#hire me kevin feige

[agentem]

Another brilliant idea

Veb animated series on Disney+. Can give us backstory about Janet and be adorable!

#veb #david dastmalchian #ant man and the wasp: quantumania #disney+ #quantum realm #call me marvel #hire me kevin feige

[galaxythreads]

i literally don't understand the mcu script writes who've bragged about never having seen the previous movies, like bro??? how do you expect that script to be consistent with the rest of the canon?????????

normally I'd laugh and be like Yeah, anon, these guys are insane, but you have bypassed Mental Breakdown part of my brain and now I am deeply, deeply curious.

---

Why is it that mcu script writers are so proud to be arrogant?

---

Warning for minor language.

So anyway, the person I thought of specifically as being Generally Terrible to the Franchise Lately was Michael Waldron, who wrote Loki, Dr. Strange 2, AND is currently working on Avengers: Secret Wars. (Yay)

So I did a lot of research about where this guy CAME from and how he's impacted everything because I swear to God I'd never heard of him before Loki. And now I see him everywhere, but usually only in loathing.

---

Michael Waldron, according to Wikipedia, is currently 35 as of 2022 and graduated from some Film School i haven't heard of and can't be bothered to remember. He is unmarried(?) and has been active in the film industry since 2014. (8 years, for those of you counting.) He started work on Loki in 2020(? unconfirmed).

The thing that struck me the most was how incredibly short his project list is.

My man has six (6) completed projects. He had three before he started on Loki. And while this doesn't necessarily mean that he's bad, it does show a level of inexperience that baffles me personally.

For comparison, Kenneth Brangah, one of four screenwriters for Thor 1's list is this:

And again, it's not like Brangah's list is enormous, but I do see a lot more experience under their belt before they were approached by MCU rather than Waldron, who had done three projects. Brangah had 20 years in sceenwriting when he went to work for Thor. Waldron had six.

And the amazing thing to me is that even the shows Waldron's executive producer on, he wrote like, two episodes for it? Then he handed it off to other writers. So he doesn't, as far as I can tell and I found, seem to have a lot of experience actually working the writing process, just supervising it.

(I could be wrong)

But here is his latest series Heels, for reference.

the section says "Written by" above the names, I cropped it weirdly.

---

So we have a man who has, at this point, worked six years in the industry. He has worked on three shows. He was the assistant for one show, he did not write in the other one, and he has written for ONE show, total. Produced one show, was the executive producer for ONE show.

What I am seeing here, is, from what I can see, a lack of experience. And it shows. Badly.

So why did Marvel hire him?

----

According to an interview Waldron did, where I'm drawing a great deal of this information, he has always wanted to work for the Big Leagues. He wanted to work on Star Wars mostly, from what I could see, but he didn't think that Marvel would be bad either. When he approached his agent about how to get working for Marvel his agent told him he needed to have written a movie.

Now you're probably wondering. I DID look at that list of projects he's been involved in, and there wasn't a movie.

You are correct!

Waldron wrote a movie called The Worst Guy of All Time and the Girl Who Came to Kill Him. It's on The Black List and was never filmed, to my understanding. But he sure did write that script. And that script, I believe, is where a lot of issues in Loki start to come to light, but we'll get to that in a minute.

"At some point the script made its way to Marvel as they were meeting people for Loki and that got him in the door to pitch and that pitch got him the job."

When Kevin Feige was hiring directors, Waldron walked in and "I thought I was going to get it, but that's my attitude, I guess, hopefully as unarrogantly as that can sound, but I think you got to be confident" (Waldron). Feige was apparently impressed and hired him on.

Which again, a bold choice that COULD have been great, to give a small name the chance to work on a project like this?? Incredible. Just not in this context.

I feel immensely confused that MCU, which is a multi-billion dollar industry, did NOT actually hire someone with years and years of experience like they did for Thor 1. Instead, they went with someone who, personally to me, didn't have enough experience to seem like he knew what he was doing.

So now Waldron is working in MCU. Things are going great for him. He has TWENTY WEEKS to come up with the plot, the scripts, and the story for the entire Loki series.

TWENTY. I cannot emphasize this enough. That is no time at all. They went from blank slate NO IDEAS to a full script in TWENTY. WEEKS.

So HOW then, did Waldron get approached to do Dr. Strange 2?

Apparently, Waldron and Owen Wilson were talking one day and Waldron got asked to do Dr. Strange 2 because it was just as chaotic as Loki was.

WALDRON: Yeah. By that time, I had been able to build the trust. We'd written Loki. Loki was in good shape at that point. It was headed into production. I was getting ready to go to Atlanta. Fortunately, the scripts were in good shape. One of our writers, a close friend of mine, Eric Martin, took my place and went and was the writer on set, which you've got to have, and he did amazing work carrying the show across the finish line, from a writing standpoint. And yeah, it was just, "All right. You did Loki. That was crazy. Come do Dr. Strange. This is going to be crazy, too." That was really fun.

And guess what! This is the instructions he was given FOR Dr. Strange 2.

WALDRON: It is purely, 100%, "Make the most kick ass Dr. Strange movie you can possibly make." There was no, "You got to get here. It's got to fit here."

Which, by the way, Feige stated that he had no plans for the Loki series beyond time travel, and Waldron was instructed to do whatever he felt like. A 100% most kick-ass time travel series, you might say.

---

Okay. So now that we have some background, I'm going to get onto my soapbox and explain why this man was a horrible, horrible directing choice and shows 0 understanding of the characters. This is going to go over Loki and Dr. Strange 2, for reference.

---

LOKI:

The biggest disaster I see with Loki is that the FIRST -- and I emphasize this, the FIRST -- thing that Waldron says about Loki in the interview is this:

Waldron: And I'd written a time travel movie about a character who was kind of a villain, and kind of a sh*thead, like Loki.

I think that the problem that Waldron suffered from the most in Loki is that Waldron didn't want to make a TV series about Loki. He doesn't like the character very much from what I can tell. Obviously, he calls him a sh*thead, but he never has anything nice to say about Loki as a whole either. He doesn't want to talk about Loki as a person, or Loki's story, Waldron wants to talk about the TVA. I seriously cannot emphasize this enough. Not once in the interview did Loki as a person come up. Loki didn't even seem to be a character to him.

The TVA is where Waldron seems like most of his time was spent, because that was, after all, what MCU wanted to do. I honestly, genuinely do not believe this man would have taken the job for Loki if it wasn't about time travel. Because Waldron could focus on the TVA and not Loki. Loki was an irritant he had to occasionally do something with.

And now we get to his script that was pitched to MCU.

Waldron: I sat down and I wrote a script that was a time travel action rom-com, is how I would describe it...because they [Marvel] wanted to make a time travel show. And I'd written a time travel movie about a character who was kind of a villain, and kind of a shithead, like Loki.

And the thing is, to me, sounds a lot like the TV series. A romcom, with time travel, and a sh*thead kind-of villain. That's the series we got. I do wonder how much of this pitch made it into the final series, because this is what Waldron had as a reference. (The director wanted to make a romance from what I understand, that was her vision of the series was this long-winding romance, and it doesn't look like anyone sat down in the writer's room and explained to them that the last thing that would fuel Loki's story forward was romance.)

And the thing is, Waldron doesn't seem to understand Loki as a character at all, if Loki is "kind of a villain and a sh*thead" because yeah, sure, Loki can be considered that, but that's not WHO Loki is. That's what people SEE him as.

Waldron at no point references having read the scripts for the Avengers, Thor 1 or the Dark World inside this interview. This doesn't mean he hasn't seen the movies or read the screenplay, as I often hear said about him, but it is strange to me that he makes so little mention of Loki.

This man is so focused on the TVA. Despite how much of a disaster the TVA ended up being. Here's some notable quotes:

WALDRON: What did I learn? Don't write one about time travel, because it's a pain in the ass.

WALDRON: ...A foundation of what constitutes a broken time law and what doesn't, so that we could then just, which is about Loki breaking a time law, and then you have to move all that stuff as far to the background as humanly possible, because you don't want the audience focusing on the rules of time travel during your show.

I love how "Loki breaking a time law" is supposed to be the center of it all and comes off as an afterthought.

And.

"don't want the audience focusing on the rules of time travel in your show" YEAH. CAUSE IT'S GARBAGE. Maybe if he and the others had had more than a weekend (exaggeration, untrue statement) to work on how time travel works, we'd have something that didn't make me want to scream into a pillow for ten years.

WALDRON:  All over our writer's room, our white boards were just covered in timelines. And it's just, "No, time travel works this way," "No, time travel works that way." That was the great challenge of our show, it was because the Time Variance Authority is an organization that literally manages and polices all of time, we had to define what time is to them and what time is in the MCU. 

I think we can blame this disaster on the Russo brothers. ^

WALDRON: Those are all questions we had to ask and define for ourselves. I think that what's fun about the TVA is it takes something remarkable, like time travel, and really packages it in a very soulless, sort of bureaucratic way. That's what was exciting to me, as a writer, was to take something so magical and just make it utterly soulless. -- So what we have is a writer's room so focused on the TVA that Loki becomes a secondary concern and the lens from which we VIEW the TVA, and then it stops becoming Loki's series and starts to become the TVA's.

But no one seemed to realize this.

And also "That's what was exciting to me...was to take something so magical and make it utterly soulless" is a GREAT way to go about time travel. I also think he applies this to everything and it shows.

So again. Writer focused on the TVA. Appears to me to not care about Loki. Spends a majority of the interview discussing ANYTHING but the main lead of his show. Does not want to talk about growth or character or WHERE LOKI CAME FROM? WHY ARE YOU NOT TALKING ABOUT YOUR LEAD?

But that's okay. Because we all know that the TVA was the main character of Loki, don't we?

---

Another interesting point, I thought, was how Waldron writes relationships. I watched a review of his TV series Heels, where the reviewer came to this conclusion about the main characters:

"...And that's just what made this show so fascinating, is that…all these characters, that in some way, treat each other horribly, but in other sense do care about each other, and they're all so entwined with trying to make this thing work."

and that sounded extremely familiar. Because this is the cast of Loki. Waldron seems to have discovered his Character Formula.

Thanks. I hate it.

I just...this man can't have been a bad writer in just Loki right, and this has to be a consistent theme across all his work? And honestly, he's worked on so little that I don't know. I can't have an honest opinion of him. From what he has worked on, terrible character chemistry seems to be the general vibe. Waldron does not seem to know how to write characters that you understand why they like each other.

Hence, Loki being abused by every figure of authority in Loki, and Slyive treating him horribly, but somehow they all like each other in the end.

Because that's Loki. The TVA series, Loki on the side, getting beat up. Because he's bad.

---

DR. STRANGE 2:

Dr. Strange 2 has a similar set of problems. It was written in a rushed time frame, there was no overarching idea for a plot and where the story needed to go, Waldron was just told to do what he wanted, and Waldron didn't seem to be too focused on character arcs.

Wanda, obviously, takes a devastating hit as far as arcs go, but I wouldn't say that Dr. Strange was spared, either. The two of them go through rapid flipflopping in terms of the growth they've incurred throughout the entire MCU, and it shows. Badly.

One thing that Waldron did say that absolutely baffled me was this:

WALDRON: I became good friends with Jac Schaeffer, head writer of WandaVision, while I was writing Loki. Her and I became good pals, because we were kind of in it together and everything...So, I had the benefit of just being able to call Jac and talk to her about Wanda's character and everything, because it was really important to me that I do right by her with what she did with Wanda as a character. And also, with Lizzie, who's a friend of mine. I really worked with her and made sure, "Okay, you guys just did this incredibly intimate show about this character that grew her so much. Let's make sure that we're doing that justice and telling a fulfilling next chapter of that story."

I am so confused. Waldron honestly appears to want to do right by Wanda, but Wanda's growth from WandaVision was destroyed in Dr Strange 2 (and I want to emphasize here that Waldron made no such comment about talking to Tom Hid. or previous directors of Thor movies) so then how did Wanda end up going through such a downward spiral? Waldron wanted to do right by her, and yet???

I think the biggest problem is that Waldron doesn't have to think long term. He's almost not supposed to. He said this:

WALDRON: Well, I think one of the joys of being a writer in the Marvel world is getting to make terrible messes and leave them for your predecessors

WALDRON: For instance, you write the Loki show and then you end up writing Dr. Strange 2, having to clean up your own mess and that can be a lot of fun.

WALDRON: And it will naturally connect to the MCU and it will naturally get the MCU to where it's supposed to go, in some ways that we expect and ways that sometimes you don't expect, and I think that's part of the fun.

Waldron was given the explicit instruction to write a good Dr. Strange movie, but not a good MCU movie. Part of the reason that Phase 4 feels like a bunch of puzzle pieces from different puzzles is that it was designed to be that way. Feige is just going with the flow to see what will happen rather than having any sort of idea of where to take the series.

"It will naturally get MCU to where it's supposed to go" is one of the most hilarious statements I've ever heard, by the way. As someone who has done original writing, and planned out a series, my 200+ page document of planning, background, and worldbuilding laughs at you. (And I still don't have it all finished, because I've had MONTHS to work on this). Maybe. Maybe they want to try and not publish the first draft of phase 4?

Waldron wasn't told to make a movie about Wanda, or how to progress Wanda's character in a way that made sense post her growth. And any problems that were there they blamed on the Darkhold, because it's someone else's problem to clean up. Very neat. Very good planning.

---

So overall, I don't think that MCU writers are proud of their ignorance, I just don't think that they see a problem with it. Writers are told to do what they want to, without there being any plans for character growth or plot advancement, so they do. They put whatever they want out on the sandbox and wait for someone else to clean it up.

Feige seems fully onboard with this plan. So the real problem, I think, is the fact that MCU is expecting writers to come up with complex, interconnected plots in twenty weeks, and the writer's don't have the time to write consistent character arcs, they just tell a flashy story because at least you get something out there.

I honestly don't imagine Secret Wars will be any different. Waldron has shown that he really really enjoys writing stories, but not characters. This is not to say that we should blame all of this on Waldron, because I don't think it's really his fault. I think it's more the fact that he's the byproduct of a system set to fail.

The writer's ignorance is someone else's problem in MCU, apparently. But don't worry. This will naturally get MCU where it's supposed to go. Just tilt your head and squint a little. Then close one eye. And then the other. Now you can see what brilliance Phase 4 is clearly.

#anti michael waldron #michael waldron #anon #answered #i apologize for my thesis #mcu #mcu meta #waldron #anti waldron #anti mcu #mcu critical

[dreg-heap]

A while back I saw a Ridley Scott interview where he claimed that marvel wouldn't hire him for an MCU movie even if he wanted to, because he's TOO GOOD at directing for them.

This might sound really arrogant and people dismissed it at the time—especially since this is a guy who has made a LOT of shitty movies— but with all the VFX news it really seems like he's been vindicated there. One of the points of contention the VFX crews have is that marvel hires directors who are very inexperienced in movies with effects in them. They're terrible at storyboarding, can't communicate to save their lives, and they think they have way more room to make revisions than they actually do. Scott is of the mind that this is *completely intentional*. They hire inexperienced directors who don't know their shit so the people in charge can blame the new guy when shit inevitably goes sideways.

Technically, hiring a newbie director is a risk. But it's only a risk in the sense that they might fuck up and make a bad movie, but if youre in charge of hiring for a movie you know that's bullshit. Powerhouse directors make shit movies all the time! You can't mitigate that risk! But for the guy in charge of hiring and planning this stuff who has to answer to the company board, it's a lot harder to explain why the movie is bad if they hire the guy who made blade runner— they might even blame it on THEIR poor management! We can't have that! But nobody bats an eye if you hire like, the guy who made Yes Man and The Breakup to make your 100 million dollar ant-man sequel and the movie needs so many rewrites that by the end you've spent 100 million more dollars and have to credit four additional writers. It's all Peyton Reed's fault! How could we have known that when he told us he could do it for 100 million he was talking out of his ass?

To you and me this may seem obvious, but people like Keivein Feige have to explain this to the Disney board of directors, who many years ago had their brains replaced by a sticky note with the word "synergy" on it, so their understanding of cause and effect is skewed enough that explaining it as "we took a risk on Peyton Reed and it didn't work out" makes sense to them. By that same logic, if someone on the board sees people on Twitter dunking on bad vfx, Kevin can deftly explain that it's just the reality of their willingness to take risks with newbie directors, and NOT a result of their unwillingness to hire experienced professionals who could get these movies done on time and on budget, because that on-time movie might still flop

[woulddieforloki]

Now that u mention it. The sylkius threesome sounds like a better idea!

I'm not saying Kevin Feige should hire me to plot out his Marvel shows, but I'm not not saying that, either

#sylkius supremacy 🙏 #sylkius #look i have an ask #loki series

[youlackconviction]

Honestly I disagree with you guys and what makes me uncomfortable isn’t questioning my own opinions - I don’t care enough about Loki to be made uncomfortable by my thoughts on him - but more the fact that a group of people sitting here stewing like this over a few hours of television with most of that stewing rage directed at women is really fucking unsettling. It’s MRA energy.

*sigh*

quick question for you bestie: if you don't care much about LOKI, what are you doing on my blog? cos my blog is literally only serving takes in support of LOKI... 24/7. seems like it'd be boring reading for you, chum

aside from that...

stop treating "women" like we (yes, we, that's right, i am one) are too fragile and precious to receive any kind of negative opinions, feedback, thoughts, or criticism. it's belittling and insulting.

if you look at the proportion of male vs female that have received criticisms on my blog, by my count we are at 11 male to 5 female*. so i'm not really seeing your misogyny point being borne out by any actual evidence? but go off, i guess.

let people have opinions on things. let people like things and let people dislike things.

true facts - i wouldn't give a shit about a character called sylvie existing except that she was used to obliterate a character that i love. i didn't give a shit about a woman named sophia being hired to portray that character until she started saying real-world things that i found arrogant or offensive. even so, i've never endorsed or incited actual harm against her because that's sick disgusting behaviour, but i don't have to pretend to LIKE her or APPROVE of everything that comes out of her mouth. i can say that i think she doesn't have the first clue who LOKI is or what his story is actually about. i can say that i wish she leaves the MCU and her character dies permanently. i can say that i wish she would shut up talking about LOKI - and about tom too - and stick to her own character in interviews. i can say that i didn't find her performance convincing or plausible, and that i fully believe she was a very weak link in an otherwise strong and experienced cast; who apparently only got the role through being kate's bestie from a previous project. yes i understand how connections work in an industry. but i also understand overlooking those connections if your buddy just isn't right for the role. and i've seen more experienced and talented directors (keywords) pass their mates over in favour of a better fit for the project. i wish they'd done it this time too (not that it could have saved the show but maybe i wouldn't hate her character so much if she'd been played differently. we will never know.)

anyhow.

if my "stewing rage" lol unsettles you so much - you're totally welcome to stop reading my takes? like, you're coming at me via anon so i literally have no clue who you even are, it's not as if i'd even notice if you block me? and, if you want to keep reading, you're welcome to do that too? whether you agree with me or not. you can even invite arguments with me about some of my opinions, if that blows your hair back. but seriously... the name-calling is a little weak. if you want to insult me, do your research and pick something that can actually stick. /advice

appendix:

*11 males who have been criticised on my blog mike waldron eric martin taika waititi kevin feige mobius m mobius odin borson thor odinson heimdall fandral hogun volstagg

*5 females who have been criticised on my blog kate herron sophia dimartino sylvie laufeydottir frigga sif

#in defense of loki #shameless loki apologism #marvel hates loki and tom #anon hate

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

I loved the Endgame episode and I think I will never stop feeling salty about the movie and everything it did (and everything it caused in the rest of the MCU).

I loved how you mentioned Tony's villain arc because YES. it would have been SO good if they actually meant to do that!

But yeah, so much salt about this movie. So much salt about how the characters were treated. This movie made me feel silly for caring about the characters and the franchise and I hate when that happens. And unfortunately, it's been happening so much more, because like you said it feels like so many shows and movies just don't have a plan and don't have good writing and ugh we need more people who care to write stories because that's what makes stories actually good!

Anyway, I refuse to acknowledge the ending of endgame happened. Ever. Because it was awful and it wasn't Steve. He may have looked like Steve but that's not my Steve!

But, yeah, great episode. I loved the salt. And I love the podcast in general. It makes my commuting a lot better!

It would have been GENIUS if they really meant to have Tony's arc be a well-meaning villain. It would have been so fascinating and so relevant, I think.

And yes, like... that Kevin Feige quote that they "don't like to hire writers who really love Marvel because then they're too tied to the characters and source material" made me feel really stupid. Multiverse of Madness made me feel like an idiot for loving WandaVision and Wanda, and even for being excited about America Chavez. It's such a bizarre storytelling strategy, and honestly IMO it's a bizarre business strategy, but obviously it's not like Marvel lacks for cash.

And yes, the ending of EG was Not Real because Steve is ON THE MOON. And Wanda, who IS NOT DEAD, will bring him back.

#asks #episode 17

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Hey! I found your blog the other day, and your anti-Peggy rants give me life. I found this gif the other day, and just... The hypocrisy!!!?? The nerve???

https://images.app.goo.gl/wfTzvyxKuxhuMhP47

Glad to hear it nonny! 😄

Yeah the hypocrisy of that is pretty staggering, isn’t it? 

Her very introduction is of her attacking an innocent unarmed person for daring to question her authority (just like Red Skull did, just like Aldrich Killian did...) 

The fact that the guy is later shown to be a bully, and says something sexist split-seconds before she attacks him is irrelevant; because that comment wasn’t the reason she made him step into punching range! 

(And I thought the punishment usually came after the crime??)

And the way she accuses Steve, (of all people!) of being some kind of predatory, Howardesque lecher after her own lecherous behaviour towards Steve? (she’s as dumb as Kevin Feige, that creepy dead-eyed fuck) 

Yeah. She’s totally lacking in any self-awareness of her own irrational brutality, temper, privilege, irrelevance, lecherousness, hypocrisy, etc etc. (All of which is fine... if it’s being written that way on purpose.) 

That whole AC show is basically one big failed attempt to retcon what a terrible person she was in CATFA (and... frankly, still is in that show.) 

One particularly annoying bit, in terms of feminism and hypocrisy, is when Pggy goes to Sousa (who has moved across the other side of the country to get away from her and still been followed; stalker behaviour consistent at least?) and mansplains to him why Rose should be given a job.

But... the only reason Rose is even on the other side of the country in the first place* is because Sousa already gave her a job. 

*other than to stop people lesbian shipping their little miaow miaow that is

If all Sousa needed was someone to answer phones, he could’ve hired anyone off the street out there in LA -- instead of which he took a pre-trained agent. 

But the show expects us to believe he somehow didn’t know Rose has had training? 

Why the fuck was he hiring her then??

Obviously, Sousa took Rose with him because he already appreciated her worth. 

He is the guy who tried to speak up in objection when a man was given credit for a woman’s work in s1(?), after all (and guess who stopped him?? that’s right!) 

He's the closest that show has to a true feminist. 

But... Pggy always has to be given credit for everything, even things other people did *coughBuckycough* so... 🙄

She has so much that would’ve made a rare, brilliant villain... if only KF had the brains to fill a teaspoon! 

#long post #antipeggy #antisteggy #p*ggy meta #mcu meta #mcu critical #steggy is hydra trash party #meta #mcu #hey nonny #toAyourQ #dat's me #grrr this deleted as I was halfway thru typing and I had to start over so forgive me for any mistakes! #yet each man queues the thing he loves #cynthia glass

[joesalw]

Taylor Swift's downfall is coming so fast, she's gonna crash so hard it’s actually gonna be very enjoyable to watch for someone like me who's recently gotten to know about all her hypocrisy and fake activism

No cause I said the same thing the first time I realized what a complete ass she is. She needs mental help. I really believe that. She should get it, and work on her acting skills so she can be hired for acting roles. Kevin Feige almost didn't want to acknowledge her in that ET interview when he talked about being excited about Harry Styles. Goodness.

I used to find her very cute at some point of life but now when I look back, all of her shenanigans were so cringe and embarrassing like i'm ashamed of myself at this point. And yeah she needs to learn how to act both in the movies and in her pr stunts because girlie can't act for shit.

#anti taylor swift #anti swifties #swifties dni

[lokiondisneyplus]

Whether it’s a galaxy far far away, the crime-riddled streets of some derelict city, or (in this case) the multiverse-guarding headquarters of the Time Variance Authority (TVA),  one can find no safer hands for a beloved franchise than those of Kate Herron. 

The British director has delivered Disney+ its most watched Marvel series to date with Loki.  Like WandaVision, the series takes place directly after the events of Avengers Infinity War and Endgame.

In the opening episode, this lesser-evolved Loki (who now escapes capture using the Tesseract in the year 2012) sees the evolution —and ultimately the demise — of his character across Thor The Dark World, Thor Ragnarok and Avengers Infinity War. 

That key scene, where actor Tom Hiddleston reacts to a 1970s-like film reel showing his would-be future, was a key part of Herron’s vision. The director came to the project with a clear plan for his character and the otherworldly hierarchy that Loki encounters at the TVA.  

Herron’s extensive pitch deck convinced Marvel producer Kevin Feige that she was the right person to direct all six episodes of Loki’s first season. Herron quickly gained that same trust with the cast and crew as they battled through COVID and lockdowns while filming in Atlanta, Georgia. 

A major highlight of the Disney+ series is the career-redefining performance by Owen Wilson. Wilson brilliantly morphs into the character of Mobius, a clever TVA agent who forms an unlikely bond with Loki. 

When Herron spoke to Awards Focus, she delved into the creation of Mobius’ look and what it took to land Wilson,  her collaboration with BAFTA nominated Loki composer Natalie Holt, and her upcoming comic book The Storkening (out July 20th via Skybound Entertainment). 

AWARDS FOCUS: First of all, congratulations on directing all six episodes of your first Marvel series. We all just learned that Loki is the most viewed Marvel series, thanks to the Kevin Feige announcement.

I wonder if you can reflect on the recent Los Angeles in-person Loki Emmy FYC panel that featured Tom Hiddleston, writer MIchael Waldron, composer Natalie Holt, and yourself? The standing ovation from the crowd at the Pacific Design Center isn’t something that’s common for these events.

Kate Herron: It was massively flattering to see so many people there. It was the first Loki event I’ve been able to do in-person, so it was so nice to meet fans of the show. I loved watching it with an audience too, it always feels more immersive on the big screen. 

AF:  You’ve often talked about your expansive pitch deck that landed you this series. It’s commonplace in the industry for directors to hire outside companies and graphic artists to secure the look that they want for a pitch deck.  How did you go about making your Loki deck?

Herron: I didn’t know directors did this and now I feel like I’ve been doing it all wrong (laughs). I didn’t have any kind of money to hire anyone, so it was me at my parents’ kitchen table toiling away for two weeks.

I had already chatted virtually with Marvel executives Kevin Wright and Stephen Broussard, bombarding them with images and ideas. Based off those chats, I put together a very lo-fi but very extensive power point presentation. 

Every time I talk about this presentation it seemingly gets longer, you can write that I did 300 slides to really add to the myth (laughs).

AF: Meeting Kevin Feige is a big moment in anyone’s career, but from what I understand, the most pressure-filled meeting was the one you had with Owen Wilson. Landing him for the role of TVA agent Mobius was solely on your shoulders, correct?

Herron: Yes, my Casting Director Sarah Finn was like Owen wants to speak to you and only you!, The pressure was on, but it quickly became a great conversation… I think we both realized how self-deprecating we both are, so it was just a nice chat about why he’d be great and why I was so excited to work with him. 

I fell in love with Owen’s work, both as actor and writer, through his collaborations with Wes Anderson. It was very surreal to chat with him about that while building this very different character together. 

AF:  The look for Mobius was quite a departure, it pushes blond Wedding Crashers Owen out of our consciousness.  Was that an obvious choice or a battle with Owen or the studio?  

Herron: I remember Marvel were like, “Okay let’s do a test,” when we pitched that look to them. From my first conversation with Owen, he wanted to do something outside himself and what people expected from him. 

AF:  Having wanted to helm all the episodes yourself, what did you find most appealing and consequently challenging about that undertaking? 

Herron: Well, for me it was a massive step-up as I had done episodes on other peoples shows, so this was an opportunity to show how I could lead and bring a vision to a very ambitious ask. 

Kevin Feige said that he wanted to run our show, not in your traditional showrunner system but how they run their movies. So it was setting out to make a six-hour Marvel movie on a tv-schedule which is a massive challenge but that was a big part of the appeal for me. 

AF:  You’ve submitted episode five for Emmy consideration, which to me, is the apex of the series (in no small part to Richard E. Grant’s performance).  Can you walk me through the process of filming that episode and the emotional climax?

Herron: I really love this episode as our audience has just learned the mid-season twist that the TVA’s motives are nefarious and it seems like Loki has just been killed. 

Tonally, I feel this episode really captures the balance across the whole show, that fine line of chaos, heart, and drama. We teased the idea of multiple Loki’s early in the show and this episode is where we made good on that. 

From a story perspective, I loved what this episode does for our Loki, who is surrounded by these other versions of himself and he couldn’t be more different. It shows how much he’s evolved across the season. And it has my absolute favorite scene, the conversation between B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) and Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw).

The episode closes with our lead Loki having an existential crisis about who he is falling in love with and who he’s becoming, at the same time we’re witnessing this powerhouse performance from Richard E. Grant.

AF:  The episode really is VFX heavy, with Grant’s Loki erecting an entire city. Who in your team is responsible for that massive undertaking and what input are you giving in pre-vis?

Herron: Oh yes, the series in total had 2,524 VFX shots and a significant amount were just in this episode. I was lucky to have the best team that a person could want. I worked on this episode with my editor Calum Ross (Sex Education). As a team, we both have a strong handle on emotion and character, but this was easily the biggest outing we’ve had effects wise. 

We were surrounded by a brilliant team, VFX Supervisor Dan DeLeeuw, Jesse Lewis-Evans heading our pre-vis team at The Third Floor and the brilliant minds of ILM. This episode is the graft of hundreds of talented artists. Initially Dan, Jesse, Calum and I worked over Christmas putting this together for my first cut and it was a beast. 

On a movie, you’d have months to do a sequence like this, but with our schedule we were cramming this into a month to make our test screening and get a working version. 

Like anything, you keep working on it, working with your team and Marvel to get it across the finish-line. I was so excited to be working with the legendary Victoria Alonzo also on the show and I feel I learnt so much from her on every zoom call we had looking at shots and refining.

AF: I read that Tom was shooting pick ups for the first episode while filming episode five, for Tom and yourself, how did you balance the production demands amid early COVID protocols in Atlanta?

Herron: Credit to my first AD Richard Graves for not only orchestrating this chaos, but also doing it with a smile. I mean it was a challenge, I’m always incredibly grateful to the hundreds of people who gave their time making this with us because it was challenging to be making this project in normal circumstances.

Adding a pandemic on top of it, it was a just big ask to ask people to come work for us. I honestly felt grateful to be working when so many people weren’t, so I just felt that we can’t waste this opportunity. 

AF: One of the benefits of the pandemic shutting down production was that you were able to hire a composer to start working on themes. Can you tell me how you landed on Natalie Holt, who has since been BAFTA nominated for her Loki score? 

Herron: On Sex Education, I shot the second half of season one and remember how useful it was to have the music (by Oli Julian and Ezra Furman) available to use in the edit. 

I’m a musically driven filmmaker and I play music to help find the tone in what I’m doing. When we were no longer able to continue the shoot, I immediately started editing, trying to soak up that extra time for VFX, storyboards and going back into the scripts.

At the same time, I knew getting a composer would be key. We had a sort of cook-off with a few brilliant composers giving us their take on the show, but when it came to Natalie’s pitch… immediately we both were creatively in-line with each other. 

I loved how she talked about her score in relation to character and she just got the tone. Not to mention also being a big fan of theremin. 

AF: Having worked previously with actress Sophia Di Martino, what made her the right choice for Loki variant Sylvie? And when it came to casting He Who Remains, what involvement did you have in casting Jonathan Majors? 

Herron: So Sophia and I met through the comedy scene in the UK. We had done improv together and I’d persuaded her to do various lo-fi projects with me over the years. 

She always blew me away with how funny she could be, but also showcase this ability to play pain and regret. I wanted her to come in and read for us, and she of course nailed it. 

With Jonathan Majors, it was an honor to be part of a conversation with Kevin Feige and Marvel on a role that will have a defining presence in the MCU. Jonathan is of the best actors out there. As soon as we knew he was interested, I knew our finale would be safe because it’s a real challenge, coming in at the end of a show and owning it. That takes force and presence, and Jonathan has that in spades. 

AF:  From a directing standpoint, you’ve showcased a tremendous amount of talent from yours days on Sex Education to Loki. Given that you also contributed story ideas to Loki, I’d love to highlight some of story beats.

Herron: One thing that springs to mind for me, is that in our first episode for example, we were originally going to be cutting to clips and scenes but I wanted to avoid any kind of full flashbacks, I wanted to keep the audience in that room with Tom Hiddleston.

So, I pitched this idea when I first met everyone of Loki watching his memories play out on a stage. I was inspired by the moment in Miniority Report where Tom Cruise’s character sees his loved one who has passed away, it’s so emotionally effective. That felt emotionally right to me, and you know, always steal from the best. 

AF: With July just around the corner, I wanted to ask about your partnership with Skybound Entertainment for The Storkening comic book, which is part of a larger anthology series? Herron: My partner, Briony Redman, and I have written a comic together for the upcoming, horror series Afterschool based on the Afterschool special. Ours is about an urban legend where if you try and get rid of your baby, a monstrous stork tries to force you to keep it. The myth is, “Scratches to mark you, a feather to warn you, then it comes.” It releases on July 20th, so everyone can mark the calendars right after San Diego Comic Con.

#Kate Herron #interview #fyc #emmys

[prettywitchiusaka]

So I meant to make this post last week, but, gonna be honest, I wasn’t feeling super great up until a few days ago.

Now that I’m starting to feel like myself again (and with the recent announcement regarding who will be writing Secret Wars), I figured that now is the time to make an addendum to my post about today’s writers (at least in Hollywood, anyway) don’t seem to do any research, be it for adaptational purposes, or just to enhance their own work to make it better/flesh out the world and characters a little.   

And honestly, I feel like Michael Waldron is a perfect example of this (with Jessica Gao being a close second).

I’ve made no secret that I have very mixed opinions and feeling regarding Multiverse of Madness, mostly staked in my love of Doctor Strange in general, and his MCU counterpart in particular. I tend to be a lot kinder to it than most, as I do think it’s a decent film that needs another rewrite or two before it could’ve been something great. But let’s be clear, I actually don’t entirely blame Waldron for what went wrong with this film. From what I know about the production, it really seems like Kevin Feige is the real villain of Multiverse.

I recently discovered watching MauLer’s take down of the film (I skimmed through it, tbh) that, as Waldron puts it, he was hired by Feige to come on board shortly after Derrickson left. Now that part I knew, as I’d been keeping up with the film’s production on and off since the initial announcement back in 2019. What did surprise me, though, was that they already had sets being built when Waldron came on board, meaning that not only were they still building sets that were made for the Jade Bartlett draft, it also meant that shooting was set to start soon. This meant Waldron was left to write a new draft with very little time to prepare (three weeks) according to him. And...well, this is where I’m actually going to defend the man for a moment.

Do I blame Waldron for performing the job he was hired to do? No. Unless your Harlan Ellison or (maybe) John Hughes, NOBODY can write a polished shooting script for a big budget film in three weeks. It simply doesn’t happen, and I put the blame entirely on Feige for that one. It’s INSANE for him to think that Waldron (or anyone for that matter) could turn in something worthy of being called a Doctor Strange film in that timeframe, especially when he’d already wasted time, resources and freaking MONEY creating standing sets and character designs for the original script that was discarded because he wanted his precious Multiverse saga, and couldn’t be bothered to wait another film or two before getting to that.

So yeah, I don’t blame Waldron for that.

That being said...I do blame Waldron for what happened after. 

It’s no secret that the film industry (Marvel included) was shut down for a bit due to Covid, and Multiverse was no exception. This means Waldron was given a second chance. He could watch the first DS film, read some comics, do a quick wiki search and figure out which Doctor Strange comics are essential to the character and which ones he should read to write a new draft. You think he did any of that? Nope. Of course he didn’t.

This is what I mean about how we’re heading into an age of writers who don’t seem to do any research. Instead of studying Bartlett’s draft extensively, reading up on some comics, hell, maybe even phoning up Benedict and consulting with him on basic DS lore, he doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he just makes up his own plot and makes Wanda the villain because “Marvel wanted a Multiverse movie, so I had to figure out who’d be a threat to it”, even though he could’ve easily re-worked Nightmare into his plot if he’d been bothered to look up anything about the character. I mean, dreams are established to be windows into the lives of one’s Multiversal selves, how hard would it have been?

And before anyone chimes in and says “Well, he was probably busy with other projects”, I’m sure he was. But guess what? If you’re a professional writer in any capacity? You’re ALWAYS working on several assignments at once. Especially if you’re freelance. And yeah, sometimes you don’t always turn out something great. Sometimes you have several projects going on, and you have to whip up something that’s not your best due to time constraints. It happens. But if you’re passionate about writing, you’ll still put in the time and effort to make something worthwhile. You’ll do research and try to understand the material you’re writing about. And if fail that’s fine, because at least you tried.

And Waldron very clearly didn’t. 

I’d hate to say “Don’t quit your day job”, but if you don’t want to put in the effort to improve your craft than maybe you should stick to being a producer, Waldron!

#Prettywitch Rants #prettywitch's philosophies on writing #research #writing #marvel cinematic universe #doctor strange in the multiverse of madness #michael waldron #anti waldron #just realized another issue with waldron's writing #as i was typing this #he and a lot fo writers today are fucking lazy! #kevin feige #side note #fuck feige

[agentem]

What I'm hoping for from "Secret Invasion"

Some of the negative reviews of "Secret Invasion" mention it being "ill-timed" to discuss immigration. But I actually think that is why it could be cool. The Skrulls aren't immigrants to America but they are immigrants to the Earth.

The Skrulls have been asked to (quite literally) assimilate to human norms, to avoid ruffling any feathers. And that is wrong. Objectively. I think Fury thought this was a temporary measure that would keep them safe, especially since he always thought there was a looming alien invasion (either the Kree, became Loki's chitauri, or Thanos). He knew there were other people out there that would try to destory Earth and the Skrulls would get blamed for it, even if it wasn't anything to do with them. Humans would see all aliens as bad. He's a realist. He's been discriminated against.

But you can't expect the Skrulls to hide who they are from the 1990s to (I believe it is 2025 in the MCU?) and not have the next generation of Skrulls be like "what the fuck? Why do we have to pretend to not be aliens to exist? To not be brutalized because of something we didn't do?

A lot of humans and governments are probably very scared of aliens after Thanos. And I hope to see some of them (particularly Olivia Coleman's character because I love her, but also possibly also Dermont Mulroney's US President, and Rhodey in whatever role is advising said President) react more harshly to the Skrulls than Fury would. And for this to cause further unrest amongst the minority Skrull population, and lead to them becoming radicalized.

Why do humans even deserve Earth anyway? The Skrulls have no planet because their's was destroyed by an enemy? The humans are destroying Earth. Soon it's going to be unlivable. If the Skrulls take over and kill the humans then they can stop the planet's looming climate disaster. (Of course it means killing a lot of innocent humans, which would also be objectively bad.)

Meanwhile, Nick Fury, our beloved, thought he had everything in hand. And then Thanos happened. He was gone for five years and it's shaken him more than he'd like to admit. Eventually his plan (the Avengers) worked and saved them all. But he probably lost five years with his wife and friends. He's behind on all the spy stuff he used to be ahead on. So he's focused on outer space, because that is an area he is ahead on. Earth is no longer where he is comfortable. (He might be a bit depressed and avoidant. But will ultimately step up and help the Skrulls be part of Earth's governing process--possibly by using an in with King Valkyrie or King M'Baku if non-fictional governments won't allow Skrulls to live openly-- if he can't find them a new home.)

Anyway, that is how I would do it. We'll see.

#hire me kevin feige #mcu #marvel #secret invasion

[weclassybouquetfun]

ALL THE SPOILERS IN THE MULTIVERSE

DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS

THE GOOD

-When Scott Derrickson stepped away from directing DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS, the rumour was that he did so because Kevin Fiege didn't like his idea of making the film "a no-holds-barred weird, gnarly, scary movie". Obviously that wasn't true because it really is a no-holds-barred, weird, gnarly and scary movie. It was obvious by the hiring of Sam Raimi that the film would hold on to those tenets because while people may associate him with his Spider-Man films, he's known by a larger audience by his EVIL DEAD films and horror films like DARKMAN and DRAG ME TO HELL.

While this film still looks like a "Marvel" film most of the time, Raimi does lean into more visually arresting looks giving the film a 70's horror feel; very Dario Argento at points.

-I managed to stay spoiler free for the most part but because being on Twitter you can't help but see spoilery info spill across the timeline and using context clues I managed to figure out a few of the cameos before I saw the film, but the one thing I wasn't spoiled on was that Wanda was the Big Bad! I really thought this film would serve to atone Wanda for WANDAVISION crimes, but in fact, it doubles down on how much the darkness has enveloped her. Olsen was great as the Scarlet Witch; a true formidable foe. And just coming off of MOON KNIGHT, I'm happy to see a good villain again.

-Love that Feige has seemingly come around to the Marvel series as the rumour was that he held no love for the ones that were on Netflix and ABC. So as great as it was to see Charlie Cox in NO WAY HOME, it was equally great to see Anson Mount as Black Bolt from the failed and greatly ridiculed INHUMANS.

-Nice that Sam Raimi brought in Bruce Campbell, Ash himself, for a small role -echoing his fight with himself scene from Evil Dead.

-Rachel McAdams and Benedict Cumberbatch has great chemistry and I would like to see one of the universe's Christine actually work it out with Stephen.

-The beauty of having a film spiraling through the multiverse is that there are actual risks involved. Sure, we've had heroes die in Marvel films but it's generally towards the end of their contract (Iron Man) or the end of a phase (Black Widow). The benefit of the multiverse is that you can create mass casualties of heroes and it's thrilling because it's shocking but it's bearable because it's of no consequence. Seeing Wanda lay waste to Mr. Fantastic, Peggy Carter's Captain Carter, Lashana Lynch's Captain Marvel and Black Bolt was wonderful.

Though her killing of Charles Xavier was too much. That hurt.

-Loved the idea that there's a Charles in another universe with a soft spot for people others have given up on. He's ever trying to find the good in someone. I just know in that universe he was playing checkers instead of chess with Magneto and still trying to keep him from committing genocide.

-Wong always coming through in the clutch.

-The Danny Elfman score, especially in the musical battle was outstanding.

-Give Michael Stuhlbarg one scene and he will still take it and make it amazing. He's such a fine actor who can do so much with so little.

THE BAD

The tag "Doctor Strange will return". Why? As good as this film in, I think Strange is better served in a smaller capacity as a guide in other films (helping Thor locate Odin, helping Peter in NO WAY HOME, now showing America her strength).

I suppose the next film could lead to some connection to ETERNALS and whatever they're planning on doing with those characters, but that just shows how weak a character he is that they just can't do stories centered around him. Or at least deal with him as a person outside of the magic wielding. I think Strange is more interesting when we get the sense of his regrets, which this film tapped into a bit.

But maybe we'll see more humanity with him and Charlize Theron's character in the next film.

- I don't think they explained Wanda's actions enough in this film. If you hadn't seen WANDAVISION Wanda's heel turn in this would be too insane. I think more explanation should have been given re: the loss of Vision and how it has led her down this dark road. Just making about the kids didn't really jibe (does her sons not have powers in their universe? They should have been able to combat Wanda a bit). I don't know why they couldn't just insert a dream sequence where she's recalling her argument with Vision from WANDAVISION on what she was doing to drive it home for those who hadn't watched the series.

#doctor strange 2 #doctor strange #doctor strange in the multiverse of madness #spoiler alert #spoilers #marvel mcu #marvel #mcu #comic book movies

[queen-of-meows]

@lokiseries-bingo2022

I had this chapter planned forever, but Doctor Strange 2 Multiverse of Madness happened and made everything more confusing. So here's a chapter made up of 90% of exposition to justify my plot. I think I did a pretty decent job, maybe Kevin Feige should hire me ^^.

"Dimensional portals are something rather new, even for a sorcerer like me. It's been a recent discovery, and for a while we didn't even thought they could be replicated with ordinary magic. With the help of a few friends, I managed to gather information from various organizations that have been studying the multiverse for way longer than our limited perception of time can conceptualize. According to your friend Agent Mobius, you originated from universe 675. Back when all universes followed the Sacred Timeline, trans-dimensional travel was easy like crossing the street, but the explosion of the multiverse has complexified everything. By chance we were able to track down your reality based on what you told your friends. Believe it or not, there only seem to be one single princess Loki Laufeydottir who managed to enter the ranks of the Valkyries."

#my fanfiction #loki series #loki show #loki series bingo 2022

[supermarvelgirl15]

Not to sound like a comic nerd or anything, but is Master Pandemonium gonna show up in WandaVision?

I'm not completely familiar with The House of M, but I do know that he took Wanda's magic made baby twins because he thought they were the missing fragments of his soul, which led to her having a breakdown and destroying the Avengers mansion and killing some of the members.

And that would lead to where Tommy and Billy get separated and get raised by two different families, and they become Wiccan (Billy) and Speed (Tommy).

That could also open up the perfect opportunity to introduce the Young Avengers in the MCU, since Kang the Conqueror (their main villain) is already being introduced in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

We would get new characters such as Iron Lad, Hulkling, Miss America, and more!

(It's also funny because Billy and Tommy don't even know they're twins at first.)

I just think that this whole storyline would be amazing, but that's just my opinion.

#listen i just love scarlet witch okay #and the young avengers #even though i don't know a whole lot about them #but what i do know is cool #kevin feige i beg of you #HIRE ME #wandavision #wandavison spoilers #marvel #mcu #marvel comics #scarlet witch #wanda maximoff #tommy and billy #wiccan #speed #young avengers

[tempestaurora]

Your tags under the Peggy post. I’m shaking!!! Please punch marvel in the face and let us have that movie!!! That’s the most perfect fix it idea ever!!!!

can i actually just run through my avengers movie idea for a sec? because it’s been one of my repeated day dreams since april 2019.

alright: so it’s set maybe six months, maybe a year after avengers: endgame. unfortunately, tony and nat are dead. this cannot change, unless we get some kind of magic going, and i’m not knowledgeable about marvel magic enough to get a fix. so.

we start on an avengers: age of ultron-like fight scene, where the remaining avengers - literally whoever is left, plus spider-man, maybe bucky if he’s feeling it - are kicking some butt. maybe aim or modok or something, its irrelevant. they clean up, head home, and perhaps swing by the new compound. it’s smaller than the last one, still in the same kind of location. there’s clearly work still being done to fix it up. 

steve is perhaps out on the grass, reading a book. maybe he’s in a wheelchair, because he’s old now. they say hello, head inside, maybe someone stays out to talk to him. now, a new character/avenger could totally bring it up - in my head, i like to imagine jessica drew or riri williams, or one of the young avengers maybe. alternatively, perhaps there’s just boxes all over the foyer.

“what the hell is this?” sam might ask, after tripping over one. he had not been looking where he was going.

“oh! my delivery!” perhaps bruce replies, as he is the last remaining Science Guy (not including rhodey, who is Weapon Science Guy) in the avengers. “after shield-gate and the decryption of those files, a lot of old shield stuff got declassified.”

“and it’s here?”

“well shield’s still kind of... gone, i guess. where’s a safer place for it than here? ooh, the report on who killed jfk!”

bucky, across the room: “want a spoiler?”

the plot goes on; perhaps there are more aim or modok or something bases to be taken down. or a criminal gang. idk. they’re a side plot, who will perhaps become important in the final act, but for now, bruce starts reading through his files, until:

“barnes! you might be interested in this. it’s the original ssr paperwork about dr. erskine’s serum.”

“the one steve’s got?”

“the very same.” they flip through a few pages, and bruce slows. “this doesn’t make sense.”

“hm?”

“the serum. it’s self-sustaining. self-vitalising.”

“in english?”

“steve’s cells are reproductive. when they die, more take their place. it’s how he combats illness; his cells flip over so fast that the sick ones don’t have a chance to catch on. but...”

“but what?”

“if this is accurate--which, it is. i’ve looked at his bloodwork myself! if this is right, it means that steve’s ageing should be slower than a regular human’s. perhaps by three times, even.”

“and what does that mean?” bucky is frowning now.

bruce looks from him, and then moves to the window, where steve is out on the grass, reading a book. “it means that he shouldn’t look like that.”

“banner?”

bruce turns around. “he lived one life in the other timeline, right? lived his life with peggy carter and then came right home.”

“yeah? yes.”

“then... that’s not steve. it can’t be.”

there’s dramatic music, bruce and bucky’s worried faces. steve takes a sip of a fruity drink from a straw.

they bring in some kind of scientist they know; maybe cho, idk, and they go over his bloodwork in secret. slowly, more people are let in on the secret, like sam, who bucky tells because he’s on the team, he guesses, but he’s only got like one friend. perhaps there’s still that other danger going on, but they really need to get to the bottom of this - 

if that’s not steve, who the hell is it? and if that’s someone else, then where the hell is steve rogers?

scott lang and hope van dyne get called in to help build another quantum machine - they don’t have one anymore after steve returned the stones. a time machine is a bit too dangerous, even for them. old steve is around quite often - he likes the quiet, he has a room in the compound, no friends his own (new) age.

but something slips. he’s watching. he may look old, but his hearing’s still good. his vision’s still spectacular. he’s not steve rogers. he’s something else. they cannot comprehend his knowledge.

for much of the plot, we aren’t sure if they’re right, that he’s not steve. he’s acting like steve. he has steve’s memories, his voice, his mannerisms. maybe some people are sceptical - like peter, perhaps, on a weekend visit to train, psyched about the quantum realm idea, but really guys? because old steve has called me queens since the funeral. he can even recite those dumb psas he made. maybe peter talks too much, too loud, and the fake steve rogers knows the jig is up. they’re going to access the quantum realm and find the original steve - this is his final chance.

“you know,” old steve says, heaving himself to his feet, “your friends are right. i’m not steve rogers.” he starts growing bigger, and possibility gelatinous. i imagine it like the young avengers’ mother - some inter-dimensional being, who becomes sinewy, creeping tendrils of flesh and matter; massive in size with a harpy kind of roar. everyone rushes out to see this gigantic mound of flesh--

“what the hell is that, parker??!!”

“uhhh that’s not-steve. he’s acting very not steve today.”

the fight begins, and it becomes clear that whatever this is took steve’s place. stole him, kept him hidden somewhere, and now they’ve gotta get him back. they separate into teams; fighting the monster and racing to the quantum realm. at first, no one has their suits - perhaps they tag team it, or get new suits, or maybe peter has edith on him, and he calls down another iron spider, and she informs him that there’s a falcon x/captain america suit or something; a nanobot suit for sam. something very cool for the suit up, you know?

meanwhile, bucky and bruce are at the quantum machine; perhaps parts of the monster have detached themselves and fight them, too. perhaps the monster calls down its brethren and glowing green lights appear, monsters crawling out from other worlds. bucky gets suited up, and bruce sends him back--

there’s a battle--and bucky flying through time--and fighting--and bucky getting smaller and smaller--and chaos--and bucky landing in the night on a street in 1949.

he gets it pretty fast. it understands why steve might want to stay here. it’s the kind of life they dreamed for themselves after the war. a quiet suburban street; the city off in the distance. the lights are on in plenty of houses, bright yellow. he knows almost automatically which one to look at. 

he peers through the front window, and there they are: peggy carter and steve rogers. he looks exactly as he did the last time bucky saw him young. they’re smiling. they’re dancing. perhaps not well - bucky was always the better dancer of the two. he’s about to raise his fist and knock on the window, but then peggy and steve stop, look around, and two small children, one blonde, one brunette, come rushing in. they laugh, picking them up and spinning them around, part of the dance. bucky stares.

there’s a massive fight in the compound, maybe doctor strange is there? idk. maybe he could feel the walls of the dimension cracking open to let these monsters through. thor is there, he deserves to be. captain marvel perhaps, too. but the more they knock down, the more grow back.

perhaps bucky walks through the neighbourhood, visits his family. he knows that no matter how long he spends in this place, it will only be a minute in the real world. so he goes home. he gets on a bus, then a train, hops the turnstile and finds his old house. he’s come home from war. his family cries. he cries. he holds his mother. his father calls his sisters and they rush through the night to greet him. he can’t leave in the night, he can’t. so he sleeps there until morning. returns to steve’s house and watches from a distance as they do the school run.

peggy kisses him goodbye and leaves for work. steve watches her go. but he is still perceptive as ever; he sees bucky, heads over. they hug. they talk. bucky breaks the news to him: this isn’t real. this is made up. a simulation, specifically to keep you here. something else has taken over your life.

steve doesn’t believe it - maybe they fight, i’m not sure. maybe bucky gets angry and even spits out the words “are they even searching for me yet? have you even told them what i’m going through right now? it’s 1949 - i remember this year as the year my handler got pretty trigger happy with waterboarding.”

we go between the fight at the compound and the 40s a few times, as bucky spends the day stewing and steve spends the day looking thoughtful and sending meaningful looks out the window to where bucky had been standing, but no longer was. as it grows dark again, early evening, the children return home from school, peggy comes back from work, steve starts cooking dinner.

he looks out the window and sees bucky out on the front path, watching the yellow-lit kitchen. he goes outside, asks if he wants to come in.

“no,” bucky replies. “if i go in, i’ll never leave.”

“is that such a bad thing?” steve asks.

“it is when it’s not real.”

“buck--”

“i wanted a life back then. i wanted this. some nice house in some nice neighbourhood. fall in love, settle down - the whole nine yards. but i got captured, steve. i got tortured, and brainwashed, and now i live in the twenty-first century, and i fight bad guys with ridiculous powers, and i have a computer that i can carry around in my pocket, and--things are good there! even the skinny, angry version of you could’ve lived better there. might’ve even got a cure or two for your sicknesses.”

“bucky--”

“this, though. this isn’t real, steve. i want it to be, so badly. you deserve this. deserve the peace and quiet. deserve the life, and the happiness and the--the girl. but right now, in the time you left, there’s a monster tearing up your friends. our friends. and they need help.”

“they’ve got captain america.”

“they don’t need captain america. they need steve rogers.”

steve can’t help but look back through the window, to where peggy and his kids are talking, serving up dinner. he sighs. “i can’t leave this behind, buck. i can’t.”

bucky sighs, perhaps this argument goes on longer, but he resigns himself to it. “i thought you might say that. i’ll be out here for another hour, and then i’m going back.”

bucky waits outside on the front path for an hour. steve eats his dinner and laughs with his family. when the time comes, bucky gets up, and looks back at the front door, hopeful. but--steve doesn’t show. he heads back.

the fight continues on, bucky breaks the news to bruce, and there are some bad injuries, maybe. i’d say that someone might die, but the real emotional climax of this film is steve-centred, so we probably don’t need a death. fighting goes on for an avengers-appropriate amount of time, and the tide turns against the avengers. then... just as all hope seems lost:

a second captain america shield slices through a monster, pinning down sam. its that holographic one (photon?) from the comics; just something tony had worked up before he died. the camera pans over to steve in his captain america get up; the same one he left in; catching the shield.

more fighting, then steve: “are you using my shield?” 

sam: “the other, fake you gave it to me.”

steve shrugs. “it looks good on you. keep it.”

also during/near the end of the fight, bucky and steve reunite, and hug, because i’m a sucker for hugs. 

bucky: “i thought you weren’t coming back”

steve: “i wasn’t. but--i couldn’t leave you behind again. not after you showed up like that.”

“but how’d you get back?”

“i still had my pim particles and suits stored in the attic. i think the monster stole my shield when he stuck me there, but he left everything else behind.”

“... i’m glad you’re back.”

“i’m glad to be back. really.”

they win the fight. i dont care how. maybe aim or modok or something shows up or maybe good old fashioned teamwork gets the job done. but they’re happy, and they’re together, and inter-dimensional travel has now been introduced. *cough* spiderverse *cough* 

steve still gives up captain america - he’d spent four years in the past as a stay-at-home dad and husband, only using the old suit for press stuff, so he doesn’t really want it back. he liked settling down. that’s what he wants. perhaps he moves to brooklyn or harlem or wherever, to whatever apartment bucky and sam set up for themselves. he cooks and paints (a little girl with blonde hair and a small boy with eyes like peggy carter’s) and punches his fist halfheartedly in the air, droning “go team” whenever they head out on their missions.

he really did mean it when he said sam looked good with the shield.

there would probably be a b plot of another character Doing Things, like thor and captain marvel and whatever their adventure is. but i don’t know what it is yet. there’s a happy ending. then, the first credits scene is some inter-dimensional shenanigans and a villain being introduced. i personally imagine that kang is going to be the next big villain, but he’s time travel, not dimensional travel, so i don’t know.

then, your optional after credits scene: bucky and steve standing by the kitchen counter, talking and whatnot. i don’t know what about. maybe bucky’s getting ready for a mission, maybe steve’s just in a white tshirt and sweats and he’s just having a nice day, making himself some coffee, reading a good book. they talk, and steve nods bucky over.

“what?” bucky asks.

“thank you,” steve replies.

“... ‘til the end of the line, remember? i’ve got your back, rogers.”

“and i’ve got yours. you know that?”

“course i do.”

they smile. they’re happy. they’re at home. the screen goes black as soon as steve leans in and kisses bucky. 

(or: your platonic ending: the screen goes black as soon as steve and bucky bump fists in a friendly non-gay way)

then: STEVE ROGERS WILL RETURN IN THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER

it’s a reoccurring role. he’s largely in the background, cheering them on, and occasionally waiting up in bed when bucky gets home from a late-night mission. he trains sam with the shield on weekends.

the end

#marvel #mcu #steve rogers #avengers #avengers endgame #no read more cut we die like men #this took me almost an hour to write up #despite only taking ten minutes to imagine #anyway: kevin feige hire me #bethany talks #Anonymous

[magnetic-rose]

i feel like disney has the money + technology to make a really good looking live action x-men series instead of rebooting it into yet another lackluster film franchise....... but the MCU hasn’t given me what i’ve wanted for years now so i’m already expecting disappointment. 

#like the x-men just work better as a series #the ensemble cast is too big #there will never be a perfect x-men movie that gives everyone time to shine #which is why it needs to be a show #kevin feige hire me