The Marvels (2023)

[Cobalt Stargazer]

17 hours ago, rmontro said:

The early Marvel movies did not give off the idea that they were pushing politics.

Captain America literally fought Nazis.

[Raja]

33 minutes ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Captain America literally fought Nazis.

I thought that was the one issue everyone agreed with? So outside of today's social wars and fighting for political representation 

But to be fair they presented Hydra as worse than Nazis in Captain America: First Avenger,  it took an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D bit, where the  dialog called Hydra actual "Nazis"

[rmontro]

3 hours ago, Raja said:

I thought that was the one issue everyone agreed with? So outside of today's social wars and fighting for political representation 

Yeah, fighting Nazis and terrorism are hardly political hot button issues.  Although I guess there are more people in the US today who support terrorism than I would have thought.

But whatever, some people want the politics in their movies.  Got it.  I do not.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, rmontro said:

But whatever, some people want the politics in their movies.  Got it.  I do not.

I wouldn’t say I want politics in my movies but I want characters to be representative of real life experiences someone of their sex and gender would deal with. And unfortunately that often means touching on real world hot button issues. 

Although, I found The Marvels didn’t focus political or social issues much at all. The Skrull refugees were shuttled off to New Asgard in a way that completely glosses over the refugee issues set up in other projects. The singing planet that lost its ocean was even mentioned again. Hala got its sun restored.

Monica, Kamala and Carol weren’t in situations where they were it made sense for them to be impacted by racism or sexism. I appreciated that about the movie as much as I appreciated Captain Marvel for showing Carol rising above the oppressive elements. 

[tv echo]

[Anduin]

It's a really fun movie! Don't try to think about it too hard, just let it roll.

[tv echo]

[PurpleTentacle]

This movie was a bit of a mess. With all the reshoots not that suprising.

First reshoot mess is right at the beginning, they all switch places, across the galaxy, next scene they are all in their original positions again, but not through switching. Somehow they just flew? Especially with Kamala it's really not clear how that happened.

So Carol keeps messing up. First she destroyed Hala, then she sabotaged the peace talks. Good going there. Not the best start if they want to make her sympathetic.

But speaking of, how does destroying a computer kill a sun and how does that deplete the atmosphere and oceans of a planet? Is the movie ever going to explain that? Guess not. Details the entire plot hinges on are apparently not important. Also what should have actually happened was that the planet and everybody on it should have frozen, but apparently that was not a problem.

I guess they needed to nerf Carol's powers somehow, after she just flew through space ships like they were paper in the last movie. They did it in two ways. First having her switch with the others, second having the bangle absorb her powers. You'd think though maybe they would have called in a super hero who didn't have powers the bangle could easily absorb, once the earth was in danger? I guess they are down a few, but what are Dr. Strange, Thor or the Guardians doing right now that is so damn important? Or for that matter Daenerys Targaryen G'iah. Isn't earth her home now and does she not have all the super powers?

Anyway, at the end Carol is back to igniting suns. So a third movie is going to be hard pressed to justify why she doesn't just blast the villain to kingdom come. Maybe best to retire the character. Speaking of reigniting a sun, Carol never thought of rectifying her mistake and asking Fury and all the scientist he has at his beck and call how one could do that in all those years? So she let billions of people suffer for decades, for no reason? Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. (/Jake Peralta) Because she would have been told that she can just do it, right? I think out of universe, this was also a reshoot and in the original version she needed a bangle to do it. Because Kamala suddenly and without explaination, comes out of the ship without one of the bangles. That bangle is then worn in the final scenes by Carol. Again, without explaination. But Carol isn't wearing the bangle when she reignites the sun. So the second bangle is just somewhere in limbo during that time. Nobody has it. I guess the CGI was done after the script was changed and the reshoots. But then maybe they should have also changed who wore the bangle in the final scenes. That should be doable without having to reshoot the scenes nowadays... Well maybe not if you overwork your CGI artists regularly and they don't even have time to finish the CGI that is absolutely necessary...

Speaking of the ending, that was a mess. So why did the big bad explode? I thought that was only a risk when you used one of the bangles alone and overcharged it? At the end she didn't use her hammer to overcharge them and she had both. That should have just worked, shouldn't it? And why did it suddenly rip a hole into another universe? That was never an established power before. That was nothing the big bad tried to do. There doesn't seem to be any sense in it. Also does that universe now have to deal with the "incursion"-bullshit, that was established in multiverse of madness? Did Monica just kill that universe? Also why did she have to stay on that side in the first place? Seems like you could have stayed on either side while closing the rift. It's not like she's in a space between universes. Then it would somewhat make sense. Also why was that threeway powers combined stuff shoehorned into there in the first place? Before it was established that the two bangles together could basically shape spacetime at will, them having created the wormhole network.

Also I was under the impression, that the bangle had more to do with Kamala's Djin ancestry rather than cosmic stuff. A bit of a clunky retcon...

All the workers on SABER now need years of therapy after having been eaten by tentacle monsters. But I guess it's better than being dead. Do you not need to breathe in there though? Is it some kind of stasis?

I figured out the eggs were Goose's right away, after remembering that Kamala's mother had called her fat. Everybody who is called fat in movies is pregnant. All the tentacle kittens were cute and fun.

Anyway, I liked the ideas here. I liked the three main characters, their chemistry and interactions and as always I love Kamala. She is just such a loveable nerd. I also liked the tone it was going for. Not too serious, not too whacky (Thor Love and Thunder went a bit too whacky). But overall this movie is a big mess and I'm glad I didn't schlepp myself to a theater to see it. Weird thing is it didn't have to be. I think most things are fixable, relatively easily. But maybe after all the reshoots nobody had a clear view of the big picture anymore or maybe they didn't want to throw even more good money after bad...

Edited January 16 by PurpleTentacle

[PurpleTentacle]

On 11/12/2023 at 9:55 AM, arc said:

My other science nitpick is treating interstellar distances -- or intergalactic!!! -- as so meaningless that everything more or less happens at the same time. Hell, Carol has a live audio call with Fury from many light years away. Again, I know this happens a lot in genre fiction and in the MCU.

They have FTL travel and communication through the cosmic hexagonal wormhole network that was created with the bangles. It's fine. That is just something we have to give to scifi movies. There are a lot of other problems in this movie.

On 11/14/2023 at 2:22 PM, Anduin said:

While Kelsey Grammar was doing the voice, Beast's body was apparently CG.

Apparently? That was some horrible uncanny valley. Looked like they didn't get the CG finished in time.

I don't even think they bothered with mo-cap. All his movements seemed so unnatural.

On 11/15/2023 at 3:41 AM, Dani said:

That’s too high an estimate given it’s budget, ~$550 million is more realistic. I’ve seen some people (with a clear agenda) saying the break even point is as high as $900 million. 

The budget after reshoots is much higher than officially reported. Then you have advertising, which granted, due to the strike was lacking and then you have the theaters cuts, which are much bigger internationally than in the US, a fact the studios don't like to talk about. All in all, I think the $700 million are actually realistic.

On the other hand, there is always home video sales. Something that is also rarely talked about. But I don't think this movie can make its money back, ever.

On 11/15/2023 at 6:11 AM, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Brie Larson has an Oscar.

Oscars don't mean that much anymore. Look up who else has an Oscar and what they do now.

On 11/15/2023 at 7:38 PM, shrewd.buddha said:

Marvel Studios pulled a rabbit out the hat with the relatively unknown "Guardians of the Galaxy" - but that had a director who was a super-fan of the material he was given to work with.  Ms. Marvel always seemed like a project that someone else was being assigned to "make happen". 

I mean, before the MCU, all the Marvel characters were pretty unknown. You had Spiderman in the public conciousness, maybe the Hulk and then... nobody.

So Marvel could make that happen for anybody, but they seem to play it too safe nowadays and don't let any enthusiastic director do what they do best.

On 11/15/2023 at 10:13 PM, Sakura12 said:

Captain America didn't get a second solo movie either. He shared his second movie with Black Widow and Bucky. Yet we are going with they didn't trust Brie. They must have really not trusted Chris Evans since his 3rd movie was basically Avengers 2.0.

Well, it was still called "Captain America: The Winter Soldier", this was not called "Captain Marvel: The Marvels".

On 11/15/2023 at 10:13 PM, Sakura12 said:

Everyone is always harder and more critical of actresses over actors. They are allowed to grow old and continue to get younger love interests. But a 34 year old woman is getting up there in years and needs to start playing grandmothers. Eyeroll.

Did Peggy Carter get younger? I mean you might think so when looking at Hayley Atwell, but I don't think that's canonically the case. Neither did Pepper Pots or Jane Foster for that matter.

On 11/20/2023 at 4:29 PM, Dani said:

Two or three years ago it probably wouldn’t have mattered but today the Marvel name worked against this movie. The general perception now is against Marvel movies. In my personal circle Multiverse of Madness and Love and Thunder really damaged the brand. 

I think the last Ant-Man movie damaged it far worse. That was a big yikes, while MoM and LaT were just minor yikes.

I'd say this was actually better than all three, despite its maaaaaaaaaany problems though.

On 11/20/2023 at 7:26 PM, shrewd.buddha said:

Theory #1: Marvel shouldn't hand out movie projects like 'prizes' to directors and writers who don't understand or care about the source material.

Taika Waititi (Love & Thunder) and Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman 1984) gave their iconic comic characters a type of cartoon character treatment.
Long-time comics fans were not pleased. 

Both directors did very well in their first outings. It's just the second that went off the rails and Love and Thunder wasn't even that bad. Just a little too on the silly side.

Also I don't think the director is as much of a problem as the writer (though often they are the same person, nowadays).

On 11/20/2023 at 11:18 PM, Dani said:

Marvel does a pretty good job of taking care of how these women are treated in projects that focus on them, like She-Hulk, WandaVision and The Marvels, but as soon as you return to the male-led projects women repeatedly get screwed over. It’s demoralizing. 

They do? I thought She-Hulk was screwed over in her own show so hard. She is supposed to be a smart as whip lawyer, funny fourth wall breaker and a kickass action hero and she didn't get to show any of it off, because the writers apparently think "legal comedy" means neither legal nor comedy required.

[Raja]

5 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

The budget after reshoots is much higher than officially reported. Then you have advertising, which granted, due to the strike was lacking and then you have the theaters cuts, which are much bigger internationally than in the US, a fact the studios don't like to talk about. All in all, I think the $700 million are actually realistic.

On the other hand, there is always home video sales. Something that is also rarely talked about. But I don't think this movie can make its money back, ever.

And again we are back to the Disney streaming service. Those who are most likely to buy the movie are already getting it through subscription fees. I guess a few will pay Amazon for a loan if given a good enough reason. However the gatekeepers talk of doom would cut into that after market more than it did the box office.

[baldryanr]

3 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

All the workers on SABER now need years of therapy after having been eaten by tentacle monsters. But I guess it's better than being dead. Do you not need to breathe in there though? Is it some kind of stasis?

Half the population vanished into dust only to reappear 5 years later while the other half had to watch it happen and deal with the aftermath.  All of the therapists in the world should already be busy and have no time for people swallowed by cats.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

6 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Oscars don't mean that much anymore. Look up who else has an Oscar and what they do now.

I'm not sure what this means, but it's early here. Larson is also a "serious" actress, since she won the Oscar for Room before she was cast as Carol Danvers, and I thought she was excellent in Lessons In Chemistry on Apple TV. Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Emma Stone and Jennifer Lawrence* (whether anyone thinks she deserved it or not) all have their little gold statues and are still actively pursuing roles. One issue that remains is that franchise work isn't taken particularly seriously, except perhaps as it regards the technical categories (see Angela Bassett being nominated for Wakanda Forever last year but losing to Jamie Lee Curtis). Even RDJ said he feels like his work as Tony Stark was some of the best acting he ever did, but that it will never be given proper appreciation because of the genre, and I see nothing to argue about there.

*I included Stone and Lawrence because of their MCU-adjacent work to keep this mostly on topic, but plenty of actresses have Oscars and are still working, but again, I'm not sure what the initial remark meant.

 

[tv echo]

Marvel Studios' The Marvels | Visual Effects | Behind the Scenes
Marvel Entertainment   Jan 19, 2024

[Kel Varnsen]

Watched it tonight and thought it was ok. Better than Eternals and Ant-Man 3 and maybe Wakanda Forever. But basically what made it gold was the three leads and how well they worked together. But there was some dumb stuff too.

Like did no one really question if it was a good idea to borrow a major plot point from Spaceballs? And I was kind of annoyed that the whole use your powers and you switch places wasn't at all consistent and only happened (good or bad) when the plot required it.

And the Marvel nerd in me really wants to know how Carol starting the Kree civil war lines up with the Kree Empire being at war with Xandar in the first Guardians movie. 

And the super nerd I am is annoyed that the movie ended with a jump point putting the sun at risk, since that was the comic book plot of Avengers: Operation Galactic Storm. So that probably won't happen in a movie.

I liked in the end how Kamala's family were moving into Monica's house but it was weird that she was only wearing one band. I looked it up and it seems Carol was wearing the other. But why not let Kamala keep it since I am not sure Carol needs the power boost.

I did really like Monica's costume she got at water world. And the material things on her sleeves was a cool shout out to the comics.

Edited January 21 by Kel Varnsen

[Raja]

On 1/20/2024 at 7:37 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

I liked in the end how Kamala's family were moving into Monica's house but it was weird that she was only wearing one band. I looked it up and it seems Carol was wearing the other. But why not let Kamala keep it since I am not sure Carol needs the power boost.

I guess the set up is one bangle might activate mutant powers from Ms. Marvel on the 616 world were "mutants" aren't known about at least by the general public yet. Or the bangle can be used in conjunction with the Kree universal weapon but both of them  together would lead to a Captain Marvel level threat.

And Kamala keeps her family heirloom because even if a Kree leader and the Djinn knew about the potential  it held  we are willing to take that risk without Captain Marvel acting like the overlord and seizing it from her.

[Guest]

On 1/20/2024 at 7:37 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

I liked in the end how Kamala's family were moving into Monica's house but it was weird that she was only wearing one band. I looked it up and it seems Carol was wearing the other. But why not let Kamala keep it since I am not sure Carol needs the power boost.

That really needed an explanation and I wonder if there was a deleted scene. My guess would be that both bangles were more power than Kamala was comfortable handling and put her at greater risk. 

 

On 1/16/2024 at 4:41 AM, PurpleTentacle said:

I think the last Ant-Man movie damaged it far worse. That was a big yikes, while MoM and LaT were just minor yikes.

Not in my circle. By the time the last Ant-Man movie came out most of the casual fans I know were already tuned out. They were excited for MoM and LaT but were so underwhelmed that it killed any interest for in Ant-Man 3. 

 

On 1/16/2024 at 4:41 AM, PurpleTentacle said:

They do? I thought She-Hulk was screwed over in her own show so hard. She is supposed to be a smart as whip lawyer, funny fourth wall breaker and a kickass action hero and she didn't get to show any of it off, because the writers apparently think "legal comedy" means neither legal nor comedy required.

I disagree and did think she was a brilliant, funny fourth wall breaker and a kickass action hero. However, I was referring to how it is demoralizing for newer fans who felt represented by Carol and Wanda to then watch women in later projects to not be treated with the same level of care in projects where women aren’t the lead. 

[tv echo]

[Lantern7]

Honest Trailer!

I didn’t think it was that bad. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

[Spartan Girl]

18 minutes ago, Lantern7 said:

Honest Trailer!

I didn’t think it was that bad. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Me neither. I will admit the Spaceballs reference made me laugh though.

[arc]

On 1/20/2024 at 7:37 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

And I was kind of annoyed that the whole use your powers and you switch places wasn't at all consistent and only happened (good or bad) when the plot required it.

It's not when their powers are used, but when they're used at the same time that a switch would occur.

(Which again, brings me back to the quibble I raised months ago in this thread: when people are light years apart, it's really hard to even say when two things occurring are "simultaneous".)

[Cobalt Stargazer]

3 hours ago, arc said:

It's not when their powers are used, but when they're used at the same time that a switch would occur.

(Which again, brings me back to the quibble I raised months ago in this thread: when people are light years apart, it's really hard to even say when two things occurring are "simultaneous".)

There's some speculation that Monica approaching the jump point when she was on comms with Fury, getting close enough to touch it, is what triggered the entanglement, because neither she nor Carol knew Kamala existed despite Kamala's possession of the bangle her grandmother sent her. That the barrier itself was powerful enough to close the distance of light years to nothing and hold the change in place.

[tv echo]

The Marvels will be coming to Disney+ on Feb. 7...

[tv echo]

‘The Marvels’ Was a Box Office Bomb — But It’s Actually the Blueprint for a Better MCU
By Brett White  Feb. 7, 2024
https://decider.com/2024/02/07/the-marvels-needs-to-be-the-blueprint-for-a-new-mcu/ 

Quote

Here’s what The Marvels does extremely well: it takes three characters (Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, and Monica Rambeau) from three MCU properties (the Captain Marvel film and the Ms. Marvel and WandaVision TV shows) and it brings them together — plausibly! — for a fun, frenetic, and fast (by MCU standards) adventure. That’s it. The Marvels succeeds because it doesn’t take on more plot than it can handle, and it lets us catch up with Carol, Monica, and Kamala.
*  *  *
Not only that, it gives us moments that die-hard MCU fans have been waiting for. It succinctly catches casual fans up on the plot threads and then it actually ties them up! The movie travels the same quirky yet sincere trajectory initially charted by one-time franchise outliers Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The Marvels is just a fun ol’ time with some darn good heroes, y’know?

So why did The Marvels bomb? Well, you can partially blame the SAG strike that essentially halted all press for the film. You can also look at the underperformance of all franchise films in 2023, from Mission: Impossible and Indiana Jones to Transformers and superhero movies like The Flash and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. On top of all that, The Marvels is also a victim of the Catch-22 that plagues the MCU right now: the MCU is too overloaded with continuity, but continuity is actually what makes the MCU fun.
*  *  *
However, just like in the good old days of the MCU, The Marvels is issue #2! This movie uses continuity for good — to advance three superheroes’ personal story arcs. And following the classic Marvel Comics ethos which declares that every issue is some reader’s first issue, The Marvels tells a story that rewards the completists while still letting the lapsed, fair weather, or casual viewers in on the fun — because this movie is fun. This is the blueprint, Kevin!

Edited February 7 by tv echo

[tv echo]

[tv echo]

The Marvels | Behind the Powers of The Marvels
Marvel Entertainment   Feb 8, 2024

[Sandman]

On 4/11/2023 at 1:05 PM, Fool to cry said:

Kamala is so adorable.

I thought this multiple times throughout the movie. I finally got around to watching this, and I don't understand why it didn't do well. It was charming and fun, and the stakes were high enough to have me invested in the outcome, and Iman Vellani is adorable. Giving Carol a team, and a family, to play off of brings out the best in Brie Larson's performance. (And if I don't get to see Zenobia Shroff's Muneeba again, I'll be sad.)

Okay, so, having the Fluerkens swallow the evacuees whole was goofy, but it made more sense than 84.3% of Ant Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. (Seriously, someone has to sit me down and explain Kang to me like I'm 5. But, er, not here, obviously.)

On 11/14/2023 at 2:00 AM, Lantern7 said:

Probably for the best . . . though it does put a lot of weight on the shoulders of Ryan and Hugh.

But probably not their feet, hurhur. (See the "Liefeld's" sign in the teaser.)

[Raja]

4 hours ago, Sandman said:

Okay, so, having the Fluerkens swallow the evacuees whole was goofy, but it made more sense than 84.3% of Ant Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. (Seriously, someone has to sit me down and explain Kang to me like I'm 5. But, er, not here, obviously.)

Finding  any single Kang is like Monica Rambeau finding her mother on the other side of the rift but she doesn't know that Wanda Maximoff killed another mother behind another rift in another MCU movie.

[Kel Varnsen]

On 7/7/2024 at 12:20 PM, Sandman said:

thought this multiple times throughout the movie. I finally got around to watching this, and I don't understand why it didn't do well. It was charming and fun, and the stakes were high enough to have me invested in the outcome, and Iman Vellani is adorable. Giving Carol a team, and a family, to play off of brings out the best in Brie Larson's performance. (And if I don't get to see Zenobia Shroff's Muneeba again, I'll be sad.)

The three leads and how they worked together was easily the best part. But there were some other things that didn't work or were working against it. They tried to do a lot for a movie that was only 1 hour and 45 minutes long. Plus the villain was kind of lame. I thought the stuff with Fury on the space station didn't really work, but that could just be the left over stink from Secret Invasion (which probably hurt this movie in general). Plus they completely skipped over Carol taking down the Kree which is like a whole movie worth of story. 

And like others have mentioned the actors strike and not being able to promote the movie probably cost it some money.