Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Official Trailer

[Ramza00]

Oh goody gumdrops I just can't wait to argue more about the ending of WandaVision

For what it's worth, the two scenes in the trailer (Strange in the orchard, and Wanda inside her own mind seemingly back in Westview) suggest that they're going to further address her mistakes in some way and get a bit more karmic with her. With that said, I suspect there is a contingent of fans that won't be satisfied with anything Wanda-related until she is pilloried, drawn and quartered.

Just a reminder for people that are unaware. That this Dr Strange movie was originally supposed to come out May 2021, and the end of WandaVision with its finale was supposed to be sometime in early 2021 to set up that movie. The actual date the finale of WandaVision was released was March 5th, and the finale shows some bad cgi and cancelled scenes that were never filmed, and others they skipped (but some of it was filmed) for WandaVision had to shut down production while filming in 2020 for there was an outbreak of Covid and they took a month to figure out how to be safer. Some of the CGI for WandaVision was still being made when Episode 1 dropped for production finished Nov 2020, and the pilot two episodes were dropped January 15th.

As you can tell I loved WandaVision, yet I am acknowledging it is a mess, and I love it because it is a mess / despite it is a mess for that is life. Arguing over the messiness of life is more fun to me than arguing over what to call a lady after a finale.

[SarahCornel]

I believe that Dr. Strange is the most powerful wizard in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

[Mallbod]

Want to see it badly

[Ramza00]

I guess I will be seeing ads for this movie now that it is less than 30 days till May 6th.

Saw a twitter ad that was sponsored by a movie theater chain saying the experience of the movie is so much better on a huge screen and then showed shortened trailer clips with lots of detailed scenes.

[Tyndmyr]

Second this. Honestly I have no issue with her going supervillain; the mess in Civil War crowned by having to personally kill her boyfriend and then have it all be for nothing is a pretty good arch for it, with the added bonus of giving her more dimension than most MCU villains. But don’t have the narrative pretend she’d still a hero afterwards. She’s not.

Agreed.

Just embrace the villainy. Yeah, maybe you can have a redemption arc down the line or something, cool, but having Wanda go full villain is...in keeping with comics, even, and could be awesome. A great villain role is nothing to be upset at for a character, and some of the most iconic characters in fictions are villains, at least some of the time.

[Zalabim]

Just got back from the theaters so

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Mephisto was a perfect villain in this movie. I am so glad they held back from revealing him in Wandavision. He is the only one who could go atrocity for atrocity with Dr Steven Strange. Pat isn't the only actor reprising a role for the illuminati. Other than that I can see a lot of Raimi's hand in the directing. In some cases more literally than others. Bruce punching himself is never not relevant. Most noteworthy battle in the movie has to be the musical score. Possible arc words. Are you happy? I know I don't apologize for any of the lies I just told here. I told you this would contain spoilers.

Glorious movie. No notes. Time to see if any negativity gets manufactured for this one.

[Tyndmyr]

Just embrace the villainy. Yeah, maybe you can have a redemption arc down the line or something, cool, but having Wanda go full villain is...in keeping with comics, even, and could be awesome. A great villain role is nothing to be upset at for a character, and some of the most iconic characters in fictions are villains, at least some of the time.

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Well I, for one, am satisfied.

And perhaps a touch vindicated. Wanda does make a pretty great villain, and it's sort of awesome to see her cut loose and embrace it. It's a pretty fun romp, avoids the very linear equal opposites approach that gets tedious and has some pretty bonkers fight scenes that are...very much in keeping with Dr. Strange.

I will say that being trained as a flunkie at Kamar-taj is a pretty rough gig at this point. Basically the red shirts of the MCU.

[Psyren]

Saw it as well. Still processing, but enjoyed it overall.

My two questions/complaints:

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1) America Chavez's powers are never really explained, nor is it really explained why she is so unique in the multiverse (even moreso than The Scarlet Witch.) I think the comics are pretty vague on this front too though.

2) The corrupting influence of the Darkhold drives pretty much the entire plot, yet at the end Strange is able to use it seemingly without issue or a price of any kind. Seems like a missed opportunity.

Also, there are two post-credit scenes.

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I will say that being trained as a flunkie at Kamar-taj is a pretty rough gig at this point. Basically the red shirts of the MCU.

To say nothing of being in the Wakanda military.

[Tyndmyr]

Saw it as well. Still processing, but enjoyed it overall.

My two questions/complaints:

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1) America Chavez's powers are never really explained, nor is it really explained why she is so unique in the multiverse (even moreso than The Scarlet Witch.) I think the comics are pretty vague on this front too though.

2) The corrupting influence of the Darkhold drives pretty much the entire plot, yet at the end Strange is able to use it seemingly without issue or a price of any kind. Seems like a missed opportunity.

Also, there are two post-credit scenes.

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1) That's true. We don't really have any idea why she has powers. I didn't really mind this because she's honestly more plot device than character. It might have bothered me if I followed her in the comics and had expectations from them, but for this, meh. She's in Strange's film, it's okay if she's distinctly secondary. That said, it might have been nice if they gave a more concrete reason than believing in oneself to gain control of powers. Like realizing it's pain and fear and pricking oneself with a thumbtack or similar.

2) Arguably the third eye popping up in the post-credit scene is part of that? Maybe? It's certainly unclear, and it's possible that the destruction of the Darkhold limited its ability to exert ongoing corruption, but there's definitely space for some consequences to be shown later.

[Psyren]

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1) That's true. We don't really have any idea why she has powers. I didn't really mind this because she's honestly more plot device than character. It might have bothered me if I followed her in the comics and had expectations from them, but for this, meh. She's in Strange's film, it's okay if she's distinctly secondary. That said, it might have been nice if they gave a more concrete reason than believing in oneself to gain control of powers. Like realizing it's pain and fear and pricking oneself with a thumbtack or similar.

2) Arguably the third eye popping up in the post-credit scene is part of that? Maybe? It's certainly unclear, and it's possible that the destruction of the Darkhold limited its ability to exert ongoing corruption, but there's definitely space for some consequences to be shown later.

Good point on #2. I suppose that shoe hasn't fallen yet. (I had kind of written that off as a classic Raimi horror stinger.)

Anyway, for the MCU's first horror movie I'd say it did pretty well, and it'll certainly make more money than most horror movies usually do.

Oh and definitely enjoyed the cameos! Despite a lot of my predictions being wrong

[Eldan]

Pretty good. Ending bit sappy. After credits pretty pointless.

[runeghost]

Pretty good. Ending bit sappy. After credits pretty pointless.

Disagree hard on the after credits.

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I've been waiting/hoping for Clea since the very first Doctor Strange film. I hope very much we get her, her mother and her uncle in the next one.

It also sets up more Strange weirdness (which I like - weird strange is good Strange, imho) and dimension-hoppiing, which seems to be were the second big marvel arc is heading. Which is also fine by me.

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It makes me feel old, but I laughed so hard after "At last, it's over" that my wife and friends were worried I was going to pass out.

For those who saw it but don't get it, in the Evil Dead II (1987), directed by Sam Rami, Bruce Cambell's character's hand is possessed and attacks him. While it obviously wasn't planned that far back, the end of the final clip after the credit amounts to a thirty-five year long brick joke. Delivered perfectly by one of my favorite actors.

[ben-zayb]

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From the perspective of someone who only watched the initial trailer and didn't watch any later clips or news about it, I thought it's a great spectacle of a movie. Looking back, if I hadn't watched the trailer, I would've been absolutely mind-blown by Patrick Stewart's cameo.

I'm so glad Sam Raimi ended up directing this movie. There's lots of horror elements with all the great visual and auditory experience that comes with it. I love the sound design and score in this movie. Wanda-838 looked like a proper horror villain. The injuries sustained by many characters looked nasty and felt like there's more weight to them, which is of no surprise considering it's from the same man who directed the original Spider-Man vs Green Goblin and the Spider-Man vs Doc Ock fights. That said, the main characters got the generic, clean, token wounds treatment.

I'm glad MCU had Wanda go full-heel here. This at least helps clarify things for those who still needed 200-foot-tall flaming letters to be convinced Wanda's a villain even after watching WandaVision. Olsen killed it in the role, though I was caught off-guard that Wanda-838 didn't go Mama Bear mode instinctively against Wanda-616. Hey, uhm, that other person who looks like evil you and was choking someone a second ago, just attacked you and is now approaching your kids. How about you grab whatever you can to defend them and tell them to run, if only as precaution?

The Bruce Campbell cameo and Evil Dead 2 reference were fun. But hold on, wasn't his characters in the Raimi-verse supposed to be Mysterio? Dun, dun, DUN!

As for the Illuminati, maybe Universe-838 has the weakest Blackbolt and the dumbest Reed Richards by an arbitrarily large margin. I can't really say I'm disappointed with that, because their purpose seemed to be just hyping the fans for their better variant/s, so it did the job for me. Thank Walt we didn't get Fantfourstic Reed Richards. I still love the actual Professor X reveal despite the trailer taking the surprise away. I love the references to the X-Men cartoon with the chair and the theme. I love the score in this movie. Wait, I already said that.

Speaking of which, that score fight? Wow. I love the music duel the same way I loved the time-reversal fight in the original move, they are still so unique that you can only expect to see them in a main Doctor Strange title. I honestly thought there was more to Incursion Strange after their scuffle and I was waiting for the "things just got out of hand" line. Turned out being impaled does kill you and the trailer line got cut out.

For the ending, was it explained how Wanda-616 managed to destroy all the Darkhold versions? Regardless, I doubt Wanda-616 is truly dead, and destroying an artifact of such power may invite trouble from all across the multiverse.

Alternatively, this could be a memorial in honor of Strange in a universe where he's already dead and someone else like Mordo or Wong is the SS.

Lastly, it looks like I guessed right. Mordo-838 is the SS, Strange-838 is dead, and that's a memorial though only for show.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Just got back from seeing this. Was better than I expected.

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• Maybe it’s just multiple years of pandemic talking but I thought the joke with the cats fell a bit flat.
• Benedict Cumberbatch must really like acting against himself. Put him in a movie and you could do a fully fleshed out cast without having to hire anyone else.
• Happy to see Wanda is officially a supervillain after Westview. And she is an excellent supervillain! :D
• The bit with Wanda torturing people to get Wong’s cooperation felt contrived. You mean to tell me those four had just been lying in the rubble for however long and hadn’t either 1.) died of wounds or 2.) escaped?
• Was surprised to see Mr. Fantastic - pleasantly so.
• Speaking of, dear Mr. Fantastic - for a supposed super genius, telling the obvious supervillain how your buddy’s powers work was really stupid.
• Also speaking of, I thought that when he mentioned having a wife we were going to get a guest ambush by Sue. Seems like a missed opportunity.
• I feel like the bit with the watch being the key to the lock was a victim of reshoots - alternate!Christine had no way of knowing this Dr. Strange had meaningful history with that watch. Even if her version did, they’re two different people!
• Music battle was fun.
• The whole ‘Darkhold will corrupt the reader’ bit also seemed to be a victim of reshoots - they act like this is news when evil!Strange says it, but they already went over that earlier in the movie!
• Nice Chekov’s Gun with the corpse.
• If I’m supposed to know who the purple-dressed lady at the end is…I don’t.
• After the mess in NWH and with the new information about how incursions work, I suspect this is going to be along the lines of the Blip where they’re never going to address it in most of the ways it should logically come up. I will happily eat these words if we get the Saintly Six showing up to help save the world in a future Battleworld-themed movie though.

[ecarden]

I generally enjoyed it. It definitely resolved several questions and broke the pattern of 'fight your equal opposite, then giant battle against giant CGI monster/army' as a climax. I was honestly shocked by how much it was allowed to break the MCU formula. It wasn't even that quippy.

[GloatingSwine]

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As for the Illuminati, maybe Universe-838 has the weakest Blackbolt and the dumbest Reed Richards by an arbitrarily large margin. I can't really say I'm disappointed with that, because their purpose seemed to be just hyping the fans for their better variant/s, so it did the job for me. Thank Walt we didn't get Fantfourstic Reed Richards. I still love the actual Professor X reveal despite the trailer taking the surprise away. I love the references to the X-Men cartoon with the chair and the theme. I love the score in this movie. Wait, I already said that.

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Who would have thought that the Illuminati would be cripplingly overconfident in their problem solving abilities? "Let's all get together and fire the Hulk into space, that will surely end well!"

(The reason why 838 Wanda didn't fight back in that final scene is because that would undermine the point of the scene, the point is to have 616 Wanda realise how monstrous she was by having the one thing she wanted reject her. It was the children throwing things and then hiding and running to their mother that defeated her, making another action scene out of it wouldn't have sold that.)

[ben-zayb]

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Who would have thought that the Illuminati would be cripplingly overconfident in their problem solving abilities? "Let's all get together and fire the Hulk into space, that will surely end well!"

(The reason why 838 Wanda didn't fight back in that final scene is because that would undermine the point of the scene, the point is to have 616 Wanda realise how monstrous she was by having the one thing she wanted reject her. It was the children throwing things and then hiding and running to their mother that defeated her, making another action scene out of it wouldn't have sold that.)

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Ok, I'm not well versed with the comics, so I was only going off comic reader friends who kept on telling me Black Bolt is capable going toe to toe with Thor and Reed Richards (and Hank Pym) beat Galactus and is on some Batman level BS with his gadgets if prepared.

So, is Illuminati's gimmick in the comics to be a group of overconfident dudes who are supposed to be more effective in ending threats due to their moral ambiguity but still screw up big time?

About Wanda-838, I get the Doylist explanation with the narrative purpose. But what's the Watsonian explanation?

[Gray Mage]

Seen it yesterday, might be my favorite MCU movie so far.

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About the Illuminati having the idiot ball, I think we could give them a break in that their universe has a Wanda with powers as she had until endgame, so they underestimated her. They never thought (or had reason to) that she could simply "What mouth" that dude.

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About Wanda-838, I get the Doylist explanation with the narrative purpose. But what's the Watsonian explanation?

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I think the fact that a more powerfull version of herself (since she seemed to be aware while 616 hijacked ger body) is in her home but seemed to be barely calmed down and further aggression might tip the scales to violence in the same room her kids are in?

[Bartmanhomer]

Well, I saw Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness in IMAX early this morning and I'm going to give everyone my review.

Spoiler: My Thoughts On Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

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I saw Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness this morning in IMAX. This is the sequel of the 2016 Doctor Strange movie which I saw and it was good. This movie is about Doctor Strange saving the multiverse from a powerful threat. What I like about this movie is that it has so much action and excitement. It was very funny. What I dislike about this movie is that some scenes were a bit slow-paced. This movie is good and I enjoy it. I'll give this movie an 8 out of 10 stars.

[GloatingSwine]

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So, is Illuminati's gimmick in the comics to be a group of overconfident dudes who are supposed to be more effective in ending threats due to their moral ambiguity but still screw up big time?

About Wanda-838, I get the Doylist explanation with the narrative purpose. But what's the Watsonian explanation?

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The Illuminiati in the comics is principally Strange, Professor X, Tony Stark, Reed, Namor, and Black Bolt. They're the "smart guys" who are very very often not as smart as they think they are on an individual basis, and their biggest recent relevant act was trying to solve the Hulk problem by shooting him off into space because Hulk is "too dangerous", which led to Planet Hulk and then World War Hulk where Hulk very nearly broke the world.

And this version of them managed to take down their version of Strange despite him having reached out to all the power the Darkhold offered him. They thought they knew what they were in for and it wasn't reality alteration at will.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

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About Wanda-838, I get the Doylist explanation with the narrative purpose. But what's the Watsonian explanation?

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She’d already been enslaved by her alternate once. And do we know if she could see through her own eyes while she was possessed? ‘Cause watching Reed Richards get turned into confetti on top of that…I can see hesitating at least, if only because she knows nothing she does is going to work.

[Olffandad]

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I would have liked to see the Illuminati showed off as more than just cameos - it's never really shown why these guys are the Avengers of their world, other than "they're supposed to be the A-Team". Professor X and Strange could have had a more meaningful conversation, for instance.

It's not a good look for their future movies, if their first MCU appearances were getting ganked by the Scarlet Witch.

Using a forbidden spell to possess your own dead body in another dimension is one of the most badass wizard feats ever - Dumbledore or Gandalf aren't even in the same galaxy!

I was very entertained - it was worth the wait! Maybe not to a "let's see it again!", though.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

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It's not a good look for their future movies, if their first MCU appearances were getting ganked by the Scarlet Witch.

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I agree and I don’t. The getting ganked I mind less than the way they got ganked. Reed Richards sabotaging his buddy by blurting out how his powers work, then the girls standing around like mannequins while Reed gets literally ripped to shreds? Resulting in all of them fighting Wanda one or two at a time like mooks in a bad action movie? That, to my mind, is a bad look, not so much that they all died. I expect better reaction times from a team of super heroes, and also some team work. Failing both of those, maybe some reaction to the fact that two of your teammates just died?

Also Captain Carter reminding me that she’s just a watered down copy of Steve Rogers with a British paint job makes it hard to be bothered that she died.

[The Glyphstone]

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Also Captain Carter reminding me that she’s just a watered down copy of Steve Rogers with a British paint job makes it hard to be bothered that she died.

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Let's be fair here, she also has a jetpack that she doesn't make any real good use of.

[Zalabim]

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They're not a team. Their role is grandiose decisions, not field operations. Each of them would be the leader of their own team.

[Psyren]

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Benedict Cumberbatch must really like acting against himself. Put him in a movie and you could do a fully fleshed out cast without having to hire anyone else.

Actors acting with themselves is very in-vogue and becoming a staple of the genre, whether due to multiverse shenanigans, mindscape stuff (see Moon Knight) or other phenomena (see Vision vs. Vision in Westview).

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Happy to see Wanda is officially a supervillain after Westview. And she is an excellent supervillain! :D

Note that this is largely due to the Darkhold, which none of the others had.

What's particularly cool here:

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The entity responsible for creating the Darkhold in the comics is a dark god named Chthon, so we could be heading towards him being a major villain of DS3 or even the MCU as a whole. Certainly he's a great deal more interesting than "Mephisto."

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I feel like the bit with the watch being the key to the lock was a victim of reshoots - alternate!Christine had no way of knowing this Dr. Strange had meaninful history with that watch. Even if her version did, they’re two different people!

This worked because there are commonalities between universes though:

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Strange becoming Sorcerer Supreme via a car accident that ends his previous life as a surgeon is essentially a fixed point across the timelines. The specific circumstances of the accident might be different, e.g. Christine being there with him and dying or not, but the accident itself appears to be a constant. So it stands to reason that every version of him has the "watch." It's essentially as iconic a part of his origin/mythos as Peter being bitten by a spider or Wanda learning magic and generating children.

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The whole ‘Darkhold will corrupt the reader’ bit also seemed to be a victim of reshoots - they act like this is news when evil!Strange says it, but they already went over that earlier in the movie!

This bore repeating however since the consequences of that have yet to be realized.

[Eldan]

What's particularly cool here:

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The entity responsible for creating the Darkhold in the comics is a dark god named Chthon, so we could be heading towards him being a major villain of DS3 or even the MCU as a whole. Certainly he's a great deal more interesting than "Mephisto."

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Chthon was very briefly mentioned: when Wong explains Mt. Wandagore, he mentions it was made by "the first demon, Chthon".

[halfeye]

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Chthon was very briefly mentioned: when Wong explains Mt. Wandagore, he mentions it was made by "the first demon, Chthon".

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They can't even possibly have copyright on that name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chthonic

It was also used for the name of a boss in the original Quake.

[Psyren]

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They can't even possibly have copyright on that name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chthonic

It was also used for the name of a boss in the original Quake.

Really old stuff tends to be public domain, leaving them free to make their own versions of it. (Such as, well, Thor.) This is also why both Marvel and DC can have a Zeus for instance.

[Azuresun]

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Nice mislead from the trailers, I really didn't see Wanda becoming a villain so soon and so blatantly. And I did like that her arguably understandable goals DIDN'T lead to the movie or any character but her glossing over the horrible things she was doing to get there. I was braced for some kind of unconvincing she's-a-hero-again now redemption right up to the end. Very much reminded me of Hela, and that's a compliment.

Along with Shang-Chi, this is another movie where I liked the lack of a romance subplot, even though it was a definite theme. I also liked collapsing-universe Strange being a creepy stalker, as a cautionary tale about how overly idealising someone and wondering "what if" can get toxic.

Alternate Professor X had a nice and genuinely chilling scene. And loved the reference to the cartoon with his yellow hover chair. I get the feeling that this is going to be one of those movies you can endlessly frame-freeze for shout-outs and references.

If the Fantastic Four were meant to be a big reveal later in phase 4, that's an awful way to introduce them. Nothing says "super-genius inventor" like trying to punch the enemy and instantly getting punked. Hell, the stretching powers didn't even get shown off much.

America felt a bit....unfinished? As a character. She got some nice development in the introduction to the parallel world, but most of the time, she's just a living Macguffin for Strange and Wanda to tussle over. I'm guessing she's another character with RESERVED FOR FUTURE MOVIE / TV SHOW stamped on her forehead. But credit to the writers for having her judge Strange on his actions and overall trust him, rather than going with the obvious "I can't trust you so I will run away and get into trouble at the worst possible moment." route.

The zombie sequence was the bit where I went "Oh yeah, Sam Raimi's directing this." And some of the stuff in this was surprisingly violent / disturbing. The eyeball pop, Richards getting turned into spaghetti, the zombie Strange.....

Also, my thought when they first buried the body was that "in about twenty years, when they renovate this building, some random person is going to be accused of murder"

Couldn't place the lady at the end. Only characters I can think of who are vaguely similar are Cloak and Dagger.