Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Official Trailer

[GloatingSwine]

Spoiler: Random Thoughts

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

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That's Clea. Pretty much the most important supporting character to Doctor Strange other than Wong. So I guess we'll be seeing what's been going on in the Dark Dimension since Strange left it.

[The Glyphstone]

Speaking of Wong:

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Why/when did it become a good thing for a hero to defiantly refuse to help a villain only to cave immediately when they threaten a bystander? No one ever asks the bystander if they'd rather die than see the universe obliterated.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Spoiler: Random Thoughts

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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.

Spoiler: America

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Gotta agree; her character arch is very nearly flat, which is embarrassing considering how much screen time she has. And then they have Strange undermine it almost immediately, which is worse.

The ‘you’ve been controlling your powers all along!’ bit was really forced and unbelievable too.

Speaking of Wong:

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Why/when did it become a good thing for a hero to defiantly refuse to help a villain only to cave immediately when they threaten a bystander? No one ever asks the bystander if they'd rather die than see the universe obliterated.

I want to say Infinity War but…second this. Also:

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If the Sorcerer Supreme knows where Mt Wundergore is, why on earth is it still standing??? I mean even without a legendary Scarlet Witch showing up to use the thing, the odds that some random mountain climber will stumble across it and start causing trouble have got to be non-zero. Turn that thing into rubble!

[ecarden]

Spoiler: Thoughts

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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 meaningful history with that watch. Even if her version did, they’re two different people!

Spoiler: I thought

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That the watch was the key set by her Strange. They were in her universe, the door was locked by her Strange, she'd kept his watch after his death, and realized that it was the key at that point. She held it up because she realized it, the fact that he had one too (back in his own universe, I think) was irrelevant? But maybe I missed something.

Speaking of Wong:

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Why/when did it become a good thing for a hero to defiantly refuse to help a villain only to cave immediately when they threaten a bystander? No one ever asks the bystander if they'd rather die than see the universe obliterated.

ARGH! That's the worst aspect of the MCU and it's something that needs to die in a fire. Strange at least has the excuse in Infinity Wars, of 'I've seen the future, this is the only road that eventually leads us to victory' but everyone and everywhere else, it just drives me up the wall. Despite all the flak Quill gets (some of it even deserved) at least when it came down to it, he was willing to respect the captured person's wishes and try to make the sacrifice play.

[Psyren]

Speaking of Wong:

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Why/when did it become a good thing for a hero to defiantly refuse to help a villain only to cave immediately when they threaten a bystander? No one ever asks the bystander if they'd rather die than see the universe obliterated.

In Wong's defense:

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he probably didn't expect the balors guarding the place to immediately sign up with her.

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If the Sorcerer Supreme knows where Mt Wundergore is, why on earth is it still standing??? I mean even without a legendary Scarlet Witch showing up to use the thing, the odds that some random mountain climber will stumble across it and start causing trouble have got to be non-zero. Turn that thing into rubble!

My assumption was that

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you need the Darkhold's power to destroy it, so no one else could have done it safely. Kind of like a reverse Mt. Doom situation.

Also the balors above.

[Dr.Samurai]

Pros:

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Wanda as a full fledged villain was excellent. I loved the line (I'm paraphrasing) "By the way, this is me being reasonable". The justification of one's actions is a villain classic, but it rings more true with Wanda. Wanda's motivations are very sympathetic, especially through the lenses of someone with incredibly powerful abilities trying to cope with grief, loss, and trauma. But, through Wandavision and now Multiverse of Madness, her actions are clearly wrong and she is hurting people. The movie revealed that controlling the lives of other people is synonymous with thinking them worthless, because Wanda makes the leap pretty seamlessly between "I'll create an illusory utopia by controlling the minds and lives of all these people" to "the lives of these people are worthless when measured against my desires". The truth is she had made that determination already in Wandavision, even if she wasn't trying to kill anyone at the time.

The horror stuff was great. I have not been paying attention to all the pre-release stuff, and probably would not have gone to see this if my partner didn't want to. So I didn't know Sam Raimi was directing this; I was like "oh, weird, a Bruce Campbell cameo, huh". But all the beats were there. The chase through the underwater passageways was awesome, as was zombie-Strange wearing a cloak of the damned.

I don't really know the character of America but I liked the actress and the character and I could see her in other movies, but I do agree that her powers could use some explanation. It seems like she channels some sort of energy that can open portals into other universes, but she can also channel that into kicks and punches as well. I also liked that in the end she didn't directly defeat Wanda. If she had received that little pep talk from Strange and then suddenly had the power to stop Scarlett Witch, I would have rolled my eyes so hard. But they didn't go that route.

Krasinksy as Reed Richards was cool. Professor X was fun to see as well.

I also enjoyed Strange taunting Mordo that he was jealous and probably orchestrated the murder of Strange. Even if that isn't what happened, it tracks so well that I bet he was hitting close to home in Mordo's soul lol.

I liked that America's opinion of Strange was impacted by his actions throughout the movie. Very real and relatable.

Cons:

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Given they're dealing with the Multiverse, I was hoping for some more wacky bits. NYC where red means go and green means stop is so mildly different that it's not even worth it. On a similar vein, the magic in general is a little underwhelming. Strange's magic is sparks and very mechanical (mostly telekinesis, shields, buzzsaws). At one point, snakes come out of his hands and I was like "oh, magic!". Wanda's magic is also a little poorly defined. She can alter reality but... is worried that her kids might get ill? Huh? She shoots blasts of energy but can also make Blackbolt's mouth disappear and shred Reed Richards with a thought? I'd probably use the latter magic over the former most of the time then.

I agree that the Illuminati were almost alien in their psychology. Maybe that's the point. But there was little reaction to Blackbolt and Reed getting absolutely annihilated. It could be they were going for heroes at the height of arrogance. Mission accomplished then.

I don't recall Xavier being prescient, so it was a little weird that he offered help by way of information, without actually ensuring Strange would escape. Either he had little confidence in the Illuminati to contain Strange, or he had a lot of confidence that Strange could overcome their defenses. Either way, it seems weird that this group of short-sighted morally ambiguous brainiacs would have this one "reasonable" guy that doesn't even voice his opinion to the group until they all leave and even then just gives some directions without directly assisting. Quite the gamble; seems a little on the fence. Also, again, power levels are wonky. Xavier was hardly a speed bump for Scarlet Witch. He's one of the most powerful telepaths in the world and she beat him at his own game. So... why can't she just do that with Strange/Wong/America/literally everyone/etc?

The arc here was a little flat. I believe Strange was admonished for "always having to be the one holding the knife". Yet in both cases, Strange led to the defeat of Thanos (Illuminati universe) and Wanda (MCU universe). At the end, he does relinquish that responsibility over to America with the pep talk, and she becomes a badass for two seconds. But mostly... it was Strange. And if that was his arc, it was pretty weak. I'm more inclined to believe that the message is "Christine doesn't like that about him, but that's the position Strange wants to be in (and needs to be in), so they'll never work out and that's okay". And I'm fine with that if that is the message and it just went right over my head. But if not, if him encouraging America was the lesson, it's pretty meek. I mean... he was already doing that earlier in the film anyways. At the end, it's less impactful because his corpse is rotting and his ability to do anything is limited so he NEEDS America to do something.

Skipping around from one universe to another made the plot a little disjointed. There wasn't a lot of flow. It was "what universe are we in now? let's improvise a plan".

I don't remember all of Wandavision but the movie had, what seemed to me to be, a distinct lack of Vision. I was half expecting him to walk through the door at the end and interrupt Scarlet Witch terrifying the children to her horror. But he is never mentioned except in passing about his theories of the multiverse. Given that she is motivated by her attachment to her lost children, it would seem to me that Vision would be in that family as well. Now as I type this, I wonder if he had repudiated her in Wandavision and so he is no longer a part of her fantasy/ambition.

Speaking of the end, I really thought the Wanda from Illuminativerse was going to destroy Scarlet Witch. Like, understand her and sympathize, but destroy her. I'm not sure that after everything Wanda did, the kids being horrified would have set her straight. I can see it giving her pause, but she is strong enough to undo that/correct it. And she's crossed that line already.

[Azuresun]

Been looking up the list of easter eggs, and some that I especially liked:

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In DS1, there's an artifact in the sanctum fight that Strange doesn't know how to use, so he just throws it at the enemy. It's the same fire-spitting urn that Christine uses here to destroy the ghosts.

This isn't the first movie where a character played by Bruce Campbell ends up uncontrollably beating himself up with his own hand.

When Professor X appears, the music is based on the X-Men cartoon.

Xavier's line ""someone may stumble and lose their way, but it doesn't mean they're lost forever" was what he said to his younger self in Days of Future Past

Captain Carter meets the same end as zombie Captain America in What If.

Also, in a tangent mostly unrelated to the movie, the wiki page for the Marvel multiverse, as in all alternate worlds referred to or visited in the comics or movies, is....extensive! As well as the relatively well-known ones like Age of Apocalypse or 2099, you have entries where the most notable thing is something like "Cat Thor" or "The Greek Gods wear hotpants."

[The Glyphstone]

Another MCUism that bothered me here, much like it did in Infinity War:

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Do people in this world only know the one defensive tactic of hiding behind a shield until the bad guys break in, then counterattacking? What happened to using defenses as a way to safely strike back at attackers before they've breached your walls?

[Zevox]

Saw it with my D&D group last night, and we all really liked it. Personally, while my favorite Marvel movies are still the Guardians films and Thor: Ragnarok, I think this comes in just behind them. It's certainly the most comic-booky Marvel movie ever, with all of the crazy rules we get for how the Multiverse works, and the interesting ways they're played with, and I am all for that. Embrace the silliness and all of the crazy possibilities that this genre can bring, and do it this well, and I will certainly come and watch.

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They hid that Wanda was the villain very, very well, I must say. I had no idea going into this that was the case, despite them being quite open about her having a major role in the film. And she certainly worked well in that role - though I suppose that makes sense, given she's often been a villain in the comics and in other adaptations (I'm most familiar with her from X-Men: Evolution, for instance, and she definitely was a villain for much of that). I am surprised by how definitively they seem to have killed her off in the end there, but I guess with the level of magic she had the fact that we don't actually see a body, the can always bring her back if they really want to.

I also quite like that the ending makes it clear that they're not just going to ignore that Strange used the Darkhold, and that should have consequences given everything we were told about it. I was thinking they would probably sweep that under the rug when we saw that Wanda destroying Wundagore had destroyed even other universe's versions of the book. I will be interested to see how that progresses from here.

Loved how crazy and creative they got with the magic at times. The magic music fight between the Stranges in particular was great, made me think of the Music of the Ainur from the Silmarillion.

I also wonder if the "incursion" that they teased at the ending may be how they introduce mutants to the MCU. I had the thought when they introduced that concept via Professor X that perhaps there would be such an incursion between the main universe and that universe, and Mutants from that universe would end up moving into the main universe as a result, including Charles. Obviously given they killed that Xavier that's not quite going to be how this goes, but it could still be how they handle it with another universe.

If I have a real criticism to give, I think it's mainly how America's role in the film was 90% as a mcguffin. She gets some characterization and development earlier in the movie, but for most of it she's just kind of there as the thing that Wanda's chasing and Strange is protecting/trying to save. For someone so central to it, she feels underdeveloped, and her getting control of her powers towards the end doesn't feel fully sufficiently set up. I do like what we saw of her and want to see her more, but it really feels like there should have been more done with her as a person here. Still, for how otherwise great the movie was, I'm not overly bothered by that; I just hope they can make up for it in the future.

So yeah, great movie, definitely my favorite Marvel film since Endgame.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Cons:

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The arc here was a little flat. I believe Strange was admonished for "always having to be the one holding the knife". Yet in both cases, Strange led to the defeat of Thanos (Illuminati universe) and Wanda (MCU universe).

I want to add to this:

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As often as not it isn’t true. Back in Infinity War after Bruce crashed through the roof, Strange didn’t try to solo Thanos - he did what any sane, rational person would do and contacted the Avengers (in the form of Tony). It was Tony’s idea to ride the donut ship to Titan and Strange went along with it. He also had to depend on everyone who survived doing what they needed to do while he was dusted.

My headcanon right now is that Christine hasn’t interacted with Strange much since he became a Master of the Mystic Arts and is assuming he’s exactly the same person he was when he was just a doctor.

[ben-zayb]

Another MCUism that bothered me here, much like it did in Infinity War:

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Do people in this world only know the one defensive tactic of hiding behind a shield until the bad guys break in, then counterattacking? What happened to using defenses as a way to safely strike back at attackers before they've breached your walls?

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Not just that. They were sorcerers. I was expecting something a little more...magicky? Heck, tactical teleportation is one of their basic tricks. Instead, we get Gandalf's fireworks. Vaarsuuvius vs Xykon, Vaarsuuvius vs Laurin, and the defense of Azure City looked way more impressive.

That said, it looked like Wanda was holding back way too much and was actually still being reasonable to a degree as courtesy to Strange. Nothing she did in this battle came close to the power she wielded in WandaVision.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

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Not just that. They were sorcerers. I was expecting something a little more...magicky? Heck, tactical teleportation is one of their basic tricks. Instead, we get Gandalf's fireworks. Vaarsuuvius vs Xykon, Vaarsuuvius vs Laurin, and the defense of Azure City looked way more impressive.

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I admit I had also been expecting something along the lines of animated stone guardians, Skyrim-style exploding glyphs…or really any kind of built-in defenses at all. It’s a magical fortress for the people whose entire job is to protect reality from magical and extra-dimensional threats, who have collectively been doing this for hundreds of years, it should be packed to the rafters with magical defenses. Instead we got…magic cannons. And bows and arrows.

[Psyren]

RE: Dome fight:

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Perhaps they were trying to wear her down a bit by having her crash against their bulwark for an hour or two?

Even then though, how they didn't realize/remember she has psychic powers too is anyone's guess.

[The Glyphstone]

RE: Dome fight:

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Perhaps they were trying to wear her down a bit by having her crash against their bulwark for an hour or two?

Even then though, how they didn't realize/remember she has psychic powers too is anyone's guess.

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They had to reinforce their shield after her first hit, I'm not sure they estimated any part of her power correctly. They'd run out of sorcerers before she ran out of juice.

[Psyren]

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They had to reinforce their shield after her first hit, I'm not sure they estimated any part of her power correctly. They'd run out of sorcerers before she ran out of juice.

Even so,

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they had at least two heavy(ish) hitters under the dome, so "losing sorcerers" might not have, in and of itself, been a lose condition.

Neither were as heavy as her at full strength obviously - but after a bit of attrition, mabye...? It's moot in any event since we know how that turned out, but I could envision a version of that fight where her psychic attack didn't immediately decide things.

[Eldan]

So... alternate plot threads time!

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Given an infinite multiverse, wouldn't the easiest solution be to find a universe where Wanda is dead, but her children is alive? Maybe Thanos killed her or something.

[Tyndmyr]

So... alternate plot threads time!

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Given an infinite multiverse, wouldn't the easiest solution be to find a universe where Wanda is dead, but her children is alive? Maybe Thanos killed her or something.

Wild Theory:

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Given that in the universe we know about, and that in none of them we ever see a dad, I think that *all* of those children are Wanda-created delusions. Her plan was always fated to failure one way or another.

I mean, think about it, Vision ain't the dad. That was never in the cards, dudes an actual robot. And she's not even focusing on her loss of Vision, she's not trying to find him again, she's fixated on the fantasy she created and ended.

So, if she had been successful, and killed another universe's Wanda, those children would have faded before her, leaving her alone and desperate again, going through universe after universe killing herself hunting for what she can never have.

[ben-zayb]

So... alternate plot threads time!

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Given an infinite multiverse, wouldn't the easiest solution be to find a universe where Wanda is dead, but her children is alive? Maybe Thanos killed her or something.

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Based on her answer about getting America's power, it looks like she'll still continue living with her selfish, villainous ways regardless, if it's for her kids

[Psyren]

So... alternate plot threads time!

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Given an infinite multiverse, wouldn't the easiest solution be to find a universe where Wanda is dead, but her children is alive? Maybe Thanos killed her or something.

Given that

Spoiler: Darkhold

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she is using the Darkhold as her focus/lens to navigate the MV, It's not hard to imagine it specifically steered her away from any morally uncomplicated resolutions. It's kind of like looking up a spell to bring back your dead daughter in the Book of Vile Darkness - even if you find it, it wouldn't be in there if there wasn't a catch.

In other words, an infinite multiverse does not mean that all nodes/permutations are equally-accessible. You could even rule that, without the ability to freely travel like America can, you can't even see or access realities where "you" have died at all.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

So... alternate plot threads time!

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Given an infinite multiverse, wouldn't the easiest solution be to find a universe where Wanda is dead, but her children is alive? Maybe Thanos killed her or something.

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For Wanda, yes - I suspect most of the protests would fade if she wasn’t trying to kidnap them. Finding a way to not kill Chavez (or anyone else, but Chavez is the only one who ‘has’ to die in her initial plan) to get them would clear up most of the rest.

The big insurmountable issue I see is if she makes too big of a ‘footprint’ she’d end up destroying 616* plus whatever universe her orphan children are from. How she makes a footprint, or avoids making one, is not well explained. (Presumably she has to do more than show up, but what are the limits?) I also don’t recall if Wanda knows that will happen, Strange didn’t until Christine told him in 838.

Spoiler: *Tangent

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Is anyone else bothered that they used the comics’ ‘verse number instead of giving the MCU a unique one? Because having Mysterio/his flunky just happen to guess the real number strains credulity. Plus how is 838 numbering these things???

[Tyndmyr]

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For Wanda, yes - I suspect most of the protests would fade if she wasn’t trying to kidnap them. Finding a way to not kill Chavez (or anyone else, but Chavez is the only one who ‘has’ to die in her initial plan) to get them would clear up most of the rest.

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Yeah, if she'd just had a chat with 'Murrica, who, while not really fleshed out, seems decentish, she probably could have eventually worked out some kind of more reasonable solution. Getting that conversation is difficult, given multiversal problems, but she probably has better options than just kidnapping monsters.

But the Darkhold isn't the kind of book that has tips like "talk your problem out reasonably instead of turning to vile magic."

I like Wanda's turn to evil because it's foreshadowed fairly well, and realistic. She starts out with smaller wrongs and never really accepts that what she did was truly wrong as she escalates. Instead, there's a lot of justification. By the time she's here, with an "the ends I want justify the means" attitude, well...she's not looking for good means. She's just looking for the ends. It's a good tragic tale.

[Psyren]

The numbering bothered me too. And yes, the MCU does have an official designation.

(Note: that page has been updated.)

[Wintermoot]

The numbering bothered me too. And yes, the MCU does have an official designation.

(Note: that page has been updated.)

"six one six" is easy to say in movie dialog. "one hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine" is cumbersome. Although you could argue that it would've made the other earth seem more impressive by suggesting that they've found and/or explored at 200,000 other earths. Though then you have to ask why they call themselves earth 838 instead of earth 1 or earth 0... or earth prime... waitasecond....

Besides which, I seriously doubt Kevin Feige gives a toss what the comic publishers have decided is "the official designation"

[Androgeus]

My take on the Earth designation is that the MCU was never in the same canon continuity as the Marvel Comics multiverse. The comics’ 199999 is just a facsimile, not the actual setting of the movie.

[GloatingSwine]

So... alternate plot threads time!

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Given an infinite multiverse, wouldn't the easiest solution be to find a universe where Wanda is dead, but her children is alive? Maybe Thanos killed her or something.

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Once she has America's power, sure. But the method she has of inhabiting other universes until that point is to dreamwalk into a version of herself, and dreamwalking into a dead self doesn't make them less dead (and has additional challenges).

So without the power to genuinely travel between universes, that is inaccessible as a solution.

Spoiler: Wanda

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I like Wanda's turn to evil because it's foreshadowed fairly well, and realistic. She starts out with smaller wrongs and never really accepts that what she did was truly wrong as she escalates. Instead, there's a lot of justification. By the time she's here, with an "the ends I want justify the means" attitude, well...she's not looking for good means. She's just looking for the ends. It's a good tragic tale.

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It also follows on from WandaVision. The version of Vision in that story was created by Wanda, and so represents some aspect of herself, the part of her that would reject the things she was doing in Westview. Her conscience, if you will.

But that Vision also died.

Not only that but she was presented with a way to externalise blame for everything she did. "It was Agatha all along!"

Prime start of darkness material, the figurative death of the conscience and the rejection of responsibility all bound up together with finding a source of power.

[Azuresun]

My take on the Earth designation is that the MCU was never in the same canon continuity as the Marvel Comics multiverse. The comics’ 199999 is just a facsimile, not the actual setting of the movie.

Or they're just using a different designation system. It's not like they exactly compare notes.

[Caledonian]

So... alternate plot threads time!

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Given an infinite multiverse, wouldn't the easiest solution be to find a universe where Wanda is dead, but her children are alive? Maybe Thanos killed her or something.

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The problem with enacting the... let's call it the "Rick Scenario" for no particular reason... is that it leads to madness, ennui, and indifference to consequences. You can always just find a branch of Time's tree where things are exactly as you'd prefer them and settle down there. Unless more than one version of you decides that particular outcome is exactly as they'd prefer things, and they try to move in simulaneously...

[Thrudd]

Spoiler: incursions

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I suspected that universe incursions would be coming along with the introduction of the multiverse, from Hickman's run on Avengers/Illuminati. This means we might be getting a Secret Wars (closer to the Hickman version) somewhere down the line, maybe the end of phase 5 or 6 lol? I wonder if Beyonders will make an appearance, or if that role is going to be rolled into someone else, like Celestials or Kang. I'm also wondering if America Chavez is going to end up in the position of Molecule Man as central to the resolution to the incursion problem. It makes sense if her power and position as someone unique in the multiverse will have something to do with stitching universes together.

Spoiler: overall impressions

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I smiled when the Raimi signature style appeared in little moments. There was quite a bit of cringey dialogue early in the film, the comedy felt forced- maybe I'm finally getting Marvel fatigue, or maybe it was the writing, because the snark felt very formulaic at that point.

I feel rather disappointed if this is the end of Wanda's story-which it seems to be. Even when she repented at the end, I think the evil she's done may be too great to be redeemed in any way other then self-sacrifice. Maybe she survives and is going to try to keep on the DL, and look for the reborn Vision (who did merge with original Vision's mind, right?)...but can she come back after that? Overall, her motives just don't make sense with the powers she has access to.

On the action - with all the reality-altering power Wanda is supposed to have access to, a lot of what they had her do felt uninspired. Maybe she just really likes shooting energy from her hands, when she could easily do a million more creative things to get into Kamar Taj than bomb them with red energy blasts. There could have been a very Raimi-appropriate sequence where they are all waiting for her to arrive, and we get the "deadite-cam" as she zooms in and takes over someone's mind and makes them start fighting each other. Chaos ensues as she starts jumping from mind to mind, and there can be some gruesome action as wizards start killing each other, or themselves, and she can dramatically appear amid the chaos and float into the temple. I wish the Kamar Taj wizards, especially Wong and Strange, would use more diverse magic than just creating melee weapons and shields out of energy more often.

I'm also disappointed in the lack of creativity in the actions of the Illuminati heroes. Reed really tried to just directly punch at Wanda, from the front? They could have shown them being actually smart and good at using their powers and having some clever tactics. Maybe even suggest that they have contingencies in place for dealing with someone like Wanda- like Xavier immediately going for her mind to neutralize her instead of waiting until all the others are dead before he does anything- but she is just too strong and beats them anyway. I don't think this was a deliberate decision, I think it was more a failure in creativity in the writing. I did enjoy the brutality of the kills.

The actually creative moments in the film were great...the weaponized music was really fun. Dead Strange with a cloak made of the howling spirits of the damned is definitely a great mood. Flying through universes was appropriately psychedelic, and I think I saw a Living Tribunal in there? I loved the classic-style Ultron bots. I wish they could have worked more multiverse in.

America Chavez was...there. As many have stated, she's a living macguffin in this story, she's basically a lost wanderer just trying to survive, and I suppose her "arc" is that she's found someone she trusts for the first time and has made the MCU/616 her new home for now. I'm wondering if the mystery of her powers is going to become central to the bigger story, as I speculated above.

They abandoned the original Mordo storyline, trying to eliminate sorcerers. Dr Strange implied in his dialogue with alternate Mordo that they had conflicts which we never saw, so I guess that after-credits tease from the first film got resolved off-screen. It seems like a weird choice, but I suppose we shouldn't assume that every post-credits scene in every movie is definitely intended to segue into a sequel. It just is showing more of the cracks in the overall MCU structure, which seemed pretty finely tuned once they got past "Incredible Hulk", up until "Endgame". I guess Feige has gotten tired of micromanaging everything and they just don't care too much - they now know what is "good enough", and that seems to be most of what we're getting.

Spoiler: phase 4 spoils

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So far in phase 4 for the overarching story: we have discovered the existence of the multiverse, and the idea that a man far in the future is going to discover how to travel it and starts trying to conquer universes. We have now learned that when people spend too much time in universes other than their native one, it can start incursions where the two universes collide (and at least one needs to be destroyed). How did Kang deal with that? Is what he was doing, attempting to cause incursions, in which he would destroy the alternate universe rather than trying to conquer it, to eliminate other versions of himself? That's how you end up with the "sacred timeline", right? It's not just a "timeline", it's a universe, or a small number of closely connected universes - since we know from Endgame that what they're calling time travel isn't actually time travel so much as multiverse travel (though it is choosing at what point in time you enter the alternate universe).

We also know that Celestials and Eternals are still out there, and the heroes are now aware of Celestial/Eternals tech, Shang Chi's rings, though they don't know what they are, yet, nor what they're really for (the only thing anybody seems to be able to imagine any power is for, in the MCU, is blasting things with energy bolts). The earth and all human life was actually an incubator for the birth of a Celestial, and that seems to have been averted. Arishem the Judge is still going to return for judgement and possible destruction of earth in the future. It seems a bit like the Eternals movie is a Silver Surfer/Galactus story arc, where the servant who is supposed to be prepping the planet for destruction learns to love humanity and helps stop its destruction instead. I wonder if this means we won't be getting any Galactus or Silver Surfer in the MCU, or if they are going to be done in a significantly different manner- like Galactus as a rogue/corrupted Celestial who needs to be restored to sanity and his life-giving form by the heroes in a trippy, cross-dimensional cosmic adventure. A FF film? Or a big crossover with everyone.

[Imbalance]

Delightfully jarring.

Spoiler: But nobody's talking about...

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...how easily Shuma-Gorath was dispatched. But then I find out it wasn't really Shuma-Gorath due to licensing, which seems incredibly stupid, and this is why I have trust issues and refuse to watch trailers anymore.

I also loved the appearance of Mindless Ones, but am feared to look into whether it was them or somehow actually balors or balrogs just to avoid paying someone their IP dues. in either case, they were as underutilized and ineffective as the Illuminati in this story, sadly. They just crammed in so much stuff as fan service, which I get, but there was no room for anything to move properly.

[GloatingSwine]

Delightfully jarring.

Spoiler: But nobody's talking about...

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...how easily Shuma-Gorath was dispatched. But then I find out it wasn't really Shuma-Gorath due to licensing, which seems incredibly stupid, and this is why I have trust issues and refuse to watch trailers anymore.

I also loved the appearance of Mindless Ones, but am feared to look into whether it was them or somehow actually balors or balrogs just to avoid paying someone their IP dues. in either case, they were as underutilized and ineffective as the Illuminati in this story, sadly. They just crammed in so much stuff as fan service, which I get, but there was no room for anything to move properly.

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There weren't any Mindless Ones in this movie. I expect we'll be seeing them in the next one though, since they're denizens of the Dark Dimension and that's where Strange and Clea were going at the end.

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Maybe even suggest that they have contingencies in place for dealing with someone like Wanda-

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They had absolute confidence in their ability to deal with Wanda Maximoff. They had completely failed to understand the scope of the problem...