Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread

[theenglish]

That always bugged me (among other things I never liked about F4)

I'd even go so far as to say "at least" 15 years older. The 60s had a different view when it came to older men marrying younger women. Even the family friendly Dick Van Dyke show had an episode where we learned that Laura was underage when they were married and falsified her birth certificate. There was never a ethical question about the decision.

As for The Marvels, I am still looking forward to seeing it but it was a flop financially. That combined with the Kang news seems like Marvel will be seriously re-working their plans going forward and I bet they're regretting they wasted Secret Invasion on that D+ show at this point.

As to why the Marvels failed to spark interest, I am surprised that no one has mentioned the trend of declining box office returns on Super-hero movies over the past year. It is not like the Marvels is an anomaly here, just the lowest performer. Whether the drop in interest is due to actual audience boredom with the genre or just people refusing to spend their money on a new movie when Shazam. Black Adam, Flash and Blue Beetle were critical disappointments and ranged from lackluster to utter shit, IMO. In contrast, other than Ant Man and Eternals (maybe Thor?), the MCU movies have been received well. Is it possible the average movie going public doesn't distinguish between the MCU and DCEU and has just been stung one too many times? And I am writing this paragraph as an avid DC fan who wishes that all those recent movies had been much better than we got.

 

[MikHutch]

I'd even go so far as to say "at least" 15 years older. The 60s had a different view when it came to older men marrying younger women. Even the family friendly Dick Van Dyke show had an episode where we learned that Laura was underage when they were married and falsified her birth certificate. There was never a ethical question about the decision.

As for The Marvels, I am still looking forward to seeing it but it was a flop financially. That combined with the Kang news seems like Marvel will be seriously re-working their plans going forward and I bet they're regretting they wasted Secret Invasion on that D+ show at this point.

As to why the Marvels failed to spark interest, I am surprised that no one has mentioned the trend of declining box office returns on Super-hero movies over the past year. It is not like the Marvels is an anomaly here, just the lowest performer. Whether the drop in interest is due to actual audience boredom with the genre or just people refusing to spend their money on a new movie when Shazam. Black Adam, Flash and Blue Beetle were critical disappointments and ranged from lackluster to utter shit, IMO. In contrast, other than Ant Man and Eternals (maybe Thor?), the MCU movies have been received well. Is it possible the average movie going public doesn't distinguish between the MCU and DCEU and has just been stung one too many times? And I am writing this paragraph as an avid DC fan who wishes that all those recent movies had been much better than we got.

I always found f4 dated in that and other regards. I never liked Reed and Sue as a couple

As for the rest, I'm not really interested in rumors from scoopers. And I'm sure the marvels is fine. People told me L&T and Quantumania were bad but I liked them more than their predecessors so I don't really trust others anymore

 

[JoeZhang]

And we see him t

I don't know about "well into his 40s". FF#1 came out in 1961, just twenty years after the start of WWII. Ben and Reed joined right out of College they'd be in their late 30s or early 40s by 1961. Reed was in the OSS, which formed in 1942. Sue I've always assumed to be about ten years younger than Reed, so late 20s or early 30s. Johnny's in his late teens. 16 to 18.

And we see him team up with Nick Fury in an issue of his comic in an adventure set in WW2 and that would fit.

 

[Relayer1]

Latest pinch of salt rumour has Pedro Pascal for Reed Richards in the Fantastic Four movie.

Oh I do hope not.

 

[Starkers]

As to why the Marvels failed to spark interest, I am surprised that no one has mentioned the trend of declining box office returns on Super-hero movies over the past year. It is not like the Marvels is an anomaly here, just the lowest performer. Whether the drop in interest is due to actual audience boredom with the genre or just people refusing to spend their money on a new movie when Shazam. Black Adam, Flash and Blue Beetle were critical disappointments and ranged from lackluster to utter shit, IMO. In contrast, other than Ant Man and Eternals (maybe Thor?), the MCU movies have been received well. Is it possible the average movie going public doesn't distinguish between the MCU and DCEU and has just been stung one too many times? And I am writing this paragraph as an avid DC fan who wishes that all those recent movies had been much better than we got.

I'd add into this the Disney+ factor. I've seen Quantumania and GOtG3 at the cinema and if it hangs around long enough I'll probably go see The Marvels on the big screen, but I have several friends who, when asked if they're going to see MCU films at the cinema, reply with a "Nah, it'll be on Disney+ in a couple of months." I doubt they're alone in this.

 

[Christopher]

I'd even go so far as to say "at least" 15 years older. The 60s had a different view when it came to older men marrying younger women.

I honestly don't get why people have a problem with it today. As long as both participants are consenting adults at the time they become romantically involved, who cares how different their ages are? Even if they knew each other in the past when one was an adult and the other a child, like Reed and Sue in the classic comics, that shouldn't matter as long as they're adults when they get involved. I mean, everyone was a child once. It's the present that matters.

As for The Marvels, I am still looking forward to seeing it but it was a flop financially.

I saw last night that ticket sales actually went up from Monday to Tuesday, I think it was. So it may be that the positive word of mouth is compensating some for the lack of pre-release publicity. The problem with declaring something a flop in the first week of release is that it unquestioningly assumes that past formulas can be reliably applied to the present case. But the strike was an anomalous circumstance that should be taken into account. Granted, it's unlikely to become a huge smash hit, but it may recover somewhat from its weak start.

As to why the Marvels failed to spark interest, I am surprised that no one has mentioned the trend of declining box office returns on Super-hero movies over the past year. It is not like the Marvels is an anomaly here, just the lowest performer. Whether the drop in interest is due to actual audience boredom with the genre or just people refusing to spend their money on a new movie when Shazam. Black Adam, Flash and Blue Beetle were critical disappointments and ranged from lackluster to utter shit, IMO. In contrast, other than Ant Man and Eternals (maybe Thor?), the MCU movies have been received well. Is it possible the average movie going public doesn't distinguish between the MCU and DCEU and has just been stung one too many times? And I am writing this paragraph as an avid DC fan who wishes that all those recent movies had been much better than we got.

The box-office dropoff is not specifically about superhero films. Moviegoing in general has been down lately. More people are waiting for streaming. The loss of the Chinese box office has had a major hit on American film profits. The one way that superhero movies are disproportionately affected is that studios insist on trying to make them all huge, costly blockbusters, which makes it harder for them to succeed. If they'd make more reasonably budgeted superhero movies, they might do much better.

Although it's true that many of them have had creative issues, and that's partly a function of the bloated budgets and insanely high expectations, since the more a studio has invested in a film, the more the executives will micromanage it, often to its detriment. The Flash would probably have been a better movie if it hadn't been put through so many reshoots and plot changes, and certainly if it hadn't had so much excessive CGI crammed into it at the expense of what was otherwise a decent story.

 

[JoeZhang]

I'd add into this the Disney+ factor. I've seen Quantumania and GOtG3 at the cinema and if it hangs around long enough I'll probably go see The Marvels on the big screen, but I have several friends who, when asked if they're going to see MCU films at the cinema, reply with a "Nah, it'll be on Disney+ in a couple of months." I doubt they're alone in this.

Well that's it for me - I've seen most of the films, but why bother when they are going to be on a streaming service in the near future based on a fee I'm already paying? Couple that with being time-poor, getting me to the cinema has to be for something really interesting.

 

[Set Harth]

I honestly don't get why people have a problem with it today.

Many people are scolds who like to tell others how to live.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Reed and Ben are supposed to be about 15 years older than Sue and Johnny, at least back in the 60s.

Johnny was still a teenager in high school when the FF was formed. I doubt Sue was that young. Like I mentioned up thread, she's probably got close to a decade on Johnny. Not usual for siblings. My eldest sister and youngest brother are eight years apart.

 

[Starkers]

I honestly don't get why people have a problem with it today. As long as both participants are consenting adults at the time they become romantically involved, who cares how different their ages are? Even if they knew each other in the past when one was an adult and the other a child, like Reed and Sue in the classic comics, that shouldn't matter as long as they're adults when they get involved. I mean, everyone was a child once. It's the present that matters.

While it would be wrong to state that a big age gap is always problematic (I know two couples and in both cases the woman is 20 years older than the guy and both couples have been happily married for decades) in an awful lot of cases it can be. You can say an 18 year old and a 40 year old are both consenting adults, but the truth is that in many cases there'll be a huge power imbalance there, not only will the older partner be vastly more experienced, there'll likely be better off financially, they might own their own home and will clearly be in a more dominant position within the relationship.

A lot of people, and let's be honest here predominantly men, will intentionally target younger partners and dazzle them with how worldly wise and successful they are (for an extreme example look at when 34 year old Chris Evans (not Captain America) bought 18 year old Billie Piper a Ferrari! They ended up getting married.) Younger partners aren't just targeted because of attractiveness, but also because they are perceived as being easier to control, and I know of people initially dazzled by older partners who wound up looking back and realising they were in incredibly toxic and controlling relationships.

Grooming doesn't just happen to children. Talking of kids though your example of partners who meet when one was a child feels very problematic. Just because nothing happens until both partners are adults doesn't mean there isn't grooming going on, and obviously it's possible for a child to imagine feelings of infatuation are something more meaningful.

Again not suggesting all such relationships are toxic or problematic, just that many of them can be.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

They could tribute him without killing off his character T'Challa, the one he put so much effort into making a great character.

That's the point: Boseman was the one who brought that character to life on a mountainous level above the majority of MCU actors. For a character who had much (in interested society's view) riding on how he would be portrayed, the right man had to be cast. It was not one of those situations where you could pick various, random actors and say, "I could see________as Thor, or _________as Spider-Man". It was on the shoulders of the casting / the actor's interpretation that Black Panther would sink or swim. Obviously, it was a success--forever represented by Boseman. Recasting his signature role would have been insulting, as if Marvel Studios could swap out an actor of Boseman's range / sociopolitical impact in the role as easily as Felix Leiter had been in the EON Productions' Bond films.

Black Panther was Boseman's as much as the Frankenstein Monster had been for Karloff in the Universal series (because next to no one has ever claimed Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi or Glenn Strange made the role their own / became the defining portrayal of the Monster), and that--whether the role is recast or not--is impossible to replace or surpass.

I know this feeling... first the setup for Kang Dynasty is removed from the end of Loki season 2, then the writer for the film quits, then the director quits...

...it reminds me of how Michael Keaton was removed from the end of The Flash, and also Aquaman 2, and Batgirl was destroyed...

Housecleaning due to a number of bad decisions; the DCEU has one film left to release, but sweeping Keaton out of the films was an attempt to right the course of the film. In Kang's case, if various elements of the Kang arc are being removed, along with the departure of the director and writer, it will force Marvel to do their own housecleaning (e.g., not make Kang the next Big Bad of the current Phase), or simply attempt to replace all lost staff and continue walking down a troubled road.

 

[Captaindemotion]

If they’re going to include the age difference with the Storms, they should cast Leonardo DiCaprio as Reed, seeing as he’s been method-acting this for years now.

 

[JoeZhang]

If they’re going to include the age difference with the Storms, they should cast Leonardo DiCaprio as Reed, seeing as he’s been method-acting this for years now.

"Ben - this is Jane she's replacing Sue on the fantastic boat".

 

[Skipper]

OPINION: How age-gap relationships can be problematic

One of the most significant issues with age-gap relationships is the gap in emotional maturity. The emotional maturity between two people isn’t completely dependent on age. But, when you take the emotional maturity of a 20-year-old compared to a 50-year-old, there is an obvious discrepancy. You are in two completely different stages of life. A 20-year-old recently graduated high school while a 50-year-old has had the time to have a career for 30 years and have children and even grandchildren. It is extremely unlikely that these two individuals can be on the same page in life.

The problem with age-gap relationships

The most concerning issue arrives when adults previously know their partner before adulthood. The introduction of grooming appears when describing these scenarios. Minors possess a different level of maturity than their older counterpart, making them a victim. Groomers build up trust when creating a connection with their underaged partner. To avoid lawful trouble, groomers wait until their partner reaches adulthood to publicize their relationship.

Age-Gap Relationships: Love Knows No Boundaries or Exploitation?

Power imbalance concerns
One of the most common criticisms of age-gap relationships is that the power dynamic tends to be unequal.

The older partner may have more life experience, resources, status, and emotional maturity compared to the younger partner. This could lead to the younger partner being dependent, impressionable, and more vulnerable to manipulation or abuse.

Financial imbalance is a particular concern, especially in relationships with an older man and a younger woman, where the man holds more wealth and the woman may become financially reliant on him.

Our Brains Don’t Fully Develop Until We’re 25. What Does That Mean For Age Gap Relationships?

[...]
This statement is based on the notion that a person's prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain that does the decision-making) doesn't reach its final form until you turn 25. [...]
[...]
Just how solid is the actual science behind the internet's claim that people under 25 are still waiting for their brain to develop fully? And what does it mean for age-gap relationships?

"It’s totally, totally robust," says neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart, who has been teaching lessons on the subject for nearly 10 years. "The brain is still actively growing and changing until we are about 25," she explains. "We used to think that by the time you physically stopped growing — around the age of 18 — that your brain showed how you're going to be for the rest of your adult life, but then more recently we've seen that it still changes a lot up until the age of 25."[...]

[...]
According to relationship counselor and BACP-accredited therapist Victoria Jeffries, the lack of prefrontal cortex development in people under the age of 25 could have significant implications as they formulate relationships. Trusting your intuition, she says, is more complicated when you're under 25. "That niggling feeling you have when something doesn't feel right is less likely to be apparent."

If we accept the science, then two adolescents forming a relationship with each other is one thing, but it’s a different kettle of fish when one partner in the relationship is significantly older. "As valuable functions such as insight, morality, and intuition are governed by the prefrontal cortex, it could be said that a younger partner [under the age of 25] may be particularly impressionable," explains Jeffries.

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[JoeZhang]

Housecleaning due to a number of bad decisions; the DCEU has one film left to release, but sweeping Keaton out of the films was an attempt to right the course of the film. In Kang's case, if various elements of the Kang arc are being removed, along with the departure of the director and writer, it will force Marvel to do their own housecleaning (e.g., not make Kang the next Big Bad of the current Phase), or simply attempt to replace all lost staff and continue walking down a troubled road.

My problem with the movie Kang - what's interesting or significant about him? What's the hook?

 

[Christopher]

While it would be wrong to state that a big age gap is always problematic (I know two couples and in both cases the woman is 20 years older than the guy and both couples have been happily married for decades) in an awful lot of cases it can be. You can say an 18 year old and a 40 year old are both consenting adults, but the truth is that in many cases there'll be a huge power imbalance there, not only will the older partner be vastly more experienced, there'll likely be better off financially, they might own their own home and will clearly be in a more dominant position within the relationship.

There can be power imbalances in many relationships for many reasons, e.g. if one partner is wealthier or more successful, or just stronger-willed, or has more family living nearby to support them. There's no simple formula to tell you what relationships are healthy or unhealthy, no single variable you can reduce it to. Heck, I'm sure there are 20-year-olds who are more emotionally mature, socially adept, and better at coping with the practicalities of life than I am at 55.

Again not suggesting all such relationships are toxic or problematic, just that many of them can be.

Many drivers are reckless, but we don't condemn driving itself as immoral. Many actors are psychologically abusive or sexually predatory, but we don't condemn the acting profession itself for that. The bizarre thing is stigmatizing the practice itself rather than just the specific individuals who abuse it. Hell, many relationships are toxic and problematic regardless of the relative ages of the participants. It's a weird thing to single out.

 

[Relayer1]

My problem with the movie Kang - what's interesting or significant about him? What's the hook?

Not much actually.

I've never been much taken by the comic version and thought the different direction in the MCU might be an improvement.

It actually may be, but not by enough to make him interesting.

 

[JoeZhang]

Not much actually.

I've never been much taken by the comic version and thought the different direction in the MCU might be an improvement.

It actually may be, but not by enough to make him interesting.

The comic version is just sort of weird in many ways - he uses time travel to go places and fight people but it's just a transport mechanism - except for the crossing (!!) and a recent mini-series, it's never used in a clever way because it cannot be.

So let's say he fights The Avengers and they barely defeat him. He goes back to the future, re-equips and comes up with a new plan and then arrives immediately after he left and wipes out the tired Avengers. If it doesn't work that second time, just do it a third and fourth...

 

[Saul]

Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards sounds like a done deal according to most news outlets. I don't get why people hate the casting. Why is it bad? Even if I didn't like the casting I would think that casting one of the era's biggest streaming actors would be a win. I like the actor. I'd much rather see him as Reed than someone like Adam Driver. I think Pascal will bring something fun to the role.

 

[the G-man]

Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards sounds like a done deal according to most news outlets. I don't get why people hate the casting. Why is it bad? Even if I didn't like the casting I would think that casting one of the era's biggest streaming actors would be a win. I like the actor. I'd much rather see him as Reed than someone like Adam Driver. I think Pascal will bring something fun to the role.

Overexposure and doesn't seem right for the part based on what I've seen him in.