MCU Discussion - Did You Just Send Nick Fury to Voicemail?! *spoilers*

I'll make the OP look nice later, but in the meantime, I think it's overdue to have an MCU thread, especiallly with a release of this significance. DO NOT READ if you haven't seen it and don't want it spoiled.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcMBFSGVi1c

Next up in the MCU, Spider-Man: Far From Home releasing 7/5/19.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYYtuKyMtY8

Second trailer for Spider-Man, with major Endgame spoilers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt9L1jCKGnE

Never has anything ever made me fear for the life of a raccoon more than Rocket trapped under the rubble of the building.

Also the "No! Don't kill yourself! I Wanna kill myself!" scene was ridiculous. I Feel they didn't need to make an impromptu fight scene out of it and the whole revisiting the older movies was a bit uneven, but really my only criticism overall. I'm not even going to bother with the science of time travel in any movie because I don't want a headache so I just enjoyed it for what it was.

Lots of jumbled thoughts about Endgame.

What I appreciated:

-all that stuff about movie tropes for time travel not being true, and then they go and pull a Yar (as in, TNG reviving Yar by pulling her out of an alternate timeline in Yesterday's Enterprise) with Loki and Gamorra. The characters we knew were still murdered by Thanos, but a version of them will persist in the MCU. I'm mostly okay with that.

-I initially thought the plot was going to be way more straightforward and that they would just return things back to normal, pre-Thanos. The fact they left things in 2023 and in some kind of dystopia is a pretty bold decision for such a big franchise / series. They showed shots of stadiums out of use, abandoned cars, etc. - we can imagine world governments running on life support or devolving into anarchy. It will take a long time for something like the US federal government to get back up and running again, for example. 

-When Tony fights Thanos on Titan in IW, Thanos tells him that he's earned his respect because he's such a passionate and strong fighter, and we will ensure half of humanity remains. The Thanos from 2014 has none of this respect for humanity, and is far more ruthless as a result when he shows up on Earth in 2023, which made for an even crazier final battle.

-Dr. Strange knew that the only solution was Tony's death. Tony was the only person who really saw or understood what Strange was doing, and the only one who asked about it more than once. He tells him, "If I told you, it wouldn't happen." Not because speaking about it would change it, but because Tony might have second-guessed himself. 

-Steve Rogers finally got a second chance and a happy ending. He lost everyone he knew and loved, and then the solution to all of his efforts to save the world / universe permitted him to reconnect with his lost love. Goddamn, that was sweet.

-Thanos achieved godlike power with the infinity stones, and then actually gave it up after achieving his goal. He is way more complex a villain than we usually get, because most villains would keep all that power for themselves. We'd also almost never see the aftermath of that kind of thing, and seeing him comparatively so humble and content was kind of a mind.

-Tony's vision in Ultron of everyone dead and Steve saying, "You should have saved us" with his shattered shield is very similar to the image of Cap standing alone with his shield broken in half to face Thanos' army on Earth, just before everyone else shows up - and then Tony does save them all. 

I didn't like:

-The audience. When Thor mutters, "I went for the head....", people laughed, and it was so obnoxious. That line came across to me as one of complete seriousness and drama of the utter defeat they felt, and how unsatisfying it was to kill Thanos knowing it didn't change anything - he didn't even put up a fight. Folks treating it like it was comedy kinda ruined the moment.

-In general, how quickly the cliffhanger ending from IW and the trailer shots of Tony drifting in space was resolved. He was seriously back on Earth in 5 ing minutes of the movie starting, all that build-up for nothing. 

-Related to the above: Captain Marvel's limited presence in the film. Nick Fury's final act before disappearing was to summon her, and she didn't really do much plot-wise. She was a fine addition to the team, but her standalone film coming out a month prior (in retrospect) feels like a rush job since it didn't add a whole lot. I know Endgame was primarily focused on the core Avengers but still. 

I’m just happy for Thanos for winning in the real timeline that matters. #TeamThanos

I’m just on my phone at work, I’ll update with more thoughts from a PC

I really liked it. Did not feel like three hours, and like I told my son, "I'm sure the internet will tell me why I'm wrong, but that was amazing." Even poking around, I haven't really seen anyone with serious criticism, just pieces and parts they didn't like that was fine for me.

bardockkun said:

Also the "No! Don't kill yourself! I Wanna kill myself!" scene was ridiculous. I Feel they didn't need to make an impromptu fight scene out of it

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It was a bit of a trope, but felt like they wanted to make sure everyone understood both characters were willing to sacrifice themselves. It wasn't some kind of judgement on who had kids to go back to or whatever. I was kinda hoping for Natasha to figure out who Skull was and see if Spartan kicking him off the edge would satisfy the "give a soul" requirement, or some cheesy "you were both willing, so here's the Stone, you crazy kids".

But that's why I don't write billion dollar movies.

I do kind of want to see some shorts on the home release about Steve putting the stones back. Clint wouldn't have known who the Guardian was, and that would have been an extra layer of "Really?" for Cap.

gamegirlpocket said:

-In general, how quickly the cliffhanger ending from IW and the trailer shots of Tony drifting in space was resolved. He was seriously back on Earth in 5 ing minutes of the movie starting, all that build-up for nothing.

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I would say I like the fact that most of the stuff in the trailers was from early in the movie. About an hour in, it occurred to me that I had seen most, if not all, of the trailer scenes. So I'm willing to give a pass on this one in favor of thumbing their nose at "the movie just fills in the story you already know from the trailer".

Kojubat said:

It was a bit of a trope, but felt like they wanted to make sure everyone understood both characters were willing to sacrifice themselves. It wasn't some kind of judgement on who had kids to go back to or whatever. I was kinda hoping for Natasha to figure out who Skull was and see if Spartan kicking him off the edge would satisfy the "give a soul" requirement, or some cheesy "you were both willing, so here's the Stone, you crazy kids".

But that's why I don't write billion dollar movies.

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I Mean to be fair my version would've involved Clint holding Red Skull down and Natasha battering his kidneys before they held him upside down and shook out whatever was in his pockets until the Soul stone fell out. I Understood what they were going for in the scene, but the whole scene itself felt totally unsatisfying. Like Black Widow deserves a better death then that and I needed something more then them just falling into "okay, guess one of us gotta die!" solution.

Speaking of which, I wish there was just a Marvel mini-movie of Cap returning all the stones. Like him giving the stone back to Red Skull and him jamming the Aether back into Natalie Portman.

Also in one weekend this movie did double the gross of Justice League's lifetime box office. It still will forever amaze me how bad DC fumbled the ball with their movie universe.

Did the CGI on the Hulk look off to anybody else? Maybe it was just because Mark Ruffalo's voice was coming out of him instead of the character's usual deep, growly voice, but every time he spoke I lost my suspension of disbelief. Surprising to me, given how good Thanos's CGI was.

My only minor gripe was the questionable logistics of old Steve showing up without the use of the time machine thing. By the logic explained about causing messed up branches it seems like he would have needed to live his life in a different timeline, then return to the original MCU timeline through the machine at that point.  On the other hand he had must have had like 80 years to travel different timelines before or after returning the stones so he could have found a new way. All in all I would say not a important detail, and I doubt that exact detail will come up again unless it's covered in the What If show coming to Disney +. Though the use of time travel and alternate timelines themselves opens up a lot of possibilities including possible future antagonists for the main movies. Aside from that I was pretty happy overall with the movie.

I'd love to see Cap meeting Soul Stone Red Skull or getting the Reality Stone back into Jane Foster somehow.

It is kind of disappointing that the announced Black Widow movie will pretty much have to be a flashback, and I suppose so will WandaVision unless Scarlet Witch gets her reality bending powers that she doesn't seem to have in the movies so far. On the other hand it should make the Falcon and the Winter Soldier show much more interesting with what I assume will be a name change. I know with comics it's generally safe to assume dead characters will eventually return but after keeping up a consistent narrative for 11 years, and the fact that much of the phase 1 stuff was so influenced by the Ultimate line, I think we'll continue to see the cast evolve and at least chronologically stay dead as expected. Out of the seemingly permanent deaths we now have reasons for replacement versions of Loki and Gamora to exist, and Vision is a special case thanks to his robotic/AI nature, connection to the Mind Stone, and insanely powerful girlfriend.

With some of the infinity stones being in containers (Tesseract, Loki's scepter), how did Steve return them? Did he just return them like that?

SIX min WHISTLE said:

My only minor gripe was the questionable logistics of old Steve showing up without the use of the time machine thing. By the logic explained about causing messed up branches it seems like he would have needed to live his life in a different timeline, then return to the original MCU timeline through the machine at that point.

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Or he was in the main timeline, just hiding. Peggy never mentioned who she married by name, just some guy Cap saved in the war. By the time Sharon comes around, he would have had time to cultivate that persona. I mean, he already has the beard trick down, so he's a master of disguise!

gamegirlpocket said:

-Related to the above: Captain Marvel's limited presence in the film. Nick Fury's final act before disappearing was to summon her, and she didn't really do much plot-wise. She was a fine addition to the team, but her standalone film coming out a month prior (in retrospect) feels like a rush job since it didn't add a whole lot. I know Endgame was primarily focused on the core Avengers but still.

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There were a lot of expectations for her to have a bigger role in the plot, I assume based on Danvers pretty high level of power, but if they went that route I could see it overshadowing how much everyone coming together really meant. I would still say she was pretty important to the plot though since she leaves after her post-credit scene in CM to go rescue Tony and Nebula, helps kill Infinity War Thanos, then wrecks 2014 Thanos' mother ship during the final fight.

I think the real goal for Captain Marvel so far was establishing a potential big character for the next phase, a more traditional hero to bring cosmic related subjects into focus so it's not entirely shoulder by the goofball Guardians. Aside from the obvious set ups I feel like the one-off mention of an ocean earthquake was to set up Namor as he is by far the most prominent underwater character in Marvel.

Kojubat said:

Or he was in the main timeline, just hiding. Peggy never mentioned who she married by name, just some guy Cap saved in the war. By the time Sharon comes around, he would have had time to cultivate that persona. I mean, he already has the beard trick down, so he's a master of disguise!

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Yeah, I suppose that's the real explanation since they went of their way to never really show or mention who she ended up with in the movies or her own show. Having two version of Nebula didn't seem to have a negative effect on our timeline even after one was killed. The only thing that would feel a bit off about this would be Steve completely giving up on his ability to help people, even if he scaled it back and used a different identity. I guess he would probably know how to avoid attention, SHIELD or otherwise, at this point so maybe it's feasible. Though if Carter still founded the organization I imagine he would be involved in some capacity. Man, this is a whole other rabbit hole.

I wonder if Cap's super serum abilities would pass on to his kids and so on.

I wonder if they made Nebula's burnt arm look so Terminator-y on purposed because of the time travel stuff.

Also, you think Steve Rogers stopped being a hero or soldier just because he went back to the 1940s or 1970s to be with Peggy Carter? I bet they went on adventures, her being a founding member of Shield. I want a sequel in the past where they go on a spy mission now.

Kojubat said:

I really liked it. Did not feel like three hours, and like I told my son, "I'm sure the internet will tell me why I'm wrong, but that was amazing." Even poking around, I haven't really seen anyone with serious criticism, just pieces and parts they didn't like that was fine for me.

It was a bit of a trope, but felt like they wanted to make sure everyone understood both characters were willing to sacrifice themselves. It wasn't some kind of judgement on who had kids to go back to or whatever. I was kinda hoping for Natasha to figure out who Skull was and see if Spartan kicking him off the edge would satisfy the "give a soul" requirement, or some cheesy "you were both willing, so here's the Stone, you crazy kids".

But that's why I don't write billion dollar movies.

I do kind of want to see some shorts on the home release about Steve putting the stones back. Clint wouldn't have known who the Guardian was, and that would have been an extra layer of "Really?" for Cap.

I would say I like the fact that most of the stuff in the trailers was from early in the movie. About an hour in, it occurred to me that I had seen most, if not all, of the trailer scenes. So I'm willing to give a pass on this one in favor of thumbing their nose at "the movie just fills in the story you already know from the trailer".

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When I was making my original list I forgot about Natasha vs Clint. Probably my only real complaint, Clint is such an under-developed character (he barely talks in a lot of the movies, and really feels like a sidekick IMHO) whereas Natasha is often a partner and problem solver with Steve. I know the point of Endgame was to have a conclusive story which is why they waited until the final film for that, but I would have been much happier if 1) Clint did it or 2) they found a solution to negotiate with Red Skull.

On that note - yes, any kind of scene with Cap confronting Red Skull on Vormir would be excellent.

And I agree re: the trailer footage, they really didn't show much of the main conflict, and they also had footage in the trailer that wasn't in the film (Captain Marvel showing up and demanding to know where Nick Fury is).

SIX min WHISTLE said:

There were a lot of expectations for her to have a bigger role in the plot, I assume based on Danvers pretty high level of power, but if they went that route I could see it overshadowing how much everyone coming together really meant. I would still say she was pretty important to the plot though since she leaves after her post-credit scene in CM to go rescue Tony and Nebula, helps kill Infinity War Thanos, then wrecks 2014 Thanos' mother ship during the final fight.

I think the real goal for Captain Marvel so far was establishing a potential big character for the next phase, a more traditional hero to bring cosmic related subjects into focus so it's not entirely shoulder by the goofball Guardians. Aside from the obvious set ups I feel like the one-off mention of an ocean earthquake was to set up Namor as he is by far the most prominent underwater character in Marvel.

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Good points. I like that they take their time with that stuff and don't rush the otherworldly things too much, and her dialogue in Endgame does a good job establishing just how big the universe is (thousands of planets, she says) which gives them lots of room for storytelling. Guardians, Danvers sequel, potential X-Men stuff. MCU has done such a great job building worlds and characters, despite this being an end, it opens up a lot more for future storylines.

gamegirlpocket said:

Also, you think Steve Rogers stopped being a hero or soldier just because he went back to the 1940s or 1970s to be with Peggy Carter? I bet they went on adventures, her being a founding member of Shield. I want a sequel in the past where they go on a spy mission now.

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It's hard to say, it seems like doing major "heroing" would be an easy way to mess up the timeline. With the time machine they are actively changing timelines but and only seem concerned about specifically bringing back the stones because the Ancent One tells them those times would be ed without them. With the un-dust snap Banner (or Stark?) warns that they need to bring them back in the present, presumably so it doesn't affect the past. I would imagine Cap would want to keep Hydra from taking over SHIELD at the bare minimum, but that would re-write a lot of the events we've already experienced in the main timeline.

It's a whole mess, and I assume Feige/The Russos realize this so left it really vague on purpose. Bringing in time travel and different timelines can easily lead to continuity going to complete shit like we've seen in more recent years with the Fox X-Men, and if events can be completely changed with no consequences, especially off screen, I think it could have a negative effect on the some of the MCUs appeal.

With Cap, I imagine the somewhat safe compromise would be for him to stay out of events that directly involve him or virtually anything else we see on film. The shield he gives to Falcon is a different design than the one we've seen through the series, so it is possible he was active as Captain America again, but it seems more likely he commissioned either Howard Stark or maybe Wakanda to make another one to give to his successor.

All very true. I'd still be into a divergent timeline or non-canon retro espionage film with the two of them. It's also very possible that he did retire or just became a high school gym teacher, lol.

And I imagine Cap just going through the newspapers and seeing someone getting assassinated or "mysterious accident" and Cap just laughs and says "Oh Bucky! You rascal and your crazy adventures!"

Also I gotta say I do love the cold opening with the Barton household and just them all turning to dust with no warning.

TheOldGuy said:

Did the CGI on the Hulk look off to anybody else? Maybe it was just because Mark Ruffalo's voice was coming out of him instead of the character's usual deep, growly voice, but every time he spoke I lost my suspension of disbelief. Surprising to me, given how good Thanos's CGI was.

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I Think it was off mostly because of framing of his scenes and lighting. Majority of Hulk's scenes seem to be in broad daylight so easier for it to look unnatural and the background not much is going on. Though yeah it just overall wasn't as smooth looking as Thanos.

I gotta say I am extremely stoked about Guardians 3 with Thor-Lebowski along for the ride. I can't think of a better storyline for him based on how he was handled in Ragnarok.

I know it was supposed to be as clean of an ending to the whole series of films, but was bummed about no mid/post credit type stuff. Based on a previous tweet from the Russo's showing a purple glove, I was really hoping they were going to shoehorn a last minute Fox add of Kang monologue-ing about the timeline being adjusted and that he needed to make it right.

gamegirlpocket said:

Lots of jumbled thoughts about Endgame.

What I appreciated:

-all that stuff about movie tropes for time travel not being true, and then they go and pull a Yar (as in, TNG reviving Yar by pulling her out of an alternate timeline in Yesterday's Enterprise) with Loki and Gamorra. The characters we knew were still murdered by Thanos, but a version of them will persist in the MCU. I'm mostly okay with that.

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Yeah, it'll be really interesting to see Quill deal with knowing the Gamora he knew is dead forever, and the one from alt-2014 has no idea who he is. I actually kind of hope that they don't have them get together. And my first thought when Loki disappeared with the Tesseract in alt-2012 was that this would form the basis for the Loki TV show, and it seems like most of the internet agrees with this. The adventures of a space hopping Loki in alt-2012 would be fun to watch.

TheOldGuy said:

Did the CGI on the Hulk look off to anybody else? Maybe it was just because Mark Ruffalo's voice was coming out of him instead of the character's usual deep, growly voice, but every time he spoke I lost my suspension of disbelief. Surprising to me, given how good Thanos's CGI was.

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I thought it looked fine, myself. In fact, I thought all the CGI in the film looked great. I never had a moment watching it where I thought something looked off.

SIX min WHISTLE said:

My only minor gripe was the questionable logistics of old Steve showing up without the use of the time machine thing. By the logic explained about causing messed up branches it seems like he would have needed to live his life in a different timeline, then return to the original MCU timeline through the machine at that point.

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Well, we do see Tony and Steve go straight from alt-2012 to alt-1970 without jumping from or landing at a pad. To be honest, I'm not quite sure what the pad is supposed to do. It's kind of vague, but since we've seen a jump without one, I don't consider it a plot hole, even if the movie doesn't fully explain it all.

DennisCP said:

With some of the infinity stones being in containers (Tesseract, Loki's scepter), how did Steve return them? Did he just return them like that?

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I was wondering that too. At any rate, they already split the timeline by showing up and taking them, and it probably doesn't make much difference if they are just returned as stones. The Tesseract and scepter are eventually cracked open anyway by Thanos.

Kojubat said:

Or he was in the main timeline, just hiding. Peggy never mentioned who she married by name, just some guy Cap saved in the war. By the time Sharon comes around, he would have had time to cultivate that persona. I mean, he already has the beard trick down, so he's a master of disguise!

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I think this violates the rules established by the movie though. Banner explicitly states that one moment in time cannot simultaneously be your past and your future.

If that Steve was always there, then the MCU we've been following this whole time has actually been a branch from a different originating timeline, and the Steve we see at the end is not "our" Steve. Unless something else contradicts this, I am assuming that Steve created an alternate reality when he went back, prevented all of the bad shit we've seen in the MCU from ever happening, and after Peggy was gone and he was too old to continue fighting, returned to the main timeline at the exact moment his younger self left (I don't think how is super important, but there's multiple explanations), walked to the bench, and sat down.

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Anyway, I've been reading a lot of people's thoughts about this movie after I saw it, and I'm kind of shocked by how many people think certain things are plot holes in the movie because they're still using Back to the Future logic to analyze it even though the movie tells us that BTTF is bullshit. People wondering why older Nebula didn't disappear when she killed the younger version, and how Infinity War even happened at all if Thanos from 2014 left and came to 2023 and then died. I don't know how it's possible to watch the movie and miss the multiple times they explain how their time travel will work.

Also, I've seen people say that the remaining Avengers can just go to alt-2014 to get Black Widow back, because their Thanos died in 2023, and they no longer need her for the sacrifice. Yes, great idea. Our heroes should definitely go kidnap a younger alternate version of their friend to make themselves happy.

There's also people who not only think the movie uses BTTF logic, but that when Tony snapped he just sent Thanos back in time to 2014 to preserve the timeline. Yeah, that makes total sense. The movie doesn't use single timeline logic, but even if it did, you've now sent back in time a Thanos who will wipe out EVERYTHING with his very first snap.

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Aside from it being unclear how Cap shows up at the end, and what exactly time pad things do when you can do a jump without being on one or going to one, I thought the movie was really consistent with how it used time travel and how it explained everything. I think I liked "part 1" a little more than this "part 2" because its story is more streamlined, and frankly, I kind of love movies where the villain unexpectedly wins, and no moment in the theater has ever been more eerie for me than seeing my favorite characters turn to dust. The theater being packed full and being deadly quiet made it even more impactful.

It does get major points from all the amazing fanservice moments in the final battle though. I can't really think of any major gripes with the movie. I loved it, saw it three times in three days, and enjoyed it every time. It really doesn't even feel like a 3 hour movie.

A few responses:

-I think we're used to seeing Hulk more in motion, and the CGI looks better when it's clobberin' time than when he's sitting at a table, speaking politely. The voice thing also throws it off to hear puny Banner coming out of Hulk, because we've already heard Hulk talk a lot in Ragnarok and develop a personality when he isn't in rage mode. Whedon's Hulk in 2012 is still the best IMHO, and the fight w/ Tony in Ultron is still my favorite Hulk moment from the entire franchise. I'm more disappointed we didn't see Banner's evolution into "Professor Hulk" and that they didn't explore the dual identities more when he visits the Ancient One. That scene was ripe for investigating his two sides and it never happened, which is a bummer. Apparently Universal Studios still owns the rights to distributing solo Hulk films, which is the main reason Hulk appears in the MCU but there's no Banner solo film. 

-A critique I saw on reddit that I agree with: during the final battle, there's a real fan-servicey shot of all the female characters converging for a moment, and Natasha's absence was really noticeable, because she should have been leading that charge. I also think her death deserved a little more grieving, Tony gets this huge sendoff (deservedly so) and Natasha's death is barely acknowledged beyond the moments after Clint returns without her. 

-I figure it's right that Cap probably used the Pym particles to jump back to his original origin point after being gone for ~40-50 years, rather than aging into the current timeline. There's no mention of there being a cutoff - can you be gone 8 hours, a week, a year, 40 years before your origin point is obsolete? I'm more interested in knowing how they program their suits in 2012 to get to the 1970s without returning to 2023, since all that programming seems to be done on Banner's end and they are just caught in the current. Ultimately it doesn't matter and I think a little ambiguity for the sake of storytelling is fine.

The aftermath of Endgame may also give them an excuse to take a break from Avengers and explore the new characters Disney now has license for. Spider-Man meeting up with the Human Torch or being a vessel to introduce the Fantastic Four in the MCU sure would be rad, similar to how Civil War introduced Spider-Man and streamlined his origin.

I Didn't really mind the lAdies assemble ("A-Force assemble"?) mostly because I HAAAATED the "Just a Girl" scene in Captain Marvel. That was way too corny and pandering that it will forever remain in my head that I can only smile and nod in the Endgame ladies show up scene together scene, because it wasn't as aggravating as that. Also a few people clapped at that scene so I'm happy for them, but yeah Black Widow not being there is a glaring omission.

gamegirlpocket said:

Tony gets this huge sendoff (deservedly so) and Natasha's death is barely acknowledged beyond the moments after Clint returns without her.

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I've seen that complaint a lot, but to me, that memorial service felt like it was more for everyone they lost, and not just Tony, even though we do see Pepper put the flowers with the "proof that Tony Stark has a heart" thing in the water. At the service, we also see Clint and Wanda share a moment where they talk about Nat and Vision.

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One thing I do wonder about that I forgot in my last post: if taking a stone from a given reality does terrible things to it, what's going on in the reality we follow now that Thanos has destroyed the stones? He does say he reduced them to atoms, at least, rather than erased them from existence, so are we to assume that even though they are not in the form of stones that one can manipulate, their matter being in the universe still helps prevent it from falling apart? It's very unclear, and I wonder if it's a setup for a future movie.

Added the new(ish) Spider-Man trailer to the OP. Watching it again after Endgame gives it a different feel. 

ALSO

Since it takes place in 2023, that means they will be dealing with the aftermath of everything that happened with Thanos. It also means they worked hard to avoid showing any dates in the trailer, notice the year is missing for the dates on his passport:

I keep seeing people on the internet saying Thanos's ship going to 2023 is a plot hole when evil Nebula only took one vial of Pym particles from good Nebula. Did ya'll forget when Darren Cross replicated Pym's work in the first Ant-Man without even having a vial of it to study? Evil Nebula is shown giving the vial to Thanos. Do you really think it was that hard for them to copy it?

I Saw it again today. Still enjoyed it. Though it's really weird that I grew up on comics and never did I ever think I'd see a theater with people crying over Tony Stark's death.

Also I'm impressed at the people watching and their genuine reactions to things and how they were able to avoid spoilers.

bardockkun said:

Also I'm impressed at the people watching and their genuine reactions to things and how they were able to avoid spoilers.

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This would have been me. I saw it for the first time yesterday and managed to avoid having anything spoiled. Gotta say, I got a little teary eyed at Tony's memorial. Overall, I thought the movie was a satisfying "conclusion" to the decade long build up.

bardockkun said:

Also I'm impressed at the people watching and their genuine reactions to things and how they were able to avoid spoilers.

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I was one of those people. It was very hard going on Youtube, my subs has alot of video games and movie channels. Alot of them had videos talking about Endgame. I was so paranoid about even running my mouse over the videos for fear of them auto playing small clips and spoiling things. I thought the movie was great and really didn't feel like a 3 hour movie. I was kinda surprised how packed the theater was. They had sold out the 1pm showing and the 2pm showing I went to was bout 90% full.

Watching Game of Thrones and I'm impressed in a way I have more questions for that show by a wide margin than I do a movie that involves time travel and alternate realities.

New Spider-Man trailer with huge Endgame spoilers, openly discussing Tony's death and that apparently the SNAP has triggered some rift with the multi-verse, which is where Mysterio comes from (and is apparently not a villain?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt9L1jCKGnE

The multiverse may be the way they introduce X-Men, Fantastic Four, and the other former Fox movie properties. 

It also paves the way for a live-action Spider-Verse....!

I would say that if they wanted to keep in the spirit of the character and his abilities, Mysterio is a classic example of an unreliable narrator.

That being said, I would be fine if they choose to play it out as depicted.

This is what I'm talking about on YouTube. It's a minor spoiler to the movie but still it robs the viewer the laugh when its revealed. [attachment=32187:20190508_090906.jpg]

bear489 said:

This is what I'm talking about on YouTube. It's a minor spoiler to the movie but still it robs the viewer the laugh when its revealed. 20190508_090906.jpg

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Your image posted upside down, but yeah, super obnoxious. I've had other things spoiled on Youtube through video titles and previews, like a huge plot point to the final season of TWD games. It's really frustrating, because I know better than to search for videos on things I haven't fully seen/played, but when they put it on the front page of the app, there's no way to avoid it.

Spider-Man: Far From Home spoiler discussion starts now!

I think it's crazy that some of the most bonkers stuff to happen within the MCU happened in the credit scenes for this movie. Was completely not expecting J.K. Simmons to reprise his role as J. Jonah Jameson (though I love that he did), and I never would have guessed the Skrulls would make an appearance in this. I think it's completely appropriate that Mysterio is the one to ruin Spider-Man's public image. Also, the trailers almost had me fooled with him in that I thought maybe the twist in the movie would be that he was legit a good guy.

Just got back from Spider-Man. 

I liked:

-The intro with the school news broadcast and how they succinctly wrap things up to remind you that it's 5 years in the future from the previous film. The tone of the first 5 minutes sets expectations well, since Spider-Man has always been a more jovial character. Lots of tongue-in-cheek stuff, too (Betty Brant says something about starting a 'new phase').

-JK Simmons, obviously. Even if it's just a cameo and they don't make him a full presence in the MCU, I'm happy to see him reprise the roll.

-When Peter is on the plane generating a new suit and he's manipulating the holograms and talking to the AI just like Tony, and Happy just smiles at him. It feels like a ton of foreshadowing and maybe one of the most significant scenes in terms of where the character is going, even though it was so brief. 

-The explanations for how Mysterio pulled off his illusions work pretty well (in a comic book way, that is). Drones generating holograms to create massive monsters? Sure, why not. Plus, the trailers did a good job baiting us to think maybe he actually is a good-guy version of the character.

Indifferent:

-Mysterio mentions Earth-616 and talks about the multi-verse. We KNOW the primary Earth is 616, but Mysterio ended up being just a disgruntled former Stark employee. Are they actually going to do multi-verse stuff (which would be an easy, obvious way to get X-Men, Fantastic Four, etc into the MCU) and tie it into the Spider-Verse, or was that just some fan service?

-Fury was a Skrull the whole time? Well, a Skrull when he wasn't a hologram decoy? 

-The massive hologram hallucination scene in the abandoned building felt a little too much like fighting Mysterio in old Spider-Man games. The explanation for the elemental monsters seems fine, but without Peter taking some psychedelics ala the Scarecrow, it felt like too much. It looked cool, though.

-Curious about why they say 'blipped' instead of 'snapped.'

I didn't like:

-the pacing. Peter goes from talking in his hotel room to Nick Fury to being ON A BOAT in his costume without any explanation. What happened to trying to lay low? There is some serious time-lapse between scenes and it feels kind of jarring to jump from scene to scene. MCU is usually better about this. 

-He did a fine job with the role because he's a great actor, but Jake Gyllenhaal is too recognizable and I just see Donnie Darko every time I look at him. 

-There was almost too much humor and slapstick. All the MCU films have it and Spider-Man in particular, but it was pretty non-stop, to the point of it being distracting.

ALSO

May says she reappeared in her apartment, the same place she snapped from. Are we to assume everyone returned to the same place they disappeared? Does this mean people who were on airplanes reappeared in the sky, but without a plane? 

Personally it was my favorite live action Spider-Man movie.

gamegirlpocket said:

-Fury was a Skrull the whole time? Well, a Skrull when he wasn't a hologram decoy?

-Curious about why they say 'blipped' instead of 'snapped.'

ALSO

May says she reappeared in her apartment, the same place she snapped from. Are we to assume everyone returned to the same place they disappeared? Does this mean people who were on airplanes reappeared in the sky, but without a plane?

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I think it was just during the film/sometime after Endgame that he was a Skrull.

Besides the Avengers/GotG, would the rest of Earth know it was caused by Thanos snapping his fingers?

Could be Hulk just brought everyone back to the safest location near where they vanished.

Unless it's just a mistake, Fury was possibly a Skrull in Age of Ultron. The evidence for it is how he cuts his sandwich in the farmhouse scene, and him saying in Captain Marvel he can't eat toast if it's cut diagonally. If that's intentional, I wonder if it was planned all the way back then, or if they later noticed how he cut it and only at the time of making Captain Marvel decided to use it as a hint.

And yeah, I also assume that Hulk consciously told the stones to snap everyone back to the safest point near where they left, unless a later film shows people being snapped back into midair or says otherwise. The alternative is a little depressing.

Overall I love the film, but my one big gripe is that the villains in both MCU Spider-Man films originate from things that Tony did. They almost seem like they'd be more appropriate as Iron Man villains. They are demons of Tony's just like Killian in Iron Man 3, but instead poor Peter has to deal with the mess.

It makes sense from the perspective of Peter being the new Tony, though.

Z-Saber said:

It makes sense from the perspective of Peter being the new Tony, though.

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Definitely seems to be the way it's going. Kind of funny to me since Peter is still in high school.

Burning Karma said:

Definitely seems to be the way it's going. Kind of funny to me since Peter is still in high school.

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I'm glad they aren't rushing him through high school the way the Sam Raimi films had him finish high school after the first film, but I agree, it's an odd fit. Maybe that's the point, though?

It also seems like they may be going in a direction with him inheriting stuff from Stark to do the comic version of Peter where he's basically Steve Jobs and is a rich-ass inventor. I really hope that isn't it.

gamegirlpocket said:

-Mysterio mentions Earth-616 and talks about the multi-verse. We KNOW the primary Earth is 616, but Mysterio ended up being just a disgruntled former Stark employee. Are they actually going to do multi-verse stuff (which would be an easy, obvious way to get X-Men, Fantastic Four, etc into the MCU) and tie it into the Spider-Verse, or was that just some fan service?

Click to expand...

He claims to be from Earth-833, which is a destroyed reality in the comicverse (albeit, a different cause of destruction). So it may have just been something lending an air of authenticity to try to mislead fans of the comics.

That being said, it is a somewhat safe way to introduce the concept for future use without going full Arrowverse Flash.

I didn't notice it, but supposedly in the background of the MJ midcredit scene, there is construction at Stark/Avengers Tower with signs that could be interpreted as a Fantastic Four hint. Or kicking off Phase 4. Or just random street background from filming.

gamegirlpocket said:

-Mysterio mentions Earth-616 and talks about the multi-verse. We KNOW the primary Earth is 616, but Mysterio ended up being just a disgruntled former Stark employee. Are they actually going to do multi-verse stuff (which would be an easy, obvious way to get X-Men, Fantastic Four, etc into the MCU) and tie it into the Spider-Verse, or was that just some fan service?

Click to expand...

I have an idea about how they could cleverly tie X-Men in, and I just realized I haven't posted it in here yet, so I may as well do that now so I can look like a genius if they actually end up going with my idea.

I think they will retcon things a bit and we'll find out that Wanda and Pietro Maximoff had dormant X-Genes and that exposure to the Mind Stone didn't directly grant them their powers. Instead, it activated their natural mutant abilities. It will turn out that mutants already existed in the MCU, but their numbers were so small that they didn't get much attention. Mutants like Magneto and Professor X will have already been around, along with a handful of others. Since WWII is getting even further from the present day, they'll probably change it so that just Magneto's parents were Holocaust survivors, and that he wasn't born until much later.

What will cause things to change drastically is that after Endgame, Earth has now been ground zero for three snaps of enormous cosmic power, and they can say that all of that energy activated a lot of people's dormant X-Genes, and this brings the X-Men into the light. Unless they do the multiverse explanation, I think this is the easiest way to fold in the X-Men and explain why no one had heard of them before now. I also really like this idea and would prefer it over a multiverse explanation.

As for the Fantastic Four, I think they'll just do an origin movie and have them get their powers in the "present day" of the MCU. I don't think there's any reason to have to do a multiverse thing with them.

And Deadpool is such a fourth-wall-breaking, meta character that they don't even need to change anything there if they don't want to. Just have Deadpool crack a joke about the whole thing and move on and Deadpool 3 can just take place in the MCU.

Or my guesses could be way off and they do something else entirely.

Navigator2001Plus said:

I have an idea about how they could cleverly tie X-Men in, and I just realized I haven't posted it in here yet, so I may as well do that now so I can look like a genius if they actually end up going with my idea.

I think they will retcon things a bit and we'll find out that Wanda and Pietro Maximoff had dormant X-Genes and that exposure to the Mind Stone didn't directly grant them their powers. Instead, it activated their natural mutant abilities. It will turn out that mutants already existed in the MCU, but their numbers were so small that they didn't get much attention. Mutants like Magneto and Professor X will have already been around, along with a handful of others. Since WWII is getting even further from the present day, they'll probably change it so that just Magneto's parents were Holocaust survivors, and that he wasn't born until much later.

What will cause things to change drastically is that after Endgame, Earth has now been ground zero for three snaps of enormous cosmic power, and they can say that all of that energy activated a lot of people's dormant X-Genes, and this brings the X-Men into the light. Unless they do the multiverse explanation, I think this is the easiest way to fold in the X-Men and explain why no one had heard of them before now. I also really like this idea and would prefer it over a multiverse explanation.

As for the Fantastic Four, I think they'll just do an origin movie and have them get their powers in the "present day" of the MCU. I don't think there's any reason to have to do a multiverse thing with them.

And Deadpool is such a fourth-wall-breaking, meta character that they don't even need to change anything there if they don't want to. Just have Deadpool crack a joke about the whole thing and move on and Deadpool 3 can just take place in the MCU.

Or my guesses could be way off and they do something else entirely.

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I really love that idea. Give this man a job!

It's too bad they couldn't have introduced Reed Richards at least, pre-powers, as a foundation for later stuff. It would have been nice to see him nerding out with Tony, although they could still use Bruce Banner as a conduit to introduce the science end of Fantastic 4.

Whatever they do, I'm hoping they'll skip the detailed origin stories the way they did with Homecoming.

I didn't like the new spiderman movie. I didn't hate it but meh. Had a lot of cheesy scenes in it. I'm also sick of ironman. I went to watch a Spiderman movie not an ironman memorial service. Mysterio was fun, glad cave Johnson is jj again. Hate how so many people know Peter's identity even before the ending exposure. I thought it was a big deal to hide your identity, apparently not anymore. Civil war has been my favorite current Spiderman movie so far. Overall I still like the Toby movies a lot better.

That's a lot of hot takes.

I've been thinking about Guardians 3 and what they'll end up doing with 2014 Gamora, and I am really hoping they don't have her and Quill get together. She's not the Gamora he lost, never shared in any of his memories of her, and he needs to move on.

If this is true, it's some real bullshit:

https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1163906622655225856

True from what I saw. RIP.

There's rumors online about a new deal for 7 more Spider-Man crossover movies, so hopefully they've worked something out. After getting Spider-Man in the MCU finally, I have absolutely no desire to see him off in his own universe again, aside from the excellent Into the Spider-Verse animated franchise.

Sony could probably make a good sequel to FFH without Marvel or Feige, but I'm not confident in their ability to keep it coming beyond that. I think what they said on the CAGCast is hopefully true, that there's too much money involved for them not to work out a deal. If Sony walks and stays that way, it'll be a detriment to both sides.

Good news from yesterday. Sony and Marvel are partnering for at least two more films: one Spider-Man solo film, and one Marvel Studios crossover film.

If things fall apart after that, we should at least get a decent conclusion to his arc in the MCU rather than how abrupt it would have been to have him leave after far From Home set so much stuff up.