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You do realize that we are talking about movies.
You know, this could be a whole thread to itself.
I almost attempted starting one regarding the oft heard complaint that TNG Insurrection was just a longish episode of TNG released in the movies.
What is a movie and what is a tv show? Are they mutually exclusive?
It used to be a tv show is continuing and a movie is self contained, but no movie is "self contained" in the sequel era. Marvel has just accepted this from before the first movie even was made. It's somewhat like a tv show, in that it's interconnected, it's a series of movies. The story continues.
And look at most of the original sequels, they were tacked on for the money like Jaws 2 and Ghostbusters 2. The story was intended to be completed with the movie. Marvel rejects that lack of planning so that each movie seemlessly fits onto the end of the next and continues. (That's never been done before, with the possible slight exception of how Lord of the Rings was made.) It's great for keeping continuity, something a lot of flim makers or tv producers don't always care about, but it can have the impact of making each individual movie not "special" in of itself.
I think it depends on what is actually made, and of course opinions vary about "what's good" and "what's not"
For example, for me, I much prefer continuity. I'm actually a continuity nut. I don't know why, but if somebody does something in a show or movie and it matters later on and really means something, I love it. One of the best examples of recent memory and one of my favorite was on the Shield finale: Fury gave Coulson the Destroyer gun, the same gun he was holding when he was killed by Loki in Avengers, two years before, and he says, "I know what this does." I cheered when that happened. That was so good, it tied together so well, it was a direct answer to his line, "I don't even know what it does." I loved it. And Clark's delivery of the line was perfect. So when someone says Captain America TWS is actually Avengers 1.5, I say Bring It! I love Avengers and Captain America in particular, I can think of Avengers as Captain America 1.5, too! I don't have to wait 3 years to see my favorite characters, they might be back as quick as in 6 months. I like it.
Now, let's step back a bit, because there's quantity and there's quality. I think it's safe to say that CATFA, Avengers, and CATWS are quality movies. None of that getting a movie every year or 6 months would count a damn if they were like Captain America 1990, for example. That sucked so bad, I wonder that the black hole they were afraid the Hadron Supercollider was going to make wasn't created by that movie. I even like the terrible Reb Brown Captain America tv movies better than that one.
So, to sum it up. Lots is good if they's good on their own, lots of shit is still lots of shit, and I've liked all of the MCU movies so far.
Back to Ant Man, maybe Hydra wasn't inside Shield when Edgar started his AntMan movie 8 years ago and he didn't want to adjust plot points based on that. Did you think Shield was going to collapse like that 8 years ago? Sheild was so pervasive and omnipotent in the first phase of the MCU it looked like it would go on forever. I think they may have realised just about any movie where it's going bad for the hero, Shield could have been and easy machina ex dues (sp?) and bail it out for everyone, now that's gone. I think that's a much better direction to take, no super "big brother" to bail your plot out when it bogged down, but maybe that would have changed things around too much. 8 years is a long time for a pre production. I don't know, just putting that out there.