The Marvel Cinematic Multiverse

[Dogg Thang]

Shang Chi is my favourite of the phase, and it’s no coincidence that’s it’s the most traditional of the bunch.

Yep, you're probably not wrong. I think I'm fine with the general approach they have taken in Phase 4. After Endgame, there was no way to keep up that momentum and I think trying would have led to diminishing (and expensive) returns. So to go back to very individual films is fine. And I kind of like that they are allowing filmmakers to have a voice. I like that, in the MCU, The Eternals can be so completely different to Thor Love and Thunder. Why not try different things?

It's just that, actually, the reality is that I thought The Eternals was criminally dull and Thor wasn't so great. So on one hand I find myself fine with the approach but, on the other, not liking the results all that much.

[Asura]

It's just that, actually, the reality is that I thought The Eternals was criminally dull and Thor wasn't so great. So on one hand I find myself fine with the approach but, on the other, not liking the results all that much.

I think that's fine though. It only becomes a problem when the movies really do start gathering momentum towards a new arc, where you really have to see stuff. So far the MCU has never tasked me to watch something I genuinely disliked, even though some of the movies are clearly better than others (for me, presently, the nadir was the Falcon & Winter Soldier show which I only managed to watch to the finish during a bout of COVID).

[prinnysquad]

Oh, totally on board with the original voices thing. I really liked The Eternals (I’m going to rewatch tonight to reassess) but I do understand why it didn’t work for people. My issue with this phase is entirely the lack of stakes. I’m just not feeling a build up. Of any kind! There’s threads here and there (the rings ‘sending messages’ in Shang Chi for example), but the multiverse stuff all feels a bit sporadic. It’s clearly a focus. WandaVision. Loki. No Way Home. Shang Chi. Dr Strange. But it is lacking focus in a destiny sense. It’s a theme of many of the recent entries, but without any unifying factor. It’s just a collection of multiverse tales. An anthology.

Phase one can’t be replicated. Those individual films with the final goal being The Avengers, well, it was a one-off. That wouldn’t work again in phase four, so I’m glad they didn’t do that. But audience expectations are different this time. They know there’s a build up to a big event, and I don’t think Marvel have exploited that enough. The different tones of the phase four output have lacked the coherence needed. The multiverse concept feels like a plot device rather than a build up to something bigger.

I don’t know, maybe I need to rewatch them all and approach them from a different perspective: what they are, not what I think they should be.

[Dogg Thang]

the multiverse stuff all feels a bit sporadic. It’s clearly a focus. WandaVision. Loki. No Way Home. Shang Chi. Dr Strange. But it is lacking focus. It’s a theme of many of the recent entries, but without any unifying factor.

Yep. It is weird how much the multiverse is touching all these different things and yet there seems to be no coherence or continuity across them. It's like they were all just given the word 'multiverse' and did their own thing without any communication between the people making these.

[prinnysquad]

I think that's fine though. It only becomes a problem when the movies really do start gathering momentum towards a new arc, where you really have to see stuff. So far the MCU has never tasked me to watch something I genuinely disliked, even though some of the movies are clearly better than others (for me, presently, the nadir was the Falcon & Winter Soldier show which I only managed to watch to the finish during a bout of COVID).

See, that’s interesting! Falcon was the tv series I’ve enjoyed the most, simply because it is ‘traditional’ in its style. I liked so much about it, whereas the first three episodes of WandaVision I really struggled with. It was creative and competent and imaginative and everything, but so far out of the Marvel comfort zone that it felt alien, and it didn’t click. The last few episodes rescued it for me. Loki, again, was just too far into ‘crazy’ territory for me in parts. I’ll rewatch them all, for sure. I’ve learnt my lesson from Guardians, where the problem wasn’t the film: it was me.

[Asura]

Yep. It is weird how much the multiverse is touching all these different things and yet there seems to be no coherence or continuity across them. It's like they were all just given the word 'multiverse' and did their own thing without any communication between the people making these.

I think, also, the problem with "the multiverse" is that it's a plot device that, by definition, can't raise the stakes. It's built on a premise that there are infinite parallel realities; everyone dead is still alive, everyone alive is either never-born or dead.

[Dogg Thang]

I think, also, the problem with "the multiverse" is that it's a plot device that, by definition, can't raise the stakes. It's built on a premise that there are infinite parallel realities; everyone dead is still alive, everyone alive is either never-born or dead.

Yep. Totally agree. It pulls the rug out from any stakes. And that was really apparent in Dr Strange for me. A huge amount of it was effectively meaningless.

[Neon Ignition]

For the BP thing, that's definitely why the sequel has potential. The characters are good and whilst Chadwick's death isn't something anyone would have wanted it has meant the sequel has been forced to remould the franchise away which I think also is why it looks more interesting a film thanks to that shift in character focus. The original, it obviously has it's own elements but they're the 10% to the 90% that is an Iron Man remake, something the MCU has done too many times already pre-BP.

Re: Multiverse - That's why Ant-Man 3 will be key to deliver, it's the one tasked with setting up why the multiverse angle is a bigger stake than Thanos was. One possible wrinkle may be though that the two new Avenger films appear to come quite early in Phase 6 so all these new characters are largely going to be resting on 1 appearance to carry audience attachment into the next event story and given what that storyline is...

[Neon Ignition]

Disney Sets Some 2025-26 Marvel Dates - Dark Horizons
Disney has confirmed the Phase 6 dates suggesting it will be a shorter phase akin to Phase 1 with the first few Phase 7 dates known now

[prinnysquad]

15 films before an Avengers event film isn’t bad.

Ant-Man, Dr Strange, Spidey and the Black Panther people will have had a second or third outing by then. Thor has had 4. Guardians will have had 3. Shang-Chi’s sequel may be one of the untitled films.

The main issue for me is that none of the remaining heroes carry the same weight as Cap and Iron-Man. They have that iconic connection with the audience. We are going to have big groups - The Eternals, the Fantastic Four, the X Men. It’s unavoidable that they will have to be introduced as ensembles. This leads to less connection by default.

[Asura]

For the BP thing, that's definitely why the sequel has potential. The characters are good and whilst Chadwick's death isn't something anyone would have wanted it has meant the sequel has been forced to remould the franchise away which I think also is why it looks more interesting a film thanks to that shift in character focus.

Ironically, or perhaps sadly? But still...

I mean, this is one of the reasons why the MCU worked in the first place; it was built around the twin pillars of Iron Man and Captain America, neither of whom were relevant characters in pop culture. Most people who knew anything about comics knew who they were, but they were nowhere near as instantly recognisable as Batman or Superman, and weren't even heavy-hitters in Marvel's own stable, easily eclipsed by Spider-Man, Hulk and The X-Men. It's really easy to forget this.

Being forced outside their comfort zone to build a Marvel universe where Spider-Man and mutants didn't exist was a gamble, but it really paid off. Maybe Marvel needs more poking and prodding to take those creative risks. They have all the money to do it.

[Neon Ignition]

That's it, like how the next Captain America film will need to follow on somewhat from the basis Falcon & Winter Soldier set up with how heavy the mantle is for anyone, particularly for a world that still holds ethnically based views (which Ms Marvel somewhat touched on too). A fourth Steve Rodgers film could have also been good but the change up at least mixes new with old which is where BP2's appeal lies too. Thor has had the longest and biggest arc of a solo hero yet they never seem to really delve into things with him, the humour overriding much of it all.

The rumours seem to suggest the Captain Marvel sequel will be changing things up from the first quite a bit too which will be welcome as it was also fairly vanilla an entry.

As for the event, there's a lot of characters now so it'll be interesting how they go about establishing a new Avengers team line up

[prinnysquad]

Rewatched Eternals and still like it.

Again, it’s full of issues.
1) I guess it could be called boring. I can see that. The pace can be glacial.
2) It’s an ensemble of fully new characters, so there’s little dramatic impact from any deaths.
3) Gemma Chan’s character is very underwritten and similarly underperformed.
4) The whole thing seems to operate outside of the MCU in terms of meaningful connections.
5) There’s a lot of info-dumps.

However, to address those:
1) I don’t mind the pacing at all. The action scenes are decent and I found the rest somewhat relaxing and hypnotic. I was never bored.
2) As an ensemble, it’s a decent bunch. They’re all fairly distinct. I don’t mind a team being introduced in this sense. The reasons the Avengers worked so well is that you have big characters getting their limelight films first. DC messed it up by ramming all the big characters together from the off (excluding Man of Steel, which seemed more like a reboot than a character piece as part of a bigger picture). Eternals didn’t need to do that. The team is the entity, not the individuals. The team and the issues between them as they near their goal. Individual films wouldn’t have worked for this group, as they all have the same motive and destiny. The lack of audience connection is a by-product of this and fairly unavoidable. I found myself really liking most of the remaining characters by the end.
3) No arguments there.
4) Again, I don’t mind that. I love the ancient astronaut stuff. The explanation for not getting involved in other stuff makes internal sense in terms of the story, no matter how daft it seems.
5) This, again, is unavoidable, without creating a sequence of films before anything of any note happened to the Eternals.

The film is a strange one. I can see why many don’t like it, but I found it refreshing.

[Asura]

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Well that explains that.

[prinnysquad]

Interesting. Could be a good thing. There’s enough new characters being introduced in ‘The Multiverse Saga’ already. X-Men would be a great way to kick off Phase 7.