I know, I know, I'm still riding the Avengers 2 hype train all the way to the Marvel fun house, but after reading reviews for "Avengers 2: Ultronic Boogaloo" I found a common complaint between the folds of praise. Could this one issue sour Marvel Studios' recent hit? Or do the scars run deeper than we think?
Given Marvel Studios' track record of films you don't often have people complaining about a movies' length, sometimes you'll hear complaints a movie wasn't long enough, but what I felt during Avengers 2-much like other viewers-was that the movie had a lot of slow periods and many smaller plot lines happening beneath the movie's main plot. I won't go into detail for spoilers sake, but this bundle of threads most often tie into future Marvel movies. Now, since the first Iron Man movie we've gotten references to the MCU's future-you can say Iron Man 2 was the pinnacle of that-and it's never bothered us as viewers because it excites us for what happens next. But the question I pose is this: could setting up future Marvel events be hindering to the movie it's referenced in? When Avengers 2 was announced I was fairy excited, but soon after it was confirmed the next Captain America film would be based off "Civil War"-one of my favorite Marvel Comic events-my excitement for Avengers 2 died down a bit in favor for Cap 3. Throughout the first viewing of Avengers 2 I caught myself getting jumpy over nods to Civil War and Black Panther, and-similar to most of these movies-couldn't wait to see what would happen in the next Marvel movie. The way films worked before "Iron Man 1" was that you'd walk out of a movie with a basic opinion on the film, but now with these Marvel films all feeling like sequels to each other, the movie itself becomes an afterthought to what the movie sets up. To give Avengers 2 some credit, they reference future and ongoing events in subtle ways and it never felt like the movie's plot was undermined another film. But having a mere mention to another plot/movie is not the same thing as having an entire scene dedicated to a future film. If any amount of footage should be cut out of these movies, it should be the reference-heavy scenes which could be saved for the fans who bought the film on DVD or blu-ray.
One the many, many, many, many problems with "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" was that the suits over at Sony wanted director Marc Webb to include very bold foreshadowing to what would come next. I'm aware Sony's Amazing Spider-Man series has been terminated and will be replaced with Marvel Studios/Sony's "Spider-Man: The New Avenger" series to tie into the MCU, but ASM2 still remains a good example of set up gone wrong. You had scenes showing off weapons popular Spider-Man villains use, you have a mysterious man in a bowler hat recruit villains, you had Black Cat showing up as a mere Oscorp assistant. And why? So a movie studio could stand up before their failing movie and scream, "Hey, look at what we're going to do! Fans, don't leave! If you give us more money we'll give you a shared universe". In an effort to replicate Marvel Studios' more careful build-up strategy, Sony received backlash for presenting ASM2 as less of a sequel and more of a trailer for future events that'd never come true. Pretty sure they tried pitching an Aunt May solo film, too. Gross.
So is it an issue? In the effort of hyping up fans for future films could Marvel Studios be diverting attention away from their present projects? Could well-written stories be bloated by shared universe nods? In my own opinion, the story is as important as it's character. If any of these Marvel movies are going to barrage us with references, it should the Avengers movies because those movies represent parts of the MCU coming together. The MCU is as much a main character in Avengers as Cap or Iron Man. If Cap 3 is full of foreshadowings, it won't bother me as long as Captain America gets the major focus, it is his movie after all. But I'm interested for your opinions, do you think superhero movies should focus more on the main plot or on the universe as a whole? There is no wrong answer. Well, except, "superheroes are dumb". That's a wrong answer. Thanks for reading!
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