My primary problem with the MCU is that it just requires too much of me. It's too interconnected, and those connections often feel like they are just pop culture references rather than having any...
My primary problem with the MCU is that it just requires too much of me. It's too interconnected, and those connections often feel like they are just pop culture references rather than having any real meaning. They are leaning on people who are invested to a nearly obsessive level and forgetting that one of the most important things in a movie are authentic human drama and feelings, but in an increasingly interconnected universe, many of the characters in MCU movies have started to feel more like cardboard cutouts and cameos rather than real people. It's not terribly uncommon for them to show up during an action scene and then make an Irish goodbye soon after.
Perhaps the thing that bugs me the most about this is that they tend to flip flop on that quality from time to time. For instance, Loki actually made me interested in Loki as a character, perhaps slighly more than any of his other appearances. But then Quantumania came around and I couldn't get invested in anyone at all. And in Wandavision I feel that they did a great job of characterizing the secondary characters but the writing for the main characters was so wacky that by the end they didn't seem like real people.
From the damn rooftops. My biggest problem with comic books was always how insanely interconnected everything was, and everyone had an origin story and built up to all of this... blah. It was so...
My primary problem with the MCU is that it just requires too much of me.
From the damn rooftops. My biggest problem with comic books was always how insanely interconnected everything was, and everyone had an origin story and built up to all of this... blah. It was so much.
And now the MCU did the same thing. I think I checked out about the time of Age of Ultron, which I only really watched because I liked James Spader. After that, I watched Guardians of the Galaxy because I heard it was fun and not really connected to anything else, and it was fine but like... christ, there's just so much now.
And they burnt the hell out of me when they screwed over the Netflix Defenders shows, which I genuinely really liked (even Iron Fist).
As a kid, the interconnectedness of the stories felt super cool but also put a strain on my kids-sized budget. I never felt that I truly got the universe and my understanding of the plots was...
As a kid, the interconnectedness of the stories felt super cool but also put a strain on my kids-sized budget. I never felt that I truly got the universe and my understanding of the plots was incomplete. Which was magical in a way, the fact that the universe went over the borders of the page made it feel alive, endless, untameable, and unpredictable. Like real life.
Adults want complete satisfying stories, I'm no different. Sometimes I wish I could be more like how I was as a kid.
I'm clearly the odd one out. I love the sprawling saga of the MCU. I actually wish more shared universes did this, and was kind of bummed when Star Trek's Dominion War in DS9 didn't include more...
I'm clearly the odd one out. I love the sprawling saga of the MCU. I actually wish more shared universes did this, and was kind of bummed when Star Trek's Dominion War in DS9 didn't include more ships and crews we'd already heard of.
I really like it too, but I can understand why some don't. It seems to me like a lot of people have a fear of missing out and try to watch everything and then get burnt out when they realize it's...
I really like it too, but I can understand why some don't.
It seems to me like a lot of people have a fear of missing out and try to watch everything and then get burnt out when they realize it's a ton of content.
I think that with phase four and beyond (earlier if you include the netflix series), they should be treated like the comics where you just watch the stuff that has the characters you care about.
I've watched all of the films, but I've only watched about half of the tv series and I haven't felt like I was missing out on any context for the stuff I did watch.
I've watched all of the official Disney and Sony stuff (except Venom, never liked him), but I can see where different people have different lines. It's like Star Wars. Most people have seen at...
I've watched all of the official Disney and Sony stuff (except Venom, never liked him), but I can see where different people have different lines. It's like Star Wars. Most people have seen at least the original trilogy, some the prequels, some the sequels, some the Star Wars Story movies, some the animated shows, some the Disney Plus shows... but it's all there, if you want a larger picture.
I'm a diehard Marvel fan, but I don't fault anyone who isn't.
You're not the odd one out - there are loads of people who still love MCU stuff, with all the interwoven complexity, including me. I think that I just tend not to comment on posts like this one,...
You're not the odd one out - there are loads of people who still love MCU stuff, with all the interwoven complexity, including me. I think that I just tend not to comment on posts like this one, which tend to be very negative about something I generally enjoy. My thoughts tend towards, "if you don't like it, then talk about something else that you do like". I don't think we actually need essays about media someone used to like but now no longer does, or the ensuing discussion. I think it's obvious that less people like, say, Quantumania than Infinity War, and that's okay, but loads of people still like the MCU and are waiting for more.
Ditto. I understand why people may feel overwhelmed, underwhelmed, and "fatigued" with the MCU but I am not there yet. And after 30+ years of reading the comics without feeling that way, I don't...
Ditto. I understand why people may feel overwhelmed, underwhelmed, and "fatigued" with the MCU but I am not there yet. And after 30+ years of reading the comics without feeling that way, I don't know if I will ever feel it about the shows and movies either. I don't comment much on any MCU related topics anymore though, because the articles about it are almost always negative these days, and the comments (even on trailer topics) are often negative as well, which sets a pretty discouraging tone.
I've been in the same boat about several things, which always makes me wonder if I'm somehow wrong when everybody else is dog piling on something, talking about how bad it is. It can be kind of...
I've been in the same boat about several things, which always makes me wonder if I'm somehow wrong when everybody else is dog piling on something, talking about how bad it is. It can be kind of discouraging, and I've mostly just decided to like what I like and avoid those types of discussion.
I don't feel overwhelmed by it and I've also been a long-time comics fan. But I do feel bored by it now. Most of the new shows and movies have no heart. Fight scenes are boring. Even the actors'...
I don't feel overwhelmed by it and I've also been a long-time comics fan. But I do feel bored by it now. Most of the new shows and movies have no heart. Fight scenes are boring. Even the actors' performances feel a bit phoned in. It's become too big and they're cranking things out too fast to put much care into it and it shows.
My personal impression is that people focus on extraneous discussions when the movies are not good enough. Is "Marvel fatigue" real? Absolutely it is. If the newer movies were stellar, would we be...
My personal impression is that people focus on extraneous discussions when the movies are not good enough. Is "Marvel fatigue" real? Absolutely it is. If the newer movies were stellar, would we be talking about "Marvel fatigue" at all? I don't think so. No one gets tired of excellent movies.
I wouldn't go as far as to say I'm fatigued, but I rarely watch the TV shows. The movies are enough for me.
In general I agree with you, with the exception of the fact that the state of the film industry has reached the point where, if you're a movie buff, and you're sitting out the big franchises...
In general I agree with you, with the exception of the fact that the state of the film industry has reached the point where, if you're a movie buff, and you're sitting out the big franchises because of this... then what's left?
EDIT: (Obviously there are indie cinemas and such, but not everybody has access to those and are stuck with whatever's playing at the multiplex)
That seems like a different problem to me. The state of movie theatres and what they play is a relatively hard one to solve, because it is entwined with the problem of capitalism. Since a cineplex...
That seems like a different problem to me. The state of movie theatres and what they play is a relatively hard one to solve, because it is entwined with the problem of capitalism. Since a cineplex is a business, they have to play movies that are going to sell more tickets; movies that sell more tickets tend to be big franchise movies; big franchise movies are crafted to appeal to a majority of people, and won't necessary appeal to film buffs. This is often solved by having second run or smaller theatres - they appeal to a different clientele, and make their money by showing the movies that you're talking about, but those movies don't get as widely distributed. It would be great if people just made art because art is cool, and we could see the movies we wanted in the formats we wanted to see them because society would be better, but it's just capitalism all the way down, so we have mass market appeal, and then that ties into the issue at hand originally, which is that even having an opinion is monetizable, so two comments ago when I said "I don't think we need these kinds of essays" I was casually sidestepping the fact that people write these essays because they drive interactions and views, and the people who outrageously agree and the people who outrageously disagree can drive outrage together and make clicks, and honestly the whole thing tires me out.
So what's left? I don't know, reinventing society or something. Or realistically, trying to find ways to support second run or independent theatres that show the kinds of movies that you like, but as you said not everyone has easy access, because they tend to be in urban centres, and it's not always easy to get to an urban centre to see a relatively not popular movie in a run down theatre, so maybe it's get a nice TV and an internet connection and pirate what you want to watch, but there's the ethics and irony of effectively "stealing" the content that is hard to get see, because those are the people you probably actually want to give money to instead of Disney / Marvel, and honestly the whole things tired me out again.
So I was looking for some numbers. Marvel released 3 movies in 2022. It is scheduled to launch a total of 5 movies this year. If you don't like superheroes, even one is too much. But I can't...
So I was looking for some numbers.
Marvel released 3 movies in 2022. It is scheduled to launch a total of 5 movies this year.
If you don't like superheroes, even one is too much. But I can't imagine 3 to 5 movies a year being a huge issue in a large industry like the US.
How can 3 to 5 releases a year be enough to impede you or anyone else from watching the movies that you want?
As I wrote, (Emphasis mine.) And the other franchises maybe don't have as tangled a web as Marvel does, but they are also building up the same complexity in their canon.
As I wrote,
if you're a movie buff, and you're sitting out the big franchises because of this... then what's left?
(Emphasis mine.)
And the other franchises maybe don't have as tangled a web as Marvel does, but they are also building up the same complexity in their canon.
My primary problem with the MCU is that it just requires too much of me. It's too interconnected, and those connections often feel like they are just pop culture references rather than having any real meaning. They are leaning on people who are invested to a nearly obsessive level and forgetting that one of the most important things in a movie are authentic human drama and feelings, but in an increasingly interconnected universe, many of the characters in MCU movies have started to feel more like cardboard cutouts and cameos rather than real people. It's not terribly uncommon for them to show up during an action scene and then make an Irish goodbye soon after.
Perhaps the thing that bugs me the most about this is that they tend to flip flop on that quality from time to time. For instance, Loki actually made me interested in Loki as a character, perhaps slighly more than any of his other appearances. But then Quantumania came around and I couldn't get invested in anyone at all. And in Wandavision I feel that they did a great job of characterizing the secondary characters but the writing for the main characters was so wacky that by the end they didn't seem like real people.
From the damn rooftops. My biggest problem with comic books was always how insanely interconnected everything was, and everyone had an origin story and built up to all of this... blah. It was so much.
And now the MCU did the same thing. I think I checked out about the time of Age of Ultron, which I only really watched because I liked James Spader. After that, I watched Guardians of the Galaxy because I heard it was fun and not really connected to anything else, and it was fine but like... christ, there's just so much now.
And they burnt the hell out of me when they screwed over the Netflix Defenders shows, which I genuinely really liked (even Iron Fist).
As a kid, the interconnectedness of the stories felt super cool but also put a strain on my kids-sized budget. I never felt that I truly got the universe and my understanding of the plots was incomplete. Which was magical in a way, the fact that the universe went over the borders of the page made it feel alive, endless, untameable, and unpredictable. Like real life.
Adults want complete satisfying stories, I'm no different. Sometimes I wish I could be more like how I was as a kid.
I'm clearly the odd one out. I love the sprawling saga of the MCU. I actually wish more shared universes did this, and was kind of bummed when Star Trek's Dominion War in DS9 didn't include more ships and crews we'd already heard of.
I really like it too, but I can understand why some don't.
It seems to me like a lot of people have a fear of missing out and try to watch everything and then get burnt out when they realize it's a ton of content.
I think that with phase four and beyond (earlier if you include the netflix series), they should be treated like the comics where you just watch the stuff that has the characters you care about.
I've watched all of the films, but I've only watched about half of the tv series and I haven't felt like I was missing out on any context for the stuff I did watch.
I've watched all of the official Disney and Sony stuff (except Venom, never liked him), but I can see where different people have different lines. It's like Star Wars. Most people have seen at least the original trilogy, some the prequels, some the sequels, some the Star Wars Story movies, some the animated shows, some the Disney Plus shows... but it's all there, if you want a larger picture.
I'm a diehard Marvel fan, but I don't fault anyone who isn't.
You're not the odd one out - there are loads of people who still love MCU stuff, with all the interwoven complexity, including me. I think that I just tend not to comment on posts like this one, which tend to be very negative about something I generally enjoy. My thoughts tend towards, "if you don't like it, then talk about something else that you do like". I don't think we actually need essays about media someone used to like but now no longer does, or the ensuing discussion. I think it's obvious that less people like, say, Quantumania than Infinity War, and that's okay, but loads of people still like the MCU and are waiting for more.
Ditto. I understand why people may feel overwhelmed, underwhelmed, and "fatigued" with the MCU but I am not there yet. And after 30+ years of reading the comics without feeling that way, I don't know if I will ever feel it about the shows and movies either. I don't comment much on any MCU related topics anymore though, because the articles about it are almost always negative these days, and the comments (even on trailer topics) are often negative as well, which sets a pretty discouraging tone.
I've been in the same boat about several things, which always makes me wonder if I'm somehow wrong when everybody else is dog piling on something, talking about how bad it is. It can be kind of discouraging, and I've mostly just decided to like what I like and avoid those types of discussion.
I don't feel overwhelmed by it and I've also been a long-time comics fan. But I do feel bored by it now. Most of the new shows and movies have no heart. Fight scenes are boring. Even the actors' performances feel a bit phoned in. It's become too big and they're cranking things out too fast to put much care into it and it shows.
My personal impression is that people focus on extraneous discussions when the movies are not good enough. Is "Marvel fatigue" real? Absolutely it is. If the newer movies were stellar, would we be talking about "Marvel fatigue" at all? I don't think so. No one gets tired of excellent movies.
I wouldn't go as far as to say I'm fatigued, but I rarely watch the TV shows. The movies are enough for me.
In general I agree with you, with the exception of the fact that the state of the film industry has reached the point where, if you're a movie buff, and you're sitting out the big franchises because of this... then what's left?
EDIT: (Obviously there are indie cinemas and such, but not everybody has access to those and are stuck with whatever's playing at the multiplex)
That seems like a different problem to me. The state of movie theatres and what they play is a relatively hard one to solve, because it is entwined with the problem of capitalism. Since a cineplex is a business, they have to play movies that are going to sell more tickets; movies that sell more tickets tend to be big franchise movies; big franchise movies are crafted to appeal to a majority of people, and won't necessary appeal to film buffs. This is often solved by having second run or smaller theatres - they appeal to a different clientele, and make their money by showing the movies that you're talking about, but those movies don't get as widely distributed. It would be great if people just made art because art is cool, and we could see the movies we wanted in the formats we wanted to see them because society would be better, but it's just capitalism all the way down, so we have mass market appeal, and then that ties into the issue at hand originally, which is that even having an opinion is monetizable, so two comments ago when I said "I don't think we need these kinds of essays" I was casually sidestepping the fact that people write these essays because they drive interactions and views, and the people who outrageously agree and the people who outrageously disagree can drive outrage together and make clicks, and honestly the whole thing tires me out.
So what's left? I don't know, reinventing society or something. Or realistically, trying to find ways to support second run or independent theatres that show the kinds of movies that you like, but as you said not everyone has easy access, because they tend to be in urban centres, and it's not always easy to get to an urban centre to see a relatively not popular movie in a run down theatre, so maybe it's get a nice TV and an internet connection and pirate what you want to watch, but there's the ethics and irony of effectively "stealing" the content that is hard to get see, because those are the people you probably actually want to give money to instead of Disney / Marvel, and honestly the whole things tired me out again.
So I was looking for some numbers.
Marvel released 3 movies in 2022. It is scheduled to launch a total of 5 movies this year.
If you don't like superheroes, even one is too much. But I can't imagine 3 to 5 movies a year being a huge issue in a large industry like the US.
How can 3 to 5 releases a year be enough to impede you or anyone else from watching the movies that you want?
As I wrote,
(Emphasis mine.)
And the other franchises maybe don't have as tangled a web as Marvel does, but they are also building up the same complexity in their canon.