Because historically they’ve been for audiences like me, and now that they’re not, they’re wondering where everyone went. I assumed I’d enjoy these because I’ve enjoyed previous marvel movies, but I can’t name a single (marvel) movie since NWH that I’ve enjoyed. It’s been a massive shift in their movies that can’t be ignored.
They weren’t originally this comic book like up until just before endgame (coincidentally when everyone started to think the quality of the content is trending down)
No, they were, it’s just that by the time people got on board we were past the issue cycle and were onto the event cycle, so people got used to the incline and expected that that was going to be how these went: endless incline in excitement. But that was all the Infinity War lead up and climax. Now we’re in the lull leading into the next build-up cycle. We’re back at the Thor through Guardians 1 stage of the cycle, basically.
I really don’t think that’s the case.
Going back to watch any of the Phase 1 movies is such a better experience than any of the Phase 4 or Phase 5 movies. There doesn’t need to be endless excitement, there just needs to be decent writing, and that’s missing from anything new. Nobody cares about any of the new characters.
There’s never been a huge number of flops from marvel with people losing more and more interest in watching them. There’s no clear plan forward, as their planned “Thanos” scale villain has been in hot water irl and will likely not be able to continue to play the character.
I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, but I personally care about the MCU Shang-Chi, Kate Bishop, Yelena, Monica, Kamala, Moon Knight, hell I even care about Stature (Ant-Man’s daughter) a little bit.
As to the “plan forward,” I dunno man, it seems weird to borrow worry by letting speculative futures impact your opinion on and enjoyment of what’s in front of you. Maybe it’s not for you, that’s okay, but it you think it could be for you, I would suggest maybe trying to focus on what’s on the screen rather than caring about what’s happening behind the screen so much.
I’m not a business analyst; I’m not in the speculating market. I’m a media consumer, so I’m going to choose to judge them on their output, not any of the factors surrounding it or the discourse about it. For me, ignoring all the outside noise, I can only think of about 3 MCU-related properties that I watched and did not enjoy myself while watching. That’s all I’m looking for out of this relationship, so as far as I’m concerned they’re still doing right by me.
