TFATWS, 'The Star-Spangled Man' - March 29

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Ergo, let us look at what is going on in MCU, and here things are not much better either – DC has struck! (Warning – spoilers ahead. If you care – do not read, if you do not – do).

Let me elaborate: whereas WV has dominated the American news, (especially the entertainment section, now that the Donald is no longer the POTUS and cannot compete with them fairly), TFATWS, on the other wing, has to compete with the Snyder cut of the Justice League, (which is apparently much more coherent and collected and composed differently from the Whedon version), as well as from the upcoming remake of the ‘Suicide Squad’.

…Personally, I reckon that the original ‘Squad’ movie worked, but this isn’t about workable movies, it’s about remaking its’ brand: DC has already remade the animated versions of Superman and Batman (plus the Martian Manhunter and several other characters, big and small), now it is time of the animated Wonder Woman, the Justice Society, the Flash and etc.… as well as of their live-action counterparts, (cough, ‘Superman and Lois’, cough). Team DC/Warner Brothers/HBO/etc. are not strong enough, or just unwilling, or whatever, to challenge the Disney/MCU juggernaut directly…but they are fighting it regardless. They are also putting a dump on the elder Whedon-man, but fuck him – after the mess that he had turned the AoS into, I am in no hurry to defend him – the man made his bed, let him lie in it, and the rest of his clan as well.

That said, the mutation of AoS, the unexpected and unwanted one, into a seven-season giant, had caused some ripples in the greater MCU as well. WV has demonstrated a complete lack of S.H.I.E.L.D. on one hand, (seriously, the current version of S.W.O.R.D. is just S.H.I.E.L.D. in a different package, cough), while on the other…

Apparently, one of the removed scenes had been Ralph teaming up with Monica, Darcy and Jimmy to capture a demon that Agatha’s rabbit Senor Scratchy transformed into. This event would have allowed Ralph to properly integrate into MCU and become something more than just a dick joke, (pun intended). However, it seems that a certain RL actor wasn’t very interested in this, and so his character got increasingly downgraded from the episode 1x06 onwards – as ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ showed, the integration of FX into Disney/MCU didn’t occur too painlessly, and some bad feelings still linger on… Where are we?

…Right, while the WV – especially the last two episodes – suffered from some revision, (in a bad way, not unlike what AoS had in the second half of S2), TFATWS… does not appear to be, at least not at the moment. Instead, what we have are two teams – one is the titular characters, and the other is the new guys – J.W. aka the ‘new captain America’ and his main man Battlestar.

Yes, the racial dynamics is inverted in the new team, but I have no idea what does that mean. Yes, TFATWS is big on depicting racial dynamics within the U.S. – last week, it was Sam and Sarah’s big misadventure in the bank – apparently, with Tony Stark gone, the Avengers’ financial security is gone with him – and this time it is the cops’ harassing Sam because they think that he has harassed the Buck… and they’re white too.

I live in Canada, and the first time I saw an Afro-American person being arrested was in the U.S., (in the city of Buffalo, which is in the New York state, FYI), but the cops who arrested him were also Afro-Americans, and the detained man didn’t appear to be suffering too badly, so yes, here I am calling out Disney, MCU, and the rest of Hollywood on their racial BS because that is what it is, and given just how messed up the U.S. still is after the Donald’s 4-year tenure, does it really need Disney/MCU stirring the pot? Probably not, but TFATWS still has another 4 episodes left in it, so this is what’ll get – a modern social commentary set in a superhero universe, where super-soldiers whale at each other on top of moving trucks and what else have you. Bravo! How very woke of you, Disney & MCU! MAGA, MAGA!

But that aside, what did ‘The Star-Spangled Man’ have? It set up J.W. as the new ‘wrong’ captain America, it showed that the Flag-Smashers are not as evil as they appear to be, (maybe), and that there is another power group/player to the game, one that may or may not be Helmut Zemo, who is returning to TFATWS proper in the next episode. Not a wealth of information to go on, but then again, TFATWS is all about racial inequality, mental trauma, (PTSD), and action, as far as MCU incarnations go. That is fair enough, but not enough to go on.

Therefore, for now this is it. See you all soon instead!

TFATWS, 'New World Order' - March 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Now onto ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ instead.

What can be said about the series premiere, ‘New World Order’? It does its’ job – it depicted the Falcon/Sam Wilson as the struggling member of the U.S. proletariat, risking his life in missions overseas, while back home he and his family are belittled – by WASPs, of course. It depicted the Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes as a recovering… well, let us call him a villain, (especially after the events of ‘Captain America: Civil War’ movie), struggling to fit into normal life. (Spoilers: At the end of the episode, he begins to do so, at least for the moment). It also featured the man who might be Wilson’s successor as the next Falcon, the Flag-Smashers, who seem to be the main big bads of the TFATWS’ 1^st season, and John Walker, the next Captain America/U.S. Agent, who might be good at his new job, or he might be horrible. Considering that ‘NWO’ has depicted a WASP bank worker as a grade-A douche canoe, who refused to loan money to Sam and his sister, I wouldn’t bet on the former, and besides…

…And besides, what do you expect? This is phase 4. This is the phase where the bad guys get to win by default, simply because the good guys are in disarray, and the Avengers are disassembled: we already saw Vision getting rebooted by S.W.O.R.D. (and not in a good way), while Wanda…got issues. Like a lot of them, including a potential personality split – into Wanda proper, and the Scarlet Witch…and the rest of the Avengers are being blissfully unaware of either of these developments, and now we’re beginning to understand as to why: at least the Falcon and the Winter Soldier have their own problems: the latter because he is a recovering killing machine, and the former because he is a POC in USA. Yes, he defeated Batroc, but-

-But so did the original Captain America, Steve Rogers. So far, Batroc was either used a living symbol to show that Sam Wilson is the true new Captain America now, or he is MCU’s answer to Danny Phantom’s Box Ghost, aka a minor villain that is used by the show’s scriptwriters when one is needed. Yes, TFATWS has only six episodes, (as opposed to WV’s nine), but still. It is already a good, straightforward plot and design, and will be actually enjoyable to watch. It is not like WV, which was supposed to be a mystery – but COVID-19 has ruined that – but is a ‘what you see is what you get’ situation. Fair enough. Good luck to Sam and Bucky too, BTW.

…Well, this is it for now. See you all soon!

Raya and the last dragon - March 15

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Moreover, WV is done, and TFATWS is coming out only this Friday, so let us fill in the gap by talking about the latest ‘purely Disney’ film, ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’, instead.

What it is about? Yet another Disney attempt to picture a utopia, ‘Frozen 2’ style. In ‘Frozen 2’, the focus was on climate, (cough, Greta Thunberg, cough). Here, in RATLD, we are talking more about society, about how people – in the imaginary world of Kumandra – put aside their differences and free their world from the Druun, united as one. “I hope that one day you will join me, and the world will be as one”, spoke the lyrics from an old American song from my teenage years, and now Disney tried to execute something similar in RATLD. My dear team Disney, this is hokum, especially in the U.S., where practically every member of their society is highly individualistic, making this sort of cooperation highly unlikely. Therefore, the entire message of RATLD will not amount to anything, but the entertainment element of the movie is still there. Right?

Well, there is the entire Southeast Asian bit, which is especially Disney appropriating the especially colorful cultural bits and pieces of the various ethnicities for money. Sometimes it is more serious, as it was in ‘Mulan-2020’, apparently, but in case of RATLD? Disney just used the… Chinese/Japanese version of the dragon, and claimed that it was not so. Fandom.com would publish anything these days, it seems – for example, they published an interview with RATLD’s crew who claimed that Sisu was inspired by the nagas, in part.

…The nagas, again, are the ancient Hindu version of the reptiloids – they are reptilian humanoids, shapeshifters, who live alongside humans and sometimes marry them, (or kill them, other times), but they are no more dragons than they are humans, and their default setting is more of a snake-human hybrid, or a reptilian humanoid, aka a reptiloid, so the QAnon and the rest of them insane idiots aren’t that too far out there, but we digress. Nagas are not dragons, dragons are not nagas, and Sisu, (and her fellow RATLD’s dragons), was inspired by Aang from the ‘Avatar: the last airbender’ cartoon series. Kumandra with its five tribes is reminiscent of the world of Avatar with its four elemental cultures – the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom, the Air Nomads and the Water Tribes – and also of real-life China, which is dry in the west, but green in the east and downright tropical in the south; Kumandra had switched this imagery, becoming dry in the east and green in the west among other things, but it is still RL China (cough Mulan-2020 cough), voiced by a largely East Asian cast, which in this day and age is primarily China…and also Japan, true, but certainly not Southeast Asia. So what?

Point, since to a point, the characters of RATLD are a typical kids’ movie/TV series/etc. formula – a team of quirky characters, each one bringing something unique to the table, while in reality being the traditional fighters, rogues, mages, etc., in an atypical get-up, (i.e., Noi is a baby, etc.), each one needed to complete the quest and fully upgrade Sisu to stop the Druun… right?

Wrong. In the end it is not the main cast’s special skills that are needed to save Kumandra, but trust – Raya and co. ends up trusting Namaari, (who, until then, was pretty much a typical protagonist by the standards of Disney films), and so it raises a question: was all of this team building really necessary? Sisu aside, (as a dragon, she gets a bye, I suppose), this sort of a twist leaves Noi and co. completely superfluous… and it actually shows; so far, none of the RATLD fanworks talk about anyone else other than Raya and Namaari, because, hey, same-sex couple! Cool! Yay! Fanworks! What next?!

Nothing much – that was the overtly educational part of the RATLD movie, which is being promptly ignored by everyone, even as Earth’s human population continues to squabble with each other over the COVID-19 vaccines, for example; everything else was just mind fluff coupled with cultural appropriation, done in the drunken magpie style – Kumandra is supposed to be Southeast Asia, only it isn’t; Sisu, Raya and co. are team Aang, with Namaari being Zuko; and the Druun are really the Druj, embodiments of falsehood and lies of the Zoroastrian religion, which used to be the state religion of Persia, modern Iran, until Islam took over – but that was another story. Ours is that of RATLD, which tried to be meaningful, but ended up going nowhere, with a trite – and ignored – message of peace that rather undercut the actual movie plot, (aka a plot twist that did more harm than good to the plot) was wrapped in a wrapper with some religious connotations, A:TLA did have a spiritual, if not a religious, side to it, and RATLD tried to copy it blindly, and so some things got carried over, unintentionally perhaps, but we begin to rant.

…No, not really – RATLD is a rather monochrome world, as far as Disney creations go. The Druun are yet another incarnation of ‘the other’, a faceless, featureless enemy, that just wants to kill and make more zombies, (cough, TWD, cough), one that cannot be reasoned with, or befriended with, or be sympathized – this is more of Namaari’s thing, only she ends up not being a villain at all, but rather one of the team. In A:TLA, this sort of thing worked only because the true villains of the series ended up being Ozai and Azula, while Zuko was set-up as a reluctant ally to the other heroes – the team Avatar – practically from the very beginning. In RATLD we do not have that; Namaari is much less sympathetic than Zuko ever was, so while her plot twist works, it is not worth it.

…Yes, I don’t like plot twists ever since the first seasons of AoS messed this concept up, but that’s not the point; the point is that RATLD works, but little more; it aspires to be something greater, but it fails: Kumandra may supposedly be an utopia without the Druun, but people there know how to use weapons, for one thing, and martial arts, and what else have you, so things were never so rosy from the start – but this is becoming a rant. I do not want to rant. So, let me just wrap things up by saying that I did not like RATLD too much, as far as 2021’s movies go, Bliss was much better, (and yes, the two movies are different, but still), even if it had partially spoiled the resolution of WV to me – but that is another story.

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!

WandaVision, s1 finale - March 8

 …And so, ‘WandaVision’ has ended, because of course it had. Everyone quite understands about it, but it seems that Disney/MCU tried some sort of a pre-emptive strike after this event, via the Collider and similar sites, (maybe). More about this in a moment, but first – real life sucks. Just ask the titular Scarlet Witch of the now-concluded mini-series.

…What were Disney/MCU worried about? That not enough fans would be appreciative of WV, or they would fail to realize that it was a show about grief, apparently. Yes, having Olsen and Hahn fly around in the sky, slugging it out like magical heavyweights, is so grievous, and the same goes for Bettany fighting himself.

…Actually, Bettany fighting himself has a distinct echo of Wen doing so in AoS’ S2, when she was both Melinda May and agent 33 at that time. Later on, in S4, this situation would be repeated, as Melinda, and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D., would end up confronting their robot doubles, (the LMDs). Back then, Disney/MCU/AoS, just recycled an old plotline with mixed results, (S4 might have been the best AoS season, in the terms of story mechanics, but regardless…), and now WV had something similar, because of course it did. Disney/MCU is all about recycling…I mean grief.

On a more serious note, it means that the titular characters are done with each other for the moment, and yes, they were growing slowly but steadily apart since the episodes 5&6, but yes, it still hurts. The drama aspect of the WV is excellently done, as always, but what else is there?

The wokeness, I reckon. Agatha Harkness was mostly a dark reflection of Wanda, (pre-WV finale), but she had pieces of an original character as well. Director Hayward on the other hand, seems to be little more than a placeholder, aka yet straight white male character, who starts as a good (neutral) person, and then is revealed an evil one. Yes, his action of shooting the WandaVision twins was just wrong on every level, just as Monica’s attempt to protect them was right, but even the fans of WV admit that some character development for Hayward’s character would’ve been a good thing. Instead, we got a rush job, but that is because it is Monica’s corner of WV.

Let us admit. WV was about the titular characters and their children, but it was also about the development of Monica Rambeau/Spectrum’s position/place/plot in MCU. She, as well as her girl Friday and boy Saturday, Darcy and Jimmy, have been in preliminary stages of their superhero journeys, but now they are ready to launch, given how the Skrulls have contacted Monica, (remember, Jimmy listed the Skrulls as one of the possible reasons behind the Westview phenomenon), and the S.W.O.R.D. is now leaderless, so will Monica step in and become its’ new leader, (however eventually)? Given how the CM franchise takes part mostly in space, Monica probably will.

Put otherwise, WV was supposed to be about Monica Rambeau as well as it is about the titular characters, but it fell short. The same goes for the ‘recast Pietro’ angle – yes, the odds of WV introducing the mutants in the MCU proper were very unlikely, (cough, Deadpool 3 movie, cough), but still, Ralph Bohner? For a show that is supposed to be about grief, a penis joke is just what the doctor ordered, apparently.

Also – a missed opportunity: the scriptwriters could have made the fake Pietro some sort of a minor villain for Monica to take down – instead, he was just a harmless clown, who could have been defeated by Darcy alongside director Hayward. No, seriously, given how Monica have ran through Wanda’s Westview Hex, she could’ve been set-up as the next Quicksilver-like character, and her bond with Wanda, (remember our 1x03 discussion and beyond?), could’ve strengthened. Instead, that never happened, and all that Wanda did give Monica was a brief nod of recognition, (metaphorically speaking). Yes, there was not enough time, money, and what else have you to give Monica as much recognition – this time – as it was for Wanda and Vision, but still – a bad taste in my mouth if you will.

Let us conclude. ‘WV’ has finished with Wanda and Vision being finished for the moment, (though keep in mind that one half of Wanda in the last scenes is wearing white clothing, reminiscent of Vision’s new white get-up, so there’s some hope for them yet), with Tommy and Billy being safely away, (or at least just away)…somewhere else. Agatha has been defeated for now, though she is not dead, (ergo she might return in a future Marvel installment, just as Jimmy Woo and Darcy have). Monica might have proven that she might be Avenger material after all, (cough, the second Spider-Man movie, cough), and Jimmy and Darcy are her sidekick material too. Not bad for a brief 9-episode show, I would say.

Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!

WandaVision, 'Previously' - March 1

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Ergo, let us talk about the penultimate episode of ‘WandaVision’ instead. What it is all about?

‘Surprise twist’ – it was not Agatha all along! Until ‘Previously’, Agatha was content to practically prank Wanda through the episodes with Wanda succeeding no matter what was Agatha throwing at her…and she did not appear to be testing Wanda too hard. Yes, there is the matter of her killing Sparky, but whether evil or merely selfish, Agatha is clearly a liar – and then she takes Billy and Tommy hostage and crosses into outright evil category.

Pause. Yes, apparently MCU decided to do one better over the Marvel comics, where the original Billy and Tommy had been artificially created by Wanda, because the latter is that powerful and awesome; (when she had teamed with Rachel Grey, she was able to defeat the Phoenix itself in the comics, and we’re not talking about the capital of the state of Arizona here), so in MCU Wanda has created not just the twins in question, but also Vision himself…

Pause. Yes, apparently, the creation of a second, new, white Vision is a very clever twist and enjoyable Easter egg for the diehard fans of Marvel, but otherwise? Yes, it puts director Hayward into an odd position: like what is his villain motivation here? Throughout WV, it was logically assumed that Wanda has stolen Vision from S.W.O.R.D., reanimated him, and is now paying house with him, (let us put it down thusly). Now, however, it has been revealed that S.W.O.R.D. had held onto Vision, (or his deceased remains), all along instead, so why would Hayward want to fight Wanda now? Yes, given MCU’s tendency with ‘twists’, (that can be often seen all along these days – this isn’t the early seasons of AoS, you know), Hayward can always be revealed to be Hydra, or Agatha’s own long-lost son, or whoever, but there’s another reason, I’ve been told – WV is tying-in to ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ show, which depicts an MCU which is far more hostile to the Avengers-type heroes than it’d been in the first 3 phases, so maybe director Hayward is doing the biding of the U.S. government for real, in which case, ‘captain Monica’ and her friends Jimmy and Darcy are about to become renegades of some sort for real… Deep breath.

Let us try again. WV can be kind of confusing at times, but the fact that Wanda and Monica have interacted throughout the show’s run so far, and while Monica tried to be friendly to Wanda, (she even helped to deliver one of Wanda’s twins, cough), Wanda wasn’t, and no, it wasn’t Agatha all along – Agatha seems to be pursuing her own goal, probably to steal Wanda’s powers, (however that works), but she didn’t mess up Wanda and Monica’s relationship – Wanda did it all by herself.

Just as how she took over Westview by herself. Yes, her motives might be less evil than how they appeared in mid-season, but for the civilians of Westview this makes little difference, so they still might be crying out for Wanda’s head no matter what her motivations are, which will put Monica and her crew into an awkward position – what is the right choice here? The fact that they’re scattered all over – Monica and Darcy are in two different parts of the Hex, Jimmy is outside of it – doesn’t help their situation either: instead of coming to a resolution AoS-style, WV seems to be heading into something much more darker…possibly the upcoming ‘Multiverse of Madness’, and the still untitled ‘CM2’, movies. Therefore, odds are that WV, and ‘TFATWS’, and any other streaming series and co. of Disney/MCU for now, will end on an unfinished note, (or on a note that feels unfinished), so that the upcoming Disney/MCU movies/other shows/etc. will have something to work with from the start. What next?

People have been pointing out to me that Agatha’s color is purple, and the last MCU character with this sort of thing had been Thanos, but so far, there is nothing tying Agatha with Thanos or with anyone from MCU, she is a brand new arrival here, so yay! Go MCU! In the still dark and unwelcome times of 2021, we still need you.

…But for now though, this is it. See you all soon, instead!