What are the Problems with the MCU?

[Red Falcon]

What are your grievances with the MCU? Not regarding any specific movie, but just in general.

[DigiCom]

IMO, the stories have gotten stale, and formulaic in both plot and tone.

When you break it down, Guardians 3, Thor: Love and Thunder, Quantumania, and The Marvels have more or less the same plot.

Also (and maybe this is just me), the character work feels somewhat shallow, possibly due to an overreliance on humor.

Honestly, though, I just can't bring myself to care about what happens next. The thrill is gone, as the esteemed Mr. King used to sing.

[Mister Mets]

For me, the batting average went down.

This coincided with Covid and a change in direction post-Endgame.

Looking at the Multiverse saga...
No Way Home was fantastic. It's one of my favorite films ever, but it doesn't have much competition in Phases 4 and 5 so far.
Guardians 3 was pretty good.
Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Dr Strange 2, Black Panther 2 and Thor 4 were okay.
The Eternals, The Marvels and Quantumania are arguably the worst MCU films.

Looking at Phase 3:
Civil War, Black Panther and Endgame are movies that could be on a "best of" list.
Dr Strange, Guardians 2, Thor: Ragnarok and Infinity War are pretty good.
Antman 2 and Captain Marvel were okay.
Everything was clearly better than Thor 2 or the Incredible Hulk.

[Maestro 216]

No connective tissue especially with Kang ruined and seemingly gone.

[Alan2099]

The thing they were building up to for years and years was resolved with nothing to replace it.
They lost two of their biggest actors and characters.
There's no more Stan Lee cameos.

[Oberon]

As an older reader, I've waited decades for something like this.

So my perspective is kinder, as it least it was something, we say.

I mostly would have wanted the Avengers to form around the original characters, meaning Widow and Hawkeye would be out and Ant Man & the Wasp should have been there, preferably the Pym/Van Dyne versions.

Of course the FF should have been simulantenous if not first.

I, personally, thought Iron Man, and the subsequents were, okay.
I never liked them as much as most other people do.

I was a very big fan of Iron Man decades ago; the whole alcoholism arcs and Bethany McCabe arcs, etc.

But overall I'm too much of a comic fan to not feel regret that it was not.

Still I'm kinder to the products.
The Marvels was okay to entertaining. At least as enjoyable as Iron Man, to me.
What do I expect? Not a perfection that I wouldn't know only set the bar for higher and higher standards.
I can't do stuff like this, so I'm pleased with what others do.

I think the MCU should have worked harder to either integrate/acknowledge the series like DD, SHIELD, Luke, JJ, Iron Fist, etd one way or the other - quickly move to the screen. The single heroes could have reprised a Defenders, especially with so many gone after EndGame.
SHIELDS especially should have had one good movie with or without you know who, but really finishing the Philip Coulton and other 'canon' issues that remained.

So as you can see, I'm kind or flexible enough, but my 'druthers' would be to adhere more to stories from the comics, some version that resembles 'that' canon or continuity.

Who wouldn't dig the Widow and DD having that relationship in a movie or TV show?

An actual relationship between Captain America and Sharon Carter, and an actual relationship between

her, others in SHIELD and the Avengers, and wherever in the MCU it should be.

Finally of course, I am quite okay with Brie/Captain Marvel, although the plot is screwy, the origin,

but we would be so pleased if a movie, some part of a significant movie

had a significant part/arc with the one and only original Captain Mar-Vell.

peace out.

[gurkle]

Poor character work, repetitive story points and forcing characters into the overall narrative of the MCU.

All perfectly summed up in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which forced the title character into a multiverse story and gave him a kid sidekick (both intended to set up other projects) and forced both him and Wanda to rehash character arcs they’d already done.

The creative problem that has always been there but has gotten crazy out of hand lately is telling us what a character’s arc is supposed to be rather than showing it onscreen. Strange has no arc on his second movie, we’re just told that it’s about his need to always be in control but we don’t see it.

[Thor-Ul]

The narration has become repetitive and formulaic. People has learned to see the wires and are not surprised anymore.
The writers are more focused on what is next and less in what is being told.
The overload of information. It feels more like you have to known and see like twenty movies and infinite series to understand one. Not everyone wants to buys Disney+ to understand one movie.

[James Cameron]

The movies are a complete and utter joke. Instead of actually having any sort of reverence for the source material, the MCU would rather lean as heavily into humor as possible and turn everything into some corporatized view of celebrities on vacation. It's so far from the Marvel I grew up with I don't know why we still call it Marvel and actually expect these things to be good. People keep emperor's new clothesing these movies and it's a sad sad reality check about the state of our world and the state of entertainment. The MCU is the SNL parody of Marvel, nothing will change my mind about that, sadly.

[numberthirty]

The movies are a complete and utter joke. Instead of actually having any sort of reverence for the source material, the MCU would rather lean as heavily into humor as possible and turn everything into some corporatized view of celebrities on vacation. It's so far from the Marvel I grew up with I don't know why we still call it Marvel and actually expect these things to be good. People keep emperor's new clothesing these movies and it's a sad sad reality check about the state of our world and the state of entertainment. The MCU is the SNL parody of Marvel, nothing will change my mind about that, sadly.

Sorry, but this sounds like someone who just got into the game talking.

Go watch the entirety of Preacher, and then write a letter of apology to the MCU for what you said about it lacking any reverence for the source material.

[James Cameron]

Sorry, but this sounds like someone who just got into the game talking.

Go watch the entirety of Preacher, and then write a letter of apology to the MCU for what you said about it lacking any reverence for the source material.

?? Huh? Why? They are completely different properties. There are many ways to disrespect the source material and that's not exclusive to changing some things for an adaptation. Sorry I don't trust one of the biggest corporations in the world with characters that are beloved to me but they haven't proved they can do anything meaningful or worthwhile. All the greatest moments suffer in my eyes because we have to suffer through endless self aware referential humor and humor at the expense of the characters and certain iconic aspects. That's why the Netflix shows will always be the best of the MCU, but even out of those it's really just Daredevil that shines the brightest

[Maestro 216]

The movies are a complete and utter joke. Instead of actually having any sort of reverence for the source material, the MCU would rather lean as heavily into humor as possible and turn everything into some corporatized view of celebrities on vacation. It's so far from the Marvel I grew up with I don't know why we still call it Marvel and actually expect these things to be good. People keep emperor's new clothesing these movies and it's a sad sad reality check about the state of our world and the state of entertainment. The MCU is the SNL parody of Marvel, nothing will change my mind about that, sadly.

Oh yeah so upset we didn't douchebag Tony from the comics who was a drunk prick who cloned one of his friends, agreed to send another Avenger off world rather than try to help him. Can't believe Hank Pym wasn't an abusive husband who slapped his wife on film can't believe they wouldn't adapt that. Like honestly these movies were never going yo be 100% accurate to the comics.

[James Cameron]

Oh yeah so upset we didn't douchebag Tony from the comics who was a drunk prick who cloned one of his friends, agreed to send another Avenger off world rather than try to help him. Can't believe Hank Pym wasn't an abusive husband who slapped his wife on film can't believe they wouldn't adapt that. Like honestly these movies were never going yo be 100% accurate to the comics.

Every time I talk about respecting the source material, there's someone around the corner going "adaptations are never 100% accurate." This is not a valid argument, I'm not talking about accuracy. There's a difference between being respectful and being accurate. Of course there are going to be changes...look at what I'm actually saying here. It's unfair of you to assume I actually wanted all those things you listed just because I say the MCU doesn't respect the comics.

[Triniking1234]

I was reading the comments and saying to myself "There's no way the humour has taken over that much" and then I remembered the nonsense they did in Thor: Love and Thunder.

[Chris0013]

Maybe some complacency or laziness. They have some of the biggest movies ever and now just feel they can put whatever out and since it is 'Marvel' people are going to watch it.

Bad writing and creative choices:

Wanda in MoM was for some reason made the villain. I see WandaVision as her going through the stages of grief and at the end...even though she is reading the Darkhold...he is in a good place and ready to move forward and MoM just craps all over that.

Ruining Taskmaster and to a degree Red Guardian in Black Widow. I get they wanted a female antagonist..but why not have used someone else. Make a more comics accurate Taskmaster and team him up with someone like Snapdragon who actually defeated Natasha in the comics in their first fight. And RG was introduced as more of an honorable soldier who was a Soviet Patriot. This movie just slapped the "fat, drunk and stupid' label on him.

I think Tom Holland was a great choice for casting...but the first 2 Spider-Man movies were pretty much Peter cleaning up Tony's messes. And all the Stark Made tech just diminishes Peter's intelligence and him as a character overall.