Marvel Live Action

[Dr. Insomniac]

Pleasantly surprised to see Andrew Stanton in the director's credit for this season premiere of Legion.

[Avaitor]

Oh yeah, I finished season 3 of Jessica Jones the other night. I thought it was an improvement over the previous run, but still not as good as the first season, and only somewhat of a satisfying conclusion. While I more or less liked seeing Trish deal with her powers, it just reminded me that I wish these shows were more episodic instead of attempting to be 13 hour movies. And that they had more of a sense of humor.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Now that it's over the halfway point of the final season, it's finally struck me just how rare Legion is. People like to say Disney could never make Logan or Deadpool, but they forget even Fox had cold feet over both movies and Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds respectively had to heavily negotiate and take a pay cut just so those movies could even get made. While with Legion, this is the kind of product I don't think we're going to see from Marvel again any time soon. This is a really alienating show. None of the characters are particularly good people. Both of the leads are rapists. All the scenes this season where the audio switches to Chinese and you get a lecture on how time travel works. It teeters on a thin line between "Psychological post-modern masterpiece that turns a C-list X-Men character into a complex tragic hero/villain" and "Pretentious garbage that learned the wrong lessons from Twin Peaks and makes you question why any executive greenlit this". Legion's mostly on the former category for me, but it definitely plays with fire so much that I can get why it's hard to find other people who like watching the show.

[Foggle]

That sounds amazing, I'll have to give it a look.

[Dr. Insomniac]

It's a little bit like Noah Hawley's other work Fargo, as that show isn't an adaptation or sequel to the movie but a show that takes place in that movie's universe and re-interprets and analyzes other Coen Brothers movies. Though that series is a lot more understandable than Legion.

[Avaitor]

Legion was at its best in its first season for me, but I'm still somewhat captivated by its refusal to stick to any kind of norm. It's not always fun to watch, but it's usually still pretty interesting, more than enough to justify sticking around.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Heard a rumor Marvel wants to reboot Luke Cage and Iron Fist for the movies. Despite how many times Marvel Netflix fell, it's still a shame because I think the actors more than earned their place to stand next to their movie counterparts. Takes me back to when the lead actress for Agents of SHIELD was angry at Marvel Studios for treating TV characters like they're the black sheep of the MCU. I think if they wanted to put Luke or Danny (or Colleen considering their show's ending) on the big screen or another series, they should keep those actors and just soft reboot their way around everything so audiences won't have to catch up on four seasons of show.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

While I feel bad for the actors who put the time and effort into their characters only to be dropped and forgotten about, I can sort of Understand Disney's logic in not wanting to tie those into the grander MCU. In general these clearly weren't planned out in conjunction with the movies (which, in a way was a good thing as it gave the showrunners more creative freedom to work with) and while I'm all for different parts of the MCU tonally differentiating themselves from one another, the Hard-R nature of these shows just didn't mix with the family friendly content that Disney was going for. Tack on the legal jargon that over-complicates crossing these series over with the movies, and from Disney's perspective it's easy to see how this could be more trouble than it's worth.

That said, I'm not a fan of them instantly replacing these characters. At least show some respect to these shows and the effort the actors and writers put into them. Otherwise, they could declare these to be part of the Cinematic Multiverse and then cast people like Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio in the main Universe version of the same roles, like they did with J. K. Simmons.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Harry Lloyd made a surprisingly great Charles Xavier. He combines the altruistic diplomacy from Stewart's portrayal with the youthful command of McAvoy's. It's almost disappointing he only showed up for three episodes in the entire show.

Anyway, Legion ended how I expected. A lot of erratic scenes and unanswered questions all to the tune of Pink Floyd's Mother.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Choosing to reboot I Love Lucy is a strange but kind of bold choice for Marvel: https://youtu.be/sj9J2ecsSpo

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

You know, for all of the flak that Marvel gets for being too safe and cookie-cutter to appeal to all viewers, seeing Vision walking around as a literal corpse as well as some of the other horrific things that this episode subtly implies has been going on is surprisingly disturbing.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Wanda's into robo-necrophilia.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

You know, normally I ignore this little quibble because it's just a comic book thing that you accept, but considering the situation at hand, one really has to wonder why nobody has even mentioned the thought of trying to call another Avenger for assistance at this point. Three-weeks post-snap we know that there are at least a few available at this point who care enough about Wanda to want to aid in the situation without killing her.

Also, just have to say that I'm loving Paul Bettany's performance in this show. Elizabeth Olsen is great as well, but this show has given them SO much more material to work with than the movies, being that Civil War and Infinity War treated them more as glorified plot devices than fully-realized characters.

And I'm wondering if Evan Peters as Quicksilver is just him playing a town resident who Wanda just subconsciously filled into the role of her late twin brother (with his casting being a cheeky little nod to his former role as the character), or if he was somehow legitimately pulled out of the FOX-Men Universe and changed to assume his new role in Wanda's reality bubble.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Didn't notice this reference.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Got to say, I really like Wandavision when the camera's on Wanda and it's about the feeling that grief, while natural but when unchecked, can consume your world and hurt all the people around you while you vicariously live through an idealized past that never actually happened. But when it's about Agents of SWORD, feels too much like those scenes in CW superhero shows where the characters talk in their base or lab, explain about how to stop the villain of the week, and deliver one-liners and continuity references. Think it's why I didn't like episode 4 that much since it was the exposition episode, and the theme's moved to the side so they can directly explain the plot. Too much telling than showing.