WandaVision - Disney+ (***Spoilers***)

quokula

quokula wrote: »

This won’t be a popular opinion but by the end the whole arc the show struck me as falling into some pretty sexist tropes. Female superhero turns out to literally be a witch, also creates the whole mess because she couldn’t control her emotions and really just wanted to live happily ever after with husband and kids.

I say this as someone who’s never read the comics and saw most of the films but barely remembers the details as I view them as light and breezy popcorn flicks. So I guess there’s certain obligations to being somewhat faithful to decades old source material, which is somewhat ironic when they used the early sitcom episodes to call out some of those old fashioned attitudes.

Scarlet witch turns out to be a witch and this surprised you?. Hero struggling to come to grips with their power is a common trope

I think your reaching

Kermit.de.frog

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Absolute load of pish. I'm really annoyed at myself for not quitting on this show early on.

Sure enough, it was a pathetic bait-and-switch on the part of the writers to tease X-Men involvement and then not deliver on it. The show descended into something I've heard Mark Kermode bring up when referring to the MCU: whenever there is an interesting story to be told it invariably fizzles out with a CGI light show in the final act. That's exactly what happened in this episode.

And then I almost fell out of my chair when we were subjected to that laughable bit of dialogue between Monica and Wanda. 'They'll never know what you sacrificed for them'. What was that? Giving up a phony and fictitious family that necessitated them all being incarcerated for weeks in a hellhole where they had their minds controlled? Where they will have probably been traumatised so badly it will affect them for the rest of their days? GTFO out of here. And then Wanda Pissemalloff doesn't even have the decency to apologize for her outrageous selfishness.

I can't help but wonder how these writers would fare had they not got millions of dollars to blow on CGI effects, and had to actually put more thought into crafting storylines that had to make some sort of sense. Overall, this was a dreadful show that relied on cheap gimmicks early on, as well as teasing their audience, in order to mask what was, ultimately, a very bland, boring storyline involving bland, boring and mostly made-up characters.

I thought it was ok for what it is - dumb superhero entertainment.

You are judging it at a bar the genre does not pretend to meet nor can it given the subject mater.

If you accept it for what it is I thought it was fine. Entertaining. If you go looking for great narrative, screenplay, story...you are obviously going to be disappointed.

brevity

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

And then I almost fell out of my chair when we were subjected to that laughable bit of dialogue between Monica and Wanda. 'They'll never know what you sacrificed for them'. What was that? Giving up a phony and fictitious family that necessitated them all being incarcerated for weeks in a hellhole where they had their minds controlled? Where they will have probably been traumatised so badly it will affect them for the rest of their days? GTFO out of here. And then Wanda Pissemalloff doesn't even have the decency to apologize for her outrageous selfishness.

This frustrated me too. She locked kids away from their parents ffs. It’s like the writers forgot (or were told) she’s supposed to be a good guy/gal.

For a minute I thought that there was gonna be a bit of a twist that Agatha was going save the town and pull Wanda out of her dream world. Not necessarily to be a hero but to mess with Wanda’s head (destroying her family etc). Would have preferred this tbh.

flazio

paulbok wrote: »

In the final end credit scene when

the Scarlet Witch astral form was reading the book it sounded like her kids were calling out to her for help?

The subtitles confirmed who it was and what they were saying.

Penn

brevity wrote: »

This frustrated me too. She locked kids away from their parents ffs. It’s like the writers forgot (or were told) she’s supposed to be a good guy/gal.

For a minute I thought that there was gonna be a bit of a twist that Agatha was going save the town and pull Wanda out of her dream world. Not necessarily to be a hero but to mess with Wanda’s head (destroying her family etc). Would have preferred this tbh.

Wanda didn't intentionally lock all the kids in rooms. Same way she thought she was making all the Westview residents happy but wasn't able to see the pain they were suffering on the inside.

The entire Westview thing wasn't planned but was borne solely out of emotion, she had little control over its creation. Everyone looked and sounded happy because they always are in perfect sitcom worlds. And so she didn't feel or notice the damage she was doing in the background.

I think it makes it more interesting that Wanda was the real cause of the Westview situation, and that she's not "the goodie who fights the baddie". It's a more extreme version of Tony Stark in a way (because I watched Iron Man last night). Tony was more than happy to profit off his weapons business and revel in the destruction, but didn't notice that Stane was selling his weapons to the terrorists to help create those profits and fuel wars. So Tony had to come to terms with his role in it all and destroy it from the inside. Likewise Wanda thought she was making all the residents of Westview happy and she could have the perfect life she dreamed of. But when she started to see the destruction and pain she was causing (not just to the residents but also to Vision) and that Agatha was going to take her power and could cause more pain and destruction, Wanda realised she had to destroy it all and learn to live with her pain.

It's a fairly classic trope, but it's more interesting than if Wanda was also just trapped by Agatha/Mephisto/A.N.Other like the rest of Westview.

Sakana

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

bland, boring and mostly made-up characters.

Aren't all characters made up?

pjohnson

Sakana wrote: »

Aren't all characters made up?

Wait so Raccoons and Tree's dont actually talk?

Sakana

pjohnson wrote: »

Wait so Raccoons and Tree's dont actually talk?

Depends on what you're on.

ShaneU

Really enjoyed this. Haven't read any comics and only seen the Avengers movies once so all of these nods, winks and red herrings you're talking about went straight over my head. X-men? what?

RedRochey

So did Evan Pieters character have superspeed already or did agatha give him that power?

Penn

RedRochey wrote: »

So did Evan Pieters character have superspeed already or did agatha give him that power?

Agatha gave him the power through the necklace he had on.

FunLover18

I definitely need to watch it again now that my expectations have been lowered because I did find that underwhelming and I think, like others have mentioned, my expectations were heavily influenced by the speculation and theories when in reality the story was a very simple one and that’s not necessarily a criticism.

I was disappointed by the “villains” however, I thought they were poorly written in terms of their motives and when you look back at the show they never really posed any threat. Neither Agatha nor Hayward were proactive in any meaningful way, in fact for the majority of the series they were as clueless as to what was going on as the audience which isn’t something you want from your big bad. Agatha spent 1-2 weeks pretending to fit in as the nosy neighbour trying to figure out what Wanda is up to and then turns into a fairly rote “I want your power” villain, we don’t know why she wants her power or what she wants to do with it, we really don’t know anything about Agatha or what she’s been up to since the witch trial scene, which is a shame because I think they could have had a lot more fun with her being immortal and utilised Hahn more. She was way more entertaining in her nosy neighbour character but as soon as the reveal happened, that playfulness and sense of mischief vanished, the Wizard of Oz reference was good but it was a visual gag where Agatha wasn’t even on screen. I wanted to see the villain who would think to do that and I didn’t.

Hayward also was just a run of the mill evil military man who wanted a new toy to play with and similar to Agatha he was an observer of Wandavision from the outset. Why send White Vision to destroy Vision when he literally witnessed Vision falling apart when he tried to leave the Hex, why send WV into the Hex at all when you already have what you want. Again I felt his motives and characterisation were weak.

I enjoyed the Vision off (Visioff?), the way they used their phasing powers against each other was really cool and inventive and as has been said the philosophical climax was very clever. I am also confused as to what happened WV though and find it strange that no one in the show seemed to care about this. I wish I could say I enjoyed Wanda vs Agatha as much but two people throwing balls of light at each other was really boring and disappointing, maybe they used all the budget on the Visions but I expected a lot more from two witches who can manipulate reality.

A few other small things that annoyed me:

• What took Vision so long to get to Wanda from the van, a small nitpick
• Agatha spent so long manipulating Vision, almost encouraging him to see the truth and I don’t think we got a single noteable interaction between them in the finale
• I’m still confused as to how Agatha gave Ralph super speed

I just needed to get all the negatives feelings out there, overall I did enjoy and I think I’ll enjoy it more when I rewatch it with the knowledge of what’s coming.

On the Evan Peters’s casting; I’ve made my views clear before, I think it was a really fun wink but more importantly I thought he was great in the role and he had good chemistry with Olsen. There does seem to be a note of fan entitlement in some posts I’ve seen, I get that people are disappointed but to take it as personally as some people seem to be is a bit much.

expectationlost

how much of this was shot during the pandemic?

The White Wolf

I think it's harsh to call it fan entitlement given it was clearly stunt casting to boost hype for the show.

But it is what it is, I'm not going to waste further breath on it other than say I hope to see more of Peters in the MCU.

Penn

The White Wolf wrote: »

I think it's harsh to call it fan entitlement given it was clearly stunt casting to boost hype for the show.

But it is what it is, I'm not going to waste further breath on it other than say I hope to see more of Peters in the MCU.

If there's one thing the MCU needs, it's more Bohner!

Lithium93_

expectationlost wrote: »

how much of this was shot during the pandemic?

They restarted in September 2020, and wrapped in November, so 2 months

Foxtrol

jface187 wrote: »

Going into it my other half had told me that Mephisto was going to be in (She had seen a funko pop of him apparently), The Paul Bettany interview where he talked about working with someone he always wanted to work with and assuming that Doctor Strange to pop up.

When none of these things happened, I didn't mind. I enjoyed it without any of that stuff.

The only thing is a couple of nagging questions. Who put the letter in Wanda's car, telling her to go to the house? and Quicksilver casting leads to nothing really.

Watching the post-credit scene, I got evil dead vibes, I know Rami doing Doctor Strange 2, so probably why it poped into my head.

General consensus is that Bettany was talking about working with himself

Brian CivilEng

Lithium93_ wrote: »

They restarted in September 2020, and wrapped in November, so 2 months

So maybe that was why the characters didn't seem to interact with each other much in the last episode. I was wondering if that was the reason.

Penn

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

So maybe that was why the characters didn't seem to interact with each other much in the last episode. I was wondering if that was the reason.

Even when all the residents approach Wanda at the Plaza, they all seemed to stay a few steps back from her and each other, not getting too close.

flazio

The White Wolf wrote: »

I think it's harsh to call it fan entitlement given it was clearly stunt casting to boost hype for the show.

But it is what it is, I'm not going to waste further breath on it other than say I hope to see more of Peters in the MCU.

Penn wrote: »

If there's one thing the MCU needs, it's more Bohner!

It's too good an opportunity for Deadpool 3 not to miss.

My hot take. I enjoyed it a lot. Great performances from all the leads and I can take or leave the bait switching going on with J Jonah and Pietro.

However, the pandemic saved the show a bit here, in which I mean if the cinemas were open I'd have preferred to have seen a 2.5 to 3 hour IMAX feature film then sitting in my living room in bright daylight every week. Realistically there was only enough meaningful content here for a movie, not a mini series.
Take the Mandalorian for example, each episode had a problem of the week, it's settled and you are left with a piece of either next weeks problem or something for the finalé. This was movie linear. No real "cliff hangers" as such.

Foxtrol

I said beforehand that I was very skeptical of the sitcom approach, always hating dream type sequences, but to me they succeeded beyond anything I could have hoped for. Everything that happened in the sitcom mattered and built into the story for everyone in the Hex and even outside it. The acting was superb and saw me seeing those characters as quite 'B-Team' characters in the other movies to being some of my favourites.

As an opener to Phase 4, it was pretty pitch perfect - getting stories going but not getting ahead of themselves like some seemed to hope or even nearly expect. Introducing mutants/multiverse/house of M/Fantastic 4 will all come but it was crazy to think it was all coming in the first show - Marvel simply dont do that (they aren't DC... :pac:).

It will be interesting to see if Marvel can work similar magic with Falcon and Winter Soldier, who are probably 'C-Team' heroes for many.

Lithium93_

They'll have plenty to choose from anyways for the next Avengers film, whenever that rolls around.

Penn

Foxtrol wrote: »

Everything that happened in the sitcom mattered and built into the story for everyone in the Hex and even outside it.

That's why thinking back on it, the earlier episodes were so important in setting up the horrors happening to the residents behind the scene. Vision's boss choking while his wife kept saying "Stop it", I think maybe he was choking but that Wanda had set up the Hex so that people couldn't die, so he was choking but would have just kept choking, and it would have felt like torture for him to keep choking and for Mrs.Hart to have to sit there watching it. Even the magic show where Vision lifts the piano and Wanda changes it to cardboard to cover for the powers, the guy with the moustache goes "That was my grandfather's piano". In the flashback episode where Wanda drives through the town, we see that guy posting up an ad for offering piano lessons, so it probably was his grandfather's piano.

I think the first few episodes did such a great job of setting up the little things that really add to the on-going tension and really backs up the reveal of the nightmare Wanda has accidentally been inflicting on them.

Foxtrol

Mitch Connor wrote: »

The pietro thing annoys me.
Disney bought Fox, Disney have the rights to those movies, and the guy played QS in those movies. If he was just some nobody Agnes used to mess with Wanda then he should have been some nobody Agnes used. Its not like Wanda knew there was an alt Pietro and this guy looks the exact same as him.

The ONLY reason to cast him as QS is to plant the exact theories that the fans came up with. Fans didn't read too much into it, fans read exactly what the showrunners wanted them to read into it.

For it to have ment nothing is a massive slap in the face to the fans, imo.

With the rumours of Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield in Spider-Man 3, will they also just be some randoms if they are in it? If they are in it will it be the fans fault for expecting some connection with the Spider-Man movies?

Disagree strongly with this take on QS. Sure instigating talk was part of the casting but using him has massive consequences, by doing this MCU have sent out a message and basically killed any type of potential cross-over between Fox's X-Men universe. That is huge in the grand scheme of things and likely a big downer for a lot of theory click sites - who I can see already pushing back.

I don't get how you (and many others) would be frustrated if 'rumours' aren't followed through on by Marvel, like the roles of previous Spider-men. It is completely fans own fault for building up theories in their heads to such an extent that they can't handle when they don't come true.

I learned the lesson after the first few seasons of Lost - enjoy the speculation but don't go down the rabbit hole so far that if they don't go the way I want that I'd be frustrated. The way some folk get so annoyed by red herrings makes me wonder how they read any books or watch TV or movies. It seems to a growing problem, which I'm not sure is amplified by those sites that make their money by pushing theories.

Lithium93_

That and Marvel, already apparently have the new X-Men film in development.

Foxtrol

FunLover18 wrote: »

I definitely need to watch it again now that my expectations have been lowered because I did find that underwhelming and I think, like others have mentioned, my expectations were heavily influenced by the speculation and theories when in reality the story was a very simple one and that’s not necessarily a criticism.

I was disappointed by the “villains” however, I thought they were poorly written in terms of their motives and when you look back at the show they never really posed any threat. Neither Agatha nor Hayward were proactive in any meaningful way, in fact for the majority of the series they were as clueless as to what was going on as the audience which isn’t something you want from your big bad. Agatha spent 1-2 weeks pretending to fit in as the nosy neighbour trying to figure out what Wanda is up to and then turns into a fairly rote “I want your power” villain, we don’t know why she wants her power or what she wants to do with it, we really don’t know anything about Agatha or what she’s been up to since the witch trial scene, which is a shame because I think they could have had a lot more fun with her being immortal and utilised Hahn more. She was way more entertaining in her nosy neighbour character but as soon as the reveal happened, that playfulness and sense of mischief vanished, the Wizard of Oz reference was good but it was a visual gag where Agatha wasn’t even on screen. I wanted to see the villain who would think to do that and I didn’t.

Hayward also was just a run of the mill evil military man who wanted a new toy to play with and similar to Agatha he was an observer of Wandavision from the outset. Why send White Vision to destroy Vision when he literally witnessed Vision falling apart when he tried to leave the Hex, why send WV into the Hex at all when you already have what you want. Again I felt his motives and characterisation were weak.

I enjoyed the Vision off (Visioff?), the way they used their phasing powers against each other was really cool and inventive and as has been said the philosophical climax was very clever. I am also confused as to what happened WV though and find it strange that no one in the show seemed to care about this. I wish I could say I enjoyed Wanda vs Agatha as much but two people throwing balls of light at each other was really boring and disappointing, maybe they used all the budget on the Visions but I expected a lot more from two witches who can manipulate reality.

A few other small things that annoyed me:

• What took Vision so long to get to Wanda from the van, a small nitpick
• Agatha spent so long manipulating Vision, almost encouraging him to see the truth and I don’t think we got a single noteable interaction between them in the finale
• I’m still confused as to how Agatha gave Ralph super speed

I just needed to get all the negatives feelings out there, overall I did enjoy and I think I’ll enjoy it more when I rewatch it with the knowledge of what’s coming.

On the Evan Peters’s casting; I’ve made my views clear before, I think it was a really fun wink but more importantly I thought he was great in the role and he had good chemistry with Olsen. There does seem to be a note of fan entitlement in some posts I’ve seen, I get that people are disappointed but to take it as personally as some people seem to be is a bit much.

I see the villains very differently. I believe the whole point was not to have an obvious 'big bad' because they wanted it to be unclear to the audience whether it was Wanda or not. It worked that the villains were as much of a loss as what was going on as we were and were kind of dealing things on the fly.

I enjoyed that approach far more than the normal knowing who the bad guy is going to be from the first episode or two and then learning their complicated plan as the season goes on.

kerplun k

The White Wolf wrote: »

I think it's harsh to call it fan entitlement given it was clearly stunt casting to boost hype for the show.

But it is what it is, I'm not going to waste further breath on it other than say I hope to see more of Peters in the MCU.

Yeah, obviously with his name the thing was supposed to be a joke, but it fell flat and wasn’t funny and actually came across kinda awkward. Anyhews your right, the less said about it, the better.

RedRochey

Falcon and winter soldier confirmed for the 19th

pjohnson

Foxtrol wrote: »

Disagree strongly with this take on QS. Sure instigating talk was part of the casting but using him has massive consequences, by doing this MCU have sent out a message and basically killed any type of potential cross-over between Fox's X-Men universe. That is huge in the grand scheme of things and likely a big downer for a lot of theory click sites - who I can see already pushing back.

I don't get how you (and many others) would be frustrated if 'rumours' aren't followed through on by Marvel, like the roles of previous Spider-men. It is completely fans own fault for building up theories in their heads to such an extent that they can't handle when they don't come true.

I learned the lesson after the first few seasons of Lost - enjoy the speculation but don't go down the rabbit hole so far that if they don't go the way I want that I'd be frustrated. The way some folk get so annoyed by red herrings makes me wonder how they read any books or watch TV or movies. It seems to a growing problem, which I'm not sure is amplified by those sites that make their money by pushing theories.

I saw a few X-Fans on twitter/reddit now lamenting the fact that X-Men are under Marvel and now just dick jokes and cosplay when it comes to Feige. A shame since pre-buyout there had been two good Mutant shows. A large portion now seem to have reduced expectations to something probably worse than Inhumans and are just going back to the current X-Comics rennaisance for pleasure.

Fans of mutants now have no expectation so cant be dissapointed. I guess thats a win, although they similarly arent interested in Falcon & WS anymore since they assume the "Madripoor" leak is just more trolling so thats not great. And expectations for actually doing a proper Deadpool movie also reduced.


It cost Fox a lot of money to beat the expectations to zero, this was cheaper :pac:

kerplun k

pjohnson wrote: »

I saw a few X-Fans on twitter/reddit now lamenting the fact that X-Men are under Marvel and now just dick jokes and cosplay when it comes to Feige. A shame since pre-buyout there had been two good Mutant shows. A large portion now seem to have reduced expectations to something probably worse than Inhumans and are just going back to the current X-Comics rennaisance for pleasure.

Fans of mutants now have no expectation so cant be dissapointed. I guess thats a win, although they similarly arent interested in Falcon & WS anymore since they assume the "Madripoor" leak is just more trolling so thats not great. And expectations for actually doing a proper Deadpool movie also reduced.


It cost Fox a lot of money to beat the expectations to zero, this was cheaper :pac:

Kevin Feige wrote: »

No more mutants....