Why do we watch the MCU?

[RileyBox]

Hello members of SuperHeroHype! My name is Riley Box and I am a graduate student at the University of Wyoming doing research for my thesis about why people like superhero movies. In order to do my research, I need to ask my fellow fans two questions. Please answer the questions in full sentences and include as much information as you would like. The time requirement to do this is solely up to you. Risks for participating are relatively non-existent except for if you get emotional while reliving memories. The benefits for participating is potentially learning about why and how audiences continue to love and watch the MCU as well as allowing yourself to freely express your opinions. You are not required to answer any questions and you may stop at any time. You are also not required to include any personal information in order to maintain confidentiality. If you have any questions, you may contact me at [email protected]. By responding to the thread, you are verifying your consent to participate in this project. Thank you for your assistance!

Question 1: Why do you watch movies within the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Question 2: Why are you a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

 

[RileyBox]

For anyone seeing this, it would mean a lot to me if you all responded. It would help me with my thesis! Thank you sooooo much to anyone who helps.

 

[kjwan]

Riley Box, in response to your questions. I feel the reason I got into enjoying superhero stories from a young age (not necessarily Marvel) is the characters were inspirational, and there's also an element of wish fulfillment which may be the case for most fans; to see ourselves as outwardly ordinary, yet possessing great power through which we can make changes in the world; to alter things and fight where in real life, we cannot.

Q1: to follow on from the above, characters are therefore avatars onto which we can project ourselves. Though DC is my preferred studio, I appreciate the humanity of Marvel's characters. DC's characters have mostly been interpretations of the god/goddess archetypes whereas Marvel's characters are firmly rooted in humanity. This gives any victory over existential threats more gravitas, I feel, as they go on a more relatable journey.

For example: Superman is my favourite character and even with that said in some terms he's as unrelatable as he is relatable: for the relatable, he's an outsider who wants to fit in, he has a need to belong and strives to do the right thing to honor his upbringing, however he's also an invulnerable Sun God with contrived weaknesses and only opponents who possess supernatural abilities, or superior strength can take him down. Given his stats, that's not a relatable character and sits firmly in the wish fulfilment column.

Compare him with Sentry: he's another Sun God archetype of immense power, however, his nemesis is himself, he is both Sentry, and the Void. The question has been asked who is the real person...Robert Reynold's own inner turmoil compels him to create different personalities to deal with this, so his mental health issues make him more relatable.

So, in the Marvel films you see this group of conflicting and very human characters overcoming themselves and a greater obstacle to ultimately work together. We can empathise with them to a greater degree than with DC characters; Banner's anger issues which result in destruction and self-isolating; Stark's ego and narcissism which nearly costs him his life etc. Thor is an interesting one, as I'm a fan of myth and the 'god finding their humanity' stories. As Branagh said when directing Thor, it's Shakespeare: two brothers, one adopted, seeking the approval of their Father and vying for the throne...loyalty, trust, betrayal, redemption etc. All things we understand and it just so happens the protagonist is a god. (To be fair, the Justice League animated series featured those themes brilliantly in the three part 'Starcrossed' story).

Q2: I stopped watching after Winter Soldier, which was an excellent piece of political intrigue that happened to feature Captain America. Sadly, I feel that the latter stories became diluted with plot holes you can drive a herd of elephants through, and were just content to promote the next movie. No soul, just style.

 

[psylockolussus]

Entertainment.

 

[CyclopsSummers]

Because we 're waiting for X-men coming
Mutants already exist in 616MCU. Just need to include them

 

[Drizzle]

Hello members of SuperHeroHype! My name is Riley Box and I am a graduate student at the University of Wyoming doing research for my thesis about why people like superhero movies. In order to do my research, I need to ask my fellow fans two questions. Please answer the questions in full sentences and include as much information as you would like. The time requirement to do this is solely up to you. Risks for participating are relatively non-existent except for if you get emotional while reliving memories. The benefits for participating is potentially learning about why and how audiences continue to love and watch the MCU as well as allowing yourself to freely express your opinions. You are not required to answer any questions and you may stop at any time. You are also not required to include any personal information in order to maintain confidentiality. If you have any questions, you may contact me at [email protected]. By responding to the thread, you are verifying your consent to participate in this project. Thank you for your assistance!

Question 1: Why do you watch movies within the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Question 2: Why are you a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

First off, welcome to the Hype!

For the first question, I watch the MCU because I've been a fan of Marvel since I was a kid. It started out with Spider-Man and X-Men and then naturally built to include the whole universe (Avengers, Fantastic Four, etc.).

As for the second question, I'm a fan of the MCU because apart from the same reasons that I've been a fan of Marvel in general, they've adapted the characters for the screen in an effective and entertaining way. They may have stumbled a bit in recent years but that'll never take away my love for the franchise in general. There may come a day when I might choose not to see a new MCU movie in theaters but I don't think the day will ever come where I won't want to revisit movies like Iron Man, Avengers, Black Panther, The Winter Soldier, etc.

 

[SPO2 Dalisay]

As with many in my group of friends were into Marvel Comics in my young teen years. There were others more into art that collected both Marvel and DC. But being able to share the books as a story lead to the singular company focus. When live action TV started featuring Marvel characters the technology was not up to the task. Lou Ferrigno’s Hulk being the best among multiple shows that let us down.

As the X-Men movies got started which featured teams and stories that were written after we stopped collecting and Peter Parker’s power set being different enough to have us think something was wrong we got Iron Man in 2008 with Vietnam traded in for Afghanistan along with Captain America’s and Thor’s origin story movies being close enough for me. With the Nick Fury tease of the Avengers, I couldn’t believe that they were actually going to do what I thought was impossible as a teen.

And then the Avengers worked and even if the stories were based upon books after my collecting days. Following it came the shared universe of associated TV shows in between the movies came a long form of entertainment that I never experienced before. Only to get a few years down the line and having the TV shows cut off as unimportant. And when “official” for lack of a better term TV started coming you could see that the producers really didn’t understand how to produce TV as the pacing and story beats were off. Perhaps they would work for delayed viewing in order to binge at once but deadly to the traditional viewing model.

 

[Ironfan72]

I grew up reading Iron Man every month, and he was far and away my favorite character, so when the MCU started it was essentially a dream come true seeing my favorite character on the big screen and it wasnt a terrible movie with extremely talented actors. Going and seeing so many films up to then for characters like Batman, Superman, Spider-man, X-Men, that finally seeing my guy and his universe on the big screen was big for me, so for 12 years essentially from when the film finally went into production to Iron Man final scene, it was a thrill, now, of course I would love to see Iron Man back, that is extremly unlikely, so I do not get as excited to see MCU films, but I enjoyed Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, the Marvels, Loki, Moonknight, She-Hulk so i keep up, but will see how i feel when the other Avengers films come, I know there is a Armor Wars film coming with Don Cheadle starring in essentially an Iron Man story, so I am intrigued by that, I have no interest in the Fantastic Four of course i hope it does well and I will check out the X-Men films, but compaired to 2008-2018 where i was fully invested in the MCU its more casual watching now.