A significant factor facing “Captain America 4” and “Thunderbolts*” is how much they rely on characters and plotlines from several earlier MCU titles
The problem with Return of the Jedi is that you have to watch A New Hope AND Empire Strikes Back first.
With the exception of Multiverse of Madness and Wanda’s children, every film has always made it clear and caught the viewer up. Yes, it helps to have seen the other films and shows, but it’s not the required homework these articles like to claim.
In fact with Captain America 4, you could argue that you need to have seen Cap 1, 2 & 3. However I’ll argue the only film you’ll need to have seen is Endgame. You know the #1 highest grossing film of all time. I think it’s fair to assume people have seen that.
Now with Thunderbolts* we have a whole new cast. But do you remember the 2016 film Suicide Squad? Absolute garbage. But do you remember the 2021 film The Suicide Squad? Great film. The 2021 film had to reintroduce everyone because no one remembers the garbage 2016 one. Did anyone have an issue with that? No.
Now if Thunderbolts* turns out to be garbage it’s not going to be because it requires knowledge of the other films or TV shows, it’s because it will just suck all in its own.
And then you have The Marvels which seems to have a lot of its plot happen before off screen and a large chunk of the first half of the film consists of
Oh these people I met before and we are friends
Oh these people I met before and they dont like me
Yeah, The Marvels has problems but importantly (for this example) they aren’t solved in another film or TV show.
I think Captain Marvel having secret friends and enemies all around the galaxy is a green idea. She’s had 30 years to get up to adventures. In some of them she’s a heroic princess. In another she is a horrific destroyer, “The Annihilator”.
But we have the baggage of Monica to handle. And Ms Marvel is the perfect sidekick, so we need to include her and she comes with a family that needs to be explored. Also the Skulls, that’s a huge hanging plotline. At this point the film is full, but also we need a villain… Which ended up being the weakest part of the film. And then they still added the whole Flerkin/cat plotline to an already crowded movie.
Ultimately they just had too much to cover and not enough time.
Every superhero movie just feels like it’s setting up the sequel. Why can’t a movie just be a movie?
Exactly. And it’s even more absurd when it’s normal movies doing it too now. Example Avatar 2 felt so incomplete story wise. Even bollywood is plagued with this now.
After watching the Endgame arc, I’m tired of superhero materials that just boil down to them punching each other for a while. I see some kind of conflict start and I start the timer on when they’ll be punching away. Rarely does it run long.
