Do Marvel trilogies tell a complete story?

[Primal Slayer]

I've been doing another rewatch of the Marvel universe and of course in order of in universe "history". But it had me thinking of when I redo my next watch, watching every separate trilogy by itself to see how they hold up on their own...

So basically...has Marvel been "successful" enough with each of these trilogies (or quadrilogies in Avengers case) where each tell a heroes full journey without necessarily having to watch other films to get a sense of completion? How important is it that each characters solo franchises tell a complete journey?

 

[The Batman]

So far? Nope, IMO.

Looking at the Avengers trinity for example...the first two Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America films feel relatively self contained, but with their respective third movies, you definitely needed to have seen the characters Avengers appearances to fully appreciate the story being told.

As for Avengers, I feel like you definitely need to watch Civil War and even Ragnarok before seeing Inifinity War.

 

[Batmannerism]

So far? Nope, IMO.

Looking at the Avengers trinity for example...the first two Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America films feel relatively self contained, but with their respective third movies, you definitely needed to have seen the characters Avengers appearances to fully appreciate the story being told.

As for Avengers, I feel like you definitely need to watch Civil War and even Ragnarok before seeing Inifinity War.

I agree with most of the above.

If there had been no more Thor stories after Ragnarok then that would have been the closest to a complete and independent trilogy, ( other than the Hulk story) with a satisfying resolution- or if GOTG vol 3 takes place in 2014 or 2015 ( because both vol1 and vol 2 occur in 2014) then that would be a complete trilogy.

Civil War is too interconnected to other films and doesn't resolve Cap's story, so it prevents his trilogy from being completed- it also undoes the end of Iron Man 3, which actually could have been a complete trilogy ( although not a very good one, strong start but not followed up well at all).

 

[Fosterson]

I think Cap's three movies function really well as a trilogy, actually. The arc he goes on, from a little kid in Brooklyn who just wants to serve his country and stop bullies, to learning to distrust the power structures he's been serving, and eventually going rogue altogether in Civil War to protect his friend, tearing the Avengers apart in the process. Just because we see him again in IW, doesn't mean that you can't watch the 3 Cap movies on their own and enjoy Cap's arc in them.

 

[Fosterson]

Civil War is too interconnected to other films and doesn't resolve Cap's story, so it prevents his trilogy from being completed- it also undoes the end of Iron Man 3, which actually could have been a complete trilogy ( although not a very good one, strong start but not followed up well at all).

I don't see how Civil War undid the ending of Iron Man 3, at least if you're referring to Tony blowing up all his suits. It was AoU that magically gave Tony a bunch of new armours without any explanation. At least they mention Tony trashing all his suits in CW.

And seriously: I couldn't care less about IM3 anyway, and I doubt anyone would have preferred Tony's ending in the MCU to be the conclusion to IM3 rather than his heroic sacrifice and death. And I'll honestly say that CW was the movie that saved Tony for me as a character. I hated how obnoxious he was (even by his own standards) in AoU and how he really didn't seem to feel any guilt for creating a genocidal monster that nearly destroyed the world.

 

[Batmannerism]

I don't see how Civil War undid the ending of Iron Man 3, at least if you're referring to Tony blowing up all his suits. It was AoU that magically gave Tony a bunch of new armours without any explanation. At least they mention Tony trashing all his suits in CW.

And seriously: I couldn't care less about IM3 anyway, and I doubt anyone would have preferred Tony's ending in the MCU to be the conclusion to IM3 rather than his heroic sacrifice and death. And I'll honestly say that CW was the movie that saved Tony for me as a character. I hated how obnoxious he was (even by his own standards) in AoU and how he really didn't seem to feel any guilt for creating a genocidal monster that nearly destroyed the world.

Let me respond to that in parts

1) IMO Civil War undoes the ending of IM3, because at the end of IM3 Tony blows up all his suits and looks like he's going to settle down with Pepper.
However in Civil War, during a heart to heart chat with Cap he reveals that he cannot stop being Iron Man, and doesn't want to ( which is why he and Pepper are on " a break").

Now I hated Iron Man 3 as a film, and equally loathed Pepper Potts as a character. I was hoping that speech in Civil War was the end of her.

2) IMO RDJ's performance in Civil War is his finest as Iron Man because we see behind the facade of Tony's ego - not in the ridiculous way he had panic attacks in IM3, but in a believable way that shows how conflicted he is and where it's clear he feels enormous guilt over Ultron, which is why he so easily agrees to the Sokovia accords.

I too had lost a lot of interest in Iron Man - because after having a transformative experience while captive in that cave, IM2 , M 3 and to some degree AoU have him turn back into the ******* he started of as, and it was getting old.

Then came Civil War, with a more nuanced version of Tony, played brilliantly by RDJ. Very similar to your reaction, Civil War made Iron Man interesting and compelling again for me.

 

[GREEN =w= DAY]

Outside of the Captain America trilogy, the rest of the trilogies only serve to connect with other films to build up the MCU

 

[Fosterson]

Let me respond to that in parts

1) IMO Civil War undoes the ending of IM3, because at the end of IM3 Tony blows up all his suits and looks like he's going to settle down with Pepper.
However in Civil War, during a heart to heart chat with Cap he reveals that he cannot stop being Iron Man, and doesn't want to ( which is why he and Pepper are on " a break").

I still don't agree that CW alone undid the ending of IM3 though. Again, it was AoU that gave him a bunch of new suits and thereby completely reversed his choice at the end of that movie. I always got the impression that Whedon hated that decision by Shane Black and that that was why he didn't even bother to show us Tony building a new suit in AoU.

Now I hated Iron Man 3 as a film, and equally loathed Pepper Potts as a character. I was hoping that speech in Civil War was the end of her.

I wouldn't say that I hate IM3. Rather, I find it deeply frustrating because it's a movie that had enormous potential but completely failed to deliver. Sometimes, I go back and watch the fake Mandarin videos with Ben Kingsley just to soak in how awesome they are and remind myself of what a great villain we could have had, instead of just another generic evil businessman rival to Tony.

I don't completely agree with you on Pepper. While the ending of the movie would have had more weight if she had died, we would have never got Dad Tony in EG and seeing Pepper in the Rescue armour was awesome.

2) IMO RDJ's performance in Civil War is his finest as Iron Man because we see behind the facade of Tony's ego - not in the ridiculous way he had panic attacks in IM3, but in a believable way that shows how conflicted he is and where it's clear he feels enormous guilt over Ultron, which is why he so easily agrees to the Sokovia accords.

I too had lost a lot of interest in Iron Man - because after having a transformative experience while captive in that cave, IM2 , M 3 and to some degree AoU have him turn back into the ******* he started of as, and it was getting old.

Then came Civil War, with a more nuanced version of Tony, played brilliantly by RDJ. Very similar to your reaction, Civil War made Iron Man interesting and compelling again for me.

Yeah, I totally agree with this.

 

[Drizzle]

Outside of the Captain America trilogy, the rest of the trilogies only serve to connect with other films to build up the MCU

The Captain America trilogy does that too. In fact, I'd argue that the Cap trilogy connects to the greater MCU more than the Iron Man trilogy. Apart from the post credit scenes in all three movies, the SHIELD subplot with Fury and Widow in IM2 and Tony's PTSD stemming from the Battle of New York in IM3, the Iron Man movies don't rely on MCU world building that much. You don't have to watch The Avengers in order to understand Iron Man 3, although it helps. Civil War, on the other hand, can be hard to follow without having first seen Age of Ultron beforehand. Same with watching The Winter Soldier before Avengers, to a lesser extent. But besides that, Civil War also sets up Black Panther, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Ant-Man and the Wasp. It also ends on a bit of a cliffhanger that isn't resolved until Endgame.

I have to wonder if we'll ever see a trilogy within the MCU that stands on its own without having to have seen any other films in order to fully understand the story. I suppose the closest we've gotten were the first two Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Those two were mostly self contained. Of course with everything that happened over IW and Endgame (as well as Love and Thunder I'm sure), Vol. 3 will be much different than 1 & 2.

 

[Batmannerism]

I still don't agree that CW alone undid the ending of IM3 though. Again, it was AoU that gave him a bunch of new suits and thereby completely reversed his choice at the end of that movie. I always got the impression that Whedon hated that decision by Shane Black and that that was why he didn't even bother to show us Tony building a new suit in AoU.



I wouldn't say that I hate IM3. Rather, I find it deeply frustrating because it's a movie that had enormous potential but completely failed to deliver. Sometimes, I go back and watch the fake Mandarin videos with Ben Kingsley just to soak in how awesome they are and remind myself of what a great villain we could have had, instead of just another generic evil businessman rival to Tony.

I don't completely agree with you on Pepper. While the ending of the movie would have had more weight if she had died, we would have never got Dad Tony in EG and seeing Pepper in the Rescue armour was awesome.

Yeah, I totally agree with this.

Honestly, I never liked Pepper as a character - even with the armour, I hated the way she took out Mandarin/Killian so easily and.....I could go on with a list of things about Pepper, but she's a terribly written character, she exists to fret and fuss and nag Tony until the script needs her to do something totally out of character ( like fight expertly using unstable super powers she's just acquired - didn't those soldiers actually train with the extremis tech ?- or operate sophisticated armour in battle like a boss, again it took Tony a while to get good at using the armour, but nah girl power right ? ).

Yeah, anyway, you're totally right that AoU actually undoes the ending of IM3, but never refers to it - in fact Tony does a 180 from IM3 and builds a bunch of robots and a suit to fight the Hulk.

For some reason I tend to forget about AoU, mostly because it had almost no lasting consequences, other than adding Scarlet Witch and Vision to the team, and Tony's conscience getting a bit more burdened - although this is a guy who made billions selling heinous weapons.....I mean, yeah Ultron was a huge **** up but he should also feel a bit guilty for all the civilians who had been massacred by his customers between 1990 and 2008, when he was involved with Stark Industries ( who included 3rd world arms dealers, terrorists and the US military).

Anyway, Civil War actually addresses the issue in a sensible way and with a few lines of dialogue that are consistent with the character and his motivations. That's because Civil War was made by guys who seem to get the Avengers and understand that characters like Tony and Cap, who are human beings, have to act like human beings in order to be relatable.

 

[The Batman]

The Captain America trilogy does that too. In fact, I'd argue that the Cap trilogy connects to the greater MCU more than the Iron Man trilogy.

It definitely does. If anything, the Cap Trilogy is the trilogy that is most used to build up the wider MCU. They literally put some of the most important MCU events in the Cap trilogy, like the fall of SHIELD, and the breakup of the Avengers.

And like you mentioned, the Guardians franchise has been the closest thing to a truly self contained trilogy. It's been way better than the Cap trilogy in that regard.

 

[NotNickFury]

Not complete, no. At least, you can't go from one to two to three and the story feel whole. For example, the PTSD that Tony goes through in Iron Man 3 can't be explained if you're coming straight off of Iron Man 2. You need The Avengers in-between to understand his arc. Plus, First Avenger is about as far removed from Winter Soldier and Civil War.

It's sort of a good and bad thing, personally, when it comes to these films because while it's good that characters get their stories told in their own films, you can't get a full sense of them without watching the Avengers films. Cap's stance on freedom versus security is touched upon in The Avengers, but fully expanded upon in Winter Soldier. You wouldn't even need to see First Avenger.

 

[Spider-Fan83]

true, you can't really look at these movies as traditional "trilogies" as most the stories lead up to a crossover movie in-between the movies breaking up the story arc

however if you look at the Avengers movie as a sequel (I.e. Iron man, Iron man 2, Avengers) as being the "trilogy" (with Iron man 3 being more of a sequel to Avengers, or even as a stand alone creating a new story arc) I do think there is a complete story arc there for the characters

 

[First Avenger]

You can't really go from Iron Man 2 to Iron Man Three without watching the Avengers, you can't go from Thor the dark world to Thor Ragnarok without watching Age of Ultron, you can't go from Age of Ultron to infinity War without watching Civil War and Ragnarok at least and so on. I mean imagine going from Doctor Strange to the upcoming Multiverse of Madness! So I don't believe each individual franchise as a complete story. It's not and issue for me as I'm a sucker for Everything MCU, but I see how some of the general audience might get confused.

 

[Heretic]

Trilogies are stupid. At some point people decided that it sounded cool and now people assume that franchises need 3...and only 3...films. A franchise should have as many good movies as they can create. If that's 2...wonderful...if it's 4...wonderful.
And no, they dont.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

No but it was never the intention to have nice and neat self-contained trilogies.

The MCU was supposed to encourage casual fans to watch as many movies as possible.

 

[Lucky woman]

No but it was never the intention to have nice and neat self-contained trilogies.

Exactly. The creators of the universe themselves made it so that the viewer could not be satisfied after watching only one trilogy. Therefore, at the end of each movie there is a reference to the next movie. Therefore, heroes constantly appear in other films, at least for a few minutes. And to understand everything, you need to watch all the films. Then there will be a complete picture in my head, and not fragmentary episodes.

 

[The_Manhunter]

No. But it doesn’t bother me at all.

 

[InCali]

Nope. If you want to watch a trilogy, watch LotR.

 

[Web-Head]

Not really. like others said, you can watch the first two films in each franchise but after that you'll need to watch the other movies to get a better idea of what's going on.

I think the Guardians trilogy could have, but now you absolutely need to watch Infinity War and Endgame to know what's going on.

 

[Yowza]

Not really. No.

 

[LivingBrocholy]

I've been doing another rewatch of the Marvel universe and of course in order of in universe "history". But it had me thinking of when I redo my next watch, watching every separate trilogy by itself to see how they hold up on their own...

So basically...has Marvel been "successful" enough with each of these trilogies (or quadrilogies in Avengers case) where each tell a heroes full journey without necessarily having to watch other films to get a sense of completion? How important is it that each characters solo franchises tell a complete journey?

Not really. The Mandarin of Iron Man 3 has nothing to do of what it was presented the first film. Captain America trilogy is the best but it doesn´t have a main plot. Thor trilogy can have a plot. A cocky prince that lost almost everything (his pride, mother, father, kingdom) but the third film is a crossover like Captain America 3. Spiderman is the same. Interesting that they tried to sell this Spiderman as something different because the story is well known while the trilogy itself ended up as a origin story. Origin story whose third film has nothing to do with the first one.

 

[metaphysician]

Honestly, its a question that misses the real point: Marvel doesn't actually do *trilogies*, not on a narrative level ( an overarching story where the three movies compose the first, second, and third act of said story ). Thus, Marvel's "trilogies" don't "tell a complete story", because they were never trying to do so, and weren't trying to be trilogies, in the first place. Insofar as they happen, its purely because "three movies" is an easy to market expected thing, and probably somewhere near the limit on how many solo movies you could do for a single actor within a contractually-relevant time frame. Doubly so since implicit in the term "complete story" is that a story eventually ends, and the MCU is pretty predicated on the anthithesis, that there is no ending to the story.

 

[Mr. Peanut]

^This. Each movie is part of a larger narrative web that can only be fully appreciated by watching the whole.


The way I see it, if you want a streamlined viewing of any given character's particular journey, you should watch all the movies that character appears in. For instance, if you want to marathon the story of Tom Holland's Spider-man, you could watch Civil War, Homecoming, Infinity War, Endgame, Far From Home, and No Way Home. But to just watch Homecoming, Far From Home, and No Way home in isolation? Doesn't make much sense to do it that way.

 

[metaphysician]

As an aside, I would also say that most "trilogies" in movies are similarly nothing of the sort. They are just a movie with two sequels, they weren't designed as a cohesive story told in three parts. Insofar as they can work as three acts of a story, its all improvised and retroactive. It mostly only exists in adaptations of books, where the original work is already done before they even started making the movie ( and where, even if the original works weren't intended as a narrative trilogy, the director and screenwriter can make it one in the adaptation ).