The Marvels

[chrisstbh]

I suppose, but we got plenty of that with the Holland Spidey movies too.

Spider-Man is my favourite superheros and one of my favourite things of all time but I can’t stand Tom Hollands Spider-Man.

 

[ObiGlennKenobi]

Such a travesty to play the Beastie Boys.
Best part of the trailer bytheway.

 

[generalszabo]

Spider-Man is my favourite superheros and one of my favourite things of all time but I can’t stand Tom Hollands Spider-Man.

Garfield all the way!

 

[chrisstbh]

Woah super cool intimidating villain.

God this **** really does look like Power Rangers.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

It appears Brie Larson got the MCU role because she's pretty and she won an Oscar. But she's not a very good actress. She has no charisma and no comedic timing. She's mostly awkward without it appearing that's the base intention. So mixing Danvers with Kamala Khan seems like the best option out of some limited possible scenarios. If you don't have a great actor/actress, then you pair them off with someone more dynamic and hope they balance each other out.

Keanu Reeves is not a great actor by any stretch. But he is a great physical performer. At least he offers something besides his appeal to middle aged women lusting after him. Brie Larson is just pretty. That's it. It's not a crime to just be pretty. And there are lots of pretty women in Hollywood that are more than competent at acting. So it's not like being pretty excludes someone from the skill set. But she just doesn't have the "It Factor" here.

She's miscast. Clearly. But you can't really blame her for cashing in and then cashing out. It was the best career move given her situation at the time. Sometimes I see Captain Marvel as Lethal Weapon, if you took Mel Gibson out of it and had to be stuck with just Danny Glover hamming it all up for two hours. No one is going out of their way to pay good money and burn two hours to see Glover drag down an entire film by himself. Sadly, a majority of the time, Glover was just the butt of many of the jokes and gags.

I get why she's pissed off. Promises were made. It's her franchise. Her first movie did make big money. On that front, it delivered. Now she's been put in the back seat.

Here's where the rubber meets the road - If Captain Marvel was completely excised out of the MCU from Phases 1-3, would it have made any difference at all? Not really. Everything she did in the Avengers films could be written around and replaced somehow. It's an extraneous IP with a non essential character played by a seriously miscast limited actress. Given some thought, the only way I could conceive of saving this sequel for sure would have been to put Florence Pugh in it. Yelena is great. She's dynamic and fans love her. Everything Pugh touches is made better. She's a phenomenal actress. And she's talented enough to carry Larson if she had to do it.

I hope Vellani can uplift this film. But I am sure Pugh could actually do it. She's practically the only remaining true bright spot on the MCU's entire roster now.

 

[Sweet Rabbit]

The MCU’s best days are behind it

 

[Garlador]

The MCU’s best days are behind it

I too long for the days of… *checks notes*… Thor: The Dark World…

Seriously though, there were a ton of Phase 4 projects I enjoyed, from No Way Home to Shang-Chi to Loki to Moon Knight to Werewolf by Night.

I hope The Marvels is solid. I’m looking to have fun, not get “Infinity War” every month.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-mov...freak-out-youtube-trailer-trolled-1234714518/

So Rolling Stone has weighed in and gone on the full attack. I don't see it as a particularly great marketing strategy to label an entire major cross section of your fandom for the actions of a few. Also, these kind of "shock marketing" tactics in articles and press releases don't sell tickets on their own. It literally looks like some author just took an old outrage article and changed some of the details to fit the Captain Marvel IP.

Do I think people should be review bombing a film that hasn't even come out yet? No. I don't think that's good for anyone involved.

However I do hold the stance that the MCU has a "Brie Larson Problem" more than this claimed misogyny problem as backlash. Lots of female MCU stars and characters are beloved and well received. Lots of people like Black Widow, Yelena, Peggy Carter ( God, she was so incredible in CA TFA) , Kamala Khan, the WASP, etc, etc

Here's the part that might start to cook some noodles. Whatever people might think of the now "cancelled" Joss Whedon, and what he did or did not do for Justice League, and what he may or may not have done on the set of BTVS or other films/series, the guy can write female characters. Scar Jo is not a good actress. Not at all. But she's hot and she's generally pleasant off camera and Whedon did a great job of writing her character in the first Avengers film. The Russos piggy backed on that development and further highlighted Scar Jo's strengths in CA TWS, focusing on her great chemistry with Chris Evans.

So that's one way Feige and the MCU could have helped themselves. Given Captain Marvel to Whedon. Which sounds backwards. Since Larson is big on feminist advocacy off camera and Whedon has effectively been cancelled for his claimed actions against women.

But he could have taken a non critical IP, with a fairly bland character, and probably found something pretty interesting with it. If you look at BTVS, Angel, Dollhouse and Firefly, Whedon took A LOT of relatively limited/bad actors and actresses and made them interesting and compelling. There's legitimately some stuff in BTVS, even all this time later, that is still completely hard hitting in terms of what it means to grow up and figure yourself out as a person.

So that's one possible solution that could have saved the original Captain Marvel. Don't ask Brie Larson to be Meryl Streep. Or even Amy Adams. Just get a show runner who knows how to maximize a clearly limited talent.

 

[lordnastrond]

Yeah - this doesn't look like my bag baby

 

[MeatHookGekko]

If I was Kevin Feige, and I was dead set on casting Brie Larson, I would have looked at what Matthew Weiner did with the Betty Draper character in Mad Men. January Jones has some of the same issues as Brie Larson. Awkward, not good at acting, classically beautiful, lacking in charisma. However what Weiner did was just put Jones in a situation where she wasn't asked to do more than what she was capable as a performer. Betty Draper was sad, depressed and isolated. Now those scenes above probably couldn't be filmed today ( the kid, the Glenn Bishop character, is actually played by Weiner's own son in real life) because of how these kind of adult/kid dynamics would be perceived currently. But part of the Betty/Glenn relationship was built around the issue that while Betty had what looked like the perfect ideal life, she was very alone and felt hopeless. The only real outlet she had to try to be honest was with a child.

Betty Draper was seen as tragic and "reluctantly beautiful" The character and writing was a great fit for Jones. The audience might not be able to relate to each specific issue for the character, but they can universally understand the pain of feeling like you are cornered and no one is really listening to you.

Carol Danvers is just plain unlikeable. The audience here, in contrast, is treated like a free therapy punching bag for the character's first world problems. It's not just bad storytelling, it's lazy and entitled. The entire enterprise ignores how the Danvers makes the audience feels about themselves.

But the MCU can't do stories like Betty Draper under it's "brand" because it's pumping out product like an energy drink company. It demands the frenetic "family friendly" low impact watered down humor and non confrontational action scenes.

If Brie Larson is a mind numbing cutout moody depressed entitled Karen in real life then just make Carol Danvers that. At least it's honest. Then find a way to help the audience relate to why the character is that way without actually attacking the audience. It's OK to have a character and a performer that's unlikeable, they just can't be boring.

Do you know how you can start to figure out the current MCU "One Size Fits All" standard product model is pretty much broken? The answer to that is Iron Man 1 would have never been made by the current MCU today. No way would the current Marvel have a womanizing narcissist, a known arms dealer inside the military industrial complex, with PTSD as it's hero. There's a sex scene. There's Stark on a pure revenge tour after his cave buddy gets killed. There's clear unbridled criticism at the way war is big business for the modern military. There are American soldiers being killed on screen. And Stark refuses to apologize for being exactly who is he is and what he is about.

Captain Marvel needed something outside the "formula" to succeed.

 

[Garlador]

Do you know how you can start to figure out the current MCU "One Size Fits All" standard product model is pretty much broken? The answer to that is Iron Man 1 would have never been made by the current MCU today. No way would the current Marvel have a womanizing narcissist, a known arms dealer inside the military industrial complex, with PTSD as its hero. There's a sex scene. There's Stark on a pure revenge tour after his cave buddy gets killed. There's clear unbridled criticism at the way war is big business for the modern military. There are American soldiers being killed on screen. And Stark refuses to apologize for being exactly who is he is and what he is about.

Captain Marvel needed something outside the "formula" to succeed.

A lot to unpack here, but I’ll say I disagree with, well, basically everything here.

Is Moon Knight not a guy with a military background suffering from trauma and PTSD? Outside of Iron Man, there’s not really a surplus of womanizing billionaire heroes in Marvel comics either. Did Eternals not have a very overt sex scene? Did She-Hulk not have sex? Didn’t Peter literally almost kill Goblin out of anger and revenge? Did Wanda not butcher a ton of people trying to get her kids back? Haven’t they openly been calling out the corrupt government overreach in stuff like WandaVision and Ms. Marvel? Didn’t US soldiers get killed in FATWS? Isn’t US military honcho General Ross a current villain? Didn’t Tony literally turn his entire life around as penance for who he used to be?

And even if you didn’t like it, isn’t Captain Marvel one of the highest grossing superhero movies of all time?

 

[guyver1]

This says it all

 

[MeatHookGekko]

A lot to unpack here, but I’ll say I disagree with, well, basically everything here.

Is Moon Knight not a guy with a military background suffering from trauma and PTSD? Outside of Iron Man, there’s not really a surplus of womanizing billionaire heroes in Marvel comics either. Did Eternals not have a very overt sex scene? Did She-Hulk not have sex? Didn’t Peter literally almost kill Goblin out of anger and revenge? Did Wanda not butcher a ton of people trying to get her kids back? Haven’t they openly been calling out the corrupt government overreach in stuff like WandaVision and Ms. Marvel? Didn’t US soldiers get killed in FATWS? Isn’t US military honcho General Ross a current villain? Didn’t Tony literally turn his entire life around as penance for who he used to be?

And even if you didn’t like it, isn’t Captain Marvel one of the highest grossing superhero movies of all time?

^

The above is less than 4 minutes long, and it's the opening to Iron Man 1. The MCU and Feige will never ever make anything like that again. But Favreau did a fantastic job really helping the audience to understand Tony Stark's personality and character in just a few minutes. By being flawed, Stark had things he needed to struggle with and overcome.

The saving grace for MCU Phases 1-3 was more of a focus on the characters. Not everything hit perfectly, but you can see the actual storytelling at work. MCU Phases 4-5 look to be relying solely on setting small footprints towards an Avengers film that has to fight Kang. Aside from Tom Holland, who is a holdover from the previous hero regime, and Pugh, who is fantastic, the other characters start to look more and more like assembly line cutouts.

I'm OK that you disagree. I'm even glad when people disagree with me. I see the exchange as an opportunity.

Captain Marvel won big at the box office because it was right before End Game. Feige and others teased that the Danvers character and the CM story was critical to Endgame. But since you bring up the box office dynamic, let's talk about that. The Marvels has been delayed multiple times, one of the quiet rumors is that Feige wanted to time it's release to push the projectible financial losses into a different year. If you delay a film and keep doing reshoots and keep adjusting the CGI, then that's going to add to the cost. What are we talking here? 250-320 million in budgetary costs before this is all over? For a film

A) That has no real draw with the characters. Most MCU fans and most general movie goers aren't particularly excited just to see Danvers or Rambeau or Khan, not to the degree to turn this into a sure fire box office bonanza

B) That has no real draw with bankable star power. Larson is not regularly carrying films on her own, not big tent pole films nor huge money makers outside the MCU. How many people are going out their way to see Parris? Or Khan?

C) Where major character development required the audience to have some background via two different TV shows. Not everyone saw Wanda Vision for Rambeau. Not everyone saw Ms Marvel. That's a huge ask. Three characters who have never operated as super heroes together before, with two of them needing packaged exposition as if they were new characters.

D) Where there is no defined A list villain to drive this film forward. There is no Nicholson as Joker here to pull everything up all at once.

E) With a novice director, with only two real quantifiable projects to her name. Both soaked deep in identity politics, social justice and lending that unpleasant misandrist tone to them.

If you are going to tell me that there isn't a huge tonal shift in MCU Phase 4 and beyond, compared to Iron Man 1, then that's your viewpoint. I respect your right to it. I just don't agree. I see a shift from focusing on character development ( in Phases 1-3) to just films that have core set pieces that need to be hit like checkmarks, while supporting back door pilots and trying to sustain the outside merchandising potential while doing it's best not to incite and infuriate China and other international markets.

I see Iman Vellani as a real talent. She's a gem. The MCU can use her energy and authenticity. What good there was in Ms Marvel, she carried that show on her back. It's a lot to ask a 20 year old with so little experience to basically save The Marvels. I mean look at the core conditions I've listed above. That's a huge ask for this kid.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

Some reviews of DaCosta's previous projects. Might be an indicator of what will happen with The Marvels.

To be fair, having an inexperienced director is not always a bad thing. Also having a writing crew with limited resumes at this level. Sometimes people surprise you. And everyone has to start somewhere. But that's a huge ask for an embattled sequel with a huge budget, no star power and a movie audience that might hit a real undeniable saturation point with super hero stories period.

DaCosta seems to specialize in sadness porn ( like a super charged movie version of "This Is Us", but with bigger budgets) and what is now common place standard issue identity politics as general themes. There's nothing wrong with that, if that's her personal wheelhouse as a director. But will that fit the quippy humor style MCU?

I can't shake the feeling that Vellani is not one of 300 Spartans here, but she's being asked to be every last of those 300 Spartans on her own, and then hold the line anyway. It would be incredible if Kamala Khan can pull this off. But the odds seem hopelessly stacked here.

 

[Otomofan]

I see the usual youtube haters brigade is whining about this movie.

In the past, I agreed with a lot of the things that got youtubers' jimmies rustled. Ghostbusters 2016, TLJ, Alison Brie's permanent resting bitch face. All of that stuff was truly odious and they're preaching to the choir with me on that.

But I didn't go out of my way to be "offended" by Ms Marvel and She-Hulk. Why?? Why would I even care?? They were attempts by the Mouse to branch out the Marvel brand to new audiences. I never watched a single episode of Ms Marvel cause that Disney Jr Tween stuff isn't for me. And the episodes of She-Hulk I sat through were vapid garbage, but so is ALL television aimed at millennial women. I'm supposed to get all mad cause Daredevil was in it? If Wolverine guest starred on "Sex in the City" and banged one of the geriatric women on the show, I wouldn't get MAD. I'd just ignore it cause I don't watch "Sex in the City!!"

I guess there's so much residual hatred left over for Brie/Captain Marvel that they automatically hate this by default.

If she was doing the same song and dance from before, I'd agree. God, she was so smug in Endgame I just wanted Thor to wipe that sneer off her face. BUT...in the few seconds of screen time she has in the trailer, it looks like she's actually TRYING. It looks like she might have a shred of self-awareness and a sense of humor this time. If she's willing to try, why hold that against her?

"Photon" or whatever the hell her name is looks like a big giant nothing, but so what? Not everyone can be the lead...sometimes you need a straight man.

And Kamala Khan just looks like a goofy and dorky kid. Let her be a kid...it's fun and wholesome.

This movie looks so harmless. I can't understand the rancor over it.

It'll have the same paper-thin plot, forgettable bad guys, and cheap special effects as the rest of the Marvel crap. So what? It might be fun for kids and teens and girls. Let them enjoy it.

I'm gonna watch it when it hits torrent.

 

[generalszabo]

I have nothing aginst Alison Brie personally

 

[Otomofan]

Alison Brie Larson.

 

[a-dev]

The internet/youtube response to Brie Larson continues to be out of all proportion to her 'crimes' such that I'm embarrassed at having participated in it back when Captain Marvel came out and her feminist clips were doing the rounds.

 

[Otomofan]

She was really good in "Don Jon" but then again, she only had one line of dialogue.

 

[chrisstbh]

She was good in Scott Pilgrim and that’s the only role I’ve ever liked of hers.