Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread

[Rich Watson]

The guy runs a pop culture site, The Cosmic Circus, and seems to have an in at Marvel that feeds him info.

Though, as I noted above, curiously never info on stuff that's just about to be announced; like Ralph Ineson being cast as Galactus, for one random example.

People like him, Daniel RPK, MTTSH etc. always talk about stuff that's years away so they can drop a handy "Plans changed" when stuff doesn't happen.

For example, the Venom 3 trailer pretty much disproved 90% of the things they were claiming would be in the movie a year ago.

 

[FreezeC77]

I want to see President Ross deliver a State Of The Union as Red Hulk.

Let's see if anyone is willing to not get up and clap lol

 

[Anwar]

People saying that the Multiverse Saga is "too disjointed" are forgetting how disjointed the Thanos stuff was in Phases 1 and 2...

 

[JD]

Or dropped.

I hope not, I'd hate to see them prematurely end that storyline just as things are starting to come together. And I'd really hate to see them focus to much on the more grounded stuff, comic book shows and movies spent way to long avoiding the bigger and crazier stuff from the comics, and I'd hate to see them go back to that. Some of that is nice as a part of the mix, but it shouldn't be their sole focus.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

comic book shows and movies spent way to long avoiding the bigger and crazier stuff from the comics,

Since when? The majority of the MCU has been the Thanos arc (and its effect on other movies), multiverse shenanigans, the Guardian plots (not directly related to Thanos), etc., while many of the solo films were anything other than "grounded" (the Holland Spider-Man movies, Captain Marvel, etc.).

That which would be classified as more grounded superhero movies--such as most of the Cap-related entries--are in the extreme minority in the MCU, which is why its such a breath of very needed fresh air / takes cues from some of the better Marvel comic book stories of past 50 years.

 

[The Lensman]

People saying that the Multiverse Saga is "too disjointed" are forgetting how disjointed the Thanos stuff was in Phases 1 and 2...

Sorta. The difference being that fans knew Thanos was the big bad and that Infinity Gauntlet was the essential story line. Comic fans had an idea of where it was going and could impart knowledge and excitement to non comic fans who were starting to enjoy the superhero stuff. I’m not aware of a specific story being adapted this time but that doesn’t mean anything since I haven’t read many Marvel comics since the early 90’s. In the absence of a specific adaptation, maybe it seems rudderless when it isn’t? Is the Multiverse Saga based on a specific story?

 

[JD]

Since when? The majority of the MCU has been the Thanos arc (and its effect on other movies), multiverse shenanigans, the Guardian plots (not directly related to Thanos), etc., while many of the solo films were anything other than "grounded" (the Holland Spider-Man movies, Captain Marvel, etc.).

Yes, the MCU has embraced that stuff from the beginning, but I was just talking about super hero movies in general, which seemed to make a point of avoiding the bigger, more SFF stuff for a while after Batman Begins came out. Thor, the first Avengers, and the first Guardians of the Galaxy were some of the first adaptations to really go all in on that kind of stuff.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Yes, the MCU has embraced that stuff from the beginning, but I was just talking about super hero movies in general, which seemed to make a point of avoiding the bigger, more SFF stuff for a while after Batman Begins came out. Thor, the first Avengers, and the first Guardians of the Galaxy were some of the first adaptations to really go all in on that kind of stuff.

I wouldn't even count the first Thor. The hero spent most of that movie without his powers. He was literally grounded. They also tried the magic=science rationalization, turning the Asgardians from gods into merely being advanced aliens.

 

[Christopher]

Yes, the MCU has embraced that stuff from the beginning, but I was just talking about super hero movies in general, which seemed to make a point of avoiding the bigger, more SFF stuff for a while after Batman Begins came out. Thor, the first Avengers, and the first Guardians of the Galaxy were some of the first adaptations to really go all in on that kind of stuff.

I don't think Batman Begins has anything to do with it. If you look at comics-based screen universes in general, they have a pattern of starting out doing more grounded stuff to appeal more to general viewers and cautious executives, then gradually easing into the more fanciful stuff from the comics. The DC Animated Universe started with the relatively naturalistic Batman: The Animated Series (which had robots and AIs and shapeshifters and such, but no aliens or space travel and no magic save one episode), then waited until Superman and Justice League to bring in the wilder stuff. Smallville started out aggressively minimizing its comic-book elements and trying to be more of a pseudo-supernatural teen drama in the vein of Roswell, but as it went on, it became more and more like the comics. The Arrowverse started with the gritty, street-level Arrow, with no superpowers or other major fantasy elements, then brought in superhumans with The Flash, time travel with Legends of Tomorrow, aliens in Supergirl, and eventually full-on magic and fantasy. So similarly, the MCU started with Iron Man and then worked its way up to more fanciful stuff. Same with the MCU on TV -- Agents of SHIELD began as an ABC-friendly show about unpowered government agents investigating weird phenomena, a proven TV procedural formula, then gradually started adding superhumans to its core cast and embracing increasingly far-out premises as it went.

Although I suppose the Batman film series itself is an exception to that pattern, since the modern era of Batman films started with the fairly fanciful Burton films and the even more fanciful Schumacher films, then gave way to the gritty naturalism of the Nolan films. So it's not a perfect theory.

 

[JD]

And now we have the Reeves movies which, at least with The Batman, have gone even more grounded than Nolan's films.
I know some of the stuff had started out a little more grounded, but it just seemed like Batman Begins, there was an even bigger emphasis on keepings things as grounded as possible.

 

[Anwar]

Sorta. The difference being that fans knew Thanos was the big bad and that Infinity Gauntlet was the essential story line. Comic fans had an idea of where it was going and could impart knowledge and excitement to non comic fans who were starting to enjoy the superhero stuff. I’m not aware of a specific story being adapted this time but that doesn’t mean anything since I haven’t read many Marvel comics since the early 90’s. In the absence of a specific adaptation, maybe it seems rudderless when it isn’t? Is the Multiverse Saga based on a specific story?

Well...I honestly don't think so. Kang never had a definitive story like Thanos did with the Infinity Gauntlet Saga.

 

[Tuskin38]

New Rockstars has done a recap of that 'What If?' experience for Apple's dumb headset

Spoiler

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[Set Harth]

Yes, the MCU has embraced that stuff from the beginning, but I was just talking about super hero movies in general, which seemed to make a point of avoiding the bigger, more SFF stuff for a while after Batman Begins came out. Thor, the first Avengers, and the first Guardians of the Galaxy were some of the first adaptations to really go all in on that kind of stuff.

Captain America 1 wasn't as grounded as people like to think. The bad guys were using weapons powered by an Infinity Stone and the main villain gets teleported into deep space at the end while the hero ( created by fictional tech ) goes into cryofreeze for many decades.

 

[Mage]

goes into cryofreeze for many decades.

Not even that. He was just frozen. No tech/science/magic behind it. Just.... frozen. Very grounded indeed.

 

[Christopher]

Not even that. He was just frozen. No tech/science/magic behind it. Just.... frozen. Very grounded indeed.

Well, first off, Steve survived being frozen because of the supersoldier serum, so there was a form of "science" behind it.

More to the point, though, it's all relative. It's not about actually being true to reality; even non-SF action shows and movies have plenty of departures from reality, like cars automatically blowing up when hit, explosions throwing people through the air instead of killing them with overpressure shock, people barely being slowed down by gunshots to the shoulder, etc. But even a story with those kinds of things can feel to an audience like a reasonable approximation of the real world -- more so than a story that features aliens or time travel or magic spells. It's just a matter of degree, of the proportion of the ingredients in the mix.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Yes, the MCU has embraced that stuff from the beginning, but I was just talking about super hero movies in general, which seemed to make a point of avoiding the bigger, more SFF stuff for a while after Batman Begins came out

Not really. The MCU began in 2008--the same year as The Dark Knight, but early MCU already set their spacey plots in motion. Even the grittier First Avenger (2011) with its WW2 setting introduced the Tesseract, which, as Set Harth pointed out--also had Skull teleported into another part of the universe. Since that time, the MCU has been looking to / interacting with pure sci-fi storylines, with any grounded plots existing as an extreme minority.

Captain America 1 wasn't as grounded as people like to think. The bad guys were using weapons powered by an Infinity Stone and the main villain gets teleported into deep space at the end

This.

 

[JD]

OK those might have been bad examples, but my basic point still stands. I love the big crazy sci-fi fantasy stuff we've been getting, and I'd hate to see Feige and co. use the failure of Quantumania and The Marvels as evidence that they should stop all of that in favor of nothing but more grounded storylines like we'll probably be getting in Brave New World and possibly Thunderbolts.

 

[Anwar]

Guardians 3 shows that folks can still handle genuine comic booky stuff.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Eric Voss at New Rockstars goes through the gameplay of the What If...? immersive VR game for the Apple vision pro so that the rest of us don't have to break the bank to know the story. None of the original actors provide the voices for their characters, and gameplay time is all of 45 minutes.

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[Rich Watson]

Never.

Getting.

Made.

https://www.thewrap.com/marvel-blade-director-yann-demange-exits-mcu-eric-pearson/

Just a reminder, this movie was announced at the same time as "Eternals", "Shang Chi", "Black Widow", "Thor - Love & Thunder" and "Doctor Strange 2"; all of which came out years ago, despite a pandemic.