Marvel Cinematic Universe

GotG was improbable but great, and it’s definitely James Gunn responsible for making it so. But it’s always a gamble. I think the FF is a much harder property than people expect. GotG has these widely dispersed, new characters brought together. Fantastic Four is a family of white people with no kids, so less than The Incredibles, but not young or hip enough to be X-Men, and as it stands they have few character hooks to make them likeable or relatable, they’re kind of bland. Disney has the resources to solve the FFs problems and make it work, but it would require finding the exact right director and screenwriters landing on the exact right angle.

I mean, the worst that could happen is it would be a competent and forgettable adventure with a few groan moments (Thor 2, Black Widow etc) but I think they’ll feel a particular onus to make FF work. There’s so much backbone to the core culture of Marvels comics universe that runs through and stemmed from Fantastic Four, I think they’ll (by which I mean Feige) feel a real duty to make any film adaptation the best it could be.

I’m just hoping they give Doom his own origin separate from the FF this time. The movies so far always tie them together, which relegates Doom to being an unimaginative “Dark Version Of Our Hero/s” which is a disservice to an iconic and driven character.

He certainly looks like a bit of a cunt...

Unless they’re introduced from elsewhere you can’t avoid doing some kind of origin.

I wonder if a solution would be to pull them in from the multiverse and have them stranded in the primary continuity. But then that could make them a bit alien and ill fitting when it comes to doing any heroing

Ant-Man since Reed is a genius scientist?

Saw Shang Chi last night. Thought it was good, some of the fight scenes were impressive. Follows the Marvel template pretty closely but still enough new stuff in there to feel quite fresh.

Of the three and a half Disney+ series we’ve had so far I think Loki is the weakest and least entertaining by miles

I enjoyed Loki fwiw and didn't feel it noticeably dipped over the six episodes, but then he's always been one of my favourite characters.

Shang Chi is very good, up until the final showdown when it kinda loses momentum and resorts to lots of flying CG stuff (as is the norm with the Marvel end pieces). The fight choreography and camera work up until then is very, very good.

Some stuff I didn't like about it, but I won't go into it for spoilers. Will wait until it's on D+ to discuss it further.

Would probably add that Shang Chi has a decent bad guy IMO, they often get slated in Marvel films but felt they got it right this time.

Marvel do seem hell bent on killing off all the interesting villains. It's pretty annoying.

I do think it’s interesting that there’s a distinct lack of persistent/recurring threat in superhero movies, whereas in the comics baddies hang around for the long term. You could probably make a case for Thanos but he was virtually irrelevant for the first two phases. Maybe they’ll have Kang hang around more but I’m also somewhat expecting him to be wrapped up in a neat bow by the end of Dr Strange 2.

I mean, I get why. Even with all the overarching connections in phases people usually expect a movie storyline to wrap up within one or two parts, and considering volume of movies to volume of comics it would get kind of stale quickly. But it would be nice to see some of the villains get a longer lifespan.

It also makes the shooting schedule for the actor a ballache - they'd barely be able to have any other work if they had to crop up for meaningful screen time in multiple movies within a phase.
I wonder how the audiences would react if they had a villain through multiple movies too. You'd kind of get the same film over and over. Loki avoided that by being hero and villain.

Would be interesting for someone like Doc Doom (especially useful as you can hide the face and just have the actor provide dialogue), or Osbourn (if he would ever show up in a MCU Spidey), as they have their own arcs and could build their own teams/escalate threat through multiple films.

No idea. I don't follow the Sony stuff closely because it's all shite. I know they have all the villain movies that don't make any sense in isolation.
Also no idea how much of the MCU stuff can go into those movies. I would assume all the vis-dev stuff is Disney's so it would all need to be redesigned for Sony movies.

I think the fact that most superhero movies historically end with the bad guy dying is due to them basically trying to be movies - most action movies see Hans Gruber tossed off a building or Bennett letting off some steam. So I just think it felt natural in 1989 for audiences to see the Joker die, and that kind of carried on.

Comics are different, obviously, because they never end, so Lex Luthor always has to pop up even if he's died and been resurrected before. I think as we get shared universes or at least ongoing narratives, this will become ever more common.

Kang, I think, will be around for a while, even if it turns out to be different versions of him; I'm fully expecting him to be a big player in whatever Avengers-style huge team-up movie Marvel have in the offing. We've still got Zemo, now in Wakanda, and Agnes, and the Vulture, and of course the greatest Marvel villain, Walton Goggins as Sonny Burch from Ant-Man and the Wasp. Some his health code violations would shock you.

Also just wanted to say: I did not hate Venom, and I absolutely thought I would. I always think when a film is mediocre but you expected garbage you end up defending it way more than it deserves; that's me with Venom.