Why Phase 4 MATTERS - Marvel's True Meaning Revealed

this is this is this is what this is boring 10 bucks says you're wrong hey welcome to screen Crush I'm Ryan Erie and I want to talk to you about phase four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe specifically I want to prove to all of you that this phase which may seem like it's just made up of random projects is actually telling one cohesive story that is United by a single theme like the MCU always says it's all connected so phase four has been a weird one it's the first time Marvel Studios has fully Incorporated TV shows into their storytelling now we've previously had shows like Agents of Shield incorporate the movies into their stories like agents of Shield's brilliant follow-up episodes to the Winter Soldier hail Hydra but phase four is the first time that any Cinematic Universe has really fully Incorporated TV shows or writing a minute Ezra Miller's flash did show up on the CW yes true but as part of the Multiverse so it doesn't doesn't count and anyways we're going to get to the Multiverse in just a few minutes first I want to address why people feel like this face has been so aimless I started really seeing this complaint after Thor 11 Thunder most of face force projects up till then and told solo Standalone stories for instance Black Widow the Eternal Shang Chi and what if and there were also plenty of stories that dealt with the repercussions of phase three like one division Hawkeye Falcon the Winter Soldier and Loki now these projects Define the phase's first year 2021. the 2021 ended with a massive multiversal crossover teaming up Doctor Strange with Spider-Man Spider-Man and Spider-Man so fans were ready for 2022 to feel more connected they wanted to finally get those sweet sweet MCU connections that we all love and instead we got mostly more Standalone stories Moon Knight she-hawk Ms Marvel Multiverse of Madness werewolf By Night the Guardians holiday special and Thor 11 Thunder are all Standalone projects that tell a singular story about their main characters now there was an expectation that Thor's movie would kick us off into high gear because he's an OG Avenger in a major motion picture we thought that he was gonna meet Dr Doom or Kang or something but that didn't happen did it no it did not man I wish I could go to the movies but they always take me out because I'm a little dog ah well Doug good news I got you a present or did you buy me a chain of movie theaters so I can make them all pay for their slides nope next best thing though I got you a capsule 3 laser projector from nebula they're the sponsor of this video now you can watch movies on the big screen right at home this is the best portable projector that I have ever owned first of all it's very light just under two pounds but more importantly the image quality is very high the capsule 3 projector gives a Sharper Image than most projectors because it uses Laser Technology you see most projectors broadcast an LED image with white light but this one projects the colors 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also email nebula with the address in the description for a special discount on a capsule projector now back to what I was saying so after the intricate setup of the infinity Saga where every element served a purpose in the final story it was hard to see the connective tissue between all these projects how does She-Hulk connect to Thor love and thunder and we're going to explain how but first I have to say that we should not be holding phase four up to the same standards as phase three phase 3 was a culmination of like 20 movies it earned its crossover in connective tissue we should really be comparing phase 4 to phase one or even phase two too and those phases were not very well connected in hindsight Marvel Studios did not have a firm plan set in stone when they started out stop listening after you said we need a plan Tony Stark's Cameo at the end of The Incredible Hulk makes no sense if I told you we were putting a team together they recast two main characters crossover moments were conceived of and then cut out like Hulk breaking loose the ice where Steve Rogers was frozen even Thanos was included as a post-credits scene after the fact because Joss Whedon wanted to tease him for another movie even sell Big B mind controlled by Loki at the end of Thor makes no sense in hindsight because Loki shows up to mind control him in the Avengers and Iron Man 2 is force-fed connective tissue as fast as the Marvel creative committee could write material now look the movies in Phase One were mostly good but in hindsight they don't hold up to projects like no way home or Wanda Vision phase two was a little better planned it started to see the Infinity Stones into the movies the fall of Shield did pave the way for the Avengers and Tony's PTSD paved the way for the Age of Ultron but really it took three phases for every single project to lead into the next and to really come together so think of phase 4 as as a foundation for this new multiversal Saga now I do get how even with that in mind phase four can still see you all random the phase included moments like this somebody help I need an abuse please somebody and also like this oh you are way more fun than my last lawyer I will kill for you but if you step back you can see a pattern every story can be grouped into one of four categories Multiverse magic street level and Cosmic just like in the comics where you have lines of X-Men books Spider-Man books horror books Etc so phase four laid the foundation for these many universes that will have their own crossovers in Phase five and will eventually culminate in phase six so let me run through these phase four categories how they connect and how they can lead into the multiversal Saga and I'm also going to talk about the theme that unites every single story in this phase first let's talk about the most important group the street level the street level that's not more important than Cosmic stuff like cans and stuff yes Doug it is because street level heroes give us the Baseline we can't be impressed by the powerful gods and wizards if there's no human being to compare them to it's like that one time Bill Murray tweeted they should have one regular person swimming at the Olympics just to show how impressive all the athletes are like how Hawkeye is a crucial character to have in the Avengers remember that Montage of how he lost his hearing what happened [Music] that makes him seem all the more heroic because he's just a guy well my go-to weapon is two sticks string so the MCU needs guys who are more like John McLean and die hard one so the street level heroes can have powers but they also deal with events that just happen on Earth so Hawkeye was just about street level crying Black Widow is about world domination Falcon the Winter Soldier was about terrorism she Hawk was about the repercussions that superheroics have on everyday people's lives and wakanda forever set up a global conflict between the Black Panther and the Thunderbolts and according to Kevin feige Spider-Man is also now grouped in with those street level people as well we've got the street level with our announcement of Daredevil and of course Spidey going into the street level uh Heroes I think these events will end up feeding into a conflict that's like Captain America Civil War remember that was a movie where all the stakes were tied to Earth capturing Bucky Barnes the sokovia courts and then the breaking up of the Avengers but all those Earthbound events had repercussions for the greater Cosmic Saga I think that movies like New World Order wakanda forever and the Thunderbolts are setting up a conflict in Phase 5 that will make the Earth unable to respond to the big threats and I outlined a lot of those theories in this video next group we have is Magic which is anything that connects the Earth stories with the other dimensions and mysticism now these are pretty easy to spot where will finite Doctor Strange the Multiverse of Madness wand Division and Moon Knight now we've speculated before this could all lead into a team up with a group like the midnight Sons as Marvel makes more and more horror adjacent projects like blade and coven of chaos most of these projects have connections to the Multiverse Saga Multiverse of Madness obviously geared us up toward the Multiverse and introduced the idea of incursions which will play a huge role in secret Wars remember an incursion is when two universes Collide and one must be destroyed to save the other we even got a tease that Stephen was going to go off fixing incursions with Shirley Cerrone you caused an incursion then we're gonna fix it werewolf By Night features a man thing and in the comics the man thing lives in a swamp that is the Nexus of all realities basically a multiversal junction point one division obviously affected the Multiverse because Wanda's actions in that show led to Multiverse of Madness and Doctor Strange causing an incursion by dream blocking One Division also set up Agatha coven of chaos which just cast Joe Locke as a character who's probably the teenage version of Wanda's son Billy in the comics Billy is the hero Wiccan and of course he is a member of the Young Avengers and there have been a lot of Avengers being set up in the MCU right now in the comics the Young Avengers connect heavily to Kang the Conqueror obviously the big bad of the Multiverse Saga and Billy plays a crucial role in that next we have Cosmic stories One Division introduced this in phase four with the agency sword and Monica Rambo getting Powers here had you been grounded he'd like to meet with you where the eternals is a very Cosmic story that connects with gods and the creation of the universe now I'm betting that the celestials and the eternals will play a big role in the multiversal war and potentially creating a brand new reboot Universe at the end of phase six Thor 11 Thunder is another Cosmic movie that introduces another potential young Avenger love while also introducing more Gods into the MCU including the Avenger Hercules and both shanxi and Ms Marvel started off as street level stories before expanding into a hybrid of magical or Cosmic stories Kamala Khan story sets up the Marvels and probably secret Invasion while Shang Chi's 10 Rings Beacon at the end is probably connected to Kang like we covered in a couple of different videos and finally we have the last category which actually ties together all of these movies and the entire Saga Multiverse now I think we'll look back and say that Loki was actually the most important story told in phase four and actually in the whole Multiverse Saga it's the movie with the most direct link to phase three after all its main character's origin happens during Avengers end game and it set up the idea of the Multiverse connects the Multiverse to time travel with the idea of branching realities and introduced the variant of the new Big Bad Kank some of us new worlds meant only one thing new lands to be conquered the peace between realities erupted Kevin feige did confirm that the events of Loki started it all Loki and Sylvie did something at the end of that series that sort of allowed all of this to to be possible Loki caused the Multiverse to Splinter and open the door up for Kank and the Multiverse Saga now what if showed us the consequences of losing the sacred timeline with infinite new universes being created there that's the moment that created a new universe Spider-Man no way home brought the idea of variance from other franchises into the MCU and showed that other hero franchises could cross into the movies and the Multiverse of Madness set up incursion setting up Wars between these universes and also like half the movies and shows in this phase featured wonk [Music] also it's a good thing that Marvel is more focused on quality Standalone stories and not like forcing crossovers on us because that's how you get this I think a bunch of guys like us should team up could do some good intriguing now all this is just kind of surface level stuffed and you know like based partly in theory but guys this is screen crush and you come here for a little bit more substance than that so now I want to talk about how every single project in Phase 4 is connected by a central theme that guides the characters status issues no Doug you're thinking of faces one through three uh you're right high five anyways high five and by the way everybody I love mentioning this we now have Doug Christmas ornaments for sale in our merch store they're high quality I think they're made of ceramic they're definitely not like some kind of flimsy plastic and we have a lot of great new items there for you to check out including some T-shirts like our not the B shirt original trilogy shirt that When Harry Met Sally opening crawl and this new top five shirt where you can fill in your top five movies with a sharpie marker so if you want to bring Doug home for the holidays visit our merch store at shopzeroeddition.com so back to the theme of phase four according to screen Crush editor Chief Matt singer what actually unites all of these projects is the Quest for Identity Matt wrote a great piece on this that I'm going to link below and I'm also going to quote him quite a bit from here on out he writes over and over phase four Heroes and even a few villains have wrestled with the existential questions like who Am I who do I want to be am I bound to continue with the choices I've made thus far in my story or can I change my path and Matt goes on to say that the idea of struggling with identity goes hand in hand with the Multiverse where there exists an infinite number of variations of every single person a good doctor strange an evil doctor strange a zombie doctor strange and so on detail these variants as Marvel calls them allow the studio to turn allegorical identity crises into literal battles for the future of the MCU yeah yeah I don't know like every story is about that yes let's break it down one at a time One Division she creates this television identity to hide from the pain of her actual identity and eventually she does create a new identity for herself as she Embraces the new identity as the Scarlet Witch Vision also doesn't know who he is he is a memory of Wanda's or an echo of her perception of him eventually he confronts another version of himself who also has no identity in the two kind of become one new person I am a vision Falcon the Winter Soldier is about Sam struggling to take on the identity of Captain America and Bucky struggling to figure out who he is now that he is no longer the Winter Soldier Loki introduces the idea of variance literal other identities that are out there in the Multiverse now this new version of Loki is struggling to find out what makes him special and different against the other infinite versions of himself the series also ends with Loki and the other Loki confronting the alternate identity of the big bad villain Kank Black Widow is about former assassins and government servants trying to redefine their identities after blindly serving a government for years breakoff's daughter has even had her identity suppressed for decades until Natasha helps her regain herself what if like Matt says in his piece is very literal the series is about alternate identities of the heroes including zombies in Shang Chi the hero begins with a fake identity that he's made for himself you change your name from Shang to Sean and he is running away from his old life and his father's Legacy of the ten Rings he is struggling to find out who he is as a son of both talo and this evil criminal organization he's trying to figure out what identity defines me for the eternals I'll read from Matt's piece the eternals are Immortal beings of enormous power the film suggests that these ancient Heroes have gone by many identities throughout their long lives and have been worshiped by various historical peoples as Gods thanks Matt and the eternals also did realize that they are just endless copies of a single model and that their unique identities that they create on these planets have been erased countless times so you're saying we're basically fancy robots so they must decide if they're going to serve the celestials or fight them to retain their new sense of self yeah I guess you're right our others are about it but wait there's more Hawkeye is about Clint trying to bury his identity as Ronan and handing the identity of Hawkeye over to K Bishop Matt calls Spider-Man no way home a literal take on the identity any crisis with Tom Holland Spider-Man coming face to face with alternate versions of himself from throughout the Multiverse and the movie ends with Peter losing his private identity and Reinventing his public identity as a new Spider-Man and Moon Knight literally struggles with four identities hey now you're getting it in Multiverse of Madness Doctor Strange meets variants of himself that have wildly different identities based on different life experiences now all of these variants show him who he could have become if he wanders too far down the wrong path so he has to literally choose what identity he wants to carry on with in Ms Marvel Kamala Khan struggles with maintaining a kind of double life out of a well-mannered Pakistani American girl and a New Jersey fan girl who loves Carol Danvers and later it's about her identity as a gin and reconciling the historical trauma of the partition itself a kind of identity crisis for South Asia in Thor 11 Thunder he begins the movie on a journey of self-discovery trying to Define what his identity should be meanwhile Jane Foster takes up the name of Thor usurping his identity while Valkyrie struggles with her new identity as a world leader She-Hulk according to Matt's piece spends several episodes fighting with Titania over who owns the right to the identity of shihar Jennifer also internally wrestles with her new double identities At first she only wants to be Jinn but then comes to embrace the she-hawk Persona because it's so much fun now werewolf by night is 100 about a guy trying to hide his identity from others before he turns into a monster Jack Russell also has to constantly struggle with who he is the man or the monster black panther wakanda forever is about the heroes in wakanda struggling with their national identity and shuri eventually taking on the identity of Black Panther the death of the original black panther star Chadwick Boseman turned the sequel into a movie about Legacy and identity and finally the Guardians of the Galaxy holiday special is about Peter Quill taking on a new identity as the manager of nowhere while mantis and Drax confuse Kevin Bacon for his characters in other words they mistook the actor for his other identities don't be someone else be Kevin Bacon but like if you didn't suck but what do you guys think of phase four what do you think about the identity theme how do you think it's going to connect with the other phases let me know in the comments below or at me on Twitter and if it's your first time here please subscribe and smash that Bell for alerts for screen Crush I'm Ryan Erie foreign [Music]

Channel: ScreenCrush

Views: 370,375

Keywords: screencrush, heavy spoilers, new rockstars, marvel, mcu, cinematic universe, phase 4, moon knight, she hulk, loki, wandavision, falcon winter soldier, hawkeye, what if, multiverse saga, phase 5, shang chi, black widow, thor love and thunder, mutlivere of madness, no way home, ms marvel, wakanda forever, guardians of the galaxy holiday special, werewolf by night

Id: 4kuJYtiGj8Y

Length: 17min 1sec (1021 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 09 2022