COVID had nothing to do with the Snyderverse failing. They gave up on Snyder after BvS turned out to be a dumpster fire.

>ZSJL was put of the big screen

ZSJL was never going to be on the big screen. It's a four hour movie, and if that wasn't enough, all that extra runtime still only made it fractionally better than the mediocrity of Josstice League.

That first season was so good. I was not a fan of the rest of the series, but that first season was pretty much as good of a first season as a scifi series has had.

Battlestar Galactica, "33"

Just factoring in when it came out (i.e. before this era of prestige TV) as well as the budgetary limitations of the network that released it (SyFy), it's remarkable how good of an episode it was. And it still holds up today as one of the best in scifi.

>Are you putting that on Tony and not Cap?

No statements of fault, just cause and effect. The signing of the Sokovia Accords led to the disbanding of the Avengers, and Tony's decision to sign them was driven by his guilt over creating Ultron. And Tony's decision to create Ultron was driven by his PTSD over the Battle of New York.

I'm just illustrating the kind of character continuity that some commenters here (specifically CrackPlug80) seem to be unable to see.

Avatar: The Last Airbender, 3 seasons, but they're 25-min episodes, so effectively the same as only 1.5 seasons of a normal TV show.

Also, Watchmen on HBO. One season, no plans to continue.

Band of Brothers is an oldie but definitely a goodie.

Rome season 1 is a fantastic bit of TV. Season 2 is decent, but honestly a bit of a letdown, and season 1 is a fully self-contained storyline that you can just pretend has a tragic ending.

Already did. And like I said, in case you missed my edit:

Literally your whole posting history (at least recently) is just you shitting on other people for the movies they like, and not just the MCU. I hope that you one day learn to enjoy a movie without putting others down.

And that's the last response you'll get from me on this thread.

>What value do they have before they’re built off of years later? You say they aren’t shallow or meaningless but it sounds like they’re in a holding pattern, maybe indefinitely.

Honestly, I share the same concern. They're obviously setting the stage for some kind of multiversal/cosmic conflict, but the multiverse is just a setting, not a story hook, and "setting the stage" means your play hasn't even started yet.

The problem is that the current MCU doesn't have a story hook that teases something revolutionary (like what "the Avengers Initiative" from Iron Man did) or a main villain like Thanos to threaten the newly established status quo. So yeah, it does feel like a holding pattern. But that's also why I said I'm withholding my judgment until they start showing their cards.

>Where did I imply that there aren’t recurring themes or character beats?

I didn't say you implied that. You asked for "an example of the sort of thing I’m missing out on if I saw Eternals but didn't see Black Widow," and I answered with an example of a thing that you would need to follow through multiple movies.

>And what have they been doing for the last 4 years if “similar driving forces” haven’t materialized in any meaningful way yet?

Iron Man came out in 2008. Avengers came out in 2012. "Four years" is not a long time in the context of the MCU.

>It's just the same "adventure" in every single movie. Introduce new generic big bad guy, heroes get into cgi fight with big bad guy, heroes win, rinse and repeat. There is zero reason to follow these movies in order

This sounds more like you making an excuse for your inability to follow anything past a single movie. Sorry, that's your own fault, not anyone else's, especially not the MCU's.

Each movie might use the same three-act formula, but the characters change, and when characters change, the story changes. Which is again why I compare it to a TV series like Star Trek.

>Meanwhile 90% of the characters are just the same generic quip machine, there is not a single interesting character in the MCU

Every character looks one dimensional if you don't have the attention span to connect even just two movies together compared to when you do.

EDIT:

Literally your whole posting history (at least recently) is just you shitting on other people for the movies they like, and not just the MCU. I hope that you one day learn to enjoy a movie without putting others down.

Pick a character, and follow how they change through the movies and TV shows.

The most obvious one is Iron Man, since he was the de facto protagonist of the MCU until Endgame. His PTSD from Avengers causes him to create Ultron in Avengers 2. His guilt over creating Ultron compelled him to sign the Sokovia Accords and cause the disbanding of the Avengers, which leaves Earth vulnerable to Thanos. His compulsion to treat consequences as problems to be solved with engineering results in ever greater consequences, until he comes up on one problem whose only solution is self-sacrifice, which calls back to and resolves the arc that started with Captain America's original evaluation of his character in Avengers: "You're not the type to make the sacrifice play."

It remains to be seen whether there will be similar driving forces for the post-Endgame MCU. I'm withholding my judgment on that. But acting as if there aren't any recurring themes or character beats in the MCU is stupid, because it is literally what keeps people coming back to it.

That is like asking, "What is the overall story of Star Trek?"

The answer is the same: it's an ongoing series that follows the adventures of a cast of characters that evolve and change over time.

Hence what I said before: "Which is to say, they may not have a fixed 'grand narrative,' but they do pay attention to continuity, and the characters and storylines develop within that continuity."

You are acting as if the only stories worth telling are the ones that need to revolve around a central plot, as if it's the plot that matters and not the characters that drive it.

>To say that a person needs to be paying special attention to the continuity of this very long series of movies or they “won’t get anything out of them” is to say that there is something complicated about the way they tell their stories.

First of all, that is not the same as "complicated plotting."

Second, no I'm not saying that. I'm saying that you can derive enjoyment in different ways. You CAN enjoy them just as simple action movies, or you can enjoy the interconnectedness of the whole series in addition to their appeal as action movies. Hence why I compared it to a TV show rather than a bunch of movies.

>I never said you shouldn't enjoy the superhero movies if that's your thing,

No, you just called it dogshit and brought it up as such in a thread that had nothing to do with it, solely because you peeked at the OP's posting history and got triggered that he was an MCU fan.

That's TOTALLY not snobbery. No sirree.

>just don't pretend they are something they are not.

I'm not. You are, and for what reason? None, except that for some reason you can't follow a few "simple" movies.

>There is zero value to watching all the MCU movies as if they are a tv show, because there is no overall story or purpose to them.

Oh, of course there is, because people do. Just because you for some reason can't follow it past a single episode doesn't mean other people can't, either. In fact, the value in treating it as a series is pretty evident in its success.

>Not sure why you are being so defensive of this children's movie franchise

I respond poorly to snobbery, especially when it's unjustified.

The real question is, why are YOU so insistent on saying it's dogshit when you clearly don't even watch it?

>I'm sorry but you're just incorrect

I'm sorry but I'm not. Yes, it's a cash cow, and yes, it's meant to print money and sell merchandise, but the reason it does so with such success is because everything you said about it is wrong.

>There is no real continuity, all it is is retelling the same basic story over and over again in every movie

Thank you for proving that you can't follow the continuity.

I already knew you couldn't, but you just confirmed it.

>You don't have to follow all the MCU movies to be able to watch any one of them. You can watch them out of order. They are designed this way

Wrong. They are designed so that they are enjoyable if you watch them individually. But if you watch them sequentially, in the order they came out, and you remember what happened before, then you will be rewarded with developing character arcs, relationships, worldbuilding, etc.

The fact that you don't know this (and won't even consider it) tells me you never even gave it a chance, you never will give it a chance, and you're upset that so many people enjoy something that you, for some reason, can't.

Good thing the MCU doesn't have complicated plotting. They just follow their own continuity and develop the characters from what came before.

Weird how you don't seem to understand the difference.

Good lord, you can't even read past one sentence. No wonder you can't follow the continuity.

Here it is again: "Which is to say, they may not have a fixed 'grand narrative,' but they do pay attention to continuity, and the characters and storylines develop within that continuity."

>If you like them that's cool, but don't pretend they are something they aren't.

I'm not. You're pretending that they aren't something that they are.

>Also you act like there's some grand narrative to the whole thing

They have as much of a "grand narrative" as any ongoing, open-ended TV series. Which is to say, they may not have a fixed "grand narrative," but they do pay attention to continuity, and the characters and storylines develop within that continuity. Which is why if you don't pay attention to continuity, you won't get anything out of it, and you clearly don't.

Watching the MCU is more like watching a big budget TV show than a typical movie franchise. If you don't pay attention to the continuity, you won't get anything out of it but the explosions and lasers (which is perfectly fine).

They aren't dense films by any means (a single Oscarbait dramatic film will accomplish more character development and thematic layering than half a dozen MCU sequels), but taken altogether they are far from shallow or meaningless.

It would've been a better movie if Jake had died and Neytiri was left to lead the family and the tribes.

The vendetta storyline would have worked even better because it was Neytiri who originally killed Quaritch. There was literally no reason to make Jake the hero again.

I have different types of favorite movies. There are the ones I’ve loved the most, and there are the ones I’ve watched the most. I can’t watch the ones I love the most very often because the original memories are so vivid that I’d rather remember those original memories as they were, so I tend to only watch clips and highlights. Examples of these are Lord of the Rings, Avengers: Endgame, maybe a couple of others.

The ones I watch the most are often not typically very popular. Usually, the most anyone can say about them is that they are cult classics. Examples: The Mummy, the Count of Monte Cristo, Constantine, etc. There are many more of these than of the first type.

The kind of romances that are shoehorned into TV shows at the last minute.

The worst example of these I can think of was Warehouse 13, where the two leads, after having spent YEARS with a sibling-style relationship (and even had an episode specifically about how they are not attracted to each other), suddenly discover that they love each other in the very last episode.

Totally agreed. I literally blocked that memory out of my head.

The worst thing is that I don't think those types of spontaneous romances are something the studio forced in, because it's not really marketable. Which means it's something the writers thought for some reason would be a good idea.

Certainly a misstep, but not a big one in the grand scheme of things.

Person of Interest deserves SUCH props for being a big broadcast television procedural that still managed to be inventive, compelling, AND tell a long-running story with an ending.

Is it picky? Maybe a tad. But maybe that dye will also permanently stain that tag. So I don't think it's unreasonable to return it. Is there a store near you where you can exchange it in person? That's what I would do if given the option.