Big budget, “eye candy” singleplayer games have hit a point in improved fidelity and quality of gameplay where, for many of them, it may be time to double down on expansions over sequels.
Read more »I recently watched the first season of an extremely popular HBO show, but I didn’t enjoy it very much. It’s not the first time this has happened. This made me notice a dimension of visual storytelling that I’ve never considered before.
I think we can put stories into two buckets:
It’s probably more of a gradient if we really think about it, but hear me out.
Read more »Of the MCU’s first three Phases, the third one is not only the longest, but also the most ambitious by far.
Arguably, it’s more ambitious than Phases Four and Five. I say it’s arguable for a very specific reason. David Gauthier of the They’re Just Movies podcast once pointed out that the MCU doesn’t just make more movies per Phase; they push the boundaries of genre and style in their movies in each successive Phase. This forever changed how I view the MCU, because he was 100% right. Think about Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy in Phase Two. Unfortunately, I don’t remember which of their MCU episodes they discussed this in. If I come across it again, I’ll link it here with a timestamp.
Anyway, this would imply that Phases Four and Five must be more experimental and ambitious. I can see arguments on both sides.
Marvel Studios are now making more and more streaming-exclusive content that is gradually weaving in and out of their feature films. They’re expanding their genres, tone, and casting beyond anything we’ve seen thus far. They’re leaning into the style of storytelling that radiates outwards from tentpole content, in every direction. Think teamups leading to spinoffs with narrower appeal, such as Avengers: Endgame to Loki. We’ve seen this type of storytelling before - not in mainstream cinema - but in comics. They don’t seem to be worried about alienating an audience they held captive, one that cared about every single new release. In exchange, they are trying to garner a more diverse audience with relatively niche interests. Compare: She-Hulk, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ms Marvel, Moon Knight.
On the other hand, Phase Three’s sheer ambition and scale completely eclipses Phases One and Two by a huge margin. Building up a 10 year cinematic universe to such an incredible climax, actually pulling it off with broad cultural impact, the first time, makes it particularly commendable. I still see critic reviews and Reddit comments alike compare new MCU releases with Infinity War and Endgame, so many years after they released. In a way, the ambition and sheer success of Phase Three’s climax may have set the bar way too high for Marvel Studios themselves to compete with.
Read more »Some of Phase Two deals with the fallout of The Avengers. Obviously due to budget reasons, there’s a focus on solo adventures once again, but with plenty of references implying the Avengers’ existence off-screen.
Popular opinion seems to be that Phases Four and Five (ongoing at the time of this writing) feel directionless. If you ask me, this isn’t new. Phase Two has solo adventures tugging at the shared story in all directions. Minor tone and character motivation inconsistencies creep in and start wearing down the verisimilitude of the universe (more on this later).
However, I’ll concede that the tight focus on a small, core set of characters makes the chaos feel much more purposeful than the broad focus on new character introductions in Phases Four and Five.
Read more »Phase One turned out a lot more enjoyable than I expected, viewing from a post-Endgame, 2020s lens.
These are genuinely fun movies, with some solid writing, and a lot more interconnections than early-to-mid-teens-unaware-of-the-MCU-me could have possibly noticed. I guess Marvel Studios were pretty confident, pretty early on, and started sowing the seeds for an interconnected universe right from the first couple of movies.
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