration of his universe and has been biding his time in some pocket dimension.
Now, with one reality’s Ultron possessing both the unlimited power of the Infinity Stones and the knowledge that he’s part of a multiverse full of realities to conquer, The Watcher has no choice but to get the evil Strange’s help in assembling a team of multiversal What If…? Avengers. In other words, the previous episodes weren’t stand-alone stories that were simply having fun with the MCU’s toy box, they were serialized adventures introducing characters and worlds who could—and apparently now will—come back.
This may be a betrayal of the basic premise of What If…?, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad idea. Hell, it’s kind of a fun tweak on the MCU structure itself, somewhat accidentally stumbling into a shared universe, as if the fate of every reality in the multiverse is to eventually build toward an Avengers-style team-up. There’s definitely some playful meta-commentary in that.
It does indicate a somewhat disappointing lack of vision from Marvel Studios, which established the shared universe stunningly well, better than any one before it and any who have tried it since. But is that all the studio can do? Did What If…? really need to come together for an epic superhero team-up when it could’ve served as Marvel’s reaction to epic superhero team-up fatigue?
Head writer A.C. Bradley told Entertainment Weekly that this was all part of the plan, with The Watcher subtly taking a more visible presence as the season went on as a clue to his slight growth as a character, but she tries to have her anthology cake and eat it too by suggesting that (other than the finale) there are still episodes of What If…? that work as stand-alone stories.
That’s the problem, though: If the upcoming season finale is really good, you won’t be able to recommend it to someone who hasn’t seen at least one or two of the other episodes that set it up. Which, even if you don’t think it’s a big issue, has been an issue with the MCU for a long time. (Try explaining a single plot point of Endgame to someone who hasn’t seen at least two or three of the other movies.)
It’s fitting that this is all Ultron’s fault, at least. After all, it was in Age Of Ultron that the MCU really started to buckle under the weight of its obligations as a franchise. Thor’s trip to the magic cave wasn’t part of that story, it was part of the next story, which only hurt the second Avengers film.
What If…? is still a fun way to spend 30 minutes, but it’s now in danger of making the same mistake by insisting that everything needs to be one small piece of the next Avengers-style crossover event to justify its inclusion in the MCU—even an alternate multiverse offshoot cartoon of the MCU. But if every story is just part of the next story, why bother paying attention to any story at all?
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I think the closest might end up being Falcon and the Winter Soldier – of course there is going to be another Cap movie and I imagine Bucky will also be around in some capacity, and yes there were the setups for the Thunderbolts/Dark Avengers/Zany Zemoes/whatever, but most of the issues within the show felt self-contained and an attempt (whether it was well done or not is up to you to decide) to address issues about race and fascism in America.
It was also, for only worse, the weakest MCU outing since Thor 2.
I might be in the minority on this…but hard disagree.
Yeah I preferred it to some of the more reverred Marvel films. Whilst I generally enjoy the Marvel properties they’ve always felt pretty theme park ride/fasty foody to me (and that’s not really a bad thing, I enjoy theme park rides and fast food). Falcon on the Winter Soldier had (somewhat, it was still low key) what seemed like real struggles, real characters who were dealing with something other than “i am basically a god, how do I defeat this other god”. It wasn’t exactly in depth complex stuff but both Bucky’s reconciliation with his past and Sam’s struggle with America’s racism / being Americas face engaged me in the story fairly well, more so than other films that rather relied on big set pieces and charismatic leads
Agreed.I also enjoyed Falcon on the Winter Soldier. It was very sexiful.
I’ve seen people complain about F&WS and its superpower-free superheroes (and other comparable properties) like it’s something that gets in the way. I love it because it complements the universe; that superheroes can take cues from a lot of different genres without being beholden to strictly one tone or one kind of concept.I love that WandaVision and Loki were able to use their conceptual elements to explore things like grief and identity. I also love that F&WS – with its stories of an ex-brainwashed Cold War assassin, and military servicemember struggling to represent a country with a shitty history of reciprocation for people that look like him – could just as easily be told in a world without aliens and superpowers.
I think everything until the ending is great. But that last episode is so rushed, and actually resolves TOO much. I wish they hadn’t really redeemed Walker – not made him murder more, but saving those people felt a bit hammy. Just kept it ambiguous and frustrating – because he’s a frustrating character.Disney tried to put a bow on wealth inequality, systemic racism, human rights, governmental oversight, and patriotism in one episode. It just didn’t feel earned. But it’s still better than Thor 2.
Grr, I can’t find this comment to pull it out of the greys, so I’ll reply to it here.From Citizensnipps
I think everything until the ending is great. But that last episode is
so rushed, and actually resolves TOO much. I wish they hadn’t really
redeemed Walker – not made him murder more, but saving those people felt
a bit hammy. Just kept it ambiguous and frustrating – because he’s a
frustrating character.
I actually rather agree with this. It had too many elements to juggle and the finale was a bit rushed as a result. And Walker didn’t earn the redemption the show gave him.(I really loved the show, but it definitely had its issues.)
I can respect that. I think, for me, the performances, themes, and overarching plots pulled me in so much, and then everything about the execution in terms of writing, direction, and editing just ruined it for me.
Inhumans is worse. It’s far, far more ignorable, and far, far less disappointing.
I was also of the thought that I was in the minority with my opinion, so, grain of salt, hehe.
Do yourself a favour and don’t watch Inhumans.
The guy who played Black Bolt did a good job but hot damn did ABC do the Inhumans dirty.
Thank goodness Paramount snatched him right up as Christopher Pike, where he’s pretty much perfect for the job.
Good point. I suppose there’s a bit of “so bad I don’t have to watch it” to Inhumans, whereas with F&WS, it was so potentially good I did watch it, and was sorely disappointed.
OH GOD THE NIGHTMARES!
I think many of the complaints about the writing have a point, but the performances really kept the show going for me – just about across the board I was impressed, even with some actors I often find to be forgettable elsewhere. There wasn’t the showy type of acting which can sometimes put me off with MCU material. Even the young woman who played the main anti-heroine (or whatever she was meant to be), while not the best actress, had screen presence and worked well with Anthony Mackie.
Even the young woman who played the main anti-heroine (or whatever she was meant to be), while not the best actress, had screen presence and worked well with Anthony Mackie.I found her the most laughable bit of the whole plot. Why the hell would a group of resistance fighters/terrorists follow her? It’s the same problem I developed with ‘The Walking Dead’ TV show. “Rick’s a great leader!” Are you talking about the Rick sitting in a room having conversations on an inoperable phone with dead people? You can’t just tell me that people are a great leader. You have to show it. They really didn’t show why people would follow her other than “hey, this is the plot we’re going with”.
I get what you’re saying – it didn’t bother me as much because unlike with TWD, there were years of offcamera backstory which brought them together (and they also seemed to have been guided by that woman who ran the refuge or orphanage or whatever it was meant to be who died), but the writing wasn’t great.
“Why the hell would a group of resistance fighters/terrorists follow her?”
Why wouldn’t they?
I think the performances, along with the importance of the themes, amplified my complaints about the writing (and editing and directing) for me.
I never felt more like a show deserved to be better than it was.
….. no.
So, I watched them again recently, and I’m going to say something I never thought I would — Thor 2 is better than Thor. During Thor 2, you can almost actually see the movie figure itself out, with its first half continuing the dull, faux-Shakespearean Branagh style of the original Thor, and the second having much more of the fun interplay between characters that works so well in Thor: Ragnarok.Thor: The Dark World is completely inessential, and its first half is a chore. But it’s actually entertaining for a decent amount of its runtime, something that the original Thor never achieves.
They’ve definitely been going the Thunderbolts/Dark Avengers angle since at least Ant-Man 2. Ghost was a common member for that group and the post-credit scene established that she wasn’t fully cured of her problem. Black Widow setup Yelena and Taskmaster. The only thing I’m kinda iffy on is whether MCU Zemo fits with the group given his ideology and relatively hands-off combat style.
I could actually see Zemo being the ‘hero’ of a Thunderbolts movie/series where Ross and Sharon are essentially the villains trying to make more military/black market Super Soldiers. Maybe even have it end with Ross becoming Red Hulk using an experimental mix of several formulas and needing a team of Abomination/Yelena/Taskmaster/Ghost and Walker to take down while led by Zemo.
It would be nice if they brought back Bullseye as “Dark Hawkeye”. That was fun.
It’s really pretty brilliant how Falcon and Winter Soldier is set up so that it adds a lot to our understanding of Sam going into Cap 4, but you still don’t need to watch it to understand that movie, as it would just come off as Sam becoming Cap right when Steve told him to.
I also wish this show had been an anthology, with standalone episodes. But Marvel knows it’s audience, and the audience wants a slow camera pan around a group of heroes. Ehh. It is what it is.
you’re telling me marvel studios movies and tv shows lack creative vision? now that’s just ridiculousanyway, i still hold the opinion that the 2 gotg movies are the best marvel movies, and it’s unfortunate how fucked up the avengers movies treated them and i’m not optimistic for gotg3, but 2’s ending always makes me cry and it’s the most emotion i’ve ever gotten out of a marvel movie. Iron man 1 and 3 are both pretty good, but again, the movies that aren’t ironman have his character essentially reset every time so he can go through the same character arc, every creative and good thing the mcu has had has always been stifled when it comes to crossovers
I think someone needs to explain how the Capitalisn Cinematic Universe works and how it wants to unify all the money in one place which is why we’re getting what we’re getting for as long as we’re going to get it.
*CapitalismGod damn it phone!
That’s what happens when you rely on the products of Capitalism.
What a horrible take. They made a decision that’s paid off 1000x over to have it be a shared universe. It’s not that they can’t, it’s after 13 years now, that’s just how they’re doing it. They’ll introduce the Eternals and Shang Chi who are unrelated except in passing cameo’s to the last 13 years and that’s not enough.
Exactly. Debate the uniqueness/originality of individual movies all ya want, theres no arguing that Marvel is the only game in town when it comes to a shared universe. Why would anyone expect standalone/one-off projects from them?
Literally using the exact image of Ultron being Galactus and no mention in the article that uh hey the thing bringing folks together sure looks like Galactus.
This has been SOP in comics for decades. Start a huge event (like Secret Invasion) and make sure people know they won’t get the full story unless they buy dozens of different books. Seriously, Google the read order.Movies/TV are no different. Of course, this only works if the story’s worth a damn, so it’s hard to get too worked up about it.
That SOP has also helped drive readers away from DC and Marvel. It drives sales because of the obsessive fans who have to have the complete story, but it thins out the fanbase overall.
This. Massive crossovers annually broke me. I don’t feel that way with the MCU despite the interconnectedness. It is something the comics do that is terrible and has terrible results. It should NOT be SOP.
I really feel that it’s a bad analogy. The MCU overall really is like a comic book universe in that you have all these characters who have their own stories and adventures but link up in a greater universe. You may have the seeds of an overarching story in several different films, but you don’t really need to have them to enjoy the larger story as long as the writers are smart enough to give enough exposition within the film to hold the premise together. Spider-man Homecoming is a great example. It links into the aftermath of the first Avengers movie, but it gives you that set up just in case you hadn’t seen it.
Company wide comic book crossovers are, generally, just the worst and are more about bleeding the customer dry than the story itself. I’ll say that the MCU Civil War was way better than the comic book crossover that gave it its name.
I love Ed brubakers cap run. All timer. I refused to buy the civil war trade part of it. One of the worst crossovers ever. Most are. The way you describe the MCU is like…isn’t that more “classic” marvel? Characters all had their own stories but others could “drop in” for an adventure or two. Maybe daredevil drops in on Spidey and we get an asterisk cos of one thing or another. *See daredevil 162!I hate giant crossovers.
I may not have written coherently enough, but that is my point. The MCU is not the company wide crossover as much as it is a regular comic book collective universe.
Civil War was a mess. The original idea was interesting; but the second Cap came down on the side against registration, I knew it was bad. Let’s not explore the fact that the government was creating a way to legitimize people who are technically criminals because they are vigilantes. Let’s just copy the old X-Men mutant registration concept without the analogy to racism or, really, anything. Let’s make the guy who was given his powers and trained to use them by the government side with letting anyone put on a mask and beat people up. Then, we’ll let the tech billionaire who decides to put on a high-tech suit of armor and beat people up decide that what he does needs to be regulated. The movie made the sides they chose make more sense. Tony is feeling guilty about making Ultron. Steve wants to save his friend.
I think we are on the same page 🙂
Pretty much everything based on Mark Millar’s work is better than the original. Even Wanted: The Movie.
Were we really expecting anything different? The films have been increasingly interconnected since the first Avengers, which was almost 10 years ago. I thought it was pretty clear that everything would be ultimately all be tied together, even if some more distantly than others.I mean, the trailers for What If clearly indicated that there would be some team-up shenanigans. And iirc, Marvel said it’s not a coincidence the show is coming out right after Loki blew up the multiverse. So the idea that the show isn’t just focused on standalones and is potentially tied more to the main MCU doesn’t really come as a surprise for me. But if every story is just part of the next story, why bother paying attention to any story at all?
Because individual pieces can still be meaningful. I had the chance to see Shang-Chi this weekend, and it had a clear beginning-middle-end trajectory, largely self-contained, and only brief connections made to the larger MCU. There’s still climax, there’s still resolution; the need to worldbuild certainly can (and has) affected the MCU negatively at times, but I would disagree with the perception that it’s somehow inherently a bad thing.
All of their movies are like this. They are stories unto themselves, with clear beginning, middle and end. You can watch any movie up to IW and not have seen any of the others and they are perfectly fine. Sure there is slightly more depth to them if you have seen (and remember) the other movies but it’s not necessary. The only true exceptions are, as noted before IW and of course End Game.
“You can watch any movie up to IW and not have seen any of the others and they are perfectly fine.”
This is exactly as stupid as Barsanti’s idiotic whinging. You absolute CAN’T just watch Civil War without having seen anything else and understand. What a moronic take.
It is literally the strength of the Marvel method of the movies. For the most part they are focused on making each movie stand alone on its own strengths and story. Then they sprinkle in very small connections to their larger universe that reminds you there is a larger story at play.
I think what’s crazy is that they teased a crossover in the trailers for this show, and you have spent weeks in your reviews where one of your complaints is about how they’re standalone episodes and don’t seem to be crossing over only to complain now that it has laid that cross-over out. It’s like you’ve actively ignored what is playing out in front of your own eyes only to pretend to be surprised and disappointed when the things teased for weeks play out exactly like they’ve been teased to.
“It’s like you’ve actively ignored what is playing out in front of your
own eyes only to pretend to be surprised and disappointed when the
things teased for weeks play out exactly like they’ve been teased to.”-The AV Club
The crossover was only really teased in the mid-season trailer. The original one gave no implication that there would be a crossover, people just really wanted there to be one.
The very first trailer showed a snippet (albeit very brief) of random heroes uniting. They even juxtaposed it against the circular shot of the original Avengers.
Disney+’s animated series What If…? seemed like a step away of this, or at least an opportunity for Marvel Studios to show that it can tell stories that aren’t all interconnected dots that reveal some grand design when you pull back far enough. No, it never seemed like this, because the MCU has never once suggested, in word or action, that it was going to do anything discrete when they’re playing with stories that have been heavily interconnected for decades. Especially once they realized that not only had they figured out the formula for an shared universe to tell stories in, but that everybody else who tried to do the same failed terribly. Even the stories that were eventually pushed out of the main continuity (AoS, Defenders) were all planned to be some sort of relation to the whole project, thinly connected as some of them might be.
Frankly, the idea that Marvel is incapable of telling a story that doesn’t relate to the MCU is laughable. “But is that all the studio can do?” Sam asks, somehow not realizing that audiences are champing at the bit for more characters to be added to the party, not less. When’s Reed Richards going to show up in WandaVision? Where’s Mephisto? X-Men? Is that Charlie Cox in the Spider-man trailer?
I’m not denying that some people lament the age of the standalone comic story, but it’s an insignificant number compared to the people posting that picture of three Spiders Man pointing at each other. I’m afraid those people are going to have to stick to watching and rewatching Spawn, and let the rest of enjoy a billion more MCU properties where Squirrel Girl and Beta Ray Bill pal up to beat up the Morlocks.
I think you have to write Spiders-Man, legally.
A star for both “champing” and “Spiders man”
Plus there are hours of stand-alone, animated DC content just waiting on HBO Max for Sam to dig into if he wants stand-alone superhero fare. Stand alone isn’t what the MCU does, and by and large people can’t get enough.
Beta Ray Bill and Squirrel Girl beating up the Morlocks would be incredibly cruel
But if every story is just part of the next story, why bother paying attention to any story at all? Yeah, fuck chapters in books and episodes in serialized television and radio and especially issues in comics!
Everyday I wake up, and all the problems that I was trying to avoid by going to sleep the night before are still there. In fact, some of them have gotten worse to varying degrees! Why can’t I just have standalone days, that don’t have any connection to the larger Yellowfoot Universe?Actually, I think this is just an existential crisis.
I’m having a standalone day today. Nothing I do today is going to be canon going forward. Gonna get weird!
I’m doing a bottle episode. Used up a lot of my VFX budget early in the season.
I’m having a bottle day, in the sense that I’m spending the day in one location drinking heavily. It’ll reveal a lot of character.
What If . . . MShep skipped work and read comic books in bed all day?!
Since my job laid me off due to Covid I’m living in the read comics in bed all day universe.
So, you’re spending the day in Vegas?
It’s called a bottle episode, and when used sparingly are generally regarded as one of the best episodes of a series. So go ahead and don’t leave your bed today.
If you’re saying we need a 24-hour-long Marvel movie that unfolds in real time, just give it another year or two.
To be fair, chapters in a book are intended to be parts of a complete story, there’s not necessarily supposed to be any resolution within every single one of them. Also, they all come out at once, and also also, they have a finite end.
If you’re down to nitpick my obvious point then I’ll counternitpick by pointing out how commonplace it once was to release chapters bit by bit in papers and such before we settled on the modern conception of a novel: it’s how Dickens published his work, for instance. That modern books have chapters that release all at once is as relevant as the fact that Netflix releases all episodes of a season or limited series at once.
I have to mention that I think MCU movies are soulless corporate products or I’ll spontaneously combust, but I also don’t want to argue (it’s bad for my blood pressure and other members of my family have died of strokes already), so on top of that question I also wish you good luck, hope you have a good, relaxing day, not too much work, unless your work is fulfilling in which case you have an interesting challenge at your job, get surprised with chocolate chip cookies or some other dessert that fits your tastes and dietary restrictions, and have a restful night of sleep. Hope you have a good life going forward, and appreciate the beauty of nature and architecture on Earth.
Amen. I both think that the MCU stuff is perfectly fine, sometimes good, and that it’s corporate pap that has FAR too many defenders leaping into every critique. You won, folks. That shit is a bank printing its own money. Respectable artists work on it. Take the occasional hit.
That form of release had more to do with the fact that printing individual books was an expensive undertaking, made all the more expensive by the fact that most people couldn’t afford books. However, a newspaper publisher had the money and machinery to do printing, writers could certainly use the work, and readers wanted to be entertained without having to break the bank. It was a solution to an economic and logistical problem, not one explicitly designed or desired by the writers themselves.
The shift to releasing full-length novels as the norm happened once printing became cheaper, books became more affordable and readily available, and large newspapers began to report on more than just local news and couldn’t devote page space and money on the next chapter of a serial. They certainly didn’t disappear; they simply moved to monthly or quarterly journals like The National Review and Harper’s, but make no mistake, it was the writer’s response to a lack of publishing and moneymaking opportunities in novels that saw the rise and proliferation of the short story and the serial (F. Scott Fitzgerald, my favorite author, made most of his money writing short stories), not a distinct creative desire to write short stories.
Back when authors could make a fine living without needing high numerical sales of a work (the patronage of the rich and wealthy; namely those who could afford to buy books at all), you saw a proliferation of novels. Some of these authors would also right small pamphlets and such, but the particular writing form is almost always subservient to the economic and logistical means of the target audience. You write during a time when printing is a luxury left only to the rich and powerful? Write a long-form work that could have you set for life with low printing. You write during a time when printing is still a luxury, but you now have periodical releases (such as journals), as well as daily and weekly releases (such as newspapers) that will pay for snippets of your work? Serialize it.
Nearly everything Charles Dickens wrote was published as serialized chapters, publication often starting before he had finished the story.
Serialization was due to the fact that printing an individual novel was very expensive, and thus limited the potential purchases to the rich and very wealthy. So, if you were someone who wanted to be a writer, and also wanted to earn a living, you couldn’t risk working years on a novel just to get the door slammed in your face, but if a newspaper or a periodical offered to serialize your work, because it was a cheap way for them to fill pages and sell papers/periodicals, you took the work because it paid, not because your intention from the start was to write in a serialized, episodic manner.
The fact that you and Jhelter can only bring up Charles Dickens belies your point. The people that could afford to sit back and write full novels, without needing serialization, did so. Others who could’ve done it but chose not to did so because serialization offered a better chance at continuous income, thus being a mostly (if not purely) financial decision, not an artistic one.
It’s the same reason why short stories became incredibly popular in the early 20th century. Writer’s such as F. Scott Fitzgerald could often be paid rather large sums of money for a short story by periodicals and journals, and use that money to live on while they worked on their full-length novels (F. Scott wrote short stories all throughout his career as a means of making money, while his focus and intention was to become a great writer of novels). Not only that, but later offers of serialization were often provided to the author by their agent, who spoke with the publishers of newspapers, periodicals, and journals and specifically offered up those completely chapters as a way to get money for their client and recoup advances paid by the publishers of the novels. Again, a financial imperative that motivated the creative aspect.
The reality is that most of the authors you associate with serialized work state repeatedly that they did so solely because it was the only avenue in which either their work would be read, they’d earn a decent living, or a combination of the two. It was not, in most cases, an intrinsic desire owing to a high opinion of serials or short stories from a creative point of view.
Everything has a finite end.
Not really a fair point when he mentions book series. There are fictional worlds in literature with 100s of books that interconnect. How is that a bad thing? This article is moronic.
Surprise that the MCU doesn’t have standalone installments is bizarre at this point, since they’ve made their business model very, very clear. At the same time, long running serials get stale and convoluted by their nature. What this article is describing is an issue people run into with pro wrestling or daytime soap operas (or comics, for that matter) – the material itself is repetitive, and the dramatic stakes are built on along-term investment of time.
Books eventually have endings. The MCU does not.
Yeah, fuck chapters in books and episodes in serialized television and radio and especially issues in comics!This isn’t like “Chapters in books” at all. Books are written by one guy, trying to tell one story, and chapters are how you divide that story up into readable parts. That’s not The Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is however, like issues in comics. Which makes sense – they’re comic book movies. However the big problem with being exactly like issues in comics is that 1) you don’t really have any uniformity of storytelling impulse (the editors of the comic are supposed to be doing that and they’ve almost always been shit at it) 2) the quality is hugely varying (which makes sense considering the aims on the part of the individual storyteller are often not at all interested in the larger aims of “making it all fit) and 3) The whole point of a comic book story isn’t to come to a satisfying conclusion. It’s to sell itself perpetually. Stan Lee himself once said something like the big trick with Superhero Stories is that you have to make the audience feel like there was a complete arc to the story when the truth is the superhero CAN’T HAVE ONE. So it seems like your story is going places but by the time it ends (and it never ends, LOL) your superhero is fundamentally the same person. Because the point isn’t to tell stories about people growing. It’s to keep the machine grinding in the hopes that a new 10 year old will pick up the book, not get too confused, and by the time they drop it because they’ve figured out “the trick” there’ll be another 10 year old behind them.That’s been the grift since before your grandparents were born. It shouldn’t be surprising to see grown adults figure it out after 40 movies or whatever and decide maybe they’re done chasing Marvel’s tail. Not to say that chase isn’t FUN, because I think it is. But to pretend that there aren’t diminishing returns (or that the MCU is anything at all like a fucking book) seems silly to me. That said, Sam Barsanti should have gotten pulled from this duty like 2 years ago. Someone who wants off the ride shouldn’t be forced to TEAR TICKETS to it. It just sucks for everyone.
just a fundamental and probably intentional misreading of the point: there is a difference between serialized and episodic television. you can just throw on an episode of seinfeld of star trek tng or columbo and rarely will any of it have some grand implication for the season as a whole.marvel could have done that here, and the premise is a really cool opportunity to do that. they decided to pass it up and make intentional choices throughout each episode to ensure it tilts more toward serialized than episodic story-telling.i like serialized storytelling in television just fine but some of tng’s most memorable and terrific episode are almost entirely unrelated to the rest of the show. in an episode of seinfeld i just watched, elaine and jerry end the episode being in a relationship. it’s dropped by the next episode without a mention. there are creative opportunities available in that structure that what if jettisons.sorry to disrupt your annoying snark though, carry on
I think the point is that, at this point, unlike those ever-so-popular radio serials chapter books it’s getting a little exhausting that every Marvel property, even the ones that seem self-contained on their surface, feels like a stopgap between the previous one and the next. Some people don’t mind it, but the author of this article (and some people, including myself), are getting tired of it. But sure, go off king.
Then don’t watch it. If you don’t enjoy it don’t demand that it change just let the people who do enjoy it have it and find something else? The concept that a popular thing must bend to your liking is really big headed of you.
Oh man, so many grays furious that someone doesn’t like the movies they like.
Turns out when you decide “I like _____” counts as a personality, you get pissy when _____ is disparaged.
Same thing here. My gf and I were interested for a while and stopped bothering once that character of the franchise became clear. (I caught up with a few movies later on on D+, but never again in the cinema.)It’s the same thing for me with the comics, to be honest. I started reading Kieron Gillen’s “Journey Into Mystery” because I was interested in seeing what he was doing after his career in journalism, but quickly got annoyed by all the links to stories I had no intention to read. And while I really liked “Immortal Hulk” and do realize that part of the charm is how it feeds on the Marvel mythology, it had multiple moments that made me cringe. (The Avengers showing up was just… boring.) It was “The Sandman meets the Martian Manhunter”-kind of obviously forced.
So I do get that the overarching meta-narrative is part of the appeal for a lot of people, it should not be that suprising to hear that there are other people who are interested in a lot of other aspects that the MU provides, but really annoyed by the fact that, well, it seems to be often difficult for the authors to find a good balance between “use a ridiculous and ridiculously vast narrative universe to interesting means” and “teasing another product, lest consumers might check out something else”. The first one I can find interesting, the second one makes me feel like being led by the nose.
It’s funny Sam complains about how these individual episodes are all just building to one big thing and that’s why it sucks when over the past 8 weeks all he’s been bitching about is how this individual stories don’t have any more follow up.
Yeah but all those individual pieces you’re talking about ideally lead up to an ending. When they don’t, it eventually becomes tiresome. Chapters in books are not a relevant example—they are part of a finite piece that has a conclusion. Serialized TV shows and comics are better comparisions, but in my mind they don’t effectively counter the point the quote is making. TV shows that go on too long without ending inevitably start to suck. I had to quit reading superhero comics because no real progression ever happens and no real change ever sticks. The obvious meaning behind the quote isn’t that no individual piece of a story can lead into another, it’s that if they never do anything -but- lead into the next thing, they’re not going anywhere.
Not sure when we went from…NEVER having a world of several connected films and franchises and wishing we did and being told it’s impossible and comics are for kids to we will make comics but only edgy to we need to sell toys make it all fun to NOW EVERYTHING IS SO CONNECTED make it not connect I want one off stories with little time to build a complex plot without rushing the pacing. Imagine if infinity war was in one single movie (including the entire getting together of people and their plots kinda like justice league did instead of a group of movies.) It worked so much better to slowly gain traction but I get why movie buffs hate this, you have to watch all the movies even if you don’t like half of them just to understand the plot of a good one or be labeled a bad critic. Plus most critics hate sequels and want new ideas all the time but i see why it’s beneficial to try shangi chi 2 then dune 1.
Not sure when we went from…NEVER having a world of several connected films and franchises and wishing we did and being told it’s impossible and comics are for kids to we will make comics but only edgy to we need to sell toys make it all fun to NOW EVERYTHING IS SO CONNECTED make it not connect I want one off stories with little time to build a complex plot without rushing the pacing. Imagine if infinity war was in one single movie (including the entire getting together of people and their plots kinda like justice league did instead of a group of movies.) It worked so much better to slowly gain traction but I get why movie buffs hate this, you have to watch all the movies even if you don’t like half of them just to understand the plot of a good one or be labeled a bad critic. Plus most critics hate sequels and want new ideas all the time but i see why it’s beneficial to try shangi chi 2 then dune 1.
The only way you didn’t see this coming is a complete ignorance of the source material. The Watcher, for all his monologuing, is constantly interfering with events that he observes. The whole “I cannot, will not interfere” was basically a Chekov’s Gun line, of course he can and will.
The AV Club knows this, of course. That’s why there’s a regular ‘Did The Watcher interfere, even though that’s the one thing he must never, ever do?’ section in every episode review.
You also have to criticize the work that exists, not the one you wanted them to make. The show established The Watcher and explained his role and vows, and then gradually showed his disenchantment with those limitations. Yes, it was obvious almost immediately that Uatu would interfere with events, but they did the character work to explain why he eventually saw his interference as necessary. They did some cool things with Uatu appearing more prominently in the background of each episode, becoming tempted when Evil Dr. Strange started going too far, Jeffrey Wright’s narration sounding less confident as the horrors stack up. It certainly didn’t come out of left field, and Uatu’s transition from watcher to active participant was executed well. It’s not valid to complain that they just didn’t make a standalone anthology series of unrelated episodes.
You also have to criticize the work that exists, not the one you wanted them to make. This was a huge problem with the Agents of SHIELD and Daredevil reviews that Sava did for the site. Constant complaining about the color palette of AoS, even when it’d been the same thing for years. A bunch of “But this isn’t who Elektra is in the comics!” It was so draining.
“Why are they wasting all this time on Jessica Jones doing superhero stuff when we could be watching a lesbian divorce drama about some of the secondary characters?”
I’ve found that criticizing the work the reviewer wanted them to make, rather than the work that actually exists, is a frequent crutch many reviewers lean on. And yes, it is draining.
Sava was a crank.
It was such a relief when Sava was taken off of AoS detail. From then on, whether it was McLevy or a substitute writing the review, the criticisms of episodes were actually valid.
Somewhere, Barsanti has a notebook where he wrote down exactly what he thought What If? should do, and he’s just been getting angrier and angrier that the show somehow refuses to follow his notes.
Agreed. To that point: almost every episode, save for the end of the Party Thor ep and the final two of the season, absolutely work as their own standalone episodes, even with the season ending the way it is.
He is the Marvel version of the Kristen Wiig SNL character who’s always saying “Don’t make me sing.” The dude loves to interfere. He solemnly swears it off like I do Oreos at the end of each package but both of us are tearing into another one next week.
Just send a Red Hulk at him. THAT’LL learn him!
Hey, remember when William Hurt said his character would be “different” in Civil War and all the fanboy nerds were like “OMG HE’S GOING TO BE RED HULK!!” but Hurt just meant that he’s a civilian contractor now?
Yep. Kinda sucks, because the MCU could’ve redone the Red Hulk intro arc into something that would’ve HAD to have been better than Loeb’s run.Seriously, been reading Hulk since age 3, and that Loeb run was the single worst Marvel shit I’ve read, let alone the worst Hulk run overall.
Seriously, been reading Hulk since age 3, and that Loeb run was the single worst Marvel shit I’ve read, let alone the worst Hulk run overall.Agreed. It was like Loeb decided that Hulk was just a dumb hero, so he wasn’t going to try that hard. Just pair up a bunch of heavy hitters, have them punch it out, and send off the finished script in time to hit happy hour!
Worse than Loeb’s ultimatum?
Is that even possible?
Jeff Parker already salvaged Red Hulk in the comics and made me and hopefully other readers forget about the dark days of Jeph Loeb.
When the Watcher shows up in other peoples books he does that but in the What If? Series itself he rarely did.
It’s even simpler than that. You don’t need to know anything about the comics to know how the MCU works, so it’s a little strange that a writer for a pretty big pop culture website is still surprised when an MCU thing is connected to other MCU things.
I think the Doctor Strange episode was the first one where I really caught on to where this was going. And from there assumed that the final episode would be “What If…the Watcher Broke his Oath?”Funny enough, that episode, and ultimately this last one, also played out the popular quantum theory: Simply observing something influences it.Both Strange and Ultron only became aware of him because they gained enough power to realize he was there. The ending of the Strange episode, with him hearing the Watcher somewhat faintly and begging for them to help was foreshadowing for this episode.Because when the Watcher starts talking you realize “Wait no we’ve been here before…YOU’VE been here before. Shut up he’s going to hear you shut up HE HEARS YOU!”
Does anyone remember that X-men miniseries, Exiles? It had an interesting premise, but the storytelling was a bit scattershot. Variants, or whatever we’re calling them (alternate universe versions of usually dead superheros/villains) would form a mutlitversal team and there would be shenanigans like, “Let’s fight Mojo with a cartoon baby Wolverine and an armored glowing atomic skeleton from the Age of Apocalypse timeline, and also Blink is there.” I feel like this is where this series is headed.
It’s like the Prime Directive, it exists as a story tool for the purpose of being broken (or bent).
As @rfmayo says, Barsanti’s reviews continuously tracked the obvious foreshadowing that The Watcher would interfere. What wasn’t obvious was that the interference would be a continuity tie between all the earlier episodes. It could have just been ‘the straw the broke the camel’s back.’
As for how it played out, there were moments that tied things together surprisingly (I really didn’t expect to see the zombies return) but maybe a little too tidily. It’s a multiverse of ‘infinite possibilities as the opening credits keep repeating, but the showdown draws from only 6 or 7. If you’re going to bring in zombie Wanda why not bring thousands of Wandas, etc..?
Christ, we get it.
Guardians of the galaxy was a standalone story. Feige basically let Gunn do whatever he wanted.
Shang-Chi is pretty much a stand-alone story. You don’t need to know who Wong is to understand the story. It’s just flavour. Just like what I think was a centipede/extremis dude in one of the smaller cages.
I stopped watching this series after the second episode. The synopses since then seemed to have been more like “What if the MCU took a bunch of wrong turns and twists of fate and actually sucked?”. Not to mention all the annoyingly bouncy animation.
fwiw, I found it hit its stride more after the first coupla episodes. It might grow on you if you stick with it.
I thoroughly enjoyed the Thor episode (I’ll watch Ulton and the finale on Wed), but the others have been just “fine”. I don’t regret watching them, but I’m not telling anyone they need to watch.
Somewhere out there is an alternate universe where The Takeout just published an article with the headline “The McRib proves that McDonald’s will never serve anything but fast food,” or something to that extent.
Nonsense headlineA Dr Strange is a perfectly fine thing on it’s own overall. Iron Man 1 heck even 2, Thor 1, Spiderverse, Venom, etc.That they WON’T leave it alone is another matter. Cause money and Infinity War
You keep leaning into the idea that the show was supposed to offer standalone stories, even though the ENTIRE PREMISE is that it’s riffing on movies we’ve already seen. This is “playing with the series continuity: the show”. Even as an anthology, it’s literally the opposite of “standalone”. Like, where’s this take even coming from? How did you form this idea?
a huge part of the draw was seeing the actors reprise their roles. in fact, seeing cheadle and ruffalo added back into iron man 1 and hulk 1 timelines have been some of the best stuff.
“I can’t recommend the season finale as a standalone episode”You can’t recommend ANY of these episodes as a standalone unless people have seen any number of movies that a particular episode references/riffs on/remixes. Yeah, its a pretty stupid complaint. The idea that someone watched all the Marvel movies leading up to this then decided to watch the episodes in random order is silly. And the idea that someone who HASN’T watched some of the movies or read some of the comics and then decides to start with this show is ludicrous.
Like, where’s this take even coming from? How did you form this idea?Well, you see, he didn’t really pay attention, & then he wrote down what he thought people said, & then he published the first draft completely un-proofread or fact-checked, & then he walked away sniffing his own farts.
Sam, just…..move on, and let someone else review this show. You’re clearly not having a good time, and every comment section is about you, & not the show.
While it’s true that it will probably be a long time until we get something like a Wolverine-type outing in that is almost completely self contained, it seems pretty straightforward, and really, I don’t see what the problem is. This inherent to the brand and formula, and if Disney has proven competent at anything, it’s being consistent (sometimes to a fault) to formula and brand.With Disney’s help, Marvel Studios cracked the code to port a mythology from comics to film (and now TV) around a shared universe. I mean, we’re just getting around to it with Star Wars (al a Visions), and that franchise is over four decades old.It doesn’t take hindsight to see we’re neck-deep in whatever numbered phase refers to the multiverse (arguably first brought on screen by Sony with the Spideyverse). That’s just increasing the likelihood that everything is connected (Patton Oswalt can finally discover that SW/Marvel crossover he’s looking for here.)And there are MCU movies that come close to being standalone. Black Widow was one, but few reviewers seemed very interested in that aspect of the movie. The first Ant-Man is similarly mostly self-contained. Others, like Shang-Chi, are self-contained enough that the presence of the larger universe is mostly set-dressing.To come full circle, one of the easiest ways Marvel can jump start your suspension of disbelief is to “ground” whatever story its telling in the shared mythology. Otherwise, it doesn’t even make a ton of sense to put the story there. Sure, Ultron was buckling under its own weight, but I think the MCU has reinforced the supports since then, and that problem isn’t as pressing. Sure, no single entry is as important on its own when you’re always being teased with the next entry, but that’s an intentional trade-off. And honestly, as much as I love the Marvel movies, none of them are going to be in the running for favorite movie anyway. They just do what they do.To each their own, but I’ll close with a hypothetical question. If the next Blade movie comes out, and it doesn’t have any reference to events or characters of any other Marvel property (not even a post-credits stinger)—would that feature (without any additional context) make the movie better or worse?
Guardians of The Galaxy vol 1 was stand-alone though? On purpose, in case it flopped.
How can the first movie where thanos appears for real and they explain the infinity stones for the first time be self contained?Gog was detached by the usual avengers scenarios but so were cap 2, iron man 3 and thor 2, with barely a mention of the other heroes.The guardians are pivotal to the whole saga, with their film flopping there would have been no infinity war, since their role is the only connection between the earth avengers and the space stuff with thanos (thor first and then tony/strange/spiderman).
But they had so little faith in the film that they made Whedon have Thor repeat the entire Stone explanation in AoU, even recycling some of the same animation from the Collector’s presentation.
Except for introducing Thanos and the Infinity Stones properly into the MCU, yeah.
Personally, I’m a great deal less fascinated with the multiverse than the people running the MCU seem to be. It’s mainly a device for undoing big dramatic events in the main MCU, which empties those big dramatic events of their weight. It’s also just one thought-experiment after another (usually ending in misery, as I recall the original What If? constantly doing). You get a little interested in a new iteration of a character but you know it isn’t the “real” one.
yeah, because there’s never been a two-part episode in the history of half-hour entertainment
Like Endgame is some cinematic puzzle only geniuses can decipher. Evil purple man makes half the universe disappear so everyone kills him, then go back in time to fix everything and bring everyone back. Antics ensue but ultimately the good guys win.Even if I hadn’t seen any of them before, it’s spelled out pretty heavily what exactly is going on because at its heart it’s a movie for god damn children.And with What If…?, it was shown in the original trailer all of these characters are getting together to fight Ultron anyways. The Watcher will gather his band of mish-mash avengers and beat Ultron. You can see it coming a mile away and could since the first trailer.
“It does indicate a somewhat disappointing lack of vision from Marvel Studios”Have you ever read, you know, comic books?“But is that all the studio can do?”Yeah, fitting together over a decade worth of stories into something a lot of people enjoy, what a buncha scrubs.“she tries to have her anthology cake and eat it too by suggesting that (other than the finale) there are still episodes of What If…? that work as stand-alone stories.”All of them until the last episode.“If the upcoming season finale is really good, you won’t be able to recommend it to someone who hasn’t seen at least one or two of the other episodes that set it up.”Who’s gonna binge 9 WHOLE EPISODES of a TV show these days, nobody does that kind of thing it’s crazy pants!
Right? And those episodes are, like, 30 minutes long!
That’s a big ask in today’s ‘Nobody watches things on TV anymore’ climate.Oh wait…
30 minutes! Who’s even got time for that these days?!- the developers of quibi, probably
“Have you ever read, you know, comic books?”Damn, that’s harsh.
On the one hand, eh, should be fun.OTOH, yeah, I’d love it if Marvel realized that they have the capacity for small, intimate stories, and What If? could be a perfect vehicle for that.
“What If…? proves that Marvel Studios will never be able to tell a stand-alone story”Okay. And…?
But if every story is just part of the next story, why bother paying attention to any story at all?Remember WandaVision? Everyone had their little theories about how it would set up mutants, the Fantastic Four, Mephisto, Doctor Strange sequel, etc. And it … ended up being a self-contained story, save for two of your usual “And the Adventure Continues” post-credits tags. And some people got pissed! They wanted more than just interconnectivity; they basically wanted to watch a nine-episode preview for other movies and shows. Kinda damned if you do, damned if you don’t, right? Some segment of the audience wants to watch a big trailer made into a traditional three-act story, while another segment bemoans how Marvel just isn’t doing something different with its format.In the end, What If…? is just another nine-episode entry in the world’s giant content mill. It won’t play in syndication endlessly like The Twilight Zone, but it doesn’t need to. That’s not it’s purpose. You’re either in or you’re out at this point.
Hi, I’m Sam Barsanti and I have no idea how the MCU works nor what its actual appeal is and am completely out of touch with everything and my simple nature makes me angry.
This is far from a perfect show, but surely there is some way of talking about it that is somewhere between the extremes of “it’s not the show I was assuming I was going to watch therefore it’s bad” and “here’s a straight recap.” Also there is a difference between a movie that relies on the shared universe as scaffolding and one that winks acknowledgement of it (Doctor Strange comes to mind). Ultimately, though, I really think this particular show, more than any of the other outings, is succeeding as a bridge between the comics and the movies, and the story-telling is very comics-like. It’s okay if that’s not what floats your boat. But I do think it’s trying to do something different and deserves some credit for taking the risk.
I’m surprised that the AV Club is going all in on “Actually the MCU is bad” in between Shang-Chi and the Eternals, both of which boast large diverse casts. I would think they would at least wait until Spider-Man, but what do I know about rage clickbait that seeks to anger people as much as they accuse Facebook of doing.Regardless, the MCU is simply doing what television shows have done for years. Shang-Chi, while ending with Wong, is a complete story of a man relating to his father. in the end, it ties into a bigger story you can follow if you want, or you can say, “that’s neat.” Ant-Man and the Wasp tells a fugitive capture story, but then ends with an ant playing the drums which I’m sure will be followed up on any minute now.You can tell a complete story and have it fit in, which is why so many of these stories include post-credits scene (as in, after the main story) or fun little nods that were nothing new when Bashir showed up to talk to Data about dreams, Angel came home to find a weeping Willow, or the cast of Friends ran into the cast of Mad About you. This is nothing new, it’s just taking advantage of being able to do it on a larger scale. Want to watch just Thor: The Dark World? Go for it. You have a complete story about Thor coming to grips with his mortal love. You want to watch just Captain America: Civil War? Great. That one only tangentially ties into everything as no one would ever act that way previously or again.But “actually, this is bad” is a bit much. They’re all stand alone. Or you can play with them together.
“That’s the problem, though: If the upcoming season finale is really good, you won’t be able to recommend it to someone who hasn’t seen at least one or two of the other episodes that set it up.”Huh? Why would anyone even WANT to watch the season finale of a show they haven’t been watching? This is your criticism? It’s idiotic.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I can’t really think of any show where I’d recommend a season finale as the episode someone should start on. Not even old, non-serialized shows from 30 years ago. Even then the season finale was a time to introduce a twist of some kind that depended on you being familiar with the show and its characters.
I wished I’d watched the series finale of “Newhart”, which imo compared so badly to “The Bob Newhart Show” that I’d stopped watching it .years before.
Or they totally retcon the ENTIRE series into a book the titular character was writing. So called diehard fans still don’t understand this, 20+ years later, declaring it was ALL CANNON[sic], yet still can’t spell her name right. Then she tweets herself out of a career (& attacking her tv son), those same illiterate “diehards” demand she be brought back, ignoring the fact she willingly signed away any and ALL rights to the concept to keep 200+ people working, and attacking the rest of the cast. All the while, she keeps tweeting even crazier shit.
To be fair I think he means recommendations. Tons of people these days hate the slow build up of meeting characters, storylines, etc. Sounds dumb but the ticktock generation aint about to sit through 5 hours of build up in say Breaking Bad to get to the twist and turn of him doing the main thing. Basically, I think this article is talking about the situations where you go to a friend, YOU this new series is really good try it out, they go no cause they have like new recommends from you daily or hate whatever genre, you swear this is different, they don’t care, you say just give it a shot, they watch episode 1 and don’t see why your so attached, turns out it takes several episodes…you then just show them the BIG episode where all the twist and turns come to an end. The excitement overload episode. They come out bored. They didn’t get the reason to care that so and so didn’t do so and so thing. You tell them to watch all 10 hours. They don’t wanna invest. The anthology was suppose to remedy that by having stand alone (critics assumed thoughtful) episodes. Ideas akin to the best black mirror or death and robots and instead got interconnected, you have to understand the marvel world, long form and short storytelling. I see his frustration though i don’t agree. I feel marvel gave everyone a piece of what they want. Long forum so things have stakes, and short form so you can rewatch a stand alone or two.
Sam just says the stupidest things, sometimes.
He’s said it at least ten times by my recollection.
You’re being generous.
It reminds me of the people who tuned into Lost’s last episode then hurriedly typed their reviews “I haven’t watched this for years and I tune in and I don’t understand anything!”
To be fair, I watched Lost for years and understood just about everything that was going on… and how dumb it was.
“M*A*S*H* is the story of a man who’s constantly depressed because he saw a chicken die on a bus this one time”.
-Sammy B
If the show is episodic, then you absolutely can recommend the finale even if someone hasn’t seen the rest of the season. That’s the whole point of it being episodic and not interconnected with the rest of the episodes.
Wasn’t it billed as an anthology series? That word has a meaning.
It’s fucking impossible to offer even the fucking *mildest* critique of the Marvel stuff to these fucking fanatics.Sorry. It’s aggravating. I hate fandoms.
If you listen closely you can just hear it. The world’s smallest violin…
Maybe it was, but I don’t think there’s any reason why something being billed as an anthology (especially when it’s an anthology based on a specific shared universe) mandates that there cannot be any connections between episodes of any kind. There’s plenty of reasons why What If is a cruddy show, but “they didn’t hew perfectly to the most literal meaning of the word ‘anthology’” is about the dumbest argument I can think of.
Yes it was billed as an anthology series, but that doesn’t mean that connections between episodes are forbidden.I generally enjoyed the new Outer Limits (1990s), which was an anthology series, but I would never recommend a season finale as a starting point. In the season finales, they always tried to tie most of the independent stories of the season into one over-arching plot. They were generally pretty weak episodes — glorified clip shows, really — but even if one had been particularly strong I can’t imagine why I’d recommend that over, say, a really good ordinary episode.FWIW I do think “It would be better if the episodes hadn’t been connected” is a perfectly valid criticism. It’s just that “I can’t recommend the season finale as a starting point” isn’t a great supporting argument for that, since the season finale is rarely a good starting point for any series.
I liked the bit about trying to explain the plot of the most seen movie ever to someone who clearly has no interest in the franchise. Why would anyone do that?
Because Sam’s favorite marvel hero is Straw Man.
There are people who watch TV not for stimulation or education, but to familiarize themselves with television because of a perceived sense that said television is culturally important. I don’t fucking get it either.
i mean yeah it’s a two-parter. i’m pretty sure you could easily watch the first part and the second part, which is how you would recommend it.
And both parts together would probably come in at under an hour. So the fact that you can’t just recommend the final 30 minutes of a season to someone unfamiliar with the series is this article’s thesis problem with this show and the MCU writ large. Amazing.
I know lots of people who do this. They watched The Abominable Bride (Sherlock episode) because it was released to cinemas and stars Benedict Cumberbatch, WITHOUT having seen the previous nine episodes of Sherlock. Or girls who’ve seen single episodes of Star Wars, because their boyfriends at the time were Star Wars fans.
I mean, if the show was indeed an an anthology you would be able to show them the season finale devoid of context and then say “look it’s like that, now here’s the others to watch”. It’d be like watching the last episode in a season of Black Mirror.Look I don’t like a lot of Barsanti pieces but it seems like you’re deliberately misreading the article here.
Its all predicated on the current low attention and massive overload of stuff to watch that we all don’t have time to take all the “good” entertainment in. We get super picky to excuse why we cant watch a show unless it perfectly fits our taste instead of telling a compelling story in its own right like an artist. Hence we get hyperbole Blank show is trash, this is peak fiction, watch this, dont watch that. Experiment with blank show is overrated on reddit and no matter the acclaim there is a post saying everything considered good is bad for the show. Its best to just like what you like these days like how music is hard to review. TV critics have gotten too in the weeds. Games still get reviewed by merits that can be calculated, response time, loading, realism, but they too will get too averagely good that they will have to blow us away to be “good”
Wasn’t the point of What If specifically that each episode was its own little thing though?
Tagged out of the MCU using End Game as an excuse. Still happy about my decision.
Yeah, same here. Not any malice directed at the movies or anything – they were fine enough. I’m just done with the story and that was a good jumping off point.(Well, save for Spiderman, probably. Pete is my boy!)
Right, No malice or ill will, It is just easier to be done than try to keep up. And the MCU is so intertwined it is very hard to keep up.
Yeah, it’s super difficult to keep track of two to three movies a year.
I’m fine with someone being done, but this “hard to keep up” is pure hyperbole. In the nearly 2.5 years since Endgame, there have been three movies total and 4 TV shows that didn’t run concurrently, so at most a 1 hour per week investment.
wow you assumed I cared. I meant more about keeping track of all the story lines and characters and if characters and story lines only pop up only ever few years then yes, it is a bother. I rather spend that hour a week doing something else. Sorry, I am a peripheral fan. Did not realize that hyperbole was a criminal offense when taking about comic book movies.
This is a pretty histrionic response for not caring, though. You okay?
“I care so little I am going to angrily rant at you!”
haha that’s so much stuff, though!
“I’m just done with the story and that was a good jumping off point.”
So, you jumped off after it was over. I guess that’s, somehow, a decision…
I stopped after Captain Marvel. I realized I wanted a sequel to that movie but could care about her meeting the Avengers I’d grown tired of. Especially with the glut of stuff released now it’s nice to be able to ignore most of it.
Thanks for the support of my comment. I get it.
From the beginning, Barsanti seemingly has had a detailed list of rules for what this show needed to be. The shows needed to be standalone. The Watcher needed to not intervene. The alternate reality needed to be based on only one change to the MCU. And the show had to be intensely faithful to existing MCU canon (despite being designed to do the exact opposite). Barsanti wrote with anger that the show was “fudging the established canon of the MCU, and if there’s one show that needs to be very careful about doing that, it’s this one.” He’s then gone on to seemingly judge each episode primarily by whether it followed these supposed rules, not by whether it was a compelling episode of TV. He’s less reviewer than referee.Oddly, this has left me sharing Barsanti’s overall take on the series — a mixed bag, but disappointing generally — while totally disagreeing about how he reached that conclusion.
Not to mention how whenever he complained about the show fudging the canon, it was because he had the canon wrong, not the show.I’m reminded of that one Gawker (or it might’ve been Splinter) article in which the writer ranted about an awkwardly shaped spoon, because he didn’t know what a soup spoon is.
SUre, but… he also complained that it wasn’t building up to anything in the first few reviews, too!
You are fundamentally unfit to review this show, or any other MCU property. Not only did you ignore the obvious hints of where the show was headed (included from the trailers before it even premiered), you miss that WandaVision, the first such show, was in fact largely a beautiful stand-alone meditation on grief, with only minimal ties to the larger universe at the very end. Your constant whinging about the MCU shows that you just don’t enjoy it—which is fine, but means you shouldn’t be the one doing these reviews. Fwiw, while this show hasn’t been perfect, it has been pleasant enough, and I’d happily recommend it to anyone. Now go away, and find us a different reviewer.
Barsanti with a disingenuous, ill-informed, and just bad take; film at 11. I second the go away motion.
I agree on Barsanti as he often writes random shit seemingly to just fill out a minimum word count. But I don’t really agree that Wandavision was a standalone story. Could you understand the context of Wanda’s grief and what happened to Vision without watching IW and EG? Maybe, but you’d likely be at least a little confused. Would the Evan Peter jokes have landed without knowing QS died in AoU (and also that Evan Peter played a separate version of same character)? Probably not. Hell, even the supporting cast is made up of random characters from other movies (Darcy, Jimmy, Monica). And we already know SW is in Dr. Strange 2 and there will be some tie-in to the events of the show. We saw White Vision get created and escape to find himself – he almost certainly will return. We saw Monica Rambeau get powers and know she will be in Captain Marvel 2. I really don’t know how you are thinking the show is standalone. It’s filled with all of these references and set-ups for the future. And that’s a good thing (IMO) as one of the main reasons I like the MCU is because it tells bigger, more serialized stories.
I think that WandaVision absolutely works on its own; you can learn everything you need based just off of what is said in the show. It’s enhanced by having watched other things, in the sense that you’ve got a deeper connection to the characters, but it isn’t essential. And now you’re describing sequels, whereas I mean that you can watch WV by itself and get the message.
“I think that WandaVision absolutely works on its own; you can learn everything you need based just off of what is said in the show.”
Well, you’re wrong, but that’s ok.
You can correct me if I am wrong but I thought standalone was a pretty black and white term referring to if a film or show was a part of a larger franchise or not. The references and setup that Wandavision have, in that definition, makes it definitively not standalone.Your point is more that the show can stand on its own, which to me is different than standalone. I don’t really know it if it can or not – I went into it having watched everything else in the MCU and have no way to gauge if the show would have worked for me without knowing who the characters were and what the setup was ahead of time.
but I thought standalone was a pretty black and white term referring to
if a film or show was a part of a larger franchise or not.
Now you’re just arguing semantics.WandaVision stands on its own two feet beautifully.
This is a perfect explanation. Fully agree.
My girlfriend and my mom both watched WandaVision without having seen most (my girlfriend) or any (my mom) of the MCU movies, and they felt they got a complete story. Everything that you needed to know about the setup and what happened in previous movies was all explained within the show. Now granted, they probably would have gotten more out of the series having seen the other movies, etc. But they weren’t necessary. I don’t know if I want to get into the whole “Standalone” vs “Can stand on it’s own” thing, but they were able to watch the show on it’s own and enjoy it without further context.
If that’s the definition of stand alone in this conversation, then the author of the article had even less of a point than he ended up having, which is very little. If it can’t be a part of the bigger franchise and be standalone, then this show by nature of being based off of the MCU events, CANNOT be standalone. Ever. No matter where they took the story.
Are the standalone episodes of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex standalone?
Are the standalone episodes of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex standalone?
I’ve heard this argument made exclusively by people who have seen those other instalments (IW, EG, etc), but I’ve never heard this argument made by “someone who has seen nothing else from the MCU yet loved WandaVision”.
Could you understand the context of Wanda’s grief and what happened to Vision without watching IW and EG?
Abso-fuckin’-lutely.If you didn’t know anything about Wanda and Vision going in to this, you had an interesting enough premise that from the first episode hinted something else was going on. And as those hints started getting more and more obvious (including Zombie Vision) then pulling back the curtain to reveal her origin in the penultimate episode was PERFECT.It was no different than a show like LOST, except they had it mapped out for a season and didn’t have to drag it out beyond that.
What’s even weirder about assuming this show would be standalone is the fact that each episode is a retread of events from previous MCU films and the fun comes from being able to identify the twist that’s been changed.
That being said, this show literally is not for someone not initiated with the MCUs content.
Why on earth would you assume otherwise?
WandaVision was that until the last two episodes, when characters started throwing CG bolts at one another and the plot became entirely focused on the Next Marvel Thing. It’s both.
Tbh I think the penultimate episode might’ve been the best one, as a stand-alone episode. It was an amazing exploration of Wanda’s journey. But yeah, the last one was a lot of standard MCU-ness, and that was a bit of a bummer.
waaaaah somebody mildly critiques my favorite corporate product waaaaahhh give us somebody who tells us all the reasons we’re special for liking it waaaaahhh
At this point Disney and Marvel are just trolling people like Sam with this kind of thing. Someone pointed it out elsewhere, the reveal was that this What If show was, in reality, an Exiles origin story. But it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well had they called it that from Day 1.
The Watcher, as narrator, was telling what seemed like individual stories…until Ultron gained enough power to literally break the fourth wall and invade his anthology.It’s awesome, and it caught everyone off guard. Both those not familiar with the comics and those who were.It’s something that Marvel has been doing more and more with lately. Starting most noteably with the Mandarin back in IM3 and building up to stuff like this and Mysterio being just a techbro in FFH.
“unfit to review any MCU property” give me a fucking break it’s reheated fast food intended for literal children, and it’s the most successful movie franchise on the planet, please stop acting like somebody not liking the slop is a direct insult against you, you unbelievably pathetic baby
You’ve said it much nicer than anyone else here.
“You are fundamentally unfit to review this show, or any other MCU property.”Christ almighty, calm the fuck down.
mm I like the review and feel as if Barsanti is attacking a common problem: epic burnout. When every story is a BIG story that forms part of an even GREATER story, eventually you stop noticing how two characters kick about eating at a sushi bar or whatever. What’s the point? Next scene *kaboom* and the bar disintegrates under the latest Krull invasion, one of three invasions in this phase.
So… you think that only someone who inherently enjoys MCU shows should be able to review them? What exactly do you think a review is supposed to be?You’re also welcome to go find a reviewer you enjoy, you know. You don’t have to be here. And you don’t have to agree with a review! But that’s pretty different from demanding that a reviewer be replaced for not agreeing with you.
“Marvel Studios will never be able to tell a stand-alone story”Your tone and coverage of the What If…? series is rather sad and superficial. Any person with a google search ability could easily find that although What If…? ran for 41 years, it often had two-parters and an occasional crossover or even a “What If” told about a previous “What If”.
A further google search would have revealed the Exiles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exiles_(Marvel_Comics)), which debuted in 2001 after What If was temporarily cancelled. It featured a team of “X-Men” where each member was an X-Person from a different Earth/Reality, and it continued the What If…? Stories only from a different, interactive storytelling perspective (Think X-Men meets Sliders meets Quantum Leap). Any fan of Marvel, and more specifically any fan of What If…? not only anticipated a Mutliversal Team Up, we wanted it to happen. Furthermore, knocking the Watcher character for being non interference until he isn’t shows a lack of actual research before writing the article since the Uatu the Watcher’s first appearance in the comic books was in The Fantastic Four Vol 1 #13 in 1963, where the first thing he does is interfere in a skirmish between the Fantastic Four and the Red Ghost, in fact almost every early appearance of Uatu was an interference in the lives of the Fantastic Four and eventually all of Earth (when he helped the Fantastic Four repel Galactus from destroying the planet). You may think we are just overly invested fans acting outraged that someone is demeaning our favorite media, but it is much more than that, these are good stories and in most cases they have stood the test of time. The What If series was always about roads not taken and a chance to see what the Writers and Artists could have done with a story had the Editors not been afraid of damaging a product in the long run. I am happy that Marvel won’t tell standalone stories, when viewers want incongruous adventures that don’t line up properly with previous installments and character/storyline introductions we know we can tune into the DC films.
What until he finds out about MC2 and What if… Spider Girl?
After all, it was in Age Of Ultron that the MCU really started to buckle under the weight of its obligations as a franchise. Started to buckle is a weird way to phrase this as it indicates the MCU has been consistently weighed down by set-ups for future movies ever since AoU. When IMO Phase 3 had little to no issues balancing a bigger story against a bunch of individual movies.
I’d even argue the opposite. Phase 1 was a lot of “here’s an origin story and a fun attraction of what’s coming up!”Most of Phase 2 was a lot of “oh, crap how do we explain where the Avengers are, let’s not really mention it.”Age of Ultron/Ant-Man was like “let’s have fun with it.”
Yea I can see the argument that Phase 2 overall didn’t do a great job with connectivity if that’s your point. I’ve always thought Ultron should have been a factor in IM3 to set up AoU – essentially be the AI that helps Tony out at the end (which would be closer to the comics where Ultron starts out as an aid to Ant-Man before his heel turn). And I really didn’t like how quickly they dropped the Hydra plot after TWS.
fwiw, Agents of SHIELD kept running with Hydra, and found a lot of interesting ways to use them.
I know – have seen entire series and am a fan. Don’t really consider it canon to the main timeline though given how the later seasons went.
I know – have seen entire series and am a fan. Don’t really consider it canon to the main timeline though given how the later seasons went.
Everything up through the end of season 4 has no issues at all. Seasons 5-7 might be in a split timeline because of time-travel shenanigans, but nothing in them actually contradicts the Marvel Studios content.
I think there are issues before S5. S3 shows many super-powered folks showing up but they’re never acknowledged in any movie. S4 features the Darkhold which the MCU used in WandaVision. The books look distinctly different and WandaVision doesn’t reference Ghost Rider taking the book to another dimension at all. Maybe minor, explainable gripes – but to me it’s clear Feige just lost interest in trying to connect with the show and isn’t going to hold his content true to it in future.And then S5-S6 to me are unquestionably not connected to the MCU. I just don’t buy that the Agents would face multiple world-ending threats in S5 and S6 and never even try to get any of the Avengers involved when S2 had an entire plot of them working to get the location of Loki’s scepter to them. They make a very weak reference to Thanos but never do the snap (how could they – the show couldn’t take a five year time jump when not knowing the plan for Endgame).I liked the show a lot and actually thought it got better when it started to do its own thing. But I don’t get why people keep trying to force it into the main continuity of the MCU when the show itself seemed to stop caring about being a part of a world where its agents weren’t the greatest heroes in the world.
S3 shows many super-powered folks showing up but they’re never acknowledged in any movie.They are, just in a subtle way that wouldn’t force casual moviegoers to follow a weekly broadcast TV show that might not even be available in their country to understand: In Civil War, Vision cites exponential growth in the known enhanced population since the events of Iron Man 1. The movie characters up to that point (minus the GotG, who would be completely unknown to Earth) only model linear growth, not exponential. S4 features the Darkhold which the MCU used in WandaVision. The books look distinctly differentS4 established that the book could change appearance, even showing 2 different cover designs onscreen. WandaVision doesn’t reference Ghost Rider taking the book to another dimension at all.Why would it?
a) Agatha has no reason to say any of that to Wanda.
b) It was brought back to our dimension in Runaways S3 anyway. Agatha herself might not even know what had happened with Ghost Rider. I just don’t buy that the Agents would face multiple world-ending threats in S5 and S6 and never even try to get any of the Avengers involved when S2 had an entire plot of them working to get the location of Loki’s scepter to them.In S2, Coulson’s SHIELD was in direct communication with Fury & Hill, who were in direct communication with the Avengers.
In S5, Coulson’s SHIELD had lost most of its resources, & the Avengers had been broken up for almost 2 years, with most of them hiding out off the grid.
The last few episodes of S5 are concurrent with Infinity War, ending before the Snap, so even the resurfaced Avengers are busy.
S6 takes place a whole year later, & as we saw in Endgame, the remaining Avengers are mostly out of the loop (Cap has quit to do counseling, Stark is off in the woods with an infant, Hulk would still be in his 18-month gamma lab work even if he’d started immediately after Thanos’s death, Hawkeye is busy killing people, Thor is spiraling into depression in Norway, Rocket & Nebula & Carol are in space). the show couldn’t take a five year time jump when not knowing the plan for EndgameMore accurately, the show couldn’t take a five-year time jump when not knowing when S6 would air. ABC didn’t commit to a premiere date until the season had finished filming, so AoS couldn’t risk spoiling the big twist of Endgame in case they ended up airing first.
Killing off Strucker was one of the more stupid ideas that Joss had in AoU. The other being to team up Hulk and Black Widow for an undercooked love story.Hydra should have been kept on the table for a few films and dare I say fed back to Agents of Shield. Though that would have required the films acknowledging Marvel’s tv shows.
I will say that I think Age of Ultron is the only bad Marvel film. Not only because it isn’t a good movie on its own, but because so many other films had to change stuff and add stuff to make a lot of Joss’ Age of Ultron decisions less dumb. It did so many things wrong. Killing off Strucker, Widow/Hulk, Widow getting kidnapped for no real reason, Quicksilver getting killed as soon as he’s introduced, making Ultron, who should have been a villain who lasted over an entire phase, into a push-over, and so much more.
They were never gonna do anything in the films that would require keeping up with a weekly broadcast TV show, especially when the movies were opening in countries where the show didn’t air or aired at a later date. Even now, they can’t go too hard into D+ show references, because D+ isn’t even available in every country that gets the movies.They did, however, have some nice subtle easter eggs here & there.
I should clarify that I think Phase 2 was a new thing. They had the big teamup so part of it is “now what?” I don’t think it’s like… terrible (although we get Thor: The Dark World) out of this I do think if you’re to point to growing pains you could point to that era as the biggest sign of it. They had introduced Thanos but also wanted to slow down but also wanted to expand… but they also cracked a very big code in comic film making, one that DC couldn’t do and they owned their biggest characters. (I say this as a Man of Steel/BvS apologist.) i also think post-Endgame has been a bit of a struggle, but I think part of that has been having to shuffle things around due to the pandemic. I think Spider-Man/Black Widow would have been a great epilogue restart. I also think it’s a bit of a problem that the message post Endgame was “If you were an OG Avenger you get to feel grief, but if you were tasked with keeping things together then you’re just a bad person.”
Not sure I really get the points about post-Endgame. Is the thing about not being able to feel grief specific to Wanda?I’ve thought Phase 4 has been decent thus far. WV, Loki, Black Widow, and Shang-Chi have all been enjoyable. I liked a good amount of TFATWS but thought the villain and some of the late reveals were super lame (although I know they had to change the plot late as their original plot was around a pandemic situation). Really excited for Spider-Man and The Eternals.
It’s more that we see things like Wanda being sympathetic because she has her grief, but Hayward is a jerk for… making another Vision and trying to stop a woman from mentally taking over a town. Do we not think he’s been through some stuff with the Snap/Blip? Do we think that he watched a bunch of aliens try to kill the Avengers and destroy the Universe a second time and think he might want to nip this thing in the bud? (but it’s cool because it’s quirky and she only almost killed one person.)Or when Sam and Bucky when through their processing in Falcon and the Winter Soldier… do we not think that John Walker went through some crap because of the Snap/Blip? After 9/11 people were looking to join the military in DROVES to do something. There’s a job opening for Captain America and dude practically gets a “Please boo” sign over his head for 90% of the show. Not that either of these people are “good” but I think the heavy handed framing of “this grief good but this grief bad” without addressing it rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it’s because I’ve had bad experiences with therapy so it’s my personal hangup. But I found it really clumsy and a little dangerous framing.
Hayward lies and manipulates people to gaslight them into believing his agenda and then imprisons them when that doesn’t work. That’s why he’s a jerk.As for Walker, I feel like he got a redemption arc at the end of TFATWS. And TFATWS spent a lot of time on people who were dealing with the aftermath of people returning, the main villains were portrayed in a somewhat sympathetic light despite doing awful, awful things.But maybe the bigger point is neither of those characters were the focus of the shows they were in. Hawkeye would be the good test here as he obviously did not get snapped and has plenty of grief to deal with.
I mean, we could all see this coming. Lego even released a specific minifigure set for the series. Given the events that take place in Loki should have also been a dead giveaway that while Endgame was a nice ending, it will never truly ever be the end.
Somehow the modern revival of the concept of serialized fiction completely broke the ability of some critics to acknowledge it. How, after 29 movies/shows, can anyone still not get this? The MCU has not been standalone since its very first installment’s stinger. Period. It will not be, ever. Period. Not liking that may be valid, but it’s like complaining about every Star Wars movies having stars and wars, or asking for just one James Bond movie to not have any violence.
I won’t be happy until they bring Hulu-Modok into the MCU proper.
That show was so disappointing, the writing was really bland and generic.I’d love to see Lou folded into the MCU though he was hilarious.
I thought Patton+MODOK would be amazing. Then I saw it was Robot Chicken but episodic instead of sketches so I lowered my expectations. Then the show still disappointed me.
If it had been Robot Chicken quality it would have been funnier 🙁
The first 2 episodes were really bland & generic, but it actually improved.
“It does indicate a somewhat disappointing lack of vision from Marvel Studios”
Ah, so having stories connected shows a LACK of vision, does it?
“But if every story is just part of the next story, why bother paying attention to any story at all?”
Yeah, I normally just read the first chapter and the last of a book, because I’M A FUCKING ASSHOLE.
“That’s the problem, though: If the upcoming season finale is really good, you won’t be able to recommend it to someone who hasn’t seen at least one or two of the other episodes that set it up.” This is not a critique of the show.
WHY would someone who isn’t familiar with the MCU be interested IN ANY WAY in a show about alternate versions of characters they don’t know.
Seriously, give you head a shake, dude.
The MCU has been around since 2008, and it’s been a cultural juggernaut for most of that time. It’s crazy that people still don’t get how all the pieces work.
I think it was a critic on this site that said, sometime between Age of Ultron and Infinity War, something along the lines of “10% of every Marvel movie is an advertisement for the next two Marvel movies.” They were right, and that observations has stuck with me ever since.At the best of times those bits are brief, fun, and seamless. At the worst of times all the characters might as well be standing around and asking “Where’s Poochie?”The need to set up multiple future projects in the current project also feeds into the rampant speculation that bogs down audience reaction to the films and shows. Why did so many think WandaVision was going to set up Mephisto, Reed Richards, and the X-Men? Because we know they’re going to set up something and we’re in the habit of picking apart every damned detail to find it, even if it isn’t there because we’re starving for the setup to the movie we want to see, not the movies that we already know are on the slate. When Fantastic Four and X-Men happen we will know years ahead of time.
People thought Mephisto was in Wandavision because it was in a bunch of leaks before the show came out and a lot of fans wanted it to happen. There’s a dedicated subreddit just for fans who are looking for Marvel spoilers. Similarly Evan Peters appearing got leaked and everyone assumed he was playing the Fox version of Quicksilver (which the writers obviously had some fun with).I don’t think Marvel movies / shows are actually that heavy-handed with their set-up for future movies or shows outside of the end-credit scenes they have. In most cases, it’s fans grasping at anything to confirm their own theories of what is coming next. And then being outrageously upset when they’re not right.I honestly couldn’t believe how many people were butthurt about the Ralph Bohner thing. It was kind of hilarious actually.
I honestly couldn’t believe how many people were butthurt about the Ralph Bohner thing. It was kind of hilarious actually.A-freaking-men. All of these maniacs are out there complaining “but he could’ve been the real Fox Quicksilver!” NO, HE COULDN’T. Maybe he could’ve been “Paul Green” instead of “Ralph Bohner”, but he was never gonna be the actual Fox-universe Pietro.
“rampant speculation that bogs down audience reaction to the films and shows.”yes!
I find I have this same problem watching CNN.
This is a deeply stupid article.
I don’t hate this direction that What If? is taking, but I did absolutely find myself eye-rolling when it became clear they were going to tie things together.
Huh, I guess unlike everyone here, despite being on this site often, I didn’t see all the teasers that this was going to fully crossover and become a MCU brick, so I did want What if? to be a loose anthology like the comics. (Not end with everything dies at the end all the time.)I’m not surprised that’s not the case, but I do think it but despite everyone saying that they always sold it this way, the story constraints are more visible than expected when every product is scaffolding for the universe. The animation itself leaning to visual fidelity too, it all feels a little staid and stale? Maybe it’s just that the baseline MCU tone of semi-seriousity feels more dominant here, but even if What if…’s storylines stay with What if, it is an Avengers team-up instead of say, more Exiles-like.I dunno, the MCU is big enough that they could’ve flexed more. What if for me is overall a mild disappointment.
Jesus, Sam….what do you want this show to even be at this point?
Here’s what happened: Marvel and Disney fooled people. And now those people are mad.It’s been happening quite a bit in the MCU lately. Starting with stuff like the Mandarin in IM3, and Mysterio being some techbro in Far From Home instead of an interdimensional magician.It’s why I’m still banking on No Way Home’s reveal being that it’s about something other than the multiverse. Because Marvel’s trick with the MCU lately has been advertising a movie that comic saavy fans think they’ve got figured out, but then they sit down and get a fun pot twist that still works for non-comic saavy fans.That was What If.This show, all along, has been an Exiles origin story. But they couldn’t call it that from day 1 because it would have made people focus on the bigger picture the whole time instead of slowly drawing the connections as the episodes went on.The Watcher’s behavior wouldn’t have been as interesting, because we’d have already known where it was leading instead of mindful viewers seeing it build.We, the viewers of What If, were being told numerous (seemingly) unrelated tales by the Watcher. Until one day one of the characters he was telling us about gained enough power to break the fourth wall and invade his anthology.It’d be like if, during Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, William Shatner interrupted Rod Serling’s narration to beg him to tell everyone he’s not crazy and that he too can see the gremlin on the plane.Or if, in the course of To Serve Man, the episode ended with the aliens turning to Rod and saying “Wait, who are you talking to?” and realizing there were whole new worlds out there to invade and devour.
So this article casually spoils both the end credits of Shang-Chi and Venom 2 without a disclaimer. Barsanti is a hack.
What If….I just stopped watching all this stupid shit?
Why would you recommend the finale of a series of TV to someone if they haven’t seen the previous episodes. That’s a stupid argument to make.
I get that it’s your mission to find a reason to hate this show but Barsanti, I must say, your reviews of this have not been enjoyable.
I continue to be bemusedly mystified by the suggestion that the interconnected nature of the MCU is a flaw. It’s not a bug or flaw, it’s a feature. Literally, from the post-credits stinger of Iron Man, it’s kind of the point. Now, some entries do a better job of balancing that feature with stories that function as self-contained narratives (GOTG, Black Panther, Shang-Chi) while others are more explicitly dependent on those connections (Ultron, Civil War, Endgame), but to criticize portions of a serialized franchise simply because they are, indeed, portions of a serialized franchise, is odd. Not for nothing, Marvel is the only studio that’s been able to do this well. One only needs look at the Daniel Craig Bond era to see what happens when someone tries to impose connective arc tissue onto a narrative that doesn’t require it.
I think most marvel fans consider the shared universe part of the fun. Otherwise you get shit like Ben Afflecks Daredevil where Kingpin dies during their first encounter.
The first two Guardians movies were pretty much standalone. The team was separated from the rest of the MCU and Gunn made sure that both films stood on their own, even if GOTG 2 was definitely a sequel. Sadly, Infinity War and Endgame had major developments for the team that can’t be ignored.This is the worst part the MCU could have taken from the comics. All those events that required me to read a bunch of different series killed my interest in the medium.
Wasn’t this site proclaiming a while back that it’s not connected enough the bigger MCU narrative?
Same author!
The sheer number of people in these comments furious that someone doesn’t like the thing they like shows just what sore winners nerds can be.
Guess we can’t all be cool guys like you.
You don’t have to be cool. You just have to realize it’s a TV show, and not your entire existence.
You know me so well. But I do realize a TV show is not my whole existence, thanks
“But I do realize a TV show is not my whole existence, thanks”Then fucking act like it.
Such rage.
I’ve read all the comments, no one is furious. You probably gaslight everyone in your life.
i will say, having followed along with the reviews, barsanti’s takes have been a little puzzling and frustrating, and he has gotten hung up on a lot of things he’s gotten outright wrong.that being said, it is funny that people act like these things are grassroots efforts that need support to exist, and not an entire industrial complex unto itself that will outlive us all.
People seem way too heated about someone having a different view on a thing than they do.
That really isn’t what’s happening, chum. It’s Barsanti’s actual reviews and seeming inability to actually remember what’s happening. It’s not a take written in good faith, and neither have his reviews of What If.
Are you really surprised nerds get worked up about someone being wrong in the internet?
I don’t think we’re surprised they get angry. I think we’re surprised this is still a thing. We’ve had decades of nerd rage, and it’s fucking tiresome.
Hmmm, how about… don’t read the comments on an article about nerdy things? Wow, I just fixed your HUGE PROBLEM that bothers you SO much. Either I’m a genius or you’re… ya probably the second option.
People aren’t angry that the MCU is being critiqued, it’s that it’s a poorly reasoned critique that gets both the premise of the show and its major plot points utterly wrong.It’d be like criticising Pulp Fiction for continuity errors because you weren’t paying attention and didn’t realise the scenes were out of order.
I’m sure Marvel COULD tell a standalone story if they wanted but most fans would rather they didn’t because having a shared, interconnected universe is half the fun.
It was obvious from the very first episode that it was all building up to something.
I find it frustrating that I have to read all the paragraphs of this article to understand what the full article is about? Why can’t the author craft each paragraph as a stand alone thought without the need of the context of the other paragraphs?
This kind of shared-universe serializing doesn’t bother me so much with movies, perhaps because movies have so much room to sprawl (and also because it is a relatively new thing). Serialized TV, on the other hand, often loses me. It’s not that I don’t like the idea of telling stories this way, but it’s prevalence has led to a certain laziness in plotting. Many serialized shows I’ve watched over the last decade or so has felt like it maps out a story arc for a season and then just kind of kills time between plot points with filler subplots/character bits.
While I enjoy all of the Netflix Marvel shows (excl. Iron First), I would say *all* of them fall into that trap. They have so much time filling between the plot points.
Oh yeah all of those shows could have used at least 2 fewer episodes in every season.
The solo seasons could’ve each been 2 episodes shorter, but Defenders itself needed to be 2 episodes longer.
Why would they change what has worked for them for over a decade and has won them countless billions of dollars and almost uniformly solid reviews?
But if every story is just part of the next story, why bother paying attention to any story at all?Yeah, not all of us are lazy, entitled millennial nihilists but thanks for checking
The serialized, interlinked storytelling is the MCU’s secret weapon. If you want standalone movies and shows that have nothing to do with each other, go to DC.
That’s the problem, though: If the upcoming season finale is really good, you won’t be able to recommend it to someone who hasn’t seen at least one or two of the other episodes that set it up. Which, even if you don’t think it’s a big issue, has been an issue with the MCU for a long time. (Try explaining a single plot point of Endgame to someone who hasn’t seen at least two or three of the other movies.)Yeah… but the whole point of What If… relies entirely of knowledge of who these characters are and their previously existing character arcs. What If… T’Challa was Starlord only works if you’ve seen three other MCU movies. What If… Killmonger saved Tony Stark requires knowledge of three or four. The whole concept of “this show doesn’t work if some theoretical person hasn’t seen the previous 8 episodes” rings false when watching those episodes would take 2-1/2 hours while watching the required movies that set-up those episodes would take 32 hours. If they’re willing to watch 16+ MCU movies already, they should be willing to sit down for a mostly stand-alone anthology show…
“…Marvel Studios, which established the shared universe stunningly well,
better than any one before it and any who have tried it since. But is
that all the studio can do?”They do one thing, and stunningly well.
What exactly do you want?
Is making cars the only thing Porsche can do?
Count on Marvel Zombies to be complete and utter turds about this article.I hope the Great Mouse Satan tosses you all in a lake of Flaming Hot Mountain Dew, you corporatist stans.
kill yourself
Tell me you didn’t read the article without telling me you didn’t read the article.
After watching Star Wars: Visions, that is what I would have loved to see Marvel try and do with What If…? originally. But they just played it safe (except the zombies episode, definitely the stand out one). I enjoyed the show and was impressed with them retaining the actors none the less.
I pity the desperate fucking idiot who was paid to this stupid, unnecessary article
I swear to God, I don’t think you actually watched the evil Dr. Strange episode. This is the second time you’ve acted surprised that he survived and like it’s some sort of narrative trick that he’s in a “pocket universe”, when the episode ended quite explicitly on Strange trapped, all by himself, in the universe he destroyed. It was absolutely as crystal clear as it could be!
People are up in these comments are getting so mad about this criticism of the MCU you’d think Martin Scorsese guest wrote the piece.
People aren’t angry that the MCU is being critiqued, it’s that it’s a poorly reasoned critique that gets both the premise of the show and its major plot points utterly wrong.It’d be like criticising Pulp Fiction for continuity errors because you weren’t paying attention and didn’t realise the scenes were out of order.
Halfway through the movie, Vincent is killed, and then he’s there for the whole last third with no explanation whatsoever. What sloppy writing.
Why wait. Just give the season finale the C – now.
What If… people stopped writing articles bitching about What If?
Dammit, I got tricked into clicking on another terrible Sam Barsanti piece. I should have noticed the half-hearted, middle-school debate class attempt at defending a garbage position.
This proves any idiot can turn any completely irrelevant “point” into an article and get away with it these days. Wish the internet had a filter button. Switch it on and garbage like this just never shows up to annoying you in the first place. What a moron.
Seems like mines is an unpopular opinion while skimming through some of the responses but I agree with the OP. Growing up as a kid the ‘What if..?’ comics were some of my favorite comics. I was really looking forward to this series when it was announced.Then when you started to watch it, you realize it’s just the MCU with slight changes. No risks are being taken. No new characters being introduced. It’s barely even a ‘What if..?’. It’s just this person is a ginger now, that one is white instead of black and Tony has a pet poodle. Zero risks. And now they took a comic series that’s always been one off standalone comics and made it an interconnected series. Literslly, the series finale connects the entire season together. We just watched the MCU-End Game version for ‘What if..?’. Marvel could’ve done so much more with this and missed that opportunity to instead just deliver more of the same. But reading the comments below, it seems like that’s fine with most. People like simple things and mediocrity. Most people don’t take risks, chances, or bet on the underdog. The comments below point to that but the shows ratings point to the fact that they really didn’t have anything to lose by taking a risk. The shows ratings are barely on the chart, might as well have taken a chance.
I never expected ‘risks’. I always read What If comics as stand-alone hypothetical scenarios, having no impact on other comics.
AVCLub: “What If…? is too dark and sad”
What If: [Releases goofiest ever Thor episode]
AVClub: “What If…? proves that Marvel can’t tell standalones”
What If: [Ends series neatly tying up every plot thread]
Imma ‘bout to blow your mind: if someone decides to take some stand-alone stories, and write another story that ties them together, that doesn’t mean that people can no longer enjoy the previous stand-alone stories as just that. See also: The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, various stand-alone Star Trek episodes and later and longer story arcs that referred to the earlier ones, a whole bunch of Stephen King stories and the Dark Tower saga.
This whole thing is cool but dumb… In Loki the TVA had drawers full of infinity stones that didn’t work. Even Loki’s own tesseract didn’t work. As soon as Ultron broke out of his reality he should have been depowered to where the watcher could easily wipe him out of existence.
lol I already guessed this was another Sam Barsanti garbage article before seeing the author
Because it’s good story telling. And if your a true fan, which when it comes to the MCU there are at least a billion!, we all look forward to what’s next, why end a good thing. And the only superhero fatigue is let’s be honest coming from those who don’t like superhero movies. It sucks that there isn’t a continuing story arc out there that interest you. But that isn’t the fans or the hard working folks of the MCUs fault. So please don’t come out trying to rain criticism all over our parade of glory. Honestly that’s kind of childish, like everyone is playing the game you don’t like so your gonna sulk and whine about it. I would say if you want to criticize superhero movies DC has issues but they get enough criticism from their own fans. Not trying to be rude and mean no disrespect this is America and your entitled to your opinion, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a bit of humility when expressing it. Sincerely,Life long Marvel fan, Jeremy Skinner
I did think it was building to something, given that (as you said) the Watcher was looming ever more prominently with every new episode, and they teased the idea that people inside the Multiverse could become aware of him. That said, I wish they’d done something more interesting in that finale episode. It’s fine, but it’s just an Avengers-style brawl with quips – I guess I was expecting something more clever, especially since Dr Strange was at the center of it and his live-action movie ended with him defeating a far more powerful being through cleverness and magic. Oh well. I enjoyed a lot of the “What If?” episodes, and I hope for more next season.