Top 5 M-SHE-U Failures 4 4

[Artboy99]

while I don't agree with the order he puts the releases in, I generally agree with his take on all of this. Enjoy!

 

[Bosco685]

Quantity over quality is the key driver of the big shift. Phase III got studio heads cocky and assuming more is better. Phase IV was the warning shot it was overkill. Phase V will be telling.

[media_junkie]

On 3/14/2023 at 5:42 PM, Artboy99 said:

while I don't agree with the order he puts the releases in, I generally agree with his take on all of this. Enjoy!

 

Call me a hater, but he is not wrong.

[Artboy99]

On 3/14/2023 at 4:41 PM, Bosco685 said:

Quantity over quality is the key driver of the big shift. Phase III got studio heads cocky and assuming more is better. Phase IV was the warning shot it was overkill. Phase V will be telling.

The first offering of phase 5 was poorly written with bad characters in Quantumania so to me the low quality persists.

I hope Guardians 3 is better.

[drotto]

On 3/14/2023 at 9:42 PM, Artboy99 said:

The first offering of phase 5 was poorly written with bad characters in Quantumania so to me the low quality persists.

I hope Guardians 3 is better.

I am very confident Guardians will be better, and do better.  I am not sure that helps in the long run, since Gunn is no longer part of the MCU, and this is the swansong for this group of characters.  My big takeaway from the MCU lately is they need to get rid of the F'n Rick and Morty writers.  I actually kinda like Rick and Morty, but the writers have proven they are terrible doing anything else.

[thegiftedone45]

On 3/14/2023 at 5:42 PM, Artboy99 said:

while I don't agree with the order he puts the releases in, I generally agree with his take on all of this. Enjoy!

 

True video but I also disagree with the order.  But man when someone really explains the crazy stuff that was put into this last phase it makes it a lot worse.

[thegiftedone45]

On 3/14/2023 at 9:42 PM, Artboy99 said:

The first offering of phase 5 was poorly written with bad characters in Quantumania so to me the low quality persists.

I hope Guardians 3 is better.

No Guardians 3, Do Better! -Falc Cap

[Artboy99]

On 3/14/2023 at 8:22 PM, thegiftedone45 said:

No Guardians 3, Do Better! -Falc Cap

 

[Dr. Balls]

On 3/14/2023 at 4:41 PM, Bosco685 said:

Phase III got studio heads cocky

Serious horsepower in Phase 3. 

[PopKulture]

Wow, that's some scathing and entertaining analysis, and he's not wrong. 

[paperheart]

Saved a lot of time and money by skipping all of this

[theCapraAegagrus]

I'm not a fan of calling it the "M-She-U", as it's a bit of a dog whistle, but it sadly paints an astute picture using only a single phrase.

Imagine if Marvel had both of their hands on the wheel for No Way Home. Instead of May dying, she'd be beating up Green Goblin to save Peter.

[crassus]

That "Top 5" was pretty brutal. Of the content I've only seen Thor and Dr Strange. There is a lack of serious ideas, that is for sure, and the reason for that imo is that they stopped taking their characters seriously. It is likely that one follows from the other. They ran out of ideas, so they fell back on caricature. That was underway before the trendy identity stuff...which is a symptom, not a cause of the problem. You could see the progress clearly in the Thor movies, which I did have the occasion to watch in short order not long ago, as my son insists on watching movies in order, not MCU order, but numerical order etc....and I know people didn't like the 2nd Thor movie, but if you watch them all together it is obvious that the real change comes with the 3rd movie. The first 2 Thor movies were mostly straight up adventure, fantasy, drama, hint of romance, hint of humour, heavier tragic element in the 2nd. Loki was a serious and complex character in the first 2 movies. The 3rd saw an increase in the humour and the characters becoming "arch" and somewhat self-conscious...the first step to caricature. The 4th movie was imo a disaster, and there humour and caricature dominated the presentation. IMO the real "emasculation" of the male characters starts there, its not in the first instance a male-female thing, its that they are not taken seriously anymore as characters...in that respect the female characters often suffer the same fate (is there an equivalent word for "emasculating" a female?). This would be another reason to be wary of the "M-She-U" thing, the central problems with some of these movies are not doing any favours to the females either. 

IMO a good counterpoint to this is the latest Black Panther movie, which I liked, and I think is underrated in this respect. With the exception of Namor, this is a movie dominated by women, but in this case the characters were taken seriously, the lead characters are all elites in Wakanda, Queen, or becoming Queen or General, there are humorous moments, but generally the movie is driven by real loss and real grief, the presentation of grief in the movie is convincing and convincingly acted, the characters are genuinely conflicted, when for example Queen Ramonda rages at Okoye, strips her of her command, it is electric, none of the emotions really relate to being female or male, it is Queen and General, anger, and failure, shame and disgrace at failure, the exercise of royal power. To the extent there was an element of social commentary in the movie it was fair and obvious...African nation, history of colonialism, not exactly irrelevant in principle to the story of Wakanda and an African people. This movie brought me back to feeling like the root problem is not trendy social commentary and identity focused themes but how seriously the characters are taken by the writers and directors. 

[theCapraAegagrus]

I'm gonna be honest, I thought that Captain Carter was done in the comics before the What If...? show.

[RobHW]

Crassus makes good points.  I think the problem with MCU is simply poor story telling in multi layers.  For example, Riri pops out of nowhere to leapfrog Tony Stark's genius.  As a 19 year old black woman she out geniuses Stark.  No history, no prototypes.  You thought Stark was exceptional?  Check out this chick.  It's good woke but not good story telling.  The whole franchise has turned into stories made up by boy scouts around a campfire.  No imagination, no creativity, poor story telling.  Only dwindling numbers of cult fans left.

Edited March 15, 2023 by RobHW

[Artboy99]

On 3/15/2023 at 10:30 AM, RobHW said:

Crassus makes good points.  I think the problem with MCU is simply poor story telling in multi layers.  For example, Riri pops out of nowhere to leapfrog Tony Stark's genius.  As a 19 year old black woman she out geniuses Stark.  No history, no prototypes.  You thought Stark was exceptional?  Check out this chick.  It's good woke but not good story telling.  The whole franchise has turned into stories made up by boy scouts around a campfire.  No imagination, no creativity, poor story telling.  Only dwindling numbers of cult fans left.

it is poor story telling and poor character. Ri-Ri is an awful character following in the footsteps of Rey in Star Wars: just simply is the best and has no character journey. Cassie from Quantumania is yet another teen girl that can build a device that can create a portal to the quantum realm and build her own ant suit.

[Bosco685]

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness was definitely the production that destroyed Phase IV for me.

You had two favorites (Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch) handled so poorly, and then an all-powerful Illuminati that pretty much offered their necks up to be slashed within minutes. So much wrong with that film, including Wanda taking out Kamar-Taj and killing a massive count of sorcerers while the Sorcerer Supreme bumbles around. So sad!

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 3/15/2023 at 1:56 PM, Artboy99 said:

Cassie from Quantumania is yet another teen girl that can build a device that can create a portal to the quantum realm and build her own ant suit.

Her dad, a genius engineer etc, couldn't even build his own suit. Some of the leaps they take with these young characters is so unrealistic in context that it takes me out of the entire experience. The MCU is failing to maintain the suspense of disbelief.

[TupennyConan]

Feige should resign. I can't see him being fired as he gave the company what it wanted. The company wanted ESG excellence, not necessarily happy customers, happy investors, & profit.  

I liked Agatha, America, Awkwafina, Kate, & MADISYNN, but only because I'm generous with the ladies. Their shows & movies were .  

Edited March 15, 2023 by TupennyConan
expletive

[Bosco685]

On 3/15/2023 at 3:14 PM, TupennyConan said:

Feige should resign. I can't see him being fired as he gave the company what it wanted. The company wanted ESG excellence, not necessarily happy customers, happy investors, & profit.  

I liked Agatha, America, Awkwafina, Kate, & MADISYNN, but only because I'm generous with the ladies. Their shows & movies were .