Eternals | Marvel Studios | Nov 5 2021 | Magnum-Opus by Oscar winner Chloe Zhao - Marvel's first rotten movie | Dips into the 40s on RT, B CinemaScore

[Mojoguy]

32 minutes ago, Val357 said:

Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame worked because of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. The Russos get a lot of credit, as they should, but it feels like hardly anyone talks about the backbone: the writers. Without people who can write films well, you have nothing.

The Winter Soldier

The Dark World

Civil War

Infinity War

Endgame

 

One does not belong with the others.

[Angel]

50 minutes ago, Val357 said:

One thing I do know is that Marvel is developing a crack in their armour and that is they're hiring baaad writers. The writing on the shows and some of the latest films is one of the weaknesses. The quality is dropping but as I've said before, it doesn't really matter because people - including myself - have become so invested in the narrative. These films are hardly judged on their artistic merit anymore and almost solely on their place in the overall Marvel narrative.

 

All that to say, I'm not surprised in the least at the script critiques.

 

Interesting. To me Phase 4 has some excellent writing so far (WV, Loki, SC), the script of Black Widow is good... Even some episodes of FATWS are very well written. It's the direction that might improve, in fact. Although I loved Cretton work in SC.

 

To be honest I think COVID may have impacted the quality especially for the shows. Will see Eternals, based on the reactions so far, this will be my type of jam.

[Ryaner90]

1 hour ago, Krissykins said:

In person promotional appearances scrapped due to Rona at the premiere

So the rest of the in person stuff is cancelled from now until Nov 5th? Even though they tested negative? All 16 days worth? That doesn't scream confidence from Disney in putting people in crowded places, which is where they want theater audiences to go?

 

Between this, the rising cases everywhere, possible new variants and the release schedule changes, I still dont see NWH coming in December, this might be the last big movie in theaters for 2021. But then again Spider-Man is not Disney's problem.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Ryaner90

[Mojoguy]

18 minutes ago, Ryaner90 said:

Between this, the rising cases everywhere, possible new variants and the release schedule changes, I still dont see NWH coming in December, this might be the last big movie in theaters for 2021

Child vaccine is coming in a few weeks. Besides this isnt up to Disney, Sony wont delay. Dec to way too good of a release month to pass up.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Mojoguy

[Valonqar]

IMO, plot has always been MCU's weak spot but they offset it with appealing cast and dynamic between characters. That said, I'd say that "grounded in reality" shows and movies such as FATWS and Black Widow expose bad plotting much more than the ones with fantasy elements. I put brief discussion of writing problems in tags so that it doesn't distract from main discussion. 

 

 

I thought that SC plot was pure nonsense too but the movie was still more enjoyable and flew better than BW and FATWS. The latter's attempts to connect LOLtastic plot and villains (No, don't call them villains! Do better! 

) to current politics were frankly ridiculous but even that would be forgivable if the whole thing wasn't so boring and pointless. Falcon became the Cap at the end of Endgame so we really didn't need convoluted rejection of the call, bank loan and 6 episodes of mulling over whether to accept anyway which we all knew he would cause he already did in the freakin Endgame. But I guess Erin Kellyman needed work so...

 

BW pretty much tossed the interesting backstory for Black Widows out of the window for some mind-control of trafficked girls nonsense that robbed the Widows of their agency (Soviet Spies! The most patriotic of patriotic!) and formidability (seductive and lethal). I guess they just wanted to end that organization since they wouldn't need it going forward, and give Nat a chance to free them all quickly, so we got mind-control BS and that nonsense that they weren't even born and bred Soviet toughies but sad kidnapped sacks from around the world. Stupid. And don't get me started on Nat's family (as winsome as they may be) that we never heard of in 20+ movies, since she explicitly called Avengers her family and ultimately gave her life for that Avenger family.

 

 Wandavision was really interesting but the finale didn't stick the landing because of Papa's decision. Fans felt that the show was building up to multiverse reveal and that was the original idea - Dr Strange was to make an appearance in the finale. But he was scrapped for reasons that had nothing to do with storytelling, while all beats leading up to his appearance remained. And then nothing happened. All the build-up for nothing. So don't blame the writing.

 

Loki, I think, had strong writing and stick the landing.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Valonqar

[Saul Goodman]

I liked BW more than Shang-Chi. 🤷‍♂️

[TwoMisfits]

1 hour ago, Val357 said:

Given how one of the critiques of Eternals is that it packs a lot of story and exposition, I actually think sequels - if they happen - could be much better (I say "better" loosely because I still have no idea how good or not good this films is) with all the character work and world building over with.

 

Feige wanted the Eternals in the MCU, and the characters and world of the Eternals didn't have the benefit of being slowly introduced within other Marvel properties, so this film just needed to happen. The rough spade work has been done, so to speak. Perhaps it gets a lot easier, and better, from here.

 

I don't read the Eternals, but I am shocked they are trying to fit 11 new characters into one movie.

 

I mean, the Avengers have 100s of Avengers...but when they plotted the intro, yes they had 4 solo movies, but when you got team up number one, they only introduced 2 more Avengers, both of which had been seen in other movies, so you could have a big team movie without the baggage of having to intro characters and then also introing a team...that's a LOT of set up before a plot, and explains so many of the current Eternals reviews which say the 1st act is SLOW and dense and the 2nd act is better...how could it not be slow and dense with all the time you need to make folks care before you even tell the real story?

 

 

Edited October 20, 2021 by TwoMisfits

[fabiopazzo2]

8 minutes ago, Saul Goodman said:

I liked BW more than Shang-Chi. 🤷‍♂️

Me too but Shang chi around The world is really well received

 

BW: first watching 8- 2nd watching 7,5

shang chi: 7+

[YM!]

1 hour ago, Mojoguy said:

The Winter Soldier

The Dark World

Civil War

Infinity War

Endgame

 

One does not belong with the others.

I mean two of them aren’t good, one is pretty great but not my top 5 and the other two are good so that’s a wide variety.

Edited October 20, 2021 by YourMother

[Menor the Destroyer]

4 minutes ago, YourMother said:

I mean two of them aren’t good, one is pretty great but not my top 5 and the other two are good so that’s a wide variety.

You know what they meant though. In terms of overall reception four of those are near the top of the MCU and one is near the bottom. 

[YM!]

Just now, Menor said:

You know what they meant though. In terms of overall reception four of those are near the top of the MCU and one is near the bottom. 

But where’s the fun in that?

 

Spoiler

But yes, I do clearly understand what the user meant.

 

[Valonqar]

44 minutes ago, TwoMisfits said:

 

I don't read the Eternals, but I am shocked they are trying to fit 11 new characters into one movie.

 

I mean, the Avengers have 100s of Avengers...but when they plotted the intro, yes they had 4 solo movies, but when you got team up number one, they only introduced 2 more Avengers, both of which had been seen in other movies, so you could have a big team movie without the baggage of having to intro characters and then also introing a team...that's a LOT of set up before a plot, and explains so many of the current Eternals reviews which say the 1st act is SLOW and dense and the 2nd act is better...how could it not be slow and dense with all the time you need to make folks care before you even tell the real story?

 

 

 

well, it depends on whether you make folks care while moving the plot forward or by creating filler that's supposed to make them care but only bloats the screen time. For example, in Iron Man 3,  Trevor being an actor is a) a plot twist and b) a character moment. It moves the plot forward because Tony learns he was duped and by whom and it also informs us more about Trevor in 'what we need to know about him in this story' way. Now, take Kingo. He's a Bollywood star so if that has an impact on the plot, than it achieves the same thing as Trevor  - moves the plot forward while telling us something about the character that we need to know within the story. But if that's just a throwaway reference, like, we thought it would be cool for him to be a Bollywood actor and have a Bollywood dance scene, but it has no impact on the plot, than you likely have filler/bloat. And that type of thing is what critics tend to zero on. If Bollywood isn't Chekhov's gun than why is it in the movie? Now I'm not saying either that it is or isn't, just giving you examples how a reveal that a character is an actor (Trevor) both moved the plot forward and served as a character piece, and that Bollywood star Kingo could go either way depending on what they do with that information. 

 

Another example, a lot of fans didn't like the farm in AoU because they felt it was a pointless detour that didn't impact the story. We learned more about Clint but nothing that was important for the story at hand. You could remove that part and have a more streamlined movie. Now don't get me wrong, movies shouldn't be too streamlined, but they shouldn't have parts that you could easily cut without sacrificing anything. So in Eternals case, if Phastos family movies the plot forward while giving us what we need to know about him in this story than that's fine. if not, than we have another farm. 

Edited October 20, 2021 by Valonqar

[YM!]

To be honest, I think the biggest problem the MCU now is basically what to do after Endgame and arguably it’s greatest strength: the inter-connectivity of the universe. Not saying Feige doesn’t have a plan, as he charts what’s next years in advance but I think the focus on making the conflict events more world-ending keep makes these films feel more similar than before . In my opinion, after Endgame, I think they should’ve went back a bit to the Phase 1 stomping grounds and take a breather from the focus of the MCU as a whole and focus more on the characters and their arcs and themes. 

 

Barring Black Panther, most of the Earth stuff post-Avengers hasn’t really work for me and have been the weakest because of lack of world building and more of the focus on how this action will change the world and less about the character and their world. 

 

The main problem for me for FATWS wasn’t so much the plot (although it was muddled at best), but rather lampshading themes instead of a deeper dives which is a problem I’ve had the Russo’s Cap films and a few other MCU but I think this one hurts the most from it. Carl Lumbly while easily the best part especially in relations to wear Falcon stands as a black Captain America works well but it’s focused on too little in favor of a bunch of MCU plot points instead of what should be Falcon’s journey on being Captain America. Granted it’s no secret, the MCU has a wide audience to appeal to and it’s clear Feige is the captain of the ship, compared to the writers and directors and I think that’s where some of the problems grow from as the focus on interconnectedness of films tends to be the weakest parts of the tv shows so far.

The times I’ve really liked the earth bound films outside of Black Panther, were the Ant Man films which I think are somewhat underrated in the MCU library of media, mainly because of the lower stakes and arguably more effective in regards to fun and to be honest hearing bigger and larger scale kind of makes me sad. Shang-Chi and WandaVision also follow this rule for me as I thought the former was great and the latter was really good, but the weak points for both of them is how they try make themselves larger by either incorporating MCU or third act large scale stuff. 

The cosmic side or not as Earth bound side of things be it the Guardians films or Ragnarok where are definitely some of my favorite films of the MCU, ie in the top 5 for me, is mainly because they are not so much focus on the connection and more so focused on the characters dynamics.

[TwoMisfits]

Just now, Valonqar said:

 

well, it depends on whether you make folks care while moving the plot forward or by creating filler that's supposed to make them care but only bloats the screen time. For example, in Iron Man 3,  Trevor being an actor is a) a plot twist and b) a character moment. It moves the plot forward because Tony learns he was duped and by whom and it also informs us more about Trevor in 'what we need to know about him in this story' way. Now, take Kingo. He's a Bollywood star so if that has an impact on the plot, than it achieves the same thing that Trevor  - moves the plot forward while telling us something about the character that we need to know within the story. But if that's just a throwaway reference, like, we thought it would be cool for him to be a Bollywood actor and have a Bollywood dance scene, but it has no impact on the plot, than you likely have filler/bloat. And that type of thing is what critics tend to zero on. If Bollywood isn't Chekhov's gun than why is it in the movie? Now I'm not saying either that it is or isn't, just giving you examples how a reveal that a character is an actor (Trevor) both moved the plot forward and served as a character piece, and that Bollywood star Kingo could go either way depending on what they do with that information. 

 

Another example, a lot of fans didn't like the farm in AoU because they felt it was a pointless detour that didn't impact the story. We learned more about Clint but nothing that was important for the story at hand. You could remove that part and have a more streamlined movie. Now don't get me wrong, movies shouldn't be too streamlined, but they shouldn't have parts that you can easily cut without sacrificing anything. or parts that hurt the pacing. So in Eternals case, if Phastos family movies the plot forward while giving us what we need to know about him in this story than than fine. if not, than we have another farm. 

 

I agree with you, but when you have to try to do this 11 different times, you're gonna fail a lot on the attempts...

 

That was kinda my point - did the Eternals HAVE to be an 11 person team in movie 1, or could they have found some way of streamlining the team to 4-5 people, so they streamline at the concept stage (which then makes it easier to do so in the writing and actual movie making stage)...

 

I always said Infinity War was one of the best of all the MCU movies b/c it took an impossible task on at the concept stage - bringing together tons of known characters and teams and a relatively new villain into one streamlined, plot focused movie - and actually achieved the impossible while also making you care so dang much...

 

This movie is trying to one up that by bringing together tons of unknown characters and a new villain...and on a new -to-the-MCU director...was this just too much?

 

I mean, maybe the Eternals team has to be this big, so maybe this couldn't be helped...but I know they changed a lot of continuity for the team, so why not keep going and change team size, too...

[Menor the Destroyer]

Farm was the best part of AoU for me. Without the party and the farm, two scenes which could have been cut if focusing only on plot, the movie would have been much worse. 

Edited October 20, 2021 by Menor

[Krissykins]

1 hour ago, Saul Goodman said:

I liked BW more than Shang-Chi. 🤷‍♂️

Me too, much much more. 
 

But I’m bias, she’s my favourite MCU character 

[Liiviig 1998]

1 hour ago, Valonqar said:

IMO, plot has always been MCU's weak spot but they offset it with appealing cast and dynamic between characters. That said, I'd say that "grounded in reality" shows and movies such as FATWS and Black Widow expose bad plotting much more than the ones with fantasy elements. I put brief discussion of writing problems in tags so that it doesn't distract from main discussion. 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I thought that SC plot was pure nonsense too but the movie was still more enjoyable and flew better than BW and FATWS. The latter's attempts to connect LOLtastic plot and villains (No, don't call them villains! Do better! 

) to current politics were frankly ridiculous but even that would be forgivable if the whole thing wasn't so boring and pointless. Falcon became the Cap at the end of Endgame so we really didn't need convoluted rejection of the call, bank loan and 6 episodes of mulling over whether to accept anyway which we all knew he would cause he already did in the freakin Endgame. But I guess Erin Kellyman needed work so...

 

BW pretty much tossed the interesting backstory for Black Widows out of the window for some mind-control of trafficked girls nonsense that robbed the Widows of their agency (Soviet Spies! The most patriotic of patriotic!) and formidability (seductive and lethal). I guess they just wanted to end that organization since they wouldn't need it going forward, and give Nat a chance to free them all quickly, so we got mind-control BS and that nonsense that they weren't even born and bred Soviet toughies but sad kidnapped sacks from around the world. Stupid. And don't get me started on Nat's family (as winsome as they may be) that we never heard of in 20+ movies, since she explicitly called Avengers her family and ultimately gave her life for that Avenger family.

 

 Wandavision was really interesting but the finale didn't stick the landing because of Papa's decision. Fans felt that the show was building up to multiverse reveal and that was the original idea - Dr Strange was to make an appearance in the finale. But he was scrapped for reasons that had nothing to do with storytelling, while all beats leading up to his appearance remained. And then nothing happened. All the build-up for nothing. So don't blame the writing.

 

Loki, I think, had strong writing and stick the landing.

I agree with most of what you've  said except loki , the script is the weakest thing about the show and the finale is too much of setup for DS2 than a finale for the show.

 

- tva who see all things and everything is as they plan and store infinity stones for fun are bitten by loki and slyvie at every turn.slyvie even stamps on an agents foot to escape.?

 

 

Loki changes his entire character and fall in love after 3 eps . I can understand feeling regret but he loses his edge and cleverness esp ep3 onwards and even gets nerfed , the scene in ep3 were they through him outside the train ,I keep thinking why can't he create clones of himself and beat them up.  He asks for a blanket yet he is a frost giant!!

 

And everything involving time travel stuff to mention but a few....

 

Overall the show is acted well and the visuals and production design

and soundtrack are good but writing is incredibly mediocre and sloppy.

[Noctis]

I have never been more excited for a MCU film. Not even close.

 

A MCU film with great cinematography? WHAT?

[Valonqar]

@TwoMisfits Infinity War pulled off 100 characters that we already knew very well. It just had to find a role for each that was in character for that story and it did. We'll see whether Eternals needed 11 characters or not. 

 

@Liiviig 1998 Speaking of Loki falling in love:

 

Loki: I'm [insert very vague wink nudge that he's bi]

Sylvie: I'm [insert very vague wink nudge that she's bi]

 

They fall in love so the show becomes a traditional het romance instead of Loki + guy and/or Sylvie + girl.

 

Social media: so brave, so powerful. 

 

Me: 

Edited October 20, 2021 by Valonqar

[Val357]

4 hours ago, Mojoguy said:

The Winter Soldier

The Dark World

Civil War

Infinity War

Endgame

 

One does not belong with the others.

Hey everyone grows and improves okay!! 😂