Skip all Thor movies that aren’t Thor Ragnarok for maximum life happiness
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I love the first Captain America. It establishes the character in the current universe in a way you never could have gotten without that film. It also establishes much of Marvel’s historical canon all at the same time. It’s also got the most beautiful woman in the world as his love interest, who got a fantastic TV show of her own that I adored. It’s totally a period movie and yet, it’s a comic book hero movie in a way that I don’t think anything before it had ever done.
I’m still hoping that some day The Red Skull will return and I’ve been pleasantly surprised over and over again as those characters and Hydra have reared their heads in the films and on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D as well, which by the way is in its fifth incredible season.
Cap is often misunderstood as a character IMO. People want to just write him off as a boy scout, but that’s the point! He’s a man with real principles and strong character and that’s what creates his conflict with our modern world. He’s real social justice personified, representing all that’s good in America… or at least was good… until 2016 rolled around…
Here is a plot summary for Thor 1:
Thor is a bratty god. His dad gets pissed. He goes to earth and drops a coffee cup and maybe kisses Natalie Portman a little. An old guy turns evil and his brother betrays him and then everyone fights a lava robot. Thor learns to be slightly less bratty, but his brother is still a wangdick.
edit: old guy turns evil might actually be a more interesting plot thread from The Avengers that I mistakenly thought slightly improved Thor 1. I don’t give enough of a shit to check.
Plot summary for Thor 2:
For some reason Natalie Portman gets lost in magic space and wakes up a red cloud that people who call themselves Elves but don’t look like Elves really want. Thor and his brother team up because maybe he is slightly less of a dick and they beat the not-Elf Elves but then his brother dies BUT HE DOESN’T. No one is really sure if Natalie Portman gets rescued or not.
BOOM: you’re ready for Thor: Ragnarok, AKA, the best superhero movie ever.
That’s not my problem with Cap, I need to mention. Cap works as a Boy Scout, but mostly in the context of the other, present day characters in the subsequent films. In the first movie, he really doesn’t stand out enough and he’s given very little to do. And then when he finally does get into the action towards the end, it’s just a big CG action fest that Marvel movies seem to be contractually obligated to end their movies with.
I’d say thanks for the summary of Thor 2 except I fell asleep halfway through reading it so I’ll just continue with my not watching that movie.
It amazes me how little of that movie stands out in my mind at all. I’m not completely sure I didn’t just dream it up.
I can see this expanding into a wide product line of Marvel Penbladopsis.
OK ive got one more thing to say about the MCU and then I’ll release my stranglehold on the discussion for reals:
I like the superheroes in these movies, I just don’t know that I like them enough to watch a whole movie about them individually. That’s why the first Avengers movie was a bit of a revelation to me, we got to see these guys interacting and being all super heroic together and just when we start getting bored with one, there’s two more over here to watch!
And I think Marvel figured this out pretty quickly because darn near every MCU movie afterward was a kind of mini-Avengers movie. Winter Soldier had Cap, Black Widow and Falcon. They added War Machine back to the Iron Man movies. The Guardians of the Galaxy might as well be Avengers In Space!!! The whole team dynamic adds chemistry and helps patch up story bits that might lag a bit if we just saw one person doing stuff. I think so, anyway.
Yeah, Cap 3: Civil War could’ve just been called Avengers 2.5.
Thor was horrible. I rewatched both prior to watching the digital release of Ragnarok. The original was fine. I started cursing when Natalie Portman showed up in 2 - I had forgotten how much her and her annoying friend were in the movie. Add to that the lame professor and the intern - sheesh, so bad.
Thor one was okay. Spoiled child learns the meaning of being responsible and becomes world savior. But the second movie was pretty meh.
I don’t think the first Avengers movies work as well if we are not already introduced to their characters twerks. Not having a comic book background would have left most wondering who and what they were watching.
Chris Evans twerking? I’ll be in my bunk.
You and my wife. :)
My biggest issue is so much centering around Bucky. I don’t know who Bucky is, and I frankly don’t give a shit. He seems to be the unexplained lynchpin to a lot of things, and “guy with strong metal arm and stringy hair that needs washing” just does absolutely nothing for me as far as awesome superhero powers go.
I’d say about 60% of the people I know who watched The Avengers did not watch a single origin movie at all when they first saw it. It introduces, minimally, the characters well enough to actually start there. That was the beauty about Avengers… you could actually start with that movie and enjoy it.
He’s Steve’s childhood friend. He thought he watched him die on the train years before and then he shows up as a Hydra super assassin with a metal arm. Obviously Steve doesn’t believe that he could be evil like that and we know he’s programmed by Hydra (the Soviets in the books…), saved obviously many years before for their own purposes and used by them. Steve is willing to give his own life for the guy because again, he’s his childhood best friend!
His super powers are similar to Cap’s. He’s got super soldier serum in him but he also has the prosthetic arm, obviously, and was wrecked mentally by all that was done to him and all they made him do. I think he’s a fantastic character and one of the best “brought back to life” turns that has been done in the comics as well as in the films.
Thor’s first movie wasn’t even an origin story, it was just, hey, here you go, god of thunder, boom! I’m still not really clear if he’s an actual Norse god or some kind of alien.
Well he’s a god… not like they were going to start with when he was born. I define Origin story as a story that introduces the character, their powers and basically, loosely, where they fit in the verse.
Yes45
Yeah, but he was god of thunder at the beginning and he was god of thunder at the end. Not so much in the middle, and maybe a little less cocky by the end, but not a whole lot of arc there. I guess it’s nice he got his hammer back and all that, but not much really happened.