TCTTS said:

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Thunderbolts filmed in the summer/fall of 2023.

There is ZERO chance they added the white streak to the hair of the Julia Louis-Dreyfus iteration of the character all the way back then (which, again, is from the comics), in anticipation that Trump MIGHT win the election well over a year later, and then MIGHT nominate Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence in the months after that, so that the movie could then make some kind of "blatant" political commentary in... May 2025.

That's insane.

And a stretch for even the looniest of F16 loons.

My post had ZERO political commentary or intention behind it. It's was merely highlighting the crazy coincidence that a dark-haired woman with a white streak in hair now oversees the CIA, just three months before a Marvel movie releases depicting a dark-haired woman with a white streak in hair overseeing the CIA.

Because there's absolutely no way that was intentional.

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Agree to disagree. And I wasn't implying you were making political commentary. I was merely calling out my POV. Tulsi has been in the news for years now due to all kinds of political bull**** directly related to this topic (national security) so this absolutely could be related. Anyone following politics knows and realizes this. It's not a stretch.

Regardless, do you know what uWU torture apologism means? That was a legitimate question. No idea what that means.

Good Lord.

And no, I have no idea what uWu torture apologism means.

Yeah and Thunderbolts isn't her first appearance in the MCU. Did she have the streak in F&WS or Black Widow?

I think uWu is a reference to e-girls, but I'm not positive. I just know I've seen it on Twitter and YouTube when talking about obnoxious twitch streamer types.

According to Google AI, UwU conveys warm, happy and affectionate feelings and is popular among furry fandom. The exact opposite of what I want to see associated with a movie involving the Incredible Hulk.

TCTTS said:

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Good Lord.

And no, I have no idea what uWu torture apologism means.

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I'm talking about dressing her up in all white. The streak is a coincidence as already stated but putting in her almost the exact signature outfit of Tulsi is a pretty obvious move to equate Tulsi to a character who is part of HYDRA and a Russian mole. You may recall that Hillary famously called Tulsi a Russian mole in 2020 and the left has run with that label ever since.

Use a coincidence to further play up a political statement. Thus, my comment of "never let a crisis go to waste" which is Dem doctrine as stated by them. They had this coincidence handed to them on a silver platter and they took advantage of it. Doesn't' upset me; I'm just calling out an obvious parallel. Happens all the time in movies. You just have to roll with it.

Frankly, this is as on the nose as you can get!

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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Not only that, but at the time Tulsi was still aligned with Democrats. Trump was never going to put a Democrat into his cabinet.

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Tulsi hasn't been aligned with the Democrats in 3-4 years. Probably since the leader of the Democrat Party called her a Russian asset five years ago in 2020. She hasn't been an advocate for the Dems for quite a while.

This movie was filmed in 2023, as TC said.

Y'all are trying to avoid an obvious connection here and I'm not sure why. This is what Hollywood does; it's not a big deal.

No, I knew that about her from the 2020 "election". She did not officially join the Republicans until after the movie was filmed. It is possible they could have modeled this character after Tulsi but I think it more likely they drew their inspiration from her depiction in the comics.

I see plenty of subtle and also not subtle jabs at Republicans coming out of Hollywood. Recall the guy in one of the Jurassic World movies who had a haircut similar to Trump's; that guy ended up chomped. They show a lot of hate toward these types, but I don't see Elaine Benes as being another example of that.

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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No, I knew that about her from the 2020 "election". She did not officially join the Republicans until after the movie was filmed. It is possible they could have modeled this character after Tulsi but I think it more likely they drew their inspiration from her depiction in the comics.

I see plenty of subtle and also not subtle jabs at Republicans coming out of Hollywood. Recall the guy in one of the Jurassic World movies who had a haircut similar to Trump's; that guy ended up chomped. They show a lot of hate toward these types, but I don't see Elaine Benes as being another example of that.

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Why not both. - meme

This is my damn point!!!!

Anywho, I'm more perplexed by uWu and now e-girls. Neither of which I've ever heard of and should probably ignore to protect my psyche.

TNNCS, I'm getting a little bit anxious by some of the reviews. Really want this one to succeed.

‘CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD’ suffers from underdeveloped plot lines, jarring CGI & terribly edited fight scenes. Maybe that could be forgiven if the film delivered enough thrills…

It doesn’t.

Find out more in our review… https://t.co/0gfGLVj4Tv

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) February 12, 2025

Don't think it was that early. I'm seeing filming in early 2024. May not matter that much, but could be noteworthy when analyzing real life comparisons to contemporary political figures.

Try to keep up.

So back to the new movie…

It's not good?

That's too bad. I liked the continuity of handling things off to the next generation, and there's a lot of history in comics of people stepping into roles. Good actors involved as well.

Marvel is never going to match Endgame, so it may be time for an even more drastic change in direction if the new movies keep flopping

Honestly my only complaint with the MCU Endgame saga was the lack of X-Men. Having read the original Infinity Gauntlet series (with the 1000 crossovers) when it came out, the X-Men were central to the story.

But maybe the way forward is that the leftover Avengers become supporting cast to the F4 and X-men reboots. Puts a ton of pressure on those projects to get it right, and they certainly didn't in the previous incarnations.

I think that would be a good compromise... come 2027/2028 put the X-Men front and center and then have whoever's still left from the MCU/Avengers in supporting roles, showing up every so often to lend a hand, help flesh out certain storylines, etc. And then yeah, utilize the Fantastic Four as well, however best compliments the X-Men. Feige could still have another Black Panther movie or whatever else as well, but the "old school" MCU movies would, ideally, end up being, like, one for every two-to-three X-Men and Fantastic Four movies. Something along those lines.

I hope to God X-Men are as good as phase 1-3 marvel. Please oh please make them good.

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Still, it's all a far cry from the lead-up to/anticipation of Infinity War and Endgame, feels slapped together at the last minute, etc.

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MCU 1 - 3 was damn near perfection across the board. In the midst of all of that, along came DC with Man of Steel, but that was when they made a mistake, where they basically skipped over all the setup to get to the big Justice League movie. Had the JL simply been Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, it might have worked - might, I stress - but the problem with this approach was characters that a majority of the audience was not nearly as familiar with, particularly Cyborg.

There were all kinds of other problems with the theatrical Justice League movie (I rank Zach Snyder's Justice League as among the best comic movies I've ever seen, while the theatrical version is a steaming pile of horse dung). It's highly likely the DCU was doomed to fail from the beginning as DC seemed to be intent on catching up to Marvel rather than building their own universe over a number of films and years until bringing in the Darkseid story.

Back to the MCU, I felt when Endgame ended that it was not only the end of Tony Stark and the Avengers as we'd come to know them, but also the end of that saga. Even though I knew there were more movies to come. The new movies have been a massive disappointment across the board. None of them have energized me to the point of marking them on a calendar as for when they will release. Case in point, I only bought tickets for BNW yesterday, whereas with previous CA movies I had tickets the minute they went on pre-sale. I still have faith that Marvel is capable of making good movies and keeping my interest, which is what phases 1 - 3 demonstrated, but phase 4 really put a crack in that.

I think to some extent we overrate the "plan" of phases 1-3. It was pretty simple - three trilogies (Iron Man, Cap, Thor), eventually a few side characters (Ant-Man 1 and 2, Hulk, Guardians, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Captain Marvel), a few small team ups (Winter Soldier), cameos, and 4-5 team-up movies. They were able to make a lot of that up as they went but fans were hooked.

(I made that sound too easy, but essentially it was a trilogy of trilogies. Anything beyond that, for the most part, grew organically with audience demand.)

Case in point: Outside of comic fans, nobody really cared about Captain America in 2011. They were still skeptical for Avengers in 2012. He changed lots of minds in Winter Soldier in 2014 and by Age of Ultron in 2015 he was a legitimate fan favorite.

I don't think phases 4-5 have disappointed because the characters aren't good anymore. I think they've just introduced too many and then neglected them. Shang-Chi hasn't been seen since 2021 (we'd seen Cap in 4 movies and one cameo in that span), for example. Sam Wilson's Cap had to wait 4 years to suit up again. Etc.

I guess that all reeks of "lack of a plan" but the real thing, to me, is lack of consistency. The Infinity Saga gave us a handful of characters that we'd seen every 1-2 years. The Multiverse Saga gave us truckloads of characters we'd never see again. I wonder which one audiences respond to better?

Edited to add: when it comes to X-Men, I don't think one film every 3 years will cut it. Nor will having a roster too big for connection. Nobody is satisfied anymore with a cutesie Colossus cameo. The team needs to grow slowly and organically. If the first X-Men film has 8 members on the team then we're never going to get to know them enough, aside from "that one does the cool portal thing" or whatever.

TCTTS said:

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CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD: looks like Marvel got that Netflix memo about characters having to say everything they do so an inattentive audience can keep up. Extreme Disney+ series energy

— Hoai-Tran Bui (@htranbui) February 12, 2025

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I think this encapsulates why the reviews appear so middling. Marvel movies aren't high art, but 'show, don't tell' still applies. To remind old viewers and simultaneously inform new viewers, the dialogue and exposition can get clumsy and forced. The best part of Infinity War and Endgame was the lack of explanation. Many viewers were highly aware of the characters and their stories, but it wasn't really necessary and most viewers could figure it on the fly

Came here and saw people asking what "uWU torture" is and all I know is that it is probably 1000% something that should never be googled at work.

Critical drinker had a pretty funny critique tweet about this movie but it may be considered kind of spoilery so I don't want to post it, but if you don't care about that kind of stuff it's worth looking up.

swimmerbabe11 said:

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Came here and saw people asking what "uWU torture" is and all I know is that it is probably 1000% something that should never be googled at work.

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Just finished it… I'm always anti twitter critic but I thought it was just meh. I guess Anthony Mackie just doesn't do it for me.

I think a lot of their core demographic form the original films has also aged out of caring as well. That certainly can't help.