This is all about tieing things into the next phase of the MCU and the multiverse.
This is one of the slightly weird bits with Marvel. They want each series of individuals’ films to stand alone, but as they get deeper and deeper into the universe the more everything is intertwinned and harder for someone that hasn’t seen all the previous films/read the comics to understand what is happening
As long as Zendaya 
is on the picture I don’t care who Terry and June are.
Which I don’t think is unreasonable. It’s been 13 years since Iron Man, if you haven’t paid attention and caught up with what’s going on in that time, you’re never going to and probably aren’t going to be bothered about what’s happening with the multiverse in the next batch of movies.
I’m all for Dr Strange taking over the mantle from Iron Man and being set up as the new leading light of the MCU heading into this next phase. For me he’s definitely the most interesting character they’ve got at their disposal right now. The Multiverse of Madness is the film I’m most looking forward to, Strange vs a fully powered Scarlet Witch and the potential cinematic debut of Mephisto.
Not strange at all, it’s generally how comics work within the DC and Marvel Universes. You have comics for individual teams & heroes, and then every so often a major storyline bringing many of them together and it’s own limited series of comics.
I only have a few gripes with the Marvel characters. Captain Marvel is way too powerful. To the extent that she doesn’t really need the rest of the Avengers so what’s the point?
Scarlet Witch is also very powerful but conversely rarely gets the scope to unleash, except when she nearly tears Thanos to pieces in Endgame. Wish we saw more of her.
Quill’s powers were hinted at as a demi God and then they went down the route of him being an idiot, when he could still have been funny without being cast as a bit of a plonker. Feel they wasted a good character.
Not particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of Jane Foster (Portman) becoming the new Thor either.
I think it is. The original idea and plan for the MCU was that you could watch each series seperately without missing out, but if you sat down to watch the 2 (soon to be 3) Spiderman films you would struggle to follow if you haven’t already watched the Iron Man, Dr Strange and Avengers films as there are so many nuances and references to things that have happened in other arcs that you would be clueless too.
Similarly with the new Dr Strange film, from all reports, you will need to be pretty up to date with both WandaVision and Lokie series as well as possibly Spiderman and The Eternals. For my it just feels like everything is becoming a lot more interconnected than originally planned
They definitely jumped the gun with her, and obviously knew it given they sidelined her for the entirety of Endgame. Feel like they should have saved her for one of the upcoming Guardians or Thor films.
Wasn’t this one of the major gripes with the Captain Marvel film itself?
No weaknesses, leading to no character arc of any value. Nothing in her character to explore and grow on.
Basically find powers, wipe out bad guy, roll credits.
At least they’ve given Tony Stark “issues” to deal with, which is good. Note, only just started watching End Game the other night.
This is why I like the Batman comics… ahem, illustrated novels in particular. It’s also why I like the Hulk (getting beaten up by Thanos like that was just wrong though). The characters are seriously flawed both in an out of “costume” and are always fighting their inner demons as well as the actual enemies.
I find the Batman films, while being incredibly good, have really struggled to capture the fact that Bruce Wayne is seriously screwed up. Perhaps they were viewed as too dark? I think the Joker film was a perfect example of how to deliver a movie that explored that kind of broken character.
I’m not sure if that will be the case though.
Even though it was just a teaser trailer, there was a lot of exposition of what had happened in previous movies and how they got to this point, I think anything relevant that you may have missed will be covered in the movie.
So while having seen all the tv shows and other movies will enhance what you see in each new movie, I don’t think you will have had to see to understand and enjoy the movie.
For example, in the case of Captain America 4 the last we saw of Falcon was him receiving the shield from Steve Rogers. We then had a tv series developing Sam’s character, exploring the racial politics that come along with owning the shield, what makes someone a good soldier or a good man etc, but ultimately ending with Sam taking on that shield.
For anyone not following the tv shows they will go from Sam taking the shield in Endgame to Sam having the shield and being Captain America in Captain America 4, the inbetween bit enhances but ultimately isn’t relevant.
I’m guessing with all the other shows, if you watch them you will have a deeper appreciation of the characters and events, but you won’t not understand it as they’ll either have flashbacks or conversations to bring the audience up to date.
But I personally don’t understand how someone could want to watch Dr Strange but have decided they weren’t interested in the Spiderman movie.
Speaking of which, I’m looking forward to Shang Chi next week, as it will be my first trip to the cinema since pre-pandemic.
I’m not a big comic fan or that of the film adaptations, but went along with most of the marvel ride and generally, enjoyed it. There were a few exceptions, but also on the other end of the scale a couple of films that way exceeded expectations. However, I completely checked out after Civil War and/or Ultron. I thought they were both borderline unwatchable, both visually and narratively - Oh, they’re fighting now…why? because.
I dont remember which films came between those and Infinity War, but I didnt watch them, got a 5 min update of what I needed to know from my then girlfriend’s kid before we went to watch it and got along fine.
It’s tough line to balance, because for true mass market appeal you need to allow for viewers like me to not feel shut out of a new release for having not done their homework. But if you’re going to have these multiple interrelated franchises all contributing to the whole, you cannot make them too unimportant to the overall narrative without devaluing the individual pieces. It’s a really fine line that I think Marvel have done superbly. They’re not my favourite films, but the entire collection are an astonish feat of story telling.
Actually they planned Captain Marvel to take the mantle from the get go. But after casting Brie Larson and working with her thru the first film, they found it very difficult to work with her. So they shelved the idea and changed things a bit.
And then Spiderman was planned to be the main guy. But Sony was not willing to let go of the character. So that idea also got shelved. Now there is a vaccum. Need to see whether it’s Dr.Strange or some one else now.
I’ve just started watching Endgame. So no spoilers please.
Hybrid Banner and Hulk feels so wrong, so wrong. And then time travel while ignoring the impacts on time when travelling at high speed across the universe. My interest has immediately wobbled on this but I’ll see it through and give my thoughts at the end.
Was it this way in the comics?
It gets a Lovren from me
Yes, there are story lines in the comics where Hulk and Banner merge as entities.
Avengers Assemble was good. Thought most of the others were crap (although I admittedly haven’t seen them all because I checked out).
I do have Disney Plus now and watched the Avengers movies in a row but then realised you have to watch the character focused films to complete the story. I really can’t be arsed. The whole time travel thing in the last Avengers was a pure cop out.
Yeah, I was a bit irritated by having to watch the character focused films to fully understand all the backstories but I’d definitely recommend all the Thor and Iron Man ones, they’re quality - plus the Guardians of the Galaxy.
However, I do find the Captain America, Dr Strange, Captain Marvel, Hulk, Spiderman, Black Panther ones pretty dull.
I think I’ve watched the majority of Avenger-related movies but I only truly enjoyed the second Captain America movie (strong Three Days of Condor vibes) because I liked its themes of patriotism, loyalty and deception. Guardians of the Galaxy weren’t bad, too. The rest were mostly uninspired or not of great emotional value, in my opinion.
That said, I respect the way MCU is meticulously planned out to be a consistent money-making machine while keeping itself relevant to the times. I wish DC (Warner Bros?) could be sorted out into something that is coherent and of long term value. I liked Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and Joker (and even Snyder Cut of Justice League to an extent) and I have high hopes for Matt Reeves’ Batman but everything here is completely disconnected.
DC movies have been somewhat incoherent because the movies have themselves been poor and led to reboots. They are also take themselves a bit too seriously and comics are often at their best imho with humour in their.
I grew up a big fan of the DC universe, but am enjoying the marvel movies. I am still to see the tv shows, Infinity Wars, Endgame or Ant and Wasp although I think the earlier titles have been the best.
Thought wonder woman was nicely made as well. Especially the 2017 one.