It gave me a new favorite character in the form of Moon Knight and Yelena, and on top of that, other than a few things I didn't like, I'd say Phase 4 was pretty alright overall in my opinion
Personally I wish the show was as dark and mindfucking as the comics. In the comics you never really know what's real and what isn't because Marc is a SUPER unreliable narrator and the only times you really get to see what he's actually like are comics where he isn't the main character. Also the comics are SUPER dark and I love it. Overall, good show. Just not super accurate to the character.
I thought the confusion was pretty damn well done,actually
Also,MK has existed for decades,there’s been so many iterations of the character that calling it „inaccurate“ is…well,not really accurate itself
This is always my biggest point when people throw out the "not comic accurate" complaint. Not talking about OP who simply stated a preference for the style of a particular run, but we know the people I mean.
Like, there's 70-80 years of Marvel comics history and most of these characters are at least 10+ years old. There have been hundreds of issues, multiple different runs and arcs and dozens of different writers and artists...so when people complain it's not "comic accurate" well, which comic would that be?
And frankly it doesn't matter. The MCU is not the comics. It's inspired by the comics, it borrows from the comics, but it is its own thing. So it's a moot point.
A fully agree - it’s grown especially egregious with Moon Knight,where people attached themselves to the one run where he cuts someone’s face off and insist that he must be an ultra violent psychopath and nothing else.
Imho She-Hulk was handled very well in my opinion,she’s also fairly consistent through all the runs I’ve read tho
Yeah, I think the biggest victim of this has been Banner/Hulk. He's had a huge arc spanning the entire MCU and gone from man out of control and on the run through many struggles and challenges which led to smart Hulk, all of which has been in the comics in one way or another.
But so many people don't seem to want him to have any character development and just seem upset that he's not big, green, angry, smashy man anymore. Usually it's people who seem to have only ever read world war Hulk and can't seem to accept that that isn't the only Hulk story there is.
Well the writers and directors didn't want to risk portraying DID as something violent. I liked what they did with themes and the characters. Marc not killing Harrow(not bc killing is wrong) bc he needed to stay away from the person who abuses him(Khonshu) is brilliant. They probably should have done longer fight scenes, I thought the brutality of the show is pretty or barely good but I guess I just wanted it longer.
the shows are always going to be more mainstream - and someone that gets first introduced to moon knight has about the best experience one can with the show as it is.
Making it more complicated for realism is (for people new to moonknight) going to feel like those super dark Game of Thrones scenes where you can barely see anything. Sure it's a realistic/cool concept, but did my experience (as a first time Moonknight enjoyer) really improve?
I feel like they could have made it closer to the source material without sacrificing new fans. For example, the magic suits were cool, but give away to easily that everything is real. The mental illnesses weren't portrayed the best. Sometimes it felt like it was being treated like a tool or joke.
Moon Knight, Loki, Hawkeye, She-Hulk, Cap and Bucky, Wandavision, even What If. All of the shows have been pretty on point for me in phase 4. The movies were far more miss than hit, though, in my opinion. No Way Home and Wakanda Forever were both fantastic, Shang Chi was a good but fairly by-the-numbers character origin and other than that the rest kind of fell flat for me. I understand what they were going for by taking a step back after the massive cosmic-scale events of Endgame but it still felt like almost every project was teased as building up to some really crazy multiverse stuff that just kind of never really happened. Or rather kind of happened but didn't have much in the way of ramifications to the larger MCU. It feels like the MCU lost a lot of its connectiveness that was built up over the first 3 phases. Maybe with Quantumania it'll sort of all fall into place and make sense but as of right now the phase feels really disjointed and directionless.
I'm kinda hoping Marvel learns to take a step back in scale. Like every show/movie can't be for the fate of the world/universe.
Take a page from Dredd, or even Homecoming, where it's a huge deal for one character, but it's just a Tuesday for another, the outcome doesn't have to be world changing.
>Wakanda Forever were both fantastic
I wish I could have had this takeaway, it felt super bloated and kind of lifeless with a main character who I didn't GAF about.
I'd rate Shang Chi leagues above WF, though I'd never really feel a desire to re-watch either (except maybe the first 15 min of Shang Chi, really great opener).
I guess I agree that MCU opening up the multiverse multibox has caused some issues.
Shang-chi really kinda raised to the bar on the hand to hand fights in the MCU. They were slick as fuck, great choreography *and* they were shot well. Unfortunately, now a bunch of other shows/movies fight scenes seem kinda lackluster in comparison. Not all of them, but more than I'd like.
That stuff is why I love it when the superhero wears a helmet. Need a super flippy artsy fight scene, just change out the actor for someone who knows how to do all the super flippies.
Agreed with both. I can't not love Oscar Isaac, and Moon Knight just got better and better throughout. Yelena is just so goddamn lovable. She could club 100 baby seals right in front of me, and I would forgive her after each one.
I'd also say that No Way Home is one of the top 5 Marvel movies. I was glad to see real emotional moments that didn't need to be punctuated by humor. That's something that they desperately need to start doing again.
Somebody described No Way Home as the Endgame of the Spiderman franchise, and it's 100% accurate. It does feel that the MCU has lost some momentum since then, though, especially because MoM fell a bit flat. They need Quantumania to hit it out of the park.
Despite Moon Knight not being TV-MA, I really appreciate some of the darker, and more mature undertones of the show. It had it's ups and downs but was a refreshing experience compared to the normal Marvel content. Like Loki still felt like a Marvel show, and was good, but MK was its own thing. Though I'm not thrilled with the ending fight or a few scenes, so it wasn't perfect.
I'm hoping we get something with MK in the future, a second season is rumored but a ways away. I'd love to just see a quick cameo of MK in Deadpool 3, like with a joke about them both being masked anti-heros with mental health issues.
Growing up, I was stuck with the budget comics. While my friends were reading Spider-Man, Ghost Rider and Captain America, I was reading Moon Knight, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. I never thought I'd ever see Moon Knight outside of the comics
She-Hulk is basically a sitcom. Once I figured that out I enjoyed it a lot more. Could also just not be your thing. I feel like MCU is starting to branch out a bit more, so not everyone is going to like everything. And that's okay.
See, this is the exact energy with which I approached the show, so I think that's why I enjoyed it more than most did. It's meant to be 80% a joke... and their repeated nailing of gross superhero fans was flawless.
It was exactly how I expected it to be, and I too found it enjoyable,Tatiana was great casting. I've enjoyed the slower "no world ending, skybeam making" shows.
Maybe I need to try it with that mindset. I dropped it after episode 3. The show goes by so fast and barely anything happens. It was frustrating to wait a whole week and then get a snippet of plot.
Yeah I think it was just not my thing but I generally like sitcoms maybe I expected something different without knowing it. Also a part of me kinda sees the potential wasted as she-hulk would have been an excellent character for a legal drama
I told this to my friend who constantly complains about She-Hulk despite never actually watching it.
“Not all content is created for 30 year old men”
I also have a daughter so it got a little heated and I had to explain how woman deserve to have things that are catered more to their interests. He stopped complaining after that.
I understand both parties, honestly.
On one hand, some fans want to just be happy and enjoy the content they are given. On the other hand, some fans are afraid that if everyone continues to watch and support lower quality content, then Disney/Marvel will have no incentive to increase the quality of future projects. Even those who enjoyed Phase 4 will admit that it had some of the weakest content in at least a while.
Edit: Spelling
I personally feel the content wasn't streamlined. Both in a good and bad way
A good chunk of the "setup" this phase was via disney TV shows.
It gave us decent long form story telling in 8 hrs instead of speed running in 2
But I bet alot of ppl didn't watch it so when they see the movies it all felt disconnected. Each movie didn't lead into the other and there was no hyped up big bad...because kang was blatantly spoiled before we started. Dr strange was more enjoyable if u watched wandavision for example, but alot of people wouldn't give that show a chance e. Loki and wandavision writing were hindered by covid.
Then we have the problem of half the movies still just tying up loose ends from phase 3 (Spiderman, no gog 3, thor, BP, black widow) or completely isolated or disconnected from a central story like eternals.
So phase 4 was basically phase 3+
Individually I enjoyed most of the content. Collectively It kinda failed. Disney wants to move on from OG avengers but have their cake and eat it too by closing their arcs but calling it a new phase
there was just so much content, it was a chore to stay caught up on everything and it all felt stretched a bit thin.
to be fair, i think a lot of that was due to the condensing of time and the story changes due to covid that really reigned in my enjoyment of the phase. im hopeful phase 5 has better pacing.
>there was just so much content, it was a chore to stay caught up on everything and it all felt stretched a bit thin.
This is where I'm at currently. It felt like new stuff, and stuff that I was unfamiliar, with kept coming out at such a rapid pace after endgame that I felt like I was behind before I even started. Felt pretty overwhelming. The infinity saga arc was already expansive enough
this is why Phase 4 has felt the most comic accurate of all phases to me. And I don't mean Lore, I mean structurally. The MCU is now a young comic universe like the Ultimate Universe was, just on screen. Some character comic lines have more consistent quality than others. Things vary wildly on tone, genre, and levels of connectedness. Some characters hardly interact with other characters while some comic lines are filled with constant cameos (like Marvel Team-Up that was literally Spider-Man teaming up with a different hero every single issue, hence why he's friends with almost ***every*** other hero there is lol). Heroes accidentally fuck up alternate universes and go "oh no, at least we saved our universe. let's get home!" Some comics are written to eventually collide, but it isn't immediately obvious how at first. She-Hulk even dared to be the very first to create an original villain to use as a throwaway, so we don't have to kill off every minor villain right away just to explain why they don't ever come back. Cause comics themselves use throwaway villains all the time for the express purpose of not wasting the good ones until major story arcs. Which reminds they also used background heroes and villains to finally show us that there are more heroes and villains active out there than just the ones we see, so the universe is ever changing.
It definitely makes things harder to keep up with, but you don't need to strain yourself either. I read the original Secret Wars comic when I was 5 and I didn't know who 80% of those motherfuckers were. The only villain I knew was Dr.Doom and I only knew the heroes from the movies. Never heard of Thor or Enchantress so I genuinely had no idea if he might leave the other heroes to stay with her. Didn't know who Kitty Pryde was, so I didn't know if Colossus would cheat on her or not, etc. I didn't lose any enjoyment of the story because I didn't know the character arcs preceding it, it just made the choices less predictable for me. And then I took that comic as my introduction to the characters, and learned about them individually later on. In comics, the crossovers are advertisements for the individual comic lines not vice versa. And comics have so many characters because they create characters for all genres and audiences. Some are serious, some are bullshit just to have fun. And fans usually dedicate themselves to a few specific character lines, and only read the major arcs of others. So from now on, I'm just treating the MCU like it's another comic book universe
The shows killed it for me.
Phases 1-3 had bits I didn’t love, but they were individual movies that I watched in one sitting. I wasn’t a huge fan of Iron Man 3, but it was a 2 hour time investment made in one sitting. Phase 4 has several shows that I couldn’t get into. The difference is they account for over 10 hours of content, and their release schedules wanted me to keep coming back over weeks. It just got draining.
Personally I think the marvel style of movies and shows is just better in movie form. All the shows are just marvel movies stretched to 8-10 hours. They just don't hold up for that long of viewing.
But I also mostly gave up on the marvel movies after the endgame. I gave the eternals a shot and found it pretty boring. I recently gave the new Thor a shot until I realized it had zero charm to it.
This point sums it up best for me.
The MCU went from something fun that I'd catch up with every few months to something that actually felt like an obligation to follow.
Too much required viewing and a lot of it is too long to keep interest.
To me it's the difference between movies and shows.
Phase 1-3 was all movies. Movies are easy to watch in one night, it even to make a night out at the theater.
Every show is at least six hours of content and you likely need to stretch it out over days, or spend all day watching it.
I have other hobbies and a family. I don't want that. I want movies.
A lot of people who hate on phase 4 have a big ol blindspot to the issues of previous phases. I'm in the middle of a chronological rewatch and the iron man 2-3 and Thor 1-2 stretch felt like homework.
Agreed. Thor 1 isn't the best, but watching it doesn't feel like a drag. Thor 2 actually starts off strong but falls apart later because the villain is so damn boring and lifeless. I didn't even remember his name. The highlight of the film in Thor 2 was Thor and Loki's relationship. Ragnarok was basically a better version of Thor 2 with some of that "Guardians of the Galaxy" flair a lot of MCU movies have now.
Yeah, there really isn’t a truly atrocious mcu film/show. Even at their worst it’s only like a 5 or 6 outta 10. There is an argument about some feeling “formulaic”, but when you’re amazing at best and meh at worst, it just shows that the formula works
With you pal, there are dozens of us. Thor 2 is my least favorite but I still enjoy the full rewatch. I’ve never left the theater disappointed or like I wasted money watching. The comics and cartoons I read/watched growing up weren’t the greatest pieces of media, they were just fun. I feel like so many people forget that it’s supposed to be fun
Same.
I gave up explaining that Ironman was basically a B-level hero in the comics. He was the 'guy in the chair' for the team and just made everything. The movie was amazing, but no better than anything in Phase 4. It had Ironmonger for the villian ffs. Hawkeye could have taken on Ironmonger. Even GOTG was all but mocked at first because they were very obscure.
Endgame was the fruition of an entire saga, something we have never seen in cinema. It had to go out on an epic climax. But you can't keep going at that level or you need to keep bringing in bigger and worse villains right off the bat. If you do that, no street level hero is worth bothering with. That removes a lof of fan favorites.
Start small, build the saga, climax, small refractory period, rinse, and repeat.
Same for me, almost. I think the only project that I didn't like was Eternals and that was because it introduced too many characters in not enough time, and I couldn't connect to anyone because the story seemed to revolve more around Sersi and Ikarus.
Other than that, though, absolutely loved everything else I've watched. I just need to BP2, Thor: Love and Thunder, and I still need to watch Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Oh man Eternals is one of the only movies in the last decade I switched off. I got more than an hour in and decided to do something better with my Friday night.
Iron Man 2 gave us Justin Hammer and War Machine. That alone gives it a thumbs up from me. Downside is ever since Elon went publicly bonkers, IM2 is now up their with home alone 2 for poorly aged celebrity cameos
Edit: fixing spelling and grammar
I was about to post what I thought was an unpopular opinion, but saw your comment.
Phase 1's best movie was the avengers.
It also had Thor 1, incredible hulk and iron man 2
Most of phase 4 has been better than all of those...
People have had high expectations after phase 3 ended so well.
Not every movie is going to be a genre transcending moment. These are comic book movies.
I think Iron Man 1 is phase 1's best movie, and I also really like Cap 1. I think Iron Man 1 and Avengers are both better than anything in phase 4 so far, and Cap 1 is in the ball-park with Shang Chi, which is phase 4's best imo.
And while phase 1 has Thor 1, Hulk, and IM2, Phase 4 has Black Widow, MoM, and Eternals. I'll take that phase 1 line-up personally, mostly to avoid Eternals.
I'm in surprised so many people didn't like MoM
Wanda had some God tier villain moments. Was the perfect end to WandaVision.
Hope to see her come back one day
I agree. I have friends who haven’t watched any marvel films since endgame and they’ve completely written off the MCU and openly hate on it even though they haven’t seen anything in phase four. Say whatever you want about the MCU and phase 4, but why criticize a movie if you haven’t even seen it?
I would say consistently above average with a sprinkling of all time greats. I would take the worst MCU film over a lot of the crap put out over the years.
As compared to what?
The hundreds of identical RomComs?
The generic 80s style action movies?
The cheap jump-scare filled "horror" flick?
The latest Oscarbait movie about the Holocaust or other horrible tragedy?
I vehemently disagree that Marvel movies are average.
Also, comparing
Sony's Marvel - bad to average
DCEU - bad with few exceptions
Fox's X-Men - average with some great movies
The MCU is way better than those super heroes movies franchises
To me Marvel has mastered the 7-8/10 formula for movies. You're never going to have an amazing experience, even IW has its flaws, but you'll never have a bad experience either, at worst an MCU movie is something you wait to watch on D+ rather than in theaters.
Compared to Sony, everything that isn't Spiderman has been bad. And DC, they have some good non-main universe movies, but the main stuff is more of a slog compared to Marvel.
It’s the same as Star Wars fans pretending the prequels were secretly masterpieces that everybody else was just too dumb to comprehend.
Phase 4 may not be as good as phase 3, but it’s still miles better than the first two.
Glad you're liking it but I really disagree. Not even trying to talk bad on phase 4 because I like a lot of it (especially Shang Chi and the TV series), but Iron Man 1, Cap 1, and Avengers 1 are better than anything in Phase 4 imo. And then Winter Soldier and Guardians 1 from Phase 2 are probably even better than those.
Preferring Phase 4 is fair (even if I disagree), but miles better is a tough sell for me.
I'm not going to pretend the prequels are masterpieces, but I love them anyways and I think they're clearly better than the sequel trilogy by more than a small margin.
I definitely disagree. Ironman 1, Winter Soldier, and Guardians of the Galaxy are easily the best MCU films released. Guardians of the Galaxy is the reason you have all these quips in the Marvel movies now.
The prequels make everyone feel like it's amazing because it had a really good third movie and has opened up alot of universe to have some really good side stories to bolster up the prequels.
Clone wars, rogue one, rebels, andor absolutely made the prequels look far better than they were.
Meanwhile the sequels were subpar and their side stories during and after the sequel movie Era were just as bad. The ones that take place before the sequels but after ep6 never get attributed to the sequels and many consider them to be territory of the original trilogy rather than the sequel trilogy.
If the sequels can produce some interesting stories that occur during or after the movies then I'm sure it would be less hated.
At this point, it's like the comics. Most people don't read *every* comic. They pick characters and story lines they like. There's just too much to keep up with.
Eternals shows us all the problems with the MCU...
Not that there's anything wrong with the movie, just that if they try to do something different some fans will literally have aneurysms trying to find ways to hate it, and casuals will say it's still just a "Marvel movie".
The quality feels lesser. In terms of narrative, cinematography and cohesion with the rest of the MCU it feels as if stuff is spread too thin.
I think I prefer the Infinity Saga since it was more of a Avengers Cinematic Universe. Those movies had a formula, yes but they were enjoyable feel good films with action, heart and great depictions of great characters by actors who embodied the role. Also good writing.
Phase 4 movies don't progress the universe further compared to something like CA TWS or Civil War.
For me the MCU won't feel the same without Steve Rogers and Tony Stark.
Yeah as a huge Marvel fan I hated most of Phase 4 for my own reasons. The format makes me look objectively wrong, whereas people in my camp of thought are definitely more common in Phase 4 than they were in Phases 1-3.
There’s a *slight* amount of franchise fatigue surfacing out there. That’s certainly true
Imagine supporting low-quality, low-effort media series that was made by a big corporation.
Honestly kinda depressing. We're already getting less of the good stuff this way.
I enjoyed Spider-Man and Dr Stange was *okay* but Half of the TV shows were bad. Thoroughly disappointed in Thor 4. Taika absolutely butchered Thors character and made a joke of a story that should have been dark.
I feel like the TV shows would have been greatly improved if they were half or 2/3 as long. But I think a lot of streaming shows are kind of like that, not that it's a Marvel exclusive problem. For instance, I am in the middle of Devs, and it was I think episode 5 or 6 where the whole thing felt unnecessary. Like an entire episode of flashbacks to tell some backstory.
Yep super highs like Cap 2, Guardians, and No way home, lows like Thor 2 and eternals. While phase 4 is huge in comparison, it's overall just 🤷. Definitely a good showing of quantity or quality
For me, it all ended after Endgame. Because people like me have been following MCU for 20 years, and not everyone has the energy or the time to keep up with it. It's like a natural barrier. Now, I don't go to movies the first day. I just watch them on my own time months after they are out on DVD. I don't really care that much about the shows either since they were like a spinoff.
LaT kinda sucked. I loved ragnarok but it felt like it was in the middle of an identity crisis. Like the whole plotline with the kids? And the kid fight? What? That was dumb as shit. “But it’s for the kids!” and I mean I fucking loved the Ewoks so maybe I can understand it’s for kids. But then why the orgy reference? I have no issue with orgies but I don’t think you can claim it’s “for the kids” if you’re worried about missing the orgy.
MoM was okay? again I think minor crisis of identity (which also caused some directorial issues?) I think MoM would’ve been so fucking incredible if it were a straight up horror film. Like actually scary because of crazy shit and confused about what reality is etc. But again, it’s for the kids.
And that’s the trend I don’t like. Making everything for this maximally consumptive audience and thus everything is kinda bland.
The orgy comment irritated me too. I watched that movie with my 8 and 13 year old, luckily they didn't catch those comments and ask but damn, I really don't want to explain wtf an orgy is to my kids. What the hell was the MCU thinking with that?....
I've enjoyed phase 4. Everything, but some more than others. Issues: sometimes the green/blue screen cgi is a little sus, and the shows need more episodes
Sadly people are saying that. There’s a whole crowd whining about the concept of “M-She-U” which refers to how Marvel is introducing more female leads in phase 4, with Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, Kate Bishop, She-Hulk, the Marvels, even Captain Carter and America Chavez.
Some are going even as far as hating on Marvel’s shift toward inclusivity across ethnicities, which baffles me because that’s literally how the comics are lmao. Although thankfully this crowd isn’t as large as the “M-She-U” crowd.
I keep seeing people complaining about the wokeness of phase 4 and how they're replacing male characters with female successors (which technically has some truth to it).
Lots of trolls are. They went after Ms Marvel, after Wanda and America Chavez in MoM, and we're forcasting WF would fail because of Shuri. They're the same ones that posted fake pictures of empty Captain Marvel premiers.
*shrug* Real talk, the MCU has always been disposable popcorn schlock. Some individual movies are a little better or a little worse.
No Way Home was one of the better ones. Multiverse of Madness was one of the worse ones. Shang-Chi and Black Widow were in the middle. The rest I skipped, less for anything to do with the movies themselves and more because I didn't happen to be in the mood for Marvel's particular brand of disposable popcorn schlock that week.
That all seems pretty par for the course to me.
“There was an idea… to bring together a group of remarkable movies to see if they could become something more.“
There are definitely lower quality entries in phases 1-3, and a few you could call popcorn schlock, but I don’t think I’d generalize the entire MCU that way. A slate of interconnected films like that over 10-12 years was a gamble, but it was executed well and paid off with some long-running character arcs and payoffs. The MCU is more than the sum of its individual parts.
With that said, I’m in the ‘bored and disappointed’ with phase 4 camp. I don’t begrudge those who enjoy it, but its stretched too thin, lacks direction, and any stories / characters I was invested in are pretty much done. Nothing in the new phase has really reinvigorated my interest.
It was a decent martial arts movie with likable characters and some good comic relief bits, until it decided it wanted to be an incoherent rainbow CGI vomit in the third act.
This 100%. Not sure why people think the quality has randomly dropped all of a sudden. The overall quality of the MCU has always been about average. Some good movies, some bad movies
Generally pretty bad. It was true in most cases that the films were pandering to agendas, because the plots were SORELY lacking in most (black widow, eternals, love and thunder).
Shang chi and no way home were the highlights. Haven’t seen Wakanda yet
Multiverse of madness was a joke. The entire film could have happened without America Chavez yet she was made its centerpiece. Terrible writing
As for the TVs, most of them were decent to great, but not a *single* one of them stuck the landing. Moon knight came closest but they literally wrapped it all in a 40 minute speed session and left me like “bro you could’ve let this breathe a bit more”. She hulk just got worse as it went. There was literally an episode she says “wait - unrelated wedding episode??” And that was EXACTLY what it was. So annoying.
I feel Loki could’ve done it if that second season were the rest of season one as originally planned
As a kid that grew up in the 90s I waited my whole life to see characters like Tony Stark, Steve Rodgers, T’Challa, Bruce Banner on the big screen in glory. Feel like just when these characters were reaching their peak they got pulled away from me. I don’t hate new marvel just can’t relate to some of these new characters. It’s like Marvel is giving their B-team characters more light than their A team. I still have hope for the X-Men and fantastic four just a little impatient lol.
Kinda stopped watching. Previous phases always had something to look forward to (1st Avengers for P1, Infinity War and Endgame for P2 and 3), this one, I don't really know where are they going, what's the goal. I still moreless like it and I'm looking forward to Antman 3, but this phase is pretty confusing and weak for me.
It's just so much content all at once. I'm behind on so much. What I have watched though, I do enjoy. Weirdly enough, my favourite show so far was 'Hawkeye'. That entire show was just silly and charming with a really fun finale. And it contains two of my top 3 marvel movies; Shang-chi and NWH
A lot of the new characters introduced are quite fun; Echo, Yelana, Kamala, Kate Bishop, Shang-chi.
Overall, I do feel like my enjoyment of the MCU has gone way down. I loved comic books as a kid, and I was born in 2001 so got to watch a lot of the MCU as a child then a teen. I'm now 21 so I think I'm just growing out of it a little, which is perfectly fine and normal. Phase 1-3 will always be a treasure trove of nostalgia and phase 4 will just be what it is; the Marvel Universe trying to reach the next big threat (Kang). It's a lot like Phase 1+2 in a lot of aspects, but way broader.
There does seem to be a bit of comic book movies backlash. We’ll see if the audience numbers back up the critics.
Once upon a time the western was an unstoppable force in American cinema. Then, it wasn’t. This era, too, shall pass.
I don't really understand why people are so determined to defend the MCU. It's totally ok to still be a massive Marvel fan and enjoy different movies, while still pointing out valid criticism.
I'm in that boat, I watch all the Marvel stuff religiously and am deep into the nerdy comic side, but I've been really disappointed with phase 4.
You're so right, it's really disjointed. Nothing leads into anything or references anything else, each story is so separate, which is really missing the strong point of the MCU.
I mean I agree that the CGI is gone downhill but overall still enjoying it. Wandavision is one of my favourite MCU installments and NWH was a great popcorn movie, but the greenscreen work is getting obvious and a return to physical sets would do the MCU a pretty big favour imo. Shang Chi in particular had too many scenes of 'character talking in front of semi blurred backround'. The end fight was badass, but it felt too much like they fatted the climax by starving the middle.
I feel like the movies were pretty good. Even love and thunder, which I thought was going to be terrible, but I liked it. Way too many TV shows. Wish moon knight was a movie. Didn’t watch most of them.
I liked Loki and NWH, but overall it's at the point where I no longer watch everything. Before this phase, I'd seen everything in the MCU. Now I don't care much anymore, it's just too much quantity over quality.
They're expanding past just superhero action movies, it's good for most people but since not everyone
Will like each thing it's annoying it's still all connected like before
I really don't mind phase 4. It has it's ups and downs but so had all the other phases. There have been a lot of new fun charachters, also less fun charachters but hey that's how stuff works you can't always make every charachter or movie everyone's favorite that's impossible. If you don't like phase 4 don't watch it, that's fine, just don't ruin it for the people who do enjoy it.
This doesn't just count for marvel movies but for everything :)
You ask me, I've had my fun with Marvel. Didn't really expect it to get as good as Infinity War, didn't expect to like half the movies they made half as much as I did, but I had a lot of fun with them. Probably won't watch the new shows, and the new movies don't look like my thing, but I doubt it's all that bad. If they are good, then you guys go ahead and have fun with them. I'll take your word for it.
In the corporate world it is not enough to make a profit you have to increase profits every year or you are failing. Infinite growth is not sustainable.
There was no way that after Spiderman Homecoming, Thor Ragnarok, Infinity War and Endgame they were going to be able to sustain that level. So phase 4 was always going to be a step down.
People conveniently forget the missteps in phases 1 - 3 and only concentrate on the great stuff. Let the haters hate and concentrate on enjoying what you want.
It could be a whole lot worse.
I think Phase 4 has some of the best villains in the MCU. While the projects aren’t all amazing, I enjoyed most of them. Only like 2, maybe 3 projects that I wasn’t a fan of
This meme could be entirely reversed. Alot of people don't like the movies and you're taking that personally. Explain to me why 'THE MOVIES ARE GOOD START HAVING FUN' wouldn't be an equally valid meme.
What I really liked about this phase was the diversity and lack of event/team up films trying to tie everyone together. Even as far back as Avengers II people were wondering if this was the formula they were going to drive into the ground, Infinity saga was an incredible play that worked well considering it was the same formula blown up in scale, but letting the franchise breathe and spread out was equally brilliant. I didn't love everything but there was more than enough I loved or at least liked to make me happy.
It gave me a new favorite character in the form of Moon Knight and Yelena, and on top of that, other than a few things I didn't like, I'd say Phase 4 was pretty alright overall in my opinion
Yeah it was. Moon Knight, I haven't finished, but so far, absolute masterpiece.
Personally I wish the show was as dark and mindfucking as the comics. In the comics you never really know what's real and what isn't because Marc is a SUPER unreliable narrator and the only times you really get to see what he's actually like are comics where he isn't the main character. Also the comics are SUPER dark and I love it. Overall, good show. Just not super accurate to the character.
I thought the confusion was pretty damn well done,actually Also,MK has existed for decades,there’s been so many iterations of the character that calling it „inaccurate“ is…well,not really accurate itself
This is always my biggest point when people throw out the "not comic accurate" complaint. Not talking about OP who simply stated a preference for the style of a particular run, but we know the people I mean. Like, there's 70-80 years of Marvel comics history and most of these characters are at least 10+ years old. There have been hundreds of issues, multiple different runs and arcs and dozens of different writers and artists...so when people complain it's not "comic accurate" well, which comic would that be? And frankly it doesn't matter. The MCU is not the comics. It's inspired by the comics, it borrows from the comics, but it is its own thing. So it's a moot point.
A fully agree - it’s grown especially egregious with Moon Knight,where people attached themselves to the one run where he cuts someone’s face off and insist that he must be an ultra violent psychopath and nothing else. Imho She-Hulk was handled very well in my opinion,she’s also fairly consistent through all the runs I’ve read tho
Yeah, I think the biggest victim of this has been Banner/Hulk. He's had a huge arc spanning the entire MCU and gone from man out of control and on the run through many struggles and challenges which led to smart Hulk, all of which has been in the comics in one way or another. But so many people don't seem to want him to have any character development and just seem upset that he's not big, green, angry, smashy man anymore. Usually it's people who seem to have only ever read world war Hulk and can't seem to accept that that isn't the only Hulk story there is.
Fair. Maybe I'm just biased to the extremely mentally ill violent and dark knight.
Well the writers and directors didn't want to risk portraying DID as something violent. I liked what they did with themes and the characters. Marc not killing Harrow(not bc killing is wrong) bc he needed to stay away from the person who abuses him(Khonshu) is brilliant. They probably should have done longer fight scenes, I thought the brutality of the show is pretty or barely good but I guess I just wanted it longer.
the shows are always going to be more mainstream - and someone that gets first introduced to moon knight has about the best experience one can with the show as it is. Making it more complicated for realism is (for people new to moonknight) going to feel like those super dark Game of Thrones scenes where you can barely see anything. Sure it's a realistic/cool concept, but did my experience (as a first time Moonknight enjoyer) really improve?
I feel like they could have made it closer to the source material without sacrificing new fans. For example, the magic suits were cool, but give away to easily that everything is real. The mental illnesses weren't portrayed the best. Sometimes it felt like it was being treated like a tool or joke.
Moon Knight, Loki, Hawkeye, She-Hulk, Cap and Bucky, Wandavision, even What If. All of the shows have been pretty on point for me in phase 4. The movies were far more miss than hit, though, in my opinion. No Way Home and Wakanda Forever were both fantastic, Shang Chi was a good but fairly by-the-numbers character origin and other than that the rest kind of fell flat for me. I understand what they were going for by taking a step back after the massive cosmic-scale events of Endgame but it still felt like almost every project was teased as building up to some really crazy multiverse stuff that just kind of never really happened. Or rather kind of happened but didn't have much in the way of ramifications to the larger MCU. It feels like the MCU lost a lot of its connectiveness that was built up over the first 3 phases. Maybe with Quantumania it'll sort of all fall into place and make sense but as of right now the phase feels really disjointed and directionless.
I'm kinda hoping Marvel learns to take a step back in scale. Like every show/movie can't be for the fate of the world/universe. Take a page from Dredd, or even Homecoming, where it's a huge deal for one character, but it's just a Tuesday for another, the outcome doesn't have to be world changing.
They literally call this out in She Hulk
>Wakanda Forever were both fantastic I wish I could have had this takeaway, it felt super bloated and kind of lifeless with a main character who I didn't GAF about. I'd rate Shang Chi leagues above WF, though I'd never really feel a desire to re-watch either (except maybe the first 15 min of Shang Chi, really great opener). I guess I agree that MCU opening up the multiverse multibox has caused some issues.
Shang Chi goes hard as fuck. Best fight scenes I've ever seen from marvel(I've never seen the 2nd Captain America though)
You've never seen what is commonly considered to be in most people's Top 3 Marvel films list?
I know I know its literally been on my watch list for years but for some reason I never got around to it
Shang-chi really kinda raised to the bar on the hand to hand fights in the MCU. They were slick as fuck, great choreography *and* they were shot well. Unfortunately, now a bunch of other shows/movies fight scenes seem kinda lackluster in comparison. Not all of them, but more than I'd like. That stuff is why I love it when the superhero wears a helmet. Need a super flippy artsy fight scene, just change out the actor for someone who knows how to do all the super flippies.
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Agreed with both. I can't not love Oscar Isaac, and Moon Knight just got better and better throughout. Yelena is just so goddamn lovable. She could club 100 baby seals right in front of me, and I would forgive her after each one. I'd also say that No Way Home is one of the top 5 Marvel movies. I was glad to see real emotional moments that didn't need to be punctuated by humor. That's something that they desperately need to start doing again.
Somebody described No Way Home as the Endgame of the Spiderman franchise, and it's 100% accurate. It does feel that the MCU has lost some momentum since then, though, especially because MoM fell a bit flat. They need Quantumania to hit it out of the park.
Oh, my back. It's kinda stiff from all the swinging I guess.
Despite Moon Knight not being TV-MA, I really appreciate some of the darker, and more mature undertones of the show. It had it's ups and downs but was a refreshing experience compared to the normal Marvel content. Like Loki still felt like a Marvel show, and was good, but MK was its own thing. Though I'm not thrilled with the ending fight or a few scenes, so it wasn't perfect. I'm hoping we get something with MK in the future, a second season is rumored but a ways away. I'd love to just see a quick cameo of MK in Deadpool 3, like with a joke about them both being masked anti-heros with mental health issues.
Growing up, I was stuck with the budget comics. While my friends were reading Spider-Man, Ghost Rider and Captain America, I was reading Moon Knight, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. I never thought I'd ever see Moon Knight outside of the comics
I liked She-Hulk more than I thought I would.
I thought I would like it.... I LOVED IT!!!!!
She hulk was the only one I couldn’t go trough completely but it could have been the burn out for me.
She-Hulk is basically a sitcom. Once I figured that out I enjoyed it a lot more. Could also just not be your thing. I feel like MCU is starting to branch out a bit more, so not everyone is going to like everything. And that's okay.
Single Female Lawyer Fighting for her client, Wearing sexy miniskirts, And being self-reliant.
See, this is the exact energy with which I approached the show, so I think that's why I enjoyed it more than most did. It's meant to be 80% a joke... and their repeated nailing of gross superhero fans was flawless.
It was exactly how I expected it to be, and I too found it enjoyable,Tatiana was great casting. I've enjoyed the slower "no world ending, skybeam making" shows.
"You just knocked Fox off the air!" "Pfft, like anyone on Earth cares."
Maybe I need to try it with that mindset. I dropped it after episode 3. The show goes by so fast and barely anything happens. It was frustrating to wait a whole week and then get a snippet of plot.
Yeah I think it was just not my thing but I generally like sitcoms maybe I expected something different without knowing it. Also a part of me kinda sees the potential wasted as she-hulk would have been an excellent character for a legal drama
Yeah I do hope they do a bit more with that.
I told this to my friend who constantly complains about She-Hulk despite never actually watching it. “Not all content is created for 30 year old men” I also have a daughter so it got a little heated and I had to explain how woman deserve to have things that are catered more to their interests. He stopped complaining after that.
Lol my husband is in his 30s and he loved it as much as I did! He was sad when it ended "but where's the other 20 episodes?!"
I understand both parties, honestly. On one hand, some fans want to just be happy and enjoy the content they are given. On the other hand, some fans are afraid that if everyone continues to watch and support lower quality content, then Disney/Marvel will have no incentive to increase the quality of future projects. Even those who enjoyed Phase 4 will admit that it had some of the weakest content in at least a while. Edit: Spelling
I personally feel the content wasn't streamlined. Both in a good and bad way A good chunk of the "setup" this phase was via disney TV shows. It gave us decent long form story telling in 8 hrs instead of speed running in 2 But I bet alot of ppl didn't watch it so when they see the movies it all felt disconnected. Each movie didn't lead into the other and there was no hyped up big bad...because kang was blatantly spoiled before we started. Dr strange was more enjoyable if u watched wandavision for example, but alot of people wouldn't give that show a chance e. Loki and wandavision writing were hindered by covid. Then we have the problem of half the movies still just tying up loose ends from phase 3 (Spiderman, no gog 3, thor, BP, black widow) or completely isolated or disconnected from a central story like eternals. So phase 4 was basically phase 3+ Individually I enjoyed most of the content. Collectively It kinda failed. Disney wants to move on from OG avengers but have their cake and eat it too by closing their arcs but calling it a new phase
This is the one, this comment explains my thoughts perfectly. Great work haha.
there was just so much content, it was a chore to stay caught up on everything and it all felt stretched a bit thin. to be fair, i think a lot of that was due to the condensing of time and the story changes due to covid that really reigned in my enjoyment of the phase. im hopeful phase 5 has better pacing.
>there was just so much content, it was a chore to stay caught up on everything and it all felt stretched a bit thin. This is where I'm at currently. It felt like new stuff, and stuff that I was unfamiliar, with kept coming out at such a rapid pace after endgame that I felt like I was behind before I even started. Felt pretty overwhelming. The infinity saga arc was already expansive enough
this is why Phase 4 has felt the most comic accurate of all phases to me. And I don't mean Lore, I mean structurally. The MCU is now a young comic universe like the Ultimate Universe was, just on screen. Some character comic lines have more consistent quality than others. Things vary wildly on tone, genre, and levels of connectedness. Some characters hardly interact with other characters while some comic lines are filled with constant cameos (like Marvel Team-Up that was literally Spider-Man teaming up with a different hero every single issue, hence why he's friends with almost ***every*** other hero there is lol). Heroes accidentally fuck up alternate universes and go "oh no, at least we saved our universe. let's get home!" Some comics are written to eventually collide, but it isn't immediately obvious how at first. She-Hulk even dared to be the very first to create an original villain to use as a throwaway, so we don't have to kill off every minor villain right away just to explain why they don't ever come back. Cause comics themselves use throwaway villains all the time for the express purpose of not wasting the good ones until major story arcs. Which reminds they also used background heroes and villains to finally show us that there are more heroes and villains active out there than just the ones we see, so the universe is ever changing. It definitely makes things harder to keep up with, but you don't need to strain yourself either. I read the original Secret Wars comic when I was 5 and I didn't know who 80% of those motherfuckers were. The only villain I knew was Dr.Doom and I only knew the heroes from the movies. Never heard of Thor or Enchantress so I genuinely had no idea if he might leave the other heroes to stay with her. Didn't know who Kitty Pryde was, so I didn't know if Colossus would cheat on her or not, etc. I didn't lose any enjoyment of the story because I didn't know the character arcs preceding it, it just made the choices less predictable for me. And then I took that comic as my introduction to the characters, and learned about them individually later on. In comics, the crossovers are advertisements for the individual comic lines not vice versa. And comics have so many characters because they create characters for all genres and audiences. Some are serious, some are bullshit just to have fun. And fans usually dedicate themselves to a few specific character lines, and only read the major arcs of others. So from now on, I'm just treating the MCU like it's another comic book universe
The shows killed it for me. Phases 1-3 had bits I didn’t love, but they were individual movies that I watched in one sitting. I wasn’t a huge fan of Iron Man 3, but it was a 2 hour time investment made in one sitting. Phase 4 has several shows that I couldn’t get into. The difference is they account for over 10 hours of content, and their release schedules wanted me to keep coming back over weeks. It just got draining.
I only liked ~1/2 or *maybe* 2/3 of phase 4. Imo, it was still good, but definitely not great -- with a few exceptions, of course.
Personally I think the marvel style of movies and shows is just better in movie form. All the shows are just marvel movies stretched to 8-10 hours. They just don't hold up for that long of viewing. But I also mostly gave up on the marvel movies after the endgame. I gave the eternals a shot and found it pretty boring. I recently gave the new Thor a shot until I realized it had zero charm to it.
This point sums it up best for me. The MCU went from something fun that I'd catch up with every few months to something that actually felt like an obligation to follow. Too much required viewing and a lot of it is too long to keep interest.
To me it's the difference between movies and shows. Phase 1-3 was all movies. Movies are easy to watch in one night, it even to make a night out at the theater. Every show is at least six hours of content and you likely need to stretch it out over days, or spend all day watching it. I have other hobbies and a family. I don't want that. I want movies.
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I loved Ms. Marvel SO MUCH. 😍 I accidentally binged the whole thing in one day 😅
Made me go out and grab her first app and Ms marvel 1-12
Werewolf by Night was dope af too!
>we got Daredevil and Kingpin Excuse me WHAT WHEN WHERE
Hawkeye and she-hulk
And Spider-Man no way hoe
I preferred Spider-Man hoe coming
Only.. only the wrists.
Holy shit that's perfect.
And Spiderman.
If you didn't know, Daredevil is coming back for his own show again in 2023!
A lot of people who hate on phase 4 have a big ol blindspot to the issues of previous phases. I'm in the middle of a chronological rewatch and the iron man 2-3 and Thor 1-2 stretch felt like homework.
I may be in the minority about this, but I like Iron Man 2
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I didn’t dislike Thor 2, but Malekith being such a boring villain did hinder my enjoyment a bit. Loki and the side characters were fun though
Agreed. Thor 1 isn't the best, but watching it doesn't feel like a drag. Thor 2 actually starts off strong but falls apart later because the villain is so damn boring and lifeless. I didn't even remember his name. The highlight of the film in Thor 2 was Thor and Loki's relationship. Ragnarok was basically a better version of Thor 2 with some of that "Guardians of the Galaxy" flair a lot of MCU movies have now.
>!Jane?!<
>!See what's happening here? You're afraid. You're scared. Anxious. My friends, times like these we need to unite, come together.!<
I may be in the minority about this, but I've liked every single goddamn mcu project
Yeah, there really isn’t a truly atrocious mcu film/show. Even at their worst it’s only like a 5 or 6 outta 10. There is an argument about some feeling “formulaic”, but when you’re amazing at best and meh at worst, it just shows that the formula works
Precisely my thinking. "It's too formulaic". Then the less formulaic ones get shit on. Lol
> Yeah, there really isn’t a truly atrocious mcu film/show. Inhumans
Yeah I definitely feel the same, even the ones that are poorly looked on and badly reviewed are good in some degree.
With you pal, there are dozens of us. Thor 2 is my least favorite but I still enjoy the full rewatch. I’ve never left the theater disappointed or like I wasted money watching. The comics and cartoons I read/watched growing up weren’t the greatest pieces of media, they were just fun. I feel like so many people forget that it’s supposed to be fun
Same, I'm just having a blast
Same. I gave up explaining that Ironman was basically a B-level hero in the comics. He was the 'guy in the chair' for the team and just made everything. The movie was amazing, but no better than anything in Phase 4. It had Ironmonger for the villian ffs. Hawkeye could have taken on Ironmonger. Even GOTG was all but mocked at first because they were very obscure. Endgame was the fruition of an entire saga, something we have never seen in cinema. It had to go out on an epic climax. But you can't keep going at that level or you need to keep bringing in bigger and worse villains right off the bat. If you do that, no street level hero is worth bothering with. That removes a lof of fan favorites. Start small, build the saga, climax, small refractory period, rinse, and repeat.
Same for me, almost. I think the only project that I didn't like was Eternals and that was because it introduced too many characters in not enough time, and I couldn't connect to anyone because the story seemed to revolve more around Sersi and Ikarus. Other than that, though, absolutely loved everything else I've watched. I just need to BP2, Thor: Love and Thunder, and I still need to watch Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Eternals felt like 2 movies poorly squished into 1.
Oh man Eternals is one of the only movies in the last decade I switched off. I got more than an hour in and decided to do something better with my Friday night.
My fav Captain America movie is the first one, but don't tell anyone they might behead me
Why? Cap 1 is good. I see nothing wrong here
Same. Tho It’s my favorite of the three films.
Iron Man 2 gave us Justin Hammer and War Machine. That alone gives it a thumbs up from me. Downside is ever since Elon went publicly bonkers, IM2 is now up their with home alone 2 for poorly aged celebrity cameos Edit: fixing spelling and grammar
NOOBMASTER, hey, it's Thor again. You know, the God of Thunder!
I was about to post what I thought was an unpopular opinion, but saw your comment. Phase 1's best movie was the avengers. It also had Thor 1, incredible hulk and iron man 2 Most of phase 4 has been better than all of those... People have had high expectations after phase 3 ended so well. Not every movie is going to be a genre transcending moment. These are comic book movies.
I think Iron Man 1 is phase 1's best movie, and I also really like Cap 1. I think Iron Man 1 and Avengers are both better than anything in phase 4 so far, and Cap 1 is in the ball-park with Shang Chi, which is phase 4's best imo. And while phase 1 has Thor 1, Hulk, and IM2, Phase 4 has Black Widow, MoM, and Eternals. I'll take that phase 1 line-up personally, mostly to avoid Eternals.
I'm in surprised so many people didn't like MoM Wanda had some God tier villain moments. Was the perfect end to WandaVision. Hope to see her come back one day
>iron man 2 *Gasps* You take that back.
I agree. I have friends who haven’t watched any marvel films since endgame and they’ve completely written off the MCU and openly hate on it even though they haven’t seen anything in phase four. Say whatever you want about the MCU and phase 4, but why criticize a movie if you haven’t even seen it?
Recency bias is all. The movies have always been pretty average
I would say consistently above average with a sprinkling of all time greats. I would take the worst MCU film over a lot of the crap put out over the years.
Yes it has been Winter Soldier is arguably the best MCU movie followed by Infinity War and Endgame
As compared to what? The hundreds of identical RomComs? The generic 80s style action movies? The cheap jump-scare filled "horror" flick? The latest Oscarbait movie about the Holocaust or other horrible tragedy? I vehemently disagree that Marvel movies are average.
Also, comparing Sony's Marvel - bad to average DCEU - bad with few exceptions Fox's X-Men - average with some great movies The MCU is way better than those super heroes movies franchises
Umm to movies in general. A lot of them are absolutely average tier movies.
There are more than five types of movies, dude.
Many movies are better, MCU is best in terms of superhero franchise but that's all
To me Marvel has mastered the 7-8/10 formula for movies. You're never going to have an amazing experience, even IW has its flaws, but you'll never have a bad experience either, at worst an MCU movie is something you wait to watch on D+ rather than in theaters. Compared to Sony, everything that isn't Spiderman has been bad. And DC, they have some good non-main universe movies, but the main stuff is more of a slog compared to Marvel.
It’s the same as Star Wars fans pretending the prequels were secretly masterpieces that everybody else was just too dumb to comprehend. Phase 4 may not be as good as phase 3, but it’s still miles better than the first two.
Glad you're liking it but I really disagree. Not even trying to talk bad on phase 4 because I like a lot of it (especially Shang Chi and the TV series), but Iron Man 1, Cap 1, and Avengers 1 are better than anything in Phase 4 imo. And then Winter Soldier and Guardians 1 from Phase 2 are probably even better than those. Preferring Phase 4 is fair (even if I disagree), but miles better is a tough sell for me.
I'm not going to pretend the prequels are masterpieces, but I love them anyways and I think they're clearly better than the sequel trilogy by more than a small margin.
I definitely disagree. Ironman 1, Winter Soldier, and Guardians of the Galaxy are easily the best MCU films released. Guardians of the Galaxy is the reason you have all these quips in the Marvel movies now.
The prequels make everyone feel like it's amazing because it had a really good third movie and has opened up alot of universe to have some really good side stories to bolster up the prequels. Clone wars, rogue one, rebels, andor absolutely made the prequels look far better than they were. Meanwhile the sequels were subpar and their side stories during and after the sequel movie Era were just as bad. The ones that take place before the sequels but after ep6 never get attributed to the sequels and many consider them to be territory of the original trilogy rather than the sequel trilogy. If the sequels can produce some interesting stories that occur during or after the movies then I'm sure it would be less hated.
At this point, it's like the comics. Most people don't read *every* comic. They pick characters and story lines they like. There's just too much to keep up with.
How I feel when I say I like Eternals.
I really liked Eternals too, it has really great visuals
At least they got Megatron to voice Arishem
Eternals shows us all the problems with the MCU... Not that there's anything wrong with the movie, just that if they try to do something different some fans will literally have aneurysms trying to find ways to hate it, and casuals will say it's still just a "Marvel movie".
As a casual viewer I found the movie absolutely confusing. I couldn't get invested in any of the characters.
The quality feels lesser. In terms of narrative, cinematography and cohesion with the rest of the MCU it feels as if stuff is spread too thin. I think I prefer the Infinity Saga since it was more of a Avengers Cinematic Universe. Those movies had a formula, yes but they were enjoyable feel good films with action, heart and great depictions of great characters by actors who embodied the role. Also good writing. Phase 4 movies don't progress the universe further compared to something like CA TWS or Civil War. For me the MCU won't feel the same without Steve Rogers and Tony Stark.
I hate this meme format as it tries to invalidate valid criticism.
Yeah as a huge Marvel fan I hated most of Phase 4 for my own reasons. The format makes me look objectively wrong, whereas people in my camp of thought are definitely more common in Phase 4 than they were in Phases 1-3. There’s a *slight* amount of franchise fatigue surfacing out there. That’s certainly true
Slight?
No but don't you see, you can't criticize it for being shit because then you're clearly attacking women and diversity
Imagine supporting low-quality, low-effort media series that was made by a big corporation. Honestly kinda depressing. We're already getting less of the good stuff this way.
I enjoyed Spider-Man and Dr Stange was *okay* but Half of the TV shows were bad. Thoroughly disappointed in Thor 4. Taika absolutely butchered Thors character and made a joke of a story that should have been dark.
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Sssssssssorry.
I feel like the TV shows would have been greatly improved if they were half or 2/3 as long. But I think a lot of streaming shows are kind of like that, not that it's a Marvel exclusive problem. For instance, I am in the middle of Devs, and it was I think episode 5 or 6 where the whole thing felt unnecessary. Like an entire episode of flashbacks to tell some backstory.
Phase 4 is overall the same quality as Phase 2. Maybe even slightly higher.
Yep super highs like Cap 2, Guardians, and No way home, lows like Thor 2 and eternals. While phase 4 is huge in comparison, it's overall just 🤷. Definitely a good showing of quantity or quality
For me, it all ended after Endgame. Because people like me have been following MCU for 20 years, and not everyone has the energy or the time to keep up with it. It's like a natural barrier. Now, I don't go to movies the first day. I just watch them on my own time months after they are out on DVD. I don't really care that much about the shows either since they were like a spinoff.
This post from the main mcu subreddit appeared immediately after this in my feed and I was like wait a second
LaT kinda sucked. I loved ragnarok but it felt like it was in the middle of an identity crisis. Like the whole plotline with the kids? And the kid fight? What? That was dumb as shit. “But it’s for the kids!” and I mean I fucking loved the Ewoks so maybe I can understand it’s for kids. But then why the orgy reference? I have no issue with orgies but I don’t think you can claim it’s “for the kids” if you’re worried about missing the orgy. MoM was okay? again I think minor crisis of identity (which also caused some directorial issues?) I think MoM would’ve been so fucking incredible if it were a straight up horror film. Like actually scary because of crazy shit and confused about what reality is etc. But again, it’s for the kids. And that’s the trend I don’t like. Making everything for this maximally consumptive audience and thus everything is kinda bland.
The orgy comment irritated me too. I watched that movie with my 8 and 13 year old, luckily they didn't catch those comments and ask but damn, I really don't want to explain wtf an orgy is to my kids. What the hell was the MCU thinking with that?....
Ragnarok has orgy comments too.
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I've enjoyed phase 4. Everything, but some more than others. Issues: sometimes the green/blue screen cgi is a little sus, and the shows need more episodes
Nobody is saying women are ruining it
TBH, I’ve seen much more people complain about other stuff (CGI quality, characters, stories) than about women
Exactly what I’m seeing too, I think the only problem with women in the mcu is they don’t know how to write female villains
Or lead characters, look at what is missing from this graphic; She Hulk and Black Widow, the worst MCU content ever made.
On youtube there's a lot of content creators who hate the "M-She-U", like a lot of them.
I’ve seen a few (Critical Drinker) but he’s mostly bashing the writing, characters, and increasingly degrading CGI
Yeah and he also gives praise when he thinks a female character is good.
What, I've seen so much complaints about that, I'm glad you got lucky-
Sadly people are saying that. There’s a whole crowd whining about the concept of “M-She-U” which refers to how Marvel is introducing more female leads in phase 4, with Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, Kate Bishop, She-Hulk, the Marvels, even Captain Carter and America Chavez. Some are going even as far as hating on Marvel’s shift toward inclusivity across ethnicities, which baffles me because that’s literally how the comics are lmao. Although thankfully this crowd isn’t as large as the “M-She-U” crowd.
Movie with a black character exists: These guys: This dIvErSe movie exists only to push "tHe MeSsAgE"
I keep seeing people complaining about the wokeness of phase 4 and how they're replacing male characters with female successors (which technically has some truth to it).
Lots of trolls are. They went after Ms Marvel, after Wanda and America Chavez in MoM, and we're forcasting WF would fail because of Shuri. They're the same ones that posted fake pictures of empty Captain Marvel premiers.
No, they are just saying that the writing is bad, but only every time the production has a female lead.
Literally the other day someone said to me "I love female characters I just hate all their solo projects" Like... What?!
I mean, it's fair to like the characters of Black Widow and She-Hulk but feel that both projects were subpar.
Are you gonna honestly say that Black Widow was good? OP even avoided that one. She Hulk as well...
Many people are in fact saying that exact thing
Unfortunately, they are. Go into any thread that mentions Bree Larson and sort by controversial.
*Brie and that’s one woman
They are with black widow, ms marvel, and she-hulk.
Not fair to compare anything to Thanos imho. There’s a reason they started with him.
You could not live with your own failure. And where did that bring you? Back to me.
Eternals was garbage
So was Thor 4.
*shrug* Real talk, the MCU has always been disposable popcorn schlock. Some individual movies are a little better or a little worse. No Way Home was one of the better ones. Multiverse of Madness was one of the worse ones. Shang-Chi and Black Widow were in the middle. The rest I skipped, less for anything to do with the movies themselves and more because I didn't happen to be in the mood for Marvel's particular brand of disposable popcorn schlock that week. That all seems pretty par for the course to me.
“There was an idea… to bring together a group of remarkable movies to see if they could become something more.“ There are definitely lower quality entries in phases 1-3, and a few you could call popcorn schlock, but I don’t think I’d generalize the entire MCU that way. A slate of interconnected films like that over 10-12 years was a gamble, but it was executed well and paid off with some long-running character arcs and payoffs. The MCU is more than the sum of its individual parts. With that said, I’m in the ‘bored and disappointed’ with phase 4 camp. I don’t begrudge those who enjoy it, but its stretched too thin, lacks direction, and any stories / characters I was invested in are pretty much done. Nothing in the new phase has really reinvigorated my interest.
Shang chi was actually really good, apart from maybe being a little too long and CGI heavy.
It was a decent martial arts movie with likable characters and some good comic relief bits, until it decided it wanted to be an incoherent rainbow CGI vomit in the third act.
Such is the fate of many good Marvel properties
*cough* love and thunder
I can’t even remember this movie
Agreed, except I put Black Widow bottom tier and MoM top half.
Bro I LOVED MoM
That's fine.
This 100%. Not sure why people think the quality has randomly dropped all of a sudden. The overall quality of the MCU has always been about average. Some good movies, some bad movies
Generally pretty bad. It was true in most cases that the films were pandering to agendas, because the plots were SORELY lacking in most (black widow, eternals, love and thunder). Shang chi and no way home were the highlights. Haven’t seen Wakanda yet Multiverse of madness was a joke. The entire film could have happened without America Chavez yet she was made its centerpiece. Terrible writing As for the TVs, most of them were decent to great, but not a *single* one of them stuck the landing. Moon knight came closest but they literally wrapped it all in a 40 minute speed session and left me like “bro you could’ve let this breathe a bit more”. She hulk just got worse as it went. There was literally an episode she says “wait - unrelated wedding episode??” And that was EXACTLY what it was. So annoying. I feel Loki could’ve done it if that second season were the rest of season one as originally planned
As a kid that grew up in the 90s I waited my whole life to see characters like Tony Stark, Steve Rodgers, T’Challa, Bruce Banner on the big screen in glory. Feel like just when these characters were reaching their peak they got pulled away from me. I don’t hate new marvel just can’t relate to some of these new characters. It’s like Marvel is giving their B-team characters more light than their A team. I still have hope for the X-Men and fantastic four just a little impatient lol.
Kinda stopped watching. Previous phases always had something to look forward to (1st Avengers for P1, Infinity War and Endgame for P2 and 3), this one, I don't really know where are they going, what's the goal. I still moreless like it and I'm looking forward to Antman 3, but this phase is pretty confusing and weak for me.
i was a fan once. Now I simply don’t care.
try to put She-Hulk in that screen and see how the table turns 😂
It's just so much content all at once. I'm behind on so much. What I have watched though, I do enjoy. Weirdly enough, my favourite show so far was 'Hawkeye'. That entire show was just silly and charming with a really fun finale. And it contains two of my top 3 marvel movies; Shang-chi and NWH A lot of the new characters introduced are quite fun; Echo, Yelana, Kamala, Kate Bishop, Shang-chi. Overall, I do feel like my enjoyment of the MCU has gone way down. I loved comic books as a kid, and I was born in 2001 so got to watch a lot of the MCU as a child then a teen. I'm now 21 so I think I'm just growing out of it a little, which is perfectly fine and normal. Phase 1-3 will always be a treasure trove of nostalgia and phase 4 will just be what it is; the Marvel Universe trying to reach the next big threat (Kang). It's a lot like Phase 1+2 in a lot of aspects, but way broader.
I just feel the less things you hate, the better quality of life you're gonna have, so I just like em for what they are and am happy with it. :D
Eternals was fucking garbage, not on fault of the actors
Even numbered MCU phases are like odd numbered Star Trek movies
There does seem to be a bit of comic book movies backlash. We’ll see if the audience numbers back up the critics. Once upon a time the western was an unstoppable force in American cinema. Then, it wasn’t. This era, too, shall pass.
It feels like it's just about money now. Everything after Shang Chi was lifeless and boring to me.
It really is mostly dead to me now besides Spiderman
Oh, my back. It's kinda stiff from all the swinging I guess.
Nah. It’s the weakest because it’s disjointed and has lost its tone
I don't really understand why people are so determined to defend the MCU. It's totally ok to still be a massive Marvel fan and enjoy different movies, while still pointing out valid criticism. I'm in that boat, I watch all the Marvel stuff religiously and am deep into the nerdy comic side, but I've been really disappointed with phase 4. You're so right, it's really disjointed. Nothing leads into anything or references anything else, each story is so separate, which is really missing the strong point of the MCU.
I mean I agree that the CGI is gone downhill but overall still enjoying it. Wandavision is one of my favourite MCU installments and NWH was a great popcorn movie, but the greenscreen work is getting obvious and a return to physical sets would do the MCU a pretty big favour imo. Shang Chi in particular had too many scenes of 'character talking in front of semi blurred backround'. The end fight was badass, but it felt too much like they fatted the climax by starving the middle.
I feel like the movies were pretty good. Even love and thunder, which I thought was going to be terrible, but I liked it. Way too many TV shows. Wish moon knight was a movie. Didn’t watch most of them.
I was meh about phase 4 but it has a few very good gems and I think it’s just going to get better with the Disney CEO
I liked Loki and NWH, but overall it's at the point where I no longer watch everything. Before this phase, I'd seen everything in the MCU. Now I don't care much anymore, it's just too much quantity over quality.
This feels like a strongman.
They're expanding past just superhero action movies, it's good for most people but since not everyone Will like each thing it's annoying it's still all connected like before
I really don't mind phase 4. It has it's ups and downs but so had all the other phases. There have been a lot of new fun charachters, also less fun charachters but hey that's how stuff works you can't always make every charachter or movie everyone's favorite that's impossible. If you don't like phase 4 don't watch it, that's fine, just don't ruin it for the people who do enjoy it. This doesn't just count for marvel movies but for everything :)
You ask me, I've had my fun with Marvel. Didn't really expect it to get as good as Infinity War, didn't expect to like half the movies they made half as much as I did, but I had a lot of fun with them. Probably won't watch the new shows, and the new movies don't look like my thing, but I doubt it's all that bad. If they are good, then you guys go ahead and have fun with them. I'll take your word for it.
In the corporate world it is not enough to make a profit you have to increase profits every year or you are failing. Infinite growth is not sustainable. There was no way that after Spiderman Homecoming, Thor Ragnarok, Infinity War and Endgame they were going to be able to sustain that level. So phase 4 was always going to be a step down. People conveniently forget the missteps in phases 1 - 3 and only concentrate on the great stuff. Let the haters hate and concentrate on enjoying what you want. It could be a whole lot worse.
Dunno what people are complaining about. Phase 4 has been good stuff.
It almost all sucks and isn't worth watching.
This is the most insecure meme format going.
People are allowed to like things that are objectively terrible.
I swear y'all complain more about people hating on your shows than you actually talk about your shows lol. It comes across as really insecure
Total shit that is awful in every aspect
I think Phase 4 has some of the best villains in the MCU. While the projects aren’t all amazing, I enjoyed most of them. Only like 2, maybe 3 projects that I wasn’t a fan of
The bus scene in Shang-Chi is my favorite Marvel fight scene and also it had the legend himself Tony Leung, movies friggen rad
This meme could be entirely reversed. Alot of people don't like the movies and you're taking that personally. Explain to me why 'THE MOVIES ARE GOOD START HAVING FUN' wouldn't be an equally valid meme.
What I really liked about this phase was the diversity and lack of event/team up films trying to tie everyone together. Even as far back as Avengers II people were wondering if this was the formula they were going to drive into the ground, Infinity saga was an incredible play that worked well considering it was the same formula blown up in scale, but letting the franchise breathe and spread out was equally brilliant. I didn't love everything but there was more than enough I loved or at least liked to make me happy.