Missed MCU Opportunities

[fan4stic]

To me:

Several parts of Endgame. Like, for instance: How on earth do these hollywood writers have Nebula and Natasha in the same room, on the same team, and not have them become bonded over their similar histories of being taken, physically altered and trained to be killing machines? Along with the movie's use of time travel, creating rules for themselves, those rules being pointless really, and not taking the easiest route in just going and getting the stone from Thanos before he snapped. if they went with causal loop, rules would've had to be there and the fun that could come with a causal loop, like Howard knowing Tony would figure out the equation being because he met Tony in the 50's. Nebula not doing the finale snap against Thanos. Things not getting reset to the original time. Cassie not being Stature. Not building on Banner into him becoming Professor Hulk, with dealing with his childhood trauma of the death of his mom at the hands of his dad and how that's fractured his psyche. Doing fat Thor instead of delving into a more dramatic story about Thor having felt like he's never changed from the violent warmonger he was and maybe this ending with letting the others melt down stormbreaker (the reason why Thor needed it in this version being because Thanos' gauntlet was made out of uru metal), so they can use the uru of it to make another gauntlet. Captain Marvel not being more involved. Natasha dying. Steve and Natasha not getting together, and instead having Steve let go of Peggy by saying goodbye to her after her wedding to Sousa in the 50's, with Angie being revealed to be Tony's mom. Jane Foster and Betty not being in it really.

Lack of Ben in Spiderman Homecoming. Not more fleshed supporting cast.

Several things in FFH, lack of Ben among them. EDITH, yikes. Tony's importance, which links to the villain being connected to Stark.

Iron Man 3's villain not being Maya Hansen as the Mandarin who wants to enhance humanity using extremis to make it so humans can protect themselves and not developing Tony's connection to the ten rings.

Age Of Ultron's issues. Not delving into Banner's backstory with his abusive dad. And Tony being crazy. Thor not dealing with his feelings about his destructive past. Ultron being so jokey. etc. Betty not being in it. Banner/Natasha romance usage.

TDW's issues with Jane, Sif, Maliketh as a villain and the dark elves not being the slaves of Bor who rebelled, led by their noble leader Maliketh, who would become more twisted and soulless in his warring against asgard.

Ragnarok's issues with not dealing with the weight of some situations. Not filling out some Odin, Hela, Loki backstory, with Odin finding Loki as a baby being the reason he stopped his conquering and banished Hela. Not just having it so Loki had banished the Warriors Three and Sif. Other stuff.

Doctor Strange's evil magic crap. The movie being bland.

Captain Marvel and how that was constructed with it's main character and storyline.

The first Avenger's movie and it being more flippant and not building on the drama I think the story could have and drama the characters could have.

Black Panther's whole evil magic crap. And the movie having like a big war battle at the end, instead of a more personal set of fighting. T'Challa's intensity not being as prominent as I think it was in Civil War.

 

[Bayne]

Cassie not being Stature.

That one's a bit premature, don't you think? Ant-man three is still coming and we have confirmation of Ms. Marvel and Kate Bishop and Wanda's twins. Young Avengers is obviously going to happen in some form or other. Granted, AMATW was a bland place-holder of a movie, but it couldn't have made Cassie Stinger yet, anyway, because she was too young. Post-Endgame, she's old enough now, but it's understandable that Endgame had too much else going on to introduce her, too. And making that the central plot of Ant-man 3 is a far better introduction for her, anyway.

 

[Venom 1988]

Not filling out some Odin, Hela, Loki backstory, with Odin finding Loki as a baby being the reason he stopped his conquering and banished Hela.

Odin banished Hela long before Thor and Loki came into the picture.

Doctor Strange's evil magic crap.

Black Panther's whole evil magic crap.

???

 

[fan4stic]

That one's a bit premature, don't you think? Ant-man three is still coming and we have confirmation of Ms. Marvel and Kate Bishop and Wanda's twins. Young Avengers is obviously going to happen in some form or other. Granted, AMATW was a bland place-holder of a movie, but it couldn't have made Cassie Stinger yet, anyway, because she was too young. Post-Endgame, she's old enough now, but it's understandable that Endgame had too much else going on to introduce her, too. And making that the central plot of Ant-man 3 is a far better introduction for her, anyway.

I wanted that to be apart of Scott's character arc in Endgame. Scott feeling like being a hero has only ever cost him time with his daughter and wanting to quit. Cassie, having been the one who got Scott out of the quantum realm through her experimenting with the quantum tech in the 5 years, pushing forward the idea that him being a hero has been an example to her and her showing that in becoming Stature at the end. And then everything can be set back to the present, but everyone still remembers everything, and Cassie's now back in her child body, setting up stuff for the young Cassie actress in Ant-Man 3, so that actress isn't lost.

Odin banished Hela long before Thor and Loki came into the picture.

It can be written differently to where that's not the case and connect it more to the Thor and Loki characters and their situations.

 

[metaphysician]

Re: Hulk and Thanos, what exactly would be the point about a 'rematch'? Nothing had fundamentally changed that would alter the outcome.

 

[Mandon Knight]

Re: Hulk and Thanos, what exactly would be the point about a 'rematch'? Nothing had fundamentally changed that would alter the outcome.

Oh c'mon, we've all seen Rocky films

 

[Brian Braddock]

Not finding anywhere to use Hammer and Blonsky again, even though both actors wanted to return.

 

[Schlosser85]

- Justin Hammer never coming back

- Steve/Bucky's relationship needed more depth/development IMO. It feels shallow in both The First Avenger and Civil War, with the exception being The Winter Soldier. I think Bucky should have been in Steve's WWII flashback in Age of Ultron, and in Natasha's Red Room scene.

- Tom Holland not being given better material/a better supporting cast.

 

[Zarex]

Re: Hulk and Thanos, what exactly would be the point about a 'rematch'? Nothing had fundamentally changed that would alter the outcome.

Smart Hulk was about a foot shorter than the Savage version and lacking the anger issues that fueled the Other Guy. Thanos-Hulk 2 would have been a bigger mismatch than Bambi Meets Godzilla.

 

[Fincher]

- Steve/Bucky's relationship needed more depth/development IMO. It feels shallow in both The First Avenger and Civil War, with the exception being The Winter Soldier. I think Bucky should have been in Steve's WWII flashback in Age of Ultron, and in Natasha's Red Room scene.

I wanted a third solo movie without bringing the Avengers into it. Prior to that, I also wanted more focus on Steve adapting to being in modern day.

- Tom Holland not being given better material/a better supporting cast.

It isn't strictly speaking a missed opportunity yet since unless and until Spider-Man gets pulled from the MCU, hypothetically things could change and elements could be added, but yeah, the MCU Spider-Man for me has basically been one big missed opportunity. "MJ" in particular was a missed chance to do a more accurate Mary Jane, but maybe someday.

 

[Zarex]

Not finding anywhere to use Hammer and Blonsky again, even though both actors wanted to return.

I'd love to see them both come back as Thunderbolts. I could see Rockwell killing as a discount Iron Man (Mach 1?) with a malfunctioning super suit.

 

[SPO2 Dalisay]

Re: Hulk and Thanos, what exactly would be the point about a 'rematch'? Nothing had fundamentally changed that would alter the outcome.

Oh c'mon, we've all seen Rocky films

Rocky Balboa
"It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward"
Bruce Banner is not Rocky however and they used Steve Rogers for that story before the porthole opened up on his left.

 

[Immortalfire]

They still need to bring SuperPro into the fold

 

[B]

Played by Aaron Donald

 

[Web-Head]

• Lady Sif. Felt she was wasted and hope she's back for Thor 4
• Incredible Hulk. I know they didn't make a sequel bc of Universal but, not using the Leader or even bringing back Betty Ross for other Hulk appearances

 

[Spider-Fan83]

Endgame: Ant-man and Rocket going after the Tesseract stone from Nick Fury's office at S.H.I.E.L.D in the 90's and running into Goose

 

[T-Ray]

A major one for me:

Not using Scarlet Witch in Endgame. Ditch the time travel plot (it was a cheap copout, IMO).
They could have used the snappening at the end of IW to basically trim the cast, and they should have left Scarlet Witch alive for Endgame. She was being built as very powerful (her powers do come from an infinity stone after all) and she seemed to have a character arc planned but aborted at the last moment. Let's see: orphaned due to war, experimented on and given powers, manipulated by a robot (and she herself manipulated people), lost her brother when they switched to superhero side, being afraid of her immense powers, losing the love of her life to fricking Thanos (even if her powers were awesome, she still wasn't able to protect Vision and save the universe) and witnessing the destruction of the world as she knows it...

She should have been the key to defeating Thanos. She should have unleashed her powers at the end, warping the reality itself, defeating Thanos, and restoring the universe (of course, the new universe wouldn't be a perfect recreation of the one before snappening. Some characters wouldn't come back and there would be many "wrong" things with it, which could lead to more stories).

Basically, the Thanos incident should have been more impactful. Heroes weren't able to save the universe, but they did their best to avenge it. It will stay the dark chapter in the history of Avengers and make them warier of their flaws and virtues.

 

[SPO2 Dalisay]

A major one for me:

Not using Scarlet Witch in Endgame. Ditch the time travel plot (it was a cheap copout, IMO).
They could have used the snappening at the end of IW to basically trim the cast, and they should have left Scarlet Witch alive for Endgame. She was being built as very powerful (her powers do come from an infinity stone after all) and she seemed to have a character arc planned but aborted at the last moment. Let's see: orphaned due to war, experimented on and given powers, manipulated by a robot (and she herself manipulated people), lost her brother when they switched to superhero side, being afraid of her immense powers, losing the love of her life to fricking Thanos (even if her powers were awesome, she still wasn't able to protect Vision and save the universe) and witnessing the destruction of the world as she knows it...

She should have been the key to defeating Thanos. She should have unleashed her powers at the end, warping the reality itself, defeating Thanos, and restoring the universe (of course, the new universe wouldn't be a perfect recreation of the one before snappening. Some characters wouldn't come back and there would be many "wrong" things with it, which could lead to more stories).

Basically, the Thanos incident should have been more impactful. Heroes weren't able to save the universe, but they did their best to avenge it. It will stay the dark chapter in the history of Avengers and make them warier of their flaws and virtues.

I think beside War Machine, since Iron-Man's fate was unknown, and both Wasp to keep the Ant-Man temporarily out of play Infinity War ended how it did to give us the original comic Avengers as we went into Endgame. Moving the Scarlet Witch up would have worked against that basic story ideal.

 

[TheVileOne]

Yeah, that's a good one.

It's not a huge deal, but pretty much all of Civil War is treated like an afterthought in Infinity War. I realize bigger more important things were at stake, but it seems that they moved on from all that very quickly.

 

[TheVileOne]

Avengers Assemble animated series did have a Sam Rockwell style version of Justin Hammer in one episode.

 

[fan4stic]

Re: Hulk and Thanos, what exactly would be the point about a 'rematch'? Nothing had fundamentally changed that would alter the outcome.

Smart Hulk was about a foot shorter than the Savage version and lacking the anger issues that fueled the Other Guy. Thanos-Hulk 2 would have been a bigger mismatch than Bambi Meets Godzilla.

Rocky Balboa
"It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward"
Bruce Banner is not Rocky however and they used Steve Rogers for that story before the porthole opened up on his left.

Professor Hulk could be built to over the movie, where Hulk and Bruce reconcile in the climax, by acknowledging their shared existence and trauma of their dad's abuse and killing their mom (Bruce's self loathing of the Hulk being because he saw the Hulk as nothing but a violent vicious monster that's the part of himself that's like his dad) in front of them when Bruce was a child and how those feelings of grief, powerlessness, fear, pain and anger caused the Hulk persona (these feelings being the reason Hulk retreated, as he was faced with being powerless against Thanos the same way he felt against his dad as a child, which Bruce realizes, understanding that he's just his feelings as a child and not the part of him that's his dad), and in their reconciling they bond and become Professor Hulk, who uses his intelligence in combination with his strength to battle Thanos, as a symbolic facing of their childhood trauma and their dad.

 

[Dark Raven]

I think a true comic Savage Hulk would not have been afraid of Thanos even if he had been beaten once before. His animalistic rage would've taken over and he would've kept fighting until he became stronger and stronger and found a way to beat him. Professor Hulk is more likely to be fearful and to over analyse.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Not 'missed opportunity' as such, but a 'wish they hadn't' thing and I just wish they hadn't 'connected' or tied Iron Man to Spider-Man's 'dependency' and heritage as much. He isn't Iron Kid, he's Spider-Man and Uncle Ben's standing in Peter's life (which you can refer to without having to show origin again) was virtually non-existent and you also lost Peter's own science resilience & initiative as a result.

Yeah, I have a number of others but this is the biggest one for me. Uncle Ben should be a much bigger part in the MCU Spiderman's life and should not be as dependant on Iron Man as he is.

 

[fan4stic]

I think a true comic Savage Hulk would not have been afraid of Thanos even if he had been beaten once before. His animalistic rage would've taken over and he would've kept fighting until he became stronger and stronger and found a way to beat him. Professor Hulk is more likely to be fearful and to over analyse.

Only if you view the hulk as animalistic and not the fractured part of Bruce Banner's personality that represents his feelings of powerlessness, anger, pain and such, connected to his feelings as a child witnessing his mom's murder at the hands of his dad.

 

[TheVileOne]

The MCU never explored that part of Bruce's personality.