re: Guys, the reason Marvel is failing...it's too dense

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They neutered his rage and then made she hulk some dumb woke bitch. Worst possible usage of those two characters.

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There are some really dark Hulk stories that would KILL as movies. Maybe the Kang stuff forces them to pivot to Maestro or something cool

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Hulk is hamstrung by the rights issues)

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What are the issues with Hulk? Is it like Sony with Spiderman? What are the limits?

Part of the reason Marvel is failing is because they killed off all of the characters people actually care about instead of recasting them and are replacing them with these B and C tier characters. People like Iron Man and Captain America. Nobody gives a shite about Captain Marvel or Black Panther’s insufferable little sister.

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kingbob

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A top 10 poster on this site. You consistently have a lot of good takes on a lot of different subjects.

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Marvel is failing is because they killed off all of the characters people actually care about instead of recasting them and are replacing them with these B and C tier characters.

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The issue isn’t the characters. Outside of Cpt America and arguably Hulk, the Avengers were ALL B and C tier characters. People didn’t care about Iron Man because it was Iron Man. They cared because Fiege wrote a great script, Iron Man 1 was a great movie, and Robert Downey Jr created an iconic cinema character from the “pile of scraps” he had to work with. Kevin Fiege and Downey made Iron Man a star. Iron Man absolutely WAS NOT a star that would drive people to the theater on name alone.

Thor was not a star. Chris Hemsworth and Taika Waititi made him a star. Chris had the charisma to make people care about Thor. There is NO EXCUSE for Thor: Love & Thunder being bad.

Same thing with Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye.

Marvel turned obscure characters into gold because they didn’t have the rights to popular characters like the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, and the X-Men. They have access to those now.

The problem isn’t, “they killed off all of the star characters”. No, it’s that they failed to properly cast, write, and direct the replacement characters. Captain Marvel shouldn’t suck. The writing, acting, and directing sucks even though I have seen Brie Larson act her arse off and be incredibly charismatic in many many movies. That tells me the problem lies with those writing and directing the stories.

Shang Chi has an extremely charismatic lead with great comedic timing. Watching the first 30 minutes of that movie, and it seems like an absolute slam dunk. Then, the bad writing kicks in, and neuters the film, and we never see him be relevant again.

Ant Man is not a star character, but Paul Rudd is a mega star. What do they do? Neuter him in his own movies, and surround him with one of the worst scripts and visuals imaginable for Ant Man 3.

Wanda as a villain, could have worked really well, but even that fun premise completely ruined by mediocre writing.

Anthony Mackey as Falcon/Cpt America teaming up with Bucky, should be a great premise. Great actors, terrible script.

Don’t even get me started on Black Panther trying to replace Chadwick Bozeman with his annoying little sister, when Michael B. Jordan is RIGHT THERE! They set it up by having the villain win the moral argument in the first one. Show that Killmonger paid for his mistakes and learned from them. Then, make the movie about him earning the right to be king rather than trying to take the easy way and steal it. That would be a powerful message of redemption with a charismatic lead actor that people could go from hating to rooting for with some solid writing.


It’s the writing that killed phase four, not the obscure characters or even bad casting much of the time (with some GLARING exceptions). It’s mostly bad writing that has caused Marvel’s hit factory to completely collapse.

If they could remember how to write coherent stories rather than formulate everything around pre-rendered visuals and nonsense PC rules, they have the tools to fix this. They have The X-Men and Fantastic Four at their disposal. They have some really talented actors being poorly utilized, but they’re there. They need to fix what’s wrong in the writing room.

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Don’t even get me started on Black Panther trying to replace Chadwick Bozeman with his annoying little sister, when Michael B. Jordan is RIGHT THERE! They set it up by having the villain win the moral argument in the first one. Show that Killmonger paid for his mistakes and learned from them. Then, make the movie about him earning the right to be king rather than trying to take the easy way and steal it. That would be a powerful message of redemption with a charismatic lead actor that people could go from hating to rooting for with some solid writing

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This is an excellent idea, and I otherwise wouldn't have cared less about the Black Panther character. I'd have watched this.

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Okay, name one instance where any of the following characters lost a fight, a logical argument, or had to be rescued by a male character because they lacked the skills to rescue themselves:

Rey
Valkyrie
Carol Danvers
The Wasp

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I'll give you Rey because I haven't watched her movies since seeing them in the theater and I'm not researching through those crap stories. She had a three film character arc so I wouldn't think that it would take her that long to reach her goal if her story had zero setbacks.

Valkyrie's entire origin is based on her losing so badly that she abandoned Asgard and became a villain (she sold Hulk into slavery).

Carol Danvers got the tampons beat out of her in Endgame.

The Wasp, Ant-Man, and Hank Pym are all captured by Yellowjacket. Scott is the one who uses his Giant-Man devices to break free and turn the tables on the bad guys.

Again, they Mary Sued these characters to death (though Wasp in the comics is more valuable as a leader than a team member). But when people talk in absolutes, it's usually an opinion and not strict evidence.

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And, to milk that cow even further, they could have had Phase 4 or whatever be an expansion of the First Act of Endgame. Show the supers dealing with the aftermath of the Snap.

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It really is a shame they haven't done more with this lost period of time.

Good movies start with a good story, then good acting, visuals and somewhere down the line, special effects.

Marvel started out right and then inverted that recipe. They aren't alone. I suspect a lot of it has to do with meritocracy taking a back seat to other considerations and the best aren't writing the screenplays anymore or handling the photography or playing the parts. Add into that the need to bring in flavor of the month directors like Taika Waititi who admit they couldn't care less about the characters or story and you end up with the movies Marvel has made of late.

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Marvel died when Disney took over. They are trying to make their money back by putting out infinite movies. No matter if they are bad or good. Doing the same thing with Star Wars. It's just too much. Oversaturation of the product

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While the incessant wokeism is a big issue, this is the biggest driver of the suck. I’m a big believer in capitalism but its biggest weakness is the continuous belief that more is better. It’s an insatiable appetite hardwired to deliver ever increasing returns for shareholders.

But more is not always better. More can more than people want - especially if you sacrifice quality for quantity thus cheapening the experience.

This is true of just about everything whether it is movies, sandwich shops, or coffee stands.

Remember when Starbucks had about ten things on the menu and the coffee was good. Now it has endless things with seasonal variations and a lot of it is shite. Some of it isn’t even coffee. Same thing here.