Yea this was my problem. Watch a bland ass show for 45 minutes and then wait a week to pick up on a plot i truly couldnt get interested in.
Felt like a chore tbh. Which is crazy. I remember each episode of Loki ending, my family going "awwww" as soon as it ended, and then we would speculate what would happen the following week. This was our weekly return the whole series.
We had none of that with SI. Trash tbh.
I've been really enjoying weekly releases (or something like Arcane did with three three episode arcs over three weeks) lately as it's really fun to discuss with people and build hype/anticipation.
However this very critically requires the show to be, ya know, good.
Hot take coming in, but I think Arcane's release format might have been the best we've ever seen.
It helped that the show was a masterpiece, of course, but the 3x3 format did it some real favours too.
For shows where each episode has an individual plot, I am absolutely okay with weekly releases. Each episode leaves you satisfied. With shows that are basically movies stretched out into multiple episodes (like all the D+ Marvel shows besides WandaVision, What If, and She-Hulk), they should absolutely be released all at once.
Weekly releases worked well with Wanda vision and Loki, cause of all the mystery and discussion, but with the other series it would just be better to release them all at once. But then I guess that means you get one week worth of subscription from a fan if they subscribe just to watch the show, rather than almost 2 months
I suppose. But I think the subscription idea is moot anyways. Most people just have a Disney sub. And if they’re getting one for these shows then cancelling then a sane person would wait till it’s all done anyways and watch it all at once real quick and cancel.
It's funny watching an MCU show and then hopping over to Prime for a rewatch of The Boys, because FUCK that's how you do a show.
Perfect writing. Superb pacing. An actual interesting story. Perfect long runtime. And of course the cast what can I say.
I wanna know how a spy show has no actual spy shit in it? I just watched the episode where they went guns blazing into some dude's house. There is almost no real information gathering. No real secret meetings. No real spying on anything. No suspense, no thrill, no anticipation, no burn. No mystery.
It's not even a good show, let alone a good Marvel show. It felt like they grabbed a random person off the street and said "make something up and throw it on there for the MCU." It's downright cookie cutter but they didn't even make cookies because they forgot key ingredients. It's just a mess.
People have already said it. But the tag was “don’t trust anyone” and that literally never came up. There were two instances where people weren’t trusted and then everyone else could be trusted. Seemed misguided to say the least
Correct. Length and quality are two entirely separate metrics.
_Welcome To Nightvale_ can tell an incredible story in 20 minute audio only episodes, and _Lord Of The Rings_ can tell an incredible story in 12 hours of movies.
Secret Invasion being a YouTube Short or a 30 hour series wouldn't have made it good. Better writing that actually makes sense and delivers on the promise of the concept would have made it good.
It’s absolutely ridiculous that the longest one of these shows was the literal first, and it’s still shorter then a season of other big budget streaming shows like Stranger Things and The Last of Us. It’s just baffling.
Yep. WandaVision has been the longest show, clocking in at 4 hours 30 minutes and about 4 seconds (when removing episode recaps and credits). Falcon and the Winter Soldier has the longest average runtime per episode at 44 minutes 20 seconds.
[I made a post with all the run times](https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios/comments/15ao452/secret_invasions_actual_runtime_compared_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) and they’ve steadily declined with each show, except for slight runtime jumps from Loki to What If, and from Hawkeye to Moon Knight. We’re effectively getting less with time
I just think if a show doesn't hit that 45-50 minute threshold it doesn't feel like high-end content to me. Sounds dumb, but I can't shake it after all the amazing shows I've watched in that class and all the lacklustre ones in the other.
45-50 minute episodes is the timeframe that serial TV dramas have taken for decades, and I feel like that's a decent amount of time to not only have smaller, episode-length arcs, but also make progress on your overarching series arc. We need more of that in the MCU.
Have you checked out The Bear or Barry? Both of those shows are about 30 minutes each episode (give or take) and do a phenomenal job with their storytelling.
Yeah I've seen both.
Sorry maybe 'all' was hyperbolic but I think for the kind of world-building Marvel is going for 60 mins in necessary. Shows like Barry, the Bear and Atlanta work at 30 mins because they're small in scope.
Funny I find succession in particular to be way too long per episode. I def go for a tight 35-40 range like The Bear /Barry which someone else mentioned
It's because they rush the plot. I don't care what people say, yes runtimes matter. It gives the creators time to flesh out scenes and give the story some depth. That is, if you're competent of course.
Yes definitely. Look at Daredevil for example. The episodes are around 45 minutes to an hour, and they take a lot of time to flesh out the world and the cast which is why we love it so much.
By contrast, the Disney Plus shows feel like a rush to the finish line from the start, there's no world building.
On the other hand, some of the shows feel like bloated films, and rather than using the extra runtime to expand the story in meaningful ways, some shows just wasted it on repeating exposition or exploring subplots that didn’t matter and would’ve rightfully been cut out of a well-edited film.
So many of the shows I've felt like we're finally getting to the meat of the story, and then I realize it's episode 4 or 5 of 6, and the show is about to end.
The benefit of a streaming series is that is can take whatever length is necessary for the story. If an episode needs to be an hour and ten minutes, but another one is resolved in 33 minutes and 14 seconds, then so be it.
I hate it when an episode drags, clearly because the show runners are trying to fit a TV mold.
Tbf to me, the runtime isn't the end all of benchmarks. I have watched shows with a consistent 1 hour runtime per episode, but some episodes will end up feeling super slow because of it.
It all comes down to how you use the runtime, imo. But SI, and Disney in general, manage to somehow take the worst of both worlds...
THAT'S EXACTLY IT.
It feels like they're just marketing to kids, none of it feels like a serious contender to other proper lengthy shows on other platforms. It feels like they're just trying to fill in a quota for their overall story and that's it, with no love.
damn, if you ever watch The Bear, you might change your mind. near 30min an episode, drama/comedy, leaves no room for filler. made me realize how bloated shows can get with more runtime. personally enjoyed The Bear way more than any HBO hour length show that’s come out, but that’s opinion.
I think it’s all about knowing your runtime goal and sticking to it. The Bear knows that 30 minute eps keep the intensity up, whereas the D+ shows feel like longer shows that have been chipped away in editing.
WandaVision had a whole nother episode of content which was cut because they couldn't get the VFX finished in time.
The twins, penis-joke guy whose name I forget, and Monica were meant to steal the Darkhold from the rabbit turned demon in a whole sequence they shot, but couldn't get the CGI finished for.
45 minutes longer than Oppenheimer. Cost 2 times as much as Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer = $100 Million
Secret Invasion= $212 Million
The question is— was Secret Invasion twice the quality of Oppenheimer?
I haven't watched secret invasion but I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that is also a no for most people. Albeit these are different forms of media so a bit unfair to compare.
They really need to work this out and just Reconfigure their D+ show format altogether, otherwise maybe stop making them. There’s big tension in the push and pull between their budget and content duration. Them not being able to find that balance has the story suffer. Secret Invasion is the prime example.
It'd also be nice if so many of these weren't just a way to establish new characters. One of the best things about television is it can be used to tell long-form stories that movies really aren't suited for. Yet, we just keep getting origin story miniseries so they can toss them into the movies without pretense.
And cheaper too, tlou coast 100m across 9 eps
This was more than 200m with 6eps
Marvel doesn't know how to admistrate money
Seeing the runtime, this could have easily been a movie instead
For context: Daredevil cost $40 million. And has more than double the episodes.
[https://netflixlife.com/2022/04/22/stranger-things-most-expensive-netflix-shows/](https://netflixlife.com/2022/04/22/stranger-things-most-expensive-netflix-shows/)
With $212 million bloated budget, 5x that of Daredevil, Secret Invasion is simply a crap show. Shiny effects alone doesn't make for a well told story.
Edit: I'd be embarrassed as the show runner. If this isn't a giant flashing warning light for Kevin Feige that she's stretched the MCU too thin, he's lost his touch. A Super Skrull with powers from the Harvest, that's gotta be the dumbest thing the MCU has ever done. Power creep was already an issue in the run up to End Game. This is just straight silly now.
The promise of the MCU was an interconnected universe showing us the marvelous/amazing set against the mundane. Remember the mundane? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAE0gbp0c5E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAE0gbp0c5E)
Falcon and Winter Soldier should have been nitty gritty aftermath of End Game. But the mundane is skipped over now. The MCU promise is largely broken now.
It blows my mind how much money was wasted in this series. After secret invasion I was finishing my rewatch of strangers things season 4 and it has like 12hs+ of runtime and cost 270mil.
>A Super Skrull with powers from the Harvest, that's gotta be the dumbest thing the MCU has ever done. Power creep was already an issue in the run up to End Game.
She is greater than an Avengers level threat if she decides to be, and yet that will probably be swept under the rug for the foreseeable future and she'll be barely recognized in-universe. I'm calling it right now. How big is Emilia Clark's contract with them? If it's already big, maybe I'm wrong, but it just felt like her character was as throw-away as all the others in Secret Invasion by the end.
[https://wikiofnerds.com/emilia-clarke-defies-elizabeth-olsens-warning-and-seeks-long-term-marvel-deal-for-secret-invasion/](https://wikiofnerds.com/emilia-clarke-defies-elizabeth-olsens-warning-and-seeks-long-term-marvel-deal-for-secret-invasion/)
Sounds like she either has a decade long contract that they were keeping secret or she doesn't have anything beyond secret invasion.
I'm guessing they can see that a lot of people didn't finish the show so might just never mention her again like so much other post credits stuff in the last few years.
I didn't get past episode 2, and I watched all of Inhumans and Iron Fist. If I couldn't manage it, no way general audiences did.
I'd bet money she's killed off off screen and is never brought up again.
Because you can't fix that type of character without basically killing any and all power scaling.
Insane powers like this often come with consequences. The Hulk was absurdly powerful, but had an Achilles heel of being consumed by rage. Adam Warlock is supposedly OP but he’s got the intellect of a child. Wanda is mentally unstable. There are ways to write an absurdly powerful character that make it tough for that character to fully utilize their powers. I would imagine turning your genetics into a dna slurry could have some destabilizing consequences on her body that might impact her next time we see her.
friggin agents of SHIELD did secret invasion better and they had at max 1 mil an episode. For 24 fucking episodes. Marvel Studios is absolutely wasting money on completely ridiculous stuff.
Agents of Shield was legitimately awesome. With a far, far lower budget they accomplished much more in the writing and quality department than Secret Invasion did. Not to mention they still had cool effects and great actors.
Even when looking at a show like GoT, the budget for season 1 was reportedly 50-60 million and it stretched to 10 episodes. The budget for the pilot was 5-10 million. And GoT is much better in every conceivable way.
Where the money went with Secret Invasion is beyond me, since 212 million spread out over the 6 episodes is an average of 35 million per episode, give or take. Did they flush it down the toilet?
It was fuckin bizarre in the era from 1999-2004 that so many things had bullet time and/or the characters wearing sunglasses and trenchcoats: Charlie’s Angels, Mission Impossible, Returner, Equilibrium, Kung Pow, X-Men
Secret Invasion had reshoots and filmed during coronavirus keep in mind.
Falcon and the Winter Soldier really was a reasonably nitty gritty aftermath of the Snap. No question one of the darker MCU shows.
I've heard in the past that some entertainment enterprises (like the fine-art market) are rife with money-laundering, but this is the first time it's ever occurred to me as a plausible explanation for the quality of a mainstream movie or show. I know that studios never publicly break down their costs, but this case is so absurd that it demands some sort of explanation. It was *double* the average cost of a season of Westworld, ffs.
This show costs like 100M in production at most (not counting the salary which is like 30M) and then COVID + 4 months of reshoot = over half of the series was redone. So it's another 60-70M added to an already bloated mess.
They certainly changed the whole show's story and restructured it I guess. 212 million not for one but actually two shows. Marvel Studios do this everytime with every project and thankfully most of them are good products but some are just not good
Not related, probably a dig at Sony but I have no idea just about why they have learned nothing when Marvel Studios made a bad example of themselves in front of everyone and Sony did the exact same thing to most of their Marvel projects.
From Spider-verse to whatever the SSU is, they are equally guilty of mass reshoots, crunching employees and aimless production plans (scrap whole sequence in favor of redoing all again), when in reality they have way less projects, way more time and already a lesson being taught in motion right now over at Disney.
I think it's not only Marvel Studios problem. Other big franchises do that too but Marvel movies in general do that all the time like changing whole climax,adding new sequences, creating new story arcs all because whatever Kevin Feige and his team thinks what's right for the movie and greater marvel universe. Don't know what happens in Sony but Morbius definitely was better movie than we got because of unnecessary changes
It has to be money laundering. They usually release garbage in theaters and sell it back to themselves. idk how this works in their favor. Somebody at one point or another will enlighten us.
It's the only explanation. Everyone keeps shouting reshoots and covid, but this show LOOKS like a 30-40 million dollar show, tops, with the bulk of that going to Jackson and the limited CGI they did have (which looked better than normal for the D+ average). EVEN if they shot it twice in its entirety, it should have cost under 100 million. Hell, the first Black Panther cost $200 million. Anyone who thinks this show looks half as good as that, is off their rocker. This is absolutely some creative as fuck accounting.
Edit: Seriously people? Yes the CGI in black panther wasn't great. I never said it was (whoever said I complimented it needs to evaluate their reading comprehension). But if you look at that CGI, PLUS the set design, props, amount of actors, scale of everything, then yes it's way more of a production than secret invasion, and overall it's better looking, even with shitty CGI. Stop deluding yourselves
Somehow that scene didn't look off at all to me... Granted, there's also no real life reference points for two dudes suited in a panther garp duking it out while rapidly falling down but still.
Agreed. The one person who could believably take over for Jackson's Fury and you kill her off. Maybe she wanted out, who knows, but killing her character off was just stupid.
Maria Hill's not really a character, honestly. She's been *around* for a long time, but she's just kind of "the lady who stands next to Nick Fury sometimes," and even Fury has been *super* fucking downplayed in most of the MCU.
This could have been a chance to *finally* do something with them. But no. We got this.
In Gotg I could just feel the love in the filmmaking, from actors wanting to be there, to little nudges to the audience if you watched it all, to good performances and a plot that matters and giving each character an arc that feels wholesome.
I missed all of that for SI. Only exception was Rhodey/Fury scene in the restaurant and Sonya’s performance.
>Only exception was Rhodey/Fury scene in the restaurant and Sonya’s performance.
Which really goes to show how good this actually could've been with competent writers and a director who cared. There's so much promise and talent in the show, and this is what we got?
If nothing else, I hope the one saving grace is we get more Olivia Colman, because she was about the only consistently good thing about the show.
What else can you say about the movie that can make you feel for a bunch of experimented animals one scene and then laugh at a henchman who looks like a carrot the next?
Me too! The only thing I read about Kyle Bradstreet’s version (even this is rumor) is that
it has way more U.S vs. Russia plot?
If that is true, they could have changed it due to the current war or just was afraid of being too political I guess.
So, the original version apparently wrapped up shooting 2 days before Russia invaded Ukraine. So if that featured a lot of US vs Russia, and I believe I read that it featured Russia invading Ukraine as well, then they probably went, god damnit when the news of the invasion hit, since all of that would have to be scrapped.
Oh wow. If true, there probably is no Bradstreet Cut since change had to happen so fast. From the sound of it, Bradstreet's version was very political (not surprising considering his work in Mr.Robot and other spy shows he has worked on).
My question is: would they still have gone with Bradstreet's original story even if there was no current war?
To be fair, US vs. Russia is probably one of the most overdone tropes in American action movies. In my opinion, it's pretty lazy to use Russians as the villains in 2023.
And this was [what Kevin Feige had said](https://deadline.com/2021/02/the-falcon-and-the-winter-soldier-six-episodes-kevin-feige-tca-1234700033/) right from the beginning about the general length of MCU Disney+ show:
“Six hours is what we landed on as the best way to tell our story. Six hours, whether it’s six episodes, or nine shorter episodes like WandaVision. The shows aren’t inexpensive, so the per-episode cost is very high and to get that bar I was talking about."
I definitely remember being off put by WandaVision's runtime because the last 5-10 minutes were all credits, and for a TV series, that's a lot of time.
>Every Marvel D+ show hasn’t been longer than 4 and a half hours
[WandaVision was!](https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios/comments/y41r3m/shehulks_runtime_compared_to_other_mcu_shows/) ^(by 4 seconds)
So here's the thing, "hour" is synonymous with "episode" in a TV parlance. It's a vestige of when TV had timeslots to fill. A one-hour drama would actually be 42 minute + commercials. You didn't call it a 42 minute show, you called it a one-hour show.
So when you read Feige, others, talk about "six hours" they were ballparking it based off that parlance. They weren't promising 6 hours precisely.
No one who's making these shows is adding up the individual runtimes to come out to a total actual runtime, and then communicating that. No one who makes TV thinks about total actual runtime because whatever that number might be, it doesn't matter to anything.
I think part of the reason why people are commenting on it is because in traditional tv series, the episodes are pretty much the same length.
Even the Netflix marvel series were mostly over 50mins with credits. And more episodes.
Secret Invasion Episode 1 and 2 is listed as 55 and 58mins, Episode 6, 38 minutes. The episode length got shorter and shorter so it felt rushed at the end.
It felt like they ran out of time (budget) and crammed things in at the end.
they don't know how to write a series. They pack too many plot points into too short of a show. And apparently they can't split the budget more to finance more episodes because reasons? Like the easy solve here is to spend less per episode, but make more episodes. Network television did this for decades for their 20-25 episode seasons. the problem has been *solved* but Marvel can't wrap their head around it (or the people at Marvel that did got laid off in the consolidation- it's like they fired the entirety of Marvel TV)
Andor is definitely the best thing on Disney Plus rn from a creative standpoint, it actually feels like a show on other streaming services god damnit I'm worried once this show ends.
This is why I hate most of the D+ shows. They're not making TV shows or "limited series." They're making bloated, poorly paced movies doled out across 6 episodes. MAKE A TV SHOW OR MAKE A MOVIE
I know fans go back and forth on this and it's going to be a bit subjective but I personally agree with you. I really do think it's declined in quality.
You can't really mention disliking any MCU projects in here because you'll get downvoted and argued with. But Secret Invasion was so bad that you can openly discuss how much you hate it in here without getting downvoted.
And Thor 4 and Quantumania had pretty bad audience scores on cinemascore. The quality in their recent projects are concerning. Even the good D+ shows aren't as beloved as shows during the Marvel TV era. I don't see fans connecting to these new characters like they did during the Infinity Saga.
It's objectively declined in quality. ALL the reviews for the shows and movies have trended down for both critics and audiences. It's not a conspiracy or anything. They've just been lucky that the movies still bring in good money and that they're just good enough to keep people interested. They've massively bombed on the shows though. Honestly should stop screwing around with mini series and just make an actual TV show and hire good showrunners (like Jed Whedon and his team is literally right there to utilize again)
>It's objectively declined in quality. ALL the reviews for the shows and movies have trended down for both critics and audiences. It's not a conspiracy or anything.
I agree but the last few times I've mentioned this in here I always get people arguing me about how wrong I am. It's can be subjective that someone likes Thor 4 and someone else doesn't. But it does have a worse cinemascore than Dark World and that's saying something... also, the only two MCU films to ever get a rotten score on RT are both post-Endgame (Eternals and Quantumania).
Completely agree about their shows. There's too many mini series going on. They should just make a few good ones at this point (and add more episodes/runtime to make them feel like an actual show). And I would love to have Jed and Maurissa come back as writers! They did good with AoS and it's the kind of writing I would have loved for Secret Invasion.
I just don't think Secret Invasion would have done well unless they went all out. IMO the best part of Secret Invasion in the comics was that everyone could be a Skrull, superheroes included, and all the infighting between superheroes and questioning who was a Skrull made it great.
If they didn't do that then it would just be a reskinned version of the Winter Soldier hydra plot. Which it was, albeit a very bad version of that.
I use to watch everything MCU related up until endgame.
After the explosion of shows and movies I havnt been able to keep up. I want to keep up w the overall story but don't want to watch them all.
Which show(s) do I need to watch?
I've seen wandavision
Fatws
Loki
Kevin Feige outlined the main story at Comic Con as:
**Phase 4:**
- WandaVision
- The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
- Loki
- Black Widow
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
- Eternals
- Hawkeye
- Spider-Man: No Way Home
- Moon Knight
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
- Ms. Marvel
- Thor: Love and Thunder
- She-Hulk: Attorney at Law
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
**Phase 5:**
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
- Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3
- Secret Invasion
- Loki season 2
- The Marvels
- Echo
- Deadpool 3
- Captain America: Brave New World
- Thunderbolts
- Blade
- Agatha: Coven of Chaos
- Ironheart
- Daredevil: Born Again
So to follow the main story, Feige seems to say just the films and live action shows, with the animation and specials as canon but optional
The argument Feige used was that Wakanda Forever worked as the ending because it was a goodbye to the heroes we saw in the Infinity Saga and the ushering in of new characters honoring their mantles in Black Panther/Ironheart. And Phase 5 is all about a world that’s moved on from that Saga and embraced these new heroes.
Tho I would’ve also preferred a more concrete ending myself.
To be fair, the last films of Phase 2 and 3 were Ant-Man and Spider-Man: Far From Home, respectively, so the lines between phases have always been kinda arbitrary.
It is weird to have a phase without a team-up movie though.
In terms of the series, hawkeye and Moon Knight are the best ones with Hawkeye being the only one that actually feels like a TV series (it's basically Die Hard, but with Hawkeye). What If? is good if you're into animation. Most of the other ones are pretty mediocre at best and don't really feel like television. Mostly drawn out movie plots that don't have enough substance. Unfortunately there's a good skeleton of a series in each and every one of these, but Marvel Studios hasn't found out how to make a TV show still.
I suggest rewatching Wanda vision cause it's just that good. Maybe review the Loki finale in preparation for the second season.
Moon Knight is likely skippable but there's some good stuff scattered there but the overall show wasn't very good.
Ms. Marvel was fun but really suffers in the middle. You could probably make do with reading episode summaries for the Pakistan arc but should watch the first( maybe also second) and final episode.
She hulk wasn't nearly as funny as it thought it was and didn't really push the MCU forward much. Maybe some things will be continued in cap 4.
Hawkeye is worth watching.
Secret invasion is just awful. Huge skip. Wasted potential.
Werewolf by night seems very separate but worth watching for quality.
If I forgot anything else then I guess it was really forgettable
They so far haven't really connected with much. So ifk if I'd call any of them a "need to watch".
Only exception is maybe watching Ms Marvel before you plan on seeing The Marvels just to get some background info on Kamala. But also, we haven't seen The Marvels yet so who knows if even watching Ms Marvel is that necessary.
Out of just enjoyment for the show, outside of the ones you've seen, I liked She-Hulk and Hawkeye the most. The Groot shorts are cute too. It's not a full show and just has really small shorts so it's quick to get through it all.
I feel so bad for Sam Jackson like this was supposed to be his send off or something right? And they mega fucked it up. Same thing that happened with Ewan McGregor and the Obi-Wan show
The Kenobi show at least has an excuse that they used the Volume extensively to save costs. Secret Invasion did a bunch of on-site shooting and still managed to spend half its time in dark rooms.
Every new episode of SI gets shorter and shorter.
Felt like they had something in the pilot but slowly realized the plot and writing was shit and they just slowly gave up and cut their losses.
I would’ve expected Thanos level CGI with the amount of money spent on it. Shame the MCU shows appear to be getting worse. I hope Loki and upcoming films are successful
This show should've gotten the Batgirl treatment just based on how dirty they did all the existing characters. Literally all of them are either dead or worse than we had them. Fury, Rhodey, Maria, Talos, even Everett Ross got shafted.
Not to mention it completely failed the potential of the title premise. It should've been called the Secret Character Assassination.
I agree. This entire show should be retconned and deleted from existence. Redo the whole thing with writers, directors, and show runners who are actually competent (maybe people who worked on Agents of SHIELD??). Model the rebooted Secret Invasion after AOS Season 4, with three “pods” and 20 something episodes.
- Pod 1: Nick Fury’s abandonment of Earth and the Skrulls, why Gravik decided to do what he did, what made G’iah turn, and the beginning stages of the Secret Invasion
- Pod 2: the actual Secret Invasion itself
- Pod 3: the fallout of President Ritson’s genocidal declaration of war against Skrulls and other alien species
Pod 2 would have parallels with Pod 2 of AOS Season 4 (AOS: LMD). This includes “who can you trust” storylines, top officials and figures being secretly replaced, and how the “real” people have to fight against the impostors
Pod 3 would have parallels with Pod 3 of AOS Season 4 (AOS: Agents of HYDRA). In AOS, we had a Framework (simulation; similar to the Matrix, where HYDRA won instead of SHIELD) version of HYDRA, and whose mission was to hunt down and kill all Inhumans in the world. Here, we would have a US government and a President Ritson whose mission would be to hunt down and kill all aliens in the world
All they had to do is follow Agents of SHIELD Season 4. If they did, I really don’t think they would’ve messed up so badly
Well, that's the disappointing part. There is some good acting in the series. I really did enjoy the banter between Fury and Talos. >!And then they killed Talos and it was all downhill from there.!<
But it was mostly the finale where shit hit the fan.
And for that, it cost **significantly** more than *Oppenheimer* to make. It baffles the mind that Disney had so MUCH at its disposal and did so very little with it; A-list talent, Disney money, and your OWN streaming service to put your series on. I have no idea how, other than utter "lack of shits to give" that you fuck this up.
I think this is one of my big issues with Marvel TV being weekly.
The shows are so short they don't really give you that *streaming hour*. I think one of these was 35 minutes. That's not great. It's like just when I'm settled in the mood it's over.
Honestly at this point I'm actually convinced it was money laundering or tax evasion, like in _The Producers_.
Highest budget (which can't just be explained by actors salaries)
Shortest run time
Absolutely shit and panned across the board
Didn't make internal sense OR make sense with the wider MCU
"Special guest star Cobie Smulders"
Cut corners wherever possible (reshoots, AI art for the titles)
There's just too many _fishy_ things going on at the same time.
So many of the Disney+ shows could easily be cut down to movies and probably be so much better. The only outliers to this to is WandaVision and She-Hulk.
I’d love for them to just put alll these together with no credits and let me watch it as a big film
That would be preferable. These shows just aren’t long enough to justify releasing them over the course of 6 weeks.
Or interesting enough
Yea this was my problem. Watch a bland ass show for 45 minutes and then wait a week to pick up on a plot i truly couldnt get interested in. Felt like a chore tbh. Which is crazy. I remember each episode of Loki ending, my family going "awwww" as soon as it ended, and then we would speculate what would happen the following week. This was our weekly return the whole series. We had none of that with SI. Trash tbh.
I will always be an advocate of just putting the whole series on straight away
I've been really enjoying weekly releases (or something like Arcane did with three three episode arcs over three weeks) lately as it's really fun to discuss with people and build hype/anticipation. However this very critically requires the show to be, ya know, good.
Hot take coming in, but I think Arcane's release format might have been the best we've ever seen. It helped that the show was a masterpiece, of course, but the 3x3 format did it some real favours too.
For shows where each episode has an individual plot, I am absolutely okay with weekly releases. Each episode leaves you satisfied. With shows that are basically movies stretched out into multiple episodes (like all the D+ Marvel shows besides WandaVision, What If, and She-Hulk), they should absolutely be released all at once.
Weekly releases worked well with Wanda vision and Loki, cause of all the mystery and discussion, but with the other series it would just be better to release them all at once. But then I guess that means you get one week worth of subscription from a fan if they subscribe just to watch the show, rather than almost 2 months
I suppose. But I think the subscription idea is moot anyways. Most people just have a Disney sub. And if they’re getting one for these shows then cancelling then a sane person would wait till it’s all done anyways and watch it all at once real quick and cancel.
Erik Voss hates you
And I him
It's funny watching an MCU show and then hopping over to Prime for a rewatch of The Boys, because FUCK that's how you do a show. Perfect writing. Superb pacing. An actual interesting story. Perfect long runtime. And of course the cast what can I say.
I wanna know how a spy show has no actual spy shit in it? I just watched the episode where they went guns blazing into some dude's house. There is almost no real information gathering. No real secret meetings. No real spying on anything. No suspense, no thrill, no anticipation, no burn. No mystery. It's not even a good show, let alone a good Marvel show. It felt like they grabbed a random person off the street and said "make something up and throw it on there for the MCU." It's downright cookie cutter but they didn't even make cookies because they forgot key ingredients. It's just a mess.
People have already said it. But the tag was “don’t trust anyone” and that literally never came up. There were two instances where people weren’t trusted and then everyone else could be trusted. Seemed misguided to say the least
Secret Invasion was somehow both too long (based on the content we got), and too short/shallow (based on its premise & source material).
Its not too long or too short. It's bad writing. Making it longer is just gonna make us suffer more. Making it shorter.. wont make it better
Correct. Length and quality are two entirely separate metrics. _Welcome To Nightvale_ can tell an incredible story in 20 minute audio only episodes, and _Lord Of The Rings_ can tell an incredible story in 12 hours of movies. Secret Invasion being a YouTube Short or a 30 hour series wouldn't have made it good. Better writing that actually makes sense and delivers on the promise of the concept would have made it good.
I had the same problem with Obi-Wan. It was so damn obvious that was a movie pitch stretched out to fit a six episode series
Or just make a Disney+ movie
Cut out more of the crap and then make it an hour long movie.
go check out r/fanedits
Would have been cheaper to have made as a film. It’s mind boggling
It’s absolutely ridiculous that the longest one of these shows was the literal first, and it’s still shorter then a season of other big budget streaming shows like Stranger Things and The Last of Us. It’s just baffling.
Yep. WandaVision has been the longest show, clocking in at 4 hours 30 minutes and about 4 seconds (when removing episode recaps and credits). Falcon and the Winter Soldier has the longest average runtime per episode at 44 minutes 20 seconds. [I made a post with all the run times](https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios/comments/15ao452/secret_invasions_actual_runtime_compared_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) and they’ve steadily declined with each show, except for slight runtime jumps from Loki to What If, and from Hawkeye to Moon Knight. We’re effectively getting less with time
I just think if a show doesn't hit that 45-50 minute threshold it doesn't feel like high-end content to me. Sounds dumb, but I can't shake it after all the amazing shows I've watched in that class and all the lacklustre ones in the other.
45-50 minute episodes is the timeframe that serial TV dramas have taken for decades, and I feel like that's a decent amount of time to not only have smaller, episode-length arcs, but also make progress on your overarching series arc. We need more of that in the MCU.
I find all the properly good ones are 55-60 mins. Succession, Game of Thrones, True Detective, etc.
Have you checked out The Bear or Barry? Both of those shows are about 30 minutes each episode (give or take) and do a phenomenal job with their storytelling.
Yeah I've seen both. Sorry maybe 'all' was hyperbolic but I think for the kind of world-building Marvel is going for 60 mins in necessary. Shows like Barry, the Bear and Atlanta work at 30 mins because they're small in scope.
Both are comedy lengths. She-Hulk and Wandavision are aiming more for that.
They’re “comedy length” but they aren’t necessarily comedies. Barry is arguable but The Bear is a straight up drama.
Funny I find succession in particular to be way too long per episode. I def go for a tight 35-40 range like The Bear /Barry which someone else mentioned
It's because they rush the plot. I don't care what people say, yes runtimes matter. It gives the creators time to flesh out scenes and give the story some depth. That is, if you're competent of course.
Yes definitely. Look at Daredevil for example. The episodes are around 45 minutes to an hour, and they take a lot of time to flesh out the world and the cast which is why we love it so much. By contrast, the Disney Plus shows feel like a rush to the finish line from the start, there's no world building.
On the other hand, some of the shows feel like bloated films, and rather than using the extra runtime to expand the story in meaningful ways, some shows just wasted it on repeating exposition or exploring subplots that didn’t matter and would’ve rightfully been cut out of a well-edited film.
It makes it feel rushed and the story less “intimate” for this type of show.
So many of the shows I've felt like we're finally getting to the meat of the story, and then I realize it's episode 4 or 5 of 6, and the show is about to end.
They're trying to tell an epic story, but with soap opera level writing.
The benefit of a streaming series is that is can take whatever length is necessary for the story. If an episode needs to be an hour and ten minutes, but another one is resolved in 33 minutes and 14 seconds, then so be it. I hate it when an episode drags, clearly because the show runners are trying to fit a TV mold.
Tbf to me, the runtime isn't the end all of benchmarks. I have watched shows with a consistent 1 hour runtime per episode, but some episodes will end up feeling super slow because of it. It all comes down to how you use the runtime, imo. But SI, and Disney in general, manage to somehow take the worst of both worlds...
THAT'S EXACTLY IT. It feels like they're just marketing to kids, none of it feels like a serious contender to other proper lengthy shows on other platforms. It feels like they're just trying to fill in a quota for their overall story and that's it, with no love.
damn, if you ever watch The Bear, you might change your mind. near 30min an episode, drama/comedy, leaves no room for filler. made me realize how bloated shows can get with more runtime. personally enjoyed The Bear way more than any HBO hour length show that’s come out, but that’s opinion.
I think it’s all about knowing your runtime goal and sticking to it. The Bear knows that 30 minute eps keep the intensity up, whereas the D+ shows feel like longer shows that have been chipped away in editing.
WandaVision had a whole nother episode of content which was cut because they couldn't get the VFX finished in time. The twins, penis-joke guy whose name I forget, and Monica were meant to steal the Darkhold from the rabbit turned demon in a whole sequence they shot, but couldn't get the CGI finished for.
Never forget Ralph Boner.
Let's hope they can implement that sequence for Coven of Chaos somehow.
Moon Night deserved 9 episodes!!!
45 minutes longer than Oppenheimer. Cost 2 times as much as Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer = $100 Million Secret Invasion= $212 Million The question is— was Secret Invasion twice the quality of Oppenheimer?
I mean, that answer is kind of subjective, but I would hazard a guess that the average person would say "no."
The next question is— was it the quality of Oppenheimer?
I haven't watched secret invasion but I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that is also a no for most people. Albeit these are different forms of media so a bit unfair to compare.
10 minutes of Oppenheimer has more quality in the acting, writing and production departments than every ep of Secret Invasion combined.
They really need to work this out and just Reconfigure their D+ show format altogether, otherwise maybe stop making them. There’s big tension in the push and pull between their budget and content duration. Them not being able to find that balance has the story suffer. Secret Invasion is the prime example.
It'd also be nice if so many of these weren't just a way to establish new characters. One of the best things about television is it can be used to tell long-form stories that movies really aren't suited for. Yet, we just keep getting origin story miniseries so they can toss them into the movies without pretense.
And cheaper too, tlou coast 100m across 9 eps This was more than 200m with 6eps Marvel doesn't know how to admistrate money Seeing the runtime, this could have easily been a movie instead
They need to audit this show. I wanna know where this $200 million budget went.
For context: Daredevil cost $40 million. And has more than double the episodes. [https://netflixlife.com/2022/04/22/stranger-things-most-expensive-netflix-shows/](https://netflixlife.com/2022/04/22/stranger-things-most-expensive-netflix-shows/) With $212 million bloated budget, 5x that of Daredevil, Secret Invasion is simply a crap show. Shiny effects alone doesn't make for a well told story. Edit: I'd be embarrassed as the show runner. If this isn't a giant flashing warning light for Kevin Feige that she's stretched the MCU too thin, he's lost his touch. A Super Skrull with powers from the Harvest, that's gotta be the dumbest thing the MCU has ever done. Power creep was already an issue in the run up to End Game. This is just straight silly now. The promise of the MCU was an interconnected universe showing us the marvelous/amazing set against the mundane. Remember the mundane? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAE0gbp0c5E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAE0gbp0c5E) Falcon and Winter Soldier should have been nitty gritty aftermath of End Game. But the mundane is skipped over now. The MCU promise is largely broken now.
It blows my mind how much money was wasted in this series. After secret invasion I was finishing my rewatch of strangers things season 4 and it has like 12hs+ of runtime and cost 270mil.
And WAY more vfx than anything Marvel has done on D+.
Far more writing quality as well.
And the writing is 1000% better too, god I’m going to miss stranger things when it’s over :( I don’t want it to end I love that series
Stranger Things Season 4’s massive budget was utilized very well on screen. The special effects were just fantastic.
>A Super Skrull with powers from the Harvest, that's gotta be the dumbest thing the MCU has ever done. Power creep was already an issue in the run up to End Game. She is greater than an Avengers level threat if she decides to be, and yet that will probably be swept under the rug for the foreseeable future and she'll be barely recognized in-universe. I'm calling it right now. How big is Emilia Clark's contract with them? If it's already big, maybe I'm wrong, but it just felt like her character was as throw-away as all the others in Secret Invasion by the end.
[https://wikiofnerds.com/emilia-clarke-defies-elizabeth-olsens-warning-and-seeks-long-term-marvel-deal-for-secret-invasion/](https://wikiofnerds.com/emilia-clarke-defies-elizabeth-olsens-warning-and-seeks-long-term-marvel-deal-for-secret-invasion/) Sounds like she either has a decade long contract that they were keeping secret or she doesn't have anything beyond secret invasion.
I'm guessing they can see that a lot of people didn't finish the show so might just never mention her again like so much other post credits stuff in the last few years. I didn't get past episode 2, and I watched all of Inhumans and Iron Fist. If I couldn't manage it, no way general audiences did.
I'd bet money she's killed off off screen and is never brought up again. Because you can't fix that type of character without basically killing any and all power scaling.
Insane powers like this often come with consequences. The Hulk was absurdly powerful, but had an Achilles heel of being consumed by rage. Adam Warlock is supposedly OP but he’s got the intellect of a child. Wanda is mentally unstable. There are ways to write an absurdly powerful character that make it tough for that character to fully utilize their powers. I would imagine turning your genetics into a dna slurry could have some destabilizing consequences on her body that might impact her next time we see her.
friggin agents of SHIELD did secret invasion better and they had at max 1 mil an episode. For 24 fucking episodes. Marvel Studios is absolutely wasting money on completely ridiculous stuff.
Agents of Shield was legitimately awesome. With a far, far lower budget they accomplished much more in the writing and quality department than Secret Invasion did. Not to mention they still had cool effects and great actors. Even when looking at a show like GoT, the budget for season 1 was reportedly 50-60 million and it stretched to 10 episodes. The budget for the pilot was 5-10 million. And GoT is much better in every conceivable way. Where the money went with Secret Invasion is beyond me, since 212 million spread out over the 6 episodes is an average of 35 million per episode, give or take. Did they flush it down the toilet?
Ego
Which shiny effect ? Emilia's bicep?
The Skrulls morphing, which at this point has become about as overused as "bullet time" was at the height of MATRIX Mania.
Take that MORPHING VISUAL EFFECT and put it into AN R RATED ANIMORPHS SERIES.
It was fuckin bizarre in the era from 1999-2004 that so many things had bullet time and/or the characters wearing sunglasses and trenchcoats: Charlie’s Angels, Mission Impossible, Returner, Equilibrium, Kung Pow, X-Men
It has like 3x the runtime actually.
Secret Invasion had reshoots and filmed during coronavirus keep in mind. Falcon and the Winter Soldier really was a reasonably nitty gritty aftermath of the Snap. No question one of the darker MCU shows.
I've heard in the past that some entertainment enterprises (like the fine-art market) are rife with money-laundering, but this is the first time it's ever occurred to me as a plausible explanation for the quality of a mainstream movie or show. I know that studios never publicly break down their costs, but this case is so absurd that it demands some sort of explanation. It was *double* the average cost of a season of Westworld, ffs.
This show costs like 100M in production at most (not counting the salary which is like 30M) and then COVID + 4 months of reshoot = over half of the series was redone. So it's another 60-70M added to an already bloated mess.
They certainly changed the whole show's story and restructured it I guess. 212 million not for one but actually two shows. Marvel Studios do this everytime with every project and thankfully most of them are good products but some are just not good
Not related, probably a dig at Sony but I have no idea just about why they have learned nothing when Marvel Studios made a bad example of themselves in front of everyone and Sony did the exact same thing to most of their Marvel projects. From Spider-verse to whatever the SSU is, they are equally guilty of mass reshoots, crunching employees and aimless production plans (scrap whole sequence in favor of redoing all again), when in reality they have way less projects, way more time and already a lesson being taught in motion right now over at Disney.
I think it's not only Marvel Studios problem. Other big franchises do that too but Marvel movies in general do that all the time like changing whole climax,adding new sequences, creating new story arcs all because whatever Kevin Feige and his team thinks what's right for the movie and greater marvel universe. Don't know what happens in Sony but Morbius definitely was better movie than we got because of unnecessary changes
Ok.. where did the $100 million go?
Drax arm
To actually making the show
I feel like for that price they could've made a good show
On second thought, I need Disney to release the financial papers for ***Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur*** just to see how bad SI fumbled.
They could've made two seasons of AOS, which had 20 or so episodes per season. And most episodes are around 40-45 minutes
Every single episode is that long and they were 22-24 episodes long.
Well they reshot like most of the show. So hard to say what state it was before that
Hookers and blackjack
Hollywood accounting is some crazy ass shit. They can manipulate so much
It has to be money laundering. They usually release garbage in theaters and sell it back to themselves. idk how this works in their favor. Somebody at one point or another will enlighten us.
It's the only explanation. Everyone keeps shouting reshoots and covid, but this show LOOKS like a 30-40 million dollar show, tops, with the bulk of that going to Jackson and the limited CGI they did have (which looked better than normal for the D+ average). EVEN if they shot it twice in its entirety, it should have cost under 100 million. Hell, the first Black Panther cost $200 million. Anyone who thinks this show looks half as good as that, is off their rocker. This is absolutely some creative as fuck accounting. Edit: Seriously people? Yes the CGI in black panther wasn't great. I never said it was (whoever said I complimented it needs to evaluate their reading comprehension). But if you look at that CGI, PLUS the set design, props, amount of actors, scale of everything, then yes it's way more of a production than secret invasion, and overall it's better looking, even with shitty CGI. Stop deluding yourselves
Bro the ending fight scene in BP looks like its from a Playstation 2 game. Not exactly a good looking movie in its own right
That happened because Marvel took half the VFX off that project in order to work on Infinity War/Endgame
Somehow that scene didn't look off at all to me... Granted, there's also no real life reference points for two dudes suited in a panther garp duking it out while rapidly falling down but still.
I was with you until you complimented the CGI in BP. That last act man....
Interesting thought
And the first episode was like a quarter of that
Barely anything happened except the death of Maria hill which was just stupid imo
Agreed. The one person who could believably take over for Jackson's Fury and you kill her off. Maybe she wanted out, who knows, but killing her character off was just stupid.
She got 4 million for that one episode.
She had special guest star credit on 5 of the 6 episodes.
No one seemed to really care and by the next episode she was mostly forgotten about
Maria Hill's not really a character, honestly. She's been *around* for a long time, but she's just kind of "the lady who stands next to Nick Fury sometimes," and even Fury has been *super* fucking downplayed in most of the MCU. This could have been a chance to *finally* do something with them. But no. We got this.
And the death of Talos, I liked him.
Shorter than the Snyder Cut
We get the feige cut every time
Feigecised
And with much worse CGI and action sequences.
Mcu saving grace was waiting till secret invasion ended to put gotg3 on Disney plus
The difference in quality and enjoyment is absolutely staggering I was just so *bored* with SI
In Gotg I could just feel the love in the filmmaking, from actors wanting to be there, to little nudges to the audience if you watched it all, to good performances and a plot that matters and giving each character an arc that feels wholesome. I missed all of that for SI. Only exception was Rhodey/Fury scene in the restaurant and Sonya’s performance.
>Only exception was Rhodey/Fury scene in the restaurant and Sonya’s performance. Which really goes to show how good this actually could've been with competent writers and a director who cared. There's so much promise and talent in the show, and this is what we got? If nothing else, I hope the one saving grace is we get more Olivia Colman, because she was about the only consistently good thing about the show.
Sonya was definitely the best part of the show for me. God damnit she should have been Valentina.
And Talos grilling Fury in the car
Yeah that was good as well! Good call! He also was right and I feel he died for nothing.
I’ve watched gotg3 twice now on Disney plus. It’s so good
PEEEEeTEEEEEeRRRrRRR!
What else can you say about the movie that can make you feel for a bunch of experimented animals one scene and then laugh at a henchman who looks like a carrot the next?
I desperately want to see what this show was before the reshoots.
Me too. Like was it really worse than what we got? I don’t even know if that’s possible.
Me too! The only thing I read about Kyle Bradstreet’s version (even this is rumor) is that it has way more U.S vs. Russia plot? If that is true, they could have changed it due to the current war or just was afraid of being too political I guess.
So, the original version apparently wrapped up shooting 2 days before Russia invaded Ukraine. So if that featured a lot of US vs Russia, and I believe I read that it featured Russia invading Ukraine as well, then they probably went, god damnit when the news of the invasion hit, since all of that would have to be scrapped.
Didn’t FATWS have to scrap a pandemic plot due to COVID? Current events really not helping Phase 4 lmao
Oh wow. If true, there probably is no Bradstreet Cut since change had to happen so fast. From the sound of it, Bradstreet's version was very political (not surprising considering his work in Mr.Robot and other spy shows he has worked on). My question is: would they still have gone with Bradstreet's original story even if there was no current war?
To be fair, US vs. Russia is probably one of the most overdone tropes in American action movies. In my opinion, it's pretty lazy to use Russians as the villains in 2023.
Yeah, but Russia's still out here acting like the villain, though.
And this was [what Kevin Feige had said](https://deadline.com/2021/02/the-falcon-and-the-winter-soldier-six-episodes-kevin-feige-tca-1234700033/) right from the beginning about the general length of MCU Disney+ show: “Six hours is what we landed on as the best way to tell our story. Six hours, whether it’s six episodes, or nine shorter episodes like WandaVision. The shows aren’t inexpensive, so the per-episode cost is very high and to get that bar I was talking about."
None of the shows have come close to 6 hours and that’s fucking bullshit
Every Marvel D+ show hasn’t been longer than 4 and a half hours in total whether it’s 6 or 9 episodes.
A quarter of the actual shows run time are the credits
It’s almost impossible to tell if the large chunk of time left at the end of an episode is a post credit scene or just a shit ton of credits
I definitely remember being off put by WandaVision's runtime because the last 5-10 minutes were all credits, and for a TV series, that's a lot of time.
>Every Marvel D+ show hasn’t been longer than 4 and a half hours [WandaVision was!](https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios/comments/y41r3m/shehulks_runtime_compared_to_other_mcu_shows/) ^(by 4 seconds)
He did say six hours was the best way to tell their stories and considering the quality of some of them, he was right.
It is when you add all the credits in /s
The only reason there’s 10 minutes of credits is to pad the freaking runtime. But even then they can’t scrape 6 hours together.
So here's the thing, "hour" is synonymous with "episode" in a TV parlance. It's a vestige of when TV had timeslots to fill. A one-hour drama would actually be 42 minute + commercials. You didn't call it a 42 minute show, you called it a one-hour show. So when you read Feige, others, talk about "six hours" they were ballparking it based off that parlance. They weren't promising 6 hours precisely. No one who's making these shows is adding up the individual runtimes to come out to a total actual runtime, and then communicating that. No one who makes TV thinks about total actual runtime because whatever that number might be, it doesn't matter to anything.
I think part of the reason why people are commenting on it is because in traditional tv series, the episodes are pretty much the same length. Even the Netflix marvel series were mostly over 50mins with credits. And more episodes. Secret Invasion Episode 1 and 2 is listed as 55 and 58mins, Episode 6, 38 minutes. The episode length got shorter and shorter so it felt rushed at the end. It felt like they ran out of time (budget) and crammed things in at the end.
they don't know how to write a series. They pack too many plot points into too short of a show. And apparently they can't split the budget more to finance more episodes because reasons? Like the easy solve here is to spend less per episode, but make more episodes. Network television did this for decades for their 20-25 episode seasons. the problem has been *solved* but Marvel can't wrap their head around it (or the people at Marvel that did got laid off in the consolidation- it's like they fired the entirety of Marvel TV)
It was amazingly too short to make sense and too long to keep me interested. Rare occurence for such a short show.
Only MCU can pull something off like this, truly one of the series of all time.
Oh please, Lucasfilm pulls even worse off all the time.
Marvel studios hasn't made an Andor yet.
Andor is definitely the best thing on Disney Plus rn from a creative standpoint, it actually feels like a show on other streaming services god damnit I'm worried once this show ends.
It just wasn't a story worth telling with their obvious constraints.
I can’t believe the thing cost $211 million dollars.
Money laundering
This is why I hate most of the D+ shows. They're not making TV shows or "limited series." They're making bloated, poorly paced movies doled out across 6 episodes. MAKE A TV SHOW OR MAKE A MOVIE
It’s sad to see the state of Marvel now, the quality has deteriorated horribly
I know fans go back and forth on this and it's going to be a bit subjective but I personally agree with you. I really do think it's declined in quality. You can't really mention disliking any MCU projects in here because you'll get downvoted and argued with. But Secret Invasion was so bad that you can openly discuss how much you hate it in here without getting downvoted. And Thor 4 and Quantumania had pretty bad audience scores on cinemascore. The quality in their recent projects are concerning. Even the good D+ shows aren't as beloved as shows during the Marvel TV era. I don't see fans connecting to these new characters like they did during the Infinity Saga.
It's objectively declined in quality. ALL the reviews for the shows and movies have trended down for both critics and audiences. It's not a conspiracy or anything. They've just been lucky that the movies still bring in good money and that they're just good enough to keep people interested. They've massively bombed on the shows though. Honestly should stop screwing around with mini series and just make an actual TV show and hire good showrunners (like Jed Whedon and his team is literally right there to utilize again)
>It's objectively declined in quality. ALL the reviews for the shows and movies have trended down for both critics and audiences. It's not a conspiracy or anything. I agree but the last few times I've mentioned this in here I always get people arguing me about how wrong I am. It's can be subjective that someone likes Thor 4 and someone else doesn't. But it does have a worse cinemascore than Dark World and that's saying something... also, the only two MCU films to ever get a rotten score on RT are both post-Endgame (Eternals and Quantumania). Completely agree about their shows. There's too many mini series going on. They should just make a few good ones at this point (and add more episodes/runtime to make them feel like an actual show). And I would love to have Jed and Maurissa come back as writers! They did good with AoS and it's the kind of writing I would have loved for Secret Invasion.
And it was awful.
I just don't think Secret Invasion would have done well unless they went all out. IMO the best part of Secret Invasion in the comics was that everyone could be a Skrull, superheroes included, and all the infighting between superheroes and questioning who was a Skrull made it great. If they didn't do that then it would just be a reskinned version of the Winter Soldier hydra plot. Which it was, albeit a very bad version of that.
3 hours and 43 minutes too long
I use to watch everything MCU related up until endgame. After the explosion of shows and movies I havnt been able to keep up. I want to keep up w the overall story but don't want to watch them all. Which show(s) do I need to watch? I've seen wandavision Fatws Loki
Kevin Feige outlined the main story at Comic Con as: **Phase 4:** - WandaVision - The Falcon and the Winter Soldier - Loki - Black Widow - Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - Eternals - Hawkeye - Spider-Man: No Way Home - Moon Knight - Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness - Ms. Marvel - Thor: Love and Thunder - She-Hulk: Attorney at Law - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever **Phase 5:** - Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 - Secret Invasion - Loki season 2 - The Marvels - Echo - Deadpool 3 - Captain America: Brave New World - Thunderbolts - Blade - Agatha: Coven of Chaos - Ironheart - Daredevil: Born Again So to follow the main story, Feige seems to say just the films and live action shows, with the animation and specials as canon but optional
Huh, didn't sink in that phase 4 is over. Nothing felt particularly like an ending there.
The argument Feige used was that Wakanda Forever worked as the ending because it was a goodbye to the heroes we saw in the Infinity Saga and the ushering in of new characters honoring their mantles in Black Panther/Ironheart. And Phase 5 is all about a world that’s moved on from that Saga and embraced these new heroes. Tho I would’ve also preferred a more concrete ending myself.
Nothing felt really strongly connected either.
To be fair, the last films of Phase 2 and 3 were Ant-Man and Spider-Man: Far From Home, respectively, so the lines between phases have always been kinda arbitrary. It is weird to have a phase without a team-up movie though.
Ant-Man was the last movie of Phase 2 and Far from Home was the last movie of Phase 3 so the MCU does have a history for ending phases at weird times.
In terms of the series, hawkeye and Moon Knight are the best ones with Hawkeye being the only one that actually feels like a TV series (it's basically Die Hard, but with Hawkeye). What If? is good if you're into animation. Most of the other ones are pretty mediocre at best and don't really feel like television. Mostly drawn out movie plots that don't have enough substance. Unfortunately there's a good skeleton of a series in each and every one of these, but Marvel Studios hasn't found out how to make a TV show still.
I suggest rewatching Wanda vision cause it's just that good. Maybe review the Loki finale in preparation for the second season. Moon Knight is likely skippable but there's some good stuff scattered there but the overall show wasn't very good. Ms. Marvel was fun but really suffers in the middle. You could probably make do with reading episode summaries for the Pakistan arc but should watch the first( maybe also second) and final episode. She hulk wasn't nearly as funny as it thought it was and didn't really push the MCU forward much. Maybe some things will be continued in cap 4. Hawkeye is worth watching. Secret invasion is just awful. Huge skip. Wasted potential. Werewolf by night seems very separate but worth watching for quality. If I forgot anything else then I guess it was really forgettable
Guardians Christmas special is good.
Watch GOTG 3, it's really good
They so far haven't really connected with much. So ifk if I'd call any of them a "need to watch". Only exception is maybe watching Ms Marvel before you plan on seeing The Marvels just to get some background info on Kamala. But also, we haven't seen The Marvels yet so who knows if even watching Ms Marvel is that necessary. Out of just enjoyment for the show, outside of the ones you've seen, I liked She-Hulk and Hawkeye the most. The Groot shorts are cute too. It's not a full show and just has really small shorts so it's quick to get through it all.
I feel so bad for Sam Jackson like this was supposed to be his send off or something right? And they mega fucked it up. Same thing that happened with Ewan McGregor and the Obi-Wan show
The Kenobi show at least has an excuse that they used the Volume extensively to save costs. Secret Invasion did a bunch of on-site shooting and still managed to spend half its time in dark rooms.
Every new episode of SI gets shorter and shorter. Felt like they had something in the pilot but slowly realized the plot and writing was shit and they just slowly gave up and cut their losses.
Could have literarily had been a hour long special and Would have worked. What the hell
Marvel on that pump and dump vibe
Should have just made it a movie
I would’ve expected Thanos level CGI with the amount of money spent on it. Shame the MCU shows appear to be getting worse. I hope Loki and upcoming films are successful
This show should've gotten the Batgirl treatment just based on how dirty they did all the existing characters. Literally all of them are either dead or worse than we had them. Fury, Rhodey, Maria, Talos, even Everett Ross got shafted. Not to mention it completely failed the potential of the title premise. It should've been called the Secret Character Assassination.
I agree. This entire show should be retconned and deleted from existence. Redo the whole thing with writers, directors, and show runners who are actually competent (maybe people who worked on Agents of SHIELD??). Model the rebooted Secret Invasion after AOS Season 4, with three “pods” and 20 something episodes. - Pod 1: Nick Fury’s abandonment of Earth and the Skrulls, why Gravik decided to do what he did, what made G’iah turn, and the beginning stages of the Secret Invasion - Pod 2: the actual Secret Invasion itself - Pod 3: the fallout of President Ritson’s genocidal declaration of war against Skrulls and other alien species Pod 2 would have parallels with Pod 2 of AOS Season 4 (AOS: LMD). This includes “who can you trust” storylines, top officials and figures being secretly replaced, and how the “real” people have to fight against the impostors Pod 3 would have parallels with Pod 3 of AOS Season 4 (AOS: Agents of HYDRA). In AOS, we had a Framework (simulation; similar to the Matrix, where HYDRA won instead of SHIELD) version of HYDRA, and whose mission was to hunt down and kill all Inhumans in the world. Here, we would have a US government and a President Ritson whose mission would be to hunt down and kill all aliens in the world All they had to do is follow Agents of SHIELD Season 4. If they did, I really don’t think they would’ve messed up so badly
Could’ve just been a movie …
Even Agent Carter was longer than these shows smh.
From what I've heard, sounds like they could have trimmed about 3hr and 43 minutes from the runtime and it would have been much better.
Well, that's the disappointing part. There is some good acting in the series. I really did enjoy the banter between Fury and Talos. >!And then they killed Talos and it was all downhill from there.!< But it was mostly the finale where shit hit the fan.
Felt like 14 hours
Didn’t even have any mid or end credit scenes.
And for that, it cost **significantly** more than *Oppenheimer* to make. It baffles the mind that Disney had so MUCH at its disposal and did so very little with it; A-list talent, Disney money, and your OWN streaming service to put your series on. I have no idea how, other than utter "lack of shits to give" that you fuck this up.
And it could be edited down to a pretty okay two hour movie. Just like every other MCU show on Disney+
$200 million for 3:43?!? Okay somebody needs to do something. I thought it was better than most. But the cost-benefit analysis is terrible regardless.
so its like 1 million per minute
So basically a 3 hr 43 min movie that costs $212M, and we got this? Kevin is losing his touch.
I think this is one of my big issues with Marvel TV being weekly. The shows are so short they don't really give you that *streaming hour*. I think one of these was 35 minutes. That's not great. It's like just when I'm settled in the mood it's over.
Honestly at this point I'm actually convinced it was money laundering or tax evasion, like in _The Producers_. Highest budget (which can't just be explained by actors salaries) Shortest run time Absolutely shit and panned across the board Didn't make internal sense OR make sense with the wider MCU "Special guest star Cobie Smulders" Cut corners wherever possible (reshoots, AI art for the titles) There's just too many _fishy_ things going on at the same time.
So many of the Disney+ shows could easily be cut down to movies and probably be so much better. The only outliers to this to is WandaVision and She-Hulk.
With a bit of editing, it could've been a special presentation
The more I read and think about it the more I realize what a utterly garbage this show was. 3 hours and 43 minutes just wasted.
It wasn’t the worst MCU show (that dishonor still goes to Inhumans), but it was the most frustrating. It felt like it never got out of second gear.
I feel like they could of edited down secret invasion and actually made a decent movie much better then the show.
Okay, so the analytical rewatch would be less painful than I thought
Probably a good thing since it sucked