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Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread

What grade would you give the Marvel Cinematic Universe? (Ever-Changing Question)


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Those stories really seem more like heresay rather than anything with solid evidence. Just some disgruntled folks wanting to jump on the bandwagon.

Really, this isn't anything like the Depp fiasco.
Could be.
 
I don't think the DCEU was ever as well-planned as the MCU. Feige has a clear vision and knows how to manage it well, while the decision-making behind the DCEU has been erratic and poorly judged, as well as frequently changing hands. The best phase of the DCEU was when they stopped trying to have a master plan and just let each film be its own thing.
DCEU was well planned and had a definite vision which was at least 10 years. The problem was the studio meddling, changing hands, more meddling. It didn't have much of a chance.
 
Exactly:two events where no one complained about "unauthorized" action against a threat taking place. Ross and his government cronies were completely unprepared for an alien invasion, and had no clue Hydra had become a part of SHIELD since the 40s. That's two more examples that a sensible screenwriter would have added as Rogers' counter to Ross, which could not be argued...but you know...the MCU had to jump to that toothless conflict bit.

I mean, it's not really a counter. It's, "You're violating national sovereignty and laws to carry out summary judgements based on your own recognizance." The Sokovia Accords would be the nations giving a framework for them to operate legally and with government support.

It's just in the MCU, like the MU, the government is undoubtedly up to something similar or would use the Avengers as, I dunno, mutant busters.

Which is the REAL argument. That any government that puts Ross in charge of an ice cream stand is up to no good.
 
He "backed out of" JL... right! :lol:

Yeah, you know the hate for the man runs deep for some who deliberately pretend his family tragedy was not the reason behind his leaving the DCEU. Its a quite common bit of ill-minded revisionist history.

DCEU was well planned and had a definite vision which was at least 10 years. The problem was the studio meddling, changing hands, more meddling. It didn't have much of a chance.

True, instead of the long-debunked "I-i-t wasn't planned well" nonsense. Its a matter of record that the solid plans for the DCEU were in place since Nolan's initial involvement, which Snyder carried forward successfully. The family tragedy took Snyder from the series, and from that moment, the ass-brained studio shirts wanted to turn the DCEU into the MCU, starting with Whedon's destruction of the JL film.
 
It will be interesting to see what happens to Gunn’s plans if Superman: Legacy underperforms.
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It will be interesting to see what happens to Gunn’s plans if Superman: Legacy underperforms.

Zaslav blames Gunn, Safran, et al., and goes back to the drawing board on the same day he cans those responsible for the underperforming film.


Probably. Who imagines WB greenlighting a third DC film universe? Separate films free from the bonds of a shared continuity--yes, but not another universe.
 
True, instead of the long-debunked "I-i-t wasn't planned well" nonsense. Its a matter of record that the solid plans for the DCEU were in place since Nolan's initial involvement, which Snyder carried forward successfully. The family tragedy took Snyder from the series, and from that moment, the ass-brained studio shirts wanted to turn the DCEU into the MCU, starting with Whedon's destruction of the JL film.

Whedon's tinkering of "Justice League" is when the DCEU started to go sour for me. I don't think "Birds of Prey" or Snyder's "Justice League" could save the franchise, thanks to the WB suits' decision making. Ironically, the MCU had already initiated its long decline (at least for me) by this point.
 
Whedon's tinkering of "Justice League" is when the DCEU started to go sour for me. I don't think "Birds of Prey" or Snyder's "Justice League" could save the franchise, thanks to the WB suits' decision making. Ironically, the MCU had already initiated its long decline (at least for me) by this point.

I mean some of the marketing decisions were just bad.

"The Fantabulous Emancipation of Harley Quinn" or "Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey" seems weird versus just, "The Harley Quinn movie."
 
I mean some of the marketing decisions were just bad.

"The Fantabulous Emancipation of Harley Quinn" or "Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey" seems weird versus just, "The Harley Quinn movie."

I dunno. What was cool about Birds of Prey was that Margot Robbie chose to use her popularity to support an ensemble vehicle that gave attention to lesser-known heroines like Black Canary and Huntress, rather than centering it on just her own character. It wasn't a bad choice, it's just that the media culture lately hasn't been supportive of novelty.
 
But did Black Canary or Huntress really come out of Harley Quinn as notable characters to non-comic readers? I've never really seen anyone asking for them to come back, or care if they're (for example) going to be part of the new DC stuff (which they probably won't be). Honestly I don't think the movie did anything for those characters at all, and I think it tanked the value of the Birds of Prey brand for any future adaptation. Its now just associated with minor Harley Quinn supporting characters, which sucks because the actual Birds of Prey concept/comic is great and deserved better then to just be the support crew in a mediocre Margot Robbie vehicle.

Then again, that is still a better fate then what they did to "Cassandra Cain" :brickwall: (I know its been over three years since the movie came out and been mentioned a lot, but seriously Harper Row or Sin were right there and literally a perfect fit for what they needed in the HQ movie, there was no need to steal Cassandra's name for that generic streetwise kid character).
 
I would love to see those versions of Black Canary and Huntress again, but yeah, they shouldn't have used Cain's name.

It wouldn't be the first time a comics adaptation used an existing name for an almost completely different character -- the Arrowverse's Felicity Smoak and Lyla Michaels (at least until they retconned her into Harbinger), Agents of SHIELD's Mack McKenzie and Lance Hunter, Agent Carter's Roger Dooley and Jason Wilkes, etc. I suspect that DC & Marvel prefer to use character names they already have trademarked so they don't have to pay writers residuals for newly created characters.

In the case of BoP's Cassandra Cain, I wouldn't be surprised if they started out with something closer to the comics but then changed the character massively in rewrites. That's how writing happens sometimes -- the story takes you in directions you didn't expect.
 
Well, that's a lovely and unexpected surprise!

I love the "ice cream truck", Uatu's cameo (maybe even a Jeffrey Wright cameo?), and Groot freaking out about the plastic nose getting stuck on his face!

Can anyone make out the action figure he's playing with at the beginning? Looks like Robocop but I can't tell for certain.
 
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I would love to see those versions of Black Canary and Huntress again, but yeah, they shouldn't have used Cain's name.

As ambivalent as I am to the HQ movie I wouldn't be against its versions of BC and Huntress returning (I'm not as convinced with Montoya, I think they cast a bit old for the role, especially since I'd prefer a version that becomes The Question), but as a group unconnected to Harley, and without that movie's version of Cain.
 
I dunno. What was cool about Birds of Prey was that Margot Robbie chose to use her popularity to support an ensemble vehicle that gave attention to lesser-known heroines like Black Canary and Huntress, rather than centering it on just her own character. It wasn't a bad choice, it's just that the media culture lately hasn't been supportive of novelty.

I absolutely love the Birds of Prey and would have loved a movie about them but it's a Harley Quinn vehicle guest starring the Birds of Prey the same way Wolverine might show up in them. Or, hell, Wonder Woman in Batman vs. Superman. Then again, part of the DC's major problems is it didn't want to bake the cake. It wanted to start off with the Avengers and not do any of the lead-in movies.
 
I absolutely love the Birds of Prey and would have loved a movie about them but it's a Harley Quinn vehicle guest starring the Birds of Prey the same way Wolverine might show up in them.

That's really understating their role, considering that the movie was literally named for them. Yes, Harley was the viewpoint character, but it was an ensemble film, and it set up the BoP to carry forward without Harley in the end. The fact that it didn't produce sequels doesn't mean it wasn't designed to set them up. It just means you can't predict success.


Then again, part of the DC's major problems is it didn't want to bake the cake. It wanted to start off with the Avengers and not do any of the lead-in movies.

That was the situation years before BoP, under, I believe, different studio leadership. The DCEU changed course so many times that you can't lump it all together like that; it depends on the year you're talking about. By the time of BoP, they'd pretty much abandoned those overarching shared-universe plans and just focused on letting each individual film be its own thing, which was the smartest choice they made. Naturally it was hoped that any successful movie would spawn sequels, but they went about it the right way by focusing on the films themselves and letting their own performance determine whether sequels happened, rather than making the mistake of BvS (and Amazing Spider-Man 2, the Tom Cruise The Mummy, etc.) where they were so focused on setting up the sequels they assumed they'd have that it got in the way of telling the film's own story.

The problem with Avengers comparisons is that it's facile to assume a single rule applies everywhere. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with starting a universe with a team story -- look at X-Men or The Incredibles or Mystery Men. Or, hell, Seven Samurai or The Dirty Dozen. It is absolutely possible to make a standalone team/ensemble movie work. It's bizarre to blame the category when the truth is just that some individual instances are done better than others.
 
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