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Post by WKRP Jimmy Drop on Sept 1, 2021 22:35:48 GMT -5
Y’all
The very best thing about Dr Strange is that he inspired Dr Orpheus.
I can deal with him in a group, but on his own, I just do not care.
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Post by Hachiman on Sept 1, 2021 23:55:23 GMT -5
Y’all The very best thing about Dr Strange is that he inspired Dr Orpheus. I can deal with him in a group, but on his own, I just do not care. Yeah, this was the weakest episode so far. That Dr. Strange's relationship with his girl friend was the weakest part of the movie didn't help. Like he would really risk everything for this person he clearly didn't care that much for in the movies? My main thing about MCU Dr. Strange is that Wong and the rest of the Order, along with their specific corner of the MCU are much more interesting than Strange himself. Like I'd watch a show about random crap Wong has to deal with or see what Mordo is up to, but not a show about Strange. |
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 2, 2021 11:09:24 GMT -5
It wasn't the best episode (the fight between the two Strange's was especially disappointing given that the more existential conclusion to the first Doctor Strange movie is one of that movie's greatest strengths), but more Tilda is always welcome and I think it had the best ending of any of the What If's so far. I love how it did not compromise it's bleakness. And while I never need to see another "I'd turn the universe upside down for my one true love!" story ever again, I think this worked as a successful repudiation of that trope, given that it showed what a literal and metaphorical monster Strange become. Shame they had to repeatedly fridge a character to get there...
Rankings So Far:
1. Prime Peggy Perfection
2. People Are Strange
3. We Get It, People Like Black Panther
4. Dead On Arrival.
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Post by ganews on Sept 2, 2021 11:26:31 GMT -5
The Dr. Strange episode conceit wasn't great, but at least it makes good visuals. The great advantages of the live-action movie were cool visuals and a clever resolution. So this was about 2/3 of 1/2 of the movie.
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Post by Ben Grimm on Sept 2, 2021 12:41:48 GMT -5
It wasn't the best episode (the fight between the two Strange's was especially disappointing given that the more existential conclusion to the first Doctor Strange movie is one of that movie's greatest strengths), but more Tilda is always welcome and I think it had the best ending of any of the What If's so far. I love how it did not compromise it's bleakness. And while I never need to see another "I'd turn the universe upside down for my one true love!" story ever again, I think this worked as a successful repudiation of that trope, given that it showed what a literal and metaphorical monster Strange become. Shame they had to repeatedly fridge a character to get there... Rankings So Far: 1. Prime Peggy Perfection 2. People Are Strange 3. We Get It, People Like Black Panther 4. Dead On Arrival. I think I'd agree, except I'd flip 2 and 3. I also can't quite decide if they were trying to do some sort of metacommentary about fridging or simply engaging in it. |
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ABz B👹anaz
Grandfathered In 
This country is (now less of) a shitshow.
Posts: 1,989
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Sept 3, 2021 8:10:06 GMT -5
I agree with some of the complaints about this episode, but not the "he didn't love her in the movie" one. That's kind of the point of "What If...", isn't it? What if he'd loved someone more than himself? Besides that point, I liked how bleak and dark this was...and considering some of the events in the Spider-Man:No Way Home trailer, it looks like that will mirror some of this episode's points, but with Peter.
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Post by Ben Grimm on Sept 8, 2021 18:59:46 GMT -5
I had hated the Marvel Zombies comics, going back to their first appearance in Ultimate Fantastic Four, and had not been looking forward to this episode. I ended up absolutely hating it, even more than I anticipated.
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ABz B👹anaz
Grandfathered In
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Sept 8, 2021 19:53:30 GMT -5
I had hated the Marvel Zombies comics, going back to their first appearance in Ultimate Fantastic Four, and had not been looking forward to this episode. I ended up absolutely hating it, even more than I anticipated. Yeah, not a fan of this one either. I didn't HATE it, but kind of a big *shrug*. |
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Post by Hachiman on Sept 8, 2021 21:11:42 GMT -5
Count me in as a shrug for Marvel Zombies.
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Post by ganews on Sept 8, 2021 21:42:49 GMT -5
Easily the weakest yet. All over the place even before you get to Futurama Paul Rudd. Also, was a deliberate cameo for Joss Whedon's production company really necessary?
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 9, 2021 4:49:26 GMT -5
Definitely the weakest so far, and "what if zombies" feels like the absolute least interesting possibility of what if imaginable. Much of it felt weirdly rushed as well - Vision's sudden volte-face, the whole story basically just stopped, final-snap Thanos was at that stage a pointless inclusion, and boy did this hurt for not having Tom Holland given Spidey's prominence. There were a few nice shots but it was all deeply inessential.
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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Sept 9, 2021 8:54:38 GMT -5
I am dead-ass terrified of zombies, which is hilarious because of course they are not real. So I made a friend watch it and then report back. Didn't sound too realistically scary, so I watched the episode. The horror worked, but none of it made all that much sense.
I'm not going to lie. I love Bucky with all my heart, but watching him get literally yeeted to death made me laugh so hard I cried.
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Post by Ben Grimm on Sept 13, 2021 9:11:58 GMT -5
We already knew this was Fraction influenced, but it's still really nice to see. And
Roger!: The Musical
is what I didn't realize that I needed in my life. |
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Sept 14, 2021 7:06:14 GMT -5
We already knew this was Fraction influenced, but it's still really nice to see. And
Roger!: The Musical
is what I didn't realize that I needed in my life. I know I frequently criticize people that only want exactly what they read in the comics turned into a movie, but that dog is going to eat some pizza and I’m here for it. And hey, if they can use the MCU Hawkdad version of the character to put a new spin on Fraction’s basic setup, so much the better, IMO. |
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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Sept 14, 2021 10:05:45 GMT -5
I think what's frustrating me about the Hawkeye trailer is that it has a lot of the elements from Fraction's 2012 series, but they're being superimposed onto an entirely different version of Clint Barton, so it feels very shallow.
I also can't stand Jeremy Renner as an actor or as a human being, which is a huge strike against it for me. I'm also unhappy that they seem to be showing Kate as a big fan of Hawkeye, when her origin story is already that she assumes the persona after he dies in the comics. Why change that?
But at the same time, I do love Kate, and I have longed to see Pizza Dog since his first appearance, not to mention the bro mafia. And I was thrilled to see some of the camera shots exactly replicating comic panels from Fraction's run. Also, the musical is a genuinely hilarious concept.
So. I dunno. I probably will wind up watching the series but am fully prepared for it to not reach its full potential, as with the other three on D+.
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ABz B👹anaz
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Posts: 1,989
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Sept 14, 2021 11:12:49 GMT -5
So. I dunno. I probably will wind up watching the series but am fully prepared for it to not reach its full potential, as with the other three on D+.
This, exactly. I'll most likely be entertained by it but wish they'd done it better. |
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Post by Ben Grimm on Sept 15, 2021 19:55:34 GMT -5
So What If? just kind of sucks, then, I guess? I haven't really liked any of them after the second one.
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Post by WKRP Jimmy Drop on Sept 16, 2021 13:05:31 GMT -5
So What If? just kind of sucks, then, I guess? I haven't really liked any of them after the second one. I liked the zombies, for the sheer ridiculousness of it, but otherwise, I'm with you. They seem to be just sticking with grimdark AUs, and fuck knows I’ve read (and written) enough of them, but uh…these ones are just. flat. Also tbh I do not believe Killmonger is capable of being that Machiavellian, and I flat do not buy that Wakanda would be all “our hero” & do anything he said. Also also the character design on Pepper was too..burly, and Shuri looked like a ten year old. |
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ABz B👹anaz
Grandfathered In
This country is (now less of) a shitshow.
Posts: 1,989
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Sept 16, 2021 14:34:06 GMT -5
So What If? just kind of sucks, then, I guess? I haven't really liked any of them after the second one. I liked the zombies, for the sheer ridiculousness of it, but otherwise, I'm with you. They seem to be just sticking with grimdark AUs, and fuck knows I’ve read (and written) enough of them, but uh…these ones are just. flat. Also tbh I do not believe Killmonger is capable of being that Machiavellian, and I flat do not buy that Wakanda would be all “our hero” & do anything he said. Also also the character design on Pepper was too..burly, and Shuri looked like a ten year old. I agree with all of your other points, but in the timeline Shuri WAS probably a ten-year-old, since this AU took place around 2008 when the first Iron Man was released. |
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Post by WKRP Jimmy Drop on Sept 16, 2021 16:51:15 GMT -5
I liked the zombies, for the sheer ridiculousness of it, but otherwise, I'm with you. They seem to be just sticking with grimdark AUs, and fuck knows I’ve read (and written) enough of them, but uh…these ones are just. flat. Also tbh I do not believe Killmonger is capable of being that Machiavellian, and I flat do not buy that Wakanda would be all “our hero” & do anything he said. Also also the character design on Pepper was too..burly, and Shuri looked like a ten year old. I agree with all of your other points, but in the timeline Shuri WAS probably a ten-year-old, since this AU took place around 2008 when the first Iron Man was released. Well how dare you make a good point. 😀 |
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 17, 2021 9:45:10 GMT -5
So What If? just kind of sucks, then, I guess? I haven't really liked any of them after the second one. I liked the zombies, for the sheer ridiculousness of it, but otherwise, I'm with you. They seem to be just sticking with grimdark AUs, and fuck knows I’ve read (and written) enough of them, but uh…these ones are just. flat. Also tbh I do not believe Killmonger is capable of being that Machiavellian, and I flat do not buy that Wakanda would be all “our hero” & do anything he said. Also also the character design on Pepper was too..burly, and Shuri looked like a ten year old. On the plus side, we didn't have to put up with Gwyneth Paltrow, so I'm taking it as a win. This was a very unspecactular episode, and I'm starting to think a lot of why I liked the first episode so much was because Agent Carter is so damned great rather than anything else because the remaining episodes have all had some degree of shrugitude to them. Also, and I can't really over-emphasise this enough - Learn. How. To. End. An. Episode. Even if they are going to feed into other episodes in S2, just stepping on the brakes is a shit way of concluding your story. Put up a "to be continued" if it's going to be. "Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel". Anything. I don't care. Just something that doesn't make it look like you hit your 35-minute run-time then just gave up and rolled the credits. |
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Sept 17, 2021 15:43:57 GMT -5
Yea, I watched the first 3 and it kind of just left me cold. The animation style feels, I don't know, a little lifeless? I also just don't think much of the voice acting from the MCU regulars (with some exceptions) was all that good. I really kind of just wish the whole thing was completely divorced from the main MCU stuff and truly been a stand-alone animated series, while acknowledging it's completely unrealistic that Disney would have ever done that.
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Crash Test Dumbass
AV Clubber 
ffc what now
Posts: 7,058
Gender (additional): mostly snacks
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Post by Crash Test Dumbass on Sept 19, 2021 9:14:12 GMT -5
I really really wanted these to be better than they were, especially as a longtime fan of the comics. Admittedly, the comics tended to go towards "what if one thing changed and as a result rocks fell and everyone died", but somehow these episodes felt... bloodless? I agree with the complaints of the art style -- it felt like they were trying to go with something cel-shaded or rotoscoped like A Scanner Darkly but didn't want to put the effort in.
The last episode, to me, was more of a "Why If...?" The fact that Disney could get so many but not all of the actors back makes the Señores Spielbergos stand out even more, especially when they are a focus of the episode like L'Uomo Di Ferro or Capitán EEUU. I found RDJ's impostor to be particularly jarring, like a comedian doing a terrible IMPRESSION of his CADENCE. I mean, shit, they brought Chadwick Boseman back from the dead, they couldn't afford a couple hours in the booth with Tom Holland? I did at least like that the Starko character was shown as more of an alcoholic, which was quickly abandoned in the movies and was a nice touch for comics fans, I guess.
Overall, the series (which apparently isn't actually over in six episodes, at least according to IMDB (which has a really terrible interface now)) has just been entirely forgettable to me. I couldn't tell you what happened in half the episodes, even with my memory just refreshed by the above website.
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Post by ganews on Sept 20, 2021 22:01:46 GMT -5
Agreed on the animation and the terrible non-endings of most of these episodes, but I wouldn't mind seeing Alternate Killmonger fleshed out into a full movie. This Killmonger is a little *too* good at everything, compared to the movies where it made sense that he's just a really well-trained killer who happens to have been taught cultural insider knowledge. But it was still very cool.
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Post by ganews on Sept 22, 2021 21:34:35 GMT -5
The Thor episode is very silly...and the best episode so far? It took all the best elements of the Thor movies, was genuinely funny, made Kat Dennings less annoying, had a quality fight sequence with Captain Marvel, and most importantly told a story that fit in 30 minutes without feeling rushed. The only real flaw was the stupidly tacked-on sting, but I guess that's the show's brand.
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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Sept 24, 2021 9:14:26 GMT -5
The Thor episode is very silly...and the best episode so far? It took all the best elements of the Thor movies, was genuinely funny, made Kat Dennings less annoying, had a quality fight sequence with Captain Marvel, and most importantly told a story that fit in 30 minutes without feeling rushed. The only real flaw was the stupidly tacked-on sting, but I guess that's the show's brand. It's my favorite episode since the first one. I think the animation really worked in this, and unlike Barsanti, I thought the MCU actors did pretty nice jobs with their voiceovers. At the very least, they appeared to be having fun. Natalie Portman in particular sounded more engaged than she did in the actual movies. The sight gags were also quite good -- the idea of using the St. Louis Arch as a giant slingshot killed me. |
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Post by haysoos on Sept 24, 2021 9:41:35 GMT -5
The Thor episode is very silly...and the best episode so far? It took all the best elements of the Thor movies, was genuinely funny, made Kat Dennings less annoying, had a quality fight sequence with Captain Marvel, and most importantly told a story that fit in 30 minutes without feeling rushed. The only real flaw was the stupidly tacked-on sting, but I guess that's the show's brand. It's my favorite episode since the first one. I think the animation really worked in this, and unlike Barsanti, I thought the MCU actors did pretty nice jobs with their voiceovers. At the very least, they appeared to be having fun. Natalie Portman in particular sounded more engaged than she did in the actual movies. The sight gags were also quite good -- the idea of using the St. Louis Arch as a giant slingshot killed me. Beardless Thor looked terrible, but I loved the Looney Tunes fight between Captain Marvel and Thor. They even wound up in Roadrunner/Coyote territory! I'm surprised there wasn't a scene where one of them ran off a cliff and hovered in the air for a moment before remembering they could fly. I actually laughed out loud at Kat Dennings marrying Howard. Surtur hitting on the Statue of Liberty got a snort too. Was that actually Clancy Brown? Not terrifically keen on the Vision/Ultron with Infinity Stones sting. I'm guessing this is the big bad of the next few episodes, and the Watcher will have to gather Captain Carter and the other What If heroes to stop his multi-dimensional madness. We haven't even seen the new Dr Strange or Spider-Man films yet, and I'm already sick of multiverse shenanigans. |
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Post by Hachiman on Sept 24, 2021 20:34:01 GMT -5
We haven't even seen the new Dr Strange or Spider-Man films yet, and I'm already sick of multiverse shenanigans. I am also already worn out on multiverse stuff, but I am holding out hope that this all somehow folds mutants into the mix and we get X-men in the MCU. |
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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Sept 27, 2021 8:52:02 GMT -5
We haven't even seen the new Dr Strange or Spider-Man films yet, and I'm already sick of multiverse shenanigans. I am also already worn out on multiverse stuff, but I am holding out hope that this all somehow folds mutants into the mix and we get X-men in the MCU. My seven-year-old self is still impatiently awaiting a live-action Gambit in the X-Men line-up.
My present self would also like to see a live-action Gambit in the X-Men line-up, because I never claimed to have good taste. I just want to watch a dude throw exploding cards and quipping in the world's worst Cajun accent. Is that really too much to ask?
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Post by haysoos on Sept 28, 2021 9:18:14 GMT -5
I am also already worn out on multiverse stuff, but I am holding out hope that this all somehow folds mutants into the mix and we get X-men in the MCU. My seven-year-old self is still impatiently awaiting a live-action Gambit in the X-Men line-up.
My present self would also like to see a live-action Gambit in the X-Men line-up, because I never claimed to have good taste. I just want to watch a dude throw exploding cards and quipping in the world's worst Cajun accent. Is that really too much to ask?
Didn't they have a live-action Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine? Played by Tim Riggins? I ask because I have not seen that movie, and from the clips and bits I have seen I have no desire to see that movie. I'm perfectly fine with abjuring that movie from the multiverse in fact. |
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