The Marvels | November 10, 2023 | Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter

[Bob Train]

I'm not seeing how this will take off as a female-powered breakout hit like Wonder Woman. There have already been many female-led MCU movies like Black Widow, Wakanda Forever, etc. 

 

The novelty of "first female-led MCU film" is no longer there, and it is competing against Taylor, THG, Wish, Trolls 3. I am expecting 50-60% of the audience for this one to be dudes.

 

[PlatnumRoyce]

 

1 hour ago, toutvabien said:

Anyone who calls products that cost the GPD of a small country in any shape or form "woke" is being unserious

That's a goofy claim.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/earning-the-woke-badge.html

 

Quote

These days, it has become almost fashionable for people to telegraph just how aware they have become. And this uneasy performance has increasingly been advertised with one word: “woke.” Think of “woke” as the inverse of “politically correct.” If “P.C.” is a taunt from the right, a way of calling out hypersensitivity in political discourse, then “woke” is a back-pat from the left, a way of affirming the sensitive. It means wanting to be considered correct, and wanting everyone to know just how correct you are.

In the ’70s, Americans who styled themselves as “radical chic” communicated their social commitments by going to cocktail parties with Black Panthers. Now they photograph themselves reading the right books and tweet well-­tuned platitudes in an effort to cultivate an image of themselves as politically engaged. Matt McGorry, the actor who plays a sweetly doofy prison guard in “Orange Is the New Black,” is a helpful case study of this phenomenon. McGorry’s Instagram presence was once blithely ­bro-ey — yacht shots, tank tops, a tribute to coconut water. Then he watched the actress Emma Watson brief the United Nations on the importance of men’s involvement in the feminist movement, and he took it to heart. Now he presents his muscular selfies and butt jokes alongside iconography of feminism and anti-­racism. In one snap, he holds a copy of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” in bed, shirtless. In December, BuzzFeed nodded at McGorry with a listicle titled: “Can We Talk About How Woke Matt McGorry Was in 2015?”

 

I don't really see why the idea that something like this sentiment is crazy to read into "products that cost the GDP of a small country"/marketing for products that cost the GDP of a small country.

 

I mean, you can "no true scotsman" inherently vague political terms whose boundaries are inherently vague (because they're political terms used to create/shape a group consensus) but that's a pretty useless gesture. It's an argument whose strength relies on the sort of vague political consensus forming that's being criticized (because, again, this is all just pretty explicitly debates about political framing). 
 

These conversations would just be radically different if "woke" had yet to shed its positive connotations as a cultural reference instead of just reading as "right winger calls something politically correct" in 2010. 

[Deathlife]

4 hours ago, bigfoot said:

They're adults, im sure they can handle some online criticism.

 

Mcu fucked up. Their audience grew up yet Marvel have decided to aim younger. 90% of movie goers don't like paying to watch woke crap, yet Marvel have forced it in and despite trying to be progressive to please the loud minority like yourselves, you still aren't satisfied with the studio. The sooner hollywood ignore the loud people like you, the quicker they can get back on track. Best be fast though as audiences are beginning to get used to not needing hollywood, or it's current state of shit writers

Go woke go broke, still as relevant as ever and I love to see it but damn it is exhuasting always being right

 

EDIT: Confirmed Troll.

 

Apologies for engaging with them.

Edited October 13, 2023 by Deathlife

[PlatnumRoyce]

36 minutes ago, Zakiyyah6 said:

Marvel should have pulled a Doctor Strange and got people to like the character by giving her a prominent role in another Superhero's movie. All she has is her own movie, most of which she isn't even herself in because they wanted to go with a poorly done and highly cliched amnesia plot and borderline Cameo appearances that show off her power levels and not her actual personality. They've handled Carol Danvers so poorly that if the movie opens well it's because they got lucky. 

I really do think this is downstream of COVID and failed bets on elevating other characters. This is my vague understanding of the "sacred MCU timeline" where covid is gone.

 

Endgame April 2019 -> Shang-Chi (post-credits cameo) Feb 2021 ->Wandavision (secondary character) March/April 2021 -> Ms. Marvel (early 2022?) -> The Marvels May 2022

 

So while Carol Danvers wasn't going to be featured in anything, there was supposed to be this constant buildup to The Marvels just as there was supposed to be a much more concentrated multiverse focus in 2021.
https://www.thewrap.com/black-widow-moves-to-november-as-other-mcu-films-shift-back-to-2021-2022/

https://www.polygon.com/2019/7/21/20702312/new-marvel-movies-phase-4-release-dates-eternals-blade-female-thor

[reddevil19]

43 minutes ago, Zakiyyah6 said:

Marvel should have pulled a Doctor Strange and got people to like the character by giving her a prominent role in another Superhero's movie. All she has is her own movie, most of which she isn't even herself in because they wanted to go with a poorly done and highly cliched amnesia plot and borderline Cameo appearances that show off her power levels and not her actual personality. They've handled Carol Danvers so poorly that if the movie opens well it's because they got lucky. 

I think the issue is they used that trick once already... with the first Captain Marvel.

Yes, Strange is a more likable and developed character, but the hook after NWH wasn't Strange himself so much as the opening of the Multiverse and the potential therein (which was squandered, leading to the massive opening and mediocre-to-bad legs).

Similarly, Captain Marvel was the big sting post IW. They literally dangled her as the last resort that Fury goes to in the most drastic situation ever encountered. Then she's basically a tow truck for Iron Man in EG and disappears for 2.5 hours after. Audiences have been burned on the perceived importance of the character before. And I have serious doubts Larson can make the character likable in any movie, even as a supporting character. I honestly think Larson just comes across cold in most of her roles, and I think she is horribly miscast here. I do actually hope The Marvels proves me wrong and she makes me want to see more of the character. 

[Liiviig 1998]

Barbie has plenty  so called " woke " elements and one of the most feminist movies I've seen while simultaneously throwing shade certain aspects of feminism itself.

 

Barbie is very reletable and they don't try to contrive her generic modern female character trope. 

 

The moral of the story is that though the real world is not  perfect as barbie  expected in terms of female empowerment and advancement  . it has alot to offer and in no ways diminishes women or their achievements and she shouldn't be afraid to take a chance  on the real world no matter how imperfect it is and yeah that culminates to her decision and the completion of her Arc.

 

Very good marketing campaign that was precisely targeted at female audiences .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Zakiyyah6]

21 minutes ago, reddevil19 said:

I think the issue is they used that trick once already... with the first Captain Marvel.

Yes, Strange is a more likable and developed character, but the hook after NWH wasn't Strange himself so much as the opening of the Multiverse and the potential therein (which was squandered, leading to the massive opening and mediocre-to-bad legs).

Similarly, Captain Marvel was the big sting post IW. They literally dangled her as the last resort that Fury goes to in the most drastic situation ever encountered. Then she's basically a tow truck for Iron Man in EG and disappears for 2.5 hours after. Audiences have been burned on the perceived importance of the character before. And I have serious doubts Larson can make the character likable in any movie, even as a supporting character. I honestly think Larson just comes across cold in most of her roles, and I think she is horribly miscast here. I do actually hope The Marvels proves me wrong and she makes me want to see more of the character. 

I don't know I think a likable role in another film would have helped. I think Larson is a sensational actress in dramas but I do share your doubt on her ability to lead a big action film. I mean she didn't have great writing to work with but some people just aren't good for these types of movies. I thought she was not good in Fast X either. She is probably miscast but I still think the writing could be better.

[Kon]

1 hour ago, PlatnumRoyce said:

I really do think this is downstream of COVID and failed bets on elevating other characters. This is my vague understanding of the "sacred MCU timeline" where covid is gone.

 

Endgame April 2019 -> Shang-Chi (post-credits cameo) Feb 2021 ->Wandavision (secondary character) March/April 2021 -> Ms. Marvel (early 2022?) -> The Marvels May 2022

 

So while Carol Danvers wasn't going to be featured in anything, there was supposed to be this constant buildup to The Marvels just as there was supposed to be a much more concentrated multiverse focus in 2021.
https://www.thewrap.com/black-widow-moves-to-november-as-other-mcu-films-shift-back-to-2021-2022/

https://www.polygon.com/2019/7/21/20702312/new-marvel-movies-phase-4-release-dates-eternals-blade-female-thor

 

This is likely another reason why they change the name Captain Marvel 2 to The Marvels. They were building these two characters in the Disney + shows, (especially Ms Marvel), so they likely expected the movie reception to be helped by them. Unfortunately, Ms Marvel show wasn't succesful enough to promote the character.

 

Honestly, I always suspected Marvel knows the reception of Captain Marvel/Carol as a character isn't really good (and her movie received a boost from Endgame). That's why they feel the movie could need the help of other characters.

Edited October 13, 2023 by Kon

[John Marston]

 

Ms Marvel is so irritating in the trailers. Her screams and her dialogue. The idea of watching a whole show about her makes me shudder 

[JustLurking]

2 hours ago, PlatnumRoyce said:

 

That's a goofy claim.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/earning-the-woke-badge.html

 

 

I don't really see why the idea that something like this sentiment is crazy to read into "products that cost the GDP of a small country"/marketing for products that cost the GDP of a small country.

 

I mean, you can "no true scotsman" inherently vague political terms whose boundaries are inherently vague (because they're political terms used to create/shape a group consensus) but that's a pretty useless gesture. It's an argument whose strength relies on the sort of vague political consensus forming that's being criticized (because, again, this is all just pretty explicitly debates about political framing). 
 

These conversations would just be radically different if "woke" had yet to shed its positive connotations as a cultural reference instead of just reading as "right winger calls something politically correct" in 2010. 

This article is from 2016 but let's be real, no one from the left uses woke as a positive connotation. It's a dogwhistle from the right. Plain and simple. In no way does the left ever use this word.

[PlatnumRoyce]

I don't agree that this qualifies as being real because my point is about OP's claim not a claim about the political signaling implied by using the term woke in 2023. 

 

37 minutes ago, JustLurking said:

This article is from 2016

It's the NYT in 2016 explicitly endorsing a descriptive definition of the term "woke" that seems to be trivially easy to apply to marketing campaigns for a 200M budgeted film. It's a much conceptually thinner definition than the counter definition I assume you're trying to run but it's a well justified one unless you're making an anti-descriptive use of language linguistic point.

 

The comment I responded to was just "unserious" political piss taking not an attempt to look at how inherently vague political terms can be applied to cultural works. 

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by PlatnumRoyce

[SpiderByte]

Oh my God we got to get off this conversation about wokeness. It's so fucking stupid!

[Valonqar]

1 hour ago, PlatnumRoyce said:

failed bets on elevating other characters.

 

 

Bingo. In case of TM, it goes something like this:

 

I don't know what they were thinking when they gave CM amnesia but that was a terrible way to introduce a character. Instead of distinctive personality - something that paid off so well in IW when all those characters interacted and kept their own unique sense of humor and other perosnality traits - she had none cause she couldn't remember. So that was left for later to devlope and show but her screentime in Endgame was ultra limited. I don't know why they didn't use her in place of Ant Man (GA doesn't make distinction between quantumumbo jumbo and space equivalent anyway) and have her bounce off of OGs and shows personality but here we are. They staked post-Endgame on Ant Man to kick off the Kang overarching plot and the rest is history though not the one they expected.

 

I don't know why they thought that supporting appearances of kid Monica in CM and adult Monica in WV were enough for Monica to make a splash but it wasn't, no surprise here. WV was Wanda show where Agatha was a breakout new character (and that still doesn't justify Agatha spin-off).

 

Finally, why did they think that teenagers would flock to Ms Marvel that was not about things teenagers are interested in but about a preachy revisionist history of a foreign country whose own teenagers don't care to spend 6 hours on?  There was a teen heroine without teen problems cause everything around her was some very local politicking uninteresting to anyone who isn't from one very specific geographical place (not even religion or other broader audience) and most likely not even they cared given absolute flop viewing figures.

 

2 hours ago, Kon said:

 

This is likely another reason why they change the name Captain Marvel 2 to The Marvels. They were building these two characters in the Disney + shows, (especially Ms Marvel), so they likely expected the movie reception to be helped by them.

 

And that's a very puzzling considering the piss-poor job they did with those characters. They neither appealed nor instantly popped. I honestly can't believe they looked at the wrting/concept/other for those 3 characters separately and thought "we have next icons on our hands they should be in a team movie". But hey, the same guy thought Eternals was going to win the Oscar so... I guess someone lost Midas touch. 

[PlatnumRoyce]

4 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

There was a teen heroine without teen problems

I only saw the pilot and it was very much "this is a high budget CW superhero show about a teen heroine with teen problems." I'm not sure why they changed that but that version of the show also failed to get good ratings. It's not like ratings crashed when they (apparently) focused to talking about Indo-pakistani history. 

 

Quote

she had none cause she couldn't remember

I guess I'm the only person on the "Captain Marvel was aggressively mediocre but Brie Larson obviously has that movie star 'it factor' camp? 

 

[toutvabien]

3 hours ago, PlatnumRoyce said:

 

That's a goofy claim.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/earning-the-woke-badge.html

 

 

I don't really see why the idea that something like this sentiment is crazy to read into "products that cost the GDP of a small country"/marketing for products that cost the GDP of a small country.

 

I mean, you can "no true scotsman" inherently vague political terms whose boundaries are inherently vague (because they're political terms used to create/shape a group consensus) but that's a pretty useless gesture. It's an argument whose strength relies on the sort of vague political consensus forming that's being criticized (because, again, this is all just pretty explicitly debates about political framing). 
 

These conversations would just be radically different if "woke" had yet to shed its positive connotations as a cultural reference instead of just reading as "right winger calls something politically correct" in 2010. 

The evolution and journey of the word that has led it to be used in reference to products that cost the GPD of a small country - whether in positive or negative lightning, to advertise or slander - is unserious.

 

I wouldn't call it "the word's new/current meaning" because there are probably still some contexts out there where it has mainted its roots.

Edited October 13, 2023 by toutvabien

[Valonqar]

10 minutes ago, PlatnumRoyce said:

I only saw the pilot and it was very much "this is a high budget CW superhero show about a teen heroine with teen problems." I'm not sure why they changed that but that version of the show also failed to get good ratings. It's not like ratings crashed when they (apparently) focused to talking about Indo-pakistani history. 

 

I guess I'm the only person on the "Captain Marvel was aggressively mediocre but Brie Larson obviously has that movie star 'it factor' camp? 

 

 

I think that Brie managed to inject sweetness and charm to the character whenever she could but the script didn't give her those opportunities. I also don't know where the idea that she doesn't have good comic timing comes from cause she has it.

 

as for Ms Marvel, studios forget that you cannot change the demo or attract a large swats of new one overnight. Just because they had a teen heroine, it didn't mean that Marvel suddenly became a franchise for girls. That's also what Marvel and Star Wars shows with female leads/casts struggle with. They aren't attracting women cause they are not franchises for women but frnachises for men bend to accomodate female characters. Unlike Barbie which was a movie for women based on a brand for women. Same goes for Summer I Turned Pretty and Sex and the City vs something like LOTR:ROP. Of course that women will overwhelmingly watch the former 2 rather than the latter which still skews as heavily male as ever. 

 

Also, Ms Marvel leaned way too hevaily on Pakistani culture which created Into the Heights (heavily Dominican) effect - why would anyone who isn't from there care? and they didn't. 

Edited October 13, 2023 by Valonqar

[CloneWars]

Eternals numbers domestic wouldn't surprise me. No GA interest in this film as far as I can tell.

[eddyxx]

On 10/12/2023 at 4:13 AM, SpiderByte said:

Lol they did. Eternals, Moon Knight, Werewolf By Night, What If, X-Men 97, Freshman Year, the last two phases have been the ones with the most standalone projects out of any other so far! And then people instantly complained that there wasn't enough focus on "the next Endgame" and now people are mad there is too much!

 

Anyways, now that it seems the strike is going on till after this comes out, so it's gonna need reviews to help pick up the slack. I'm still optimistic that the movie itself will be good personally.

These are all in continuity as MCU and only werewolf by night doesn’t stick to MCU’s visual palette and tone.
 

Eternals might be more serious but it still has references to the wider MCU and it’s intended that it’s in the same universe where the snap happened.

 

Moon Knight has no references to the wider MCU but it is expected he will cross over with the other characters down the line.  

 

Werewolf By Night is the only one of those 4 you could argue may not be in the same continuity as mainline MCU but  if blade or ghost rider ever actually get rebooted then he would just be in that corner of the MCU and cross over with them.

 

You have cosmic MCU corner, street level MCU corner, supernatural corner, the mutants corner, and big world saving MCU corner aka most of the avengers and characters like F4. Marvel comics has always been like that and just because the movies are doing that too doesn’t mean that those movies are “elseworlds”/stand alone.

 

What I want is marvel to give a director free reign to do whatever they want with one of their characters whether that be the content rating, the visual style and tone of the film or whatever they please without it having to be part of the MCU.  
 

Just imagine if marvel had hired Sam Raimi to make Marvel  Zombies instead of Dr. strange and let him do whatever he wanted cause it wasn’t part of the MCU continuity and just a one off horror film! I have no doubt it would have been amazing. Instead they’re making a cartoon for Disney plus? Or are they since I haven’t heard a peep since the initial announcement. One more for the chopping board.

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by eddyxx

[Spidey Freak]

1 hour ago, Valonqar said:

I don't know what they were thinking when they gave CM amnesia

 

The first movie ripped off the She-Ra origin. So weird considering the reboot debuted on Netflix just a year before.

[SpiderByte]

2 hours ago, eddyxx said:

Instead they’re making a cartoon for Disney plus? Or are they since I haven’t heard a peep since the initial announcement. One more for the chopping board.

It was a 2024 release even before the strikes. Why would they have any news about it now?