Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness (Sam Raimi, May 6, 2022) Movie • Page 44

It doesn't feel so much rehashed to me as it does a continuation. This is just after Wandavision, she's not just going to forget about her kids and that sort of desperation makes her easy to corrupt. I think Wanda being the focus is also way more interesting than it being on the darkhold itself because she's a more interesting character. I think the darkhold is just a way to explain why she went so far with it, the desire was still hers.

 

I agree that it's a continuation, but a lot of people are calling it a rehash, and I'm just thinking of ways that the movie could've better bridged that gap. I don't think anything needed to change about what she did in the movie, but more could've been added to better flesh out the situation.

 

If the movie was good maybe her arc would have felt better/more satisfying

 

Sure, Vase.

 

It's always funny when people stick around in a thread for a movie they didn't like just to keep saying they didn't like it. What a way to spend your time lol.

 

People do the same thing for movies they like and I would say that's equally a waste of time.

 

Everything we do here is a waste of time.

 

See that's what I'm saying

 

Yeah it's weird for me to actively want to spend more time thinking about and discussing something I didn't like than something I did.

Like I get wanting to engage with it and discuss your disappointment and criticisms but after that to keep checking the thread only to say you still don't like it every few posts seems pointless. If you enjoy it though it's cool I guess.

 

I guess I'm just looking for something new in here to see the film in a different way. I really, really liked Doctor Strange 1, more than most people I would assume and I was completely disappointed and even angry that this is how they handled the sequel.

 

I dunno, the way I see the film is that apart from what they did with Wanda and the whole thing with the Illuminati (which really took up a lot less of the film's runtime than I expected), I thought they did a lot of cool things visually to make Strange's magic a lot more interesting than they did in the previous films and really show what magic in the MCU can do.

Strange's plot thread maybe didn't go as deep as it could have, but I thought it was a logical place to go to improve on his character. His hubris and arrogance are still a major detriment for him and I thought poking and prodding that was a good turn to take the character, especially if they want to make him more of a linchpin for the Avengers.

 

I don’t mind the leap between WandaVision and this. It’s pretty clearly communicated what happened from here to there, and the needs of this two-hour (bless you Raimi) superhero movie don’t entail watching it happen.

Now, the more-delightful-than-not WandaVision did have a disappointingly bad vanilla Marvel finale. So, if they’d taken the time to work that out better, maybe fewer people would’ve butted up against the transition. Not that I would’ve wanted an ending that felt like a teaser for this movie, which is kinda what the tag was anyways. But, if there’d been a more coherent & satisfying conclusion, instead of a Tony Stark style “we’re gonna push how bad our hero’s actions are a bit too far and spend too much time on generic action to do anything worth doing so”… Maybe then it wouldn’t have been so surprising to some people that Wanda started out evil in this.

(Which, with what people have said about how WandaVision and this came about, who knows what the plans for her looked like at different stages throughout this process. But, purely on terms of this particular film, can’t think of any work I wish it’d done.)

 

I'm not understanding what this means, honestly, and I would like a little more clarification.

 

Marvel had a nasty habit of making Tony kinda the villain of certain stories/moments, even after he died. And, if viewed as a whole, it’s debatable how well that works in relation to how heroic he was presented (I ain’t rooting for Elon Musk’s buddy), and if those beats added enough to be worth including. Homecoming’s handling of him in particular comes to mind.

If they’d done everything in WandaVision as they did, and then this movie didn’t do what it did with Wanda, then it would’ve been a similar situation. You would’ve had the completely unnecessary decision to make the Westview illusion a torturous prison, even though her most famous reality-altering comic story at least tried to give everyone else their wishes, too, and then she would’ve continued being a hero with lazy lip service at best to her mistakes.

 

I'm still slightly confused on what you're suggesting WandaVision should have done.

I know I read a lot of opinions post-WandaVision that Wanda got off too lightly for what she did to Westview, and should've been punished more. I don't know if I necessarily agree with that, but I understand the sentiment. At the time, I just expected the ramifications to be explored more in future material.

Is that what you're referring toward? Or are you criticizing the fact that they had her do anything villainous at all?

 

I also think it's stupid how much ALL these shows and movies are becoming required viewing because if you didn't watch Wandavision you'd have no clue what the fuck is going on with Wanda

 

Nah. I mean, listen, we're this far into what is basically a serial franchise. I don't expect to jump into the sixth season of a TV series and expect to know what's going on.

I actually think they've done a relatively fair job so far despite everything, and I'm basing this on the fact that my 74 year-old mother has been able to follow along post-Endgame despite not seeing more than a handful of movies prior to that fact.

Granted, she did watch WandaVision, so she knew what was happening with Wanda, so you're not wrong with what you say.

But I'm gonna blunt, if someone's gonna jump on the train at this point and complain that they don't know what's happening, they can fuck right off with that bullshit.

 

To be clear, my real biggest problem with the WandaVision finale is that it went full Marvel energy blast mode. The show was at its best when it played with the format and at its worst when it leaned the most into vanilla MCU stuff. Wish we would’ve gotten more of the former and less of the latter there.

But, yeah, the townspeople thing was bad. I don’t know that she had to be punished more per se, but if they’re choosing to put something like that in there, they do need to do something with it that makes it worth it. I’d argue that subplot, which easily could’ve been tweaked or pulled without changing the important stuff, was worse for this Wanda’s characterization than this movie was. I really have to ignore it to appreciate the 75% of that show that I love.

 

I don't know if "rehashed" is the word I'd use, but I agree they needed to actually show what the Darkhold was doing to Wanda if they wanted it to be the "ultimate villain". Right now it's very much a "eat your cake and have it too" situation where they want Wanda to be a villain with agency that's calling the shots, but also be able to redeem her by going "well it was really the Darkhold" and that just feels like a cop out to me

 

Nah, that's some weird gatekeeping shit "watch all the stuff and don't complain because that's what I did."

It's a movie. I think it's cool and nice they have so many different things people can enjoy and get more enjoyment out of by watching all the things, but the fact it's becoming a requirement is flat out stupid.

 

But it's not gatekeeping. Like, again, would you call it gatekeeping when someone tries to start a show from the sixth season? That's exactly what this is.

Or to use a film example, if someone goes to watch the next Fast film or if they were to watch No Time To Die without watching the other Daniel Craig Bond films, and they don't understand what's happening, is that gatekeeping? No one in their right mind would consider that gatekeeping.

Like, it's obnoxiously dumb to think that every movie or show in this thing at this point should be accessible to every single person.

But even then, it's not hard to get what you need. Like this with WandaVision. If you really don't want to watch the show, then it's real easy to find out what happened from another source like Wikipedia and then go nuts watching Dr. Strange.

Or, again, my 74 year-old mother can follow this nonsense and if she doesn't know something, she just asks me, I tell her, and we move on. Hasn't ruined her enjoyment of what's happening one iota.

If my mom can enjoy this, then everyone else can. End rant.

 

I may be crazy, but I think the naming convention of the movie sides with me, but i never once thought of this movie as the sequel to the first Dr. Strange movie. Sooooo much has happened with this character since then, I just kinda considered it the sequel to Wandavision instead, which I think makes Wanda's story not bother me so much because it doesn't feel like a rehash to me, just a continuation. Just my 2 cents.

Also completely agree the best parts of WV was when I was screaming "this is so weeeeeeird!" and not "pew pew pew marvel lasers but witchy this time!" haha

 

I’m going to be in the minority here, but I thought Wandavision was way more “bland” than Multiverse of Madness, outside of the emotional beats with Paul Bettany

 

I think that's probably why they've stopped numbering sequels (not that they ever numbered sequels outside of Iron Man and Guardians) and instead started using subtitles. So if you're thinking of this movie as "Doctor Strange 2", that's not what it is. It's not just a sequel to Doctor Strange. It's "Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness".

And, just in terms of the overall conversation happening in here, the MCU franchise is basically more a serialized television series than a traditional movie series. Like @Penlab said, you can't expect to jump into season 5 of Breaking Bad or Mad Men and not feel lost. It's the same principle here. People are free to personally not like that but it's not really a valid criticism to say these movies should do more to stand alone. That's not what they're setting out to do.

 

Eh both things are true. The MCU gets lauded for being interconnected and Moon Knight gets lauded for being 99% stand alone. Both have merit. This movie more than most required previous knowledge more than any MCU content I can recall so I can see why it’d be the worst launching point ever.