JWD - June 10

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the JWD film instead.

Without getting too deep into spoilers, it works. The movie works. It entertains its’ viewers well enough, and the movie critics hate it. Why?

Because there is no deeper meaning in it, not really, no bigger picture, especially by MCU’s standards. JWD sought to be the endgame for the latest JP/JW incarnation, to show the viewers a world where humans and non-avian dinosaurs coexist, and I would say that it had succeeded at doing so, too. The problem, of course, is so what?

No, let me reiterate the above statement: by 2022, the viewers have become quite sated on dinosaur-related films and such; the recently released ‘Prehistoric Planet’ may’ve stabbed JWD in the back by setting the bar much higher than JWD aspired to – it seems to be an entertaining movie rather than anything else… and it is a self-contained universe as well.

These days, the multiverse seems to be the key to success, as Ms. Yeoh’s ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ movie shows loud and clear, and JWD does not deliver on that level – in JWD, the story is wrapped, there’s no mid-credits or post-credits scene, no anything else. Fair enough, and the rest of the movie is not too evolved either.

Instead, JWD seems to try to milk the nostalgia for the old JP series and with some success at least; whereas J-Ro’s Newt Scamander films tried to add some new material – at least - into the Wizarding ‘Verse… with mixed success, but still it tried. JWD did not try at all; instead, it just went by the numbers and did what it did before with its’ movies, starting with JP3 – and can you blame them? Their source material is two sci-fi novels, written by the late Mr. Crichton, and nothing more; the fact that the franchise managed to make 6 movies rather than just one or two is remarkable enough!.. Anything else?

…JWD aside, people have already talked to me about me glossing over the Damage Control people in the ‘Ms. Marvel’ series premiere. Fair enough, but again, let us turn back to AoS. I know, I know, but for me, AoS did introduce Damage Control into MCU – literally: Damage Control first appeared in the AoS’ S3 episode, when Daisy teamed-up with Mack to save the latter’s brother Reuben, who fell-in with the Watchdogs, (MCU’s take on the KKK, aiming towards the InHumans rather than POCs), and Mack and Daisy had to rescue him – and Damage Control had to clean up the mess at the end of the episode. AoS being what it is, neither Reuben Mackenzie nor Damage Control re-appeared ever again in the series, (though Reuben’s role was taken over by MCU’s Flint – maybe), and Damage Control has surfaced-up here, in ‘Ms. Marvel’ – and so far it appears to be S.H.I.E.L.D. at its’ worst.

Listen again, AoS is the one MCU property that got out of hand and/or out of control, and no one was sad to see it go, not even the cast; there’s no indication that MCU will be rebooting S.H.I.E.L.D. any time soon; unfortunately, AoS is very popular with its’ fans, and since it has ran for 6 slash 7 seasons in a row, it has become quite well-known and well-established as well. So what?

Therefore, for a while now MCU is in a quandary – they had intended to use S.H.I.E.L.D., but because of real-life issues, they are unable to. Consequently, they tried to use something else – S.W.O.R.D. in WV, but WV has had its’ own problems, most notable – the imbalance between Wanda and Vision: WV was supposed to be a TV series about both of them, but instead it turned out to be mainly about Wanda instead, who would go on to become the antagonist in the second ‘Dr. Strange’ film – and that particular movie had no sign of S.W.O.R.D., of the new Vision, or of captain Photon, even though they played important roles in WV. Still, since the upcoming 2023 ‘The Marvels’ film is supposed to feature all of them – Kamala, Carol and Ms. Rambeau – the odds of the Damage Control introducing/re-introducing S.W.O.R.D. into MCU are very good. We will just have to wait and see as to what happens next.

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