Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread

[Christopher]

No one is saying they want one thing. All I'm asking for is they keep the tone relatively the same. It's a shared universe. With crossover stories. It's jarring for one piece of the story to have an extremely dark tone and the next piece to be sillier than Batman 66 type of comedy. A bit of light comedy is fine. But going to the extreme is to much ..

I disagree entirely. Look at real life. Sometimes it's fun and silly and ridiculous, sometimes it's somber and tragic and awful. They coexist in reality, so they can coexist in a fictional universe. It's no more "jarring" in fiction than it is in real life.

Okay, if it's a universe that aspires to a certain degree of realism, like, say, the Law & Order franchise or the Star Trek franchise (optimally), then yes, I'd agree that it's best to keep the humor within the bounds of plausibility and not do things like blatantly breaking the fourth wall. But Marvel is, and always has been, a fantasy universe, one where staying within credible bounds was never really on the table, given that its first two superheroes were a robot who burst into flames and a merman who could fly with little bitty wings on his ankles. Heck, the Fantastic Four frequently broke the fourth wall in early issues, answering their readers' questions and calling up Stan and Jack at the Marvel offices to talk about the next issue. They handwaved it as an in-universe version of Marvel Comics publishing books based on their real-life adventures, but it was just an excuse for going meta and not taking the comics' "reality" too seriously.

Or anger over a prequel series like Enterprise that actually went out of its way to try to line up with an established tone and continuity.
Now we have people perfectly fine with series like Star Trek Discovery and Strange New Worlds that deviate farther from established continuity than ever before.

Maybe I'm missing something.

You're missing the obvious, that the audience never has just one reaction. There were plenty of people who were fine with Enterprise; they were just drowned out by the constant, loud complaints of the haters. And I see plenty of equally loud complaints about the current shows, alongside those who are fine with them. This has always been so, with every new incarnation of Trek from the animated series onward -- there are always some fans who scream bloody murder about how the new series is "not true Trek" and will doom the franchise forever, but they're outnumbered by the quieter majority that watches the shows in large enough numbers that the franchise continues to thrive.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I think the problem is that...well, folks have become impatient. They wanted something done IMMEDIATELY about the dead Celestial.

For all we know, Eternals happened chronologically the last movie in Phase 4 and that's why no one reacted, because it hadn't happened yet. We just need to be patient.

The events of Eternals were acknowledged in She-Hulk in a news headline.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Jeremy Renner is critical but stable after a snowplough accident. Not sure if he was scheduled to be in any Marvel productions in the short term but either way I’m sure we all wish him a full and swift recovery https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64143964

The snow cat apparently ran over his leg. I would be shocked if he didn't walk with a limp for the rest of his life.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

All I'm asking for is they keep the tone relatively the same. It's a shared universe. With crossover stories.

Not an unreasonable request and observation.

It's jarring for one piece of the story to have an extremely dark tone and the next piece to be sillier than Batman 66 type of comedy. A bit of light comedy is fine. But going to the extreme is to much

True; there's a reason the majority of Silver Age Marvel did not have the interpretation of its main, serious universe of superheroes mix with the comedy / goofiness of its satire title Not Brand Ecch, where characters were comedically idiotic, shifting the perception of each (as expected in a satire comic book) from what was known about them in the serious line (which was light on overt comic relief).

Now we have people perfectly fine with series like Star Trek Discovery and Strange New Worlds that deviate farther from established continuity than ever before.

That's an ongoing conversation in Trek fandom circles, with some arguing DISC and SNW are set in alternate universes (accusations that the showrunners are trying to re-invent ST to suit their needs/vision is not uncommon), as there's no way they could be a part of the progression of TOS/TAS/TOS-movies/TNG,DS9, etc.

In She Hulk we have Daredevil dropping unexpectedly out of camera shot into frame with a look of bewilderment......

...yes...

I'm sure the next Deadpool will take it to even sillier depths....

Of course; its the gimmick that will not be toned down, but ramped up.

Marvel has been doing that since they started the MCU and it's both a curse and a blessing. On the one (blessing) side it lets a grander storyline gradually evolve and gives the more knowledgeable tons of easter eggs to discover and possible clues to the next development ( which turn out to be wrong sometimes because the MCU has a habit of adapting the comics and changing things quite a bit).

On the curse side it sometimes overpowers the movie - Thor: The Dark World for example ( in my opinion) and leads formulaic storytelling and forceful introduction of elements that don't feel organic to the story of the movie but that's also the MCU and part of the reason why some directors and writers walked out on a project because they didn't have the creative control they were used to.

That's a concern I have for CA4--that Adamantium and all its leading to will be the bullhorn in the room, bumping any organically created story (at least for Sam and Isaiah) continuing from TFATWS to sub-plot status.

Concerning Cap 4 returning to social issues once again just because the new Cap is a black superhero would just be retreading old ground, they covered that aspect in the show well enough.

Sam as a black Captain America would still be an issue for many in the world--even if CA4 is set several years after he took on the role; Sam and Isaiah both talked about how the world would see him (Sam), and it should be a component of his relationships / treatment going forward--including his association with government figures (as in the president and/or some in America's intelligence apparatus).

If they use Cap 4 as a diving board to lay the groundwork for Wolverine's adamantium skeleton is just something i expect the MCU to do. The details are important though - does the movie's story work on its own or is that mandated inclusion overpowering and dominating the story? Even if it may still be a good Cap story, just a different one in style to the Steve Rogers movies.

We will see, but Sam is supposed to be the MCU Cap going forward, so he will need stories that continue to build on his identity / purpose in that role, similar to the way The First Avenger & The Winter Soldier built Steve Rogers' own purpose.

 

[Dar70]

I disagree entirely. Look at real life. Sometimes it's fun and silly and ridiculous, sometimes it's somber and tragic and awful. They coexist in reality, so they can coexist in a fictional universe. It's no more "jarring" in fiction than it is in real life.

Okay, if it's a universe that aspires to a certain degree of realism, like, say, the Law & Order franchise or the Star Trek franchise (optimally), then yes, I'd agree that it's best to keep the humor within the bounds of plausibility and not do things like blatantly breaking the fourth wall. But Marvel is, and always has been, a fantasy universe, one where staying within credible bounds was never really on the table, given that its first two superheroes were a robot who burst into flames and a merman who could fly with little bitty wings on his ankles. Heck, the Fantastic Four frequently broke the fourth wall in early issues, answering their readers' questions and calling up Stan and Jack at the Marvel offices to talk about the next issue. They handwaved it as an in-universe version of Marvel Comics publishing books based on their real-life adventures, but it was just an excuse for going meta and not taking the comics' "reality" too seriously.





You're missing the obvious, that the audience never has just one reaction. There were plenty of people who were fine with Enterprise; they were just drowned out by the constant, loud complaints of the haters. And I see plenty of equally loud complaints about the current shows, alongside those who are fine with them. This has always been so, with every new incarnation of Trek from the animated series onward -- there are always some fans who scream bloody murder about how the new series is "not true Trek" and will doom the franchise forever, but they're outnumbered by the quieter majority that watches the shows in large enough numbers that the franchise continues to thrive.

Yeah, i know there were various reactions to Enterprise. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong. I'm mostly going by how it was accepted here at TBBS at the time. The feelings around here didn't seem all too favorable towards Enterprise, especially when it came to the look of the show, theme song and little continuity errors. Disco and SNW seem to be a much more accepted around here, no matter the level of retconning taking place. Of course many have come and gone since Enterprise. So I could be totally off base here.

 

[theenglish]

Yeah, i know there were various reactions to Enterprise. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong. I'm mostly going by how it was accepted here at TBBS at the time. The feelings around here didn't seem all too favorable towards Enterprise, especially when it came to the look of the show, theme song and little continuity errors. Disco and SNW seem to be a much more accepted around here, no matter the level of retconning taking place. Of course many have come and gone since Enterprise. So I could be totally off base here.

It's been a long time since Enterprise. The new shows are as far removed from it as TNG was from TOS. I liked Enterprise well enough, but there were a lot of really bad episodes, especially in the second season. I also didn't like a lot of what they did in the fourth season as it came across as pandering to fan wishes and a lot of it wasn't much better than fanfic. We didn't need explanations for Klingon foreheads, and despite what fans said there wasn't a problem with the Vulcans that needed fixing.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, i know there were various reactions to Enterprise. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong. I'm mostly going by how it was accepted here at TBBS at the time.

Internet posters are not a statistically representative sample of the audience. Only a very small percentage of the audience posts online, and those who do are self-selected, hardly a random sampling. Also, as a rule, the people with the most negative opinions of a thing are disproportionately represented in internet posts, or in audience letters in the old days, since people who are upset with something are more likely to want to speak up than people who are satisfied with it. So comments on audience forums are usually skewed toward the negative.

If you only paid attention to the comments on this BBS, you would've thought the Kelvin Star Trek movies were an absolute failure, almost universally hated. But in reality, outside the echo chamber of social media, the first couple were the most popular, most profitable movies in the Trek franchise's history. Ignore the echo chamber; just focus on how well the show or movie actually does.

The feelings around here didn't seem all too favorable towards Enterprise, especially when it came to the look of the show, theme song and little continuity errors. Disco and SNW seem to be a much more accepted around here, no matter the level of retconning taking place. Of course many have come and gone since Enterprise. So I could be totally off base here.

I see just as much intense negativity here about Discovery and Picard as I saw about ENT and Kelvin. SNW has been pretty well-received by contrast.

 

[Nerys Myk]

All I'm asking for is they keep the tone relatively the same. It's a shared universe. With crossover stories.

In the 70's, Howard the Duck and Spider-man existed in the same universe and managed to have different tones. We also had Tomb of Dracula and Master of Kung-Fu existing in that universe with Howard and Spidey.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

It feels to me anyways ..that the films are going the way of the books. Too much product hitting at once and in some cases you need to watch a certain film or series to get the full story.

It seems at least the D+ shows have been somewhat manageable than the past and I don't think they've overlapped. At one point we had Legion, Inhumans, Runaways, The Gifted, Cloak & Dagger and Helstrom coming from Marvel without even getting into the Netflix shows. Most if not all of these were pushing more than 6-8 episodes per season. Agents of SHIELD pumped out 137 episodes over 7 seasons.

 

[JD]

Regarding the rumor about Captain America 4 having some plot concerning the use of the Celestials' body as a source of Adamantium, this sounds like it flies in the face of how CA4's plot has been described so far: a "paranoid political thriller" which does not scream Celestials. After the Cap entries--including The Falcon and the Winter Soldier--were the most grounded of all MCU productions (even with its most consistent themes of Super Soldier programs tied to sociopolitical abuses / terrorism), dropping Adamantium in there reads like its (ultimately) a diving board plot to jump to the appearance of a certain character who will join the MCU.

Some might argue that the title New World Order can refer to an alien resource / arms race of a kind, but I'd rather see NWO--in a Cap film with the kind of unique perspective Sam Wilson has apart from many characters--mean a greater abuse of government power he was trying to address in TFATWS, but--it would seem--failed to change much. Moreover, no one knows who Sharon was speaking to regarding special weapons dealing in her final TFATWS scene, but I was hoping she would prove to be tied to a greater threat playing into the movie's title.





I understand how you viewed the series, and of curse it's fine if you felt it was a successful take on the issues. That said, I maintain the rot of toxic masculinity / workplace / societal abuses of women is better handled (sans a fandom critique) in non-fantasy TV dramas, where more time is usually spent on the day-to-day, festering mistreatment from season to season without a fantasy element. I'm not certain a second season of She-Hulk will continue addressing the issues, or will it--by franchise necessity--catapult Jennifer into plots leading to the next phase's main arc.

Yeah, for once I actually agree with you. The Cap movies have by far been the most grounded stories in the MCU so far, and I really can't see them changing that tone, and I think suddenly throwing a giant alien that was petrified halfway through breaking out of the Earth would be taking things to far from the tone of the first 3 movies.
I'll admit we did get a pretty drastic tone and style change between The Dark World & Ragnarok, but I think that probably had a lot to do with the lukewarm reception that TDW received. So far the Cap movies and The Falcon & The Winter Soldier have gotten very positive reactions, so I really can't see them giving the series a Thor style revamp at this point.

I've been writing my own novel lately, and the debate in the tread over the past few days reminds me of something Brandon Sanderson has said: One of the worst things you can do as a writer is to not payoff the promises that you set at the beginning of the story. Like, your book could be extremally well written with relatable characters, but if it starts as literary fiction and turns into dark fantasy midway through, you're going to alienate a ton of readers so much that they put down the book entirely.

Why do I bring this up? Because it seems like the few people in the thread who are annoyed at the jokey fourth-wall breaking tone in some Marvel properties see the MCU as telling one story, rather than a bunch of stories within the same universe. The big shift in tone between projects bothers them because they're treating it more like chapters in a single work rather than as almost entirely separate works.

Yeah, that's probably where a lot of the issue for people come up. I've always viewed each series as it's own thing that happens to take place in the same universe as the others.

No one is saying they want one thing. All I'm asking for is they keep the tone relatively the same. It's a shared universe. With crossover stories. It's jarring for one piece of the story to have an extremely dark tone and the next piece to be sillier than Batman 66 type of comedy. A bit of light comedy is fine. But going to the extreme is to much ..

I remember when Indiana Jones 4 came out and the outrage outrage over "implausible" stunts. Lol. Or anger over a prequel series like Enterprise that actually went out of its way to try to line up with an established tone and continuity.
Now we have people perfectly fine with series like Star Trek Discovery and Strange New Worlds that deviate farther from established continuity than ever before.

Maybe I'm missing something.

I will say I don't mind 4th wall breaking if it's done a certain way. House of Cards comes to mind. It was done in a way as a form of narration. It did not detract from the main story or having other characters aware that Frank was talking to the audience. In She Hulk we have Daredevil dropping unexpectedly out of camera shot into frame with a look of bewilderment......

Just going too far for my tastes. I'm sure the next Deadpool will take it to even sillier depths....

I completely 100% disagree, I love the fact that the different MCU series have such different tones and styles, and that they seem to be making a point of adding even more in the latest phases. One of my favorite things about shared universes like the MCU, the DCEU, and Star Trek and Star Wars is that they are open enough that you can tell pretty much any type of story in them, from darker grounded stories like The Winter Soldier, Discovery, or Rouge One to outright goofy comedies like She Hulk, Shazam, or Lower Decks.
Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about Lower Decks, an animated comedy existing in the same universe as shows like Discovery, or Strange New Worlds? I love it, and one of my most anticipated TV events this year is the Lower Decks/Strange New Worlds crossover, I can't wait to see how they're going to pull that off.

 

[Set Harth]

Yeah, for once I actually agree with you. The Cap movies have by far been the most grounded stories in the MCU so far, and I really can't see them changing that tone, and I think suddenly throwing a giant alien that was petrified halfway through breaking out of the Earth would be taking things to far from the tone of the first 3 movies.

The first movie featured an infinity stone which provided Hydra with Star Wars level weaponry during WWII and ended with Red Skull being teleported to deep space.

 

[JD]

OK, that's a fair point.

 

[Samurai8472]

The Russo brothers celebrated the New year by watching "Avengers Endgame" timed with Tony's finger snap and 12 am

https://thedirect.com/article/avengers-endgame-2023-new-years-mcu-snap-video

 

[Anwar]

I think a Captain America movie dealing with a new Arms Race starting up and the international problems this causes fits his character.

 

[Samurai8472]

Jenner Renner was plowing snow in Nevada when the snow plow ran over his leg. He's in critical but stable condition.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/02/entertainment/jeremy-renner-snow-plow-hospital/index.html

https://www.tmz.com/2023/01/02/jere...nowplow-accident-critical-condition-hospital/

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I think a Captain America movie dealing with a new Arms Race starting up and the international problems this causes fits his character.

Yup. Exactly my thoughts.
They already laid the groundwork for this in Wakanda Forever.
The international community cannot get their hands on vibranium.
But the discover of a rivaling metal/alloy inside the dead celestial, that isn’t controlled by a Sci-fi super power yet, is bound to trigger something Cap might very well get involved in.
And that includes black market dealers like the power broker.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Yup. Exactly my thoughts.
They already laid the groundwork for this in Wakanda Forever.
The international community cannot get their hands on vibranium.
But the discover of a rivaling metal/alloy inside the dead celestial, that isn’t controlled by a Sci-fi super power yet, is bound to trigger something Cap might very well get involved in.
And that includes black market dealers like the power broker.

Which would also come into play in Armor Wars.

 

[Dar70]

Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about Lower Decks, an animated comedy existing in the same universe as shows like Discovery, or Strange New Worlds? I love it, and one of my most anticipated TV events this year is the Lower Decks/Strange New Worlds crossover, I can't wait to see how they're going to pull that off.

I'm not into the cartoons that much. Lower Decks was too futurama-ish for me. I know people think it's in the same continuity but I don't agree with that. Prodigy yeah I COULD see it. Lower Decks no. I feel the same way about the SW cartoons. Everyone says they are canon. But it seems producers cherry pick what they consider canon from the cartoons. So I look at it with a very big grain of salt.

As for the crossover. We shall see. They will be portraying the characters live action.

 

[fireproof78]

I'm not into the cartoons that much. Lower Decks was too futurama-ish for me. I know people think it's in the same continuity but I don't agree with that. Prodigy yeah I COULD see it. Lower Decks no. I feel the same way about the SW cartoons. Everyone says they are canon. But it seems producers cherry pick what they consider canon from the cartoons. So I look at it with a very big grain of salt.

As for the crossover. We shall see. They will be portraying the characters live action.

The producers treat it as existing at an elevated place than what would "really" happen. It's canon, but an exaggeration of in universe events. So the crossover will look differently.

 

[Christopher]

The producers treat it as existing at an elevated place than what would "really" happen. It's canon, but an exaggeration of in universe events.

Which is pretty much how Roddenberry saw TOS -- not as a literal depiction, but as an after-the-fact dramatization of Kirk's logs. He got his start in TV writing up real police cases for dramatization in Dragnet, and TOS was like Dragnet in being framed by narration in the form of the lead character's official report. IIRC, Herb Solow said in Inside Star Trek that Roddenberry thought that "docudrama" presentation would make it easier for audiences to suspend disbelief about a science fiction show. But it meant he didn't assume that events "really" happened in exactly the way they were depicted, which is why he redesigned the Klingons in TMP and told fans that they'd really looked that way all along and had been portrayed inaccurately in TOS.

With the new shows changing so many visual and technical details, as well as thankfully modernizing the franchise's attitudes about ethnicity and gender, I've come around fully to that Doylist view, that what we see is an imperfect dramatization of what "really" happened. All the stories happened in the same continuity, but they're altered in the telling to a greater or lesser degree. (At least, that's my personal take. In my tie-in writing, I'm still obliged to stay as true to onscreen canon as I can, and reconcile or skirt the inconsistencies as best I can.)