What are the Problems with the MCU?

[bat39]

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.

Honestly, I think this is the biggest factor.

Not every single Infinity Saga movie was perfect, but it was all building upto something big that was unprecedented in cinema. There was a sheer momentum to the enterprise that carried everything along in its wake - audience interest, media interest, mediocre or average entries...everything. That momentum disappeared after Endgame.

Now I'm not saying that the MCU necessarily needed something big to build upto in order to succeed...but not having something puts a greater burden on each individual entry to excel on its own merits. And frankly, that hasn't really happened over the past half-decade.

The first 3 phases each had some truly standout movies that helped sustain long-term investment in the brand and kept up the aforementioned momentum. Phase 1 had Iron Man and The Avengers. Phase 2 had Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy. Phase 3 had Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther, and of course Infinity War/Endgame.

How many such movies have we had post-Endgame? Spider-Man: No Way Home for sure, but that's arguably more a Sony movie, and a celebration of Sony's Spider-Man legacy. Wakanda Forever, maybe? Which somehow didn't exactly thrill the world as much as the original did, and mostly functioned as a heartwarming tribute to Chadwick Boseman. And that's about it. I personally enjoyed a lot of the other films, but they didn't set the world on fire.

And sure, there are a lot of other contribuing factors. COVID, superhero fatigue, the loss of Chadwick Boseman (who was supposed to be part of the new MCU 'Trinity' alongside Brie Larrson and Benedict Cumberbatch), and now the Jonathan Majors situation. But honestly, the quality of the overall output has gone down. I dunno, maybe with the TV shows they're all spreading themselves way too thin?

[Zero Hunter]

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.

It not just that. The Marvel had 3 big moments where I just thought "oh come on". The training montage with the poppy song. They whole troupe went out the window 20 years ago The alien planet that looked like a Bollywood number. The stupid cats. The cat was funny in the first movie and they not only doubled down they made it a key part of the story which just made things dumb.

[Overhazard]

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.

Love and Thunder was supposed to be a superhero rom-com, except it can't really be that because a proper romcom has a level of vulnerability that marvel things don't allow themselves to have. The MCU for the longest time has lacked sincerity. The serious moments are always undercut by a joke. It started with Whedon and the Avengers and then it got worse and worse. Captain America quips more than Spider-Man does, that's not right in any universe.

I do think that after endgame there is a degree of rudderless ness, it really feels like people are going to these movies out of habit, or to stir up more culture war stuff, or just biding their time waiting for the X-men and FF to show up.

[ComicNoobie]

I don't watch every MCU project, I only watch what I'm truly interested in and if it has something I'm personally invested in. So I can only judge by the properties I've seen. My problems with current MCU is the Multiverse. It's a lazy nostalgia grab with cameos from other universe studios that either ended, failed, or both. The entire hype around Doctor Strange 2 was "who's going to pop up" There was barely anyone even talking about what personal growth Strange can go through as a character or arc. Just Illuminati this, FoX-Men that, Superior Iron Man cameo. It feels like hype around the MCU now just comes from nostalgia cameos and when it doesn't happen then everyone will harp on the characters not developing as if that was what was getting all the attention in the first place. Can't blame the fans though because that's kind of how most of the trailers and teasers have been training the audience lately. Care about the cameos not our lazy rush to Secret Wars.

I'm one of the five people on Earth who was underwhelmed by Deadpool 3's trailer because it's everything I'm rolling my eyes at with the multiverse. And everything everyone is complaining about with the MCU was present in that trailer but it's being praised as 'Deadpool's gonna save the MCU' Its MoM and NWH hype turned up to eleven. And the funny thing is if it fails Disney, Kevin Feige, and the MCU in general will get the blame.

And then there is this Kang problem. I've watched Quantumania many times after seeing it in theaters. I like it more than most but I acknowledge its flaws and faults. While many will say the biggest sin was Kang losing, for me it was Kang being in the movie to begin with and essentially hijacking Ant-Man's third movie. Quantumania wasn't Ant-Man 3 it was Kang Dynasty part 1. As much as I love them you can remove Ant-Man and his family and replace them with the Fantastic Four or the Guardians of the Galaxy in the same situation and the plot can still go largely the same as far as Kang is concerned because this movie was not about Scott or Cassie, or Hope. It was Kang! So of course everyone is upset that the title hero of Quantumania beat Kang, it wasn't Scott's movie even though it should have been. Kang should have just had his own standalone supervillain movie which would have been a first for the MCU leaving Ant-Man 3 to be about the actual Ant-Man characters and giving his trilogy a worthy sendoff. Again I enjoy Quantumania more than most but I'll call it out too. Put your main heroes and their personal stories and growth first and your worldbuilding second.

Phases 4 and 5 introduce a lot of new characters, which I'm totally cool with. I support lesser characters and teams in Marvel getting their chance in the spotlight the way Iron Man, Thor, Cap, and the Guardians did. But they should let us know where these characters are ending up and where we can expect to see them next. Shang Chi teased joining the Avengers so why not have him show up in She-Hulk to recruit her at the end just so audiences who actually get invested in these new characters know where they are going and aren't just wondering for years if they'll ever see them again. Like are ever going to see the Eternals again?

There is also many changes for characters. Sometimes it works out well when adapting something from paper to film. I have no problem with that as not everything in a Marvel comic is going to translate 100% to a film of non-comic book readers. But other times they make something worse. Someone brought up Taskmaster and I agree. I don't even hate that he's gender changed that much. I think Ghost did it much better but the character in the movie wasn't even Taskmaster. They didn't even have the same way how the ability to copy all those fighting styles works which is one of the appeals of Taskmaster. If you're going to change the character make sure it's just as interesting if not better or don't change it all. I hate saying this but I find Taskmaster in Black Widow to be the Deadpool from the 2009 Wolverine movie for the MCU and that's really sad.

The stuff about the humor is subjective. There are times I'm annoyed by it but I still get a good laugh at other times. It depends on the film. Like Thor: Love and Thunder should have been a much more serious movie given the two storylines they adapted. If everything is funny than the things that are suppose to be don't stand out as much.

I have more but these are the ones on top of my head. Enjoy the wall of text I might have another.

[lefthanded]

There's no more character development once we've gotten past the 'origin' story.

Leading up to Endgame, all the characters changed over time. Obviously so with Stark/Rogers, but also Hulk, Thor, Natasha. Even Antman.

Post Endgame, every character is just treading water. Thor is now stuck in an overdone Taika style purgatory (it was good stuff initially, but now it is just repetitive). Scott Lang's only development in the sequel is that... he is now a father to a teenager. Doctor Strange is unchanged in his sequel (talented egocentric individual who has to learn a little humanity). Captain Marvel is the same character she was in her first movie (the only 'development' in her sequel is just in service of comedy and a musical number). Black Widow's time setting meant that she couldn't really develop differently from what we saw in Avengers to Endgame.

Clint continues to be a charisma-less blackhole, where I couldn't really tell the difference between him being mind controlled or not.

Shang-chi and the other tv shows are just origin stories, so will have to wait and see what the sequel/follow-ups bring.

The only bright spot so far is that Kamala had her origin story in Ms. Marvel, and has continued to develop in the Marvels.

[Maestro 216]

?? 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

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.

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.

Fair enough I can agree with that sorry.

[XandertheWise]

problem I have with current Marvel Movies Universe now is that they killed off most of the Avengers while theyre letting the young ones run around be fan nerds like Kamala and girl power BS like with Carol Danvers.

the only Avengers that are left alive are Sam aka Falcon, Clint Baron, Bruce Banner, Rhodey and Strange even though Strange has nothing to do with the Avengers anyway.

that and the Wakandas are racist jerks calling white folks colonizers etc.

and Matt Murdock/Daredevil being forced to do the sex walk of shame out in broad daylight

[kcekada]

The problem is they threw a lot of stuff out to get to the big Thanos movies. Where do they go from there? The MCU Avengers battles were always on too big of a scale. Wish they had built up to saving the world, but I can see why they were treated more as soldiers than as superheroes. That's was pretty much the basis for the Ultimates on which the Avengers films were based.

Now trying to add smaller stuff after all of this big stuff feels less important than if it had been introduced before Thanos.

[Android 17]

This multiverse saga is sloppy, not very cohesive and is taking too long to get to the point.

They also haven't built Kang up with the same energy that they gave Thanos, which was a big problem IMO.

[Ultimate Captain America]

No Stan Lee cameos. I know, the man died, but Moff Tarkin from Rogue One says "hi".

[Albert1981]

Too much MCU. Back in the good old days, we only had to watch 4-6 hours a year worth of movies. Now we have to watch over 20 hours worth of movies and shows per year, and folks aren't down with that. If Marvel Studios just concentrated on two or three movies a year, they would not be "stretched thin". But it's not just Disney is going too far with these franchises. We now have Frasier reboots, NCIS prequels, Fast and Furious sequels and a future Barbie cinematic universe. It's just too much. I think I'll just check out a ballgame, listen to a podcast, or watch a documentary instead.

[phonogram12]

Honestly? Mostly certain corners of the fandom. Most notably, those complaining about the MCU sacrificing storytelling for some sort of "agenda" (when in reality, what they really miss is the kind of storytelling where they were the one and only target audience and didn't have to consider the interests of others) and those who refuse to accept that the MCU is it's own universe the same way the 616 and Ultimate universes are their own as well.

Now am I saying I've loved everything that's come out since Endgame? Absolutely not (sometimes I forget Eternals even exists because it was so boring, which is the same problem I have with Moon Knight despite my love of both Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke). But I have to say, that a lot of the criticisms seem disingenuous at best.

[Frontier]

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.

Don't forget about Strange needing to get over Christine Palmer...again.

[XandertheWise]

you need to go watch Doctor Strange 2 Multiverse again. Steven Strange has evolved. Since he read both books the Darkhold and the Vishanti book, he can now dreamwalk and possess dead bodies and use the spirits of the damned to help him out. that and he can use magic to slice things up etc. Plus his cape has a mind of its own where it even helps out to smother people, strange them or get someone out of danger.

He's eve got a literal third eye now

IF there's ever Doctor Strange 3, he and Wong should challenge for the title of Sorceror Supreme. and Clea just popped up so Strange will probably learn more stuff from Clea

There's no more character development once we've gotten past the 'origin' story.

Leading up to Endgame, all the characters changed over time. Obviously so with Stark/Rogers, but also Hulk, Thor, Natasha. Even Antman.

Post Endgame, every character is just treading water. Thor is now stuck in an overdone Taika style purgatory (it was good stuff initially, but now it is just repetitive). Scott Lang's only development in the sequel is that... he is now a father to a teenager. Doctor Strange is unchanged in his sequel (talented egocentric individual who has to learn a little humanity). Captain Marvel is the same character she was in her first movie (the only 'development' in her sequel is just in service of comedy and a musical number). Black Widow's time setting meant that she couldn't really develop differently from what we saw in Avengers to Endgame.

Clint continues to be a charisma-less blackhole, where I couldn't really tell the difference between him being mind controlled or not.

Shang-chi and the other tv shows are just origin stories, so will have to wait and see what the sequel/follow-ups bring.

The only bright spot so far is that Kamala had her origin story in Ms. Marvel, and has continued to develop in the Marvels.

[SturdyMike89]

My feeling is that every MCU project that does well tries to do something different. Captain America was a 1940s pulp adventure; the second movie was a conspiracy thriller. WandaVision was a mix of black comedy satire and surreal horror. When they try to be interesting and fresh it usually works better IMHO.