In Spider-Man, almost all the cameos and characters brought in had a layer they added to Peter Parker's main story, even if it was only "they deserve to live".

In DS 2, the only cameo that could be argued that they added to anyone's story, IMO, was Professor X. So it was just a bunch of characters there to have a fight and show how powerful Wanda was without having to lose any characters in the main universe.

-Dr Strange: Yo te amo en cada universo.
-Cristine:#DoctorStrange #DoctorStrangeInTheMultiverseOfMadnes #WandaMaximoff #ScarletWitch #BenedictCumberbatch #MarvelStudios pic.twitter.com/sNNQHzJv5d

— Manuel Parra (@m_parra491) May 5, 2022

Spoilers without context: #DoctorStrange #DoctorStrange2 #DoctorStrangeInTheMultiverseOfMadness #Wanda #WandaMaximoff pic.twitter.com/uPRucWEOzb

— 1997 (Tyler’s Version) (@TylerJamesBoal) May 6, 2022

One thing I noticed was Strange made a snarky comment to Reed along the lines of "Fantastic Four? Didn't you guys peak in the 60's?" My theater was cheering, but I'm fairly certain thats what he said.

Could have just been an inside joke for the fans, but it also suggests that the Fantastic Four exist in our original Marvel Cinematic Universe? Which I just dont think that would work, as they've never been mentioned before, and that wouldn't make any sense.

Sex Panther said:

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One thing I noticed was Strange made a snarky comment to Reed along the lines of "Fantastic Four? Didn't you guys peak in the 60's?" My theater was cheering, but I'm fairly certain thats what he said.

Could have just been an inside joke for the fans, but it also suggests that the Fantastic Four exist in our original Marvel Cinematic Universe? Which I just dont think that would work, as they've never been mentioned before, and that wouldn't make any sense.

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I think he was joking about it sounding like a band or something. It was loud in my theater also.

That said, I'm currently working with a writer/producer from The Office, who is good friends with him, and they've been wanting to work together, so we're taking a pilot to him to direct, once we attach our lead. So, selfishly, I want him available to do our thing after Imaginary Friends, but either way I'll see what intel I can get when/if we talk.

wangus12 said:

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Dr. Reeds head popped like a balloon

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veryfuller said:

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In Spider-Man, almost all the cameos and characters brought in had a layer they added to Peter Parker's main story, even if it was only "they deserve to live".

In DS 2, the only cameo that could be argued that they added to anyone's story, IMO, was Professor X. So it was just a bunch of characters there to have a fight and show how powerful Wanda was without having to lose any characters in the main universe.

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Ok but why is that a bad reason to have those characters here? I mean the only reason for lots of enemies showing up in Spiderman is as an excuse to bring in the other Spiderman actors to be extreme fan service. And people loved it for that. And that's all fine, but the last Spider Man film isn't some ground breaking story or take but rather just a giant nostalgia bomb. Yet in this film, it really seems like to me that people are just upset the powerful people they wanted to see have a big roll were just canon fodder and label it as "fan service" in this case because they aren't happy with how they were used.

People don't have to like either one of the uses, but people not liking one and liking the other doesn't change that they are both fan service. This is honestly the first time we've gotten to see Wanda not limited by some bull**** that the MCU needed in order to let others shine. That's a very real reason to use this whole multiverse aspect that they're heavily leaning into in this phase. Honestly it makes a lot more sense than Peter wanting to go to MIT.

Sex Panther said:

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One thing I noticed was Strange made a snarky comment to Reed along the lines of "Fantastic Four? Didn't you guys peak in the 60's?" My theater was cheering, but I'm fairly certain thats what he said.

Could have just been an inside joke for the fans, but it also suggests that the Fantastic Four exist in our original Marvel Cinematic Universe? Which I just dont think that would work, as they've never been mentioned before, and that wouldn't make any sense.

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The joke was that the fantastic four sounds like a 60s band name. He said didn't your band peak from the 60s or something along those lines, but I remember band being involved.

TCTTS said:

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johncAG said:

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Every thing I would have said about this movie has been said already

Enjoyed it more than I thought I would after seeing reviews. Wanda and America Chavez were both great and hopefully involved more. Horror aspect was different in a good way.

The only negative thing I have about the movie is that it confirms what I was worried about (TCTTS has mentioned it before but I was still holding out hope until this movie). What is the end goal? We know that the end of Loki will be important but how are the remaining Avengers getting back together? How are the future teams ups coming? I think we have to realize that the Feige Brain Trust is not as far along on the next step as a lot would have thought post Endgame. I think CoVid probably messed up schedules but the only announced project in the new future that has any hope at moving the grand plot along is Ant Man. I really hoped we would have gotten some groundwork on how the X-Men/F4 would be coming. But is that really Disneys fault? Or are we the audience expecting too much now. It's a similar way I feel about the Disney Plus shows. I have enjoyed everyone in different ways but so far, only Loki and Wandavision (in this movie) has felt like it was required watching for the big picture.

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Well put. And yeah, right there with you. To me, the MCU isn't just a bunch of connected stories. It's connected stories that are actively building toward something. At least that's what it was for 11 years. But it feels like Marvel no longer cares about that distinction now. And sure, it all very well could be leading toward Secret Wars or whatever, but they're not cluing us into that fact. That's the difference. Give us morsels. Give us better hints. Just make it more apparent that this is all going to pay off in a bigger way, even if it's not until, say, three years from now.

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I'm now convinced this phase has just been a big push for Disney+. And honestly, the content is suffering a bit for it although maybe its a case where volume does make up for a decrease in quality. I'm also still willing to give them a bit of a break since the shuffling of 4-5 properties due to pandemic is probably affecting the stories more than we are giving them credit for. The entire plot of this movie revolves around Wandavision but this was supposed to come out BEFORE Wandavision so what the hell was the plot before? A quest to get vision back? Wandavision/DS2/Spiderman had to have been radically different in another order.

All that being said, ultimately it really just seems like to me that they're treading water while they do a lot of the D+ shows and introductions. I can't imagine the next big bad is gonna be anyone but Kang, but not having seen him even alluded to in the properties since Loki makes me start to question that. It just seemed that his creation of the multiverse would have implications on this movie if thats what they wanted but they don't so much as even bring up that idea so who knows.

This. And it was a bit of an Easter egg for the comics fans because lots of people think the FF peaked in the 60's

veryfuller said:

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MBAR said:

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veryfuller said:

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In Spider-Man, almost all the cameos and characters brought in had a layer they added to Peter Parker's main story, even if it was only "they deserve to live".

In DS 2, the only cameo that could be argued that they added to anyone's story, IMO, was Professor X. So it was just a bunch of characters there to have a fight and show how powerful Wanda was without having to lose any characters in the main universe.

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Ok but why is that a bad reason to have those characters here? I mean the only reason for lots of enemies showing up in Spiderman is as an excuse to bring in the other Spiderman actors to be extreme fan service. And people loved it for that. And that's all fine, but the last Spider Man film isn't some ground breaking story or take but rather just a giant nostalgia bomb. Yet in this film, it really seems like to me that people are just upset the powerful people they wanted to see have a big roll were just canon fodder and label it as "fan service" in this case because they aren't happy with how they were used.

People don't have to like either one of the uses, but people not liking one and liking the other doesn't change that they are both fan service. This is honestly the first time we've gotten to see Wanda not limited by some bull**** that the MCU needed in order to let others shine. That's a very real reason to use this whole multiverse aspect that they're heavily leaning into in this phase. Honestly it makes a lot more sense than Peter wanting to go to MIT.

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I feel like you didn't read my first sentence.

I 100% expected Spiderman to be just lots of characters showing up for fan service, but was surprised by how they contributed to the character arc of Peter Parker. One of the villains killed May. Doc Oc got to be redeemed on the other side of Spider-Man II. The two visiting spider-men came in as emotional support for Peter, not just extra good guys to fight bad guys and have cool wink wink moments. We got those too, but it was more than that.

Fan service isn't bad, I just personally prefer it to be in service of the story. These characters were just dropped in and didn't really have a meaningful impact on the story at all, they were just famous actors or powerful superheroes that added to a body count just to show how powerful Wanda is, but without really raising any true stakes for the characters we were following. And it was all basically wink wink and no substance.

Thats is the difference between the movies, IMO. And honestly I couldn't care less who cameo-ed or showed up in this movie. I'm just annoyed they had all the cameos just to make a fight I was 0% invested in.

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I disagree with this though. Doc Oc and Green Goblin are definitely more important to the plot than all other cameos. Lizard and Sandman are pretty meh, and honestly so is Electro but Jamie Foxx is a much better actor so he is more of an on screen presence. But as parts of the plot? They're generic as hell. Andrew Garfield is practically in the movie to do nothing more than gives fan closure on his movie. Toby reminds Peter of humanity, but its not like only he could do this. Its arguable that it would have been better for Ned or MJ to have done this, quite frankly.

In MoM, Cpt Marvel, Black Bolt, and Reed Richards do nothing but provide noteworthy foils. But Christine, Mordo, and Xavier are all integral to the plot and move it forwards. So I don't understand if you're going to give Doc Oc and GG the same credit, why do you deny it here? You keep saying "JUST to show how powerful Wanda is" as if that's not an important element of the story! How is it not important to know that Wanda is so powerful that she can just demolish this amazingly powerful superhero collective?

As for stakes, its a comic book movie. There are no real stakes. Did anyone actually expect Wanda was going to win here? Did anyone think America was going to die? Or that the multiverse was going to come crashing down? The highest stakes we get is someone like Aunt May dying (in the most cliche Spiderman way possible) which really doesn't move the needle for me in that regard. If thats important to others, fair enough, but for me thats a non factor.

EDIT: I do think that Spiderman has a better story than MoM. MoM is a pretty light on plot, IMO. I just disagree it has anything to do with the cameos in either movie.

Page three and unless I missed it no one has mentioned Charlize Theron as Clea Strange in the stinger? Also, appears they're setting up Nightmare as the villain.

It was fun, I think this movie is easier to digest if you think of it as a Sam Raimi movie, not a MCU movie. It was insane, felt a lot more like Evil Dead/Drag Me To Hell than it did Spiderman, which is a good thing IMO.

When Scarlet Witch went to the multiverse and possessed the body of Wanda in the kitchen and she stares at you (the fourth wall) the crowd was like whoa. I was like that's hot. I thought Elizabeth Olsen was hot as Scarlet Witch being the villain.

Just got out. I liked this movie. It was really enjoyable, Elizabeth Olsen was awesome. Cumberbatch was awesome and Gomez did great. Will likely be a huge star.

I mean Sam Raimi isn't for everybody and this was definitely a Sam Raimi movie but when there's witches, sorcerers, spells, magic books and demons who sound like old ladies scolding you for throwing rocks in the church parking lot (ask me how I know), then this is what we were going to get.

I feel like this movie accomplished a couple of things though.
1. Earth 616 can now explore the multiverse via America Chavez. With all the Darkholds destroyed, her and whatever Charlize Theron did.
2. I would expect 616 to start researching the multiverse like 838 did and start developing a think-tank to prepare and maybe that's where Kang (Qeng tower from Loki) comes in..
3. I think this was supposed to just be an intro to multiverse logic 101, and more advanced concepts will be explored in other movies. There have to be some ground rules established and probably better to do that here as opposed to an avengers level movie.

4. Pure speculation on my part, and I think this phase and the complaints of there not being an established villain are valid, but I think the multiverse itself is sort of a big bad villain itself. Wanda made a great point in that some universe somewhere there is a solution to your problem and whoever can access the multiverse will likely use this to their advantage. I think this movie really was needed to lay the groundwork that the multiverse is the nuclear weapon of the MCU like the infinity stones were.

I mean how many movies we're about the individual stones and their powers? Now we're going to have individual movies about the multiverse and what it's powers and rules are. But just like CA establish the space stone, dark world the aether, GoTG, the power stone, Ultron the mind stone, each of these next phase movies are establishing a concept that the multiverse can accomplish when in the wrong hands. Then we'll have somebody who can manipulate all of these aspects of the multiverse and that will be the big bad like thanos was.

RikkiTikkaTagem said:

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Just got out. I liked this movie. It was really enjoyable, Elizabeth Olsen was awesome. Cumberbatch was awesome and Gomez did great. Will likely be a huge star.

I mean Sam Raimi isn't for everybody and this was definitely a Sam Raimi movie but when there's witches, sorcerers, spells, magic books and demons who sound like old ladies scolding you for throwing rocks in the church parking lot (ask me how I know), then this is what we were going to get.

I feel like this movie accomplished a couple of things though.
1. Earth 616 can now explore the multiverse via America Chavez. With all the Darkholds destroyed, her and whatever Charlize Theron did.
2. I would expect 616 to start researching the multiverse like 838 did and start developing a think-tank to prepare and maybe that's where Kang (Qeng tower from Loki) comes in..
3. I think this was supposed to just be an intro to multiverse logic 101, and more advanced concepts will be explored in other movies. There have to be some ground rules established and probably better to do that here as opposed to an avengers level movie.

4. Pure speculation on my part, and I think this phase and the complaints of there not being an established villain are valid, but I think the multiverse itself is sort of a big bad villain itself. Wanda made a great point in that some universe somewhere there is a solution to your problem and whoever can access the multiverse will likely use this to their advantage. I think this movie really was needed to lay the groundwork that the multiverse is the nuclear weapon of the MCU like the infinity stones were.

I mean how many movies we're about the individual stones and their powers? Now we're going to have individual movies about the multiverse and what it's powers and rules are. But just like CA establish the space stone, dark world the aether, GoTG, the power stone, Ultron the mind stone, each of these next phase movies are establishing a concept that the multiverse can accomplish when in the wrong hands. Then we'll have somebody who can manipulate all of these aspects of the multiverse and that will be the big bad like thanos was.

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A+ post all around. I like how you're thinking.

Our family loved it. All I want to say..

This is the outline I wanted to see from the movie, which now makes more sense

main thought, literally still in credits Is: wtf did I just watch?