WandaVision Is this show making Age of Ultron a better/more important film?

[TheVileOne]

I would say no. I feel more like this show gave us a better sense of Wanda Maximoff as a person and a character, a lot more so than Age of Ultron ever did.

Spoiler

This time we actually got to see her experience of losing her parents and her home. We got to feel it rather than just being told.

But I also feel on its own it made Wanda grow as a character and actually become the Scarlet Witch and ascend in a way previous movies never did. If anything, I think Age of Ultron held back with Wanda.

I mean in Age of Ultron or Civil War or Avengers, it's like Wanda can't get a traditional costume. As an audience we just accept it because that's just sort of the thing with a lot of comic book movies. But in WandaVision she gets it and it looks cool without looking really risque or skimpy. I think they found a good compromise to give her the comic costume but also update it.

But that said it does make sense how she created the costume. Her chaos magic can warp and alter reality, it can transmute matter, so she can basically use her regular clothes and magically transmute them into her Scarlet Witch costume. So arguably, we needed to see Wanda grow as a character and with her powers to get the costume, but at least it finally happened.

 

[TheFanGuy]

AoU would've benefitted if they setup what happened to the twins and their parents with the Stark bomb before the actual movie started. This scene was missing but was presented in WV. Made the movie better and their motivation make sense.

 

[DarkKnight88]

It kind of reminds me when people brought up that Avengers: Endgame made Thor: The Dark World a better movie because of all the callbacks with Thor and his mother. The Dark World, along with Age of Ultron, are the worst of the MCU movies.

WandaVision and Endgame don't make the experience of watching those movies any better. All it does is take the stronger ideas in them and execute them better by calling back to them in more interesting ways.

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

I may be alone in this, but I do feel another movie in a series can make previous installments stronger/weaker.

In this case, yes. A small amount better. Knowing more about Wanda's past makes it more enjoyable to watch AoU. And certainly substantially more important.

One line sticks out for me:
"The Scarlet Witch is not born, she is forged."

Which to me says... Hydra, Stark, The Infinity Stones, the love of and death of her brother, and of The Vision... They all had a hand in crafting the Scarlet Witch.

Specifically, the evils that Hydra was dabbling in directly unlocked something in her that otherwise wouldve been left dormant. I think that is so cool and makes Hydra's role in AoU feel much more impactful.

Also the sheer fact that all of that put Wanda in the room with Stark, setting him down the path toward Civil War and Infinity War... oof. wow.

Similarly I think Star Wars Episodes 1, 2, 8 and 9 bring down the series as a whole and make me just care far less about the universe. Or for instance, Deadpool 1 and 2 make Origins: Wolverine a *smidge* more palatable retroactively.

(one more example Game of Thrones season 8 made previous seasons worse specifically Bran's story)

 

[scarlet-witch]

I've always enjoyed AOU, I actually prefer it to the first Avengers even though I know I'm in the minority there. I like that this show is adding to it so much and hopefully making people revisit it and maybe enjoy it a bit more. I always thought it was treated harshly. (Though some of it is deserved)

 

[Fosterson]

I know I'm a bit late to the party but I certainly think that a lot of things that were set up in AoU have ended up having cool pay-offs down the road.

Certainly, Tony's nightmare scene served as great foreshadowing for IW/EG, with even stuff like Cap's shield being cut in half being borne out in those movies. It also perfectly set up Tony's sacrifice as in his vision he was the only Avenger left alive (which he told Nick Fury was the "worst part") and in the end he had to give up his life so that everyone else could live.

 

[steamed hams]

Also late to the thread but for me Wandavision has added a lot to AoU. I'm not sure if it makes me want to rewatch it anymore though, and to be honest it's not one of the MCU films I tend to revisit. I think sometimes sequels can make earlier films more enjoyable to watch but probably not in this case. For example I enjoy watching the Bourne Identity much more since I saw Supremacy.

The scene with Wanda and Vision at the Avengers complex in the Wandavision flashbacks was also done very well and for me their relationship in Infinty War makes a lot more sense now. That's not a criticism of IW it's just that Wandavision has enabled more screen time to develop their relationship which can be difficult in the ensemble films.

 

[Mr. Peanut]

The MCU as a whole is becoming more and more of a narrative web, it feels odd to single out a single instance of one story connecting to and building on another. WandaVision alone connects to so many different MCU stories it's kind of insane.

 

[metaphysician]

The MCU as a whole is becoming more and more of a narrative web, it feels odd to single out a single instance of one story connecting to and building on another. WandaVision alone connects to so many different MCU stories it's kind of insane.

Huh. Not to give too much credence to "connections" as an important thing ( they are important, but more for how they allow better development of character rather than any mechanical plot ties ), but. . .

Thinking about it, what piece of the MCU is the *least* connected to the rest? I mean, even Eternals has strong ties to Thanos and Infinity War/Endgame, and weaker but still present ties to GotG and the cosmic milieu more generally. And that's for a movie whose premise is almost specifically "Lets do our own weird separate thing".

 

[Mr. Peanut]

Huh. Not to give too much credence to "connections" as an important thing ( they are important, but more for how they allow better development of character rather than any mechanical plot ties ), but. . .

Thinking about it, what piece of the MCU is the *least* connected to the rest? I mean, even Eternals has strong ties to Thanos and Infinity War/Endgame, and weaker but still present ties to GotG and the cosmic milieu more generally. And that's for a movie whose premise is almost specifically "Lets do our own weird separate thing".

Well, in terms of connections proportionate to the age of the film, the original Hulk film is easily the least connected to other stories in the MCU. But even with that we've seen the return of General Ross and Abomination (although the latter doesn't have an important role...yet). And, of course, Hulk himself. I expect at some point we'll see a follow-up to the Leader plot thread, similar to how Shang Chi followed up on the "real Mandarin" plot thread from Iron Man 3.

 

[Nathaniell]

While I agree that AoU has its weak moments but it also has strong moments too. The best parts were Wanda/Scarlet Witch's introduction along with her brother Pietro and I for one hope to gods we see him again in some form so Wanda can finally have closure with the loss of her brother. He was all that she truly had left in her life before he was killed by Ultron. Still, after watching WandaVision, it made me go back and re-watch AoU and Civil War back to back. I gotta say, I felt more for Wanda than I ever did.