Wormow

I find most movie opening credits usually filler, however this movie was a good example of a well executed opening credits.

I saw a new trailer before my Black Widow screening at IMAX Melbourne, where it was much darker and without any jokes, and it was SO MUCH better.

Surprisingly gut-wrenching and emotional. This is the darkest I've seen the MCU go... ever. The entire cast is great, the story is interesting. I cried multiple times throughout the movie, including the post-credits scene and I am ANGRY they did not make this movie earlier, but am glad we at least have this story to really solidify BW's legacy. But man the first 10 minutes or so is DARK, especially the opening credits (also why are we bringing back opening credits?) I know people won't be happy about how Taskmaster is portrayed, but I don't read the comics so I hold no attachment to how that character is in the story so don't care. The action was pretty good, though Natasha is just straight up invincible this movie. Really odd. I know the fanbase is going to be divided with this movie. Seems that way with pretty much every female superhero movie released in the past 5 years (*cough* misogony)

My thoughts on the movie, I watched it like 12 hours ago:

Emmy's in just a few weeks and WV is almost a sure nod at this point - hype!

Loki is an example of the Disney+ series format done right. The episodes need to stand on its own and you need to always be ahead of the audience. WandaVision (which I adored though) and FATWS felt like a predictable movie stretched out into 6-9 episodes, and it was the show playing catch up to what audiences already knew. Excited to see where Loki goes from here. My only "want" I guess is to see more of what makes Loki, Loki. I feel like Loki as a character, as this trickster, has a lot of potential for fun and mischief but we're told that a lot, but very little do we see it in action. There are times where I just watch the scene and all I can see is Tom Hiddleston reading the lines like he would a lot of his movies, but I don't see Loki's personality.

Smart of them to date the new game which is getting a lot of buzz in the same year as Avatar 2's release. Will help create a potential zeitgeist-situation again.

I liked this trailer a lot more. I'm not a fan of Marvel when they're more leaning towards the family jokes and lightheartedness (i.e. Ant Man and the tone of the first trailer) so this has kind of alleviated some of my fears.

Terrible jokes in this one, and the first one was crap too. Getting nervous for this film because both trailers have been shit imo. I actually really liked the first movie too, top 3 in DCEU for me (but always been a Suicide Squad stan)

Marvel still do test screenings but they're really careful with it and it's done in-house, it gets more strict depending on the type of movie (i.e. Avengers movies) but I'll assume as Eternals was standalone they had a bit more of a standard test screening process. Warner Brothers on the other hand outsource their test screenings, very early on in the process as well, which is why all of their movies get info leaked like a year prior (weird choice to still continue to do so, esp so early, when majority of them have been poorly reviewed anyway)

So excited for this movie. It sucks that it took this long - but I hope fans still appreciate this movie anyway as a send off to her character. I hope fans aren't too upset about this movie being delayed that it impacts their ability to enjoy and appreciate the movie.

Amazing. This movie looks so good and it's only a teaser trailer. And Gemma Chan as a lead of an ensemble? A female Asian actress? Iconic. I feel like this is going to be a bit of a zeitgeist upon release, just watch.

Recently, Freeman appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden, confirming that he's met with Ryan Coogler and been made privy to the direction he plans to take the sequel in. However, it sounds like he was somewhat surprised by what the filmmaker has in mind. "I had a Zoom call with Ryan Coogler, the director and co-writer about seven or eight weeks ago, I suppose. He sort of meticulously took me through all of my character's beats in the film. He took me through the film, but incorporating my character's beats. And some of it was really very odd," Freeman admitted. "And I think [Coogler] could see from the reaction on my face to some of the things he was saying, my face must have been going [shocked face] like that, because he kept sort of stopping, and he kept going, 'Stay with me, but this is going to work,'" the actor continued. "People are in for, I think, a real treat. I mean we've not done it yet, who knows, we might make it awful. But, I'm hoping we won't, I'm hoping people are going to be in for a treat."

Okay, so I don’t get why you’re tired of hearing how Marvel characters never stay dead? When it’s true? The characters always come back, one way or another.

Black Widow and Loki aside, look at Vision, he returned. Gamora is already back. Rumors of Chris Evans returning continues to persist. RDJ remains gone but he was in it since day 1,

This is big, and clearly streaming is the right home for all these YA projects (see Shadow & Bone)

Do not watch WandaVision. Your issues with that is my biggest complaint about the show, and that is all I'll say to avoid spoilers.

They need to do this. If Sam Wilson can get his own movie, than Wanda is no question. Especially considering how popular Wanda is now (I'd argue she's probably more popular than both Natasha and Captain Marvel at this point) they'd be stupid not to. I'm just worried they're going to retire her in this movie - maybe give her some redemption arc and she goes off and lives in peace. I want more Wanda.

Her arc in Civil War is what made me fall in love with her, and she's the only reason why I've been more into the MCU since, so glad she's finally getting her due (well, we'll see what they do with her moving forward, she's arguably getting more popular than Black Widow and Captain Marvel at this point, she deserves more than a supporting role in DS2)

Really? This is the first year that I watched pretty much all award seasons movies prior to nominations being revealed and whilst I liked the majority of them, most didn't "blow me away" I guess. If this is a strong year then I don't even want to know what a weak year is, lol

Anyway, WV and FATWS were both really great - not perfect, but they had the right idea. Here's hoping the creative teams over at Marvel actually learn from audience reaction and what the final products ended up being to figure out a formula that works best for them (like the movies; seems like they really took a lot of the criticism from the earlier movies and learned from it for future movies). Both series have 4-5 hours worth of content but at present they feel more like a long director's cut of a movie that needs a few extra edits and trims to feel more succinct, which I feel like kind of defeats the purpose of having a series and long run time that allows you to truly develop the characters and storylines. Too many scenes feel like complete filler (what purpose are they serving in the story? Is this pushing the story forward?) and too many scenes need a large portion of their dialogue trimmed, when those minutes spent can be spent on developing other parts of the story or characters.

Now that Sam Wilson is getting a movie, I’ll be very upset if Wanda doesn’t get her own Scarlet Witch movie, especially considering how popular Wanda is now and the MCU is lacking in sole female stars besides Brie Larson moving forward.

I still can’t believe this comes out the same day as Loki’s fifth episode, aka their penultimate episode setting up the finale. It’s going to completely overshadow Black Widow IMO

That is very true. I think it's pretty obvious and from what we've been hearing they had to rewrite the Flag Smasher stuff extensively to avoid comparisons to the pandemic, hence why their motivations and scenes end up so... clunky and unclear throughout?