• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread

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


  • Total voters
    185
When we're talking about an MCU project, yes it 100% is.

100%? Seriously? About something that's purely your own guesswork rather than objectively verified data?

Nothing is ever 100% certain. Even with hard data, there must always be room for doubt and an openness to alternative possibilities.


The only way I could maybe believe it was if it was just a voice role, but I doubt they would have made such a big dramatic announcement with RDJ there in a Doom costume, if we weren't going to see him onscreen playing Doom.

Why not? Rocket and Groot are purely voice roles for Cooper and Diesel, yet they're credited and touted as full members of the Guardians ensemble. Pedro Pascal gets star billing for The Mandalorian even though it's usually just a voice role. The old prejudice that voice actors are unimportant has faded these days, given how common it's become to cast big-name actors in animated films and other voice roles.

And someone wearing a costume in a Comic-Con panel says nothing about what will happen in the actual movie. They thought it made a cool reveal to have Doom unmask and turn out to be RDJ. There's no basis for assuming it has any meaning beyond the showmanship of the announcement itself.


Sure, but those tend to be in different unconnected movies and series.

I've already given multiple examples of the same actor coming back within the same series. Again, you're making the mistake of assuming your perspective as a viewer is the only one that exists. What you watch onscreen for two or three hours is the end result of months or years of the filmmakers and actors working closely together for maybe 16 or more hours a day. Onscreen things like whether two stories are in the same continuity are incidental to that. It's still the same kind of working experience behind the scenes. If a moviemaker knows they enjoy working with an actor over the long haul, if they know that actor can be trusted to do the work reliably, that real-life consideration matters more to them than what imaginary "universe" two different stories are in.



It seems to me as if the level of suspension of disbelief required in accepting a familiar actor in a new role would be similar.

Exactly. Especially when we're talking about a chameleonic character actor like Downey. Anyone who's seen Chaplin or Oppenheimer should have zero doubt that Downey can transform himself so completely that nobody would mistake Victor von Doom for Tony Stark. Especially since Doom almost always has a mask on!
 
Big difference is Downey Jr as Iron Man is Iconic.

Sean Connery was iconic / eternally identified as and had a more significant pop culture impact to filmed Bond than RDJ in the MCU, yet most audiences were able to move on when Connery bowed out in '71. The point being a film series involving the same characters in the same timeline will move forward, without RDJ as Stark, just as the Bond series did.
 
Last edited:
Sean Connery was iconic / eternally identified as and had a more significant pop culture impact to filmed Bond than RDJ in the MCU, yet most audiences were able to move on when Connery bowed out in '71. The point being a film series involving the same characters in the same timeline will move forward, without RDJ as Stark, just as the Bond series did.

Sean Connery never came back though to play Blofeld in a future Bond movie. That is in essence what they in theory are trying to pull off. Assuming they are being honest with us. Does make sense to try and keep their real plans, whatever they are a secret from us so the movie isn't spoiled. The speculation of course is a good thing in that it keeps up interest and builds up hype for the day the movie eventually comes out.
 
Sean Connery was iconic / eternally identified as and had a more significant pop culture impact to filmed Bond than RDJ in the MCU, yet most audiences were able to move on when Connery bowed out in '71. The point being a film series involving the same characters in the same timeline will move forward, without RDJ as Stark, just as the Bond series did.
It would’ve been interesting to see the reaction had Connery played the role of Kincade, the role ultimately played by Albert Finney, in Skyfall, as was once the intention. An original draft had the finale set in some sort of retirement village for spies.
 
It would’ve been interesting to see the reaction had Connery played the role of Kincade, the role ultimately played by Albert Finney, in Skyfall, as was once the intention. An original draft had the finale set in some sort of retirement village for spies.
Damn, I didn't know that. As much as I love Finney and his performance as Kincaid, I think that would have been fun to see.
 
Sean Connery never came back though to play Blofeld in a future Bond movie. That is in essence what they in theory are trying to pull off. Assuming they are being honest with us. Does make sense to try and keep their real plans, whatever they are a secret from us so the movie isn't spoiled. The speculation of course is a good thing in that it keeps up interest and builds up hype for the day the movie eventually comes out.
Boris Karloff was the defining actor for Frankenstein's monster from Universal's horror films across three successful entries, and had ingrained that performance into culture so effectively that it was routinely parodied in popular cartoon shorts, referenced in other movies, and inspired early examples of licensed character merchandising. That's scratching the surface of Karloff's impact on the character & franchise, but i've yet to come across anyone claiming audiences believed Universal was pulling anything, or found it hard to accept the transcendent Karloff returning to Universal's Frankenstein series as Dr. Gustav Niemann (the main villain) of 1944's House of Frankenstein. He was accepted in the role, and no one had the expectation that he would eventually return to his signature role.

There's no difference between that and the RDJ situation, except to those Hell-bent on trying to wishcast RDJ back into the shell of a dead character.
 
Should have set it on "The Colony" as a nod to "Double Team" ;)
This article even suggests that it might have been a retirement home not just for former agents but for former James Bonds: https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/ho...-sank-daniel-craigs-biggest-james-bond-movie/


Editing to add some Marvel news, namely that James Spader will be reprising his role of Ultron for the Vision series:
 
Last edited:
Still weird to have a Vision and Ultron totally divorced from Hank Pym.

I dunno, I prefer shifting their origin to Tony Stark. It's incongruous for the same scientist to be an expert in insects, shrinking particles, and cybernetics. Even the first two are a stretch, but at least one can understand how an entomologist with a physics degree might be motivated to invent miniaturization.
 
Editing to add some Marvel news, namely that James Spader will be reprising his role of Ultron for the Vision series:
Well, that's a lovely surprise! I wonder if Ultron is properly resurrected or recreated in some fashion or if he's some form of recall for Vision within his own mind? Or something entirely new?

I also notice that they're no longer calling it Vision Quest and instead just referring to it as the upcoming Vision show (title be announced later!), which is probably for the best all things considered. Considering it's been so long since we've gotten any real news on the show (along with the glaring absence of any at Comic-Con and D23), I can't remember if we already knew that that title had been quietly dropped or if simply unofficial news from various online outlets took that lead first.

Still weird to have a Vision and Ultron totally divorced from Hank Pym.
I've long since made peace with that, if only because the way Ultron was introduced in the MCU makes sense within the confines of the MCU at that time. Much like how other characters' origins have shifted within the MCU landscape like Peter Parker's origin story, in a sense, actually occurred in No Way Home. I'm good with that because the original stories will always exist in the comics and the MCU is merely an adaptation.
 
Last edited:
Beh, all being made by Pym did was add to Hank Pym's marks of dishonor. At least being partly made by Stark didn't taint Starks' character the way it did Pyms.
Ultron was from Hank's Giant-Man Goliath days. I don't think he had any "dishonor" back then. Unless they're retconned something in. Ultron seemed to be "born" evil.
 
I lost the quotes, and I don't feel like trying to search for them again, so I'm just going to make this a general post.
I guess the thing that gets makes it hard for me to believe that Doom won't be somehow connected to Tony Stark/Iron Man is just that him and the character are so connected that I can't believe they weren't somehow planning on playing with that connection. He spent appeared in 11 movies over 11 years, and was pretty much the face of the franchise, and there's no way people are going to be able forget that. It's also worth keeping in mind that a lot of people approach this kind of thing from a very thin, surface level and so they're just going to see RDJ and think Iron Man, and I doubt you'll ever be able to get them to forget that and accept him as a totally. I know they have recast and reused actors, but in all of the cases before this they were either in a totally different part of the franchise. like with Mahershala Ali, or they only appeared 1 - 3 times in smaller roles.
Honestly I think if Doom's not connected to Stark somehow, then I think bringing Downey back to play him might have been a mistake, because he's going to be a massive distraction, because all most people are going to care about is how he's connected to Iron Man.
Honestly, I've seen and heard to much to have any optimism when it comes to people understanding a situation like this.
I'm really shocked by James Spader's return as Ultron, I never thought we'd see him again.
 
I lost the quotes, and I don't feel like trying to search for them again, so I'm just going to make this a general post.
I guess the thing that gets makes it hard for me to believe that Doom won't be somehow connected to Tony Stark/Iron Man is just that him and the character are so connected that I can't believe they weren't somehow planning on playing with that connection.
If you consider nothing beyond the MCU, that makes sense. If you consider Downey's entire career of which the MCU is only a small part, it's easier to see that there are plenty of reasons they might have wanted to cast him besides his MCU history.


He spent appeared in 11 movies over 11 years, and was pretty much the face of the franchise, and there's no way people are going to be able forget that.
I ask again: Have you seen Oppenheimer? I guarantee you, if you watch that, you will very quickly forget that Downey ever played Tony Stark, if you can even recognize him as Robert Downey, Jr. (It took me a few minutes, since he transformed himself so completely.) Your argument is predicated on the assumption that all Downey characters would appear the same to the audience, and that is easily disproven if you just watch his non-Marvel films.

A great actor can make an audience forget their previous roles. That's the whole point of acting -- to convince the audience of an alternative reality even if they objectively know it's false.
 
Robert Downey Jr has been a chameleon his entire career, as far back as when he played Charlie Chaplin. People raved about how completely he threw himself into that role. Tropic Thunder is another movie where you'd be hard pressed to recognize him if you weren't looking for him (but of course, that was part of the joke). Then there's The Sympathizer where he plays multiple roles.
 
It's also worth keeping in mind that a lot of people approach this kind of thing from a very thin, surface level and so they're just going to see RDJ and think Iron Man, and I doubt you'll ever be able to get them to forget that and accept him as a totally.

While certain fans might think of or (for no good reason at this point) expect a connection to / return of Stark when seeing RDJ as Doom (but the Karloff example should suggest audiences are capable of accepting the same actor behind an iconic / very popular character taking on a different part in the same series), the problem / blame will always rest with Marvel / Disney for making the desperation move in hiring RDJ back (playing on RDJ's popularity as Iron Man, obviously), thanks to their recent troubles.
 
Last edited:
Ultron was from Hank's Giant-Man Goliath days. I don't think he had any "dishonor" back then. Unless they're retconned something in. Ultron seemed to be "born" evil.

I mean that when you add up all the stuff associated with Hank by modern writers to justify why they wrote him as a barely restrained madman. He's had too many bad things associated with him (mental breakdowns, questionable actions, Ultron, "the hit") and not enough big heroic moments.

It doesn't help that Ultron being "born evil" was stated to be because Hank used his own brain patterns to program his mind.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top