That's a terrible example.
The original Star Wars trilogy was conceived as a series of sequels one at a time. The MCU was conceived as a cohesive universe made up of a combination of franchises. They are about as different as can be.
If you want other examples, I can give you them. MOS is a very recent example. It established a larger universe with small easter eggs (Wayne Enterprises logo, LexCorp logos, Cyborg reference, etc.) while still keeping the film a Superman-centered story with no screen time wasted for setting up JL. The first two MCU solo films (Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk) did the same thing. Iron Man 3 stood on its own for the most part and still further built the Marvel universe with things like AIM. Even Fox with The Wolverine has set up things for Days of Future Past and for the future but the film still stands on its own as a first and foremost Wolverine story with nothing to distract or take away from the story at hand.
Why can't the rest of MCU solo films
both stand on their own while still further building up the universe? Why did Iron Man 2 (and Thor and CA:TFA as well but to a
far lesser extent than IM2) have to be more of an Avengers promo instead of an Iron Man film that still accomplishes the same result?
Like most of your arguments so far, this is highly debatable.
And frankly, what exactly do you expect from films that exist in a greater universe among each other? Are you disappointed at the lack of focus on Spider-Man when Johnny Storm or Dr. Strange make an appearance in his comic? I mean, characters come in and out of other character's title comics all the time. Just because you aren't used to it in superhero movies before the MCU came around doesn't mean it's the wrong thing to do...
I expect these films to be able to looked at on their own instead of being seen as just Avengers promos. Easter eggs and other references are fine as long as they don't take away from the whole overall story or hurt the potential of the overall story, which was the case with at least 3 films in Phase One.
There is a world of difference between comics doing this and films doing this. These characters have been established to exist in the comics for over 50 years and have had a huge number of stories by now that all developed their mythos. Comics can do that because they have reached a point where they can. Movies often have only 2 hours to develop the character at hand and his/her mythos and the first film is often just an origin story. It would be the equivalent of characters like Dr. Strange and the Avengers showing up in Peter Parker's origin or in one of his very first major adventures as Spider-Man.
Again, it sounds like your representing your personal opinions as the general public and fan's opinions.
And I don't think you can really say that the public didn't love Iron Man 3 when they spent over a billion dollars to see it...
We will never fully know what the GA thinks of each film unless we go out there and ask every single person that exists what they thought of these movies. However, there are samples that have been taken that give us a basic idea of what the GA thought overall of each film. One example is the audience score on websites like RT. Iron Man and The Avengers are the only ones with a "loved" score, being higher than 90%. Even Iron Man 3 can be considered as "loved" by the audience since it has an 81% score (I forgot to mention this in my last post, sorry).
For the record, I'm not saying that the quality of a film is determined by how much the GA overall liked it.
How exactly was the Red Skull watered down?
When was his motivation in the comics EVER more than world domination or destruction in some capacity? Hell, they had the guy kill people (even his own men) in cold blood in that film.
Granted, Red Skull could have benefited from a little more screen time and character development or motivation...but what did you expect? Did you want him to be just blowing people's heads off left and right?
His motivations was not the issue. On top of the fact that he didn't really feel all that terrifying, they ignored some very serious dark themes that come with his character. In the comics, the Red Skull was a terrifying racist and fascist on the same level as Hitler. If anything, he had more radical beliefs than even him. Not once did we see that fascist side of the character. They dropped that aspect altogether to make the film more family friendly.
Your argument might be that it is a good thing to make the film more family friendly. However, I personally believe that it wouldn't have been a problem. The Joker blew up hospitals and massacred people yet TDK still broke all box office records.
