Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread

[Marsden]

Iron Man especially never has to stop. First, he's a suit and doesn't even need to have an actor, just a stuntman, Iron Man 3 proves that on screen. So if Iron Man needs to say something have RJD talk into a tape recorder and then loop it into the movie. How physically demanding is it to show his face in the helmet? And even without the face shots, the suit is Iron Man. Even Spider Man or Hulk can show up without even getting an actor. The others can have stunt doubles in costumes, although that's a little harder for Black Widow because she doesn't have any mask at all. These characters can and should last forever. That's not to say they have to be the sole focus of all movies or any, they can be the characters in the part toward the begining or end or just mentioned in passing, but they can always be there. With how good Chris Evans looked as skinny Steve Rogers, I don't think anyone can "not be replaced"

 

[bbjeg]

^In the comics, Johnny Storm should be 70 by now, Spider-Man should be 73 and Professor X was already old back in 1963 (I would say he should be dead, but he already did that). I doubt they plan to retire their characters. Why should they in the movies?

 

[Star Wolf]

^In the comics, Johnny Storm should be 70 by now, Spider-Man should be 73 and Professor X was already old back in 1963 (I would say he should be dead, but he already did that). I doubt they plan to retire their characters. Why should they in the movies?

It would be more like a band retiring to return after an amount of time for a reunion tour. I guess the object is not the constat churn and reboot the same time period leaving many saying "another origin, story already" as the Spiderman franchise did.

However rebooting Tony Stark from a Viet Cong to a Taliban/10 Rings prisoner and who knows an ISIS prisoner in the future means rebooting the entire MCU like the Star Trek franchise was.

 

[bbjeg]

I say don't reboot, replace. As seamlessly as Ruffalo and Cheadle.

 

[Star Wolf]

I say don't reboot, replace. As seamlessly as Ruffalo and Cheadle.

However Banner being "enhanced" to use current Marvel terminology can age at a different rate and be seamless. Col Rhodes starts as a man approaching or in his middle ages doesn't have many more usable years as a character left in him.

 

[Venardhi]

^In the comics, Johnny Storm should be 70 by now, Spider-Man should be 73 and Professor X was already old back in 1963 (I would say he should be dead, but he already did that). I doubt they plan to retire their characters. Why should they in the movies?

The Marvel sliding timeline works in tandem with time dilation/compression. Everything before the 60s happened in basically real time, but everything since is becoming increasingly compressed and moved forward to account for the lack of aging by the characters. By the end of the 70s, nearly a decade had passed in the Marvel universe, but today only about 15 years have.

Some version of all events has occurred, but details have changed retroactively to correct for events from 2000-2015 being inherently different from events occurring in say, the 1980 version of the timeline which would suggest most of the characters first appeared in the late 60s or early 70s. Vietnam became Afghanistan, Captain America being frozen for a couple decades was stretched into 50 years or more, etc.

It is best not to dwell on it.

That said, the MCU is a different beast entirely and so far it would seem time is passing without any of these effects in place. Comics tend towards keeping the status quo in place, no matter what changes occur in a specific storyline. Eventually things always come back around to the familiar formula if nothing else. Every comic may be someone's first, after all.

For films, on the other hand, that kind of lack of long-term consequences is usually seen as a flaw in the storytelling. Having characters actually die, or be put out of commission for a few years, or retire, etc. could help the world feel more real with real consequences, not to mention it opens up slots in the release schedule to do films for characters who otherwise would be stuck in supporting roles.

In any case, I'm not sure if I have a point anymore. It is way too early for me.

 

[bbjeg]

^In the comics, Johnny Storm should be 70 by now, Spider-Man should be 73 and Professor X was already old back in 1963 (I would say he should be dead, but he already did that). I doubt they plan to retire their characters. Why should they in the movies?

The Marvel sliding timeline works in tandem with time dilation/compression. Everything before the 60s happened in basically real time, but everything since is becoming increasingly compressed and moved forward to account for the lack of aging by the characters. By the end of the 70s, nearly a decade had passed in the Marvel universe, but today only about 15 years have.

Some version of all events has occurred, but details have changed retroactively to correct for events from 2000-2015 being inherently different from events occurring in say, the 1980 version of the timeline which would suggest most of the characters first appeared in the late 60s or early 70s. Vietnam became Afghanistan, Captain America being frozen for a couple decades was stretched into 50 years or more, etc.

That's why I like Astonishing X-Men. It acts as if Uncanny X-Men (the comic series I switched from) happened, but the ages were adjusted and World Wars and Vietnam became Afghanistan and whatnot.

That said, the MCU is a different beast entirely and so far it would seem time is passing without any of these effects in place. Comics tend towards keeping the status quo in place, no matter what changes occur in a specific storyline. Eventually things always come back around to the familiar formula if nothing else. Every comic may be someone's first, after all.

For films, on the other hand, that kind of lack of long-term consequences is usually seen as a flaw in the storytelling. Having characters actually die, or be put out of commission for a few years, or retire, etc. could help the world feel more real with real consequences, not to mention it opens up slots in the release schedule to do films for characters who otherwise would be stuck in supporting roles...

I don't think so. Think of the Batman franchise, namely Keaton, Kilmer, and Clooney's Batman. Though it was different actors, it was one story and the Dark Knight series is doing the same thing with Affleck taking the helm. And those are situations where lead characters have been replaced.

 

[Venardhi]

There was very little actual continuity in the Burton/Schumaker Batman Movies though, more comparable to the James Bond films before Casino Royale than the MCU. Everything I've seen suggests Affleck is definitely not playing the same Batman from the Begins/Dark Knight trilogy, whose story came to a fairly definitive end in the last movie. They're borrowing a few aspects of the character and universe of those films, but it is a pretty firm reboot.

 

[bbjeg]

James Bond is a better analogy. I was just shuffling avatars on my deviantart page and I got Clooney's Bat-Nipples stuck in my head.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I say don't reboot, replace. As seamlessly as Ruffalo and Cheadle.

However Banner being "enhanced" to use current Marvel terminology can age at a different rate and be seamless. Col Rhodes starts as a man approaching or in his middle ages doesn't have many more usable years as a character left in him.

Cheadle has to age. Rhodes does not. If Cheadle quits or gets too old a new actor can play Rhodes.

 

[bbjeg]

^I think it could even work for a main character like Iron Man, at least after the character is sat on the shelf for awhile while other Avengers take the lead.

 

[JoeZhang]

I say don't reboot, replace. As seamlessly as Ruffalo and Cheadle.

However Banner being "enhanced" to use current Marvel terminology can age at a different rate and be seamless. Col Rhodes starts as a man approaching or in his middle ages doesn't have many more usable years as a character left in him.

I just don't get why you need that level of complexity, the public will just accept a recast without problem in the same way they did with Bond for 35 odd years before they started again.

 

[Star Wolf]

I say don't reboot, replace. As seamlessly as Ruffalo and Cheadle.

However Banner being "enhanced" to use current Marvel terminology can age at a different rate and be seamless. Col Rhodes starts as a man approaching or in his middle ages doesn't have many more usable years as a character left in him.

I just don't get why you need that level of complexity, the public will just accept a recast without problem in the same way they did with Bond for 35 odd years before they started again.

Because you only have Bond and his support staff not a gaggle of other heroes moving back and forth across the age spectrum relative to RDJ and his replacement

 

[JoeZhang]

However Banner being "enhanced" to use current Marvel terminology can age at a different rate and be seamless. Col Rhodes starts as a man approaching or in his middle ages doesn't have many more usable years as a character left in him.

I just don't get why you need that level of complexity, the public will just accept a recast without problem in the same way they did with Bond for 35 odd years before they started again.

Because you only have Bond and his support staff not a gaggle of other heroes moving back and forth across the age spectrum relative to RDJ and his replacement

Your 'because' is really use a restatement of your original point - I just don't see normal people give a crap as long as the story is good and shit blows up. These are fairly dumb (but extremely well made) bits of entertainment nut a retelling of actual history.

 

[ATimson]

Would we rather the charcters be retired or recast ? Ask yourself how you feel about a new Wolverine over in the X-Men movies...

I can deal with recasts due to contract fallouts like Banner and Rhodes.

But recasts because the actors are getting too old? Well, that means the character's gotten too old too. I would have trouble dealing with Tony Stark suddenly aging down from 55 to 30 overnight.

Besides, I don't think anybody can really replace RDJ at this point. He's done such a good job of owning that role. Whoever took over would have a long row to hoe.

I won't say recasts would make me quit, but I'd definitely have to think long and hard about it.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

But recasts because the actors are getting too old? Well, that means the character's gotten too old too. I would have trouble dealing with Tony Stark suddenly aging down from 55 to 30 overnight.

You mean like how James Bond would have gone from 58 to 33 if Brosnan had been available after Moore retired from the role.

 

[Reverend]

^The Bond movies were never big on continuity, the Marvel movies are practically built on continuity.

Recasting because of contract disputes is one thing, doing so because an actor is too old is something else entirely. It makes more sense to rotate some of the old guard to supporting roles, put on the proverbial bus or simply killed off. Indeed, if Stark's role in Civil War is as I suspect then the former option seems to already be in motion.
There's plenty of other characters they can bring to the forefront, a few already seem to be, several more are already in the pipeline and I can think of even more they haven't touched yet just off the top of my head.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

^The Bond movies were never big on continuity, the Marvel movies are practically built on continuity.

They are also based on a universe which doesn't mind fudging the continuity especially since I doubt many people will care.

 

[JoeZhang]

^The Bond movies were never big on continuity, the Marvel movies are practically built on continuity.

So are the comics - which is why Franklin Richards and Billy Baston now have children of their own.

 

[Reverend]

^The Bond movies were never big on continuity, the Marvel movies are practically built on continuity.

So are the comics - which is why Franklin Richards and Billy Baston now have children of their own.

Well yes and no. Both Marvel & DC habitually recalibrate things every few years.
While DC seems to like using reality bending crises to clear the boards and relaunch/retire certain titles, Marvel's perpetually sliding time scale is something you can get away with in print, but in live action it's not terribly viable. Real actors age and just recasting/soft rebooting when they get to old would be very jarring.

Besides, since 'Avengers' they seem to want to keep the MCU advancing more or less in real time. Possibly an artefact of having an ongoing TV series between the movies but probably just as much about keeping things in the "now" whenever they're released.

If that continues then it'd make sense that they intend to carry on building and expanding on what they've achieved rather than building it from the ground up every few years.

I see no reason why for the foreseeable future, Stark becomes less of a central character and more of a supporting presence like Fury.