MCU Good Parts

New project!  How’d it come about?

So I was revisiting my MCU rankings, and to have something running on the side while I worked, I decided to put them on in reverse order, to see if the worst ones were as bad as I remembered.  That led me to wonder how short these movies would be if I made a Good Parts version of them.

(Back when I was at EA, I would host “Good Parts” versions of action movies that I liked, skipping to the best fight scenes and eschewing the boring plot bits.  This worked especially well for movies like Fist of Legend.)

My idea is to edit the MCU movies by cutting out all the bits that I always skip whenever I rewatch them.  The stat geek in me will keep track of the scenes to see if there are any patterns in what I like and don’t like.  Given my general disdain for MCU villains and CGI-heavy third acts, I’m expecting to cut a lot of those.

The scene classifications I’ll be using:

• Hero: The protagonist is in the scene

• Villain: The villain is in the scene

• Secondary: Secondary characters of note are in the scene

• Character Building: It reveals something of the characters in the scene

• Action: It’s an action scene

• Filler: I don’t feel like it serves any direct purpose in the film.  (Not necessarily a bad thing.)

I’m not being a stickler with any of these tags, so there’s plenty of margin for error.

I’ll also use the opportunity to rank the movies from scratch, and see how it matches up with my current rankings.

So here we go.  I’m five movies in, and I’m having a blast.  I’m do%ing all the documentation, haven’t done any actual film cutting.  (I’m wondering if I ever will, it may end up being totally unnecessary.)  What have I found out so far?  

Iron Man 

Current rank: 16 of 33

I’m going in chronological release order.  Might as well.  

Before rewatch:

• Scenes I love: Tony in the lab designing the armor is by far the best part of this film, and really the only thing that I actively rewatch.  

• Expectations: I’ll pretty much keep any scene where Robert Downey Jr works his magic.  Pepper Potts will probably be an auto-include.  Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane will probably be a 50/50 proposition.  Not expecting to keep the final fight.

Rewatch stats:

• Time to process: 55 minutes

• Length of cut scenes: 23:36

• Length of iffy scenes (Scenes that I’m undecided on, but keeping for now): 23:18

• Length of total movie: 2:05:45

• % with cut scenes (Percentage of original movie remaining after removing cut scenes): 81%

• % with iffy scenes (Percentage after removing cut and iffy scenes): 63%

• Hero scenes kept: 81%

• Villain scenes kept: 25%

• Action scenes kept: 83%

• Time of scenes I love: 10:33

After rewatch: I cut a lot of the cave captivity stuff, not surprising.  Kept a lot more of the action scenes than I thought I would, and even the final fight was an iffy, not a full cut.

Incredible Hulk

Current rank: 32 of 33

Before rewatch: 

• Scenes I love: Can’t think of one.

• Expectations: I really don’t know what I’ll be keeping from this.  I don’t have a single fond memory of this.

Rewatch stats:

• Time to process: 1:19

• Length of cut scenes: 1:14:47

• Length of iffy scenes: 8:20

• Length of total movie: 1:52:12

• % with cut scenes: 33%

• % with iffy scenes 26%

• Hero scenes kept: 20%

• Villain scenes kept: 29%

• Action scenes kept: 40%

• Time of scenes I love: 0.  There was nothing.

After rewatch: 

• Yeah, not much made it through, barely over a quarter.  

• I kept a good number of the Emil Blonsky scenes; Tim Roth is actually really good in this; I always enjoyed watching him.  (At least until he becomes the Abomination.)  

• The early action scenes are relatively better than the final one.  

• Unlike most MCU movies, I didn’t care for the protagonist at all.  Offscreen issues aside, Kevin Feige made the right choice in ditching Edward Norton Jr.  

Iron Man 2

Current rank: 15 of 33

Before rewatch:

• Scenes I love: Again, Tony in the lab, this time discovering the new element, is my favorite part.  I like the Monaco fight and all of Scarlett as Black Widow.  Pepper always rocks.

• Expectations: I’ll cut most of the stuff w/ Justin Hammer and Whiplash.  Hammer is smarmy in a “don’t like to watch” kind of way.  Whiplash is just plain boring. 

Rewatch stats:

• Time to process: 0:34

• Length of cut scenes: 35:00

• Length of iffy scenes: 5:31

• Length of total movie: 2:04:26

• % with cut scenes: 72%

• % with iffy scenes: 67%

• Hero scenes kept: 76%

• Villain scenes kept: 44%

• Action scenes kept: 50%

• Time of scenes I love: 29:43

After rewatch: 

• Everything went as expected.  For a movie squarely in the middle tier, I’ve seen it an awful lot of times.  It’s a fun film, and although they’re right next to each other in the rankings, it’s just a smidge higher than IM1.  RDJ is really in his element here, and is more fun to watch than in the original movie, even with the unfortunately drunken party scene, which definitely doesn’t make the cut.

• I forgot to mention the congressional hearing, which is a favorite of mine from this film.

Thor

Current rank: 29 of 33

Before rewatch:

• Scenes I love: Thor shattering the mug in the diner.  Natalie Portman looking cute in a few scenes.  

• Expectations: Very low.  I haven’t seen this movie more than two or three times, I think.  

Rewatch stats:

• Time to process: 1:25

• Length of cut scenes: 44:21

• Length of iffy scenes: 20:22

• Length of total movie: 1:54:39

• % with cut scenes: 61%

• % with iffy scenes: 44%

• Hero scenes kept: 56%

• Villain scenes kept: 47%

• Action scenes kept: 50%

• Time of scenes I love: 3:20 

After rewatch: Not as bad as I remember; Tom Hiddleston really was an inspired choice for Loki, I’m so happy Marvel cast him.  And it’s really fun to see him here at the beginning of it all, knowing the growth he goes through.  

I’ve noticed that the movies I know really well take way less time to catalog.  A lot less need to watch the scenes over again.

Captain America

Current rank: 12 of 33

Before rewatch:

• Scenes I love: Watching Steve up through his transformation.  Anything with Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter.

• Expectations: The first half is way better than the second.  I’ll be keeping very little of the Red Skull; A one-note villain, through no fault of Hugo Weaving. 

Rewatch stats:

• Time to process: 30:00  

• Length of cut scenes: 33:33

• Length of iffy scenes: 17:31

• Length of total movie: 2:03:23

• % with cut scenes: 73%

• % with iffy scenes: 59%

• Hero scenes kept: 74%

• Villain scenes kept: 11%

• Action scenes kept: 50%

• Time of scenes I love: 10:29

After rewatch: No surprises.  This movie gets better every time I rewatch it.  

New rankings:

1. Captain America

2. Iron Man 2

3. Iron Man

4. Thor

5. Hulk

Captain America, New comics

New comic!

Magic Order 2 2

I had to read issue 1 over again since I’d completely forgotten what happened.  Turns out it had very little to do with this one.  In any case, one crazy shock value moment ensures that I’ll stick around:

So.  Messed.  Up.

Captain America 695-698

Mark Waid and Chris Samnee.  Once again, as with most Waid titles, this should be a slam dunk.  But this is the second time this pairing fails to deliver to expectations.  Cap wanders America for a few issues a la JM Straczynski’s Superman before fighting Kraven and then getting sent to a dystopian future.  Perfectly readable, perfectly forgettable.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Byrne Fantastic Four, Captain America

Captain America 698

Captain America wakes up in seven years in the future, everything’s gone to crap, and only his indomitable spirit is going to carry the day.  It’s fine, but doesn’t stand out in anyway.  It doesn’t feel like something I’ll want to re-read in the future, and this may be the last issue that I buy.  As with the Waid/Samnee Black Widow run, I’m surprised that I’m not getting more out of this.  Is Waid truly past his peak?  Champions is pretty good right now, but I’m now suspecting that it’s way more Ramos than Waid.  

Looking at his bibliography, what are his career highlights?  Flash, Impulse, Kingdom Come.  His Legion run was tons of fun.  His Daredevil was okay.  I don’t remember his FF that well (I’ll be getting to it soon!), but it was probably more fun than great.  So yeah, it’s been a while.  

Fantastic Four 236-237

It’s too late at this point, but I would very much like to know what percentage of comic stories involve alternate realities, fantasies, or dream sequences.  Because I’ve been reading them from the start and they just keep coming.  They’re interesting once in a while, but the rate at which I seem to be bombarded by them is ridiculous.  

But as perfect world scenarios go, this one has a few things working in its favor.  It finally lets Alicia Masters (sight restored in this universe) see what The Thing actually looks like.  Of course, it’s also revealed that she’s always known, which is hardly a surprise.  Nor is the fact that loves him regardless of his physical appearance.  Yet it took 236 issues for them to have this conversation.  But at least that’s out of the way now.

Secondly, it’s got a great reveal of the mastermind:

I was just struck with the notion that most of the FF’s victories are due less to their prowess and more to their opponents’ ineptness.  Starting a tally, we’ll see if this is interesting in any way in a few days.  So today, the FF won because Doom was stupid enough to leave Reed Richards a particle accelerator with which to restore the FF powers.  (By the way, if Reed was able to use it to increase their powers twenty-fold, why can’t he do it when they’re normal size?)  Otherwise, victory had been assured.

In 237, Reed legit solved the mystery of Spinnerette.  Full credit to him.

FF: 1

Enemy stupidity: 1

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Nice

Captain America vol 5

Captain America 43-50, 600-601

I have so completely checked out of Brubaker’s run.  I posited in my last entry that I may have been suffering from storyline fatigue.  That is definitely not the case - The next two three-parters are standalone stories, and they engaged me zero.  

Natasha and Bucky are now a couple, and it’s a pairing that makes sense.  I’m happy for those crazy kids.  But in yet another example of the worst does-this-ever-happen-in-real-life media trope, post-coital Natasha shows up with a sheet magically wrapped around her.

How is that thing balancing on her butt?

Who??  Who would ever do this?  The ways in which this doesn’t make sense boggles the mind.  Part of me doesn’t want to get into this, but the other part would rather do this than talk about this interminable run of Captain America comics.  I’ll come back to this if I run out of ways to complain.

Another Captain America thing that I’ve never bought into:

Never ever would his shield fit under any kind of outfit.

No one I know calls it Taipei City.  It’s Taipei!

Things I’m sick of on this title:

Brubaker’s extensive use of flashbacks.  I’m going to do a quick flipthrough of the last two trades.  Back in a sec.  Okay, about ⅙ of the pages are flashbacks.  Not as egregious as I thought.  

But the last issue was entirely flashback.  And the flashback had a flashback.  Rassum frassum...And none of it is interesting.  It’s about a vampire infiltrating the US army during World War II.  Gene Colan was the guest artist, and I imagine Brubaker wanted to give him an excuse to draw vampires as a homage to his Tomb of Dracula days.  But it was a wretched, boring issue.  

So done with the dreary gray/blue color palette that permeates the entire run.

Luke Ross on art is barely replacement level:

Maybe you can't tell because he looks so happy, but he's getting choked here.

Getting choked again.  Hand position is totally off.  And Bucky looks bored.

Butch Guice is a step above, but I would never have guessed that this is Sharon Carter without context:

Sharon's doing her Gwen Stacy impression, with headband and everything.

Things that I liked:

Namor grumbling about his role in Bucky’s plan as being beneath his station is suitable hilarious.

Marcos Martin is such a good artist:

The scale of Namor to the thing he's lifting looks super sweet.

So yeah, these last two trades are not sticking around; They’re post-mega 40-issue storyline, so I’m not missing out on anything, and the past two days have added nothing to my quality of life.  In truth, I could probably do without the entire Brubaker run, but getting rid of such a huge chunk of comics is a little too much for me.  

So that’s it for Captain America, until I get to the current Captain America run that’s still going on.  (It’s on the bookshelf, not in the box, so I’ll be review those way later.)  Looking back, both the Waid and Brubaker runs were not as good as I remembered.  Sadness.  At least the Waid issues have the benefit of nostalgia glasses.  Brubaker’s work just didn’t impress that much.  I liked aspects of his work on Sharon Carter and Bucky, but the plots were just meh.  I’m ready to move on.

Regret buying? Yes

Would buy again? No

Would read again? No

Rating: Boring