Well folks the 4th Phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has
come to a close with the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and now that
it is all done and dusted how did this phase go, could it continue well after
Avengers Endgame made such a good case for being the end of the MCU as a whole
even though that would never happen or did this near invincible franchise
finally start to hit the rocks after many years of success.
Well frankly it is very strongly a case of the latter as my main thought
when it came to the end of Phase 4 of this series was “Good Riddance” but
before I delve why I feel that way I want to write about my 2 favourite and 2
least favourite parts of this phase.
My 2 favourite projects from Phase 4 are Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
and the Falcon and the Winter Soldier TV series, the former does a brilliant
job paying tribute to the late great Chadwick Boseman and his legacy as King T’Challa
even if like the characters who knew him best in the movie you miss his
presence at the centre of the film.
While the latter was a series I was looking forward to each instalment
of each week as it was a fun action adventure series even though sadly it did
not stick the landing in terms of its ending which could’ve been fixed if it
had done a 7th episode to properly wrap up its storylines.
My 2 least favourite projects from Phase 4 are both from the movie side
and the first of those is last November’s The Eternals which I hated as a movie
and was the first inkling for me that Marvel as a whole was starting to lose
its way because the film had a group of heroes that were ponderous bores to
watch, the dialogue was equally pompous and up itself, the action scenes looked
very dark, the villains were badly rendered CGI splotches and the film
completely and utterly botches the introduction of the Celestials who are a huge
part of the Marvel Comics lore.
The second is Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness which came out in
early May in cinemas and was for me a real disappointment as the film’s script
felt like a separate Dr Strange script and a separate Wanda script smashed
together in a blender, Wanda’s character arc felt like it either ignored or
contradicted the events of the TV series WandaVision and the use of Professor
Charles Xavier was heartbreaking.
And had that cameo been done better then this movie probably wouldn’t be
here but instead it is, firstly Stewart was way too old to be doing this cameo
and it showed in his voice, the Gold wheelchair from the X-Men animated series
looked ridiculous in live action and its not helped that it looks like a bed to
put old man Sir Patrick in so he can watch the sunset with the glass of water
with his teeth in it on the table next to the gold wheelchair and the character
doesn’t even put up much of a fight or try to reach out to Wanda’s better
instincts and that was the tipping point for this movie being a disappointment
for me.
But now that all that is done why am I bidding Good Riddance to Phase 4
as a whole instead of going “Aw that was well done” like the end of Phase 3 well
I feel that on the whole the quality of the MCU began to sink with this phase
in these ways.
- Firstly the quality of the stories as a whole began to sink, there was
no real sense of direction with this phase, no real sense of “here is where we
are going with all of this” like we got with Phase 1 and no real sense of who
the new big bad will be and when you go back to the Infinity Saga which
consists of the first 3 phases of this franchise you got all of that, you got
the assembling of the Avengers in Phase 1, the establishment of Thanos, the Infinity
Stones and the wider Cosmic Realm in Phase 2 and then the final confrontation for
the fate of the universe in Phase 3 a great 3 act structure that despite some
potholes along the road felt very satisfying when it was done.
There was none of this in Phase 4 and it showed because as someone who
watched the movies and the majority of the TV shows I was waiting for those
points, the sense that all of this watching time was going to have a meaningful
pay off but it didn’t really come and it all just feels like a giant waste of
time despite some good work being done here.
- Secondly the quality from a production standpoint also began to sink,
during the Infinity Saga Marvel Studios really only focused on 2 or 3 movies a year
and that worked great for them, they were able to create that season of
television feeling for the films when their runtimes were combined together and
as long as you just went to those movies you were okay it wasn’t alienating to
try and keep up with the story being told.
Well in Phase 4 we saw Disney Plus be launched and with it multiple
Marvel streaming shows and that combined with the 3 and soon 4 movies a year
its created a scenario where I feel the studio’s overall production resources
in terms of Kevin Feige having the time to oversee the various projects in
production to the teams assigned to make the movies and shows to the post
production work be stretched a lot more thin and its really starting to show.
Not just in the now well documented Visual Effects problems and boy have
those sunk really badly even in Black Panther 2 parts of it look like CG from
the 90s and not in a good way but also so much of this stuff either looks very
dark to the point where you cannot see what is happening on screen because of
the wall of black over it but also the films and shows having a very cheap look
as if no real time or money was put into making this stuff look right and
looking like a top of the line production which given this has been the most
successful franchise in the history of show business is at the very least we
can expect.
But enough about Phase 4 what about what’s to come I mean we got an
announcement a wile back about the Phase 5 roster, does that give you a sense
of hope that despite these wobbles we can get back on track.
Well no sadly I didn’t feel that way and for these 4 reasons:
- Firstly it just feels like the MCU has essentially decided to double
down on this multiple films/TV shows per year approach in a crash or crash
through mode and instead of these announcements feeling exciting in terms of a character
here or a project there I just felt more of a groan a sense of “great another
project I will probably have to watch in order to keep up with the overall
story” and its going to get to a point where I don’t care anymore.
- Secondly during the Phase 5 roster announcement the main thought that kept
running through my head was “How are you going to pace all of these projects?”
as throughout Phase 4 there was often a bleeding over of the movies opening in
cinemas as a TV show was going through its run and it took away from the excitement
a little bit of seeing a new MCU film in the cinema which has often been a fun
experience for me due to the crowds that come but when you have it at your
fingertips it takes away from the event feel overall.
- Thirdly I fear that this new big bad and during that same announcement
we got a confirmation of Kang the Conqueror being the new big bad will falter
in comparison with Thanos who I felt really did deliver the goods as a villain
and I loved watching him in Infinity War and Endgame but when Kang was first
introduced in the finale of Loki I was very very underwhelmed mainly because
Jonathan Majors talked way too fast and you couldn’t understand what the hell
he was saying and it looked like he was treating the whole thing like a lark
and with none of the seriousness Josh Brolin brought to Thanos and I really
really really want a proper villain again I’m so sick of the misunderstood ones
and the jokey ones that seem to dominate so many of these films and I hope here
is where I am proven wrong as I will be very happy for that to happen.
- And lastly and here is where I will wrap things up I am worried about
the lack of a core focus in terms of the heroes, recently I’ve begun to fear
that this series is starting to resemble one of the worst aspects of the comics
in that you have multiple teams running around (Young Avengers, Thunderbolts,
Fantastic Four, actual Avengers) and each of those have their own runs and
their own storylines but what made the first 3 phases so good was that you had
just one team in the Avengers and that brought with it a clear central focus
and that I fear with this huge expansion is going to make things feel too
scattershot and too fractured like they currently do now.
And so that was my retrospective on Marvel’s Phase 4 and why I was glad
to big Good Riddance to it as well as my concerns going forward from here as we
begin Phase 5 next year and look I know its fun to kick these movies and dismiss
them as junk but this Phase has proven a lot of the detractors right by going
down the path that it has and look if things do improve I’ll be happy to be
proven wrong but for the moment I have my doubts but things can change.
