Losing interest in the MCU

Hello to my non-existent readers,

I have recently been rather busy with all sorts

But of course, I have time for you guys.

I originally had another topic planned for this week

However, this one has been coming up in the past few weeks in many conversations I've been having since I published the romcom issue. 

 

That conversation of course surrounds the MCU.

Love it or hate it, the MCU has defined most of Gen z’s cinema experiences and has managed to be the main talking point when discussing movies for well over a decade.

Depending on who you are, you may see the fuel and hype the MCU once had fading. I mean it certainly isn’t the same as it was (queue the harry styles).

There are tons of factors contributing to this, and I plan to explore them today and look back in retrospect to what really drew us all in.

What did we like about it?

The MCU began in 2008 with iron man.

The reception was great but nobody could have been able to tell what it would lead to. It was a rebirth of Robert Downey Junior as he lined up with the character in both the good and bad ways.

Since then there has always been at least one MCU movie a year.

It is a bit spectacular how much it grew and it was likely due to the combinations of actors and directors. They were either up or coming or already established in something completely different but they were all insanely talented. Surprisingly, it grew to the level of success it has because superhero comics were always seen as nerdy and not exactly cool or popular. It didn’t have the icons that dc had. The most recognizable superhero they had was spider-man who had already undergone so many interpretations. so they took a risk and started with iron man, who wasn’t a big-name hero like superman or batman.

There has always been a difference in people who watched the movies.

Some know the direction it is going because of the comics and were heavily invested in the overarching plot of the infinity saga. Then are those who initially just went to them so they could watch a movie. Both those people are allowed to call themselves marvel fans. Year after year you’re following this series of events with a solid concrete timeline and various little conflicts in different trilogies and whatnot. At this point, everybody is a marvel fan.

Some people liked specific characters and followed the movies just to see where they would take them. 

I was one of those people. I’ve always liked the thor trilogy best and it’s what sparked my interest in the rest of the MCU. I used to think of it all as a bit ridiculous but I was only bound to get interested since I have a keen interest in all things mythology. 

Another factor to consider was the core team. Natasha (Black widow), Tony (Iron Man), Bruce (The Hulk), Steve (Captain America), Thor, and Clint. Alas nobody has done a study on why we like watching teams (see suicide squad, the avengers, the fantastic four, teen titans, the umbrella academy, etc) so I don't have much to go off on but I would say people enjoy the main 6 and their interactions with each other, you can look to the mass of fanfiction shipping them. Anyways it is fair to say some people were only watching the movies to keep seeing Tony and Cap's banter, Clint and Natasha's friendship, and the running joke of thor's hammer. Of course, it's the same thing as being attached to characters but there was something about the main 6.

People already had a vague idea of who the characters were, the good the bad, and the ugly and even if they didn’t, they had a nerd friend who could explain anything they needed to know. They first hinted at what would be the finale of the saga in Thor the dark world's post-credit scene. It hinted at the plot concerning the infinity stones and people were excited. All these movies they had been watching over the last few years were going to get a crossover? Mind you a good amount of these characters had at least met but people like doctor strange, ant-man, and the guardians of the galaxy all joining the original avengers to stop some evil purple man? People were gagged, to say the least.

One key reason the infinity saga worked so well was the post-credit scenes. They would always hint at an upcoming movie in a short scene that would play at the end of the movie. Sometimes there would be more discourse surrounding that than the movie itself. It points to the major reason people like the MCU. It follows a story, it’s going somewhere. Nobody wants to read some never-ending drama (yes I’m classifying the MCU as drama). It’s exhausting and you lose sight of what you set out to do. People knew the MCU was going somewhere and they were excited to see the end.

Now, I’m not saying I’m above anything. In fact, I was very obsessed with the MCU at some point. The year infinity war came out I was deeply disturbed as I knew either Tony or Cap would die. (their contracts were coming to an end). Spoiler, I was right, eventually. But anytime I would pass a billboard for the movie I would be very sad. It was bad for me to say the least.

When people I knew would never pick up a superhero comic book were calling them the greatest movies they’d ever watched, I knew something was off. Maybe it was because I already experienced true cinema through Paddington but was doubtful, I knew they were just wrong. 

The flaws that were there the whole time

They all felt the same

Anytime my mum watched an MCU movie she would say they're all the same. My brother and I dismissed her as a hater and said her arguments didn’t hold water because mind you, my mum forgets movies the day after she sees them. But there was always some sort of undeniable truth behind it.

It’s not like they kept the same directors or writers throughout so why can I say “This feels like a Marvel movie” and make perfect sense.

When watching Wandavision it felt like a breath of fresh air. The sitcom format was miles different from any previous marvel project. We all knew there was something afoot but it was fun so I went along with it. While Wandavision may not be the best for this argument because of the last two episodes, you can undeniably say it doesn't feel like an MCU production when you start it.

Whether that’s a good or bad thing is debatable.

My mum watched black panther and thor Ragnarok a couple of months apart and said they were similar. At the moment I thought she wasn't making much sense. But between a lot of MCU movies, there are more similarities than you think. 

Sibling rivalry

Daddy issues main character

Aliens(that look human)

A side romance story that only I care about (most times) 

And how could I forget, LOTS of fighting (they are superhero stories after all). 

You can’t fault them on some of these, like fighting and even the daddy issues because maybe these are problems with the source material and if they changed too many things they would lose the respect of the comic book nerds. So it just ends up a coincidence.

They're a bit unserious

To my knowledge the only oscar the MCU has won is for the original score of Black Panther. I once thought this was a great disservice and just bias. But think about it. I doubt the actors were expecting to get one either. Like as much as Thor: the dark world is cinema #tome I don’t think Chris Hemsworth should win an Oscar for his performance. 

As said before these are ridiculously talented people but when it comes down to it do they deserve such a prestigious award for a movie about a billionaire saving the world from aliens. 🤔 

Maybe I’ve been tricked by the Oscars and now think good performances consist of crying, screaming, and throwing up. But still, they require you to suspend your disbelief greatly and not in the way a dystopian like the hunger games does or a fantasy like the lord of the rings does and maybe it suffers from being set in our current age. 

To sum up what I mean a few days ago I thought about the plot of infinity war and ??? The movie is literally about an evil purple man from space that wants half of the earth to go away. He succeeds how? by snapping his fingers.

I know oversimplification allows almost anything to be ridiculed and is not a fair way of critique but still. They were serious? and I ate it up? idk, I might do it again.

P.S anytime people bring up the oscar’s thing, MCU stans get mad and start saying oh cinematography and always use this shot from Thor Ragnarok. it’s very funny to me because it’s like… and you were so serious too

Let me not pretend to be an expert at all things film but I think watching La La land gives me the allowance to say the example is funny. (it’s not a bad shot by any means but please don’t go around calling it peak cinematography).

Elizabeth Olsen recently complained that due to her role in the MCU she’s had to turn down some roles she feels were truly made for her and could have been career-defining. Because of the MCU’s vastness, the actors that carry prominent roles can only affect roles that fit around the never-ending MCU film schedule. I think it robbed us of some wonderful performances. Like I wouldn’t have thought Scarlett Johanson or Chris Evans had the range to give the permeances they did in Marriage story and Knives out respectively. it makes me wonder what the rest of them could do if placed in a different genre.

What has changed

As we all know the infinity saga ended in 2019 and it brought the end to a lot of stories of the original 6. As I said before people had formed attachments to certain characters and killing them would obviously dull their interest in future projects (killing them out of nowhere in Natasha and Loki's case). The only reason I didn’t completely trash the MCU after Endgame was because Wanda piqued my interest and I knew Loki was back. If Loki, thor, and Wanda ever depart the MCU I will probably leave with them. 

In addition to people being less invested because their favorite character is already dead, they have introduced a bunch of people no one knows (except comic book dudes of course). One thing the infinity saga did poorly was the late introduction of captain marvel. They have shown us before that they know how to make introductions with tom holland’s spider-man, doctor strange, and ant-man. 

But if you look at Marvel's last few projects as well as their upcoming ones, they're making introduction after introduction. the Eternals? where were they all this time, I don’t believe their silly excuse. ms marvel? who is she and why should I care 😭.  Moonknight? she-hulk? there are just too many people that even in the event of a cross-over to the level of endgame and infinity war the result would be very messy.

They’re either continuing storylines they didn’t wrap up in Endgame like (Doctor strange, Wanda, the falcon, Loki, bucky, and black panther) or introducing people we have never heard of and have no tie in to the past projects and no prospect of meeting anytime soon. They still have their easter eggs pointing at upcoming projects but it’s not the same. It feels like there is no direction. I stand to be corrected but I don’t know where they’re going with it and if they’re going anywhere.

I like a story to have an end in mind at all times and right now the MCU is running in 6 different directions with none of them feeling cohesive or compatible with the others. 

They have released a good (alarming) amount of movies and tv shows since endgame and have still failed to bring together a core team. One of the main reasons people loved the original avengers was their relationships with each other as I previously mentioned.

In phase 4 of the MCU, there is no team so far and thus I do not care about anyone that’s not Loki, thor, or Wanda.

Moving forward

The MCU is probably the largest franchise in the world so of course if Kevin Feige just so happens to stumble across the tweets calling out flaws they could solve it all, or they could turn it up to a 100 and blow everyone’s minds.

Whatever happens, I’ll still remain updated on the happenings of the MCU because a certain friend of mine has made it a mission to force me to watch things when they come out.

And when it comes down to it, I enjoy a bit of unseriousness at times, I in no way hate the MCU.

I hope you enjoyed today’s issue, it was a monster to edit.

Look forward to my may wrap-up issue coming at the end of this month!

Toodles!