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Pondering What the MCU Might Have Done Better

Splappy said:
The girl power thing in Endgame was a bit hamfistedly done, I feel.
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Thank Perlmutter for thinking female leads weren't viable until he had no control over Marvel. This is why it took so long for Black Widow to get her own film and that is being delayed by Covid.
 
gyrobot said:
Thank Perlmutter for thinking female leads weren't viable until he had no control over Marvel. This is why it took so long for Black Widow to get her own film and that is being delayed by Covid.
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At least it wasn't a huge focal point of the movie, just a bit of an eye rolling moment.

Yeah I'm not sure why they didn't have a movie with Scarlet and Quicksilver first- they felt a little rushed into Ultron, especially since QS died in that movie
 
Endgame, the whole time travel plot could've been a lot better and a lot less confusing if instead of a time heist, the surviving heroes went back in time to stop the snap from happening at all, by getting the stones first before Thanos did. Could've have had that show for example how Thanos got the Power Stone from the Nova Corp, show what happened on Xandar prior to the start of Infinity War and reverse a few character deaths from happening at all in Infinity War.

And have it the Avengers learn Coulson was alive, that was a real missed opportunity in Age of Ultron to have that be revealed. That happening would've improved the MCU in my opinion.
 
Iron Man 3 was pretty good, but I thought it was a bit odd that it presented disabled soldiers with PTSD as ticking timebombs who should be put down like dogs by the man who profited from the war that made them this way. Like, it's a bit 'hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm' inducing.
 
A Thanos thought: the Snap shouldn't have been treated by him or anyone else as a one 'n' done fix, but as a cataclysmic deed which, worse than being a one-off, would actually become routine unless the universe falls in line with the Mad Titan's edict.

"It will become first accepted, and then unquestioned. There will be the laws of physics, and the writ of Thanos."
 
bluntblade said:
A Thanos thought: the Snap shouldn't have been treated by him or anyone else as a one 'n' done fix, but as a cataclysmic deed which, worse than being a one-off, would actually become routine unless the universe falls in line with the Mad Titan's edict.

"It will become first accepted, and then unquestioned. There will be the laws of physics, and the writ of Thanos."
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Thing is once you do the snap, you are basically crippled for life with no technology or magic that can save you. Unless he was willing to trascend to become a Celestial (the kind that destroys all life with no regard to their concern in an uncaring God kind of way) using the gauntlet.
 
gyrobot said:
Thing is once you do the snap, you are basically crippled for life with no technology or magic that can save you. Unless he was willing to trascend to become a Celestial (the kind that destroys all life with no regard to their concern in an uncaring God kind of way) using the gauntlet.
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I reckon you could find a workaround for that. Heck, maybe that gives the heroes their window - Thanos has to build up the power somehow to make this domination complete, and only before that point can he be taken down.

At the end of the day these are adaptations - you can get a little loose if it serves the story.
 
- This has been beaten to death already but the execution of Spider Man in the MCU is a little meh from me. I feel like they stripped out a lot of the elements and replaced it with milquetoast safe options that made the character flaccid, especially in Far From Home. The end credit consequence presented at Far From Home seems ephemeral compared to the other live action incarnations of the character.

- Edgar Wright Ant Man. I can forgive the first Ant Man but the second Ant Man was really forgettable.

- Natalie Portman in Thor and Thor The Dark World. Really needed a better director to bring out her character's potential instead of sidelining her as a typical romantic interest of Thor. In fact, redo both movies, The Dark World especially.
 
Bork Lazer said:
- Natalie Portman in Thor and Thor The Dark World. Really needed a better director to bring out her character's potential instead of sidelining her as a typical romantic interest of Thor. In fact, redo both movies, The Dark World especially.
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Are you aware of the Patty Jenkins-helmed Thor 2 which we nearly got? The fact that we didn't is speculated to be a big part of why Portman skipped Ragnarok.
 
Probably for the best, imo.

Patty Jenkins Thor 2 would have been great, but two great Wonder Woman movies plus Thor Ragnarok plus Thor 4 with Portman coming back as Female Thor is worth the trade.
 
Someone raised the idea of some defeated villains joining up with Thanos at the end of their films, which I kinda like. Thanos' henchmen should definitely have had a bit more menace and personality to them. I wanted more sense of these guys having a real allegiance to the big purple, and only Ebony Maw brings that plus he's the first to be polished off.
 
bluntblade said:
Someone raised the idea of some defeated villains joining up with Thanos at the end of their films, which I kinda like. Thanos' henchmen should definitely have had a bit more menace and personality to them. I wanted more sense of these guys having a real allegiance to the big purple, and only Ebony Maw brings that plus he's the first to be polished off.
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That was me actually, I was the first one to openly ask why Thanos didn't got villains that would had been defeated by their nemesis to come help him.

And now when you come to think about it, there is one person thankful for the snap and that would be Zemo, why else would he choose the purple balaclava as a tribute to how one man can have a rippling effect on the universe?
 
Time to dust this off, I guess.

Jcogginsa said:
I feel like the "Stark forces everyone else to pay for his mistake" is a very disengenous reading of the film. I'm pretty sure the intent is supposed to be "Stark's mistakes in Age of Ultron way so much on him that he over corrects in the other direction"
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That's a fair reading, but then they don't drill down into that stuff like they could. No one calls Tony on that hypocrisy. They just kinda go "both sides have a point I guess" and then it becomes about Bucky, and Tony's daddy issues.
 
I don't want to sound like some bitter comic purist but the biggest issue with Thanos in the MCU is that he wasn't really Thanos and the infinitely gauntlet wasn't really the infinity gauntlet. His whole crazed Malthusianism angle was clearly a late addition as evidenced by the post credits sting of the original Avengers being a total red herring as was his gauntlet being in Thor but I digress. The concept is fine but it really doesn't fit the character and the decades of characterization from writers like Jim Starlin, likewise turning the infinity gauntlet into a one and done wish machine is very... not how it works in its original story which combined raises the question of why Thanos? I would argue that Galactus fits better if you want to go for a "Destroys life for an esoteric cosmic reason." angle and Kang works better as both an OG Avengers enemy and a time travel villain.
 
Alex said:
I don't want to sound like some bitter comic purist but the biggest issue with Thanos in the MCU is that he wasn't really Thanos and the infinitely gauntlet wasn't really the infinity gauntlet. His whole crazed Malthusianism angle was clearly a late addition as evidenced by the post credits sting of the original Avengers being a total red herring as was his gauntlet being in Thor but I digress. The concept is fine but it really doesn't fit the character and the decades of characterization from writers like Jim Starlin, likewise turning the infinity gauntlet into a one and done wish machine is very... not how it works in its original story which combined raises the question of why Thanos? I would argue that Galactus fits better if you want to go for a "Destroys life for an esoteric cosmic reason." angle and Kang works better as both an OG Avengers enemy and a time travel villain.
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They could explored it with Thanos being offered the chance to become a Celestial but choose not to, being content with the outcome he chose since he is basically wielding the power of a dead Celestial as the aspirants like Eson did.

We already seen how impersonal and uncaring Celestial are through Ego, weaving the same same sob story to every woman about how much he loved them only to use their child as batteries for god knows how long. If he had a conversation with a Celestial he would realize what took on this mad quest was because of them and they would gloat about having a madman do all their bloody work and once you become one of us, wiping out galaxies on a whim is going to be easy.
 
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Gyrfalcon said:
- Actually threatening villains. This isn't just a matter of villains being scary or committing especially sinister acts. It's more the overall problem that many of them don't really feel like that much of a threat to the hero. Red Skull, Malekith, Whiplash (except for the racetrack scene), Ultron, Killian, Ronan, Yellowjacket, all of them and more have this problem. Usually it came down to the villains just not getting that much screentime to explor theirn plans and motivation, but some of it is that many of them seem to be on the backfoot for most of the movie and are defeated relatively easily.
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Your "on the back foot" remark isn't one I'd really considered before, but with the 2017 Spider-man game fresh in my mind, I'm inclined to agree. Because that game brought it home to me that MCU villains tend to just be the villain of this one movie. There's no history, they tend to just pop up or even get their powers during the film, sometimes after the hero. It would be nice for some of the Avengers to actually have a nemesis.
 
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