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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness!


CoLA
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Well obviously, y’all. The execution of getting an audience “up to speed” is the thing, and then whether whatever you did to get them up to speed hurts the payoff you’re hoping they get from your story etc. I don’t envy the writers here, for sure. And to be honest, I’m getting tired of long form story telling in everything from Marvel to Star Wars to Star Trek to James Bond of all things. Maybe it’s nostalgia, but I remember the days… well the nights… of Nick at Night and watching whatever original Star Trek episode was airing and never once feeling like I missed something.

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26 minutes ago, zambingo said:

Well obviously, y’all. The execution of getting an audience “up to speed” is the thing, and then whether whatever you did to get them up to speed hurts the payoff you’re hoping they get from your story etc. I don’t envy the writers here, for sure. And to be honest, I’m getting tired of long form story telling in everything from Marvel to Star Wars to Star Trek to James Bond of all things. Maybe it’s nostalgia, but I remember the days… well the nights… of Nick at Night and watching whatever original Star Trek episode was airing and never once feeling like I missed something.

And yet when there is episodic content, people complain incessantly. See: Mandalorian season 1.

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22 hours ago, Tank said:

To be honest, I think you’re the outlier in this. As TVs get higher res and everything is shot on digitally, and effects get cheaper, from a technical aspect all you are getting in the theater that you can’t get at home is the size of the screen and the experience of sitting in a theater.

Most people prefer watching things at home, especially with Covid. While the budgets for the Marvel and SW shows aren’t quite at the level of the movies, they are still pretty good, and the storytelling is on par. Also, these aren’t long TV seasons, most are 8-12 episodes.

In Marvel’s case the use the movies to tell the big epic tales, but the TV shows to focus on smaller character driven stuff. They’ve all honestly been great so far.

For me, it's all starting to seem a little overwhelming, like the MCU has gotten too big, to the point that I'm now feeling like I have to devote a good chunk of my free time to it that I'd rather spend in other ways.  I'm an outdoors guy, and I'm usually out hiking somewhere when the weather is good.  And when I am indoors, I'm usually reading.  Television is just never on my radar.  After a bad break-up years ago, I'm finally getting back out there and dating again.  And somehow I need to squeeze hours and hours worth of D+ shows into my already limited free time in order to follow a movie in a theater.   I'm sure the shows are great, but I think watching them would feel too much like a chore to me.  Watching movies and TV shows is supposed to be a form of procrastination.  It shouldn't feel like work or a responsibility, and if I'm now going to watch a ton of shows that I otherwise wouldn't watch just so I can fully follow a 2 hour film in a theater, I have to wonder if it's worth it.  This sucks for people like me, because I was always a big fan of the MCU, and until now, all we needed to follow an MCU movie were the other MCU movies, and I feel blindsided because I can't just walk into the theater anymore without having to prep for it first.  

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You're not wrong, even as a fan it does seem like overkill and a big commitment. I have been slow to every Marvel entry post Endgame save for Wandavision and Far From Home. That said, aside from Eternals, I haven't been unhappy with any of it.

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There are only a few times you’ve had to watch a previous MCU movie to be able to follow a later one. You might get more out of it if you’ve seen everything, but you could easily skip most of them and still follow everything. I’m sure the TV shows are going to be the same. Marvel is interested in making money and having billion dollar films. 

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In most cases, I'm an "all or nothing" kind of person.  I'm either all in, or not at all.  I've always had a strict policy that I never see a sequel without its predecessor first.  Even if I can still follow the story, I hate getting that "I clearly missed something somewhere" feeling.  I made a point of reading The Silmarillian before reading LOTR for that exact purpose.  Even if I could follow LOTR without it, all those constant references to those earlier stories would have ruined it for me. 

I feel like Marvel's cinematic universe is becoming just like its comics.  I start reading one title, only two find out at some point that I was supposed to be reading 15 others to get the whole story, and they never bothered to tell me.  lol

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On 2/18/2022 at 5:41 PM, Quetzalcoatl said:

In most cases, I'm an "all or nothing" kind of person.  I'm either all in, or not at all.  I've always had a strict policy that I never see a sequel without its predecessor first.  Even if I can still follow the story, I hate getting that "I clearly missed something somewhere" feeling.  I made a point of reading The Silmarillian before reading LOTR for that exact purpose.  Even if I could follow LOTR without it, all those constant references to those earlier stories would have ruined it for me. 

I feel like Marvel's cinematic universe is becoming just like its comics.  I start reading one title, only two find out at some point that I was supposed to be reading 15 others to get the whole story, and they never bothered to tell me.  lol

Marvel Studios needs their version of an editor's note for their movies and series! Not sure how they would insert those in, though...

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24 minutes ago, CoLA said:

Marvel Studios needs their version of an editor's note for their movies and series! Not sure how they would insert those in, though...

D1AA81A2-3EF2-4D00-9596-20A3F810675F.jpeg

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Just now, CoLA said:

Even better if he just pops into a scene to quickly explain it!

I’m picturing it just like an editors note: he pops up in a little picture in a picture to explain things.

Seriously, though, that reminds me of the best part of the Eric Bana Hulk movie - it really leaned into being a comic book movie in a way that was really fun. I’m not a comic book guy at all, but I really enjoyed that aspect.

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  • 2 months later...

I pushed through my 2020 heightened anxiety and made it to a theater for this. I think the film was everything a Star Wars Prequel film was. The dialogue was horrible, the FX took you on the needed ride, the story had glimpses of something that could be and then doesn’t deliver.

I feel that Wanda was cheated of a journey for her own and had to play second to yet another superdude. I feel that what was supposed to be her biggest badass moments felt like, to use some Wrestling lingo, defeating some random jobbers to get over. I feel that America Chavez was wasted. That generally about 50 minutes was wasted on spectacle rather than substance. Perhaps if this film didn’t even have Doctor Strange and instead focused on the dynamic of Wanda and the new hero America, fashioned in a Yin Yang sense then this could be something. Ugh. I’m uselessly rewriting now.

Look. Okay. There is stuff to like in this. It’s just, I dunno.

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I liked it but it really has some required viewing before going in...WandaVision, No Way Home and maybe some What If to get what's up and who everyone is. I'm surprised they did not get

Ioan Gruffold as Mr. Fantastic

. That Illuminati fight was pretty brutal!

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That’s a good point, re: your spoiler tag.

And here’s a specific issue I had which I would have put into my last comment, but I forgot we could hide things with spoiler tags. It’s in regards to how the story, for me, feels like it should never have been a Doctor Strange film, big spoilers.

 

MCU Wanda should have fought or killed another Wanda, and at the very least been taken to complete task by another Wanda. The plot says MCU Wanda’s rage and grief leads her to the Darkhold, but both the Darkhold plus her rage and grief aren’t what gives Wanda her powers. So another Wanda, a good Wanda, should have been her foil.

Instead we needed to have a man (Strange) minimize her trauma, tell her she’s being bad, and to stop it. Then another man (Xavier) goes into a good Wanda’s head to help her against MCU Wanda because apparently a stable Wanda is useless. Nice message there, MCDudes. TWS

Oh how I wish we’d have gone into MCU Wanda’s mind near the end when “her boys” were scared out of their minds. With a flash, we could be back in the blank astral plane again. This time it’s MCU Wanda staring at Good Wanda, who’s standing there with no fear. The audience would be expecting the shit to fly here. But instead have Good Wanda gesture to her side and there suddenly is a picnic, or living room sofa set, or a dining set, whatever forms. How cool would it have been for one of MCU Wanda’s WandaVision living rooms to form? Then just have Good Wanda say, “Sit. Talk to me.”

We don’t have to see the conversation. We don’t have to get deep here. That one line should, I think, hit. We can then cut back to 616 and MCU Wanda can end the film. For a moment the audience could still think she is going to hurt America, but she doesn’t. That’s it.

Look, I know we can infer something like this happens anyway. MCU Wanda is on her knees weeping at the point “her boys” are scared. I just think seeing the moment in the Astral Plane would reinforce that the stable, Good Wanda wasn’t weak, and isn’t lesser than raging MCU Wanda. Good Wanda would have been just surprised by the dream control earlier.

I dunno. There are lots of ways to have balanced this. Earlier in the film when Xavier entered into the mind of Good Wanda, she could have told him to leave her mind because he’s in danger not her. MCU Wanda could kill him anyway. I just wanted more balance for Wanda, more time for Wanda, rather than what we got.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I guess I can say some of this now that the movie is out... but I've had to sit on spoilers for months now. As I hinted in other threads, I pitched on a D+ show for one of the characters in MoM. I can't say who, or who behind the scenes I am working on it with... but you know... AMERICA sure is the country I live in. Cesar CHAVEZ blvd isn't far from me.

Point being, I had been briefed an earlier pre-reshoots version of this movie for the pitch. But one of the things in the earlier versions was that Wanda was actually killing off all her alters, some of them rather brutally. I'm actually shocked that the fact Wanda was the villain didn't get out until the movie premiered. Also, shocked more people aren't mad about it considering how great Wandavision is. Though i suppose it is true to the character for her to vacillate between good guy/bad guy. This is basically the MCU's version of "No More Mutants" for her.

I have no idea what her future is, but now that we have time travel in Endgame and the multiverse deeply delved into in 3 different MCU entries, they now have the same reset buttons and get-out-death-free cards that the comics did. They can kill anyone off and always bring them back as an alter. It's honestly why I don't like multiverse tales, cause nothing ever really sticks. We're in the weeds now.

I will add too, my earlier brief included none of the info about the Illuminati, so that was all a super treat for me.

As for my feelings about the movie itself.... I applaud it for being the most un-MCU formula dependent of any MCU movie... but it felt cut and paste to me. The heavy rewrites/reshoots really showed I think. Lots of things were just told to us as opposed to unfolding. It's certainly not the worst, or even close to IM3 Thor 2 levels of suck-- but as far as movies go, post Endgame, Spider-Man is the only one to really deliver on the magic I think, pun intended.

 

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Saw this the other night. Totally a Sam Raimi movie. More a Sam Raimi movie than MCU tbh. But I enjoyed it nonetheless. I thought some parts might've been too much for my kid, and I was right. He spent the rest of the evening telling us how scary it actually was and that he was afraid some of the more gruesome stuff would wind up in his nightmares. But...his little brother loved it! The little one loves creepy/scary shit just like their dad. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Caught this last night now it has dropped on Disney +. Lots to unpick!

Bit slow to get going, first 20 or so was a lot of narrative before it really kicked in. The fall through the Multiverse was fun, but kind of reminiscent of that Family Guy episode with some elements.

Once they got to the Earth 838 (Question - if they mapped the multiverse, why designate themselves as that number and not 1? But I digress…), there was some fun scenes with Strange & Chavez with the tables turning so that she is the experienced person explaining the rules.


Illuminati sequence as great fun! Black Bolt backfiring, Carter doing “that” Captain America line, and of course Xavier making a decent appearance.


Totally get Wanda’s motivations - she wants her kids back - even if they didn’t properly exist before. How far would you go if you already were super powerful? 
 

Agree with above comments - if you didn’t watch “WandaVision” / “What If…”, much harder to follow. And definitely scarier elements at the end for the younger kids.

All in all, fun way to spend a Friday night. If I’d paid for the cinema, probably would have been disappointed.

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On 5/18/2022 at 2:07 AM, Tank said:

I guess I can say some of this now that the movie is out... but I've had to sit on spoilers for months now. As I hinted in other threads, I pitched on a D+ show for one of the characters in MoM. I can't say who, or who behind the scenes I am working on it with... but you know... AMERICA sure is the country I live in. Cesar CHAVEZ blvd isn't far from me.

Point being, I had been briefed an earlier pre-reshoots version of this movie for the pitch. But one of the things in the earlier versions was that Wanda was actually killing off all her alters, some of them rather brutally. I'm actually shocked that the fact Wanda was the villain didn't get out until the movie premiered. Also, shocked more people aren't mad about it considering how great Wandavision is. Though i suppose it is true to the character for her to vacillate between good guy/bad guy. This is basically the MCU's version of "No More Mutants" for her.

I have no idea what her future is, but now that we have time travel in Endgame and the multiverse deeply delved into in 3 different MCU entries, they now have the same reset buttons and get-out-death-free cards that the comics did. They can kill anyone off and always bring them back as an alter. It's honestly why I don't like multiverse tales, cause nothing ever really sticks. We're in the weeds now.

I will add too, my earlier brief included none of the info about the Illuminati, so that was all a super treat for me.

As for my feelings about the movie itself.... I applaud it for being the most un-MCU formula dependent of any MCU movie... but it felt cut and paste to me. The heavy rewrites/reshoots really showed I think. Lots of things were just told to us as opposed to unfolding. It's certainly not the worst, or even close to IM3 Thor 2 levels of suck-- but as far as movies go, post Endgame, Spider-Man is the only one to really deliver on the magic I think, pun intended.

 

It played out a lot more like a condensed TV series than a movie, which is sort of where this weird hybrid is with the MCU anyways. We've always had feature length movies that are just the latest adventure of the Avengers, and now we have TV shows that are elongated films and now it's all just confusing. But, yes, I understand that reshoots are probably mostly to blame for that with this movie. 

This one probably needed Wandavision to really enjoy, because the emotional payoff only works if you know what Wanda went through and what she did and why she "needed" her sons. BUT this movie also pooped on her growth throughout that series while at the same time shouting at us "IT ISN'T WANDA IT'S THE DARKHOLD" which also pooped on the character and stole her agency. I think they would have done better to include a scene where it was made clear that Wanda was actually controlling the Darkhold instead of it controlling her. That gives her agency and shows that she's insanely powerful.

Things I did like - the movie was about Strange fighting against being like every other Strange, and it still maintained the end fight really being between the women involved, and Strange moving to a supporting role.  It makes sense that America would need someone like that, because her whole deal is that she's afraid of her power, and that's actually pretty similar to how society treats women. Women aren't supposed to be powerful, so when, as a man, you have the opportunity to support a woman using her own power, that's one of the best things you can do. I come across if professionally a lot, where women I work with can't speak for themselves until they know they have someone in their corner who is going to support them. 

I think that with the time travel and multiverse stuff, they're working on a destruction of the multiverse. We're going to get some multiverse adventures but in Avengers 6 or 7 it's going to be destroyed and we'll lose some heroes but we'll pull in new ones of variants from other universes. It's going to be a way of rebooting but keeping a lot of characters with new actors.

Speaking of which, I really liked seeing Krasinski as Reed Richards. I know fans have been dream casting him for a while, but I never really saw it, but everyone in the Illuminati knocked it out of the park. The few comics I've read were some collections of old Marvel comics, including original Fantastic Four and original X-Men, and I really thought he did a great job with Richards.

Also - what's going on with Strange's eye in the end? 

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On 6/27/2022 at 4:20 PM, Guest said:

It played out a lot more like a condensed TV series than a movie, which is sort of where this weird hybrid is with the MCU anyways. We've always had feature length movies that are just the latest adventure of the Avengers, and now we have TV shows that are elongated films and now it's all just confusing. But, yes, I understand that reshoots are probably mostly to blame for that with this movie. 

This one probably needed Wandavision to really enjoy, because the emotional payoff only works if you know what Wanda went through and what she did and why she "needed" her sons. BUT this movie also pooped on her growth throughout that series while at the same time shouting at us "IT ISN'T WANDA IT'S THE DARKHOLD" which also pooped on the character and stole her agency. I think they would have done better to include a scene where it was made clear that Wanda was actually controlling the Darkhold instead of it controlling her. That gives her agency and shows that she's insanely powerful.

Things I did like - the movie was about Strange fighting against being like every other Strange, and it still maintained the end fight really being between the women involved, and Strange moving to a supporting role.  It makes sense that America would need someone like that, because her whole deal is that she's afraid of her power, and that's actually pretty similar to how society treats women. Women aren't supposed to be powerful, so when, as a man, you have the opportunity to support a woman using her own power, that's one of the best things you can do. I come across if professionally a lot, where women I work with can't speak for themselves until they know they have someone in their corner who is going to support them. 

I think that with the time travel and multiverse stuff, they're working on a destruction of the multiverse. We're going to get some multiverse adventures but in Avengers 6 or 7 it's going to be destroyed and we'll lose some heroes but we'll pull in new ones of variants from other universes. It's going to be a way of rebooting but keeping a lot of characters with new actors.

Speaking of which, I really liked seeing Krasinski as Reed Richards. I know fans have been dream casting him for a while, but I never really saw it, but everyone in the Illuminati knocked it out of the park. The few comics I've read were some collections of old Marvel comics, including original Fantastic Four and original X-Men, and I really thought he did a great job with Richards.

Also - what's going on with Strange's eye in the end? 

Strange has that third eye in the comics! In this, it looks like he got it from using the Darkhold. I thought that after credits scene was weird because in the first one he's screaming in pain from it and in the next one he's totally fine.

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