@fletch Yeah, I can see that, and I liked him with her at the end of Love and Thunder as the Dad figure, I was not knocking that ending - just disagreeing with the idea that Endgame was a satisfying end to his arc.
Thor on the throne of the rebuilt Asgard, the protector of the Nine Realms, new head of the Pantheon of the Gods instead of Zeus, while his brother is holding the timestream together - that is the ending needed for his epic mythology.
Four of the six originals have closed the books on their stories in satisfying ways, to me.
Steve needed to choose his own happiness after being selfless for so long.
Tony needed to choose selflessness and be the hero he was never sure he could be.
Bruce needed to accept his dual aspects and become both.
Natasha needed to balance her ledger (and give Clint his life back).
Clint still needs to be the mentor for the new Avengers team and honor Natasha's sacrifice.
Thor still needs to accept that he is a leader that the Asgardians need.
@fac, oof that Hulk wrap up. The (second) most significant development in his life and it's off screen. That was a miss for sure.
The Missus and I have debated Black Widow"s conclusion. She thinks she was very poorly used, but I really liked it.
Come to think of it, we also disagree on how Scarlet Witch turned out but again, like with Thor, I can appreciate her ending as a villain since we see all the steps along the way of how she got there.
@fac, oof that Hulk wrap up. The (second) most significant development in his life and it's off screen. That was a miss for sure.
I know it won't happen but wish we'd get a Hulk flashback movie like we got with Black Widow, and use it as a time to experience the Blip, maybe have him and Clint as Ronin meet up, and so on.
The Missus and I have debated Black Widow"s conclusion. She thinks she was very poorly used, but I really liked it.
I assume that Scarlett was ready to move on and I thought it worked not just to have a death for stakes, but to finish her story while also doing right by Clint and his family. What truly bothers me about how they handled her was that they cut the end sequence to her own film, where she returns to her "childhood" home and sees the kids playing "hero" and one of the girls has her widow's sting bracelets on, and you know she feels that she has gone from being the killer to the hero at that moment. Inexplicable that they cut that.
As much as I love the endgame battle, Natasha deserved to be there.
And yeah, the ending of her movie feels really odd. Ross is charging up and she is watching... Then nothing happens with that?
Come to think of it, we also disagree on how Scarlet Witch turned out but again, like with Thor, I can appreciate her ending as a villain since we see all the steps along the way of how she got there.
We all see the missteps of how she got there. Ugh. Dead horse but frustrating waste.
Seeing her temple statue as the ceiling in The Void in D&W felt very weird.
Because I felt dared to, I rewatched Quantumania yesterday. It's still pretty flat.
Checking the paper, things that should've worked include Darren Cross' evolution into MODOK. It felt like a logical result of his weird quantum collapse, and he was a very natural way to tie it into the first movie. I also really liked the running gag of everyone just saying "Darren?" whenever they saw him.
I'd also forgotten there was an element of a heist to get the device thingy for Kang. It honestly wasn't very heist-y, but it's sort of Ant-Man's thing so I'm glad they at least tried.
And counter to an earlier comment, I think John Major is an acting powerhouse and really liked his performance as Kang. He had a matter-of-fact sinisterness that's hard to replicate.
Buuuut, outweighing all of that is that I couldn't get behind an entire movie taking place in a CG alien landscape; I thought the swarm of super-evolved ants was a real deus ex machina (even if it is Ant-Man's whole brand); and I think it was a huge mistake having Kang himself defeated by two Avengers so far before the actual Kang Dynasty movie. At least say it's Immortus or some other version so Kang himself remains this looming threat. Not that that matters any more, I guess.
Just spitballing here, but if it were me, I'd have the first half of the movie take place in San Francisco with a much more sinister MODOK hunting Scott, then the back half is more heist/jailbreak from Kang's fortress and the Quantum Realm without letting Kang escape as well.
@fletch They could always have had the cast split with half in the Quantum Realm trying to get back and the other half in our world with an escaped Modok. Then you can have two heists, one inside and one out, both working to get them back home. They could also communicate by playing on what happened in the second movie if Scott and Janet aren't in the same realm. Then we could also have Luis and the others, as well as Cassie's mom and stepdad again. That really bugged me to not have those characters around. AT LEAST invite them to Cassie's birthday party.
And I guess the biggest reason to not have some character left in the real world is you don't get to have the too-subtle "wait, is Scott...back in the right reality?" question they left us with at the end.
I agree Kang was defanged by this loss though, but the bigger threat was always going to be all his nutjob variants.
@ru1977, David Dastmalchan did the voice of the little goo guy, but it'd be acceptably hilarious if they met three microscopic aliens with the exact same voices and personalities as the Wombats. Like no explanation other than maybe some raised eyebrows and Scott being immediate friends with them.
That could have been funny. I also still wish the revolutionaries had been the Micronauts.
I also still wish the revolutionaries had been the Micronauts.
I'd heard that had been an idea. It's what keeps me from saying I don't like that there's just humans in the microverse. If they'd been Rann, Marionette, or even just worn Acroyear helmets I'd have lost my mind.
We did, however, get a kind of cool battery head guy.
It worked out for them given the move away from Kang, but Kang really shouldn't have lost in Quantumania, especially the Kang we were told was one of the most brutal.
The more semi-timeless, reality bending void that was discussed in the first Ant-Man was much more daunting a place to visit than what we saw. The initial idea that was implied was that Janet was effectively marooned and alone and fighting to survive in a place where time and reality worked differently - if there had been a few outposts of trapped explorers from different planets that could have been interesting (like Kang), but the whole advanced culture with tech and cities I think undermined it all. It would have been much more impressive for Janet to survive a place that was lawless, wild, limited resources, and physically and temporally disorienting - from what we saw she could have gotten a job at a restaurant and had a nice apartment in the main city.
I know that in the comics, the Microverse is advanced, but I think that was the wrong direction in this instance. I love the Micronauts but think they are better served outside the Marvel continuity to be honest.
I also revisited one of the films and rewatched Love and Thunder. I doubt I can articulate this well, but my main thesis is that the humor in this was not used to break the tension of some dark story beats for the characters, but actually undermined the dark story beats for the audience by making those story beats and characters not to be taken seriously.
I think my objection to some of the humor was that it was Thor that was the goofy guy too often. If you think the main character is playing for broad laughs, it mentally makes you view the movie as a comedy, and therefore when he becomes serious you are kind of waiting for the rug to be pulled out, by Thor or Korg making a joke about it or not getting it themselves.
After the great opening with Gorr getting the sword, the "story" as told by Korg kind of dismisses Thor's pain (and joked about some of the death's as being unimportant), and then we get Thor as the flashy but oblivious hero - a fun sequence but a huge tome shift from the intro. Once that ends we jump to Jane getting her cancer treatment, so back to serious. Already, it is Thor that is out of place in his own film. Even Thor and Jane reuniting gets undermined by Thor being the goofy guy who is more "jokily" flummoxed by Jane as Thor, not just confused - after all he has lost, Jane being around should have been a more emotional beat for him. Mjolnir reforming itself for Jane, and then learning it was because Thor ordered Mjolnir to protect her, was a great story beat, but in the midst of that we have Thor pining humorously for Mjolnir like he is the dog the girlfriend took after a breakup.
The idea that New Asgard was a tourist spot was great - but the terrible "play" they showed was too silly; Sif being badly hurt made Gorr more of a threat, then they played for a joke that her potential death might not get her to Valhalla. It wasn't meant to be funny for the characters, like Thor trying to joke to keep Sif alive, it was a joke at the character's expense. There is a difference between adding something amusing and making something a joke.
Some of the things like Thor wanting Mjolnir and Strombreaker being jealous, the goats being annoying, Korg's low-key optimism, that was fine to me as little running gags. Thor looking foolish was not.
So the rapid changes in tone and Thor not being a believable adult almost made me not want to invest in the emotional beats - because if you are going to take me to a place with empathy for the characters and feel their sadness, don't make me feel somewhat foolish for taking your own story seriously if the writing and directing pivots to a joke so fast that you feel like you were duped to care. (That's a little over dramatic)
@fac thank you for all that. I think ultimately you're right. I never saw it that way but looking back, yeah I completely agree.
I don't even know where phase 4 ends and phase 5 begins. You used to be able to tell by Avengers movie installments. Are we even in phase 6 yet?
Officially -
Phase 4
Films
Black Widow
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Eternals
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Thor: Love and Thunder
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Television
WandaVision
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Loki 1
Hawkeye
Moon Knight
Ms. Marvel
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law
Phase 5
Films
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
The Marvels
Deadpool & Wolverine
Captain America: Brave New World
Thunderbolts*
Television
Secret Invasion
Loki 2
Echo
Agatha All Along
Eyes of Wakanda
Daredevil: Born Again
Ironheart
Personally, I think of this as a better split based on content, and Loki 2 more or less ends Phase 4. (Black Widow should fall into Phase 2 or 3, Deadpool and Wolverine is not really in main MCU continuity)
Phase 4 (Infinity War postlude, Kang, Multiverse)
Spider-Man: Far From Home (currently in Phase 3)
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Thor: Love and Thunder
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
WandaVision
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Loki 1 and 2
Hawkeye
Secret Invasion
Phase 5 (Next Generation)
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Eternals
The Marvels
Captain America: Brave New World
Thunderbolts*
Moon Knight
Ms. Marvel
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law
Echo
Agatha All Along
Eyes of Wakanda
Daredevil: Born Again
Ironheart
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