Marvel Cinematic Universe

[EricJ]

They've been on a roll for "Goofy", since Iron Man and Cap's trilogies have wrapped up, and the only heroes getting standalone sequels since Endgame have been Guardians, Ant-Man and Goofy Thor--
And judging from the box office for Quantumania and Love & Thunder, "Superhero fatigue", in MCU's case, has turned to "Goofy-superhero fatigue". (Which didn't help DC's Shazam 2 any, either.)

That's still not going to help Captain Fistyface, who seems to have the...opposite marketing problem.

[Dacey]

Except that Love and Thunder was actually the highest-grossing Thor film in the states, but anyway…

[Ben]

Widely seen as the least creatively successful, though Dace, which is saying something given the second film…

[gaastra]

In the sonyverse---Kraven delayed to next year thanks to strike.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235547084/

[gaastra]

[EricJ]

But...they've already introduced the Multiverse in time for Dr. Strange 2, what other reason do they have for keeping the series going after it got ratings?

[Ben]

I found Loki to be a crushing bore. Can’t even be bothered to watch a two minute trailer for this.

[James]

‘Loki’ Season 2 Trailer Breaks Viewership Records For Disney+ With 80 Million Online Views

https://deadline.com/2023/08/loki-seaso ... 235452570/

[Ben]

So this is weird…

Guardians 3 on D+ comes in two flavors: "Imax-Enhanced" (just wrong!) with certain scenes in an "expanded" 1.90:1 ratio, and an original widescreen format preserving the intended 2.40:1 ratio.

Except… the Imax version is 1.90 *all the way through*, and the widescreen version starts at 2,40 and switches to 1.90 for the various scenes…!

But of a bummer as I hate differing ratios — especially when all they do is open up to reveal what should be matted top and bottom empty image information. Anyone got the widescreen disc? Does it pull that stuff on *that* supposed "widescreen" version??


EDIT ADDITION:

So that was…okay? Quite entertaining, but much less engaging than the first two. Everyone kind of felt off in their own movie, and Rocket pretty much literally off in his own movie. It all felt disjointed but still kind of blended together, although very much felt like a coda or addition to what we’d seen before and not bringing anything new to the franchise.

Some of the cast felt old in their roles already, with a couple of them all going through the motions. The lack of genuine fresh wit was missing from Chris Pratt, and Karen Gillan seemed to have forgotten her character and just overplayed it, sometimes embarrassingly so, for the most part (and the same for the villain, who lost any menace the more he shouted). The jukebox didn’t seem to be stocked up with quite so many classics this time either.

VFX were fine, mostly great, but it’s easily a half hour too long, with a couple of endings and three or so reprises of similar moments, which were redundant and dragged things just after the halfway point. But it does all kind of comes together at the end, even if it comes out of nowhere, though doesn’t quite get over that these aren’t quite the Guardians of the first two or even the Infinity appearances.

In many ways, it did feel more like a Marvel special than a movie, and less a part of a "trilogy" and more an "extra episode", or kind of like the "mission of the week" feel if it were to continue as a Marvel series. For all the scope and expanse, it all felt a little small scale and routine, perhaps betraying Gunn's one-trick of writing for teamups as opposed to specific characters, which is perhaps why he’s launching his Superman in an already super-powered world…

On the fence on if I get this on disc. It wasn’t bad at all, but wasn’t great or as entertaining as the first two, and didn’t, for me, bring anything particularly revelatory or new to the characters, other than to see how they all choose to end up, which is *kind of* anticlimactic in itself. Maybe when it hits Insiders as a disc offering…but I’d be in no rush.

[droosan]

I enjoyed GotG vol 3 well enough .. but it continued the trend of the MCU mining The Fantastic Four's rogues gallery, before the FF officially appear in this universe!

Both the High Evolutionary & Adam Warlock, in this case .. meanwhile, Prince Namor was featured in Wakanda Forever, while the Super Skrull was in the Secret Invasion Disney+ series (they even gave the Super Skrull analog FF powers! ). The Time Variance Authority (featured in the Loki Disney+ series) was also originally an FF plot device.

Even Mole Man has had his thunder stolen by the Underminer in The Incredibles films.

There's always Doctor Doom, of course .. maybe the Puppet Master. But, like, dang, MCU .. leave some FF villains for the FF to fight!

[EricJ]

So that was…okay? Quite entertaining, but much less engaging than the first two. Everyone kind of felt off in their own movie, and Rocket pretty much literally off in his own movie. It all felt disjointed but still kind of blended together, although very much felt like a coda or addition to what we’d seen before and not bringing anything new to the franchise.

And when Groot gets his big scenes about halfway through the movie, I LITERALLY thought "Oh, wait, that's right! Groot's in this movie too, I forgot!"

That's certainly not the story/marketing neglect he got in Vol. 2.

[Ben]

But then he is in it A LOT from that point on.

Certainly the juggling of different characters in their different situations wasn’t handled as deftly as before, and the constant hopping between the groups and Rocket flashbacks not as fluid as it could have been.

As an aside, apparently the "widescreen" version on disc retains the ratio hopping too, going from 2.40 to occasional 1.85/90 for sometimes just individual *shots*, which is just weird. There’s no rhyme or reason either, since we'll switch back to a wider shot in the midst of a 1.85/90 action scene too. And again, on checking it, all this does is open up the dead space top and bottom, which should remain matted. I don’t know how this was presented in cinemas, but I hope it did actually open up wider and not just pull this 16:9 crap on the big screen. I’ve a feeling the cinema showings just remained matted to 2.40 — which it is obviously framed for — because the flipping between ratios didn’t do anything here except mostly just "expand" (wrong word!) for big scenes.

In quick comparison, the fully 1.90 version on D+ appears to be a mix of open matte and cropped shots to achieve the full 16:9 effect, which isn’t then ideal from either way! And still just exposes a lot of dead space top and bottom that was obviously intended to be matted out in widescreen "prints". As always, the wider framing looks more balanced, less empty, and more cinematic than your average TV show. Maybe subconsciously this is also why G3 felt more like a Marvel special than a fully-fledged movie, since it keeps losing that movie feel on smaller screens…

[James]

Interesting article Dacey posted about Marvel this week:

https://variety.com/2023/film/features/ ... 235774940/

This is absolutely wackadoodle though!

As public criticism mounts, Feige is pulling the plug on scripts and projects that aren’t working. Case in point: the “Blade” reboot. With Mahershala Ali signed on for the eponymous role of a vampire, things looked promising for a 2023 release date. But the project has gone through at least five writers, two directors and one shutdown six weeks before production. One person familiar with the script permutations says the story at one point morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons. Blade was relegated to the fourth lead, a bizarre idea considering that the studio had two-time Oscar winner Ali on board.

This sounds like a joke from the South Park special I linked to recently!

[EricJ]

One person familiar with the script permutations says the story at one point morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons. Blade was relegated to the fourth lead, a bizarre idea considering that the studio had two-time Oscar winner Ali on board.

That definitely SOUNDS like a problem Marvel movies are facing at Disney at the moment.

Most of the press-nervousness at the moment, though, is over the bad early warning signs for "The Marvels", as release date nears, and if it does as badly as expected, there's one scapegoat studio-voodoo is likely to look at as the reason.

There's always Doctor Doom, of course .. maybe the Puppet Master. But, like, dang, MCU .. leave some FF villains for the FF to fight!

Latest rumors have it that MCU is ready to abandon Kang to the ants, and go with Doctor Doom as the New Thanos of the franchise--
Since he can not only be brought into the FF reboot, but he's also a main villain in the Secret Wars arc that MCU's now wedded to for Phase V...
(thump head) DUHH.

[Ben]

It’s Woke Disney, man. The Marvels is a mess and they know it (and knew it from *before* shooting began, actually). Jonathan Majors is toast and a major(s) reset is indeed happening. I’ve even heard not to expect any MCU content in 2024 (outside of the completing Deadpool)…

The fragmented and over-exposure storytelling of the streaming era killed the golden Marvel goose. Too much, too soon, too consistently mediocre or just plain bad. They are learning nothing from Star Wars and are diluting the brand to chase that all-important "content".


Ha…not related to that but it feels even funny typing "2024". Within the past month or so we’ve run two films from 1987 in our movie night lineup, and kast night's InnerSpace — still SO much fun! Dante’s best movie? — had us all reminiscing about those times and how amazing and cool things would be come the 2000s, let alone the 2020s! Woah, if we only knew then…