Written By Simranpreet Kaur, Staff Writer
For years Marvel has been a world renown cinematic universe that has made not only a significant impact socially but also culturally.
So why is it that Marvel feels so irrelevant now? With the releases of new movies like Fantastic Four and Thunderbolts* We get why Marvel seems to be getting some attention, emotional movies that have actual plot and better writing that reminds us of phases 1 through 3 where our favorite characters were actually given storyline and character arcs, not just fighting a mediocre villain with a plot anyone can guess in under five minutes of watching the movie. The MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) during those three phases underwent numerous changes, but these transformations were for the better. Events like “The Creative Committee Era” were for the better as they offered a positive effect on how the movies were being made and directed. The shift it power between Feige and Perlmutter is where we see drastic changes not only by management, but the majority of what we see on screen.
While I was on the couch ranting to my friends about Marvel’s downfall and all the things they have been doing wrong, I wanted to know if other people actually felt this way or if the new movies are genuinely enjoyed by the majority and I’m just some sort of an anomaly. So I interviewed two people who I know for a fact are strong Marvel fans and asked them some pretty basic questions to see if I could eventually get their theories as to why Marvel fails to succeed like it’s previously done. I started with Lilly Matus- Vargas, a Junior here at Poly who like many MCU fans our age has grown up with the majority of the movies throughout her life so far. When asked about her favorite movies she said Avengers Endgame or Spider-Man No Way Home. One thing to note about both of these movies is that Endgame is the final movie of Phase 3 and No Way Home is the very beginning of Phase 4. This prompted the next few questions “Is there a reason why you prefer old marvel more?” and “Would you say the new movies are better than the old ones? Why or Why not?” in which she responded with “the originals are always better”.
Why are the originals always better? For the most part it’s because of the actors we’re used to seeing on screen when we associate Marvel with people. Actors like Chris Evans (Captain America), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Robert Downey Junior (Iron Man), and Mark Ruffalo (Hulk),were the start of the rise of Marvel’s fame and success so killing off three of your greatest characters that fans invested 10 years into watching wasn’t the best move when thinking about it from a business perspective but from a writing perspective it actually makes a lot of sense for the characters storylines. The problems during the infamous “creative committee” was that the committee was composed of a variety of people from different Marvel divisions who would be a direct result to a lot of friction and conflict about upcoming movies and directions, however one pro that stems from this is an actual thoughtfulness when it comes down to writing the screenplays and scripts.
During this era we were given all of phases 1-3 which are considered the best marvel movies ever with some exceptions to movies like Thor: The Dark World that many people didn’t exactly rave over. But the idea here is that when Marvel was being run by people who were passionate about the characters and were afraid to go in certain directions because they didn’t know if it was for the better, showed us that it was important to them to make movies that people were going to enjoy and respect. Now with Marvel in Phase 4, everything feels like a money grab, weather it be actors leaving due to money issues, the making of movies with bad plot, villains none of us actually believe are high stakes (The Red Hulk), bad cgi in almost all of the movies after Endgame, and Disney buying out Marvel. It’s no wonder why the movies don’t have that feeling that these characters are going somewhere and doing something that actually means something to their arcs and storylines. All of the old marvel movies through Phases 1-3 were connected not only within the dialogue and references to films before, making every movie feel a part of its own world, but also with the famous end credit scenes. Every end credit scene was relevant to the actual movie or every upcoming movie after that one was released. We don’t see that connection with a lot of the newer movies especially within the dialogue.
New Marvel has been more of a let down then a pick me up, and with the announcement last year that Robert Downey Junior would be coming back as the role of Doctor Doom, it seems like Marvel will do anything to make money instead of giving fans fulfilling plots and characters. Characters and stories like these are what made Marvel enjoyable and a cult classic to begin with. If the only concerns are with generating revenue by bringing out old actors to draw fans back in, (with the sole purpose of getting them to buy the ticket to see what they’re familiar with on screen) then Marvel will never make satisfying movies that actually have a purpose in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.