Why The MCU is Dying | Video Essay 

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They overly rely on the CGI department and yet won't even pay that department a tenth of what it's actually worth

“This is a Marvel problem. This is an MCU problem…” It goes beyond that, this is a Disney problem. Look at how they’re handling Star Wars, or hell, look how they handled Pirates of the Caribbean before the Johnny Depp Amber Heard thing

Damn. 17 films/shows in less than 2 years… I’ve heard of filler episodes…but never a filler phase.

Oversaturation is definitely a huge factor. But even if they only averaged 2-3 films a year like their earlier phases, I still think they'd really struggle due to the general repetitiveness of everything. At the end of the day Kang is just Thanos 2.0, and the phases are setting up for another big villain takedown like the last one. There's nothing really "new" about that. I'm sure most of us say it, but I miss the old phases. It was so fun watching things like the first Avengers meeting or the Civil War happening. Now all the films and shows just feel grey.

I watched shang chi recently and easily the worst part was shang's friend feeling the need to be constantly quippy in a somewhat serious movie. Seriously there is nothing wrong with letting these movies get serious sometimes.

I agree with you about Micheal Pena's absence from Quantumania. Luis was one of the best parts in the Ant-Man franchise and the fact that Marvel just straight up kicked him out is absolutely *criminal.*

I was done after Multiverse of Madness. We were lucky to enjoy the golden years since Iron man in 2008. It was Epic all the way to End Game.

I knew after watching endgame that I should just let things end and not watch any other marvel movie. I'm glad I did. That ending was perfect, and I didn't want to watch the stories of my favorite characters be ruined.

I love how you didn't even talk about Wasp who was basically a background character despite her name in the title. 😂

I definitely agree that after Endgame, they probably should have taken at least a year break before continuing on with phase 4 and beyond. Even Far From Home ending Phase 3 kind of felt weird too tbh. Edit: I realized they did take a year away once the pandemic hit so my mistake lol

Luis not being in the trailer for Quantumania was a big red flag for me. They could have had him recap Endgame.

I still think problems started in infinity saga and were very visible in endgame, but studio had inertia and loyalty, and only that helped them last for the whole phase4

The saddest part of Ant-Man and the Wasp quantumania is that one of the two characters in the title was so forgettable that it didn't even make it into the segment about characters in this video. Wasp upset me so much because she basically just played the reverse role of the damsel in distress and spent the entire movie going "Where's Scott?"

I think the biggest flaw was releasing too many TV shows too fast.

What bugs me the most is that most of these latest films could use minor tweaks to make them better. This one required 2: delete MODOK and don't have Michelle retroactively know it all. If the story was just the ant family sucked into a different part of the quantum realm where there are beings and they all help Kang to later realize he's a villain, it could be almost the same movie bug way better.

Could you imagine if Quantumania had Avatar-level special effects? Could you imagine if it were competing with Avatar: Way of Water for its CGI hype and buzz, and if it were a real contender (if not winner) at the Academy in that category? I think people would be talking about Quantumania differently. It still has tone and story and character problems, but Marvel knew going in to Quantumania that they were going to spend the whole film in the quantum realm--they should have known upfront to invest more heavily in VFX so that we don't get CG fatigue. Imagine the discourse on this film if people were gushing over its VFX creativity and how immersive and stunning the quantum realm is. Much as I loved Kang in this movie, this movie is going to be just too difficult to rewatch.

cassie acting like "fuck you dad im the main character and im the one thats right" type of attitude did it for me. even ant man told her "did you save the universe? did you fight thanos? no? i did" and they still shoved her into the front

Why won’t Janet tell anyone about Kang? My expectation: She actually helped insert Kang as the ruler of the Quantum Realm in the hopes of returning home before realising he intends to destroy earth. The actual reason: “I helped him get his super suit back”

Really they should make Kang the villain of each movie going forward, only to know that he is learning from each interaction and growing stronger. That would culminate into some badass villain.

The problem is thus far Kang has not been explained. At all. Sure, he's some threat. He is multiversal. Ok. What is his motivation? What are his means to accomplish his goals? What has he been doing that will move him toward that goal? The character is just a COMPLETE black box at this point. We know nothing. He's trapped in the quantum realm, and Janet saw "he's bad!" by touching his ship, and the literal post credit part is like "And there's a lot of him" , but we have had nothing shown, explained, described, and thus he's a fucking unwatchable terrible character at this point. It might change. But I kind of get the feeling they will NEVER explain it. They will just be like "kang bad yo, a threat, very powerful. Wooooooooo" as if that is gonna fly.

Cassie was THE MOST OBNOXIOUS character I’ve ever seen. And every 15 year old girl being an omega genius really takes away from the people who really are geniuses… Tony, reed, Bruce, Shuri… if everyone is brilliant then it cheapens the Tony cave scene and all that stuff

The brake down timeframe between Phase 1-3 vs Phase 4 is crazy. 17 films and shows in 2 years wow.

The only movies I watched in phase 4 was Spiderman no way home and Doctor Strange multiverse of madness and for the series was Moon knight, then after that I just stopped watching anything Marvel releases. The best choice I ever made 😂

If they started to shift the tone of every project to be more serious making the character development and writing a bigger priority while connecting every story with the rise of Kane in someway I think Disney would have a chance at winning audiences back over. Also, they need to be more selective with choosing which directors get to shoot these movies / shows or else we get another phase 4 mess lol

The dialogue killed this movie. I had no idea what Kang wanted for like an hour

Glad you mentioned the over reliance of CGI because that has become a HUGE issue in phase four. The early MCU films look infinitely better then all of phase four and some of phase three because they used practical effects and filmed on location, making each film look and feel unique. The almost exclusive use of CGI has made everything look cheap and devoid of any character or feeling. It’s all just a grey, poorly animated mess. And I don’t fault the CGI artists and animators for this at all, they are doing all the can do. I blame marvel and Disney for underpaying, overworking, and exploiting them, having them animate an insane about of content in such a short amount of time because it’s the cheapest option for Disney

I'd be willing to remain optimistic. Another comment I've read points out that this fourth phase has emerged during a lot of corporate changes at Disney, with Chapek pushing their content to the newly launched streaming service right as the world went into pandemic lockdown. Now that streaming competition has taken away that lustre from Disney+, and Bob Iger is back in the driver seat, the changes to their productions should be palpable. I think the slowdown in title rollout will help to not only improve their graphics, but also won't drag them through pointless rewrites and edits that make these shows and films unwatchable. Hiring directors like Gunn, Coogler, Shakman, and Herron shows to me that they trust their artistic direction and creativity, which has paid off in terms of audience reception. I have my fingers crossed that they won't go the same route as Warner Brothers and HBO Max with their slash and burn tactics to try and get their franchises back into profitable margins. I think they were lighting the candle at both ends by pumping tv series to the platform while rushing to return films to the theatres, which stretched their production teams too thin and abused their talents in unforgivable ways. I would much rather wait longer to see the films they have in the pipeline than to have routine releases of MCU titles every 4 to 6 months, knowing that they have some time to breathe and really focus on the storytelling, rather than overwhelming the viewers with over-the-top CGI and lackluster dialogue. Given some space, there's a lot of material to work with as they move into the next phase with new actors, in ways that are particularly sensitive to the films that came before it.

Is no one going to talk about how convenient to the plot it was that those ants somehow advanced through time but the main cast remained unnafected?

Coulda had Scott say “Luis is covering for me at the bookstore” and have a scene of him Trying to read Scott’s book, but going off script and summarizing the snap in his own way

Michael Pena should have done the narration at the beginning while Scott is walking around, then it cuts to Luis reading Scotts book at that bookstore and then going "now let me tell you what really happened". Just then Scott walks in the bookstore with a WTF look on his face because Luis was just supposed to set up the event and wait for Scott. I would have laughed so hard.

Including a clip from Pitch Meetings in your Video Essay is TIGHT!

I've only watched No Way Home after Endgame. Unfortunately, i think Endgame was the peak. I really don't see how they top it, so i haven't bothered watching anything that came after besides Spider-man.

I love that you compared watching modern Marvel to homework, because that's SO true. My dad and I have bonded over going to these movies together, watching the shows together, etc, but I think Shang Chi and Loki were the last things we actually enjoyed. We couldn't finish WandaVision, were heavily disappointed by MoM, and we've gotten to the point where we havent seen probably half of Phase 4. It isn't fun. It's just homework.

This skips over the biggest issue with Phase 4, they established that there are no stakes to any loss or victory by having a infinite multiverse

i genuinely think wandavision was one of the best things in phase 4/out of the shows. falcon and the winter soldier was interesting, but had a big post-mortem vibe (obvi) and it made it hard to connect at all. i liked loki, but the series itself wasn’t great. didn’t even watch america’s show, and i watched she-hulk to stay updated, not because i liked it. i think you said it perfectly ‘it’s more like homework than general enjoyment’

I honestly enjoyed (for the most part) WandaVision, Loki and Captain America and the Winter Soldier. Oh, and Moon Knight was quite good in my opinion. But yeah, they really "Sequel Trilogied" Phase 4. Nothing feels connected and it seems like no one has any idea what direction they want to take anything.

Jonathan Majors deserves a better script with how good his performance was. Between this and wasting Bale as Gorr, I am really disappointed at Disney and Marvel.

MCU became too big for its own good and that's why it's crumbling with its own weight right now. After Endgame they should have paused for a few years to plan the next arc, complete the scripts and then start the production. But of course for money reasons they immediately rushed without even completed scripts, made lots of the last second changes which caused a huge drop of quality.

I agree with most of the factors you mentioned but was shocked you thought Loki was a good show, I had to force myself several times just to get through each episode individually, my cousin gave up on it and told me to give him a rundown of what happened. In my opinion, WandaVision was the best by far, and if I HAD to choose a runner-up, surprisingly I enjoyed Falcon and the WInter Soldier. But most movies so far have been mid except Shang-Chi surprisingly. I though I would enjoy No Way Home more but most of it was underwhelming, like even when the three spidermen came together, everything was just mid. I'm about to watch Eternals this weekend and then Multiverse Madness. But for the most part you right, it feels like homework watching all these series and movies, rather just stick to movies, the series feels like homework.

6:13 "It became a chore" OMG yes! Like I could tolerate the occasional Thor 2 as long as I knew it was leading to something better but now? It's like quicksand. We're just slogging through never ending crap.

After seeing this film, it’s no wonder Michael Douglas mentioned he would only return for another MCU film if his character gets killed off. He’s probably wondering what’s the point of staying around if he’s barely going to do much

Phases 1-3: Runtime: approx. 50 hrs From: May 2, 2008 -to- July 2, 2019 --------------------- Phase 4: Runtime: approx. 54 hrs From: July 9, 2021 -to- November 11, 2022

For a very simple reason. To compare it with videogames, the MCU is right now in that stage where you are playing an open world game or RPG, you just finished the main story and you are now just doing side quests. Sure, there can be a fun side quest every now and then, or have fun fucking around for the sake of it, but nothing takes away the feeling that the game is over, that the ending happened and the credits rolled. The MCU is in here but even worse because it also got rid of not just it's main characters, but what have always been the most important Avengers like Cap and Iron Man. It happened what I think many people feared: that they had no plans after Thanos.

The "producer guy" cameo was highly appreciated.

The main problem that I see at the moment is that marvel absolutely cannot let go of characters, whether that be in death or bringing them in from other universes. Alongside this, there’s just no stakes any more in individual films, the endings of the last few films and series have just been dreadful

I get no sound but there's comments from an hour ago that show they had sound, has it gotten copyrighted?

on point 💯💯💯

The MCU died with Endgame.

Man, before Endgame when there was a Marvel movie coming you could see a lot of people in the theater and lines of people waiting for the movie, I went to see Ant-Man because I heard there was Modok and I love him, in the cinema there were 4 families there, and that's all

I've still got faith in Deadpool 3, but one movie can't save an entire company

The Avengers ( 2012) Did something new and novel. Assemble all the central heroes in 1 picture. It's pretty cool. Of Course, it became a serious competition with WB and Other studios to maintain that level. JL Might have been a good movie If WB wasn't so eager to beat out Disney/Marvel

“Do Marvel think that their audience is 4 years old”, well, way too many clapped for Waititi and called him a genius, you can’t really blame them.

Yo you explained this perfectly. The constant “jokiness” and sarcasm in recent shows + films every 35 seconds is so hard to sit through too, talking a pack of nonsense. I really miss when superhero movies had a more serious tone. Or at the very least balanced tone. However I was pretty young when I was last excited for them. Maybe a solid 5 year break is warranted + bringing the grit back.

5:40 on point 👌 couldn’t have said it any better!!!!

My biggest gripe with phase 4 is how Loki had his own series, where they could of really shown how creative and twisted his powers can be... yet had the entire season set in a location that pretty nerfed his entire power set 🙄😒

I think more comic book movies should be animated. If the majority of your effects can be real, make them real so it FEELS REAL. If the majority of your effects are animated, make the whole movie animated so it all blends together and doesn’t look fake. Into the Spiderverse is a great example of what comic book movies can and should be. I can only imagine tmnt or daredevil movie being in the same style. That would be awesome!

It is honestly heartbreaking watching Thor undo 10 years of being Thor. He's the only one of the big three still around and this is the direction his character has turned into. It sucks. He's the last one who can honor what the 3 of them were able to accomplish but he's getting his legacy totally butchered. He is still alive, he has the weight of Iron man and Captain America on his shoulders. He's the last one. Do you know the care and responsibility that has to go with that? But nope, fuck all that.

Your inclusion of Ryan George’s ‘so the movie can happen’ literally sums up so much floored logic that is so apparent. I actually didn’t mind one of the random Guardian’s of the Galaxy Christmas specials which was a random thing I didn’t need but didn’t mind. I quite liked WandaVision until it seemed like an ultra convenient way to ‘finish the movie’ by having Agatha revealed… I thought the way they did that felt lazy & loose which almost makes me want to disengage with that idea altogether. Loved the video summary! Good work, as someone who came to the MCU incredibly late and was told ‘you need to watch this before you watch this’ for most of the phase 4 releases, you can absolutely see the deterioration when you spend weekends binge watching them back to back to back. I do however look forward to the gems that are hopefully scattered without.

I’ve consistently noticed that the beginning of these newer films are somewhat competent Wakanda Forever’s funeral, Dr.Strange with confronting how his past lover is getting married,Ant man where no one knows his name. Notice how there is less cgi, the tone is slower and the characters aren’t making jokes 247 then as soon as either some identity politics character is introduced or a fight happens the quality nose dives. And while there are some exceptions (Thor Love and Thunder) it’s just a strange phenomenon

Quantumania was advertised as this huge turning point but it literally had a net zero plot that gained nothing and lost nothing that couldn’t have been covered in an episode or season of Loki instead

So agreed regarding Janet...I was legit pissed off by the third time...and there were like seven times...that she refused to explain anything. And most of them immediately got the heroes in worse trouble.

MCU needs to take a BReAK. Making movies just becausit is part of a planned phase with the emphasize on making profit, instead of making a movie because there is a story worth telling by a great cast and director. .

“Everything falls flat except for it’s villain…” AAAAAND he’s gone.

At what point does Kevin Feige get criticised for his role in this? He seems to get a free pass due to the success of the Infinity Saga, but the last 3 years of MCU movies and content have been an absolute disaster. I’m starting to think he was being carried by RDJ, Chris Evans, Jon Favreau and the Russos.

jonathan majors really carried the whole film. Unfortunate about the plot writing but the small gestures and his facial expressions were soo captivating considering how he has to play numerous Kangs with different personalities as well

I think you nailed it, that it all looks like a homework now. Fans dont feel like watching new show or movie to be entertained,but it feels like a chore,like they MUST do it just to keep up. And that itself is putting many of us off.

Spot on 👍🏽

"Kills a main character" This is EXACTLY what I thought. Killing ANYONE wouldve made Kang as menacing as he needed to be.

The fact that Cassie Lang went from an adorable, sweet and likable little girl to an obnoxious, know-it-all political activist just made me smh. This is NOT how I envision her to be.

I couldnt stop making jokes during Quantumania. Every scene a character would be like "where are we" id immediately lean to my friend and whisper "we're in the green screen world"

Disney needs to pay writers more to bring quality work AND chill on the CGI and focus on practical effects.

Speaking of overly relying on cgi, I hate when Scott, Hope, and Cassie take off their helmets (which is a lot) that they just disappear. It’s not part of the suit like it was before

The fact that Kang lost to ants just killed the character for me, maybe his plan was to lose to on purpose, but to advance ants…nah

Yeah, I hate to agree with this, but here we are. I was an MCU PSYCHO for the first three phases. Evangelical. But I agree there's just too too much now. Too much to keep track of, too many new characters to accept without enough time to embrace them before you're hit with more, some not-so-great changes to older beloved characters. Eesh; it hurts my heart.

Speaking on the power level kang issue, there are multiple and conquerer kang could be still early in his arc to being more powerfull, on top of that he gets sent packing by the fantastic 4 like everyday

I think Kang being much more intimidating if they place a bigger emphasis where he was exiled by the other Kang and made him look much more powerful than "i have big army, they go pew pew." It could've made the other kang so much more threatening

I think huge problems that people don’t want to talk about are that Stan Lee died and wasn’t involved and Disney became way more involved. Disney couldn’t care less about the quality of the product they’re releasing anymore. They just care about generating mass amounts of revenue by pumping out as much product as possible, hence phase four having more content in a shorter period of time than the first three phases combined. To me, Disney has WAY too many other balls up in the air to dedicate the proper time, focus, and budget to the MCU so now it’s cheap laughs, poor character development, and mass production.

"Jonathan Mayors is a guy you just don't mess with" Me coming across this video for the first time after Majors has been detained for assaulting a lady nearly choking her to death: Well, i guess he really is a guy you don't want to mess with

I checked out of the Marvel train when they released the first TV show (agents of SHIELD, I think). Although I don't think think that show needed to be watched, I hated the idea that I had to go out of my way to watch a show to get a better idea of what's going on.

What ruined it was they forced the connection. Each project should work as a standalone if that’s what you cared about. But if you watched them all you got more insight.

People nowadays are like; “There was a time I was rooting for this franchise. Never thought I’d see myself going ‘will you just go away?’”

You just explained everything I didn't like about Antman3 perfectly, thanks!

Janet in the post credit scene of Antman 2 - Hey lets build a quantum realm portal and send someone down to harvest particles Janet in Antman 3 - WHAT?!? YOU'RE TRYING TO REACH THE QUANTUM REALM?!?! YOU CAN'T GO THERE!!!

Another reason it is failing is that they thought the franchise will continue to be successful by itself because it was well established as successful at that point. They were so confident it will keep on going by itself and they removed Iron Man, captain America (and even Thor I would say) without having first established replacement characters that would have the same appeal to continue as leading figures. Let’s be honest, Iron man and cap heavily carried MCU up to this point and I was hoping that Doctor strange would be a viable next leading figure but he was given a secondary role even in his own movie. Honestly though, it is a good thing they removed them, imagine seeing Tony and cap in movies like love and thunder and in series like she hulk…

I was reading about an interview with the main writer, and apparently, he wanted to spin Kang basically getting defeated three times already or not being that much of a threat to an attempt to "make him human". that reminded me of the excuses I used to do in my writing at fourteen for glaring plot or character development mistakes, saying "no you don't get it, it's supposed to be like this. is symbolic. the character here gets weak for a super convoluted reason which makes sense only in my head". the difference here is that guy is a professional, and me just a kid vomiting stuff on a word file.

Every time I left the theater during the first 3 phases of the MCU, I always said "that's my new favorite movie!" After Endgame, I haven't said that once for the MCU. It really shows that it's getting worse.

I'd happily watch Thor: The Dark World over most of the recent Marvel stuff. Thor 2 isn't necessarily a bad film. It is is just dwarfed by other great MCU films. On its own, I'd say it's an average film, and most importantly, advances Loki's character, advances Thor and Loki's relationship, gives glimpses into Frigga, Odin and Heimdall... I've genuinely watched it a couple of times and enjoyed it. I can't get through some of the more recent stuff once.

I think at first Phase 4 had a strong impact at first like WandaVision had to this mystery as to why is Vision back what’s with the sitcoms? Those questions is what got me into that show. Falcon and Winter Soldier didn’t had too many questions I was trying to look for but it was good to see how society was coping with the lack of Captain America and why it was a mistake to give the perfect soldier the formula and name him Captain America. Loki was showing how he was understanding that he had to take some responsibility and accountability. Dr Strange I started to see some of the writing being lackluster. No way Home is probably the only film I watched that I enjoyed. I think She-Hulk was the final nail in the coffin where that I basically am sick of the MCU. I literally watched it for Daredevil. MCU needs help

Jonathon majors was given his shot this year with ant man and creed. He has definitely made the most of it. A must watch actor currently

No matter what it is, once something is around for a few years there’s going to people on RU-vid making videos about how somethings dying or it isn’t as good as it use to be. The thing I find funny about marvel though is the people who say the put out too much content as if comics aren’t a thing

One thing that did make the mcu so exciting when it’s first movies came out and we got these after credits scenes which indicates to a bigger movie saga was that we just didn’t know which way or shape that all take. Now it’s just mcu 2.0 without the fairy mist and on top the interconnecting movies are just boring or bad.

I think you should mention that Wasp did literally NOTHING until the very end felt like such a waste of the character. Wouldn’t it have been so interesting if Cassie and Hope didn’t get along? That would introduce a conflict for Scott to resolve as he wants his family to stay together and trust each other. It could’ve led to some funny moments as he tries to get his family to act like the avengers and they are so annoyed by him

Honestly the film felt like it was written by an AI, especially the first part that explained how they travelled to the Quantum Realm

i personally watched 18/23 of the phase 1-3 movies. I really enjoyed all of them and they were some of my favorite action films for those times !!! since the end of phase 3 i have seen literally 1 movie, it was dr. strange multiverse of madness and it remains as the worst film ive ever seen in theaters. i had such strong closure in infinity war that i have felt 0 motivation to continue watching. and when i did try !! to see how things w/ scarlet which resolved i was so disappointed i completely stopped watching all together. i hope things improve for the MCU but its been sad to watch it fall apart

The more I think about this movie, the more I realize how badly they nerfed Kang. They made him into a madman with anger issues and overflowing arrogance, also devoid of composure and strategy. I mean, the guy got beat by ANTS. Then they had him beat with a FIST FIGHT with a low tier superhero. They really disrespected Johnathan majors as an actor. He deserved better

the day Boseman died, I asked myself how they could continue the answer was, they shouldn't have Endgame was a perfect finale, a celebration of what's good about Marvel and Spider-Man was a perfect epilogue, a celebration of its greatest character

Wandavision and Loki are the only tv shows even worth any recognition from phase 4

It doesn't feel like homework It feels like going on a 4 year college career that in the end you feel like it wasn't even worth your time

Good luck for your favourite JM, not sure he can live up to your expectations and even in real life a good person