I’m not trying to get into a tit for tat, but what the heck?
This is what you wrote:
Yeah, dude, no sale. Done with your video. No interest in anything you have to say ever. It’s not like She-Hulk was the best thing in Phase 4 but with all the stinkers in Phase 4 to single that out, well fuck you commenter guy.
To me, that seems a bit harsher than needed for “I disagree with this guy’s ranking list.” But hey, you do you.
I think Elon should put this to a Twitter poll.
As I said, it’s a danger of these ranking videos. One ranking that’s way off can throw me as a viewer into a tizzy. It just seemed ridiculous to me and made me question his judgement. Again, if I had an issue regarding any sort of political angle I would have stated it. Also, this has at least as much to do with the other shows/movies that should have been below She-Hulk as the She-Hulk show itself. I feel like Phase 4 had a number of stinkers, all of which were worse than She-Hulk, which I would place in the middle category overall.
Marvel Phase 4 Report Card: Civil War
So the diplomatic play here is to point out that the fact that almost* every movie or show has someone who puts it near the top, and someone who puts it near the bottom. There are some general trends (Loki mostly scores high, with some deviants exceptions) I agree with, and some (Thor scores low, which is wrong and you lot are crazy) I disagree with. But the things most agreed on are clustered in the middle, while the rest tends towards love or hate.
Which is interesting. It speaks to several things, part of it being more deviation from formula and experimentation in genre and tones, part of it seams from the Covid production schedules.
For my part I loved it when they went weird. Fuck yeah the visual and tonal shifting weirdness of multiverses and magic mind control!
Heres my cluster rankings, as told through MCU licensed songs
Immigrants Song
WandaVision
Loki
Hawkeye
Spider-Man No Way Home
Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness
Two movies and two shows that lean all the way into the insanity, and then Hawkeye. So Hawkeye, the oddball here. Which they play on! He’s the straight man in. an insane world. His more grounded story and stakes fit well into the show and his whole schtick just fits.
As for the rest? I absolutely adored both Wanda and Loki. God damn did I like the playing with genre, the whole style and filming technique, and the settings. While the ending of WandaVision was, on the whole, less interesting fighting, there was enough built there with the Darkhold, and the sitcom stylings worked so well for me that its strong. Loki I just loved throughout.
The movies were unabashedly weird, had strong visual styling and creative depictions. Each has some iconic moments, and a level of creativity to them.
Hooked on a Feeling
Ms Marvel
She Hulk
Moon Knight
Black Panther Wakanda Forever
Thor Love and Thunder
Shang Chi
Most of these have some element I really li
element that didn’t fully work (Shang Chi, Ms Marvel), or were generally solid but didn’t hit the highs of others (Moon Knight, She Hulk). I did adore the unabashedly culturally intensive take of Ms Marvel, but the villains just… didn’t quite come together. They were close, it could have been great, but they were too mustache twirling. For a better take on that type of villain see Namor. From a film that would have ranked higher if it had actually removed some things! Sorry Martin Freeman, your entire CIA subset could have been cut and made a better film.
Shang Chi has the best fights in the entire MCU and that counts for a lot. I want to rank higher, but really the whole end fight does nothing for me, aside from the father son fight bits which have a lot of subtler choreography stuff going on. A call and response with the fight between his mother and father I really appreciated.
Welcome to the Jungle (I don’t care if the song is from a movie in the group above, it fits here)
Black Widow
Falcon and Winter Soldier
Werewolf By Night
Nothing wrong with any, per se, just none I have any impetus to watch again. Werewolf see by Night is good, well made and a stylistic treat. So it probably belongs higher, it just isn’t my thing. But I can appreciate the craft.
Falcon and the Winter Soldier was fine, I guess, just never quite hit for me. I think this one was the most hurt by Covid production.
And I will choose to give my thoughts on Black Widow by refusing to comment at all on it. Thats how memorable it was for me.
David Harbor is great though
Generic theme song #3
The Eternals
Just like a random song from the MCU background music would be unidentifiable on its own, none of the dialogue or scenes in this movie stand out in any way.
Also Salma Hayak is not a good actress. Like, at all. Never been impressed with any role, and here she stands out more than anyone and not in a good way
*except Eternals, sorry Tom!
I started to write a ranking and realized that even though I think Phase 4 was pretty weak and the writers have started to not care about character motivation and narrative consistency, I still had fun watching all them and what more should you want?
What If? was the standout for me. Doctor Strange was the dud (though I still enjoyed it.) So far, they haven’t Lucased the MCU and I’m still on board for Phase 5.
Two words: Civil War. This isn’t a new problem.
You’re saying this like offering a ranking of something is a pitfall he should avoid because of what sounds more like a “you” problem. I don’t think you deciding “Fuck this guy!” because you have different preferences is really a reasonable reaction to anything other than Star Wars and pizza.
Eh, perhaps I was a tad harsh to condemn him utterly. But his ranking was terrible!
(To some degree I was mocking myself, a point which some readers appear to have missed.)
Sorry, maybe it didn’t come through as I meant it, but I was trying to say that while at first glance the lack of connection in phase four might seem like a problem, the lack of connection between the films itself wasn’t the issue in the same way you just pointed out (and I tried to), phase one and two films didn’t really tie to each other either.
What phase four missed that one and two had was a big team-up ensemble at the end, and that did disappoint me.
As I think my only previous post in this thread said, we pretty much all have different ideas of what the list should be. Taking exception to one list is kinda harsh, unless the guy claims his is the only true list.
Maybe mocking like sarcasm is hard to do online.
You didn’t think the character motivations in Civil War made sense and were consistent?
I actually thought that was the weakest part of the movie.
#TeamCivilWarMadeSense
Yeah, having read the thread and seen the crazed variance in the rankings I did overreact. B/C you guys are INSANE! Some of those QT3er rankings, I guess, well OK, it’s a free country.
I would say overall that I would rank the phases as follows:
worst to best
Phase 4 - despite being “worst” this is not a terrible phase - I’d give it about a 7 on the true 1 to 10 scale. It’s also the biggest and most variable phase. I give them credit for swinging for the fences with some things but also take away some points for some decisions that I consider to be marketing driven, and also pacing issues with the Disney+ shows.
Phase 2 - the “sophomore phase” with the usual sophomore issues but also lots of good stuff. I’d give it an 8 out of 10. This phase did a lot of work that led to the awesomeness of Phase 3 but also I felt some of its tentpole stuff like Ultron didn’t quite meet the top standards. OTOH it does have Guardians of the Galaxy and my personal favorite MCU movie, Captain America: Winter Soldier.
Phase 1 - a solid start, laying a foundation, with a great Wow! finish in Avengers. A 9 out of 10 in my view. Special shout out to Iron Man I.
Phase 3 - yeah it had a few issues but overall really pulled many things together into a massively excellent finish in Infinity War and Endgame. I love freaking End Game. This phase gets the 10 out of 10 IMO.
Absolutely, unequivocally not, to the point of permanently undermining the two principle characters of the franchise at the time. And then, as an added kick to the groin, they never really bothered to resolve any of it.
Steve Rogers: World War II veteran, used to following orders in a war where the bad guys are clearly marked, discovers that S.H.I.E.L.D. has turned into an agency that wants to stop wars before they start. After dealing with HYDRA’s infiltration, there’s a new law that requires oversight and takes away his right to choose. Based on his recent experiences, he resists this new law.
Tony Stark: Former weapons manufacturer who is still dealing with guilt from the damage his weapons have caused, not to mention his recent disastrous choices in Age of Ultron. Now a new law is introduced which takes that burden of responsibility away from him: The entire United Nations has signed a law saying that the Avengers can only participate in military actions sanctioned by the U.N., which puts the burden of decision-making on someone else. He no longer has to stay awake at night wondering if he made the right choices, because now those choices are being made for him.
Resolution: The rift in the team causes half of the Avengers to go on the run as fugitives, while the other half seem aimless. The personal hate between Tony and Steve is so strong that Tony never calls Steve when there’s a world-altering event, they never team up and work together, and half of the universe is destroyed. The hate consumes Tony for five years, until he finally realizes he can’t let it consume him anymore. Then Tony makes the sacrifice play to save everyone, while Steve takes a page out of Barton’s book and settles down.
You seem to have seen a different set of movies than I did, but if you liked them I suppose that all works out fine. Frankly, I don’t care enough to argue about it, and I certainly don’t care enough to go back and rewatch Civil War to refresh my memory on everything wrong with it.
Honestly, I’m just grateful for the phase 4 reset. I enjoyed the hell out of Loki (but then Ragnarock was far and away the best thing in Phase 3 so that’s probably not a big surprise).
When would Tony have called Steve? While fighting Thanos’s thugs or while on the spaceship headed out of town?
I actually thought the hate was gone by the time Tony got the phone from Steve and realized he had hot the others out of jail.
By the end of Civil War team Tony pretty much realized they were wrong.
A monkey wrench: from the point of view of the real world, Tony was right and Steve was wrong. If individuals had the kind of power some Marvel supes do, like the Hulk as an example, it would be deeply irresponsible for the government not to control that force. I understand this flies in the face of superhero logic and also many people these days feel the Tony view is somehow quasi-authoritarian or statist but if we step away from superhero logic and away from the current political narrow vision, there’s just no way any citizen who wants a healthy society would advocate letting nuke-level powers go around unleashing without government control. That doesn’t mean government imprisonment or slavery, but it does mean proper authorization of the use of force. If a supe agrees not to go around using massive power, fine. But if they are going to use these super-powerful abilities it has to be under government authority, with training, accountability and so on. Now of course I’m talking real world and not super hero world.
I mean, it’s not like we let folks build private nukes and use those, even for “constructive” purposes like mining or dam building. Because that would be insane.