Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
Good question, especially since (at first glance) there isn’t likely to be that much tying together this next batch of movies. With earlier MCU movies there was at least the tenuous thread of the Infinity MacGuffins to hint at a broader storyline. In the list that you posted, I can imagine that Thor and GotG will be closely linked (i.e. Asgardians of the Galaxy), but most of the others seem too disparate to have any obvious connection, so less of a cross-pollination effect in terms of generating interest.

Also, I have to wonder how much superhero fatigue is beginning to develop. Of the nine projects you’ve listed, I’m really only interested in Spider-Man and Dr. Strange—at least interested enough to see them in the theater. I’ll watch a couple others whenever they’re available for VOD, but other than that I’m pretty much over the franchise.

I suspect I’m not alone in that, so this may be another hurdle Disney has to clear, in addition to everything else. I would pay real money for an Iron Pepper movie, maybe in a team-up with Wasp and Ghost, but other than that the superhero game just has much less appeal these days.

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So the first 12 movies of the MCU were Iron Man 1 to Avengers 2+Ant Man and is often called Phase 1 plus Phase 2.

Only Thor 2 Dark World, Guardians of the Galaxy 1, and Avengers 2 mentioned the Infinity Stones and likewise in Thor 2 and Avengers 2 they are merely "MacGuffins" and were boring with the MacGuffin part. Guardians of the Galaxy 1 did established there were plot important and there were cameos of Thanos in Avengers 1 and Avengers 2.

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Why did I bring that stuff up? I do not think the Infinity Stones really convinced most people that these movies were connected. Instead it was the social contract that there were going to be a larger story even if each individual movie barely advanced the story 2013 to 2018.

Likewise Phase 3 was a total of 11 movies.
6 Movies prior to Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.
1 Infinity War
2 Movies before Endgame there were Prequels / Meanwhile
1 Endgame
And then the 2nd Spider-Movie Far From Home which was an epilogue for the death of Tony Stark.

Of those 6 movies before Infinity War only Doctor Strange had another Infinity Stone, and there was the wink and the nod of Thor Ragnarok that those earlier easter eggs were just teasers and even the writers / Feige / etc are making up the story as it goes from 2008 to 2017. (Ragnarok is the 17th movie at the time Hela pretty much admitted they messed up, but hey the ride was fun so just enjoy this Bathos anti-climax with a joke and a smile for the journey was worth it.)

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Sorry I am being wordy with all these numbers and lists, my point here is I think what unites the MCU movies is not "macguffins" like the infinity stones. It is trust with the viewers where there is an unspoken contract between the studio and the viewers of the movie.

The contract is I am going to give you TV but better on the Movie Theater. You pay the $9.50 movie ticket price (median ticket price of 2019) aka $20 a year and I give you a tv worldbuilding adventure story with all its lore and just silly fun, but we will do it with much higher movie production values where each individual movie costs $150 to $300 million to make aka 5 to 10 times the cost of many old tv shows before the prestige tv era made everyone budget go higher.

And the commitment time wise is lower we are talking only 4 hours of movie a year which is a lot less than 10, 13, 26 hours of television. And the fact you have to go outside the house to do it, often with friends, creates a form of social bonding that some tv viewers do not have. Yes lots of tv viewers talk about tv on the internet but I am willing to bet that is only a significant minority.

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I am tired of Superhero movies as well. The stuff I like is the space stuff such as Guardians or Ragnarok. (Also Black Panther.) I just stop caring about movies involving human locations like you need to save DC, or New York, or Sokovia. The stakes just feel off. I have my problems and simultaneously adoration of Nolan's Batman movies, and the reason why the stakes of The Dark Knight (the 2nd one) feel right with The Joker is that the city itself was not at threat, or a country, or the world. Nope the stakes was 300 people and terrorism. The social contract between viewer and storyteller felt right for you could believe a boat full of 300 people may die, but is New York ever in danger? Bigger stakes does not make more interesting stories, we are watching these adventure movies for the character moments not for the fate of the world or the universe. Endgame got this with its wink and the nod meta references where we cry when depressed Thor finds out "I am still worthy" even though he has depression and he gets to say goodbye to his mom.

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Back to the movie at hand. Mulan is special for she will bring honor to us all.