TLDR: How the hell do I break up Phase 3? Too epic. Civil War, Strange, and GotG 2 all mind blowing.
Prior threads:
Phase 1 Reaction:
https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/3278723
Phase 2 Reaction:
https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/3285463
Alright y'all. I've come to a decision that there is NO WAY that I contain the amount of information and epicness that is Phase 3 into one Texags post. Therefore this post will be the first part of I have no idea how many (more to come on that below) regarding the insanity that is Phase 3 of the MCU.
This post will contain: Captain America: Civil War, Dr. Strange, and Guardians of the Galaxy 2.
So I would I rank these movies? Um…..how's this?
1c. Dr. Strange
1b. Guardians of the Galaxy 2
1a. Captain America: Civil War
It's not fair to any of these films to be ranked less than first when only comparing these 3. So here we go! Reminder…to make sure I avoid any and all spoilers when I write these things this is only from memory of seeing the film (another reason why this phase needs to be broken up). I cannot risk looking up anything on the Internet to refresh my memory due to potential spoilers so I'll probably get some items a touch off and forget some names.
Dr. Strange
Let me start off by saying I don't think I've ever seen Benedict Cumberbatch in a movie before. I've heard of him of course and know that he's a respected actor, but anything beyond that is mostly a blank.
HE. IS. AWESOME! And so is this film. But my reasoning why might be a touch different than others. I'm a devout Christian and go to a non-denominational church and try to live by one simple rule: love God and love your neighbor. I love reading the Bible and love volunteering with youth ministry. So why include this information? Well, this movie had SO MANY biblical references in it I was grinning the entire time! And I don't mean anything specific to actual stories or people, but rather the general ideas of being a Christian that are continuously referenced in the Bible…
Giving yourself to a higher power -> Dr. Strange's initial skepticism and it being the reason why he continued to fail.
Can only achieve victory through surrender -> head leader bald chick said these words to Dr. Strange (yes I'm calling him Dr every time…the man earned that Ph.D!).
This life is just stepping stone to something much bigger -> head leader bald lady strikes again…this was a major theme during the death sequence when she was accepting her fate/death.
The concept of time being meaningless/having a way different interpretation than how we measure time on Earth -> I know this had been brough up without the time stone and more around the head lady's age.
The damaged hands -> loss of use of his hands paralleled with nails in the hands.
Self-sacrifice for the saving of humanity -> Nailed on the cross vs nailed for eternity in purple ball world.
And I know there's more and these are repeated multiple times but again…not looking it up. And I also know these concepts are not specific to this film. This has been done many times in various films and I also know that this wasn't the intent of the movie. But like I had mentioned about Winter Soldier and it basically being MCU mixed with Mission Impossible….this was like MCU mixed with Christian ideals/beliefs. And it's completely okay if you see it different. It's art.
So why else did I love this film? How about the action? Not sure if Inception came before or after this movie but whoever was second I hope wrote a nice letter titled: please don't sue me for doing a CTLR-C -> CTRL-V on your special effects/CGI. Seriously the start of this film had me so confused and intrigued I was hooked immediately. And then when Dr. Strange first appears for whatever reason I immediately identified with his character (not because of my personality or job or money truuuuuuuuuust me) and was invested. So when the car accident took place before the very next shot of him in the hospital I already called, "He's going to lose the use of his hands." Now, I don't know what it is with stories that involve a main character permanently losing a part of themselves and essentially losing their meaning to live, only to find that there's a much bigger calling for them in life and embracing it more than their previous life….but I'm a sucker for these. I don't know why, but I'm a YUUUUUUGE sucker for these. And Benedick C. couldn't have done a more amazing job. The whole first act of the film where he's spending every dollar he has to try and find a cure, pushing the people away that he loves, and overall becoming a massive butthole was 100% believable.
And when he approaches the temple and the only thing left of him is a broken man begging to be given a chance….I'm thinking to myself, "This is the BEST origin story of any MCU movie based on a single main character!" There. I said it.
What else? Oh! The cape of illusion. Again…don't know why this is a soft spot for me but inanimate objects being given life and a personality….I LOVE THAT! I love that they've got Mads Mikelson (boy I know I butchered that one) as another bad guy….dude's good at it!
And the ending! Holy cow the ending! I don't care that pouty purple face was named Dormmamu that HAD to be Thanos. I'm guessing this is an ancient group of people that probably have different names for these things cause they called this ultimate being the "destroyer of worlds" and I'm pretty sure that's item number one on Thanos' resume. The fact that this human was basically starring down the "destroyer of worlds" and keeping him in a time loop, accepting death for eternity and essentially winning through controlling time itself….oh man I was getting giddy during that whole sequence.
So, I'll try and remember end credits here….I believe there were two. One of which we see an older, definitely more competent and confident Dr. Strange having a fun meeting with Thor about Loki and Odin. And the second end credits scene…..I CALLED IT! I FRIEKING CALLED IT! During this whole movie we've got a "friend" with the name of Mordor…..Mordor! Come' on man we've all seen Lord of the Rings you can't have a name like Mordor and stay a good guy. What a dick move taking away crappy Catwoman's squeezes ability to walk. Jerk. Knew he was gonna end up doing a 180 on us.
Guardian's of the Galaxy 2
I'm gonna start off by saying…my wife has more or less been enjoying all these films. But this movie was the one where I think she is now 100% invested and genuinely cares about what happens to these characters. And my kids….I think this movie had the best reactions from my kids and that's all thanks to Baby Groot. The opening credits? Seriously!? We get to watch Baby Groot dance while this epic battle takes place in the background and that lasted about 4 minutes….and was entertaining the entire 4 minutes (that's a guess who knows how long it was).
So I was clearly way off on guessing who Star Lords dad was. But come'on….did anyone actually guess it was going to be Ego? And before I go any farther, let's chat about Ego….
I'm 36 years old and when I was growing up in the 90s we had Marvel collectors cards. Couldn't play games with them or anything you just collected them and traded them. I can still remember having the Ego card. Whelp, at times we have closed captioning on and when Kurt Russell was macking on Star Lords momma at the very beginning of the film at one point his name pops up with the dialogue. This is what immediately pops in my head:
And I've still got this card along with a bunch of other ones buried somewhere….think they're worth anything now?
Anyways so right from the start I'm going, "Ok….how they gonna make Kurt Russell a giant pissed off planet?" Man did they not disappoint! When they brought Star Lord, Gamora, and Drax to that planet I'm going, "okie dokie NOW we're getting somewhere with this!" Besides the whole…oh look at me I'm your dad lets play a game of blue balls catch was so gosh darn corny even if you didn't know Ego was a bad guy that had to have been a clue that they were setting us up.
And all of the dialogue when Ego is giving Star Lord his big plan in what he's trying to accomplish…only to have his past revealed at the same time with all the prior kid deaths and realizing what Yondu had actually been trying to protect Star Lord this entire time, that was a jaw dropper.
And let's talk about Yondu. How in the hell does a movie like Guardians with talking baby trees STILL squeeze emotional moments out of nowhere!? HOW? First we get Yondu showing how wicked awesome he can be with the red arrow of HOLY BALLSACK destroying every single person on his ship….and while that whole sequence was completely awesome there's one moment where the arrow takes out a light in a hallway and all we see is the red glow of the arrow in a pitch black hallway taking people out….AMAZING! But then we see Yondu and Rocket actually having a big character revealing moment where we see Yondu (who I guess we can assume is older than Rocket) spitting some truth about how they're the same person.
And then….yup….water works out of left field…..TWICE! First off we get the self-sacrifice of Yondu saving his son (he's his daddy dangit!) and right before accepting that he saw himself as Star Lord's dad…and this is right before we got some flashback sequences of Star Lords life with a few of them showing him as a young boy with Yondu teaching him how to shoot….and ALSO we got Rocket stunning Gamora to save her because, "I'm not losing more than one friend today." Dang it!
And as if that wasn't enough….the funeral scene. I didn't expect there to be any payoff to introducing Sly and showing that Yondu had been expelled from the group that he was in. But here we are, all the ships showing up giving him the funeral as one of their own and accepting him back into the order because of his actions.
This ending was right in line with Onward. If you haven't seen Onward….watch it! If you have, you understand what I mean regarding having an emotional moment come way out of left field and not expecting it at the end.
You da real Mary Poppins Yondu!
Teenage Groot needs his butt kicked.
Captain America: Civil War
So this movie….man…I went back and forth on if this one was going to be my #1 or if Winter Soldier was going to stay there….and yup, this is #1 now. So why?
Well, it wasn't necessarily because the first half of the film. Don't get me wrong it was entertaining but while watching it I was thinking to myself, where the heck is all this going? So what was awesome?
How about Black Panther! I don't know what it was about this character, but something about being this civilized prince/king (which is it?) and having this aurora of honor and principles that can be understood just in how we talks, only to see that this same person can dawn a suit and become the most threatening person in the room…that was fun to watch. And another reason for this is while I might have known things about some of these other characters throughout the MCU, I know NOTHING about Black Panther….other than it's a black suit with claws….that's it. His portrayal was incredible and has me really excited about seeing his origin movie.
How about Spiderman! Jeez….Tom Holland is Spiderman. That's it. Toby McGuire got us going….Andrew Garfield held his own….but Tom Holland is Spiderman and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise. He's got the perfect combination of adolescence and being nave but also having this great cocky attitude that's 100% believable. The entire fight sequence where he's involved I don't think I was never smiling while he was on screen. And the fact that BOTH sides were getting tired of his mouth during that fight made it even more funny.
How about Bucky! I was curious how they were going to work this character in with Cap and it was amazingly done! You got the sense early on that he was unaware of what he was doing a lot of those times and that he was essentially brainwashed. It was a great way to save his character and keep his "pureness" I guess because back in the day him and Cap were basically the same guys.
Alright….my one beef with this movie….okay 2 beefs….
1. Why include Vision in that big showdown. They've basically made Vision into a god-like being and it was like when they all went Braveheart straight line running at one another you see him floating along and then……..where'd he go? Just have him show up later from Wanda throwing him deeper into the Earth or something. Cause he could have ended that whole fight with a few forehead beems.
2. I know the bad guy in this was basically a revenge story. And it was good! But there were a few moments that just didn't make sense that maybe someone here can help with. For example, he's got a Hydra guy hanging upside down over a sink threating to kill him and all he wants to know is what happened on a mission from the 90s. Why wouldn't the Hydra guy tell him?? It's not like it was crazy world domination take over plan changing info….hell he could have told him what he was trying to do and you'd think Hydra would be like, "Hey! Great idea! Let me assist you with that." But nope….drown me cause Hail Hydra and yadda yadda yadda.
And that final reveal….oh my goodness that final reveal….
So we got Bucky, Cap, and Iron Man being all cool with one another trying to find the evil dude. And during this whole sequence I'm thinking to myself, "What did I miss? Wasn't there a scene where Bucky, Cap, and Iron Man are going for death blows? How am I miss remembering this?"
And then I hear the line from Tony, "Wait I know this place. Why are we watching this?" referring to where the car accident takes place that we'd gotten 2 flashbacks of at this point. And I knew it right away. I straight up yelled, "Oh no! Oh no! No please no!" And not only do we find out Bucky killed Starks parents but dang we see it! We see a pivotal character that helped create SHIELD killed and his wife choked after seeing her husband killed…..I don't know what it is about these Cap centered movies but the Mouse always seems to go "screw it! Go nuts boys!" when it comes to their stories and it's amazing!
So what were the end credits here….right we see Bucky going into some kind of freeze chamber I guess because he's still a wanted man…curious to see how they get that worked out. And we finally see Wakanda! YEEEEEEEEEAH!
So yeah….these 3 films were absolutely stellar! How do I rank them?
15. Iron Man 3
14. Captain America
13. Iron Man 2
12. Thor: Dark World
11. Thor
10. Ant-Man
9. The Incredible Hulk
8. The Avengers: Age of Ultron
7. Iron Man
6. Dr. Strange
5. Guardians of the Galaxy
4. The Avengers
3. Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2
2. Captain America: Winter Soldier
1. Captain America: Civil War
But I'm curious how I should structure this….cause with 8 movies left I'll still have to break things up cause of how big a deal I know these films are. Figured grouping the next 3 together makes sense but after that I'm open to suggestions.
Alright….on to Ragnarok….
Also….I'm on Team Darryl! Thor's being a dick bag.
Prior threads:
Phase 1 Reaction:
https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/3278723
Phase 2 Reaction:
https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/3285463
Alright y'all. I've come to a decision that there is NO WAY that I contain the amount of information and epicness that is Phase 3 into one Texags post. Therefore this post will be the first part of I have no idea how many (more to come on that below) regarding the insanity that is Phase 3 of the MCU.
This post will contain: Captain America: Civil War, Dr. Strange, and Guardians of the Galaxy 2.
So I would I rank these movies? Um…..how's this?
1c. Dr. Strange
1b. Guardians of the Galaxy 2
1a. Captain America: Civil War
It's not fair to any of these films to be ranked less than first when only comparing these 3. So here we go! Reminder…to make sure I avoid any and all spoilers when I write these things this is only from memory of seeing the film (another reason why this phase needs to be broken up). I cannot risk looking up anything on the Internet to refresh my memory due to potential spoilers so I'll probably get some items a touch off and forget some names.
Dr. Strange
Let me start off by saying I don't think I've ever seen Benedict Cumberbatch in a movie before. I've heard of him of course and know that he's a respected actor, but anything beyond that is mostly a blank.
HE. IS. AWESOME! And so is this film. But my reasoning why might be a touch different than others. I'm a devout Christian and go to a non-denominational church and try to live by one simple rule: love God and love your neighbor. I love reading the Bible and love volunteering with youth ministry. So why include this information? Well, this movie had SO MANY biblical references in it I was grinning the entire time! And I don't mean anything specific to actual stories or people, but rather the general ideas of being a Christian that are continuously referenced in the Bible…
Giving yourself to a higher power -> Dr. Strange's initial skepticism and it being the reason why he continued to fail.
Can only achieve victory through surrender -> head leader bald chick said these words to Dr. Strange (yes I'm calling him Dr every time…the man earned that Ph.D!).
This life is just stepping stone to something much bigger -> head leader bald lady strikes again…this was a major theme during the death sequence when she was accepting her fate/death.
The concept of time being meaningless/having a way different interpretation than how we measure time on Earth -> I know this had been brough up without the time stone and more around the head lady's age.
The damaged hands -> loss of use of his hands paralleled with nails in the hands.
Self-sacrifice for the saving of humanity -> Nailed on the cross vs nailed for eternity in purple ball world.
And I know there's more and these are repeated multiple times but again…not looking it up. And I also know these concepts are not specific to this film. This has been done many times in various films and I also know that this wasn't the intent of the movie. But like I had mentioned about Winter Soldier and it basically being MCU mixed with Mission Impossible….this was like MCU mixed with Christian ideals/beliefs. And it's completely okay if you see it different. It's art.
So why else did I love this film? How about the action? Not sure if Inception came before or after this movie but whoever was second I hope wrote a nice letter titled: please don't sue me for doing a CTLR-C -> CTRL-V on your special effects/CGI. Seriously the start of this film had me so confused and intrigued I was hooked immediately. And then when Dr. Strange first appears for whatever reason I immediately identified with his character (not because of my personality or job or money truuuuuuuuuust me) and was invested. So when the car accident took place before the very next shot of him in the hospital I already called, "He's going to lose the use of his hands." Now, I don't know what it is with stories that involve a main character permanently losing a part of themselves and essentially losing their meaning to live, only to find that there's a much bigger calling for them in life and embracing it more than their previous life….but I'm a sucker for these. I don't know why, but I'm a YUUUUUUGE sucker for these. And Benedick C. couldn't have done a more amazing job. The whole first act of the film where he's spending every dollar he has to try and find a cure, pushing the people away that he loves, and overall becoming a massive butthole was 100% believable.
And when he approaches the temple and the only thing left of him is a broken man begging to be given a chance….I'm thinking to myself, "This is the BEST origin story of any MCU movie based on a single main character!" There. I said it.
What else? Oh! The cape of illusion. Again…don't know why this is a soft spot for me but inanimate objects being given life and a personality….I LOVE THAT! I love that they've got Mads Mikelson (boy I know I butchered that one) as another bad guy….dude's good at it!
And the ending! Holy cow the ending! I don't care that pouty purple face was named Dormmamu that HAD to be Thanos. I'm guessing this is an ancient group of people that probably have different names for these things cause they called this ultimate being the "destroyer of worlds" and I'm pretty sure that's item number one on Thanos' resume. The fact that this human was basically starring down the "destroyer of worlds" and keeping him in a time loop, accepting death for eternity and essentially winning through controlling time itself….oh man I was getting giddy during that whole sequence.
So, I'll try and remember end credits here….I believe there were two. One of which we see an older, definitely more competent and confident Dr. Strange having a fun meeting with Thor about Loki and Odin. And the second end credits scene…..I CALLED IT! I FRIEKING CALLED IT! During this whole movie we've got a "friend" with the name of Mordor…..Mordor! Come' on man we've all seen Lord of the Rings you can't have a name like Mordor and stay a good guy. What a dick move taking away crappy Catwoman's squeezes ability to walk. Jerk. Knew he was gonna end up doing a 180 on us.
Guardian's of the Galaxy 2
I'm gonna start off by saying…my wife has more or less been enjoying all these films. But this movie was the one where I think she is now 100% invested and genuinely cares about what happens to these characters. And my kids….I think this movie had the best reactions from my kids and that's all thanks to Baby Groot. The opening credits? Seriously!? We get to watch Baby Groot dance while this epic battle takes place in the background and that lasted about 4 minutes….and was entertaining the entire 4 minutes (that's a guess who knows how long it was).
So I was clearly way off on guessing who Star Lords dad was. But come'on….did anyone actually guess it was going to be Ego? And before I go any farther, let's chat about Ego….
I'm 36 years old and when I was growing up in the 90s we had Marvel collectors cards. Couldn't play games with them or anything you just collected them and traded them. I can still remember having the Ego card. Whelp, at times we have closed captioning on and when Kurt Russell was macking on Star Lords momma at the very beginning of the film at one point his name pops up with the dialogue. This is what immediately pops in my head:
And I've still got this card along with a bunch of other ones buried somewhere….think they're worth anything now?
Anyways so right from the start I'm going, "Ok….how they gonna make Kurt Russell a giant pissed off planet?" Man did they not disappoint! When they brought Star Lord, Gamora, and Drax to that planet I'm going, "okie dokie NOW we're getting somewhere with this!" Besides the whole…oh look at me I'm your dad lets play a game of blue balls catch was so gosh darn corny even if you didn't know Ego was a bad guy that had to have been a clue that they were setting us up.
And all of the dialogue when Ego is giving Star Lord his big plan in what he's trying to accomplish…only to have his past revealed at the same time with all the prior kid deaths and realizing what Yondu had actually been trying to protect Star Lord this entire time, that was a jaw dropper.
And let's talk about Yondu. How in the hell does a movie like Guardians with talking baby trees STILL squeeze emotional moments out of nowhere!? HOW? First we get Yondu showing how wicked awesome he can be with the red arrow of HOLY BALLSACK destroying every single person on his ship….and while that whole sequence was completely awesome there's one moment where the arrow takes out a light in a hallway and all we see is the red glow of the arrow in a pitch black hallway taking people out….AMAZING! But then we see Yondu and Rocket actually having a big character revealing moment where we see Yondu (who I guess we can assume is older than Rocket) spitting some truth about how they're the same person.
And then….yup….water works out of left field…..TWICE! First off we get the self-sacrifice of Yondu saving his son (he's his daddy dangit!) and right before accepting that he saw himself as Star Lord's dad…and this is right before we got some flashback sequences of Star Lords life with a few of them showing him as a young boy with Yondu teaching him how to shoot….and ALSO we got Rocket stunning Gamora to save her because, "I'm not losing more than one friend today." Dang it!
And as if that wasn't enough….the funeral scene. I didn't expect there to be any payoff to introducing Sly and showing that Yondu had been expelled from the group that he was in. But here we are, all the ships showing up giving him the funeral as one of their own and accepting him back into the order because of his actions.
This ending was right in line with Onward. If you haven't seen Onward….watch it! If you have, you understand what I mean regarding having an emotional moment come way out of left field and not expecting it at the end.
You da real Mary Poppins Yondu!
Teenage Groot needs his butt kicked.
Captain America: Civil War
So this movie….man…I went back and forth on if this one was going to be my #1 or if Winter Soldier was going to stay there….and yup, this is #1 now. So why?
Well, it wasn't necessarily because the first half of the film. Don't get me wrong it was entertaining but while watching it I was thinking to myself, where the heck is all this going? So what was awesome?
How about Black Panther! I don't know what it was about this character, but something about being this civilized prince/king (which is it?) and having this aurora of honor and principles that can be understood just in how we talks, only to see that this same person can dawn a suit and become the most threatening person in the room…that was fun to watch. And another reason for this is while I might have known things about some of these other characters throughout the MCU, I know NOTHING about Black Panther….other than it's a black suit with claws….that's it. His portrayal was incredible and has me really excited about seeing his origin movie.
How about Spiderman! Jeez….Tom Holland is Spiderman. That's it. Toby McGuire got us going….Andrew Garfield held his own….but Tom Holland is Spiderman and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise. He's got the perfect combination of adolescence and being nave but also having this great cocky attitude that's 100% believable. The entire fight sequence where he's involved I don't think I was never smiling while he was on screen. And the fact that BOTH sides were getting tired of his mouth during that fight made it even more funny.
How about Bucky! I was curious how they were going to work this character in with Cap and it was amazingly done! You got the sense early on that he was unaware of what he was doing a lot of those times and that he was essentially brainwashed. It was a great way to save his character and keep his "pureness" I guess because back in the day him and Cap were basically the same guys.
Alright….my one beef with this movie….okay 2 beefs….
1. Why include Vision in that big showdown. They've basically made Vision into a god-like being and it was like when they all went Braveheart straight line running at one another you see him floating along and then……..where'd he go? Just have him show up later from Wanda throwing him deeper into the Earth or something. Cause he could have ended that whole fight with a few forehead beems.
2. I know the bad guy in this was basically a revenge story. And it was good! But there were a few moments that just didn't make sense that maybe someone here can help with. For example, he's got a Hydra guy hanging upside down over a sink threating to kill him and all he wants to know is what happened on a mission from the 90s. Why wouldn't the Hydra guy tell him?? It's not like it was crazy world domination take over plan changing info….hell he could have told him what he was trying to do and you'd think Hydra would be like, "Hey! Great idea! Let me assist you with that." But nope….drown me cause Hail Hydra and yadda yadda yadda.
And that final reveal….oh my goodness that final reveal….
So we got Bucky, Cap, and Iron Man being all cool with one another trying to find the evil dude. And during this whole sequence I'm thinking to myself, "What did I miss? Wasn't there a scene where Bucky, Cap, and Iron Man are going for death blows? How am I miss remembering this?"
And then I hear the line from Tony, "Wait I know this place. Why are we watching this?" referring to where the car accident takes place that we'd gotten 2 flashbacks of at this point. And I knew it right away. I straight up yelled, "Oh no! Oh no! No please no!" And not only do we find out Bucky killed Starks parents but dang we see it! We see a pivotal character that helped create SHIELD killed and his wife choked after seeing her husband killed…..I don't know what it is about these Cap centered movies but the Mouse always seems to go "screw it! Go nuts boys!" when it comes to their stories and it's amazing!
So what were the end credits here….right we see Bucky going into some kind of freeze chamber I guess because he's still a wanted man…curious to see how they get that worked out. And we finally see Wakanda! YEEEEEEEEEAH!
So yeah….these 3 films were absolutely stellar! How do I rank them?
15. Iron Man 3
14. Captain America
13. Iron Man 2
12. Thor: Dark World
11. Thor
10. Ant-Man
9. The Incredible Hulk
8. The Avengers: Age of Ultron
7. Iron Man
6. Dr. Strange
5. Guardians of the Galaxy
4. The Avengers
3. Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2
2. Captain America: Winter Soldier
1. Captain America: Civil War
But I'm curious how I should structure this….cause with 8 movies left I'll still have to break things up cause of how big a deal I know these films are. Figured grouping the next 3 together makes sense but after that I'm open to suggestions.
Alright….on to Ragnarok….
Also….I'm on Team Darryl! Thor's being a dick bag.
