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Dethroning Moment / Marvel Cinematic Universe

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The greatest, and most well-known, moneymaking Shared Universe that has been brought to the big-screen. However, that doesn't mean it didn't suffer a hiccup here and there to make it work.

Keep in mind:

  • Sign your entries.
  • One moment per movie to a troper, if multiple entries are signed to the same troper the more recent one will be cut.
  • Moments only, no "just everything he said," or "The entire movie," entries.
  • No contesting entries. This is subjective, the entry is their opinion.
  • No natter. As above, anything contesting an entry will be cut, and anything that's just contributing more can be made its own entry.
  • Explain why it's a Dethroning Moment Of Suck.
  • No Real Life examples, including Executive Meddling. That is just asking for trouble.
  • No ALLCAPS, no bold, and no italics unless it's the title of a work. We are not yelling the DMoSs out loud.

Captain America: The First Avenger

  • Retloclive: For me, the first Captain America is a fun 40s era movie that proves that director Joe Johnston really knows how to get that era down after he did the Rocketeer movie. However, one thing that really bugs me about this movie was condensing Cap's mission to take down the HYDRA bases into a brief montage. Was it too much to ask to spare just a couple more minutes to extend the destruction of the HYDRA facilities? The movie spends a great deal building up the hero to kick some major butt, and yet they completely skip over it just so we could get to the final battle quicker.

Iron Man 3

  • Shadow 200: Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie, and got my money's worth from it, but the fact that his long time arch-nemesis from the comics, The Mandarin, turns out to be nothing but a washed up drug addict actor hired by the real Big Bad really doesn't settle with me. All the promos and interviews suggested he'd be Tony Stark's greatest foe and when it's revealed he's drugged out of his mind and doesn't have a clue what's really going on it irks me as I felt they wasted a perfectly good character and plot as their rivalry was based on technology vs magic and Advancement vs Tradition. Still enjoyed the movie but that part just bugs me.
  • Jaydude 1992: My issue is the final battle between the Big Bad, and his minions, who all have My Blood Runs Hot style powers, and all of Tony's suits being controlled by Jarvis. You'd think this would be a CMOA, particularly if you saw this bit in the trailer, but no. The Worf Effect is in full play as, rather than fight them at range with their repulsor rays, the suits get into punch-ups with the minions, whom the protagonists should know by now can give themselves body temperatures of around 3000 degrees celsius, and are frequently torn apart as a result. It really doesn't help that the earlier versions of the Iron Man armour were capable of taking on terrorist cells, squads of very similar armoured drones, and virtually everything the Chitauri could throw at them. The latest versions? They have trouble fighting men and women with superheated bodies.
  • Miracle @ St. Olaf: Back to those minions of the Big Bad: The men and women our heroes are taking on happen to be U.S. Military vets who were treated with Extremis to regrow limbs they lost in combat, and are all willing and eager to slaughter their own countrymen through terrorist attacks because they couldn't get jobs after they came home. To be clear, they were not brainwashed, driven insane or corrupted as a side effect of Extremis, no; they're gladly committing unconscionable acts of pure malevolence and evil... because of job security. The Mandarin's Race Lift was very obviously done to avoid offending part of the audience, and way to go on that, but how did nobody involved consider that making his evil henchmen wounded U.S. soldiers just might be even more offensive to a lot of viewers?

Thor: The Dark World

  • Animeking 1108: The movie had a bit of a problem with putting in comedy at inappropriate moments, but the moment that took the cake was Thor and Jane returning to Earth after Loki seemingly dies. It was such a tear-jerking dramatic moment, and they immediately follow it up with Erik walking around without pants, and even making a crack at Loki's expense. I get that Erik hates Loki for the shit he pulled on him in The Avengers, but couldn't they have done that a little less comedic?
  • h31r-of-l1f3:I think what's worse is the studio's lack of understanding that Thor is magic. If I wanted one with science, I'd watch Ant-man or Iron Man. Thor is a god with a hammer that controls weather and he can fly with if he spins it fast. This is best shown with the hot garbage of the dark elves' assault on Asgard. I honestly thought Star Wars was on, with the lasers and shields. It's not like magic does not exist in Marvel, Doctor Strange pulled off witchcraft. Thor is magic, not science.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

  • RAZ: The Reveal that HYDRA had rebuilt itself within SHIELD since its inception. I could buy it if there was a valid excuse for the twist, but the reason given for how it happened is beyond stupid. The reason HYDRA is in control is all because the non-corrupt members like Peggy Carter and Howard Stark recruited Arnim Zola of their own free will into a high-ranking position which he exploited. The two of them completely ignoring his background with HYDRA in the past. If that's supposed to be what's considered "good" writing, then I have no problem dropping these movies.
  • akanesarumara: My bone to pick with the HYDRA reveal was that it felt like a cop-out. Up until then it felt like it was heading the thought-provoking way of adding a level of gray to SHIELD and the government and actually debating the question of how much secrecy and freedom will we give up for safety. But no, of course they had to include the Nazis. Because remember, your own government would never go to such lengths.
  • Case: The part where Cap and Widow are trapped in a bunker, a missile heads toward them, and... they dive out of the way. The movie as a whole has a lot of "heroes are surrounded on all sides, but get away" moments going on, even by MCU standards. Most of the time, though, it makes for fun action; it's stylized. For the bunker scene, style has nothing to do with it. The bad guys set up a trap, the trap works exactly as planned, there's no third party interfering with the trap in any way, and the heroes don't do anything clever. Obviously, we know the heroes won't get killed, but this is the only time in the entire MCU where this fact is blatantly taken for granted.

Guardians of the Galaxy

  • TerrorToad: The freaking stupid 'Ooh Child' dance at the end. Ronan, who at this point has ultimate power, and needs only to drop his hammer to win, literally stands there for a full minute with his mouth hanging open while Starlord sings and dances around like an idiot instead of just killing him. It killed the mood and was just a bottom of the barrel joke. Any dignity the movie and Ronan might've had died there.
    • TantaMonty: Seconding this. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, but this scene is downright cringeworthy. The joke dragged on for way too long and made Ronan act incredibly out-of-character. He was already bland and forgettable by Marvel villain standards, but any credibility he could have was gone the moment he decided to pay attention to Quill instead of vaporizing him on the spot.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Ant-Man

  • Doctor Sleep: Starting from just a trailer, there's a scene where Scott Lang is goading Hope into showing him how to punch. Hope responds by punching him right in the face. You don't have to picture that moment with the genders reversed, because that exact same thing happened in the comics when Hank Pym smacked his wife. By playing a woman bashing a man as a punchline when the opposite is considered abhorrent just shows how low Marvel Studios is willing to sink for the sake of a joke. No wonder they lost a comedic craftsman like Edgar Wright. By the time the movie is released, it only gets worse with Hope ultimately ending up with Scott in the end. Iron Man had Tony and Pepper take things slow. Thor, Captain America and The Incredible Hulk ended with the heroes not getting with their love interests due to their overwhelming responsibilities. Ant-Man ends with Scott falling for the woman who attacked him simply because she's there. Way to speak out against domestic violence.

Captain America: Civil War

  • hank412: I have trouble finding a single moment that pissed me off in a movie full of moments that pissed me off. Though, if I had to pick one, it would be where all my problems with the movie first began, the first snowball that someone threw down the snowy hill: The moment when Cap tells Tony that he tore the Avengers apart by signing the accords. Great job on reminding me that the accords were in this movie, because I had pretty much forgot. Though, that’s probably because it was this moment that I realized the film pretty much paid lip service to them, but it was still going to act like they’re the driving force behind everything when they clearly aren’t. It was a moment where it felt like the movie was completely insulting my intelligence as a viewer and essentially flat out lying to my face. Something like that goes beyond a few plot holes or inept storytelling. The moment when this film thought it could get away with treating its audience as anything less than equal is bullshit.
    • TMB: Having Ross be the one to introduce the Accords in the first place with nobody mentioning how it makes him the world's biggest hypocrite for all the things he did in The Incredible Hulk.
  • Shadow Wing LG : While the whole movie is basically a series of action sequences held together with the thinnest strings of plot the single moment that shattered the movie for me was the scene where Steve and Sam have Bucky restrained in the vice and they figure out Zemo is going for the other Winter Soldiers and Steve stated "They were on their own." I almost yelled "What about NAT?!" in the theater! Its like Steve completely forgot that he had a close friend, ally, and second in command of the Avengers with the ability and skill to verify that Zemo used forged docs to get close to Bucky and set off his rampage that ALSO had access to Tony and could have convinced him of these facts with proof as back up! The cherry on top of ALSO giving Tony ammo against Ross at least and the Accords best.
  • Tropers/aster2560 : I’m happy to admit that I really hate this entire movie and say that it began the downward spiral that the MCU is currently in, but if I had to pick one specific moment for Civil War I would have to say that it would be Wanda’s character assassination. Before you say that Wanda character assassination was in WandaVision no it was here when she feels like she shouldn’t be held accountable for letting the Hulk loose on a city that could have killed a bunch of people, helping Ultron acquire vibranium, mind raping the team which prevented Natasha from being able to stop Bruce, and indirectly creating Ultron.

Doctor Strange:

  • cricri3007: The New York fight scene, or, as I call it: "The clusterfuck of so many trippy special effects I can't see who is doing what until the very last two minutes of the fight". There is "having nice special effects that make a scene more awesome", and there's "going overboard with them".
  • Capricious Salmon: I think Dr. Strange is a good movie, albeit not my favorite MCU film. However, there's one problem I have with it in particular and that's how rushed Strange's training is, to Mary Sue levels. There's always a constant pattern of Strange doesn't know how to do something and then he gets one lesson, and suddenly, he's mastered it to advanced levels! He can't make a circle with his hands? The Ancient One gives him one talk and suddenly he's an expert! He doesn't know how to astral project? He reads one book and suddenly he's an expert! The point of the movie was to show how Strange got to be Sorcerer Supreme, but they just breezed through the basics to get him to that point.

Spider-Man Homecoming:

  • immortalfrieza: The movie was fine, but Spidey's competence throughout the movie was all but nonexistent mostly just for the sake of cheap slapstick and it really dragged down a movie that would have been a lot better otherwise. No moment more clearly illustrates this than the fight against the ATM robbers. Any other version of Spider-Man including those just as young as this version and just as inexperienced would have effortlessly kicked these guys' asses in the space of about 10 seconds to a minute tops, likely before they even knew he was there. This Spider-Man instead walks straight up to them and announces his presence, then gets into a several minute long fight scene that ultimately results in the whole bank being destroyed along with a Deli across the street. It only gets much, much worse from there. I get that he's supposed to be young and new to this but come on, this Spider-Man is so green he looks like he got his powers an hour before the time of the movie with no attempt to train, not been active for months.
  • 227someguy: I also liked the movie as a whole, but what really bothered me was how Iron Man handled the ferry scene. The problem is how he blames Spidey for despite the fact that it was more his fault. First, he didn't give Peter a reason to avoid the Vulture aside from Because I Said So, scolded poor Peter for not listening to him, and didn't tell him about the FBI beforehand (that last one could've told Peter that he really did trust him). This scene really hurt my opinion of the character to point where he's become my least favorite Avenger (though admittedly, that's not the only reason).
  • Scsigs: I'm one of the people who wants the MCU to reference Uncle Ben. A lot of people think that we want the MCU to rehash Spider-Man's origin story, which we don't. We just wanna know he existed & had a profound effect on Peter's life like pretty much every other incarnation of the character. Have an actor take a picture for use in the MCU, film some flashback scenes, record some dialogue for later use, do something. None of the SM movies have done anything like this. Just introduce Spidey in Civil War, then make more movies like he's been there from the start. Basically, I think this movie's specific failing is letting Tony Stark overshadow Uncle Ben in Peter's life as his only role model and father figure. People are allowed to have multiple ones in life, so it wouldn't be a bad thing. Just have Peter see a picture of Uncle Ben after Stark takes the suit back before the dance and have Peter whisper the "With great power comes great responsibility" quote to himself with Tom Holland then being shown in deep thought about it and kicking himself for forgetting Ben's words. That's all that's needed, but the MCU is apparently allergic to doing something that simple and meaningful for Spidey.

Thor: Ragnarok

  • Zeh Monsieur: Take Animeking's criticism regarding The Dark World and amplify it; you now have my primary complaint with Ragnarok. I've seen my fair share of Taika Waititi's work and I speak from experience when I say his tragic moments shine just as bright as, maybe even better than his comedic work, so why is it that he's incapable of providing the same emotional honesty here? I could cite a good number of examples, but since that's against the rules, I'll target one moment that I feel best highlights this problem: Surtur's destruction of Asgard. Now, you'd imagine that our hero's homeworld, already stated to be a place of great importance on the cosmic scale being entirely annihilated would be given some sort of emotional seriousness, but no. Instead, they give Korg a bunch of dialogue about rebuilding Asgard for the sake of a cheap Tempting Fate gag that writes off the demise a place we've come to know over the years and still had space to build upon as just another joke in a movie already overstuffed with them. It's moments like these where I can understand where detractors are coming from when they say the MCU relies too heavily on comedy and whole-heartedly accept Black Panther delivering on its sober, serious premise.
  • 666metalupyourass: Thor: The Dark World gave us a hell of an ending with Loki sitting in the throne of Asgard with an evil smile, followed by Age of Ultron in which Thor had a vision of a ruined Asgard that made him suspect something is going on. We finally return to Asgard and find Loki ruling over it, using his power to... make a theater play about himself and eating grapes. And then Thor looks through his disguise so fast he makes the god of mischief look like three kids on a trenchcoat. Then, the once considered "Greatest comic book villain ever" spends the rest of the movie either doing nothing or helping the heroes. Well done, Marvel.

Avengers: Infinity War

  • Adept: This is probably a controversial choice, since I'm sure many people would consider this a Moment of Awesome, but for me, the movie killed all of its Willing Suspension of Disbelief when Captain America is somehow able to hold Thanos's punch, when the latter had already equipped 5 of the Infinity Stones. Captain America may be a Super-Soldier with enhanced strength and durability, but it's pretty much established that he's not as strong as The Hulk (or even Loki). Thanos is able to Curb Stomp Hulk with only the Power Stone, and having Captain America be able to withstand an attack that even The Hulk is unable to block, when Thanos is even stronger than he was during his fight against Hulk just screams bad writing for me. Don't get me wrong, I still liked the movie (for the most part), but having the characters' power levels fluctuate so wildly for the sake of convenience is one of my biggest pet peeve tropes in action series, especially when there is no justifiable explanation behind the event, other than the fact that the writers want to force in a "cool" scene.
    • Twoeyesshort: Same general complaint, but for me, the point at which it's clear author fiat is the only thing holding the movie together is the moon scene. For as epic as destroying a moon and raining chunks of it down on those pesky superheroes looks, it fails to be anywhere near as effective as such an event would reasonably be. Not to mention, it begs the question of why he didn't try that same basic trick pointing down, or demonstrate that kind of power with one of the numerous normal punches thrown. Then there's Iron Man blocking a raw blast from the same stone that blew up the moon with nothing but a shield made of nanites, Spider-man being able to hold Thanos back at all, Dr. Strange using way more powers than he was ever shown having just to keep pace with Thanos... the suspension of disbelief died along with Titan, it seems.
  • D Corp 123: The scene that really pulled me out of the movie was when Doctor Strange searches every possible outcome, there is only one in which Thanos is defeated. It ends up nullifying one of the most interesting parts of the movie, which is how the Avengers lost due to their own character flaws. If the only way for Thanos to be defeated is the events of the story, then scenes like Star Lord taking it out on Thanos and Thor not going for the head don't feel as tragic, because if these characters made the right decisions, Thanos still would've won. Overall, it ends up removing the character agency that made the tragedy of this film so engrossing.
    • Kevjro 7: This is also my moment but for a different reason. Strange saw 14,000,605 timelines and the Avengers only win in just one? That's something I simply cannot believe. My Willing Suspension of Disbelief was completely shattered over something so ridiculous.
  • TantaMonty: The fact that Bruce Banner has gone from a brilliant scientist with major anger issues to a moronic goofball who is not even taken seriously by the likes of Tony Stark and Shuri. I have not enjoyed any scenes where he is present, but if I have to pick the worst, it’s when he puts on the Hulkbuster armour and starts running across the Wakandan fields while screaming like an excited child. He also trips on a rock for a cheap gag, prompting Okoye to stare at him in utter disbelief, almost as if to lampshade how badly his character has been derailed.

Captain Marvel

  • Cynical Bastardo: The circumstances behind Nick Fury's Eye Scream. Did he lose it in some epic battle or torturous event? No. He got scratched by an alien after the film's major action set piece. Talk about a huge anti climax.
  • Scsigs: This movie is really a rushed mess. Clearly the people behind the MCU wanted to introduce Captain Marvel before Phase 3 ended. However, this is the weakest out of the introduction movies in Phase 3. Doctor Strange was ok, Homecoming was great, and Black Panther was freaking fantastic. However, this movie suffers from what those movies don't suffer from; letting the main character be human. Now, Carol Danvers is a human, but she doesn't act like it. It's a good thing Samuel L. Jackson was in this movie as a young Nick Fury because the best scenes with her are the ones where they are talking and Carol expresses emotions & isn't a stoic, smug know-it-all. Now, this movie has a solid foundation for which to base a plot off of and have character development for Danvers. She's essentially a fish out of water who doesn't realize she's not because she's actually from Earth, she just doesn't remember. And, she has to deal with a hardass leader who's lead by an evil AI who intend on conquering the galaxy. Two plots which come together well enough in the film, but there's a problem and that's the character writing and direction of Danvers. She's written to have the character arc of needing to get rid of her emotions to tap into the full potential of her powers, only to have those emotions be a better way to do so, which has been done before and hasn't been done in the MCU before. But, she's not written to be going through this character arc, as there's no throughline from A to C with a middle, yet there's lines towards the end when she fights her former commander and says lines that are unearned as moments where the audience is supposed to cheer in agreement. Carol is missing the meat of her character arc. The meat either wasn't included in the shooting script, weren't filmed, or got left on the cutting room floor. Not only that, but the direction the actress received wasn't sufficient to fill the missing stuff through her emotions. I hope the next movie for the character can be a better one for her.

Avengers: Endgame

  • dsneybuf: I purposely spoiled myself beforehand on who does and doesn't survive this movie, and came in unsure if I'd feel offended with Black Widow's death. When it occurred, I thought her Heroic Sacrifice seemed noble, and that Iron Man's sacrifice helped it feel less sexist than if all the male Avengers survived. Unfortunately, the scenes of Tony and Natasha receiving their dues feel very, very disproportional. All the MCU's major players, and then some, attend Tony's funeral, but only Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch pay Nat their respects. Why not combine the two ceremonies, or at least have everyone Nat saved stick around a while after Tony's funeral? Instead, they all come off as ungrateful bastards.
  • Retloclive: The Girl Power scene that was shoehorned into the final battle. It came off as such a forced moment that it just left me rolling my eyes at the thought that no one but the females all ended up in the exact same spot on the battlefield.
    • cricri3007: Not to mention that Captain Marvel is the last person who would need to be escorted. She plowed through Thanos's ship like it was nothing, and almost overpowered Thanos by herself. (The only member that would be useful to her would be Wanda)
  • Coda Fett: For this troper, the dethroning moment comes toward the end when it's all but stated that this sequence of events is the one timeline Doctor Strange saw where the Avengers win. And this implication that Strange planned for this to happen, signaling to Tony that he has to sacrifice himself. That's fucking nonsense because this film is a series of random events that didn't even have a villain until Thanos came from 2014 into 2023. There was never a plan and frankly I'm insulted that the film wanted to pretend there was.
    • Loekman 3: Not to mention that besides Tony dying, Natasha ended up having to sacrifice herself, the survivors had to live 5 years of grief due to losing their loved ones & the complications when said victims were suddenly revived (that the movie barely acknowledged) and there's also the damage to other timelines due to the unintentional damage from their time travel. If the present day Thanos still remained alive to this day or if there was a way to revive Loki, Gamora and Vision, then it might be an acceptable outcome but in light of this movie, frankly Strange putting much more effort into subduing Thanos or Thor finishing him off then and there would have had a far better outcome than this cause while the above three remain dead, at least nobody else will die pointlessly. Hell, said time travel plan is the reason that 2014 Thanos even invaded their timeline in the first place.
  • crowtr0bot: Killing Thanos in the first ten minutes of the movie was easily this film's biggest misstep. After getting to know him and see his character develop in Infinity War, he's slain with little fanfare after revealing he destroyed the Stones. As a consequence, the Final Battle ends up being with a Past Thanos who has none of his future self's Character Development, and comes across as more of a Generic Doomsday Villain than his Future Self. This also makes the final battle feel far more impersonal and less emotionally charged than it should be (since this Thanos never fought The Avengers or dusted half the universe before), and the Laser-Guided Karma of seeing Thanos dusted feels less... Karmic as a result.
  • Jadabunz: Two words: "Professor" Hulk. The last we see of the real Hulk is him getting thoroughly outclassed and stomped by Thanos in Infinity War, then he refuses to help the team again, making him look like a coward. But no, says the Word of God, he was just tired of being used to save everyone's ass at the last minute. So how does Banner deal with this issue? By communicating with Hulk? Forging a bond to strengthen both of them? No, he subsumes his entire personality, putting himself in the driver's seat permanently while also weakening Hulk's power (because, you know, physical strength and intelligence are mutually exclusive). Just like that, a beloved superhero becomes a one-note joke that isn't funny in the first place.
  • Kizuna Tallis: For me, the Dethroning Moment was Captain America's ending where he goes back in time to be with Peggy. In essence, he's abandoning his friends in the Avengers team, which is already a major "What the hell, Steve?!" on its own, but he's also leaving Bucky behind. Bucky, his best friend for whom he'd gone through hell trying to save from HYDRA, broke up his friendship with Tony over, and became a fugitive to keep him safe from the rest of the world. And that's not even getting into just how utterly out of character it would be for Steve to go back in time and just let history play out while knowing the tragedies and other horrible things that happened over the years while he was frozen in the Arctic to the people he had cared for, including HYDRA's infiltration of SHIELD, which Peggy and Howard founded, regardless of the whole "preserving the timeline" thing. And speaking of Peggy, it's really disheartening to watch the MCU's first major leading lady get reduced into nothing more than a Standard Hero Reward for Steve like this, especially given how her arc in her solo series focused on her moving on with her life, an effort that this ending renders meaningless.
  • TantaMonty: The whole treatment of Thor throughout the film. After he came this close to killing Thanos in Infinity War, the writers had to come up with a way to nerf him for this film, so the solution was to turn him into an obese, depressed shut-in. Despite his lamentable state, he is treated as little more than a one-dimensional You Are Fat joke, which in turn makes the other heroes look like a bunch of unsympathetic jerkasses. The moment that made me boil with rage was Rhodey’s stupid cheese whiz joke, which undermined a serious moment in which Thor was begging the others to let him use the Infinity Gauntlet so he could atone for his previous failure. This is up there with Ragnarok's "foundations" joke as one of the most tasteless gags in the entire franchise, and made me seriously wish something worse had happened to War Machine during Civil War.
  • SG_741: I'm going to put down the Tony Stark and Steve Rogers reconciliation. I want to be clear, my issue is not the fact that they reconciled. On the contrary, I hated the Avengers break up in the first place. (And to be honest, Civil War as a whole is my true DMOS for the franchise.) I'm listing this because of the fact that it simply happens. At the beginning of the movie, Tony lashes out at Steve over what went down between them two years prior. The next time the two share a scene, he's inviting him to stay for lunch. And then, when Tony joins Operation Time Heist, he returns the shield to Steve and voila, they're friends again! Okay. I presume the two of them must have talked about their issues at some point during the five-year time skip and made their peace. It would have been nice to have seen that. As it stands, we don't know what either character was thinking, and we're left with a cesspool of a fandom as a result. Civil War created a huge rift in the fandom that has never healed. Endgame had an opportunity to bridge that gap and didn't.
  • Darth Nox Is Cool: One of the most annoying aspects of the movie is the huge nerf Corvus and Cull Obsidian suffered. In the previous movie, even though they were secondary villains, they were still formidable enemies. In this movie they are not treated differently from Mooks, to the point that Cull Obsidian who is supposed to be at the level of the Hulk dies crushed by a weight that logically he should have easily supported, and Corvus who used to be stronger than Captain America is easily killed by a normal human.

Spider-Man: Far From Home

  • KeyofDestiny: As someone who always hated the MCU's constant omission of Uncle Ben, I at least give Homecoming some credit for alluding at him with certain scenes, it wasn't enough but it was something... And even that something is completely lacking in Far From Home. The last straw to me was Mysterio mentioning Tony's death as an example of Peter "not being good enough". Really? The MCU is really that committed to ignore Uncle Ben? Peter had nothing to do with Tony's death, it was his choice to do so, Uncle Ben's death on the other hand actually was Peter's fault and a result of him not being good enough. They had the perfect opportunity to mention Uncle Ben but instead choose to keep shoving that forced father-and-son bond between Peter and Tony down our throats. This was the moment that all but confirmed to me that Uncle Ben is even less than a footnote to Peter in the MCU, if he even exists at all that is.
  • Scsigs: I don't quite buy the attraction between Peter and Michelle in this movie. We're not given any information on how they grew to become attracted to each other since Homecoming. I think some flashbacks and expository dialogue throughout the film would've been nice because there's none in this movie. They barely interacted in Homecoming and nothing indicated an attraction between them. Not to mention that Michelle is less like Ally Sheedy's character from The Breakfast Club (with some not-so-subtle direct nods to that movie at one point in Homecoming), which is better because Zendaya seemed very out of her acting element in that movie. Honestly, with the half-baked love story, Petter being an idiot for no reason, and a few other things, this is a step down from Homecoming, even the first Amazing Spider-Man to me. Not bad, but far from the movie it should've been.
  • Gemidori: I'll have to come out and admit that I don't really agree with the direction that MCU Spider-Man has taken since day one (I for one am so sick of seeing him as a Kid Hero, thank you so much Spider-Man (PS4) for stopping that trend), to the point where I didn't even find myself enjoying (or really remembering) much of this particular film. The worst bit though, by far, would have to be the destruction of Uncle Ben's suitcase. Up until here it's essentially the one thing that even implies his existence within the MCU, and during one action sequence it winds up being destroyed. Would you like to know how Peter, Ben's nephew, responds to the last memento of the guy who essentially inspired him to become Spider-Man in the first place? I couldn't really tell you if he even felt anything. He doesn't give a damn. In truth, the whole thing is just played up as a joke, much like... I swear, 80% of this damn film, in which only about a quarter of it worked (the film starts off right away with a poorly done tribute to the fallen Avengers which... yeah, that one was both unfunny and disrespectful). As a lifelong Spider-Man fan, this swayed far beyond a joke and just becomes a full-on "fuck you" right to my face. It honestly drained any small bits of interest I may have had left in this iteration of my childhood hero, and made me realize that it may look like and be named after Spider-Man... but it just isn't Spider-Man in the soul. Back to rewatching the Raimi trilogy for me.
  • emilethetemplar: The fact that Talos and Nick Fury, the latter supposedly being one of the smartest people in the MCU (and the most paranoid according to Beck), gave EDITH to Peter is so insanely stupid I have trouble processing it. They just gave a 16 years old teenager the equivalent of the super weapon Hydra was trying to acquire in Winter Soldier without an instruction manual or even just telling him what the damn thing do. And after that predictably backfire when Peter almost blow a missile on a bus full of childrens, Talos has the balls to be angry at him? What was he expecting? This single plot point makes me like the whole movie a lot less than I would otherwise.

Black Widow

Eternals

  • Loekman3: The revelation that Earth is used as a vessel for a new Celestial before shattering into molten dust once they awaken pretty much turns every past MCU movies into a complete Shoot the Shaggy Dog. For years throughout the franchise, we experience and watch as our beloved superheroes defend Earth against all sorts of threats from local thugs to intergalactic invaders, but all those moment are rendered moot when it turns out that Earth will be destroyed anyway with our heroes knowing none the wiser about anything below the surface. Instead the fate of it depends on a group of superheroes that we barely knew about nor do they interact with our local heroes, lacking the nuances or time to individually develop each one of them that made them interesting. Now sure they ultimately manage to stop the Emergence but it still doesn't change the fact that all the heroes attempt at protecting the planet would been All for Nothing if the Eternals did their duties and let the planet burn for their creator's sake.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

  • Cookieman: I actually enjoyed this movie for the most part, but one thing that really really bugged me was how they communicated the Nick Fury situation. Remember in The Stinger from the previous movie where it was revealed that the "Nick Fury" that they interacted with was just Talos (a Skrull)? The same very Skrull that roped Peter Parker into helping Mysterio? Well, when Peter Parker tries to explain to Damage Control that Nick Fury can vouch for them, all they say was that he has been off-world for a year and just leave it there. Like, they were somehow aware that Nick Fury and Maria Hill weren't there, but didn't bother telling Peter Parker that the "Nick Fury" that were talking with was an alien. Yeah, it just seemed poorly hand-waved and I felt like they should've done a better job at bringing that up. Now some kid's going to be questioning what the hell happened to Nick Fury.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

  • Storygirl 000: After watching WandaVision and finding out she would be in this movie, I was excited to see how Wanda Maximoff's story would continue, especially in regards to her children and her possessing the Darkhold. Then the movie actually came out, and...they made her the Big Bad. They just threw all of the nuance WandaVision gave her out the window in favor of making her a stereotypical villainous Unstable Powered Woman, and they just killed her off at the end so now that nuance can't be explored again. Not only did this kill any interest I had in the movie, but it ended up being the death knell regarding my waning interest in the MCU; I haven't been interested in any movies in the franchise since then.
  • DevNameless: I enjoyed this movie just fine, though I can't say it's perfect. For me, the DMOS isn't really about me being enraged by it, but just me feeling like I lament the handling of a character that sold me on the movie, and that would be Gargantos. First off, I would like to say Shuma-Gorath has easily been my favorite villain in comics ever since I got hooked on him thanks to MvC. He may be a minor character in the scale of not showing up much, but I scream in joy every time I see him. So when I saw he was going to make an appearance in the MCU, It was one of the biggest moments of joy in my life. I didn't even mind if they had to change his name to Gargantos for the film because of rights problems, I figured he'd still be Shuma-Gorath in spirit. The main problem is the fact that he didn't feel like Shuma-Gorath in spirit when I actually saw the movie. I was hoping he was going to show off his prowess to the world as powerful, multi-dimensional deity and give Strange the fight of his life, being the intelligent and mighty Eldritch Abomination he was. What Gargantos turned out to be seemed more like a flat, lifeless monster, a pawn of Wanda, didn't get any real dialogue, and ended up killed by a lamp post to the eye. Unceremonious for me, to see a character of his caliber get reduced that much. I don't necessarily hate the idea of trying something different with a character, since the reinvention of Mandarin in Shang-Chi proved you could do it right and then some. It's just such a shame to me, because I don't think Gargantos leaves a good impact on viewers who haven't read the comics, so they won't be able to appreciate Shuma-Gorath like I've come to. There was a feeling he wasn't so much a character as he was a prop, like a boss in a shoot-em-up who shows up to mostly be an enemy to fight. There wasn't going to be a whole lot to remember about him, aside from people maybe going "Remember when Strange fought that tentacle thing", and that meant it was hard to get invested in the actual opponent in the fight and want to know more. And that's why I consider the handling to be a DMOS; Gargantos doesn't seem likely to get people interested in learning more about him or his comic book version.
    • Bartzv: Agreed. In fact, as a Doctor Strange fan (who also got into the character and his lore through MvC), I was turned off by how the film seemed to wanna be about anything but Doctor Strange. In addition to what they did to Shuma-Gorath, the fact that the only Mordo we see in the film is an alternate universe Mordo (this one is especially egregious considering the first film had set up MCU-Mordo to become a major villain) and that they introduced The Book of the Vishanti only to make it a Red Herring that gets destroyed in the end sealed the deal for me that the people in charge had no interest in making this a Doctor Strange story and had other priorities- like finishing Wanda's story from Wandavision and hyping up the new stuff they're working on. It feels like Doctor Strange and his lore (the few bits of it they used) are only in the film out of obligation since this is ostensibly supposed to be a sequel to his debut film.

Thor: Love and Thunder

  • Loekman3: Gorr taking the children hostage feels like nothing but an artificial tension just to give the Thor and audience a reason to even have a stake to hold. Like we heard that Gorr is stated to be killing gods so in the trailers, I was convinced that him killing innocent deities give Thor a legitimate reason to pursue him but besides the prologue, we never saw him do any of that onscreen, not even when Thor went to the Zeus along with most of the gods there. Instead the movie has to resort to the typical "bad guy kidnaps children for ransom" just to inflate the stakes at hand and then proceed to disappear from the movie until the time when Thor appear for them. I would have been more invested in the villain if we actually have scenes of him killing gods instead of being told that he kills them.

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