A2 WEEKEND THREAD | 134.1M DOM OW | Thurs 17m / Fri 36m / Sat 45m / Sun 36m

[ZattMurdock]

Just now, Nero said:

Raimi isn't the issue if anything else it's his signature style which made me like it. Writing could have been way better though and Chavez should have been more fleshed out. I was expecting more fun travel between different universes so I wish it was longer 

I could write essays in stuff that I think should have done better in Multiverse of Madness, trust me. It’s a flawed film, I don’t understand how many seem to like it so much, and I mean that beyond MCU circles, or fandom pet peeves (Strange fans vs Wanda fans, hardcore MCU fans, flame wars, etc).

 

My point is that by B-horror it doesn’t mean just the horror elements, but the corny stuff that comes with it, especially those made by Raimi. I actually want him directing his own ‘Avengers’ supernatural film, give me Sam Raimi’s Midnight Suns featuring Strange, Blade, Moon Knight, Werewolf By Night, Elsa Bloodstone, etc. Or give it to Michael Giacchino, I loved Werewolf By Night so much (my spider-sense is tingling that Giacchino might end up involved in other different MCU project altogether though).

[ZattMurdock]

3 minutes ago, Brainbug said:

I stand by my opinion that Wanda is an amazing villain in MoM. Sure, her dialogue and reasoning were ... average, but the tenacity and brutality that she brought to the movie were just great to witness. How many MCU movies do you see where someones mouth gets removed, only for the head to implode?

 

MORE of that. Pls.

Let’s make the Scarlet Witch fandom happy. Give me a full blown Scarlet Witch film. 

[Elessar]

2 minutes ago, Alligator Zatt said:

He didn’t invent Tesla, Space X or Twitter. He bought all of that, all of that were previously owned - and invented - by other people.

 

That is not true, at least when it comes to SpaceX. Even if it were, hypothetically, recognizing a potential and fostering it, realizing it - credits should be given.

 

Of course it's not a one man show, there are many smart people working in his companies.

[Menor the Destroyer]

4 minutes ago, Korra Legion said:

The roblem with DS2 is they don't handle Wanda's arc/characterization well at all which is an issue when it's kind of the driving plot force of the whole movie. It's like 5 min of edits away from being an 8/10 since all the rest of the stuff (besides the plot core and emotional beats for the main antagonist) works pretty well.

 

Actually the way 808 treated variants was pretty dumb too but you could fix that in the same 5 mins of cutting. And america was pretty thin. All script issues. Making it the bottom MCU movie and bottom 2 projects alongside the other one written by Waldron.

I think there are lots of issues. I compartmentalized the Wanda thing at the start, trying to enjoy the rest, but still got pretty bored all the way through the Illuminati stuff. Things picked up a bit after the music notes fight but then the resolution with America unlocking her powers was handled poorly. In general also felt Strange's arc was anticlimactic, the bones were there but it didn't receive nearly enough emotional focus compared to the weakly written Wanda story to have an impact. 

[GipJo]

Wanda is an excellent villain, MoM is not her fault. Sadly Wanda probably will be the sacrificed character for Marvel's phase 5 and 6. When that happens, I won't bother watching Marvel at all. i hope Feige keep her for her popularity, it would be a mistake to kill her off Black Widow style.

[THUNDER BIRD]

Stupidest moment in Dr Strange 2 was Dr Strange and the girls standing and staring at the Book of Vishanti.

 

Apparently watching the book for half and hour was more important, it's not like a psychopath witch is chasing you and that book is your only defence.

[ThomasNicole]

DS2 is great!

 

Yes it's messy, the script is a roller coaster between good ideas with awful writing, the whole thing is super shallow. 

 

Still it's one of the most energetic and dynamic MCU movies, the direction is lively and it does have personality (when it's possible), the editing is very tight and the movie flows very well even with all the problems, i really like the cartoonish visuals and Wanda with all writing issues is still such a cool character seeing acting like a Terminator villain. 

 

I rather watch this than a super competent NWH that seems like a committee movie front to back in all aspects.

Edited December 18, 2022 by ThomasNicole

[Legion Again]

3 minutes ago, Alligator Zatt said:

Let’s make the Scarlet Witch fandom happy. Give me a full blown Scarlet Witch film. 

If they execute the redemption arc decently it'll go a long way to retroactively improving DS2. Could get up to as much as 7.5 perhaps 

[THUNDER BIRD]

Worst thing by that is that we didn't get a potential showdown between Dr Strange boosted by the magic book vs Scarlett Witch.

 

Instead we got Scarlett Witch getting beat by children throwing stuffed toys at her.

[JustLurking]

5 minutes ago, THUNDER BIRD said:

Wanda should not have been a villain.

 

 

Wanda is what carries the film.

 

DS2 could've been much stronger with a better script but I overall vibed with Wanda/Strange's plotlines a lot. Chavez and the script are the weak parts really. Raimi did well with what he had.

[THUNDER BIRD]

Just now, JustLurking said:

Wanda is what carries the film.

 

DS2 could've been much stronger with a better script but I overall vibed with Wanda/Strange's plotlines a lot. Chavez and the script are the weak parts really. Raimi did well with what he had.

Wanda not being a villain would actually be sensible thing to do.

 

Actually making a good movie is better than carrying a bad movie.

[Legion Again]

1 minute ago, Korra Legion said:

If they execute the redemption arc decently it'll go a long way to retroactively improving DS2. Could get up to as much as 7.5 perhaps 

Just based on DS2 being allowed to happen at all though, I am skeptical whether they will/can handle it well

[THUNDER BIRD]

3 minutes ago, Korra Legion said:

If they execute the redemption arc decently it'll go a long way to retroactively improving DS2. Could get up to as much as 7.5 perhaps 

What redemption, imagine redemption after being a mass murderer.

 

MCU has lost the plot completely. Thankfully we have James Cameron to carry us throughout the decade with 3 more masterclass in cinema.

[Menor the Destroyer]

4 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

DS2 is great!

 

Yes it's messy, the script is a roller coaster between good ideas with awful writing, the whole thing is super shallow. 

 

Still it's one of the most energetic and dynamic MCU movies, the direction is lively and it does have personality (when it's possible), the editing is very tight and the movie flows very well even with all the problems, i really like the cartoonish visuals and Wanda with all writing issues is still such a cool character seeing acting like a Terminator villain. 

 

I rather watch this than a super competent NWH that seems like a committee movie front to back in all aspects.

Absolutely the opposite feeling for me. NWH also has a messy script, but the messiness is in service of things that are actually compelling for me to watch. The third act is electric and was so awesome to watch in theaters, character interactions/chemistry are A+, and it hits its emotional beats really well. That's what I like to see out of an MCU film. 

 

I do agree that DS2 benefits from some lively directing but I found that to shine through far too infrequently, much of the film actually feels dull other than these few moments of spark (dreamwalking montage, music notes, zombie Strange). 

[Firepower]

4 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

I rather watch this than a competente NWH that seems like a committee movie front to back in all aspects.

People were never this blinded by nostalgia in any movie than in NWH, even Star Wars couldn't blind people this much.

[titanic2187]

15 minutes ago, Brainbug said:

I stand by my opinion that Wanda is an amazing villain in MoM. Sure, her dialogue and reasoning were ... average, but the tenacity and brutality that she brought to the movie were just great to witness. How many MCU movies do you see where someones mouth gets removed, only for the head to implode?

 

MORE of that. Pls.

Agreed totally. In fact, I prefer DS2 over NWH. NWH is a feel good movie instead of a actual good movie. 

[krla]

14 minutes ago, Alligator Zatt said:

Meaning @Elessar:

 

Having money doesn’t make you a genius. He isn’t self made, neither a genius. Absolutely nothing he owns he created, designed or invented. He is just a billionaire that really wants to look like Tony Stark but is more like Justin Hammer than most realized back then and it becomes more obvious every single day. He didn’t invent Tesla, Space X or Twitter. He bought all of that, all of that were previously owned - and invented - by other people.

Tesla had never built a car when he took it over. SpaceX I'm pretty sure was founded by Musk, after he couldn't get ICBMs from Russia, so decided to build rockets himself. Twitter's failures from now on will be largely attributed to him; why wouldn't Twitter's successes?

 

It's interesting how some see him as having little role in SpaceX, Tesla, and his other companies, and yet thinking how he runs Twitter is emblematic of how he runs those companies, and that Twitter's failure/success will lay directly upon his shoulders. Though let's be real, if Twitter becomes profitable and successful, many will say he had no role in it. "He only bought it." Then why wasn't it making money before? Why wasn't Tesla making bank? Why wasn't NASA flying reusable rockets? Pretty sure NASA estimated it would have cost them like $20B to do what Musk did with $200M.

 

Musk doesn't seem particularly pleasant. But he seems able to get results that existing institutions cannot. Adoption of electric vehicles would likely have taken decade(s) longer without Musk. A big sticking point was that auto unions were firmly against electric vehicles, and largely refused to build them. EVs take fewer manhours to build, fewer manhours means fewer union dues. So it wasn't in the interest of unions to have EVs.

 

Government contractors for NASA had little reason to build reusable rockets. Reusable rockets means fewer manhours, which means a lower price, which means lower profits (even if the margins are slightly better). 

 

This happens across the economy. There's little incentive to increase efficiency by many institutions, because the status quo is profitable. Without billionaires to bankroll startups that will challenge the existing players, there's no momentum forward. The need to grow quickly requires a lot of capital.

 

There are of course examples of the opposite, like Amazon subsidizing the price of goods in order to wipe out competitors (like the diaper website), then raising the price again. It's a bit of a problem when companies use capital to undermine competitor prices by just selling at a loss, in order to secure marketshare, rather than using the capital to create a new efficiency or something. But Musk doesn't seem to do that with his companies. But there are a lot of billionaires who do. 

[ZattMurdock]

1 minute ago, ThomasNicole said:

DS2 is great!

 

Yes it's messy, the script is a roller coaster between good ideas with awful writing, the whole thing is super shallow. 

 

Still it's one of the most energetic and dynamic MCU movies, the direction is lively and it does have personality (when it's possible), the editing is very tight and the movie flows very well even with all the problems, i really like the cartoonish visuals and Wanda with all writing issues is still such a cool character seeing acting like a Terminator villain. 

 

I rather watch this than a competente NWH that seems like a committee movie front to back in all aspects.

I think yesterday I had a breakthrough on how describing Jon Watts Spider-Man trilogy and how incredibly underrated it is. I think the trilogy - and the obvious next trilogy that will follow - did manage to create not only a Harry Potter flavor to the MCU ( @Noctis I’m looking at you) but most of all, it’s the perfect translation of a comic book turned into film. It has a serialized feeling to it that it doesn’t feel like a tv show or "made by committee" like people say, but felt to me like a John Hughes inspired take of the Spider-Man younger days that has three films and the Infinity Saga that span across the course of one or two years at most of Spider-Man’s high school days (5 year Blip gap not withstanding).

 

A whole brand new generation is growing up with Holland’s and Watts Spidey as THE Spider-Man, with No Way Home crowning that with a Spider-Verse saga that included 3 Spider-Men that arguably made every single Marvel film ever part of the MCU (already happened in Loki, but still). I think Holland will not only make another trilogy with the character, but will end up becoming the most beloved actor and character of the MCU in the upcoming years. And rightfully so. 

[JustLurking]

5 minutes ago, Menor Reborn said:

Absolutely the opposite feeling for me. NWH also has a messy script, but the messiness is in service of things that are actually compelling for me to watch. The third act is electric and was so awesome to watch in theaters, character interactions/chemistry are A+, and it hits its emotional beats really well. That's what I like to see out of an MCU film. 

 

I do agree that DS2 benefits from some lively directing but I found that to shine through far too infrequently, much of the film actually feels dull other than these few moments of spark (dreamwalking montage, music notes, zombie Strange). 

The problem is that while the third act in NWH is really good, there's nothing else that is in the film IMO. The way the film gets to it makes no sense and the way characters behave for half the film is just ridicolous. The third act only salvages a film that I otherwise would've hated and elevates it to "it was ok" for me.

Edited December 18, 2022 by JustLurking

[Cap]

21 minutes ago, THUNDER BIRD said:

Instead we got Scarlett Witch getting beat by children throwing stuffed toys at her.

Nah! This was the best part. 
 

Anyway!

 

I am very excited that we started dueling discussions about colonization and the quality of the MCU Phase 4, at the same time, as I am about to go offline for the family Christmas for five hours. Couldn’t have timed it better. What could possibly go wrong while I am away? 😆
 

PLEASE keep in mind, Porthos’ Golden Rule: Let Others Be Wrong. We hit 100 pages, and we’re half way to 150. Not everything needs a response! Sometimes just a reaction works!  
 

If you do want to respond, because there’s nothing wrong with this discussion, just remember my golden rule: don’t be fucking mean to each other. No name calling or personal attacks. 
 

AND! I was gonna wait until Monday, but I feel like I’ll just add this in right now. This has been an excellent weekend thread. Everyone has been super awesome. It’s been a great mix of shit posting, and good discussion about numbers. Let’s keep the energy up all through 2023!!!!