I've only seen the first episode so far and it is only meh at this point. We'll see where it goes from here.
Marvel Cinematic Universe
- Thread starter Triggermv
- Start date
I've only seen the first episode so far and it is only meh at this point. We'll see where it goes from here.
I watched the available ones lastnight. Dont love the animation style but will stick with it. Curious what villains they bring in. Ive never seen that origin for the spider bite done either. Different and odd.
Wow, I had the exact opposite reaction. Thought the first episode was one of the best Spider-man introductions in the last couple of decades. Old school vibe updated to modern era. Dipped down on the second as the introduction of certain characters felt a bit rushed, but I can see why they did it. Going to lead to some interesting interactions and changes from traditional canon.
Why? It's likely just a version where Shalla-Bal became the Surfer instead of or in addition to Norrin Rad. Pretty sure it's happened in the comics.
Fantastic Four is looking far better than the next Captain America movie. I have pretty low expectations for that one.
Stupid question alert...How do we know it is a female Silver Surfer? I didn't see anything about that in the trailer.
They cast it already. You can see it.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) - Full cast & crew - IMDb
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) - Cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.
www.imdb.com
It’s really good if you ever read comics. Animated that way and they even throw panels in there sometimes. I’m really digging it.
I’m kind of excited for that one. And it’s mostly because it’s set in a different universe in the 60’s or whatever. Something different. Anthony Mackie Cap is more of the same and I’m just not interested.
It’s unfortunately still extremely popular to sh*t on Marvel movies, as it will continue to generate clicks and engagement. Thus, the “reviews” are already written, and they will be negative, and you will continue to see the same headlines. This movie will “continue Marvel’s downfall!” and be yet another miss, per the headlines. My new favorite criticism is - because Marvel had a couple Covid projects where the CGI wasn’t up to their standard (still in most cases absolutely fine/normal), now all of a sudden ALL their CGI is terrible and somehow ‘worse’ than it used to me. And the color palatte/balance/grading is just awful now all of a sudden. In every project. LOL really!?
Very predictable what the (very inauthentic) reaction will be to these new movies, especially the one coming out next week, and I didn’t even mention that Captain America is black now…
And none of this is to say that Marvel doesn’t deserve some criticism. I still can’t believe they even released Secret Invasion…
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Marvel deserves all the criticism it’s received IMO.
I don’t care about the CGI, it’s fine. The characters and stories are not quality.
It's hard to get too excited when they really disappointed me with the Falcon and the Winter Soldier series. I was really excited for that one only for it to turn out to be a cut-up edited incoherent mess.
Oh trust me, I've been whining about bad Marvel CGI on this very thread too many times to count long before it was popular to do so. It's kind of my thing at this point (check the tape), but I'm a super visual person when it comes to any movies. In fact, I'd say the movie I've griped the most about its atrocious CGI was Black Panther, particularly in the last fight scene. I still think it has the worst CGI of any MCU movie.
Let's not forget about forever griping about MCU music scores, outside of the few exceptions. That also has kind of been my jam on here.
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Yeah Black Panther did have some odd CGI, didn't it? Such an awesome movie too, that part was a bummer. It must be something about 'cats' that is hard to tackle with computer effects. Even in Endgame, the BP parts were a bit 'computery'.
I thought the visuals were awesome in Wakanda Forever. Some didn't like bits and pieces but I thought they came out pretty good. That first scene was rough emotionally... Chadwick my goodness, what a loss
I really liked FATWS (but I am a sucker for anything with the shield in it). What did you not like about it? Specifically, what was incoherent? I know some folks didn't care for the Carly M. arc. I thought it was fine, and it made sense to wrap it up in the last episode. Zemo was great. I loved the mini arc of Bucky and his challenges figuring out where he fits in and how the hell he can even attempt to deal with past trauma - the flashback scenes of him getting "freed" from his brainwashing in Wakanda were impressive acting. That got me.
Just bit off more than they could chew.
Power Broker arc and flag smasher arc were both potentially interesting but both felt half done. Made both villains less compelling. I can’t help but think they could have made a really interesting show with Isiah Bradley and John Walker.
That said they’ve bitten off more than they could chew on all of these series so it’s nothing personal on this one.
It wasn't that it was all bad in FATWS for me, as there were some parts I actually really enjoyed from the series, namely the opening action sequence, the Isaiah Bradley stuff, and the John Walker storyline. Where it completely fell flat was the whole Carly/Flagsmasher storyline you mentioned (the main storyline), the slow bogued-down boat/bank scenes, and the ending preachy monologue that just kind of fell somewhat flat. As for the whole flagsmasher storyline, you can find youtube videos showing all the weird ADR (automated dialogue replacement) cuts they made throughout the movie where it is clear they pretty much COMPLETELY changed the whole storyline in post with edits and reshoots. If I remember right, rumor has it the whole storyline was completely different and centered around some type of vaccine I believe, but due to political climate at the time in America, they decided to overhaul everything last minute to stay out of that mess. Hard to tell how true that is or not, but I could totally tell throughout my watch that something weird was going on that was jarring and didn't make sense. So, in the end, I ended up feeling like the series had a poorly written script, but I don't know how much of that was due to poor writing and how much was due to the last minute storyline changes. My guesses it was somewhat both. Sorry for the long answer, but like I said, I was really excited for this series only for me to walk away somewhat disappointed. I also recognize I was somewhat set up for disappointment after how much I LOVED Wandavision, and then was totally jacked after that first action-packed FATWS episode, only for it to go downhill from there.
So, I have listened to a few pods from people I trust that generally like super hero stuff and man they are trashing this movie.
Honestly I'm not somebody who is ready to kick dirt on the MCU. When I was a kid I got a paper route solely to buy comics, almost all Marvel. I love this stuff. But they have got to get it together.
For the record I will be watching this, I have an 8 year old that we go to all of these movies. It's been literally YEARS since I have seen something from them that I think is actually good start to finish.
Honestly I'm not somebody who is ready to kick dirt on the MCU. When I was a kid I got a paper route solely to buy comics, almost all Marvel. I love this stuff. But they have got to get it together.
For the record I will be watching this, I have an 8 year old that we go to all of these movies. It's been literally YEARS since I have seen something from them that I think is actually good start to finish.
Thanks for the detailed response.
Very interesting on the ADR. My wife watched it originally and then did a full re-watch recently, and did not at all notice any weird ADR issues. Nothing odd or weirdly stitched together, in our opinion. Of course most of the Marvel TV shows (at least initially) did struggle with the concept of "episode" viewing, often filming "movies" and cutting them up into TV series as for some reason they steered away from a standard showrunner driven model, which doesn't always work well. I follow 3 - 4 YouTube channels closely that do Marvel breakdown videos (several of which are not all that positive towards Marvel) and I do not recall any mention of extensive ADR use or re-shoots regarding FATWS. To be fair, all of these Marvel shows and movies (yes - even phases 1 - 4) have gone through re-writes and re-shoots, the absolute worst of which are examples like Secret Invasion and Madam Web (well, anything Sony is mostly just embarrassing and terrible).
There was just SO many positives from FATWS. One I keep going back to is Zemo - what a fun re-introduction and really hope they are setting him up for something down the road (holding out hope for example that he's got a place in the Thunderbolts* - particularly if they can get him interacting with Bucky again). Was the final speech a bit cheesy? Sure, but that's Sam's character. He's not a super solider, so he has to use words and persuasion. It's been in his character's DNA since he was introduced when they showed him as a counselor for vets.
And on that note, I felt that theme came through again (fairly well) in Captain America 4, which I saw last night. No doubt the fun-haters and critics will use it to continue to pile on Marvel. And yeah, we know this movie went through extensive re-writes and re-shoots. But I still enjoyed it. Solid 6/7 out of 10 for me. And as a diehard fan, I find it completely acceptable for Marvel movies to be solid 6/7's. There were plenty of early Phase 1 - 3/4 movies that weren't even this good, but it wasn't as popular to sh*t on Marvel back then, so you didn't hear about it as much. And honestly, if Twitter wasn't constantly b*tching about Captain America 4 going through extensive re-writes and re-shoots, I likely wouldn't have been on hyper alert for it, and maybe would have enjoyed the movie a little more. Instead, I was constantly listening for each quote and cutaway for "post production changes". That's my own fault. But again, overall, another fun time at the movie and excited to watch it with my kids when its out on digital.
Last thing - I thought the CGI was fantastic. If anyone walks out of that movie b*thing about CGI or color grading or other dumb sh*t that people are just learning the words to and trying to act cool, I am convinced they won't find any CGI acceptable going forward.
