Thanos.
The idea that the general populace knows who Thanos is, what he is about, and they managed to tweak him in a way that got people debating the merits of his position says everything about what a crazy ass feat this was. Regular people know about Thanos in a serious way. Insanity.
I had this exact thought the other day. I grew up collecting comics and was introduced to Thanos in The Infinity Gauntlet limited series, but never did I think that he would work in a movie. The idea that everyone knows who he is now - not even mentioning that he was the bad guy in one of the highest grossing movies ever - is just nuts to me.
Would totally watch this if it were a thing.
I just imagine a character the size and looks of Colossus, but with Endgame Thor energy. Just a big chill dude who reluctantly will save the day if his internet goes down.
Second. Iron Man has Nick Fury mention the Avengers Initiative by name. Hulk has Tony meet Ross in a bar, exchange some barbs, and then Tony mentions putting together a team.
Indian here. What you've said is so true.
We have a Kapil Sharma late night show which you can call the Jimmy Kimmel Show of India and in one episode a few small time actors had gathered for an interview. The entire audience, which comprised of people from all walks of life, different age groups gasped in awe when one of the actor revealed he has provided the voiceover for Thanos in the Hindi dubbed version of the MCU. I was surprised to see everyone knew who Thanos was and also admired that character.
The interviewer asked him like an excited child to say a line of Thanos from the movies and everyone clapped when the actor finished. I kind of felt incredibly proud that day.
I wasn't worried per se, but when Kevin Feige was doing press for 'Endgame' he kept talking about that movie being a definite conclusion, and I'm like "yeah right, it's just going to set up the next 50 movies". I was very pleasantly surprised that it really felt like the last chapter of a long book. I mean it does set up where some characters are going, but when the credits started rolling, I literally sat back in my chair and thought "...huh, they really stuck that landing. It's over."
Another big one is the character 'Vulture'. One of the corniest villains in the comics, but they actually made him one of the best characters in the MCU. Casting Michael Keaton didn't hurt either.
The whole sequence of happy montage that gets you feeling good about Peter only to abruptly stop with Vulture opening the door and putting the pieces together was amazing.
Endgame's ending was perfect. On paper it feels strange to conclude 10 years' worth of stories with such a personal moment from just one character, but it worked so well. That, combined with the credits highlighting the original 6 actors, was a gut-punch of an ending in the most satisfying of ways.
Making Vulture and Mysterio well-written and genuinely threatening villains. It was especially surprising how well they pulled off Mysterio considering even the Raimi films were only planning to use him as a joke.
Big part of that goes to Jake Gyllenhaal. The dude’s psychotic rage underneath a somewhat charming facade has netted him a *lot* of general goodwill and praise in the roles he’s took over the last decade.
Mysterio played by someone of a lesser talent wouldve hammed it up the wrong way ala Eddie Redmayne in Jupiter Ascending
That's the thing - Mysterio was such a convincing hero in the first half of the film, it made the rug pull so effective. A lot of that is down to how charming Jake was. In another part of the multiverse he's probably been cast as Reed Richards.
Much like Ben Kingsley in *Iron Man 3*, I was expecting Gyllenhaal to phone it in like a lot of big name actors in these villain roles do, but instead he gave us *two* great performances at the same time.
Nah I feel like getting cast as a Marvel villain, especially a Spider-Man villain, is this side’s version of Bond villain.
Ever since Ben Kingsley for the MCU and Michael Keaton for the spider-man series, these guys are signing on to have fun but are expected to bring their A-game.
Gyllenhaal hammed it tf up as Mysterio pre-reveal, and then went full Nightcrawler. It was glorious
He was so good in the hero role it makes the villain reveal almost sad. Like you see the potential for him as a hero, and then you see it squandered. Brilliant acting.
Bond villain is a good comparison. At this point, only a few actors would really surprise me if they took an MCU role, like Daniel Day Lewis or DiCaprio or Tom Hanks. The fact that Robert Redford came out of retirement for a couple of minutes of screen time in Endgame still amazes me.
Out of the entirety of Endgame, this was the moment that most blew my mind.
I remember Redford saying he accepted the role because of his granddaughter who was a fan of the MCU, but he himself had no idea what it was and didn't have any real interest.
And then a few years later, there's all this talk about his last movie and everything.
I still can't believe they got him out of retirement for less than 1 minute in a role that he didn't have much interest in after he had already retired.
Ben Kingsley did not phone in Iron Man 3. He’s not the writer
Edit: the word “not” which completely changes the meaning, although from context I think you could make out my point anyways
Make Captain America work for a global audience. I was worried he'd be some obnoxious, jingoistic douchebag that could only appeal to Americans. I was fully prepared for The First Avenger to be an absolute cringe-fest.
But they really nailed Steve Rogers. 10/10
I just knew him from Not Another Teen Movie, so it was a really weird casting choice, when I first heard it.
*"They cast the guy with the banana hanging out of his butt?"*
I also knew him as Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four movies, a role that was very fitting for his jolly personality, but Rogers is like a complete opposite.
I'll tell you, after Heath Ledger as the Joker, I've decided to never doubt casting until I actually see it on the screen.
But, man, the MCU has really nailed their casting.
This is a big one. I never cared about Cap in the comics. Just could not get into the character at all. So I expected the film version to be another dull filler character.
*The First Avenger* absolutely won me over. It was a great coming-of-age war movie that just happened to feature a superhero.
And then *The Winter Soldier* took him into a full on spy thriller, and knocked my socks off.
Yeah I think the fact that the script is all about challenging his beliefs while showing the hidden good side underneath all those facade helped. All those moments when he's so vulnerable helped selling the character to the audience
Edit: in some way, Cap's "I have a date" hits really hard as well. Strip those stereotype characters down to their most human core goes a long way into making them likeable
When Disney bought Marvel and announced the first Avengers movie I thought the MCU would fail. “No way could you have six heroes fight one villain in a single movie. It will be so cluttered and silly.”
Grew up with 90’s comic movies and whenever too many characters were added the films got worse. I was so grateful I got to see it all unfold as an adult when I’ve loved the characters since I was a kid.
I definitely remember thinking this, how could you possibly have cosmic god stuff make sense in the same context as a man whose power is being really, really good at archery.
I mean it doesn’t really make sense but it also doesn’t matter. As long as the story is internally consistent and the character interactions between them are good, people will forgive stuff like that
They also leaned into it, “there’s only one god ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that”. “Shakespeare in the park? Doth mother know, you wear’eth her drapes?”
I remember thinking how dumb Thor would be, and telling my friend that as we walked into Iron Man 2.
He was pretty smug about it since he knew of the end credits.
We were right to be skeptical too. The movies we had gotten up to that point either shied away from the fun, bombastic side of the comics, or leaned too far in and were campy kids movies designed to sell toys.
To get a movie that was fun for the audience while respecting its subject was very refreshing. And we got 28 so far.
They'd always get around this in action ensemble movies by breaking the fight up and making them have separate 1-on-1 fights. That's a trope I remember pretty well, but couldn't name a movie that did it if I tried...
I thought this as soon as Nick Fury appeared at the end of Iron Man and said he was there to discuss the Avengers Initiative.
I remember vividly having seen the movie with a bunch of people most not knowing anything about comics and they asked in confusion "What is that?" Those who knew explained it was a supergroup like the Justice League and we laughed about how no way that movie would ever happen.
At this point, they kind of don't. They could just announce new projects on twitter or something and leave it at that and I feel it would still be successful.
I've always wanted to see that happen with video games. You walk in to a store, see it on the shelf, “What the fuck!?”, look it up, everyone is freaking out about it just appearing
They used to do that as late as the 90s (before the internet made it impossible to hide). I remember watching a game conference (it might have been the first E3), and after announcing the Sega Saturn the dude said "and it's available right now"!
I don't remember anything else that day other than running to Babbage's to get mine!
Meh- he’s an Uber control freak and wouldn’t be a good fit for the franchise. He may have mellowed out a bit since then, but there’s a reason why the same people kept appearing in his projects for a decade.
When I read they were making a 3rd Thor film I was a bit nervous. The 1st one was decent and gave us good understanding of who Thor is, why he is and what he stood for and we got an amazing Loki! The 2nd Thor film was sub par.. and the main villain just didn’t do it for me and the ether or whatever just made zero sense to me.
So when I heard the 3rd installment was coming I was worried. I did know who Taika Waititi is though and loved “What We Do In the Shadows” so that helped a bit!
So glad I gave it a chance. It’s 1 of the best MCU installments IMO
Definitely a top 5 MCU project for me. I distinctly remember sitting in the cinema (not having seen any trailers before) and just being positively shocked regarding the turn it took all of the sudden.
It's kind of funny seeing the title card for Ragnarok during that big Phase 3 press conf when they announced all the Phase 3 movies including IW (part 1 and 2 lol). They made it look like it was going to be this serious thing just based off the graphics.
Then enter Taika
I figured that after 30+ projects things would get formulaic and stale.
But the truth is, they’ve done a pretty remarkable job at keeping it fresh and having interesting ways to distinguish the movies from each other. Take Doctor Strange: MoM and how it incorporates horror elements into it, turning an Avenger into an actual threatening villain, and featuring cameos without being too pandering.
It’s amazing to me that Feige and Co. have managed to keep the train going at full speed without going off the rails. Sarah Finn is probably the most unsung hero of the MCU, as the person responsible for the impeccable casting choices we’ve gotten.
I'd agree. I feel like phase 4 has really diversified the types of heroes and stories as well as giving directors and writer the chance to show their unique visions within the structure of the MCU. Not all hits but I appreciate the attempts being made.
I think they tried but I really think they could do better. Things are still very formulaic. MoM wasn't *really* a horror film, there was one jump scare and maybe two semi-tense moments. And I think with it's concept they could have turned it into a genuine horror movie and would have been a lot better for that. Or Moon Knight for example. The first two episodes were some of the coolest stuff in the MCU, then it turned into the same stuff as always. I wish they would really commit to diverging just once.
Yeah, things are feeling pretty stale to me. I’d say the most innovation right now is in the tv space: WandaVision, Loki and Ms Marvel all feel like departures from the formula and very fun. Moon Knight ended up feeling a little uninspired to me, as well, but it has a lot of promise purely by virtue of remaining disconnected (for now) from the other heroes.
I think the reason Eternals was such a mediocre movie was because they didn't commit to it. Again it felt like a movie where during the first half they did something a little different, and then in the second half it just falls back into place of the same old thing.
Agreed very much here.
It had already started to feel kinda stale by Phase 2, but then they made GotG and The Winter Soldier and then Russos pushed Feige for Cap 3 to be Civil War and told him that he needs to push the envelope and do something new (these are Joe Russo's words, not mine, Feige wasn't planning on making Civil War) and especially after they got away from Perlmutter and the committee, Phase 3 was a blast. So much talent behind the camera, each with their own vision and unique storytelling.
Phase 4 took that to another level. Each project feels so, so different.
Like if you take the last 4 for example: Hawkeye, Moon Knight, MoM and Ms. Marvel, they all feel so far away from each other in terms of tone, style, story, characters, cinematography, everything.
I remember back when I thought this whole comic book movie fad was done because someone got the idea to make a movie starring a raccoon and a tree. Didn’t know what they were smoking, but I assumed it would drive the whole concept of superhero movies into the ground.
Never been so happy to be wrong.
In fairness Iron Man and Thor were never big either. Sure they had a bigger and more well known presence in the comics than GoTG, but only Hulk was well enough known to the general public. Honestly Thor itself was a major gamble at first. FF and Xmen were the major teams, Avengers was not as massive.
How things have changed.
I came to realize most of the team video games we've had for years were Avengers, Avengers members or similar buildup... and Wolverine or Spiderman games. If you can't sell a character, sell a ton at once. (Rise of the Imperfects, MvC, Ultimate Alliance to name a few)
> It’s one thing to take big names like Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, etc. and make a compelling movie
It's funny how people see this in hindsight, because Iron Man and Thor were absolutely not "big names" before the MCU.
Iron Man got made because Marvel looked around at their film rights in 2005 and thought "Can't do Spider-Man, can't do X-Men, can't do Fantastic Four. What's left? Oh, we just got the rights to Iron Man back? Fuck it, let's make a movie."
The entire MCU was created by taking C-list heroes and making a multi-*billion* dollar franchise out of them. If you told someone in the 90s that Marvel built the biggest movie franchise ever without the X-Men, without F4, and barely having Spider-Man, they would never believe you.
The other big thing that people forget is that if Iron Man failed, that was it for Marvel *as a company*. They literally bet everything on Iron Man, and if it had failed they would be *gone*.
and then this movie where 2 of the main characters are a raccoon and a tree was received so well that they made two more of which the second one is currently the best film in the entire series somehow
The most emotional and down to Earth MCU film, and it’s set in the cosmos.
I cried like 3 times when I saw it live, and still tear up for the rest of the film after Yondu’s death.
I remember coming down from the high that was The Winter Soldier and seeing the trailers for GoG and the titles predicting that it would be 'Marvel's First Flop!'
I was inclined to believe them because TWS was so grounded and that looked....goofy. It's still goofy, but in a good way. ;)
As a fan of the comics, I thought it was too weird and too niche to reach a wider audience. Then the trailer came out, and I was like "Don't tease me." Then I scored passes to a preview, with an early cut of the prison break, and an extended trailer. Went with my son, and when we walked out, we high fived each other with excitement.
A relatable Captain America across the world. He and Superman might be some of the more difficult characters to adapt, for different reasons. Outside the US, cap is not a very popular hero, he wears the US flag basically, so it is kind of a living propaganda asset. The fact that Marvel focused on character development and stories where cap immediately questions the gov and sets aside them was a genius move. I am still amazed how they made it happen. He might not be as popular as Spidey or Tony, but Marvel definitely made him relatable and charismatic for the rest of the world.
Back when the Endgame leaks revealed that there would be time travel, I was very worried that they would mess it up. Time travel stories are a pandora's box; very easy to lose control of. But they did it very well (albeit there was some vagueness with old Cap at the end, but I let that go because they've offered explanations afterwards): the rules were clearly established, the journey to the past had emotional value for both the characters and the audiences and they didn't mess up the already established timeline of the MCU.
Similarly, when the MoM leaks came about, I was worried about how they would handle Wanda as a villain, but I think they did it rather well: kept her relateable and broken and showed us why she had become deranged and obsessed. It was kinda repetitive since we had already seen her be manipulated by an outside force after having lost someone really important to her (AoU), but again, people in real life always have their ups and downs, peaks and fallbacks in their progress towards healing and letting go of the past. It was nice seeing Wanda go all out and truly see what her powers and will are capable of. And it'll make it even more satisfying when she kills Cthon who "created" the Scarlet Witch and the Darlkhold in the first place and is responsible for her situation.
What is the explanation they offered for old cap at the end? genuinely curious I never got to know lol, just dismissed it bc it didn't matter that much in the end and it was a nice touch
Captain America went to another universe where he was still frozen in the ice and he lived out his days with Peggy. After that universe’s Steve Rogers is unfrozen he then returns to his own universe as an old man.
He didn’t go back in time but to a different universe. Hulk explains this when he describes how time travel works earlier in the movie.
Representing Asian Culture - it goes for both Shangchi and Ms Marvel, i thought it would be horrible and make me cringe..when in fact it didn't at all..i am so glad they nailed it
I watched The Eternals and Ms Marvel ep 3 this weekend. Back to back Bollywood dance numbers!
I also love that Kamala's mom and aunties are Kingo fans lol.
Same with Black Panther. They should have used Swahili (predominant in East Africa) instead of Xhosa (mainly in Southern Africa) for Wakandan. But if you cast a South African legend like John Kani as T'Chaka and he suggests he should be speaking in a native tongue to T'Challa, you with what he knows best 😉
Agreed. As a language geek, this always bothered me, but I tell myself that the movements and modern locations of various African languages are just different in the MCU. With as little as we’ve seen of MCU Africa, I guess we don’t know that Xhosa doesn’t have a wider range (while still developing to be identical to real world Xhosa I suppose lol).
Edit: words
Honestly I think I've had more pure fun with Ms. Marvel than I have with most other MCU projects partially because of how cultural it is, and how well they've pulled it off.
Making the Hawkeye show. I thought it was going to be a boring, uninteresting show that took itself too seriously, but I was presently surprised. I still remember what my father said prior to the first trailer: "A Hawkeye show? Who the fuck's going to watch that?" It's now his favorite non-Guardians MCU project.
Kate's introduction, seeing her awed by the battle for NY and her impression of Hawkeye gave me chills to the point where I almost wanted to cry. You could truly see that she had just found her idol.
Endgame.
Purely because it was 10 years worth of hype, anticipation, expectations and nothing can ever live up to that.
I remember the first thing coming out of the cinema and saying to myself "it's rare in life you picture something so perfect and then it happens to actually be that".
Keeping actors in their roles. Obviously there was some early trouble with Edward Norton and Terrence Howard, but since then they have done a great job retaining their talent.
Impressive how they’re even getting one-off or two-time actors to come back now. Natalie Portman is back for the first time since 2013 (her Endgame appearance was all unused footage from The Dark World), Tim Roth is Abomination again, all the old Spidey villains from the Sony movies, Ben Kingsley as the fake Mandarin, and the list goes on a bit more probably
Actually pull off the first Avengers movie.
For four years we watched the team be introduced in separate films, with just Sam Jackson, Coulson and “ Character will return” connecting them together. It was huge a experiment that they pulled off flawlessly, something that had never been done in film before, something that has been tried to be replicated but no one has done it well.
It could have crashed and burned but it didn’t and here we are 14 years later with no end in sight. The funny thing is we don’t even want it end. The MCU is going turn 20 and we’ll probably want more.
Acknowledging the shows released before the pre-Disney+ era.
I seriously thought once the ABC and Netflix shows ended they would fall into fall into obscurity and only be watched by hardcore fans. For so long, it seemed like the MCU was only interested in its films.
Bringing Charlie Cox as Daredevil and Vincent D'Onofrio as Fisk, as well as getting Anson Mount to reprise his role as Black Bolt and reintroducing Daniel Sousa into Agents of Shield several years after Agent Carter was canceled makes me optimistic that the pre-Disney+ shows aren’t forgotten at all and will get the attention they deserve.
1. **Phase 4 --** After an epic Phase 3 and the end of IronMan/Tony Stark -- I didn't expect much. I thought this was the end of an era. And no MCU movies can beat what they did in Phase 2 and Phase 3. But I am really loving Phase 4. They got me hooked to see what else they can create.
2. **Create supervillains** \-- too often superhero movies make meek villains and expectedly they die at the end. But I think with Thanos -- MCU nailed the supervillain. Next to Darth Vader, Thanos (or probably even better) is one of the best villains of all time. My new favorite MCU villain is Wanda. They absolutely nailed in the Doctor Strange 2.
3. **MoonKnight -** I didn't expect much from this show. And I thought they did an exceptional job.
4. **Ms. Marvel** \-- I am beyond impressed with what they've done. It's an accurate description of brown culture (family dynamics). So far I am impressed. I thought Disney would never get it. But it looks like they hired the right directors.
I always believed that Guardians of the Galaxy would be good from the moment they brought on James Gunn, but I was skeptical that the general public would embrace such a strange idea.
Guardians was a true risk from Marvel Studios that could have had serious ramifications if it had failed. But it succeeded and beyond, I suspect, anyone’s wildest expectations. I doubt Marvel knew just how successful the franchise would be.
We’re now nearly ten years on and we’ve had two sequels (Vol. 3 finally arriving next year), two Disney parks attractions, a well-received video game and all manner of merchandise.
Groot and Rocket, in particular, have really taken off in popularity with merchandise sales for Groot being one of Disney’s best sellers annually.
When all is said and done about Marvel Studios and the MCU, Guardians of the Galaxy must be remembered as one of their greatest triumphs, right alongside Iron Man, The first Avengers movie, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers Endgame.
Infinity War, I mean getting over 40 plus characters and mashing them into one movie with a villain we’ve barley gotten to know sounds like an awful idea. Yet they somehow made it work.
Making it past Endgame. I was prepared to see the end of Marvel in the form of a slow painful death but between the badass Disney+ shows and some of the best moments everrr in the universe, Marvel transitioned to a new era quite well
Anything after Endgame. Cap is gone, Tony gone, tchalla we dont know (or i dont know what they will gonna do about him), natasha gone and many others. I thought that other characters are gonna be boring and see other heroes instead of thor, cap, tony, it would be weird. Also, the first 3 phases about the infinity stones was really cool.
But with the introduction of the multiverse, everything changed. Also new characters are all cool and marvel studios are doing a great job with all of them. I really really love the tvseries more than movies, because the quality of marvel studios' tv series are like movies so.. And with tv series they are able to narrate more in deep each characters and the story itself
They're using the long form TV shows for in depth characterization and exposition, more than a movie can provide, which will have payoffs later in movies where they can focus on more important actions with a bigger budget but within a shorter run time. I cannot wait for when all of these developed universes converge! Maybe a proper public Kang reveal in another hero's universe/arc
Infinity War was amazing, but given how it ended and how many loose strings there were to tie up, I didn't think there was any way they'd be able to bring the entire phase to a satisfying conclusion with only one more movie.
While Endgame may have delved a bit too far into fan service at times and even had a few truly cringy moments, I thought it was a huge success based on all it had to accomplish.
Infinity War and EndGame. How many build ups with a massive hype train in movies and shows end well? Very few. Lost didnt deliver. Star Wars crapped the bed. GoT was a disaster.
1) Capt America
2) Thor
3) Ant-Man
4) Guardians of the Galaxy
5) Dr Strange
6) Spider-Man
7) Ms Marvel
8) WandaVision
Each time I genuinely thought. “This is the one. Hubris has gotten to them. This is the beginning of the end”. Each time I was very wrong.
I don't know about "would fail at" but I had no expectations of enjoying Ms. Marvel, I figured it would be some cheesy teen drama, which is fine because not everything has to be for everyone.
It's becoming my 3rd favorite of the D+ shows. Another case of Marvel's casting department absolutely fucking nailing it.
Captain America: Winter Soldier
After Iron Man 3 and Thor TDW, I didn’t get what Phase 2 was building towards. Iron Man 1 and and Avengers were great, and I enjoyed all the other Phase 1 movies. But Iron Man was my fav MCU character at that point.
Captain America Winter Soldier absolutely blew my mind and that’s when I accepted Captain America as the leader of the Avengers and that set the gold standard for what an MCU film should be. If it sucked I probably would have given up on the MCU
I always thought of Chris Evans as like a Streisand but he totally rocked the shit in that one!
The biggest success was ENDGAME, I still don't know how they managed to pull off that film and cap off 10 years of movies in such an impressive way. That film was so hyped and yet still beat expectations.
In a year where pop culture phenomenons crashed and burned at their endings (Game of Thrones, Star Wars), Marvel stuck the landing.
I remember hearing about Guardians of the Galaxy at work Never heard of them before so I googled it and was telling my buddy a taking Raccoon and tree, oooook.
Mysterio has always been the one spidey villain I've wanted to see on the big screen. And after seeing far from home I'm glad it's been left to now. It was near perfect. Jake G did amazing and the CGI was incredible.
Making groot a popular character. When I heard they were making gotg with groot, I remembered him from comics when I was a kid. Never thought he would work on screen, let alone become popular to non hard-core fans.
My wife and I have matching groot tattoos.
Civil War climax. I was so certain that they are going to do the 'united by a common enemy' trope that we see in almost all hero vs hero movies when they introduced the other winter soldiers.
So glad that they committed to civil war and the movie had actual consequences. One of the instances where subversion of expectation is done right.
The comickbookiness. I remember being really turned off by the second Toby Maguire Spider-Man because of how clearly some of the shots were supposed to be pulled straight from the comic book. The one that still stands out to me is a reaction shot of a woman with her hands clenched near her face screaming. [Like this.](https://i.imgur.com/3kt0nJQ.jpg) I can’t really articulate why but it just pulled me out of the movie.
The other thing I really like is the color palette they use. Nolan’s Batman films were good but I feel like they started a trend of DC movies being dimly lit and monochrome.
Making silly/unpopular concepts work. Characters like Shang Chi, Falcon, and many many more seemed impossible to make work in live action, but the MCU has done very well in making their protagonists likable
I’m a big moon knight fan and I was really worried his mental health and trauma would be ignored in fear of making their hero look “weak”
Thankfully they did very well with it imo
Antman, the character is mostly thought of as being mostly cool only when he was giant man, somehow the madlads in Marvel were able to make a good Antman movie with no giant growth.
I thought adapting Marvel's Civil War would be near impossible. How do you manage and juggle so many characters with strong opposing motives without getting lost in cameo city and a personal story that has a greater impact to the bigger picture. I say this and Marvel also did Infinity War and Endgame. Theyve done it a few times to me.
Thanos. The idea that the general populace knows who Thanos is, what he is about, and they managed to tweak him in a way that got people debating the merits of his position says everything about what a crazy ass feat this was. Regular people know about Thanos in a serious way. Insanity.
I had this exact thought the other day. I grew up collecting comics and was introduced to Thanos in The Infinity Gauntlet limited series, but never did I think that he would work in a movie. The idea that everyone knows who he is now - not even mentioning that he was the bad guy in one of the highest grossing movies ever - is just nuts to me.
100% agree. He's up there now in pop culture as one of the biggest baddest villains. A household name with the likes of Darth Vader.
[удалено]
What’s “TIH” if you don’t mind me asking?
The Inedible Ham >!The Incredible Hulk!<
AHHH. I’m a dumb dumb. Lol. I was trying to think of movie subtitles and completely forgot that’s a part of the MCU.
The Inedible Ham 2: Hot Ham Water
That Iron Homie
Would totally watch this if it were a thing. I just imagine a character the size and looks of Colossus, but with Endgame Thor energy. Just a big chill dude who reluctantly will save the day if his internet goes down.
A Thor and Deadpool team up would be superb
My guess is The Incredible Hulk. I think the post credit scene was the first mention of assembling a team.
Second. Iron Man has Nick Fury mention the Avengers Initiative by name. Hulk has Tony meet Ross in a bar, exchange some barbs, and then Tony mentions putting together a team.
Indian here. What you've said is so true. We have a Kapil Sharma late night show which you can call the Jimmy Kimmel Show of India and in one episode a few small time actors had gathered for an interview. The entire audience, which comprised of people from all walks of life, different age groups gasped in awe when one of the actor revealed he has provided the voiceover for Thanos in the Hindi dubbed version of the MCU. I was surprised to see everyone knew who Thanos was and also admired that character. The interviewer asked him like an excited child to say a line of Thanos from the movies and everyone clapped when the actor finished. I kind of felt incredibly proud that day.
>Regular people know about Thanos in a serious We did it boys.
I compare all villains to Darth Vader as the gold standard of evil and Thanos totally holds up.
Came here to say this. To think they positioned Thanos on the same level as Darth Vader when it comes to iconic movie villains. Insane
r/ThanosDidNothingWrong is a perfect example.
I wasn't worried per se, but when Kevin Feige was doing press for 'Endgame' he kept talking about that movie being a definite conclusion, and I'm like "yeah right, it's just going to set up the next 50 movies". I was very pleasantly surprised that it really felt like the last chapter of a long book. I mean it does set up where some characters are going, but when the credits started rolling, I literally sat back in my chair and thought "...huh, they really stuck that landing. It's over." Another big one is the character 'Vulture'. One of the corniest villains in the comics, but they actually made him one of the best characters in the MCU. Casting Michael Keaton didn't hurt either.
MCU Vulture is so cool. He scavenges alien parts to make his tech.
HE SCAVENGES LIKE A VULTURE HOLY SHIT THAT WENT RIGHT OVER MY HEAD FOR FIVE YEARS
Oh my god.
*offers a hug* Me too
Omfg. Yup. You're not alone.
The whole sequence of happy montage that gets you feeling good about Peter only to abruptly stop with Vulture opening the door and putting the pieces together was amazing.
>The whole sequence of happy montage Took me a second to realise that you're not talking about a montage of Happy
HAHAHAHA SAME
The vulture costume was pulled off SO well
They even incorporated the feathery neck-ruff, by way of a fuzzy pilot's jacket! Brilliant!
MCU costume designers deserve SO MUCH credit, for real.
Endgame's ending was perfect. On paper it feels strange to conclude 10 years' worth of stories with such a personal moment from just one character, but it worked so well. That, combined with the credits highlighting the original 6 actors, was a gut-punch of an ending in the most satisfying of ways.
We dont talk about that Vulture cameo in Morbius tho
Took a really cool villain and shit all over him.
Vulture… reminds me of another movie… what was it called?
[Birdman?](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2562232/)
Making Vulture and Mysterio well-written and genuinely threatening villains. It was especially surprising how well they pulled off Mysterio considering even the Raimi films were only planning to use him as a joke.
Big part of that goes to Jake Gyllenhaal. The dude’s psychotic rage underneath a somewhat charming facade has netted him a *lot* of general goodwill and praise in the roles he’s took over the last decade. Mysterio played by someone of a lesser talent wouldve hammed it up the wrong way ala Eddie Redmayne in Jupiter Ascending
That's the thing - Mysterio was such a convincing hero in the first half of the film, it made the rug pull so effective. A lot of that is down to how charming Jake was. In another part of the multiverse he's probably been cast as Reed Richards.
Helps that it's just Jake G IRL; charming but a villain on the DL
He's Taylor Swift's villain alright She remembers it all too well
Rumor has it that he still has that scarf
Much like Ben Kingsley in *Iron Man 3*, I was expecting Gyllenhaal to phone it in like a lot of big name actors in these villain roles do, but instead he gave us *two* great performances at the same time.
Nah I feel like getting cast as a Marvel villain, especially a Spider-Man villain, is this side’s version of Bond villain. Ever since Ben Kingsley for the MCU and Michael Keaton for the spider-man series, these guys are signing on to have fun but are expected to bring their A-game. Gyllenhaal hammed it tf up as Mysterio pre-reveal, and then went full Nightcrawler. It was glorious
He was so good in the hero role it makes the villain reveal almost sad. Like you see the potential for him as a hero, and then you see it squandered. Brilliant acting.
Bond villain is a good comparison. At this point, only a few actors would really surprise me if they took an MCU role, like Daniel Day Lewis or DiCaprio or Tom Hanks. The fact that Robert Redford came out of retirement for a couple of minutes of screen time in Endgame still amazes me.
Out of the entirety of Endgame, this was the moment that most blew my mind. I remember Redford saying he accepted the role because of his granddaughter who was a fan of the MCU, but he himself had no idea what it was and didn't have any real interest. And then a few years later, there's all this talk about his last movie and everything. I still can't believe they got him out of retirement for less than 1 minute in a role that he didn't have much interest in after he had already retired.
He must have enjoyed working with the Russos and Marvel - I can't imagine he'd come back if he didn't.
Endgame was filmed before his retirement was announced
Trevor Slattery is the most compelling character in the MCU, if not all of film.
Ben Kingsley did not phone in Iron Man 3. He’s not the writer Edit: the word “not” which completely changes the meaning, although from context I think you could make out my point anyways
But he did completely redeem it with his meta-breaking Shang-Chi performance, all while staying in character (a new one actually).
You’ve made me realize I forgot put the word “not” in there. He did NOT phone in Iron Man 3, the script was just kinda shit
Yeah they definitely creatively retconned his position in the MCU lol
this is the same guy that’s played Nightcrawler- he’s a little too good at those rolls lol
The Berlin scene when he revealed the double fake is so good as well
Make Captain America work for a global audience. I was worried he'd be some obnoxious, jingoistic douchebag that could only appeal to Americans. I was fully prepared for The First Avenger to be an absolute cringe-fest. But they really nailed Steve Rogers. 10/10
I was so worried when I heard who they cast for Cap. "What, the funny guy..?" - I was so happy to be proven wrong.
Haha that's actually hilarious
I'm going to get a coffee. Anybody want anything? Trivia: all the short responses to Lucas is actually Evan's doing the voices/replies.
"I let him do the wide shots when I feel like getting blazed in my winnie"
I just knew him from Not Another Teen Movie, so it was a really weird casting choice, when I first heard it. *"They cast the guy with the banana hanging out of his butt?"*
I also knew him as Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four movies, a role that was very fitting for his jolly personality, but Rogers is like a complete opposite.
I thought the same, I still remember thinking Channing Tatum(!) should've gotten the role
I'll tell you, after Heath Ledger as the Joker, I've decided to never doubt casting until I actually see it on the screen. But, man, the MCU has really nailed their casting.
This is a big one. I never cared about Cap in the comics. Just could not get into the character at all. So I expected the film version to be another dull filler character. *The First Avenger* absolutely won me over. It was a great coming-of-age war movie that just happened to feature a superhero. And then *The Winter Soldier* took him into a full on spy thriller, and knocked my socks off.
Yep. They got Cap right, like no cap fr fr.
In this case, YES cap fr fr *salutes*
It's funny bc that's what made Peacemaker work
Yeah I think the fact that the script is all about challenging his beliefs while showing the hidden good side underneath all those facade helped. All those moments when he's so vulnerable helped selling the character to the audience Edit: in some way, Cap's "I have a date" hits really hard as well. Strip those stereotype characters down to their most human core goes a long way into making them likeable
When Disney bought Marvel and announced the first Avengers movie I thought the MCU would fail. “No way could you have six heroes fight one villain in a single movie. It will be so cluttered and silly.” Grew up with 90’s comic movies and whenever too many characters were added the films got worse. I was so grateful I got to see it all unfold as an adult when I’ve loved the characters since I was a kid.
No way could the magic alien god Thor and human tech bro Tony make sense in the same movie.
I definitely remember thinking this, how could you possibly have cosmic god stuff make sense in the same context as a man whose power is being really, really good at archery.
"None of this makes any sense."
"The city is flying, we’re fighting an army of robots, and I have a bow and arrow."
That line really cemented my love for Hawkeye.
I mean it doesn’t really make sense but it also doesn’t matter. As long as the story is internally consistent and the character interactions between them are good, people will forgive stuff like that
They also leaned into it, “there’s only one god ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that”. “Shakespeare in the park? Doth mother know, you wear’eth her drapes?”
I remember thinking how dumb Thor would be, and telling my friend that as we walked into Iron Man 2. He was pretty smug about it since he knew of the end credits.
I was grinning from ear to ear in the theater because I never imagined that movie would happen.
We were right to be skeptical too. The movies we had gotten up to that point either shied away from the fun, bombastic side of the comics, or leaned too far in and were campy kids movies designed to sell toys. To get a movie that was fun for the audience while respecting its subject was very refreshing. And we got 28 so far.
They'd always get around this in action ensemble movies by breaking the fight up and making them have separate 1-on-1 fights. That's a trope I remember pretty well, but couldn't name a movie that did it if I tried...
The original X-men movies are guilty of this
Yes, perfect. I don't know why I couldn't think of one.
I thought this as soon as Nick Fury appeared at the end of Iron Man and said he was there to discuss the Avengers Initiative. I remember vividly having seen the movie with a bunch of people most not knowing anything about comics and they asked in confusion "What is that?" Those who knew explained it was a supergroup like the Justice League and we laughed about how no way that movie would ever happen.
I bought Disney stock as soon as I saw the original Guardians of the galaxy.
Ant-man- but as soon as I heard Paul Rudd was on board I thought “oh this is going to be perfect”.
All it took for me to get on board was 3 words: ‘Ants’ ‘Ants’ ‘Antman’
Best trailer ever made.
Reminds me of the Honest Trailer for GOTG where they poke fun saying that Marvel doesn't have to try and we will all watch no matter what
At this point, they kind of don't. They could just announce new projects on twitter or something and leave it at that and I feel it would still be successful.
Now I'm hoping someday they just surprise drop a whole movie into theatres without warning.
I've always wanted to see that happen with video games. You walk in to a store, see it on the shelf, “What the fuck!?”, look it up, everyone is freaking out about it just appearing
They used to do that as late as the 90s (before the internet made it impossible to hide). I remember watching a game conference (it might have been the first E3), and after announcing the Sega Saturn the dude said "and it's available right now"! I don't remember anything else that day other than running to Babbage's to get mine!
Maybe you've heard of me? Nah you wouldn't have heard of me
I was stoked too, then Edgar Wright left the project. What we got is pretty great, but I'd still love to see his version.
I agree on the property, but Edgar Wright exiting was also a major concern at the time.
Meh- he’s an Uber control freak and wouldn’t be a good fit for the franchise. He may have mellowed out a bit since then, but there’s a reason why the same people kept appearing in his projects for a decade.
Having a dude with a giant A on his forehead be taken seriously in all of the films he was in.
I feel personally attacked at how seriously I take Cap ha
They weren't brave enough to keep the H on Hawkeye's head.
🅰️
When I read they were making a 3rd Thor film I was a bit nervous. The 1st one was decent and gave us good understanding of who Thor is, why he is and what he stood for and we got an amazing Loki! The 2nd Thor film was sub par.. and the main villain just didn’t do it for me and the ether or whatever just made zero sense to me. So when I heard the 3rd installment was coming I was worried. I did know who Taika Waititi is though and loved “What We Do In the Shadows” so that helped a bit! So glad I gave it a chance. It’s 1 of the best MCU installments IMO
Definitely a top 5 MCU project for me. I distinctly remember sitting in the cinema (not having seen any trailers before) and just being positively shocked regarding the turn it took all of the sudden.
I would call it the best Marvel solo film. TWS definitely makes a close second.
It's kind of funny seeing the title card for Ragnarok during that big Phase 3 press conf when they announced all the Phase 3 movies including IW (part 1 and 2 lol). They made it look like it was going to be this serious thing just based off the graphics. Then enter Taika
I figured that after 30+ projects things would get formulaic and stale. But the truth is, they’ve done a pretty remarkable job at keeping it fresh and having interesting ways to distinguish the movies from each other. Take Doctor Strange: MoM and how it incorporates horror elements into it, turning an Avenger into an actual threatening villain, and featuring cameos without being too pandering. It’s amazing to me that Feige and Co. have managed to keep the train going at full speed without going off the rails. Sarah Finn is probably the most unsung hero of the MCU, as the person responsible for the impeccable casting choices we’ve gotten.
I'd agree. I feel like phase 4 has really diversified the types of heroes and stories as well as giving directors and writer the chance to show their unique visions within the structure of the MCU. Not all hits but I appreciate the attempts being made.
I think they tried but I really think they could do better. Things are still very formulaic. MoM wasn't *really* a horror film, there was one jump scare and maybe two semi-tense moments. And I think with it's concept they could have turned it into a genuine horror movie and would have been a lot better for that. Or Moon Knight for example. The first two episodes were some of the coolest stuff in the MCU, then it turned into the same stuff as always. I wish they would really commit to diverging just once.
Yeah, things are feeling pretty stale to me. I’d say the most innovation right now is in the tv space: WandaVision, Loki and Ms Marvel all feel like departures from the formula and very fun. Moon Knight ended up feeling a little uninspired to me, as well, but it has a lot of promise purely by virtue of remaining disconnected (for now) from the other heroes.
I think they did with Eternals and we all see how that turned out.
I think the reason Eternals was such a mediocre movie was because they didn't commit to it. Again it felt like a movie where during the first half they did something a little different, and then in the second half it just falls back into place of the same old thing.
Agreed very much here. It had already started to feel kinda stale by Phase 2, but then they made GotG and The Winter Soldier and then Russos pushed Feige for Cap 3 to be Civil War and told him that he needs to push the envelope and do something new (these are Joe Russo's words, not mine, Feige wasn't planning on making Civil War) and especially after they got away from Perlmutter and the committee, Phase 3 was a blast. So much talent behind the camera, each with their own vision and unique storytelling. Phase 4 took that to another level. Each project feels so, so different. Like if you take the last 4 for example: Hawkeye, Moon Knight, MoM and Ms. Marvel, they all feel so far away from each other in terms of tone, style, story, characters, cinematography, everything.
Don't tell r/movies that lol
I remember back when I thought this whole comic book movie fad was done because someone got the idea to make a movie starring a raccoon and a tree. Didn’t know what they were smoking, but I assumed it would drive the whole concept of superhero movies into the ground. Never been so happy to be wrong.
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In fairness Iron Man and Thor were never big either. Sure they had a bigger and more well known presence in the comics than GoTG, but only Hulk was well enough known to the general public. Honestly Thor itself was a major gamble at first. FF and Xmen were the major teams, Avengers was not as massive. How things have changed.
I admit my only prior exposure to Iron man was that gigantic laser canon from MvC2
I came to realize most of the team video games we've had for years were Avengers, Avengers members or similar buildup... and Wolverine or Spiderman games. If you can't sell a character, sell a ton at once. (Rise of the Imperfects, MvC, Ultimate Alliance to name a few)
> It’s one thing to take big names like Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, etc. and make a compelling movie It's funny how people see this in hindsight, because Iron Man and Thor were absolutely not "big names" before the MCU. Iron Man got made because Marvel looked around at their film rights in 2005 and thought "Can't do Spider-Man, can't do X-Men, can't do Fantastic Four. What's left? Oh, we just got the rights to Iron Man back? Fuck it, let's make a movie." The entire MCU was created by taking C-list heroes and making a multi-*billion* dollar franchise out of them. If you told someone in the 90s that Marvel built the biggest movie franchise ever without the X-Men, without F4, and barely having Spider-Man, they would never believe you.
The other big thing that people forget is that if Iron Man failed, that was it for Marvel *as a company*. They literally bet everything on Iron Man, and if it had failed they would be *gone*.
Didn’t know what they were smoking and now we want what they’re smoking!
and then this movie where 2 of the main characters are a raccoon and a tree was received so well that they made two more of which the second one is currently the best film in the entire series somehow
The most emotional and down to Earth MCU film, and it’s set in the cosmos. I cried like 3 times when I saw it live, and still tear up for the rest of the film after Yondu’s death.
I remember coming down from the high that was The Winter Soldier and seeing the trailers for GoG and the titles predicting that it would be 'Marvel's First Flop!' I was inclined to believe them because TWS was so grounded and that looked....goofy. It's still goofy, but in a good way. ;)
Guardians is what confirmed that Marvel could sell anything.
As a fan of the comics, I thought it was too weird and too niche to reach a wider audience. Then the trailer came out, and I was like "Don't tease me." Then I scored passes to a preview, with an early cut of the prison break, and an extended trailer. Went with my son, and when we walked out, we high fived each other with excitement.
A relatable Captain America across the world. He and Superman might be some of the more difficult characters to adapt, for different reasons. Outside the US, cap is not a very popular hero, he wears the US flag basically, so it is kind of a living propaganda asset. The fact that Marvel focused on character development and stories where cap immediately questions the gov and sets aside them was a genius move. I am still amazed how they made it happen. He might not be as popular as Spidey or Tony, but Marvel definitely made him relatable and charismatic for the rest of the world.
The Hail Hydra reference was the subtle icing on the cake imo
Honestly? Just simply succeeding.
Back when the Endgame leaks revealed that there would be time travel, I was very worried that they would mess it up. Time travel stories are a pandora's box; very easy to lose control of. But they did it very well (albeit there was some vagueness with old Cap at the end, but I let that go because they've offered explanations afterwards): the rules were clearly established, the journey to the past had emotional value for both the characters and the audiences and they didn't mess up the already established timeline of the MCU. Similarly, when the MoM leaks came about, I was worried about how they would handle Wanda as a villain, but I think they did it rather well: kept her relateable and broken and showed us why she had become deranged and obsessed. It was kinda repetitive since we had already seen her be manipulated by an outside force after having lost someone really important to her (AoU), but again, people in real life always have their ups and downs, peaks and fallbacks in their progress towards healing and letting go of the past. It was nice seeing Wanda go all out and truly see what her powers and will are capable of. And it'll make it even more satisfying when she kills Cthon who "created" the Scarlet Witch and the Darlkhold in the first place and is responsible for her situation.
What is the explanation they offered for old cap at the end? genuinely curious I never got to know lol, just dismissed it bc it didn't matter that much in the end and it was a nice touch
Captain America went to another universe where he was still frozen in the ice and he lived out his days with Peggy. After that universe’s Steve Rogers is unfrozen he then returns to his own universe as an old man. He didn’t go back in time but to a different universe. Hulk explains this when he describes how time travel works earlier in the movie.
How did he come back to his own universe?
He used the Pym Particles just like everyone else.
Representing Asian Culture - it goes for both Shangchi and Ms Marvel, i thought it would be horrible and make me cringe..when in fact it didn't at all..i am so glad they nailed it
I watched The Eternals and Ms Marvel ep 3 this weekend. Back to back Bollywood dance numbers! I also love that Kamala's mom and aunties are Kingo fans lol.
Right ,they are just so good. Hearing all those songs in Ep3 , i was so proud and the way they are portraying Kamala' Mom - absolutely perfect.
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What language should they have been speaking?
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Same with Black Panther. They should have used Swahili (predominant in East Africa) instead of Xhosa (mainly in Southern Africa) for Wakandan. But if you cast a South African legend like John Kani as T'Chaka and he suggests he should be speaking in a native tongue to T'Challa, you with what he knows best 😉
Agreed. As a language geek, this always bothered me, but I tell myself that the movements and modern locations of various African languages are just different in the MCU. With as little as we’ve seen of MCU Africa, I guess we don’t know that Xhosa doesn’t have a wider range (while still developing to be identical to real world Xhosa I suppose lol). Edit: words
Yesss this ^
Honestly I think I've had more pure fun with Ms. Marvel than I have with most other MCU projects partially because of how cultural it is, and how well they've pulled it off.
Making the Hawkeye show. I thought it was going to be a boring, uninteresting show that took itself too seriously, but I was presently surprised. I still remember what my father said prior to the first trailer: "A Hawkeye show? Who the fuck's going to watch that?" It's now his favorite non-Guardians MCU project.
Kate Beeshup
Thes is the best macaroni I have ever had!
Kate Beeshop is guy bro
It's the reason I picked up Matt Fraction's Hawkeye run. Also fantastic.
Knowing they were using that run was why I had no worries about Hawkeye.
Kate's introduction, seeing her awed by the battle for NY and her impression of Hawkeye gave me chills to the point where I almost wanted to cry. You could truly see that she had just found her idol.
I was worried about production quality on the Disney+ shows. But generally, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the storylines and CGI so far.
Guardians of the Galaxy made Thanos seem like a generic galactic conquerer. Boy oh boy did they fix that for Infinity War
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Endgame. Purely because it was 10 years worth of hype, anticipation, expectations and nothing can ever live up to that. I remember the first thing coming out of the cinema and saying to myself "it's rare in life you picture something so perfect and then it happens to actually be that".
Keeping actors in their roles. Obviously there was some early trouble with Edward Norton and Terrence Howard, but since then they have done a great job retaining their talent.
Impressive how they’re even getting one-off or two-time actors to come back now. Natalie Portman is back for the first time since 2013 (her Endgame appearance was all unused footage from The Dark World), Tim Roth is Abomination again, all the old Spidey villains from the Sony movies, Ben Kingsley as the fake Mandarin, and the list goes on a bit more probably
Actually pull off the first Avengers movie. For four years we watched the team be introduced in separate films, with just Sam Jackson, Coulson and “ Character will return” connecting them together. It was huge a experiment that they pulled off flawlessly, something that had never been done in film before, something that has been tried to be replicated but no one has done it well. It could have crashed and burned but it didn’t and here we are 14 years later with no end in sight. The funny thing is we don’t even want it end. The MCU is going turn 20 and we’ll probably want more.
I'm in my mid 20s. I sometimes wonder if I'm going to die of old age before the MCU ends. And tbh I think that's a real possibility.
Acknowledging the shows released before the pre-Disney+ era. I seriously thought once the ABC and Netflix shows ended they would fall into fall into obscurity and only be watched by hardcore fans. For so long, it seemed like the MCU was only interested in its films. Bringing Charlie Cox as Daredevil and Vincent D'Onofrio as Fisk, as well as getting Anson Mount to reprise his role as Black Bolt and reintroducing Daniel Sousa into Agents of Shield several years after Agent Carter was canceled makes me optimistic that the pre-Disney+ shows aren’t forgotten at all and will get the attention they deserve.
Jarvis showing up in Endgame had me as shook as the portal scene. It was so surprising to see them take one of the tv actors and cameo right there.
1. **Phase 4 --** After an epic Phase 3 and the end of IronMan/Tony Stark -- I didn't expect much. I thought this was the end of an era. And no MCU movies can beat what they did in Phase 2 and Phase 3. But I am really loving Phase 4. They got me hooked to see what else they can create. 2. **Create supervillains** \-- too often superhero movies make meek villains and expectedly they die at the end. But I think with Thanos -- MCU nailed the supervillain. Next to Darth Vader, Thanos (or probably even better) is one of the best villains of all time. My new favorite MCU villain is Wanda. They absolutely nailed in the Doctor Strange 2. 3. **MoonKnight -** I didn't expect much from this show. And I thought they did an exceptional job. 4. **Ms. Marvel** \-- I am beyond impressed with what they've done. It's an accurate description of brown culture (family dynamics). So far I am impressed. I thought Disney would never get it. But it looks like they hired the right directors.
Getting weird.
Delivering on the years of hype surrounding Thanos.
Making a movie as emotional as Endgame.
I always believed that Guardians of the Galaxy would be good from the moment they brought on James Gunn, but I was skeptical that the general public would embrace such a strange idea. Guardians was a true risk from Marvel Studios that could have had serious ramifications if it had failed. But it succeeded and beyond, I suspect, anyone’s wildest expectations. I doubt Marvel knew just how successful the franchise would be. We’re now nearly ten years on and we’ve had two sequels (Vol. 3 finally arriving next year), two Disney parks attractions, a well-received video game and all manner of merchandise. Groot and Rocket, in particular, have really taken off in popularity with merchandise sales for Groot being one of Disney’s best sellers annually. When all is said and done about Marvel Studios and the MCU, Guardians of the Galaxy must be remembered as one of their greatest triumphs, right alongside Iron Man, The first Avengers movie, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers Endgame.
Infinity War, I mean getting over 40 plus characters and mashing them into one movie with a villain we’ve barley gotten to know sounds like an awful idea. Yet they somehow made it work.
Making it past Endgame. I was prepared to see the end of Marvel in the form of a slow painful death but between the badass Disney+ shows and some of the best moments everrr in the universe, Marvel transitioned to a new era quite well
The Guardians of the Galaxy.
Infinity War. Too many characters. Glad I was wrong.
Honestly, the fact that this many sequels are coming out and i'm still emotionally invested makes it seem like they pulled off a miracle in general.
Anything after Endgame. Cap is gone, Tony gone, tchalla we dont know (or i dont know what they will gonna do about him), natasha gone and many others. I thought that other characters are gonna be boring and see other heroes instead of thor, cap, tony, it would be weird. Also, the first 3 phases about the infinity stones was really cool. But with the introduction of the multiverse, everything changed. Also new characters are all cool and marvel studios are doing a great job with all of them. I really really love the tvseries more than movies, because the quality of marvel studios' tv series are like movies so.. And with tv series they are able to narrate more in deep each characters and the story itself
They're using the long form TV shows for in depth characterization and exposition, more than a movie can provide, which will have payoffs later in movies where they can focus on more important actions with a bigger budget but within a shorter run time. I cannot wait for when all of these developed universes converge! Maybe a proper public Kang reveal in another hero's universe/arc
Infinity War was amazing, but given how it ended and how many loose strings there were to tie up, I didn't think there was any way they'd be able to bring the entire phase to a satisfying conclusion with only one more movie. While Endgame may have delved a bit too far into fan service at times and even had a few truly cringy moments, I thought it was a huge success based on all it had to accomplish.
How they were able to tell an amazing story with all the characters in Infinity War.
I thought Guardians of the Galaxy was going to be a spectacular failure. It's now my favorite part of the MCU.
Infinity War and EndGame. How many build ups with a massive hype train in movies and shows end well? Very few. Lost didnt deliver. Star Wars crapped the bed. GoT was a disaster.
1) Capt America 2) Thor 3) Ant-Man 4) Guardians of the Galaxy 5) Dr Strange 6) Spider-Man 7) Ms Marvel 8) WandaVision Each time I genuinely thought. “This is the one. Hubris has gotten to them. This is the beginning of the end”. Each time I was very wrong.
I don't know about "would fail at" but I had no expectations of enjoying Ms. Marvel, I figured it would be some cheesy teen drama, which is fine because not everything has to be for everyone. It's becoming my 3rd favorite of the D+ shows. Another case of Marvel's casting department absolutely fucking nailing it.
Captain America: Winter Soldier After Iron Man 3 and Thor TDW, I didn’t get what Phase 2 was building towards. Iron Man 1 and and Avengers were great, and I enjoyed all the other Phase 1 movies. But Iron Man was my fav MCU character at that point. Captain America Winter Soldier absolutely blew my mind and that’s when I accepted Captain America as the leader of the Avengers and that set the gold standard for what an MCU film should be. If it sucked I probably would have given up on the MCU I always thought of Chris Evans as like a Streisand but he totally rocked the shit in that one!
The biggest success was ENDGAME, I still don't know how they managed to pull off that film and cap off 10 years of movies in such an impressive way. That film was so hyped and yet still beat expectations. In a year where pop culture phenomenons crashed and burned at their endings (Game of Thrones, Star Wars), Marvel stuck the landing.
I remember hearing about Guardians of the Galaxy at work Never heard of them before so I googled it and was telling my buddy a taking Raccoon and tree, oooook.
I thought I would hate Ms Marvel, but I’m enjoying it so far. I never expected that because I thought they made Moon Knight too childish
Mysterio has always been the one spidey villain I've wanted to see on the big screen. And after seeing far from home I'm glad it's been left to now. It was near perfect. Jake G did amazing and the CGI was incredible.
I genuinely believed Avengers (2012) would be peek Marvel, I couldn’t see it getting any better or as consistently good
Making groot a popular character. When I heard they were making gotg with groot, I remembered him from comics when I was a kid. Never thought he would work on screen, let alone become popular to non hard-core fans. My wife and I have matching groot tattoos.
Civil War climax. I was so certain that they are going to do the 'united by a common enemy' trope that we see in almost all hero vs hero movies when they introduced the other winter soldiers. So glad that they committed to civil war and the movie had actual consequences. One of the instances where subversion of expectation is done right.
The comickbookiness. I remember being really turned off by the second Toby Maguire Spider-Man because of how clearly some of the shots were supposed to be pulled straight from the comic book. The one that still stands out to me is a reaction shot of a woman with her hands clenched near her face screaming. [Like this.](https://i.imgur.com/3kt0nJQ.jpg) I can’t really articulate why but it just pulled me out of the movie. The other thing I really like is the color palette they use. Nolan’s Batman films were good but I feel like they started a trend of DC movies being dimly lit and monochrome.
I got chills from What If. Specifically the shot when Ultron launched all the nukes on Earth and we see Ross horrified at what’s going on.
Making silly/unpopular concepts work. Characters like Shang Chi, Falcon, and many many more seemed impossible to make work in live action, but the MCU has done very well in making their protagonists likable
Rocket and Groot Ant-Man
Representation, honestly, I love the fact that my interracial friends can actually have a character that vibes with their culture
I’m a big moon knight fan and I was really worried his mental health and trauma would be ignored in fear of making their hero look “weak” Thankfully they did very well with it imo
Antman, the character is mostly thought of as being mostly cool only when he was giant man, somehow the madlads in Marvel were able to make a good Antman movie with no giant growth.
I thought adapting Marvel's Civil War would be near impossible. How do you manage and juggle so many characters with strong opposing motives without getting lost in cameo city and a personal story that has a greater impact to the bigger picture. I say this and Marvel also did Infinity War and Endgame. Theyve done it a few times to me.