Those TVA thugs give off strong Nazi vibes. I don’t think that is a coincidence.
- In terms of what Marvel is setting up, starting since Endgame is laying the groundwork for the Multiverse. That's what everyone pretty much assumes is going to happen, yes? It's fun and lets Marvel use all sort of actors and it releases them from a tight continuity, etc. But thematically, what's the point? I think what we see with the TVA is an indication and it folds back to F&WS. I think Marvel will present the case that the Multiverse should happen.
The universe started out as a multiverse, but war and supposedly the Time Keepers crafted it into one "Sacred Timeline." But is it a good thing? Miss Minutes would have us think so - that it would lead to "madness" but what does that even mean? They're not saying all timelines would merge and people from different alternate realities would spill into each other creating chaos, just that there'd be a ton of timelines, but should we assume a multiverse is bad because the TVA says so? In terms of the show's design, there's a reason their tech looks old-fashioned rather than futuristic, they're presented as a Kafkaesque bureaucracy with little empathy, even the term "Sacred" timeline implies that while held dear to those who believe it, it's not the "Keystone" timeline or the "Load Bearing Wall" timeline. Also, all of their sign are in english ... and only english. That TVA guy reminded Mobius he speaks all the languages, but it clearly wasn't assumed or else he wouldn't have pointed it out. It also shows they're not equipped with some translation tech that we all accept exists in other movies because nothing would ever get done otherwise.
Going back to F&WS, I think this is ultimately Marvel's thematic imperative for the whole line, with Sam as the "First Avenger" of this new phase. (it was supposed to come out before "WandaVision") I'm loathe to boil it down so simplistically, (which is why I wrote that second paragraph) but I think we'll see that Multiverse = diversity. Not a huge leap considering how they've been handling their comics line, but Feige knows to not ham-fist it up. We know it's part of the public agenda, but perhaps it's the whole theme for the next phase of stories, not just in casting choices, and not just shoved in to "pander to the left." Maybe this is super obvious, but I would say it's being done well this time, which is really important.
Last edited by j9ac9k; 06-10-2021 at 07:11 PM.
I'm pretty sure pandering to the left isn't something to be worried about, despite the internet insisting otherwise
I was speaking more about how some people have reacted to Marvel's push for diversity as "pandering". And while nobody likes bureaucracy, each side impresses their own prejudices onto why they don't like it.(and usually finds the other side is to blame. Just like nobody likes the government wasting money, but some blame it on the military industrial complex, others blame welfare) The TVA represents and enforces a singular vision of how things should be. It's a narrow view ... fascistic, one might say. (the fact that the TVA was created as a riff on Judge Dredd who was himself an Americanized fascistic thug used to represent Britain's iron-fisted rule (from my understanding) is no coincidence......) The Miss Minutes movie, which explains the perils of the Multiverse like an old "Duck and Cover" film, hints to me that maybe the TVA is full of crap and that this whole thing is about breaking people out of their self-important, comfortable notions of "how things should be" to embrace a little diver--multiversity. But yeah, I could be reading into it.... it wouldn't be a Disney/Marvel joint if people didn't go off on tangents, theorize and pontificate.
While their tech is phenomenal, the aesthetic of it is deliberately designed to harken to the 1950s Man In The Grey Flannel Suit era of American conformity. I don't read a lot more into the language signs than that. I agree with you on the Miss Minutes presentation, it's too much like the sugar coated version of Manifest Destiny that was in every school book of the 1930s-1980s.
Or it's less about power than it is about isolationism. The other Time Lines are out there, but the Time Keepers don't want intrusions on their timeline. Which would kind of be a riff on powerful interests wanting diverse voices silenced or at least isolated. It could be one of the reasons they're so hard on variants; they don't want anyone running around who's off-message.
Loved the first episode. And waiting for the next one gives enough time to speculate about what is happening^^
That's... a pretty weird take on Dredd. The Judge Dredd strip was originally created as a violent satire of America as viewed through the lens of American movies, most predominantly Dirty Harry, though the Judges' unbending authoritarian attitude was based on writer Pat Mills' teachers at school, who belonged to a strict Catholic brotherhood of monks; as the strip progressed it was influenced by views on Margaret Thatcher's time as Prime Minister, basic American and British culture, and the obvious flaws of a police state.
Or they don't fix anything and the whole notion of a Sacred Timeline is bunk. I mean, we don't even know if those really were infinity stones or if that really was the Tesseract sitting in that guy's drawer. For all we know, everything they have said about themselves has been a big lie to manipulate Loki.
Every day is a gift, not a given right.