Continuing my MCU rewatch

[Fletch]

I am referring more to his character at the end of season 2, I am not really (in this discussion) distinguishing between season 1 and 2 in terms of his arc, and think many of your comments get addressed.

Interesting. I'm a little more eager to watch S2 now.

 

[Fletch]

Black Widow

Right up front, I think they did Scarlett Johansson dirty by holding out so long to give her a solo movie. And when they finally do, it's to introduce her replacement.

Having said that, though, post-Civil War was the perfect time for her solo movie, since it's when she was on her own. And because that period was really crowded for movies that had to happen before Infinity War, I don't see a good place for it to be pasted in. Maybe the decision was as simple as that.

Anyways...

1. Of course the de-aging if flawless, but I'm additionally impressed by how much of Scarlett I can see in the Young Natasha. Did they luck into a look-alike, or was there a lot of digital work done?
   
   
2. There's a real Harvey Weinstein vibe with Dreykov, right? I'm not the only one seeing it?
   
   
3. I'm a huge Taskmaster fan from the comics, but I'm not bothered at all that they took his personality and changed his backstory here. It's what works better for this particular story and looks great on the screen. Honestly, Taskmaster is the perfect opponent for a super-agent character like Black Widow, and this is the perfect time to use him. There's a huge library of fight moves across 10 years worth of movies to draw from, and it's fun to recognize them when she uses them.
   
   
4. Added bonus, Taskmaster is watching aerial footage of the fight at the Berlin airport from Civil War. In Loki, they just showed him straight up movie shots (with edits). Here they put in some kind of effort to make it look like it was legitimately recorded by satellite or something.
   
   
5. Florence Pugh is really good here, and I dig her "bratty little sister" vibes. I don't adore her as much as some people seem to, though. It's the way she and Scarlett balance each other in a scene that I really liked. On the other hand, I thought that whole "fight poser" joke was dumb when she said it the first time, and it just kept going.
   
   
6. I don't have any strong feelings for David Harbour in general, but I really hate him as Red Guardian. He seemed like a solid Soviet agent when we first met him, but he was an absolute joke for the rest of the film. And not a very funny joke. He wasn't the heart of the movie or the comic relief, he was just gross and ineffective. I do, however, honestly believe that he fought *a* Captain America during the 80s, and I would love to see some of that to understand him in his prime. Think there could've been a William Burnside commie-smasher Cap in the 80s?
   
   
7. I must've been distracted by the suffocating pig, but I had never caught the part of the conversation before that explains how their mission to Ohio was the start of the development of the mind-control stuff they used on the Widows. Natasha and Yelena's shared glance takes on way more meaning, and Melina's face turn from serving the Red Room makes way more sense. It's such a key element to the escalation of the plot and I'd missed it the two or three times I've watched this movie before.
   
   
8. I'm also pretty sure I fell for Natasha and Melina's ruse when I first saw the movie, right up until Dreykov pulls off the Widow's veil. Which is extra dense because I'm sure the trailers showed Natasha in the black suit and Melina in the white.
   
   
9. They never do say who made the red mist cure. They only said a widow of Melina's generation. Any guesses?
   
   
10. I think they went to the planning flashback one time too many. It was a real surprise when Drakov pulled off Natasha's mask and then we go back to see them making the plan. But I would've been just fine with Natasha coming up with the plan to sever her olfactory nerve right there on the spot after Dreykov explains what's happening. I'll also say here that Natasha's decision to make a one-liner after breaking her own nose objectively gave Drakov time to summon the Widows. She *is* a poser.
    
    
11. The fight between Alexei and Taskmaster *should* have been the big TM showcase, especially now that we've been told exactly how she works. But Alexei is such a chump. I watched it twice to make sure, but he doesn't even hit her once. I guess that's one way to show how badass she was, but it was super boring. Also, imagine how badass she would've been if we'd ever taken Red Guardian as a credible threat.
    
    
12. I know the plane engine explosion gets a lot of flack from viewers for how bad the CG is, but it really isn't. It does everything it needs to do to get the point across, and if the exposure and contrast aren't perfect, so what. It doesn't ruin my suspension of disbelief any more than seeing Natasha bounce twice off a six-story building and land on her feet does.
    
    
13. I like the musical motif where the music will just cut off for a second while something happens. They did it during the prison escape too. It's like the music is an equal partner to the action rather than just accompaniment.

I really like this movie. It exactly hits that tone of super-spy thriller that Winter Soldier got so right. Red Guardian is like an anchor around this movie's neck for me, though. I hate almost every time he starts talking. This movie also doesn't make me too pumped to see Yelena continue as a Black Widow replacement, but that may've been my general interest in just moving on from the Avengers at this point.

I know there was some talk before about the optics of the MCU having all their lead women characters get mind controlled, but I don't see that as an issue here. It's no more an anti-woman message here than when it was done to Bucky. Or the Manchurian Candidate. And, in this case, I think if you overcome his control by breaking your own nose because he was too weak to do it, you get a pass.

 

[fac]

Interested in your alt-Phase 4 ideas for BW.

For me its a shame they didn't set this between IW and Endgame - I think Natasha going looking for her family in response to the Blip, and taking her frustration out on the Red Room as her catharsis, would have set up the basic story nicely. Could have teased some Hawkeye as Ronin as more evidence that the heroes were in PTSD mode and maybe felt unencumbered by the rules after taking the loss vs Thanos (maybe Clint dealing with his family being blipped would make Natasha want to see hers, despite it not being real). Main change would be that Yelena wasn't blipped herself - but that wasn't a big plot point, and she could still hate on Hawkeye for Natasha not coming back.

 

[fac]

Also, I know you are watching the films as released, but thoughts on the deleted/alternate end scene:

 

[Fletch]

Interested in your alt-Phase 4 ideas for BW.

Uh-oh.

its a shame they didn't set this between IW and Endgame

That's a really appealing pitch.

I remember when this movie was first announced and conjecture was that it would take place while Natasha was trying to keep things together after the Snap. I never stopped to wonder if this story in general would fit during that time.

If nothing else, missed opportunity to show the state of the world during her globe-trotting adventures.

 

[Schizm]

That would have required foresight and I think we've all seen how little thought Marvel execs have shown that for the Blip or the implications of it. I still absolutely hate it being called "the Blip" - no one knew it wasn't permanent for five years!

But they did have the wherewithal to shoot Natasha seeing Ant-Man for the first time with two different hairstyles - blonde in the trailer, red in the film. I'm still curious why that was - to throw people off the scent or reshoots. She looks reshot in a lot of those scenes.

 

[Fletch]

I still absolutely hate it being called "the Blip" - no one knew it wasn't permanent for five years!

A rule I've made up just for myself is to refer to the Snap as when they all went away, and the Blip as the entire period covered between the Snap and return.

So during that five-year period is post-Snap, but after everyone's return, it's post-Blip.

 

[Fletch]

In my version of the Multiverse Saga, Black Widow wouldn't actually change at all. I really liked this movie as-is, and finally paying attention to the dinner scene at Melina's farm makes me like it even more. If I gave myself omnipotence, I'd have tried to release it before she died, either right after Civil War or at least some time before Endgame, but that's it.

Sorry, fac.

I do really like fac's idea of having it all take place between IW and Endgame. That's a pretty smooth alternate idea that would fill in a lot of what we should've seen re how bad the world was post-blip.

I'm not the type to steal ideas, but I'm not against a group project, and could see myself voting for this in an Articulaverse MCU.

 

[Fletch]

What If...?

What a great idea for a series, right on the heals of the "birth" of the Multiverse to really demonstrate the concept. Call some actors back for relatively easy choice recording and it's an easy day.

1. Captain Carter - definitively what I think of as a What If story. They specifically call out the moment of change, then we get to revisit familiar events as they're born under these altered circumstances. Events play out in different ways, but there's enough familiarity to feel the changes.
   
   
2. T'Challa - maybe my last favorite episode of Season 1. The 'what if' moment was a real stretch, and I'm not even sure why they went through the effort. Were people really wondering what it'd be like if T'Challa went to space? And then the story itself doesn't recreate the events from the original story, instead having them all already handled (Thanos and Nebula are our friends here) and moving on to its own story about the Collector. I can say it was fun to see how much better the universe is because it's T'Challa instead of Quill, but that doesn't carry me through the whole episode.
   
   
3. Hank Pym - and then episode 3 flips it again and delivers another favorite episode. Saving the What If moment reveal for the end made a really good mystery, and setting it in the crowded days around Iron Man 2 presented it as a familiar location that we could follow along with as events happened. I didn't care for the vaguely cliff-hanger ending with the Asgardian invasion, but it at least wrapped up the Pym story.
   
   
4. Dr. Strange - I have mixed thoughts on this episode. I really liked the journey that Strange took into the dark side of claiming power, but I never bought into the idea that he was so in love with Christine that he would risk the universe to bring her back. The Ancient One says "Without her death, you would never have defeated Dormamu," which is provably false. I guess *that* was the What If idea (What If Stephen Strange Loved Christine?) Still, it's otherwise a good episode and Cumberbatch is a surprisingly good voice actor.
   
   
5. Marvel Zombies - I did not like this episode at all. It was such a wild swing for an origin point that is basically "What If we made a cartoon of that pretty famous comic series?" I had a hard time believing that *these* are the survivors, then they just kind of took turns sacrificing themselves until the story trailed off. I did like Happy going all "blam blam blam" while shooting the repulsor glove. Sad that that's my favorite part.
   
   
6. Killmonger - this story was fine. It was basically "What If Killmonger made a different plan?" Initially I enjoyed the repeated betrayals and some mystery about what his real goal was, but it ended with me still not actually knowing what his real goal was. Could we have just wrapped it up with him causing T'Chaka's death and taking the throne? Why end with Shuri and Pepper taking up like they're leading into the sequel? Like I said, at least the Pym episode gave us a cliffhanger after they wrapped up the main story, this one just stops.
   
   
7. Thor - just a single joke stretched out over an entire episode, but it gets a pass from me because of the really awesome extended fight between Thor and Danvers. The rest of the episode was terrible, but what a dust up!
   
   
8. Ultron - my favorite part of the whole series was Uatu desperately wanting to help Clint find the file but still not willing to break his Oath. I was sure he was going to and was amazed that he didn't. The rest of the episode made the mistake of sidelining the actual What If here with an abrupt tale of an omnipotent Ultron. That half-second scene where he just bisects Thanos is insulting. There was an opportunity to connect this with Stark's original intent for Ultron to be the armor that protects Earth from Thanos, but nah.
   
   
9. The Watcher - a pretty great finale partially because I wasn't expecting this series to lead to a Crossover finale. Obvious gap in things because COVID kept them from making the episode that introduce Stone-crusher Gamora and that probably would've kept me from wondering why they only wanted the Soul Stone. Still, what an awesome episode. I love Sinister Strange, I love the resolution that took them back to the Ultron-ravaged Earth and Chekhov's virus arrow that I'd completely forgotten about, and I loved the finale that brought this Widow to the Asgardian invasion Earth that I thought they'd just ended really abruptly. I should've trusted that Uatu had a better plan in mind when he assembled this team. Knowing that he planned on Killmonger's betrayal and intentionally brought them back to ZolaVirus world closed a lot of plot holes for me.

Thanks a lot to that finale, I really enjoyed this series. Not every episode was great (or even good), but as a whole it was a really good time. The animation was really spectacular and the fight scenes were all done, from the Kirby Dot spectacular cosmic battle of Uatu vs Ultron down to the trackable martial arts moves of Captain Carter vs Nazis. Everything looked so good.