Watched Black Widow and Shang-Chi. Post-infinity-war MCU feels a bit procedurally generated. It’s all efficiently scripted and produced and the effects are great, but feels a bit soulless now. Felt the same about the tv shows too. Falcon and Winter Soldier, Loki.
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Spider-Man far from home too. And now there’s going to be Hawkeye and Groot shows. We’re in the fracking stage. I guess we’re seeing the downside of extended-universe storytelling. Past a point of narrative integration, there’s no more potential for surprise. Post-peak MCU.
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I’m kinda off extended universes now. But don’t want stand-alone shit either. I think I want slightly messy and incoherent sprawl.
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Post-credits scenes are still fun though. In fact, I mostly watch for those. Interstitials with hints of B-reel stories unfolding. This is why I like the Mandalorian. It’s got a distinct B-reel feel. Much more fun than the main epic 9-film grand history.
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Riffed about that earlier. I have a soft spot for these.
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Ok really enjoyed Mandalorian Ep. 4 in the same way I enjoyed Rogue One. A tiny subplot element in the movies (in this case a single imperial walker that we saw several of in the B-plot in Return of the Jedi, played for laughs vs Ewoks) is the villain in a seven samurai type plot
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I get the same feel from the Empire novels of Asimov, between the robots arc and the foundation arc. History in the small. Kinda sick of the universe being saved from cataclysmic forces.
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MCU tried that a bit with the Netflix TV shows and the Agents of Shield, but it never quite worked. The Big Stuff was always overwhelming.
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What’s the opposite of an extended universe? Still universe scale but somehow in the lower fractal regimes.
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I get why MCU is kinda playing poorly for me post-Weirding/pandemic. It’s a vibe monoculture. All the movies and shows have the same vibe, with only minor variations. If you discriminate finely, you get maybe 3 subvibes (avengers, guardians of galaxy, doctor strange?)
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Post-pandemic is sort of a vibe microterroir cultural landscape. Every turn in the zeitgeist Warren should put you in a new mood ideally. So these big, somewhat homogenized vibes feel kinda tone deaf.
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Have you tried Love Death + Robots on Netflix? Especially the 1st version is along these lines and is amazing


