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artist-issues · 2 months

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please trash Marvel's Phase Four with your mad skills, I hate it so much (the Hawkeye TV show was the best thing that came out of it) and Im in the mood to have someone share my rage over it lol

It’s been so long since I’ve seen most of them! Sorry. I’ll try to put my vague disappointments in them from back then into words:

Black Widow: The main problem with this one, if I remember correctly, is that there’s no build-up to Natasha’s connections with her family, or the other Widows. We like and accept Yelena because of the good writing and Florence Pugh’s charm; we like and except her parents for the same reasons—but do we feel for Natasha when she’s figuring out how much to love and worry about them? No. Not like we did when Pepper had to choose to blow up the roof Tony was on in the final battle of Iron Man. Not like we felt when Steve lost Bucky. Why? Because the whole “family,” all the “other Widows,” have no real, human depth to them, and no time for us to see that humanity displayed.

The dad’s a caricature, not a guy we can relate to. So’s the mom. And the other Widows are non-characters; they’re pretty faces representative of a conflict, who can have tragic music played over their death scenes so we remember “why Natasha fights.”

Pepper and Tony fear for each other’s safety and wonder what they are to each other, just like the sisters are supposed to in Black Widow. But we care about Pepper and Tony, because we’ve seen what a day at the office looks like with them. We’ve seen their normal. We’ve seen who they are as people, and how they interact on a normal level—so that when the extreme interactions come, we’re already invested. Black Widow doesn’t have that. It’s “weird caricature group gets turned into weirder super-spies and they spend a few minutes worrying about each other out of nowhere at the climax of the film.” That was my impression of that one. But I only saw it once, and liked it better than the others.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - Normal human moments, but way too much time spent on retroactively revealing layers of backstory. Heres the dad’s backstory. Just kidding, that’s not all of it, here’s some more. And here’s the part you missed. And here’s the backstory of this magical world. Just kidding, here’s some more. And here’s backstory on the main character. Sorry, he forgot to reveal the Big Emotional Part, we saved it for the pre-climax, so have a little more backstory.” You’re so busy keeping all that straight that you don’t have as much capacity leftover to care about the main characters, even if those main characters do have some human moments to appreciate.

Compare it to Thor. Both movies have “hard-to-swallow magical realms existing near the Normal World.” But not both movies set the audience up to accept, believe, and keep up with that. Thor does. Shang-Chi doesn’t.

The whole introduction to Thor carefully tells you the full “outer boundaries,” the hardest stuff to swallow about the magical world of Asgard. And it helps you understand and swallow those things well before you need to be really invested in the emotional reactions of the characters. In the first half of the movie, they neatly go: “Guy walking out of a tornado and getting hit by a car, seemingly impossibly; he must not be normal. Let’s show you why. Ready? Here: 1) Frost Giant war + how this realm relates to the normal world, 2) Asgard & the king’s sons, plus their different motives 3) how the rainbow bridge and Thor’s banishment works. Got it? Back to the Normal Story.”

By the time you’re jettisoned into the Normal World part of the movie, you care, emotionally, about everything Thor and Jane care about, from her losing her lab equipment to him thinking his mother hates him—without having to take breaks in their story to remember how a rainbow bridge works or what the Frost Giants want, etc. But Shang Chi is all over the place, back and forth, up and down, three layers of tragic hard-to-believe backstory on top of each other. …And it delivers all that backstory in bits and pieces, as interruptions to the “normal world” or “present adventure” part of the story.

Plus, the “normal world/present adventure” part isn’t even that good, I’m so sorry to say it. Our previous heroes had normal-human obstacles to overcome, sure, but those relatable obstacles were still severe. Big character flaws that would come back to haunt them. Steve wonders if he’s all alone in his resolve and responsibility—and that keeps coming back up no matter what his circumstances are. Tony wonders if he can ever accomplish his full potential and make up for his past mistakes—and that keeps coming back up, no matter the circumstances.

But you’re telling me I need to not only believe that Shaun and Katy “wonder if they’ll ever take life seriously enough, like adults”—not only believe that—but that after this adventure, that’s the struggle he’ll always have to overcome?

Seems to me it should be something more along the lines of “have mercy instead of controlling everything through conquest like my father.” They kinda tried to do that. But the problem is, it doesn’t connect back to his “relatable human flaw.”

Steve had to realize he wasn’t alone fighting Nazis and Hydra and Thanos—sure—in big moments, like the one where Shaun chooses to spare his father. But guess what? Steve also had to learn to overcome his flaw in little moments, too. He has to realize he’s not alone in waiting for “the right partner;” Peggy is also committed to waiting. He has to choose to believe he’s not alone even though he’s a man-out of-time—by taking an active role in the present, by asking his neighbor out on a date.

Shaun’s little “when am I going to grow up and be an adult” thing only pops up in his human moments. It doesn’t have a parallel in his superhero moments. So then I don’t care as much, or relate as much, to his character.

Because honestly, not every member of the audience can even relate to worrying about that. Only young adults and teenagers. Maybe some 30-40 year-olds. But it’s not a universal thing, like Steve’s broad loneliness or Tony’s broad pride.

Eternals - Without a doubt the most horrifyingly bad MCU movie I ever saw. Worse than Captain Marvel.

I don’t even know where to begin. This movie had no idea what it wanted to be, except a direct smack in the face to anyone who believes that humans should submit to a deity who made them and accept their purpose. Obviously that most closely fits the description of a Christian audience, but this movie really alienated audience members with worldviews that have any monotheistic religious leanings. Or just…audience members with a worldview that values humility, and service, and self sacrifice, and knows that love without this values is not actually love, in general.

The characters have no humanity. They lack depth. There’s a weird fixation on slow suffering and memory loss with Angelina Jolie’s character. Not one character is likeable because we spend barely any time with any of them. Not one is relatable because they do that whole “live for thousands of years” thing, without taking their time and showing us a believable version of ‘what’s normal” to these characters.

And like I said, the message is garbage. It’s appalling.

Spider-Man: No Way Home - This movie was good, I have no notes.

I have a brother who likes to say that the whole first half of the movie is worthless because you only care after the other Spider-Men show up, but I totally disagree, because the point of the movie was “who is (MCU) Peter Parker?” So at the beginning you have him trying to figure that out based on public opinion of Spider-Man and a college;s acceptance of him, and trying to fix his “image” of himself, essentially, so his life can go back to normal. Then by the climax he’s got two other Peter Parkers there, reminding him of what being “Peter Parker” means. You take responsibility to do what you can to help people, no matter what everybody else does. No matter what it costs you. That’s who Peter Parker is.

And they needed to speed-up the maturity level and raise the stakes of their particular version of Peter Parker, because he’s supposed to be a recurring part of this high-stakes universe they created—but they also needed him to return to feeling like a more traditional, “friendly neighborhood” Spider-Man, within that context. And they solved both those problems. And they did it with Andrew Garfield and Toby MacGuire, so I liked this movie, sorry.

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness - Stupid and wrong.

I have never liked Sam Raimi, but I didn’t have a problem with his editing style or over-the-top drama this time around. I had a problem with the way the characters were handled.

We still barely know Stephen Strange, and we certainly weren’t given the impression that his love interest from the first movie was the great love of his life, so that emotional thread in this movie was flimsy.

The America character was barely a character.

But the worst of the worst of it was Wanda.

You mean to tell me, Raimi, that the Wanda who was experimented on and used for her power from an early age would have willingly murdered a superpowered little girl in a demonic rite? You mean to tell me that the Wanda who just spent a whole expertly-written television show showing me that she’s learned she can’t manipulate people’s lives, and she’s willing to sacrifice her own happiness if it means sparing other people suffering—you mean to tell me that THAT Wanda, the one I’ve spent five stories over several years getting to know—you mean to tell me that Wanda read one vaguely evil book and now she’s willing to slaughter her friends and a little girl so she can steal children from other, weaker versions of her own sad self?

That doesn’t make any sense.

You COULD have it make sense. You could show me her corruption. Show me what the Darkhold’s doing to her. Show me how she got from point A (WandaVision’s ending) to Point B (murderous careless rampage and smiling at the thought of murdering a little girl.) Use your runtime to do that.

But no. We’re going to use our runtime to throw in pointless cameos with no build-up, no real weight or gravity, no genuine excitement. To play with out special effects and CGI. To spend lots of runtime on arbitrary horror-movie scenes and gore.

And then kill Wanda off? …What?! It was idiotic. It was so contrived. I felt like I was watching a forgettable DC movie, or a Batman movie where the star of the story is just shock-and-awe.

Thor: Love and Thunder - This movie couldn’t decide if it wanted to be funny or serious. So it failed at both. First Thor’s making a joky explanation retconning Jane, breaking up with him, as a silly rom-com parody. Oh, then he’s holding her in his arms crying and claiming he’d rather be with her than win a fight, like that’s the big momentous moment-of-change for his character.

Sorry, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you that Thor loved Jane. Because they barely show any serious, grounded, genuine, human affection to each other the whole movie. All I’ve seen is a parody of that, and de-masculatung mockery of Thor himself. You want me to believe he’s losing the love of his life and it’s devastating to him because he’s a human being with depth of emotion? Then don’t set him up as the star of a bad Will-Ferrell comedy.

And of course the “message” is crap. And every situation they get into is unbelievably stupid and unfunny. This is actually the movie that made me give up on Marvel.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - I didn’t see this movie. I love Leticia Wright, I’m on her side. But I had to give up on the MCU after Love and Thunder. I wanted to give up on it after Eternals, but I told myself I’d stick it out for the OGs (any movie about characters from the original Avengers squad or Guardians.)

The television shows during Phase 4 were all pretty good, for what they were, except for Moon Knight, in my opinion.

To sum it up: Phase 4 rushed everything, cut out the grounded human moments and feared all genuine displays of emotion in their characters. Instead they jammed in heavy action sequences, some more gore, and soulless, arbitrary, quick-flash cameos. The only exception was Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Thanks for asking! I could be open to changing these opinions; I’d have to go back and watch them over again, it’s been so long. But I think I’d rather put on wet socks, heel-to-toe, than watch Eternals or Multiverse of Madness, ever again.

#MCU #marvel universe phase 4 #marvel cinematic universe phase 4 #Phase 4 #wandavision #multiverse of madness #Loki #Thor: love and thunder #spider-man: no way home #asked #answered

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