“Stories are meant to have an ending. “ Unfortunately, most popular franchises in media don’t get that luxury anymore.

from “we’re taking the mcu for granted” to “the mcu has been taking us for granted” that is kung fu panda 2 level character development

As for "but Phase 1 wasn't great either," there's a difference between just being bad, and something being lifeless. There's a clear difference between something that clearly aimed high but failed in execution, and something that is just a rushed and lazily made product.

I once heard someone describe phase 4 and 5 as "finishing up the side quests after completing the main story" and I couldn't have said it better myself

I love when he referred to them as "products" and not films or shows, because that's all they are at this point

It wasn’t always terrible, but it was always doomed to stop being good.

"Let's just assume She-Hulk is a 10/10 masterpiece." *Let's don't.*

I'm so glad that this review doesn't do the cliche "The MCU is bad now because it adheres to minorities blah blah feminism blah blah woke blah". Like there are actual critiques that should be taken with this Phase and as usual Schaffrillas explains it properly and clearly with understanding of different opinions

"We've been taking the MCU for granted" "The MCU has been taking us for granted' Now all we need is, "Granted has been taking us for the MCU" and the trilogy will be complete!

''We've been taking MCU for granted.'' ''The MCU has been taking us for granted.'' Now that, is character growth. (Edit) What the hell, two thousand likes? On my random comment which looks like it was straight ripped from the top comment... While my 500 word review comments barely get any recognition.

My love for Shang Chi was honestly just because I’m a Chinese American. In my family, it was our black Panther. Even though I can see the flaws, it’s still my favorite phase 4 movie.

This really has helped me understand my burnout with the MCU. I like a lot of the things they put out but there are just… far too many things

The MCU used to be an event, now it’s a homework assignment

(I'm in an animation school) We had a guy who worked on infinity war and wonder woman come over and talk about his work. His contract said he'd be working 40-50 hours a week, but the norm turned into 70-80 hours a week. It's absolutely miserable. If they complain they will constantly be threatened with the fact they're replaceable and will lose their job

First episode of moonknight is pretty heat. I think everyone that dislikes it already know what is “wrong” with Steven, but if you go in blind, it’s pretty compelling

After I saw the first avengers movie at the midnight release, I thought "this was so good where are they going to go from here?" because I thought the team up between just those first 6 avengers was such a huge thing. Seeing them in New York during the final battle, stood in a circle preparing for more of their huge fight against the chitari as the camera circles around them and their iconic theme music plays, gave me all of the chills and goosebumps. I remember the theater cheering at that exact moment. So naturally, the final battle in Endgame made me want to cry. It was such a perfect ending that took the amazing feelings from the first avengers movie and turned them up to 11. Phase 4 just has not made me feel the same way as I've felt at any point in the infinity saga. It all feels so disconnected, there wasn't really any big team ups, and a lot of the writing was pretty disappointing

"A delayed game might eventually be good, but a rushed game is bad forever" -Sun Tzu, the Art of War

I spent about three weeks early this year trying to get caught up on all the MCU stuff and then I took a break to watch Ted Lasso instead and was instantly like “wait… watching this show doesn’t feel like a chore. I forgot what that felt like”

Back then, watching MCU other movies would only grant you the knowledge of knowing and discovering an easter egg on each movie. But now, every other movies and TV series have become mandatory picks to watch for the sake of knowing what the hell is going on the other movies.

The MCU has some great ideas for Phase 4 but it's capitalizing way too much on FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). You have to watch so much to stay updated and it's getting tiring, and even moreso out of the fact that they're really not connected that well.

Don't forget the part where Marvel forgot to tell their VFX studios that they were going to release Endgame a month sooner than planned and the studios only found out from news sources.

Imagine those poor souls who saw the success and quality of the MCU while it was at it's peak and thought "I want to be a part of that!" So they worked long and hard for a long time to achieve that goal. When they finally reached it, they were crushed with the weight of the constant overworking and crap quality of what they're making. Honestly, screw disney for essentially torturing their employees so they could churn out something so bad not even die-hard fanboys want to see it.

I willingly sat through Ant-Man and the Wasp, just because I liked Ant-Man

I kind of felt like Endgame should've been the finale to the franchise too.

in the words of bojack horseman, “you can’t have a happy ending, because if everyone’s happy then the show’s over, and above all else, the show has to keep going”

The funny thing is that Eternals is the exact opposite of the other stuff, because in my opinion, it should have been a series, with every episode fleshing out the story of one individual Eternal while also showing how they influenced humanity in different time periods. That would have been fun. But instead we got an extremly long movie that was so difficult to watch because the story felt so cramped in and many things felt so lost across the way. And the runtime, oh boy. I watched the movie with a friend in theatre, and I literally slept through half of the finale. But when I asked my friend who had been awake for the whole time, he had no clue either. And yes, the "first love making scene" in the MCU was extremly underwhelming, but thats actually a good thing and predictable considering there were multiple 13 or so year olds in the room with us.

To me, Moon Knight was sensational in most ways. It didn't feel like the MCU at all, and explored incredibly emotional themes

my biggest problem with marvel since phase 4 started is we don't get time to breathe. There's constant new things coming out and marvel isnt this thing you need to keep up with anymore. 1 new movie every year or every few years is fine, anyone can really keep up with that but i've found myself skipping more and more marvel content each release

It’s crazy how in one year people’s perception of the MCU has drastically changed

Schaff having better character development than the average MCU movie lmao

Moon Knight is honestly one of my favorite things from Phase 4 if not my number 1 favorite thing. I didnt just love it as a Marvel show but just as a show in general. I feel like it can stand on its own (as someone who isnt familiar with the comics) and I loved it for that, that it wasnt trying to blend in with the MCU and was just wanting to tell its own story without feeling the need to make references or have familiar characters or names show up. It hooked me from the first episode. I have a little crochet Moon Knight doll in front of my tv. It gave me one of my all time favorite songs (El Melouk from one of the outros). Honestly one of my favorite Marvel properties now. That being said: I mostly agree with you here. I think the MCU is getting really saturated for no reason right now (although obviously the reason is money). While I still generally at least like the stuff coming out (because ive been watching it all) it doesnt feel like a special thing anymore. It used to be id look forward to the one or two movies that were coming out that year and itd be a special occasion. My husband and i would go to the theaters and itd be a lot of fun, wed make a date out of it. Now theres always something out and while I like the tv shows (i actually really enjoyed She-Hulk that just ended) its not really something that I get overly excited about in anticipation anymore, since things are getting pumped out, theres more weaker moments and its not quite as consistent as it used to be and thats obviously because people are being overworked to work on these productions. I pretty much love everything from Iron Man to Endgame, theres a couple I think are mediocre but i would always say 'mediocre for the MCU is still good and i can still watch and enjoy those multiple times over'. But there are a couple things in Phase 4 that i dont feel the need to ever watch again even though i generally enjoyed everything.

My biggest issue with the newer MCU installments is that they don't really pay attention to each other, or even themselves most of the time. They make up rules or things that are supposed to be concrete in the universe, and immediately ignore or break those rules. I get that its a big undertaking to try and keep all the "rules" of a media universe this large intact across this many properties done by different crews and teams, and even the comics didn't manage to do it all the time. But it still there, and its still annoying. Like, the biggest issue i found with Multiverse of Madness is it bring up all sorts of questions and problems if you actually listen to its own dialogue or pay attention to the other movies . They say that having a multiverse copy of a person in a different multiverse than the one they are from originally, causes all kinds of universal structure issues and stuff will start to fall apart. They then immediately play the feel good heart string angle of "Don't worry America, your parents are probably fine, they aren't in any real danger because you teleported them to a different Multiverse, they're just somewhere else waiting for you or trying to get home." - but the movie just told us that the fact they're somewhere else means they're absolutely dead. Unless they somehow managed to find a way to Multiverse hop and are journeying back home? In which case they're leaving a trail of dead universes - and trillions of people - behind them, because the movie also says that it doesn't matter if you leave, you've already destabilized the universe you were in. You also get the weird distinction issue between what is a new Timeline vs what is a new Multiverse, since the Shows and Movies paint the ideas as being exactly the same thing just with different phrasing. In which case why hasn't the new replacement Gamora the Guardians picked up in another Timeline (which is in theory also be a new multiverse?) made the universe tip over and die yet?

I would seriously love for someday for the visual effects artists to rightfully do a walk out strike for just how bad they are being mistreated in the SFX field.

We're at that point of the toxic relationship with the MCU where we know we should break up but the memories we went through together keep us giving them a second chance lol

I agree for the most part, but I do think Moon Knight worked really well as a show. It built up the mystery nicely before the grand reveal(s)

I've wanted to get into the MCU for ages, but _the mass amount of movies that are often required to understand newer ones_ stops me, because that is so hella daunting and painful to think about.

Dr. Strange in the MoM convinced me that not even the writers get enought time to revise their scripts.

For me, phase 4 felt like pirates of the Caribbean 4 and 5, but instead of 2 movies they made 16.

Moon Knight is actually one of my favorite things to come out of the Marvel franchise ever. I adored like every second of it...mostly cause it didn't feel like Marvel. This is honestly a terrifying epiphany about the way Marvel is headed because this franchise was my "thing." I saw movies on opening nights, I have merch, and I've watched some of these movies SO many times, but now...my favorite thing is the show that doesn't even feel like Marvel. It's been I think over a month since the new Black Panther movie came out and I haven't even had the passing urge to watch it :/ I agree with everything else tho

12:02 man this effect from the thor movie literally had me crying of laughter😂😂😂

I love the MCU but you are absolutely so correct about everything. Disney is relying WAY too hard on nostalgia. If Marvel slowed down and started focusing on quality over quantity again, they'd be as good as they used to be, but they've gotten greedy and don't care about the audience

Ironically enough the MCU has sent Schafrillas into a Joker arc

I'm glad that they stretched Moonknight out as much as they did. I know to the average viewer it may seem like it stretches on for too long, but I'm really glad they took their time with it considering that it is really the first representation of dissociative identity disorder in mainstream media that doesn't paint systems with the disorder as monsters/freaks. For context I'm Jewish and have dissociative identity disorder, just like the Moonknight system. I was worried they wouldn't do well handling the representation of DID or Judaism, but they actually did a really good job and I think that's definitely thanks to having more time. It may seem like filler to singlets (people without did/osdd), but we and a lot of other systems really felt seen by Moonknight even if it wasn't perfect. It's so so difficult to accurately show the process of realizing you aren't alone in your head, coming to terms with that, trauma, working towards functional multiplicity, and everything else about such a complex disorder as DID and while they couldn't be 100% accurate, they did a really good job for the most part which we really really need right now. It's such a relief to have something to point to for people to understand our disorder better that isn't a medical journal or an awful movie like Split.

As someone who’s not a fan of MCU i thought the thumbnail was edited until… 1:22 and well 😮

Schaff: “We’ve been taking the MCU for granted” *Two years later* Schaff: “The MCU has been taking us for granted” The duality of man

I do feel this is Disney+'s fault really, when you have a streaming service you need an endless stream of content, not necessarily good content, just content to fill the service. This is WHY netflix was greenlighting everything in bursts and cancelling them just as fast because advertising 50 new shows a year is great marketing, and it doesn't matter if they're bad, because to the customer it was "free".

That homework analogy is absolutely bang on.

Mad props to schaff (or his editors) for putting “Freedom and Security” out of all the tracks you could put in

The MCU started off so charismatic. It wasn't trying to be a film of full comic book senses like Raimi's 'Spider-Man' or deconstruct the genre using realism like 'The Dark Knight', and I'm in no way downplaying them; the MCU was lighter. But not shallow; it was laidback. To me, that was the appeal. It wasn't in either side of the genre, but its own place. When the ambitious crossover came, the laidback nature and simpleness made it work. But at its core, there was sincerity. Yeah, it's also to make the big bucks, but there was genuine passion in storytelling too. Could it have been bolder creatively? Yes. But it was engaging still. It wasn't always a homerun, but it went on strong for ten years. Now, the MCU chose to go bigger, and in turn, it burns faster. The core grew tired. Laidback turned into laziness. The universe turned into a box, caging its potentials. It got spoiled, too comfortable. Personally, the sole reason it's not a good-bye for me just yet is 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3'. That will be the good-bye.

In my eyes, the MCU isn't the one taking us for granted, it's Disney who's taking us for granted. You literally said at the beginning that they adopted a "quantity over quality" mentality and that's why so many of our beloved IP's are dying. Disney doesn't care about us, their IP's, or if they make shit, they just care about the money the get from it all. Disney is the cinematic equivalent of EA.

11:36 No shot they blurred luffy in the documentary 💀

I am a huge marvel fan and even got my family into it. I loved Moon Knight(to be honest I think the people that hated on it didn’t understand the message it was portraying and that honestly sad), No Way Home made me cry in a good way, and I am very much excited for Wakanda Forever. HOWEVER, that being said, I had no idea until watching this that phase four was about to end. What the heck?!? I feel like that was whiplash from one show or movie to the next and I never had time to get excited for each new thing because there was ALWAYS something new. I think that is where the problem lies. Even huge fans didn’t have time to actually get excited and anticipate the next new thing. It leaves you feeling burnt out and disappointed because you don’t even have the chance to miss or appreciate the characters you love

I did a zoom interview with an assistant editor at Marvel Studios a couple weeks back, and I learned some small tid bits of info. They started working for Marvel for Civil War, and said they're currently working on Loki season 2. For Love and Thunder they specifically said one of the filmmakers just had no passion for the project which they felt impacted the overall product. I'm guessing it wasn't Taika cause they brought up working with him among other directors and said he's great to work with and only wants to work with him more. But yeah we may be dealing with rushed vfx, rushed directing and writing, and unpassionate higher ups :/

The fact that Werewolf by Night, a one hour long tv Halloween special that clearly didn’t have as much of a mandate, is probably the most creative thing the MCU has put out this whole phase speaks volumes to how the MCU should utilize Disney Plus moving forward.

Kind of irrelevant but, Multiverse of madness came to cinemas in my country a whole month before Disney+ was available as a service. So if you live in Greece and wanted to understand multiverse of madness, you'd HAVE to pirate Wandavision to understand the plot.

Finally, a KZfaqr critique of Phase 4 that doesn't revolve exclusively on ranting about identity politics "ruining the MCU". Lack of creative space and direction is what's ruining it. Just look at Black Panther. That movie is all about "identity politics" and it is one of the best MCU movies out there. Clearly, topics like systemic racism and critiques of established power structures can work in a marvel movie. They just need to be done in an engaging and artistic way.

To me the MCU is feeling more and more like the comics in the sense that there’s an increasingly high barrier to get into it since there’s so much content and confusing or disconnected story lines. You have to be an avid fan taking a lot of time and money to “keep up” and that’s just not sustainable for a lot of people. It’s fine if that’s your thing but to me, as Schaffe says, it feels like homework.

The saying here is “Less is More”. Because we're getting so many products without any sort of proper digestion of the material, it's like stuffing us when we're already full. What we eat becomes sickening and the chef isn't taking the time to properly perfect the dish because it's coming out so fast. Mcu needs to go back to the recipe book, not just listen to critics telling them its good enough. Because the truth is, it's never enough. One way or another

As someone who enjoyed She-Hulk and Love & Thunder, I would have enjoyed them both far more if there was more love and care put into them. This goes for writing, directing, and VFX

Being a big Doctor Strange fan, i was VERY disappointed in the multiverse release, i barely even touched it after watching for a few days it just didnt have that spark or good visuals

“The MCU is like the Simpsons” Holy shit, that is the perfect way to describe it.

I wanna point out that the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies that were released by Paramount before Disney took over (plus The Incredible Hulk) had a different vibe than the MCU today. The VFX actually looked mostly finished, and the tone was more adult and down to earth compared to the more family-friendly, comedy-heavy MCU films nowadays. I do like a lot of the MCU films released under Disney, but I think the franchise really needs to slow down and take more risks to stay fresh. And also to not harm the VFX artists! EDIT: I believe that the comedy focus really started kicking in with Guardians of the Galaxy, and that movie felt very fresh and new when it came out. But I think that had an effect on the tone of future MCU films with some exceptions like Black Panther and Eternals.

This is why I’m so fucking hype for The Way of Water coming out in less than a week. Finally, a true passion project of a movie that isn’t a Marvel cashgrab. Whatever your opinion on James Cameron’s Avatar is, I’m just so happy to see a true spectacle of a movie that won’t be a chore for me to sit through.

Hold up I just realized something… how does Remi put stuff in the soup while standing on the pot??? Is it not burning his feet???

I always feel the charm of the MCU was that it wasn’t perfect but it was always able to pull off an insanely hard balancing act with dozens of characters, stories and Easter eggs. Phase 3 was kinda messy in hindsight but worked since it left us satisfied with the character work.

The fact that Disney has essentially proven the original Don't Hug Me I'm Scared right yet again over 11 years later is incredible. Depressing, but still incredible. Edit: For those confused, I'm basing it off of Night Mind's interpretation, not Film Theory's.

Werewolf By Night is honestly my favorite thing that has come out of the MCU this phase just because of how tonally distinct and creative it is. It's obviously a love letter to classic monster films and I just adore the amount of artistic liberty they were allowed to take when making it. It obviously had so much more love and effort put into it than most of the output recently. I do agree that I wish it was longer, though

MCU is just "content" now. Creative storytelling is kind an afterthought. They abuse CGI studios into dirt wages to churn it out. And it feels like to me that stories are made to exist at this point without a real purpose. Then there is rumor that Disney is doing something called scrapbooking behind the scenes where they shoot wildly different takes and piece together in post rather than have a set plot that they are trying the best to realize. This is only rumor so far, but the constant reshoots to fix things in recent years make me lean towards it being somewhat true.

It’s not the sequel we wanted….but it’s the one we need

I have a friend who worked on the dr strange movie that most recently came out and can attest it was rushed, mismanaged, and disorganized through and through. She was not happy and could barely get anything done due to issues she has not commonly had on even smaller budget movies. Its really sad to see marvel pumping out these movies like this and not giving their artisits the time and management they need to complete a film abd not just a rough draft

"I doubt anyone willing would have sat through Ant Man and the Wasp if it didn't have information important to setting up end game." I mean, I legit skipped it and got 0 loss from skipping it. When they came out of being shrunk I figured "Oh... Guess they were shrunk. K." Wasn't some huge loss not knowing their specific encounters or happenings lol It's not like skipping the Ironman films, Captain America, Thor's development .etc

I feel like the main reason we keep coming back and giving the MCU more chances is because of the nostalgia it gives us. I grew up with the MCU, literally. My dad told me how during one of the first movies (don't remember which) that I peed on his lap during it! One of my earliest memories was the theater being so packed there wasn't really any seats left (again can't remember which movie as it was such a brief memory) and standing up until someone gave us a seat and my dad carried me to the seat (I was probably around 3-4.) The MCU was me and my dad's way of bonding. That was our thing. He grew up as a 'geeky' kid who read the comics, and so he carried on that tradition to me in some way. He works a lot so being able to go to the theater once in awhile and watch the movies together was definitely the highlights to my childhood. I'm turning 16 in 2 weeks now, I'm not a little kid anymore.. I'm the only kid my dad has who shares the same love and passion for marvel and losing the mcu as a whole is another indication that I'm growing up, and that I'll have to find some new way to bond with my dad. So in a way, I will always have a soft spot for the marvel cinematic universe because it allowed me the oppurtunity to bond with my father.

You saying that Wakanda Forever is the end of Phase 4 genuinely shocked me. The only Phase 4 things I've seen have been Moon Knight and No Way Home, and it hasn't really felt like anything happened, so hearing it was basically over is surreal to me when I so closely followed the rest of the MCU.

Apparently I heard that marvel and Disney hired on writers for Shehulk who haven't really had any experience writing for courtroom stories or legal battles, which is concerning when the main character is a lawyer.

One thing I also think is going on with Disney is their fear of original content. They don't understand that some movies will flop, and others will be great. Instead, they keep going back to what they think is safe, and they never stray from it.

The reason why WandaVision was so good was because it did have thought and care. From all the interviews on set design, practical effects, research and world building, it was clear everyone was passionate about the project. It explored themes of grief, love and trauma in a pretty great way. Same with Wakanda Forever. It was full of heart. The actors, writers and everyone involved were clearly putting their all into making it a great piece. Which is why I agree with so many. SLOW DOWN, Marvel! They didn't have to end after Endgame, but they needed to make less of better quality (as Multiverse of Madness, She Hulk and many more show).

looked at the release dates of the releases by phases (from Wikipedia) to put things in perspective. it's absolutely insane how much and how fast they've pumped stuff out during Phase 4, lotsa numbers below: Phase 1 (May 2, 2008 to May 4, 2012): 6 films in 4 years *(1.5 films/year)* Phase 2 (May 3, 2013 to Jul 17, 2015): 6 films in 2 years, 2 months *(2.77 films/year)* Phase 3 (May 6, 2016 to Jul 2, 2019): 11 films in 3 years, 2 months *(3.47 films/year)* Phase 4 (Jan 15, 2021 to Dec ??, 2022): 17 films/shows/specials in 1 year, 11 months *(8.87 releases/year)* [note that at the time of this comment, the release date of the Guardians Holiday Special is not known other than "December 2022". this does not change very much.]

We need a union for VFX artists

I think big corporations forget that there is power in being a beloved company. If you’re a genuinely good company that doesn’t do anything wrong, and wants to do right by the fans. People will still give them just as much money as doing scummy things because they think they can get away with it. For example: I don’t watch CollegeHumor that much anymore. But I’m still subscribed to Dropout because I love what they do, and they genuinely want to do right by the fans. And that’s something I still want to support.

Please do a full marvel ranking with all phases including shows special presentation and movies

Feel like we’re definitely at a point in the mcu where it feels like homework to watch it especially the shows. Not to mention how oversaturated it’s becoming and how Kevin announced marvel will be doing more movies and shows for the next 10 years which honestly at this point I’ve almost lost complete interest in the mcu. It’s like after endgame feels like we’re doing side quests and on top of that this phase just feels like their pumping out as many projects as they can no matter how good or bad as long as they gain profit. Not to mention this phase doesn’t even have a clear direction compared to previous ones. Not to mention the huge quality drop compared to previous phases as well. For me I’m mostly looking forward to newer Star Wars projects and monsterverse films rather than sitting through another mcu show or even film. I will say this though. Wakanda forever is definitely gonna be marvels breaking point for where they go in terms of quality

Doctor Strange was one of my all time favorite MCU movies partially because the main character became capable through study and hard work. Some of that can be seen in Iron Man and Bruce Banner, but Strange went IN on the idea. It is a shame to see the abomination that is multiverse o sadness.

I love you for the Tamatoa reaction shots

Fully agree with all points in the video! Thanks for posting!

The fact that we had Phases 1-3 in 11 years and we're getting Phases 4-6 in half that time is what was really hit me about all this. As stupid as it sounds, I kinda feel like I'm going through the five stages of grief with this franchise. Do I want to feel this way? Absolutely not. But I think I'm in the same camp as you now where I'll only watch what I feel like. Everything else I'll look up the plot recap.

Quite incredible all that is to see really. They went from basically redefining the entire hollywood movie landscape and creating engaging movies everyone loved based on comicbook characters no one cared about to making people disinterested and bored about beloved characters instead.

see also: why andor is some of the best content of the year because they took their time and went in a different direction and had an amazing team who actually got the respect for their creativity that they deserve

great video!!! didn’t even realize disney+‘s effect on the 4th phase

The mcu post endgame,is like doing all the fetch quests in an rpg after you’ve beaten the main story

See, I think Moon Knight was one of the best MCU products to come out in recent years BECAUSE it felt so disconnected from the “main” storyline. Every week I kept waiting for a cameo to sidetrack and ruin the show, but it never happened! Instead, it focused on being a VERY well done character study about coming to terms with being a DID system, how the alters accepted their trauma AND each other, on top of the pressure of trying to save the world. I think the first few episodes were necessary to get us in Steven’s headspace, to show us JUST HOW SCARY it was to suddenly find out you’re not alone in your body. I loved it, and I can’t wait for more.

I liked What If and Wandavision unironically (haven’t watched Loki yet) because they were actually quite good and seeing Wanda get a story about her loss of Vision was something that interested me and it honestly felt natural to me despite the slow start. Though, I wish they just stuck with Rambeau and didn’t talk about Howard agent or whatever. But I didn’t really think She Hulk was good. It was funny because of how bad it was but I did enjoy the first episode because I thought to myself “Wow this is good” and it fell apart immediately after. Still, I’m holding out hope for Ms Marvel, Loki and Moon Knight.

9:13 Your actually making some pretty valid points because even though Pixar did the same thing with Soul, Luca, and Turning Red, it’s just not gonna feel like it’s a part of the main marathon because it’s not in theaters.

This is literally how I feel. I like a lot of the ideas they played with (like seeing Wanda's trauma and termoil, learning more about Black Widow, being intoduced to Moon Knight, seeing the colapse of society after the snap in Falcon & Winter Soldier, etc.), but it's just SO TEDIOUS to get through. I was excited at first about Phase 4. All I knew in terms of shows were WandaVision, Falcon & Winter Soldier, and Loki. And I was prepared to watch those 3 shows, along with whatever movies would be coming out. That, to me, was super doable! But then my boyfriend was like "Oh yeah, now that we finished those shows, there's a Hawkeye show coming out!" I was like... huh?? What about some cool movies? Anything that will tie the 3 shows together? And then, he told me there was also a Moon Knight show, She Hulk, and Ms Marvel. I just remember sitting there as all these shows started releasing, and I just was so tired of it. Like I felt so drained with how horrible the Loki show was, I was glad to be done with the TV shows so that I could be excited for the movies. I was content, thinking there would only be 3 short shows, a few movies to tie them together, and that would be it until Phase 5... It really does feel like homework and it sucks because I used to LOVE Marvel. I was obsessed since I was a kid. You explained it so well. I just feel burnt out by it all. Especially after seeing Dr Strange 2. WandaVision was my favorite show of the first 3 that aired.. I thought Dr Strange 2 would make something of her character seeing how far she had grown during her show, but nope! I was sitting there thinking the whole time that if they wanted to go the "evil" Wanda route, why not make the movie from her POV so it ties in better w her show. Instead, I was so bored watching Dr Strange and America Chavez-----both characters felt overly cartoony for a Dr Strange movie and it all just fell flat. Everything felt rushed; just like how all the other Phase 4 movies felt. The whole thing just sucks. Disney, per usual, ruined a good thing it had going. It took me forever to finally watch Thor 4, and that movie was such a mixed bag. Overall, it's just so disappointing and I realistically cannot keep up. I've got enough chores and work to do, why add all these shows and movies to that list? :/

You mentioning that your favorite parts of Ms. Marvel were the non-action scenes reminded me that I feel the same about Moon Knight. The character story and work were what hooked me; I really didn't care at all about the fight between the gods.

“good original content” Honestly after what they did to the owl house i don’t blame people for not trusting disney.

Okay I cackled when he talked about Marvel movies being shat out while the toilet scene in Dumb and Dumber played

Another big issue with the MCU is that Disney seems to be terrified of making anything with a rating more mature than PG-13. Dr Strange could have been a lot better if it had the freedom to be a horror movie with an R rating, but instead we just got a somewhat unique action movie with 2 jumpscares

“Doing homework” is the BEST analogy I’ve ever heard for MCU.

The special presentations for me is a step in the right direction since they're not these 6-9 episode shows that are mostly filler, and they actually have faster pacing.

Shang chi is underrated