so, something funny about these three movies: they're all about grooming victims. and, as a survivor of grooming (albeit for different ends) I can tell you that that kind oftreatment kind of breaks your autobiographical memory. your experience of time becomes non-chronological, unable to place memories in time and distinguish between memories and the current moment. so I actually found the storytelling of all three of these movies extremely relatable and accurate to my experiences.
I agree! For the Black Widow movie, I almost feel like seeing Draykoff's relationship to Widow wasn't important, because we know what it is. We can read the history in the looks, in the postures, in how they move. Draykoff as a person isn't important because is one of millions who exploit women and girls for his own gratification and advancement. And those MFers are all the same.
I don’t want to take away or downplay what you went through, but in my opinion, this type of non-chronological storytelling is quite messy for movies, even Pulp Fiction. It all ends up like a slice-of-life, allowing us to better get to know characters, but it’s not nearly as satisfying as a three-act structure and/or hero’s journey. I say non-chronological stories are absolutely suited for books and TV/anime, and Shang-Chi was meant for an episodic format.
The idea of keeping important information for reveals for no reason is an old problem. The original writer for Finding Nemo wrote the script so that we didn't find out about Nemo's mom until later in the script, but the director - a smart guy - took on look at that and said, "But then everybody will hate Marlin" and put that reveal as the prologue.
God, what a good example. Knowing why the main character’s flaw exists in the first place does a lot of work getting the audience on their side. They don’t just have a random flaw that they simply *choose* to perpetuate, they have a deep and understandable struggle with their own history that they have to overcome. Letting the audience in helps them know, early on, why overcoming this flaw may the the most difficult thing the protagonist has ever done in their life and makes seeing them overcome it that much more rewarding.
The director and writer in that case were one and the same: Andrew Stanton! He said he was happy he got to use the flashbacks idea later on in the Finding Dory sequel.
This strikes me as Marvel trying to sidestep the "origin story problem" and in doing so creating stories with weaker foundations. Like, they heard all the fans complaining about every new supehero movie being an origin story, and oh it's all the same thing. But they decided the solution was to skip to the middle "cool" part of the story and just gesture vaguely to what should have been the first act . Turns out maybe origin stories are actually just good structures for these kinds of stories?
Most comic book fans' 1st mag was not an issue #1. We got whatever cover grabbed our interest that moment. Knowing the precise circumstances of day 1 for Any Hero seems completely unnecessary to becoming a fan. It is their actions and examples that make us inspired! The minutiae of trivia comes much later.
@@vydkeryx5660 Well, it depends on the character. Some character's backstories are more important than others. Like there's a reason that every Batman movie will *always* at least briefly recap the Wayne murders. OTOH, yeah, a lot of the times they're skippable. In particular, I'm really hoping that the inevitable Fantastic Four rereboot just skips the origin, because it's completely superfluous and we've seen it too many times already.
Ironically, I think the main difference between the MCU and DCEU is that the former took its time building up its hero, showing their origins *and then* throwing them together in a nice mix of clashing personalities / working together (with some spicy Nick Fury meddling thrown in). The DCEU on the other hand tried to skip right to the clash (MoS as the sole exception) - and thus ended up in a hot mess of movies that barely worked. Unsurprisingly, the ones that did really well are origin stories again: Wonder Woman and Aquaman.
the real complaints were that every spider man movie, every batman, every superman etc etc gave us the orgin story of their character, not that we got the story of new characters.
I tend to love origin stories in superhero films, it generally gives a lot of weight and meaning to the villain they fight at the end, and how it's generally the main character overcoming something as part of an arc, and changing, and the villain often being a reflection of how they use to be or what if they didn't have that arc happen to them. Origins, are usually where I'm most invested, because personal stakes are the highest. Later films have to instead have a compelling supervillain with a misunderstood tragedy or something to really get me going. I'll say it here, again: I liked Batman Begins better than Dark Knight, even though I recognize the latter as the better film.
Your question about Black Widow actually has an answer, and it's never occurred in film history: It's because this movie should have been made a decade ago. The reason Natasha's backstory is glossed over so briefly is because we already know this story. She's been hinting at it, revealing key pieces of information and showing flashbacks ever since her first appearance. Eagle eyes fans who paid attention to and remembered these scenes had almost everything they needed to piece it together. So Marvel Studios essentially wrote themselves into a corner in which showing her full history would be repetitive, but simply reminding you of the lore that's what been established would be confusing. If they hadn't waited so long this could have hit a lot harder by all being revealed at once, but as is we even knew most of the Bulgaria mission before the film even began
Huh? Who’s “we” when rule referring to having known most of what happened in Budapest? No one before this movie knew what happened for sure, just headcanons and theories. Which is why the film revisited it
Exactly what I was going to say. All the bits and pieces of her history are revealed in light detail over several different marvel movies though. This can not stand alone as a movie at all. They definitely needed to flesh out the main villain and those previous events more though. As you said, all we really knew from canon is "the mission in Bulgaria" and guilt. And the whole daughter reveal thing was just stupid and should have been left out completely.
ironically, end game had a really fine, slow paced, character driven first half and people loved it. ofc with fresh characters it can't be that much of a slowburn but generally speaking, i think audiences are prepared for a solid build up if it means a fantastic pay off and walk into theaters with a degree of faith
Really? I found the first half excruciatingly boring, I think action is not just the thing marvel excels at, but in fact the only thing that doesn't fall flat. Especially the seemingly endless pretending that every was lost when you knew we were just minutes away from someone finally coming up with a plan to undo the snap. (which btw was a disappointment in itself, of course they wouldn't commit to it, that's also why I don't understand why people were so emotional about the ending of infinity war. As if marvel had th balls to kill off half their poster boys and girls 😅)
I don't want to speak for everyone, but I've definitely noticed that watching these Marvel movies consistently over the past few years has affected my perception of pacing. I watched Kimi last night and kept thinking that it was taking way too long getting to the point of the story, but then by the time I got to the third act, almost every piece of information from that first 20 minutes had paid off in some way and the final conflict could play out really efficiently. The movie didn't need to stop and have a flashback or an exposition scene to reestablish the stakes, it can just *go*.
We turned off KIMI at the 22 minute mark. Uninteresting characters and glacial pacing. (And I say this as someone who enjoys slow foreign films.) I’m a fan of Soderbergh’s; hope he makes a better movie next time.
I haven't watched Kimi yet but I do agree that the MCU might've warped many audiences perception on pacing; I look at some of the more critical reviews for The Batman and even critics are complaining about the film's deliberate pacing when even a few years ago another more "artistic" superhero movie like Logan would've been praised for that.
I still dont understand why Infinity War is so highly praised. I felt like I couldn't breathe at all during the movie. It felt like action and adrenaline were going through every single scene. There was never a moment to rest, to breath and take in the whole scope of the movie and the effects this has on the characters. That movie completely put me off of any future marvel movies. I cant bring myself to watch a marvel movie without the fear of being choked to death by nonstop action. These movies are made like fast food. They are made to constantly trigger the dopamine receptors in your brain so that you become addicted and keep coming back for more. Just because you keep wanting it doesnt mean its actually good. This is what happens with a lot of pop music as well.
The problem with your proposed structure for Shang Chi is that it establishes him as a foreigner running from his past as opposed to an American trying to live his life but beholden to his cultural heritage. The way way the movie is laid out speaks to the Asian (or more generally immigrant) American experience of being an American first but trying to find where your heritage and family fit within your true self.
Except the Master of Kung-Fu comics were multifaceted, but chief among them was the "fish out of water" theme, a young man confused about his biracial heritage. His backstory took place in China, but his stories frequently took place in either London or Hong Kong (during the British lease). His friends and foes alike would tease him about it. Hiils best friend called him "Chinaman" so often he finally accepted it, only when an antagonist called him "Britisher" did he realize he didn't belong to either culture. Just Write's video essay really hit home for me and explained why I was so dissatisfied and disappointed with many of the recent Marvel movies, but none more than Shang-Chi.
I wouldn't call it a problem because the timeline for both themes are the same in this movie. I'd say to actually do the "American beholden to his heritage" theme would be to alter the timeline that has Shang transported to America earlier in his life. This way he has no memory of his past. Even with the way the movie chose to lay out the events I still saw Shang as a foreigner running from his past.
Yes, it definitely didn't need ALL the flashbacks at the front - the better point here is that if being a killer is his ghost/shard of glass that could have been better foreshadowed.
I sorta disagree. I have found the first acts to be the most enjoyable parts of recent marve movies. But you did touch on the real problem. Marvel wants to explore some difficult themes, but Disney wants to avoid any depiction of these topics on their films which leads to writing hurdles and cinemanarritive dissonance.
fun fact about me: i didn't read any context about black widow so when the movie was anounce i though we were finally gonna dig into her origins when she was a kgb agent until she move on to shield, and for the first 10 minutes i though we were gonna see that with an opening that felt a lot like the americans tv show and a grim opening sequence that i miss a lot in films... then she grew up and the radio mention at loud that she disobey the sokovia accords and im like "oh no this will be nothing but dump expostions everywhere isn't it?" and the movie ended up beeing the lame ass movie i was thinking when they drop the chronologically set up
Shang-Chi isn't perfect, and I have a hard time caring about the big CG battle at the end, but the structure makes sense to me. He's not just an unambitious loafer at the beginning, but someone who's tried to make a new start for himself after the suffering he endured before coming to the U.S. Over the course of the film, he learns to confront the consequences of his decision to leave, especially the abuse he left his sister to endure, while still maintaining his own identity and sense of self. I don't think it's a great film, but it got the family interactions right. For that reason, I think it's different from Black Widow and Captain Marvel.
JW's proposal to place all the flashbacks at the beginning including the man he kills doesn't affect the way you view his character at all. You mention how he is not just a broke loser but someone running from there past and having to face the consequences. Seeing why he left and how at the beginning doesn't change any of that. In fact it let's you in on the suffering he indoors much sooner making you care more about beforehand.
@MelloWattz How the hell can anyone see the dragon coming? It wasn’t even foreshadowed in the movie and came out left field and last minute for a CGI final battle.
I'd like to see a movie where the retired assassin ends up working as a valet. Everyone thinks he's not living up to his potential; he knows he's happiest exactly where it is.
You nailed the reason for my vague dissatisfaction with the recent crop of Marvel movies and specifically my great disappointment with Shang-Chi in particular. The entire comic series was about Shang hating his father for his hypocrisy, turning him into an assassin while espousing the values of the Tao and Zen. And the character arc was about Shang finally able to come to terms with the Tao within himself, a good man who is capable of evil.
I feel like black widow should have been about nat's training as shown in in the credits and then her meeting Hawkeye, her defection after he doesn't kill her and finally Budapest (A tense cat and mouse game with Nate and Hawkeye against an insurmountable force hunting them in the city instead of big CGI freefall sequence)
I think keeping Budapest as a joke has value. The whole movie is about the Black Widow training and then Natasha’s defection through the power of friendship with Hawkeye. Then the end/end credit scene is about the first mission with Widow/Hawkeye and they are complaining to Maria about it being a milk run, how they deserve something less boring, and that’s when we hear it’s in Budapest and then the movie ends.
But Black Widow is basically the MCU's way to establish Yelena or the other now released Black Widows as future Black Widows that can be introduced into the story as and when they like. The post-credits sequence already hinted at her appearance in Hawkeye and it was needed to solidify her new appearance as part of the MCU now.
@@darkdestiny9106 This shows the main problem that the MCU has to deal with. They always have to think ahead about setting up characters and plot points even if the movies might be better without that. Like, did we really need all that Thor: Dark World set up in Avengers: Age of Ultron? No. But T:DW needed that set up, so they sacrificed part of AoU for a future installment. That Budapest movie was what I thought the Black Widow movie would be about before the trailers released. And I think I would have preferred to see that: Natasha and Clint meeting each other and Natasha becoming independent would have been awesome. But instead, they made plot-hole riddled sequel bait.
@@theshire9173 I actually don't think the Black Widow movie was terrible but it definitely leaves a lot of be desired. They needed a Black Widow replacement, so the movie is meant to do that, introduce a potential Black Widow-like character while letting us know Natasha's sacrifice in Endgame still held weight. I rather have this than to get the cheap way out of resurrecting Black Widow somehow I legitimately wish we will be getting a new Taskmaster though, the one we got was terrible... like Deadpool in X-men Legends: Wolverine terrible
@@darkdestiny9106 I agree with you, but my point still stands. This wasn’t a Black Widow movie; this was a set up for her replacement and that’s why the movie feels unfinished and pointless in terms of building up Natasha’s character and actually makes it worse. This movie actively ruins her sacrifice in Endgame. Originally, I got the sense that she sacrificed herself so Clint could come back to his family and the rest of her avengers family could live in a better world; it was really nice and powerful. Now, though, it seems like she didn’t care about her own family when she died without saying anything about them (because her family wasn’t revealed yet when this scene was shown). The Black Widow movie didn’t add anything meaningful to Natasha.
Im glad you called out the algorithmic pressure that has been guiding movie analysis channels to drift into taking endless, repetative potshots at popular properties like marvel and star wars. I like how this video is framed less like "the reason why shang chi was... underwhelming" and more like "hey i noticed this trend, lets take a closer look at it"
I was literally thinking "this is a lot like with Book of Boba Fett" and then you say the same at the end haha. Both BoBF and Hawkeye hold back on a villain reveal that would've made waaaay more sense to develop the _whole_ time but they think (wrongly) that twist and reveals and cameos are all we want.
8:30 I agree that Captain Marvel’s a media is a better reason to have it in flashbacks. But I think Shang’s assassin background IS meant to be a mystery until the bus fight scene. We’re meant to be as shocked as Katie that Shaun is an assasin
Thing is, we already knew that his father is a 1000 year old immortal who used to defeat entire armies single-handedly. We're not surprised that Shang-Chi knows how to fight.
When you keep saying "Natalie" in Black Widow, do you mean... Natasha? lol Anyway, another great analysis. Solid First Acts were ABSOLUTELY a strength of the MCU in the early days! And while I understand the desire to mix things up a bit, the storytelling does suffer when they don't do it right. As for the sudden rise in folks criticizing Marvel in general, I'm fine with it. When you're the dominant form of action blockbusters in the industry, and you're coasting so much that you're starting to get lazy, that kind of thing warrants a closer look. These films have an influence on young up and comers, after all. We want them to know what they're doing, and not make the same mistakes. Besides Marvel is so big and popular enough that if criticized, I think they'll be ok.
@@NaNaNatalii In English people won't pick up on the ending 'sha' as an endearment version of a name like in Russian. They wouldn't hear someone saying "Oh hey Misha" and put together that Misha's name is really Mikhail, for example.
I really *really* like the choice to not show Shang-Chi killing his target, because the reveal that he went through with it totally recontextualizes his character going into act three. You think you’ve got the guy all figured out but then it turns out he’s got a whole raw emotional nerve that’s been festering under the surface and suddenly the emotional closure of confronting his father means even more. It’s an effect I really dig.
I can definitely see that effect ringing true, a way to get both would to have a cutaway before his choice is made with a frame of him turning away like he didn't go along with it, but we later learn that his turning away was him after he did the act in his shame.
Even if you agree with the fact that it should be placed in the third act they should still SHOW THE DAMN SCENE. That was a major turning point for the character and his life. Imagine if we got to the second act of Black Panther and we DON'T see king T'Chaka kill his brother in flashback and instead just get Forrest Whitaker telling us what happened.
@@galactic85 fair enough I guess. Really doesn’t bug me any, and I think cutting away from Simu Liu and Awkwafina’s performances in that scene would’ve been a huge mistake.
I agree and I think (maybe) they left it like that on purpose for the potential of a second movie storyline? Although, I don't think movies should be made with having sequels in mind - that's always been a gripe of mine, because a movie should be able to stand on its own merit - but still, maybe that's why they didn't show it.
@@fullmetal_pipsqueak I’ve personally never read it that way. A lot of people assume it’s some kind of sequel set up but I don’t see that being likely. It’s *possible,* sure, but the choice to not show it doesn’t play like that’s the motivation for me.
I feel like in Shang Chi we are following the POV of Katy knowing Shawn and learning more about him. We the audience and Katy only know so much about him and as Katy learns more about him the more we the audience learn.
OH NOOOOOOOO!!! I have two girlfriends, but very few people on YT are happy for my relationship success. They disl*ke all of the videos I make with my 2 girlfriends. Please be kind, dear om
Lots of movies have a normal person tag along to provide a relatable anchor for the audience (and the protagonist) and to juxtapose with the insanity of superheroes. And it certainly can be effective if we learn about the protagonist at the same time as them. That being said, most superhero origin films show us the protagonists perspective instead and this is usually much better at allowing the audience to empathize with them. I think most superhero movies try to have both, e.g. Spiderman with Peter's friend Ned.
1. If the movie is being told from Katy's POV that's a bad call. It makes Shang a secondary character in his own movie. 2. If the movie IS from Katy's POV then why does it begin with a while big flashback that, if i remember correctly, is Shang's mother narrating the story of how she met his father TO HIM?
@@galactic85 1) no it doesn’t. Is Jay Gatsby a “secondary character” in HIS movie because he’s not the viewer’s POV? Of course not, that’s dumb, 2) prologues taking place beyond a POV characters purview is nothing new. Lord of the Rings did it.
For me, The Eternals was the perfect example of this. The concepts and the plot twist (which was already done in captain marvel, for) landed utterly flat due to the excessive and never-ending exposition dumps and flashback storytelling that failed to even remotely create interest or connection with the characters. A linear storytelling progression would have been significantly better in that film. IMO.
Wasted opportunity for sure. They could have leaned harder into their "a lot of myths are based off these guys" gimmick and tell it a lot like a Greek God myth - from their creation to them serving their purpose, to their separation and then leading into their fallout - it would have been great
oh my god the flashbacks from that movie where endless as fuck.. i barelly give a shit about the present story everytime they cut to another flashback from history.
Took the words out of my mouth. In their attempt to balance the lore, the plot is so sparse it just becomes boring when the majority of the plot plays out like an rpg, an rpg with boring exposition dumps that could've been used elsewhere or didn't need to be there. The twist with icarus in particular should've just come with the big twist imo.
it has been said to death, but still though if only Eternals was a series instead i feel i would have really enjoyed it.....such a messy movie but the concept underneath is pretty cool....
Billy Wilder: "A problem in act three is really a problem in act one." Just Write: "A first act problem is really a third act problem." What you did there, I see it.
Of the movies shown, I've only seen Legend of the Ten Rings, and I'm not sure I would describe its problems as "first-act" problems so much as a "character-motivation" problem. You don't need to see the lead kill his mother's murderer to understand his character, but you are absolutely right that he is far too normal and well-adjusted for being a runaway child soldier assassin, that should have been reflected in the character (it actually reminded me a lot of Finn, the storm-trooper character from the newer Star Wars, it was the same sort of weird disconnect from the traumatic past). And it wasn't just there. The father character veered repeatedly between "grieving father and lead in a family drama about his children trying to convince him to get therapy" and "mustache-twirling Fu Manchu", so much so I wasn't even sure he was supposed to be the villain until halfway through the film. And for all the film seems to have wanted to say that murder-is-bad and Shang-Chi is no longer an assassin, there was no place where he actually shows mercy to his enemies, and his attempts at talking his father down are so perfunctory it came across to me that he was actually really, really eager to kill his own dad. Just a lot of mixed signals, and not in the clever way. I'm not sure why the sister, or the girlfriend, or the actor were even there. I'm not sure who sent the letter that was the inciting incident or why. I'm not sure why Shaun didn't recognize his own father's men (not even his right-hand man, who would basically be his uncle, right?) or react to them in any way when they attacked him. One thing I really noticed with that movie was that I kept thinking the movie was going to go one direction but then it kept trying to go another. It starts off in its first act looking like a "normal guy thrust into strangeness" story, but it's really about family drama. But the family only gets pulled together to have the drama by a James Bondian style macguffin plot that is then immediately forgotten about. And now suddenly there's a secret magic village and also Sauron was behind everything. Maybe this is related to the "not establishing things properly" problem this video is about, but it strikes me as a more fundamental problem than just telling the story in the improper order. The film didn't know where to focus itself, or who or what it was about. It wasn't sure if it was about a child soldier assassin who grew a conscience, or about an ABC relatable screw-loose with a secret family history, or what. And I think it could have done both, but that would have meant threading the needle, rather than just throwing the tropes all at the wall at once. I'm going to disagree with the assertion that "at least we know how to feel by the end" for Shang-Chi. Yes, I could tell what heartstrings they were pulling at, what box formula they were going for, but it just felt forced. Mostly, I just wanted it to end already. I think the comment on the film being plot-driven rather than character-driven is spot-on. The film was doing things because that was the way the set pieces and canned emotional beats had been laid out, rather than because it made any logical or emotional sense to do so. They treated character development the same as exposition. My Chinese momma was wincing and covering her mouth by the time they were in the secret village. Said the film had a sense of "faux-insiderness" she found distasteful. The whole wuxia bit at the beginning was fun. The bus scene was pretty baller.
It's Marvel's committment to "being fun at all cost" that railroad's a lot of the story telling here. Marvel does not trust its audience to be engage with serious topics like abuse, so it sidesteps these issues so the focus becomes the quipping and the fun, rather than the necessary storybeats that will make these characters' arcs work.
Well technically, if you listen to Finn in star wars, whenever he talks about his role with the first order, it's always ''ho I used to mop there'' ''Ho I know where the trash compactors are'' and things like that, they technically made their black a character a Janitor for the first order, turned comedic relief for the resistance which is already a big yikes from disney.
Some people suppress trauma. Thought that was pretty clearly what Shang-Chi was trying to do. He never talked about his past until his dad forced him to face it. People don’t have to appear sad to show their trauma. Also the father was intended to veer between grieving man and evil villain. That was the whole arc. Grief can corrupt people. The more of your comment I read the less it seems like you have issues with the movie and the more it seems like you weren’t paying attention. Especially considering that most people clearly don’t share your perspective considering the incredible reception the movie got.
@@mr.stuffdoer8483 It was not clear; it was explicitly stated through exposition. "Grieving semi-retired villain" is one of the oldest cliches in the book, but - ironically - that wasn't conveyed, either. Foreshadowing is required to prevent a plot twist alienating the audience.
I'd love to know what you thought of Encanto. I agree that Disney doesn't remotely have the brand to tackle a story like Black Widow's properly. Yet I feel that, with Encanto, they may have succeeded to address issues of realness, very much because: a.) they make it a musical -- so some of the pacing and detail that one would expect in a heavy story doesn't apply, and, b.) they show Abuela's trauma in a romanticized version in the beginning, that is recalled in a more serious way at the end...and so, they manage to soften the impact for children by preparing them for it first, and are then able to dramatize it a little more in the end -- just enough for adults to feel that the conclusion is somewhat satisfying.
Its kind of like how Ant Man keeps telling you that Scott Lang is a big jerk and a criminal but the character is just this super nice, likeable guy. there is a serious disconnect between the character and what the movie tells you about the character.
i think it’s that the movie is moreso going, he’s not like the other criminals ™. in that he is one, but like the Baskin Robbins guy said, He’s a COOL criminal 😎
I don't even think Ant-Man is trying to say that he's not like other criminals. Luis and the others are also cool, likable guys. Heck, even the prison fight in the opening was a fake out. If anything, the lesson of Ant-Man is that the parole system is incredibly harsh and unforgiving to otherwise normal people who are just trying to get by.
I don’t think Ant-Man *ever* tells you “Scott is a big jerk”. Literally all the information we’re given about him, even the reason he was in jail, lines up with him being a nice guy. All the movie shows is him getting the raw end of a deal.
I think they are more concerned with getting audiences to like an unknown character moreso than caring about the plot, hence all the telling and not showing. It would be more accurate to say the MCU has a major flashback problem, I am not sure why so many of their recent movies engage in such heavy flashbacks.
Shang-Chi, in fact, felt to me like action-piece after action-piece with a small thread of intra-character drama. Which is good, but yeah coulda been better. Hell, we could have gotten a full movie about Shang-Chi's father! (Which my girlfriend thought of while watching the movie with her.) And then Shang-Chi himself becomes the hero in the sequel. Captain Marvel, I personally think works as it is set-up. But, as you mentioned, that's part of the "Amnesia/Identity" angle...which is part of what makes Captain Marvel a damn good movie in my eyes. Giving Carol that struggle to overcome, which other heroes seem to lack. Black Widow...kinda didn't watch it at all. Like, it should have been done at least a good few years earlier instead of shoehorned as it was into the MCU release schedule like an afterthought.
I think part of this is a change in the audience which has seen a lot of hero origin stories by now. They're playing to an experienced audience with expectations that either need to be met or subverted, and they also want a faster pacing. A version of the backstory will already be known, much of the world building is baked in, and if they don't experiment with the "formula" it will become "generic." *Essentially all their origin films are actually sequels.*
Hot take: I would have loved if the First Act showed all the flashbacks but then stopped before showing if Shang-Chi had killed the man - probably as a dream sequence so we can cut to Shaun waking up and living his dull life. Leave it as a mystery throughout until the bus fight so Awkwafina's character will question him about his past and tension can build between them as she starts to wonder how much she doesn't really know about him - that way there's more reason for her to be around most of the time. This also allows for them to resolve the conflict later on when he admits to the killing and lead-up as to why she decided to step up and help out too - and instead not be so awkward on her tagging along in the fight.
The "your friend is a murderer" bit would've made the movie a lot less dreary. Rationalizing your friend as a killer would've made the awkward sidekick character more than an awkward sidekick.
Small defence of Captain Marvel: every woman I know who saw that film didn’t need a detailed breakdown of the systemic sexism through which she persevered, we already know it well and the montage was enough to reignite the empathy we already naturally feel for her. Although that’s my anecdotal experiences
As a girl with "boyish" interests, captain Marvel's flashback made me flinch. Yeah, there were too many men, including my own grandpa to tell me you can't/shouldn't do that. People bash Captain Marvel but what she faces minus the fantastical elements, almost 95% women go through.
My mother hated that film. Turned it off halfway through. The systemic sexism is not explored; it's just exposited as quickly as possible so we can get back to the cat that eats people. And I LIKED the cat that eats people. Invoking other people's painful memories is no substitute for good writing.
Love this! Great content! Super thoughtful! Re: Shang Chi your argument is intellectually correct but I think this flicks approach is fresher for people who've seen a movie before and allows us to bond with the actors who will be carrying the story. Hooking us with the relationship between the two of them gives us a rooting interest in their journey. I'm super glad they didn't do the slow burn origin. Ironman and Captain America act ones also featured the actor would play the role for the rest of the movie, so not having to hang the drama on kid actors. And the reveal of echoes backstory came after we had met that character as a villain and then we got to flashback on their origin. Then you can project the adult character that we had come to know as echo on to that child actor. Adding a layer of complexity to the villain after we had met them. I think. I may be misremembering that.
I think you are hitting the nail on the head here, it's actually a problem I see more widely in currently Hollywood movies generally. Billy Wilder: "If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act". For some reason in a lot of movies in the last few years, there seems to be a disregard for the first act, like they just wanna skip it to get to the action. Awesome breakdown of this issue.
I'm becoming more clinical each time i see a big movie, cause it seems to be always that the priority is about the reletabilty of the character living in a big city. feels sometime that I'm watching a commercial rather than a movie.
i have become almost Foucauldian when watching these films. i am becoming aware of the power structures being reproduced in the simulation in front of me. i observe the narrative that is in front of me, and observe others emulating that narrative. when i left the brainwashing cult i was born into (Mormonism), i also became aware of the more cultish parts of our wider society, and have also endeavored to leave them. you are indeed watching many commercials when watching these movies, due to product placement and other such manipulative techniques. these movies make implicit what many would call explicit in foreign states. and many foreign states would do likewise with other subjects. ua-cam.com/video/TVwKjGbz60k/v-deo.html
@@ethanstump ehy nice video sometimes i like to question the reality, hopefully i do not get a meltdown going this rabbit hole, thank you for sharing me.
@@Jonok eh, i've had breakdowns before. it's okay to have them, as unpleasant as they are. the groundhog day's are just as bleak i have found. at least when questioning i might not have an answer, but i do have a question, as opposed to the blankness in my eyes when sequencing documents. then again, i sob in the shower regardless.
*RAMBLE INCOMING* I’m thinking about why I actually feel like I’m MORE invested in this movie with its current structure than I feel I would be if the events were laid out chronologically, and I think it all has to do with Wenwu and how his and his son’s relationship is at the center of the movie. The film is about how Shang-Chi has all these layers of resentment for his father that stops him from humanizing him and accepting his influence as both potentially negative *and* positive. The audience is kept out of Shang-Chi’s literal headspace by not knowing the information he does, but the information we’re given, when we’re given it, puts us in his *emotional* space. He/we start the movie thinking of his dad as this unseen dark force to be avoided- someone who loves his mom, probably, but didn’t show that love to his son and is now treating him like an enemy. Then as we peel back more and more layers through the flashbacks we see how much Shang-Chi’s view of his father is informed by fear, how it tore his and Xialing’s relationship apart, and we get a *sense* for how much it’s screwed Shang-Chi up as a person but not the full picture. It makes Wenwu seem even darker and more hate-able in preparation for us actually meeting the guy. Once we do meet him, the flashback to he and his wife shows us how human he actually is, and it throws not just us but everyone at the table with him (especially Katy, our ostensible POV character) for a loop. Suddenly it’s not that everything we know about him was wrong, but that all that darkness comes from a really meaningful place of deep hurt and loss. Then, finally, we get father and son reminiscing to the night of his mother’s death at the same time, and it *cracks* their whole dynamic wide open- they’re both not just grieving, they’re guilty. They both blame themselves *and each other* for her death and everything that’s gone wrong since in ways that are both totally understandable but not completely rational. Wenwu thinks he’s incapable of being a decent father or person without his wife and resents his kids for being a reminder of the man he doesn’t think he can inherently be anymore, a reminder of his own failure and self hatred, and Shang-Chi hates his father for not being there for him emotionally when he needed it, but also hates *himself* for having gone along with his father’s response for so long. The hole that her death left in them is way more gaping than we’d been led to believe, and it heightens the emotional stakes in time for the climax in a way I think is really effective. I know I’ve gone on for a lot here but Shang-Chi in particular is a movie I take issue with being dismissed as “simple, weightless fluff” when I feel like the thing you’re talking about here is what makes it’s character relations function as deep and compelling and nuanced.
Trauma isn't visible. I think setting him up to appear as a normal guy after putting years of Tramatic events behind him is completely Normal. Everytime I open up to someone about what I went through, they're confused or shocked because they would have never guesses by how I am. There are two ways this happens. You don't let your hurt be the core of your personality or you pretend like it didn't happen. In his case it's the latter. When he chose not to go back, he also chose not to look back. Which is why it makes sense for the flashbacks to happen later. As he is forced to revisit a past he was trying to forget.
I thought Shang Chi still worked really well for me because it did take time to develop its characters and show them interacting, and it also showed a sense of wonder about the things that were happening in the world, which I think is so important in stories with a strong fantasy element. I agree that Captain Marvel would have been stronger if we had more investment in the life she had before she lost her memories. I thought your analysis of Black Widow was excellent. It starts so well, and yet it finished as one of my least favorite Marvel movies. Based on what they established at the beginning, I was expecting and hoping for a relatively grounded spy movie that focused on the relationship between Natasha and Yelena and them coming to terms with their unresolved trauma. We got some of that, but then it replaces that story with a series of plot points that they didn't do anything to invest us in, and you can almost see the pen marking off points on the checklist in certain scenes in the third act.
It didn't develop its' characters. It had a wall of exposition, some arbitrary fight scenes, and some filler interaction that didn't convey anything exposited.
You can't start a Marvel, not a Star wars video, with "Hello There". Also, doesn't Shang-Chi use Flashback Structure, so the ACT 1 and set ups are a bit more split up? Where each flashback informs us immediately before we would need it, rather than getting a major front load we don't need?
That sounds good in theory. In practice, however, it doesn't work like that. You see, the problem isn't just the structural arrangement. It's also that there are two first acts, one of which has an emotionally superior build-up than the other. Flashbacks usually work best when a character has some haunting backstory which serves as a mystery behind the character's reasoning/motivation. Now unless it's spiderman, a movie where the backstory is the first act itself, the backstory shouldn't be getting any setup. The mystery behind their backstory should be created through dialogue or moments of character reveal throughout the second act (or maybe even through a few short, vague flashbacks of the event that haunts them.) All of this should inevitably culminate in a big reveal during the character's 'lowpoint.' Now, of course, the flashback structure would be a bit different if the character has amnesia and his goal is to restore his memories or if these flashbacks are absolutely essential to advancing the main goal of the plot. The difference between flashbacks that only serve to deepen the character arc and flashbacks that advance the plot as a whole is that one can be removed without destroying the coherence of the story (even if it makes the story bad) while the other absolutely cannot.
@@notyourbusiness5530 I think that absolutely applies to Shang-Chi. The story and especially the characters of Shang-Chi and Wenwu just doesn’t function as well as it does without the flashbacks, and the bits of information we’re given, *when* we’re given them, serve to deepen and recontextualize the relationship in ways that the story benefits from right then.
@@ThePonderer I understand what you're saying, but what you're saying isn't contrary to what I'm saying. This story will always function better with these flashbacks than without. It's not because the story *needs* flashbacks. It's not because they structured their flashbacks well either, but rather because the content of the flashbacks is really good. This is where I agree with Sage: The content of the flashbacks would've served as a better act one than what we got. The reason why these flashbacks deepen and recontextualize the story is only because of a missed opportunity. In other words, they unintentionally downplayed their first act and fixed their downplay with a better first act. It's just making up for an error that didn't have to exist in the first place. Moving onto what I said about flashbacks... If you can remove a flashback, and the story is worse, that doesn't mean they used flashbacks well...or that flashbacks should've been used at all. Unless removing your flashbacks will make the entire plot a bunch of disconnected scenes, you can't really place them freely in the second act without consequences. Nor can you structure the flashback story like a first act (with a set-up, a disturbance, or a turning point) without either downplaying the original first act or needlessly dragging the story into a second inferior first act. If your story's plot is still coherent without your flashbacks, as in the backstory isn't necessary to get your story from point a to point b, then the best place to put all of your flashbacks is at the 'low point' before the third act. Why is this the case? Because this is the period before a character's transformation, the endpoint of a character arc. In this way, it works as a past for a character to look back on to reconsider all their actions, meaning it works as a vehicle to drive character change. Or it gives us, the audience, a way to see a character as redeemable at their lowest point. In other words, you should place flashbacks based on what reason you're using them for. For character arcs, flashbacks work best before moments of character transformation. For plots, they work best where they serve to answer the dramatic question of the story. I.e. 'Will this character learn about her past?' 'Did this character actually do something really terrible?' "Will they discover the truth behind their uncle's murder?' etc.
@@notyourbusiness5530You make it sound as though someone just said “let’s slap the flashbacks Willy nilly” while they were watching their own movie as some compensatory move, but the requirement of the placement is@@notyourbusiness5530. I think you’re expressing an incredibly narrow view of how flashbacks can be used, suggesting it’s only one of two ways or else it’s done “improperly”, but the flashbacks in Shang-Chi are there to transform character’s perceptions OF one another and themselves, or the audiences understanding of those things, as those shifts in understanding would be their most impactful, which *informs* character arcs meaningfully even if the character’s transformational moments aren’t being directly set up for immediate payoff.
i find this so interesting because this analysis both validates my ongoing feeling that the problems in these movies come from the fact that it feels like both a structure problem, even an editing problem, when what i often saw was simply a backstory problem. not backstory as in seeing these characters as children, which we got enough of, but more as in, we need scenes of these characters bonding with other people to make those emotional connections stronger by act three. thats something the first marvel movies didnt need so much mostly because they were all origin stories, while lately marvel has been trying to tell other type of superhero introductions (like they learning about something about themselves, mostly). in that case, a lot of these movies could probably benefit a lot more from using less screentime on quippy dialogue scenes and more in scenes that make the emotional bonds stronger for the characters. this was something that i felt was especially strong with eternals, a movie with so many "main" characters that it was bound to happen, but that still tries very hard to do that and barely succeeds. something to keep in mind too is this approach to each marvel movie as touching on the subject of "family" (since the avengers are like a family, which theyre really not theyre barely coworkers, but... ok, etc). in that sense, captain marvel would be immensely helped by more scenes with danvers and rambeau that are barely shown to us in flashback snippets, by adding that emotional core to the story and strengthening the bond between these two women who trusted each other so much and who have this important reunion later on. similarly, shang chi (a movie all about family) should definitely have made the bond between father and son stronger to make that final fight a lot more emotionally resonant: these two have barely any scenes in which they interact, and adding some actual meaty moment for tony leung to be vulnerable with his own son and lament the death of his wife would make it all the more fascinating to see just how brutal he has become, and the difference of the path shang chi chose. finally, more than dreykov, i totally feel like while black widow, another "family" themed movie, did a pretty great job establishing a dynamic between the black widow family post-red room, it missed a chance to show something fans have been curious about -to see natashas childhood training for the red room, which, again, we got snippets in this movies credit sequence and in age of ultron. whats more, having natashas core emotional fractured bond, beyond her fake-family-turned-real, to be dreykovs daughter, a fellow trainee of the red room and a surrogate sister before yelena came (someone who maybe reminds natasha of her), who is perhaps the lens through natasha sees dreykov at first (a stern and sometimes cruel but fair father figure who wants his daughters to succeed and be the best), only for natasha to later on have to kill her and show her loyalties lie with the red room and Only with the red room.... that is a no-brainer. dreykovs daughter, whos name is so easy to forget about as she is defined by her relationship with dreykov instead than as herself, could have been the center of the "russian doll" of fractured familial relationships natasha has. that would have been a lot more compelling than that rushed mask-reveal-pheromone-evil plan scene we actually got. that would have made all fights between natasha and taskmaster a lot more fraught. it really bothers me that it was so obvious how to make it actually work, and that they didnt use it at all.
@@alias374 She went by Natalie in Ironman 2 (undercover) and I think her comics birth name is Natalia, but I'm pretty sure she's always been Natasha in the MCU.
Six times. They even said it in at leas one of your clips. That you chose. Six. Times. And agreed, the best time to invest in character development is in the first act. The second best time is it’s too late.
This really spells out a problem I had with modern Marvel. I thought I just realized I preferred long form style of old Marvel TV, that may still be true but it's not just that.
Yea I've had the same feeling about the newer films and couldn't really place why I just couldn't gravitate with any of the characters as much as I did with the original avengers. I know a lot of people enjoyed Shang Chi but I was left really disappointed by it especially when it entered the third act with the dumb soul suckers sidelining the Mandarin. Just seemed like they were building an interesting character driven finale only to through it away for more spectacle and usual cgi action. Same feelings with Black Widow where I was way more interested in Black widow program at the start but again plot focused storytelling was the only thing to come of it. I hope Marvel sees this and also doesn't shy away from darker and more harder topics. I get that these are made for children as well but I'm sure there's a way to explore those ideas better. At the moment it feels half-baked and ultimately rushed over. The TV shows are doing a better job exploring characters. Im concerned Moon Knight might have the same problems with structuring considering his whole story is all out of wack and unreliable. Here's hoping they pull it off.
I genuinely think Black Widow's Opening sequence, and by extension Opening Credits, is some of the most moving work in that film. It sets up core themes of child trafficking while keeping it a PG film. It's harrowing. I think the larger problem is that none of it is paid off later in that film. The opening credits alludes to ideas that won't be discussed in depth. And I think it would work better if those images in the credits came up again throughout the film, to draw parallel's between the ongoing narrative and the opening sequence. If anything, the opening sequence suffers from being too effective in creating a tone that isn't followed up on for the remainder of the film. But it's some of my favourite stuff in Black Widow, so I wouldn't want to change that.
I think in the case of Shang Chi, the flashbacks worked. It wouldn't have been a first act with all of that stuff in it, just a really long prologue, nobody likes one of those. But I think your overall point about Marvel these days is pretty much true.
To me, if Shang Chi had had the flashbacks as the first act, then the original first act would basically be a second first act because it's establishing the character again. I do agree that Shaun doesn't act as if he had a dark past and I really would have liked a few hints or breaking the facade to give us some foreshadowing (or at least hint at past trauma prior to us getting flashbacks), but it's more of a nitpick considering the tone they were going for and how there are other plot changes that take priority over him being a bit darker because of what he's running from. Still, if he's a professional assassin, I can see him being great at hiding emotional baggage, so really. My favorite part of the movie was the first act because I like seeing people living their lives prior to all the super hero stuff. I don't care for big action scenes or CGI fights or whatever compared to the emotional moments that make me actually care. No Way Home was so amazing because it gave us characters we love getting to work through their emotional baggage, not because they had an amazing fight scene (not that I'm complaining about their fight scene; it's just we care more about the fight scene BECAUSE of all the emotional moments). Anyway...I wish Marvel would actually listen and allow things to slow down and be emotional instead of jokes or action scenes. I did love how Hawkeye started with Kate Bishop's very long Avengers scene and that we got a lot of Echo as well.
I feel genuine joy whenever this channel uploads. Time for my weekly replenishment of brain cells! *Sees that the Black Widow movie is a part of this discussion* Welp, guess I'll have to put this video on pause and come back when I eventually watch the movie, whenever that is, because I don't want to be spoilt. Which is stupid because we basically **know** HOW the movie ends! Or at least, what happens to the main character AFTER. Great first half of the video regardless! I never agree with criticism people have with the Shang Chi movie, but your arguments are compelling and well structured, same with the Captain Marvel one. It doesn't just feel like you hate the movie because of current trends, but you have actually genuine thoughts and critiques on the writing coupled along with helpful advice for future writers!
Thank you for sharing your perspective on Shang Chi! I personally would love to see a chronological cut of the film; it may hit even harder! I do disagree about the emotional climax of the film being Shang Chi defeating his father though. I think the climax resolves the second, stronger theme you mentioned which was mastering his heritage. He defeats his father by using his mother's training and his father ends up surrendering his power. Once that happens, we finally get to see Shang Chi utilize both his father and mother's power to save the day! I thought it was a beautiful representation of mastering one's own heritage/history/upbringing or whatever it is, especially accompanied with that tranquil music at the end. This finale felt very peaceful as opposed to a Ragnarok which was like an epic fun time.
I'm so glad you touched on the big reveal problem. Too many bad writers today are obsessed with the MYSTERY BOX structure. Not every movie needs it. Look at lord of the rings, in the first act we already know what the ring of power is and who made it and that frodo intends to destroy it. None of these info is articially held back for the BIG REVEAL. In the first act of back to the future we already know what the time machine is and who made it and how doc brown came up with it. The mystery box is a huge problem with star trek discovery. We spend literally the entire season wondering what destroyed warp travel only to be disappointed in the BIG REVEAL that some kid caused it because he shouted too loud. That's another problem, when the BIG REVEAL is disappointing, it dampens the entire season because we spend so much time building the disappointing reveal.
Watching this, I realized I am simply a sucker for non-linear storytelling formats and want to defend them to the death because I'm a lot more interested in them than linear stories. I love slowly unfolding a character's past, especially when I can already relate to them in the present.
Non-linear storytelling are great! But it is bad for MCU though. It's hard to keep up with 20+ movies and tv shows on our minds so the best approach is to tell a simple yet well-executed linear story. In my case, I don't watch MCU films because they are celebral movies that change the art of cinema. I watch MCU films because I want to follow the journey of their cool characters throughout the end as I grow old. They only need to execute good origin stories like what they did to Tony, Cap, Thor, the Guardians, and the rest of the Avengers. And then pit them up with some great villains in crossover films that will make struggle as what the Joker did to Batman or as what Green Goblin & Doc Oc did to Spider-man. It may be repetitive but as long as they execute them properly, then I'm satisfied with what they got. The hero's journey has thousand faces for a reason.
@@jankyyard5610 Hero's journey is fine, but to be honest, it's just so rarely done with characters that appeal to me or are written in a way that I can relate to. I don't mind having unrelatable characters if they're a puzzle to solve, but most of the characters you mentioned just don't compel me. The only classic "hero's journey" I truly enjoyed was the first Captain America movie; I enjoyed Thor, but not for Thor's journey (I was much more interested in the Loki subplot, which is hardly classic hero's journey). IDK if it's a gender thing or what, but the everyman in these hero's journey stories just doesn't appeal to me most of the time. Combine that with my allergy to teenage romance and, well...you eliminate most hero's journey and bildungsroman altogether. So I gravitate towards non-linear stories and people who are written as a mystery to unravel.
Great. Can we agree then that Captain Marvel's substitution of meaningless snippets of plot exposition for substantial nonlinear narrative sours people to a fine tradition of filmmaking?
@@jrshaul Hey man, I enjoyed Captain Marvel. It was a fun blockbuster and I found the "snippets of plot" to be pretty meaningful in-context. Please go to a different comment if you want to bash it.
For the people saying they don't mind non-chronological storytelling, the issue is that Marvel's non-chronological ordering is designed to speed through the story and subsequently put less effort into it. The test you need to put the film through is if it were in chronological order, would you think scenes were missing?
I think the reason why they didn't show Shang-Chi killing his target was probably for the sequel, wherein they can focus on that and flesh that out even more. Well, that's just my prediction, it is a shame they didn't show that considering they showed flashbacks to every other part of Shang-Chi's early life.
Agreed. As far as character arcs go, this film focuses more on his father, which is fitting because Tony Leung out-classes everyone else in the film. Shang-Chi's arc was primarily about being there for his sister and not running away from his family. I hope they flesh out his past more in future movies.
@@melanie62954 to be fair, Tony Leung is an international treasure and can out act most people so it’s not surprising, sad he won’t be in future film he was a treat to watch
Thank you for explaining to me why I didn’t connect with Shang Chi. I loved most of the main Marvel films, but the writing quality seems to have dropped off lately. Now perhaps you can explain why streaming services are so bad at writing stories.
I am in a minority, but I feel like ALL of Marvel's movies are too damn long (about 40 minutes too long) and quite slow throughout, mostly because they have too many subplots and/or secondary villains. I long for the days of cohesive storytelling.
I agree, they have a lot of stories they feel required to connect to one another and they push characters from one movie to the next one because how else would we know it's the same universe? 🤦♀️
Hollywood has seemingly forgotten how to develop characters from the moment of introduction. We do not need to be shown Luke Skywalker's childhood. It is irrelevant. We are introduced to his character traits as he reacts to the events of the story. Same for Han Solo, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, Obi-Wan, and Darth Vader. Nobody gets flashbacks, nobody tells us about their traumatic upbringing. Luke GETS TOLD about how own family history, and we witness him learning those things. The film is not teaching us why we should care about Luke, it's allowing us to experience the drama of Luke hearing things he's always wanted to know. Shang Chi never focuses on who he is during the events of the film and how the events of the film are changing him.
Luke didn't have a traumatic upbringing he had a "normal" childhood and the development of the character is about learning of his potential and about his father. Shang Chi can't focus on who he is because he doesn't know, he had a traumatic childhood, he knows his potential, he knows who his father is and what's expected of him... The movie is about him finding himself, using his potential and taking a stand.
It's annoying how homogenous the MCU is starting to feel, but I wouldn't even be that mad about it if they at least had better practices for their artists and so on.
The flashbacks in Shang-Chi aren't about Shaun. He changed from that person during his decade in America. Those flashbacks are introduced when we're introduced to the people they are meant to inform us about, i.e. his sister and father. Putting them in the first act actually removes them from their context. Even the prologue is only there as a means of showing us the ticking timebomb that his past will be. He doesn't know it yet, but we the audience need to know it so that we have tension while we're introduced to the mundane life of Shaun and learn to care for him as a character. We see his carefree existence but we know it's all going to be taken away, so we sympathise with him even as we want him to grow and become all he can be.
With Black Widow - I mean, maybe it's because I know a lot of SA and abuse survivors, but I didn't need to see Nat getting abused by Drakov to know exactly what was/had happened. The smell-tech was stupid, but also just... not being able to overcome your in-grained fear of your abuser also... makes an intuitive amount of sense to me. The real issue with Black Widow to me was that it came out after Nat had died: it made it a lot harder to get excited about her being able to be with her family knowing that her head is leaking out on the ground somewhere.
omg exactly!!!! seeing her actually being beaten, abused, starved and neutered would have been absolutely hideous to me. It would have been torture porn and i just know the wrong people would have loved it. I preferred to see only small pieces of it in the opening credits (which were my favorite part of the movie) because it actually seemed like nightmarish flashbacks an abuse survivor would have.
fantastic analysis as usual! these movies have huge problems with exposition. All of them could have been great character-driven stories, but I guess they were too scared of doing it that way. Rather, they want to do action scenes and then mix in the character development through flashbacks. It creates action sequences with no emotional meaning :/
In elementary school I was taught about what in English are called _fabula_ and _syuzhet,_ or "straight story" and "interweaved narrative", you might say. Basically, whether the plot is exposed in chronological order or using flashbacks. I still remember what the teacher casually told us as a little informal tip: "Some stories, either real or not, are told better with _fabula_ (fable), others with _intreccio_ (syuzhet), and which one you use is not as important as how good you use it. Don't force one structure for a story that deserves the other, and viceversa." Well... Either she was a great teacher or some screenwriters should go back to elementary school.
Thanks for putting this into words. I've found several of the Marvel movies to be bland and hadn't really quite put my finger on why. I knew it was investment in what was happening but couldn't place what parts were missing (mainly because I didn't really care to give it much thought). Ironically, these same three movies also are emotionally manipulative, particularly Black Widow, as they want to use the abuse themes without confronting the abuse.
I think it Shang-chi works better out of chronological order. When we meet him, Shawn is a guy who has run away from who he was and is fully immersed in the new life he has created for himself with no desire to return. Like captain marvel he is a man who has forgotten (or lost) who he was and must reclaim his past to move towards his future. As the story progresses he is forced back into his old life and into acceptance of the role his heritage plays in his identity. So we see more and more of scenes of the past to inform us of who he really is. But these scenes are in the context of his present as he is learning to recontextualize his past to see his parents, his childhood, and his birthrights in a more mature way. I do agree we should’ve had the assassination scene as a flashback and some other things could’ve been cut but overall I think the slow reveal structure fits the movie quite well.
I haven't watched BoBF, but all of these issues certainly crop up in most of Disney's Star Wars endeavors so far--I kept having flashbacks to Rogue One as you were describing the issues with Black Widow. And I didn't even bother finishing The Mandalorian, these problems were so bad.
One could argue that the first act of Iron Man is the reason the MCU exists and is so successful today. Captain America's equally good first act solidified it. Watching both those movies years later really shows how the second half of them isn't actually that great. I've seen Iron Man probably ~5 times and I barely remember any details after the suit building montage. Captain America is a bit better but the first act is by far the best part of the film. That 2 second clip of the grenade scene still brings an emotional response.
Some of what you mention is my "anime" problem. The tendency to show the backstory, often piece by piece at a time the creator feels it is most relevant to the story, and while sometimes it succesfully amplifies the emotional impact of moments, a lot of the time it breaks pacing for me. To be fair, when the format goes on for years, with weeks between episodes and months if not years between seasons, its a big ask from the audience to remember everything (though they could just show some flashes of what happened as a reminder). I'm far less lenient when it comes to Marvel movies, because they don't really use these flashbacks to any effect, and I wouldn't be surprised if this approach came after realizing the story isn't really good, trying to make it more interesting with the out of order approach. Also, they did it better in the past with on average shorter runtimes.
I think keeping the alluding to the death of the man responsible is a good move. Throughout the film you think that he chicken out, when faced with killing the man who killed his mother, he couldn't go through and left out of fear of his father. but in reality, he wasn't afraid of the man, or his father, he was afraid of himself, and the guilt he felt. I wholeheartedly agree of having the first act be a "growing up montage, but i think having it cut to a grown Shang-Chi after he leaves the complex is more compelling, what happened between those 10? years, what ahs changed, not only with him but the world he experiences. but that's just my two cents
When watching Shang-Chi I thought the man Shawn was sent to kill would end up being Awkwafina's grandpa, and that the guilt of his death through possibly her witnessing it or something is what caused him to break his promise with his sister and stay in America. It seemed too coincidental that he was sent to kill a man and he was hanging out with a family with a conspicuously absent grandfather. But alas, that was probably too bold for a Marvel movie.
wow that's actually a really great observation. it would have made for a great twist smh. would have brought some juicy character conflict and drama too and tied awkwafina better to the main plot rather than just being shaun's designated love interest/side kick
@@ishika5619 Right? Would have been much better for her character and reason to be there. It seemed they were building to it by doing the flashback method and they kept hiding away the murdering scene which seemed to be Shawn's big "hero" moment when he made a choice to be a better person even though at the moment he failed he would be better afterward. I was really bummed when that didn't come to pass as I was pretty sure of it most of the movie until of course it just didn't happen.
@@Tyranidus7 exactly, that scene whether as a flashback or told chronologically would have been Shang Chi's origin "moment" and it bewilders me why it wasn't included. Someone else mentioned that it was probably because they're saving it for a sequel, but still--that's not the kind of thing you skimp on in a hero's origin movie!
@@ishika5619 That also really wouldn't work in a sequel, a sequel by definition should be a new event or new challenge, to return to that moment would be very confusing story telling wise. Granted, given Disney's recent choices in Book of Boba Fett I probably should set a very low bar in terms of "storytelling prowess" from the house of mouse. Infinity War set my expectations too high lol
Writers! The first impression of your characters matter! Keep in mind how your plot influences decisions and dont worry about constraints, give yourself the room to shape the story or script, more details from you, gives the audience more to explore when its fleshed out by the end. Grow with your stories and when the big moment comes its much easier to get people invested because of the characters involved and not the action itself, its a puzzle for every story so have fun
Personally, I liked how they hid and slowly introduced parts of his past. My problem with your proposed rearrangement of Act 1 is that it's standard and what's always done. That's basically what Batman Begins did, and it's what you would do to set him up to be some tragic, tortured hero. The character shown is someone who's just trying to run away from all of the darkness in his past after realizing that vengeanceand murder are hollow. He's not supposed to be Batman. Based on the character and story told, I think it was a good choice to make him seem like just a normal guy who isn't living up to his potential at first, before showing his back story later. This movie isn't about the tragic death of his mother and how that made him become vengeance incarnate. It's about how his family is broken and him deciding to stop hiding from his issues and to find a place and role where he truly belongs. Making Act 1 about his life as a kid would have really taken away from that story.
I totally agree with your central points in this video, but I'd like to suggest an act 1 structure for Shang-Chi that's different from both the one Marvel gives us and the one you propose: We open with no prologue, instead playing out scenes 1, 2, 3, and 4 in their current order. The audience gets to know Shaun and his current life and relationships, establishes the themes he's grappling with... and then once we feel like we've gotten to know this nice, average guy, the movie throws Katy AND the audience for a loop with his sudden extreme skills during the bus fight. I feel like a large part of the impact of that scene is that we haven't seen Shaun do anything like it before that point. Katy doesn't even think he can fight! But suddenly he dives into this intense, acrobatic combat against secret ninjas and a guy with a sword hand! Immediately following that fight, Katy demands an explaination from Shaun, her best friend who it turns out she doesn't actually know all that well. NOW the movie cuts into the chronological flashback sequence you described, from Shaun's parents meeting up through the mission to avenge his mother's death. This recontextualizes what we already learned about his strained relationship with his heritage and his desire to live an unassuming life. It also cements the sources of guilt and familial trauma that Shaun is going to have to address as he then makes the decision in scene 5 to seek out his sister. I think the later scene where Shaun talks to Katy about that mission and how it haunted him is really good, and an altered version of that could still be kept if the movie were restructured this way. It would serve as a good pause from the action and plot before act 3, and further flesh out the lasting impact of that moment on Shaun's life. And then the eventual resolution would be even more cathartic to the characters and the audience... Just a thought ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You articulated very well the problems I've had with these newer MCU films, I've always had problems with MCU's third acts but now that the first act is starting to be ignored I'm truly losing my interest in their films.
The ' I killed somone' as something for him to feel bad about when I see him throwing ppl of skyscrapers and almost certainly killing ppl in the last fight
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS! I've come out of so many marvel films with "What a crap first act" lately and I felt like I was going insane seeing them be so well received.
On the other hand, Spider-Man's act 1 origin story was 6 movies long. But yeah I think this is a fair criticism. It feels like they're trying to jump to the action stuff faster because they don't want to make a superhero movie where the superhero doesn't get to superhero until the second half or even third act. I think the last _true_ origin story they did - as in, not a character introduced in another movie, and not told through flashbacks - was Doctor Strange, and I remember there being a lot of criticism at the time for being just another generic superhero origin story. It feels like they took the "people are really tired of seeing Uncle Ben and the Waynes die" complaint to the extreme, and could maybe reel it back and find a better middle ground.
Also, when the best fight scene (bus fight) is the first one and it goes down hill from there fast, it just leaves you feeling empty and disappointed. Marvel needs to drop the trope of having some giant epic battle against CG monsters at the end. They are just boring and usually boil down to a single emotional moment padded with graphics and distractions. Just ugh.
It's a few things: -Power creep. We've had Thanos wipe out half the population of the Earth and invade with a giant army of aliens. -Morality. Some bad-faith people will complain about killing a bunch of human villains, but we have no attachment to CG monsters. -China. These movies seem to follow Chinese narrative movie structures, which tend to have less of a focused singular plot line with a big climax and instead have lots of mini-climaxes to keep thr action coming. Seeing how until recently one of Disney's big strategies was getting their movies to China (note the Avengers use Huawei phones), they have a bunch of mandated action scenes but still need to make things ramp up.
For me I can tell a lot about a movie about when I fall asleep on it. For instance during the act 2 part of Tomorrow War I fell asleep during the character parts of it but woke up during the volcano scene, so while I wasn't sure how we got to the final incident, nothing felt out of place. Upon rewatching what I missed, outside of plot elements I didn't feel like I missed much since the story was made so cohesively. For Shang Chi I fell asleep shortly after the Sister fightclub scene, woke up during them entering the forest, feel asleep, then woke up during the father/son fight. Each time I woke up there was no rational throughline from where I dropped off to where I picked up. I didn't go back and watch this movie because I didn't care for the story, watching this video made it clear why. I absolutely would have bought into this movie if it was about an assassin redeeming himself. I wasn't even aware of that as a plot element until now.
The story being told out of order like this is intentional. Katie is our POV character for a lot of the movie. Outside of trailers we wouldn't know that Shang is able to do all these crazy things. If we just sat down with no former knowledge him being a martial artist to that level would be a shock. That's the point. We aren't shown things in chronological order because Katie wasn't there for them and for the first act at least we are seeing things as she would see them. We aren't shown Shang killing his target because the event isn't what we're focusing on. We're focusing on how it is hurting him now. The performance of the actors in that scene is the point. It's not another basic action scene with an emotional ending. It's an emotional scene with a fantastic performance and shows a severe trauma. There are multiple ways to tell this same story. The way you've proposed is to tell things in order from Shang's POV. You may have preferred that, but this was a genuine choice in style to tell the story this way. Many other films and books have done this as well to create a mystery and slowly unravel the story as it goes.
One thing I felt about this movie is that despite being called Shang Chi it didn't really even feel like it was about him. He felt like a side character in his own movie.
I do think it's a shame Marvel is leaving out origins more but Shang Chi was bad one to use as an example, the out of order flashbacks I actually thought worked really well because they tended to correspond with the scenes in the film and its not a new thing movies have done that before. I do agree that it would've been better to have seen Shang kill that guy but the rest I kind of prefer in the film
i agree with your analysis, i do think maybe because marvel expects that there will be a lot of younger people seeing the movie and maybe the murder scene with shang would be a little much. Not to say that they couldn't find some elegant solution to convey that scene without it being in your face violent they might have thought a scene like that would leave that uneasy violent feeling towards shang, which i'm sure to the younger audience they don't really want that to be a strong visual in their minds at that point in the film and having the talk about it instead towards the end was how they were able to appease and convey without going too dark. If they didn't have to think about catering to a younger audience i def would've liked to see act 1 go down the way you described.
Hmm, not really on board with this. With Shang-Chi, by showing everything and chronologically you get out at the end a very standard fare brooding hero wrestling with his dark side, which Shang-Chi basically doesnt have. Thats why it wasnt a major focus of the story in and of itself. He did one dark act that you can easily sympathise with, but as much as it fundamentally altered the course of his life, it didnt fundamentally change him, and thats kind of the point of the film: That hes more his mother (and father after he met his mother) than he is his father of old. I.e. The story as told is a level of abstraction away from the Just Write idea of presenting a standard fare gritty hero, on the verge of being as bad as the villains they face. Shang-Chi isnt worried about that, hes not Dare Devil, Batman or indeed his morally ambiguous father*, hes worried that he could become like Dare Devil, Batman or his morally ambiguous father, and doesnt want that responsibility. The idea that Disney wont show bad things also seems like a pretty baseless assumption. Wenwu is shown unmercifully murdering a guy in front of a very young Shang-Chi. They wont show you his head being caved in, but they are clearly capable of showing death. It just wasnt the right choice to show Shang-Chi murdering someone, thats an entirely different character presentation to what they were aiming for. I do agree that the ending of Black Widow was a mess, but Im a bit baffled by focusing on Dreykov which was, if anything, the highlight. He is just so gross, he has a greasy aura to him that triggers visceral disgust with the man, it was a tense and disturbing meeting. Bigger issues with the ending are that it pushed everything aside to have the big CG spectacle, and the family relationships were wrapped up ridiculously rapidly seemingly to make space for the showy finish. I think Captain Marvel is probably where this critique applies most, but as pointed out, you are talking about quite heavy changes to it to make it happen. *Unless youve interpreted his father to have been unambiguously evil until a single turning point in his life, but I dont think that works very well given whats shown, or speaks well of Li.
I don't quite agree with you about Captain Marvel's climactic emotional montage at the end (these scenes are all showing a similar moment, so you don't need to have seen them before for them to have resonance), but I think you make good points about character building in the later marvel movies in general. Also Thor 1 was good and nobody can convince me I don't like it.
Thank you!!!!!!! Thor is a great movie; not perfect, but it's still good! Also Marvel's first villain that was sympathetic and shows how he became a villain
I think you're very harsh on the concept of the MCU. Looking down on something great because it's popular is just as bad as liking something bad because it's obscure. I got into the MCU three years ago almost when my toddler son, who got me into superheroes, was battling an ultimately fatal brain tumor. I get how it's fashionable to look down on the MCU, but it's a mistake. Nothing helped all of us through a hard time (besides each other) than the MCU. Our children and me and my wife all fell in love with it. I think because we literally didn't see one movie in the MCU until starting at the beginning a month after Endgame came out is that we don't take the MCU for granted. It's sad when film-aspirant UA-camrs who are striving to learn filmmaking think it's more profitable to critique something great than to learn from it. Especially smart ones like you. It's like explaining how the White Album could be better if it weren't as weird. You notice all the ways it differs from screenwriting 101 dogma, and think they just don't get first semester ideas, not that they're actually subverting ideas. Shang Chi hid the truth of his assassination from his best friend by lying to her face, something he would never otherwise do. That's the drama. And cutting out Slattery? And a second later you say it's too plot driven? How can character moments take up too much time but it's plot driven? Shang Chi lying about his shameful weakness rather than stabbing someone IS the drama. You honestly think the impact is the physical act of stabbing a guy, not that it poisoned his life? A child was programmed to kill, avenging his mother's murder, which he witnessed. And it tore him apart and made him drop out of his life like a hole opened in the universe and he slipped through. And you say "Without seeing the stabbing, where's the drama?" Open your heart a little, let the little bit of snooty drain out. Nothing prevents artistic growth more than being a student who holds success in disdain. Our family resonated more with "What is grief but love persevering" in our loss of our beautiful child than anything in our family grief groups or any other work that touches on grief since our tragic loss. Wouldn't you rather learn to provide meaning and hope to crushed souls than feel superior to a franchise because it's popular? I've heard plenty of dudes tell me why the Beatles are overrated: none of them ever became successful musicians and they're all at least kind of jerks if not outright D-bags. I only go on so long because I respect you and I sincerely hope that the negative valence of this doesn't turn you away from my meaning. You are entitled and encouraged to have whatever view you want. Oh god Natasha seeming shocked she couldn't hurt him was the POINT of that, not being stupid and not setting it up. Plus her name isn't Natalie. Sorry, video is playing as I write. Black Widow's script is most reasonable to critique.
*"Reconnecting with your roots/cultural heritage"* is certainly different than "Running from your past", but for the first kind of story I would just want to suggest watching the movie *The Farewell* in addition to these movies that are being discussed.
Great video, I think one thing I would add about the Black Widow movie: are they really going to devote more time to not having Scarlet Johansen in frame? They devoted a lot of energy into Robert Downey with Iron Man for the same reason. When you pay that much for people like these, you don't hide them. I'd be deeply surprised if that never came up during the production. It's a real shame too, Marvel really had an opportunity to do something "different" here and squandered it.
It's kinda hard to make audiences care about Black Widow at this point because we already know her story ends by getting thrown off the Cliff of Misogyny. Ideally, they could've explored her backstory before Endgame came out, but they opted to introduce Captain Marvel instead, which is my biggest gripe with THAT film; we wasted time setting up a character that doesn't contribute much to Endgame versus a character we spent YEARS with that we didn't know much about.
Shang Chi is inspired by kung fu action films. I think changing from plot focused to character focused would be westernising the story too much. I like it as it is.
@@BriantWebster don’t worry, when I say western idea I don’t mean that you don’t find it in the east, but that it was first popularised through Aristotelean Theatre (western). Eastern art like the Journey to the west, Bruce Lee Films, and others don’t depend on the character focused lens expected in current western media. In these eastern stories, the structure of facing one action setpiece to the next is more natural because less of society was focused on an individualist mindset. Each character just fulfilled their role and that’s it.
so, something funny about these three movies: they're all about grooming victims. and, as a survivor of grooming (albeit for different ends) I can tell you that that kind oftreatment kind of breaks your autobiographical memory. your experience of time becomes non-chronological, unable to place memories in time and distinguish between memories and the current moment. so I actually found the storytelling of all three of these movies extremely relatable and accurate to my experiences.
Bro this is a reach and a half wtf
I agree! For the Black Widow movie, I almost feel like seeing Draykoff's relationship to Widow wasn't important, because we know what it is. We can read the history in the looks, in the postures, in how they move.
Draykoff as a person isn't important because is one of millions who exploit women and girls for his own gratification and advancement. And those MFers are all the same.
Absolute copium
@@jaseneffendy17 it’s really not.
I don’t want to take away or downplay what you went through, but in my opinion, this type of non-chronological storytelling is quite messy for movies, even Pulp Fiction. It all ends up like a slice-of-life, allowing us to better get to know characters, but it’s not nearly as satisfying as a three-act structure and/or hero’s journey. I say non-chronological stories are absolutely suited for books and TV/anime, and Shang-Chi was meant for an episodic format.
The idea of keeping important information for reveals for no reason is an old problem. The original writer for Finding Nemo wrote the script so that we didn't find out about Nemo's mom until later in the script, but the director - a smart guy - took on look at that and said, "But then everybody will hate Marlin" and put that reveal as the prologue.
God, what a good example. Knowing why the main character’s flaw exists in the first place does a lot of work getting the audience on their side. They don’t just have a random flaw that they simply *choose* to perpetuate, they have a deep and understandable struggle with their own history that they have to overcome. Letting the audience in helps them know, early on, why overcoming this flaw may the the most difficult thing the protagonist has ever done in their life and makes seeing them overcome it that much more rewarding.
@@docpepperclassic This exactly. No random perpetuated flaws!
Thank God they did. If they revealed it later, the whole Dory aspect would fall apart in my opinion.
@@daoyang223 That's one of the reasons the director changed that plot point, yes.
The director and writer in that case were one and the same: Andrew Stanton! He said he was happy he got to use the flashbacks idea later on in the Finding Dory sequel.
This strikes me as Marvel trying to sidestep the "origin story problem" and in doing so creating stories with weaker foundations.
Like, they heard all the fans complaining about every new supehero movie being an origin story, and oh it's all the same thing. But they decided the solution was to skip to the middle "cool" part of the story and just gesture vaguely to what should have been the first act .
Turns out maybe origin stories are actually just good structures for these kinds of stories?
Most comic book fans' 1st mag was not an issue #1. We got whatever cover grabbed our interest that moment. Knowing the precise circumstances of day 1 for Any Hero seems completely unnecessary to becoming a fan. It is their actions and examples that make us inspired! The minutiae of trivia comes much later.
@@vydkeryx5660 Well, it depends on the character. Some character's backstories are more important than others. Like there's a reason that every Batman movie will *always* at least briefly recap the Wayne murders. OTOH, yeah, a lot of the times they're skippable. In particular, I'm really hoping that the inevitable Fantastic Four rereboot just skips the origin, because it's completely superfluous and we've seen it too many times already.
Ironically, I think the main difference between the MCU and DCEU is that the former took its time building up its hero, showing their origins *and then* throwing them together in a nice mix of clashing personalities / working together (with some spicy Nick Fury meddling thrown in).
The DCEU on the other hand tried to skip right to the clash (MoS as the sole exception) - and thus ended up in a hot mess of movies that barely worked.
Unsurprisingly, the ones that did really well are origin stories again: Wonder Woman and Aquaman.
the real complaints were that every spider man movie, every batman, every superman etc etc gave us the orgin story of their character, not that we got the story of new characters.
I tend to love origin stories in superhero films, it generally gives a lot of weight and meaning to the villain they fight at the end, and how it's generally the main character overcoming something as part of an arc, and changing, and the villain often being a reflection of how they use to be or what if they didn't have that arc happen to them. Origins, are usually where I'm most invested, because personal stakes are the highest. Later films have to instead have a compelling supervillain with a misunderstood tragedy or something to really get me going. I'll say it here, again: I liked Batman Begins better than Dark Knight, even though I recognize the latter as the better film.
Your question about Black Widow actually has an answer, and it's never occurred in film history: It's because this movie should have been made a decade ago. The reason Natasha's backstory is glossed over so briefly is because we already know this story. She's been hinting at it, revealing key pieces of information and showing flashbacks ever since her first appearance. Eagle eyes fans who paid attention to and remembered these scenes had almost everything they needed to piece it together. So Marvel Studios essentially wrote themselves into a corner in which showing her full history would be repetitive, but simply reminding you of the lore that's what been established would be confusing. If they hadn't waited so long this could have hit a lot harder by all being revealed at once, but as is we even knew most of the Bulgaria mission before the film even began
Considering how many spiderman and batman origin stories I'm sure if they wanted to they could have made it work and yet 😅
Huh? Who’s “we” when rule referring to having known most of what happened in Budapest? No one before this movie knew what happened for sure, just headcanons and theories. Which is why the film revisited it
Exactly what I was going to say. All the bits and pieces of her history are revealed in light detail over several different marvel movies though. This can not stand alone as a movie at all. They definitely needed to flesh out the main villain and those previous events more though. As you said, all we really knew from canon is "the mission in Bulgaria" and guilt. And the whole daughter reveal thing was just stupid and should have been left out completely.
You meant Budapest, right? Not Bulgaria
I disagree, as a casual marvel fan all I knew about her was that she was a spy/agent/assassin and that she forcibly got her tubes tied.
ironically, end game had a really fine, slow paced, character driven first half and people loved it. ofc with fresh characters it can't be that much of a slowburn but generally speaking, i think audiences are prepared for a solid build up if it means a fantastic pay off and walk into theaters with a degree of faith
Absolutely. That's also the only part of the movie I actually remember.
The time travel fan fic was solidly disappointing
End game was still so bad though
Really? I found the first half excruciatingly boring, I think action is not just the thing marvel excels at, but in fact the only thing that doesn't fall flat. Especially the seemingly endless pretending that every was lost when you knew we were just minutes away from someone finally coming up with a plan to undo the snap. (which btw was a disappointment in itself, of course they wouldn't commit to it, that's also why I don't understand why people were so emotional about the ending of infinity war. As if marvel had th balls to kill off half their poster boys and girls 😅)
I looove that first act
I don't want to speak for everyone, but I've definitely noticed that watching these Marvel movies consistently over the past few years has affected my perception of pacing. I watched Kimi last night and kept thinking that it was taking way too long getting to the point of the story, but then by the time I got to the third act, almost every piece of information from that first 20 minutes had paid off in some way and the final conflict could play out really efficiently. The movie didn't need to stop and have a flashback or an exposition scene to reestablish the stakes, it can just *go*.
Ah. Good storytelling.
We turned off KIMI at the 22 minute mark. Uninteresting characters and glacial pacing. (And I say this as someone who enjoys slow foreign films.) I’m a fan of Soderbergh’s; hope he makes a better movie next time.
This sounds so sad. Lol
I haven't watched Kimi yet but I do agree that the MCU might've warped many audiences perception on pacing; I look at some of the more critical reviews for The Batman and even critics are complaining about the film's deliberate pacing when even a few years ago another more "artistic" superhero movie like Logan would've been praised for that.
I still dont understand why Infinity War is so highly praised. I felt like I couldn't breathe at all during the movie. It felt like action and adrenaline were going through every single scene. There was never a moment to rest, to breath and take in the whole scope of the movie and the effects this has on the characters.
That movie completely put me off of any future marvel movies. I cant bring myself to watch a marvel movie without the fear of being choked to death by nonstop action.
These movies are made like fast food. They are made to constantly trigger the dopamine receptors in your brain so that you become addicted and keep coming back for more. Just because you keep wanting it doesnt mean its actually good. This is what happens with a lot of pop music as well.
The problem with your proposed structure for Shang Chi is that it establishes him as a foreigner running from his past as opposed to an American trying to live his life but beholden to his cultural heritage. The way way the movie is laid out speaks to the Asian (or more generally immigrant) American experience of being an American first but trying to find where your heritage and family fit within your true self.
This is a very good point and I bet something that was consciously thought about during the writing process
Except the Master of Kung-Fu comics were multifaceted, but chief among them was the "fish out of water" theme, a young man confused about his biracial heritage. His backstory took place in China, but his stories frequently took place in either London or Hong Kong (during the British lease). His friends and foes alike would tease him about it. Hiils best friend called him "Chinaman" so often he finally accepted it, only when an antagonist called him "Britisher" did he realize he didn't belong to either culture. Just Write's video essay really hit home for me and explained why I was so dissatisfied and disappointed with many of the recent Marvel movies, but none more than Shang-Chi.
I wouldn't call it a problem because the timeline for both themes are the same in this movie. I'd say to actually do the "American beholden to his heritage" theme would be to alter the timeline that has Shang transported to America earlier in his life. This way he has no memory of his past. Even with the way the movie chose to lay out the events I still saw Shang as a foreigner running from his past.
Yes, it definitely didn't need ALL the flashbacks at the front - the better point here is that if being a killer is his ghost/shard of glass that could have been better foreshadowed.
I was hoping to find a comment like this, thank you for your service.
Billy Wilder said it well: “If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.”
I mean, my issue with the third act of Shang Chi is that it becomes a big CGI monster fight. The first act is so distant from that.
Quote referenced at 10:06 & 18:09
@@loonar7960 act 2 is good however lol
Yeah that’s not legit and I don’t agree with that statement, sometimes third acts are just terrible compared to the first two.
I sorta disagree. I have found the first acts to be the most enjoyable parts of recent marve movies. But you did touch on the real problem. Marvel wants to explore some difficult themes, but Disney wants to avoid any depiction of these topics on their films which leads to writing hurdles and cinemanarritive dissonance.
fun fact about me: i didn't read any context about black widow so when the movie was anounce i though we were finally gonna dig into her origins when she was a kgb agent until she move on to shield, and for the first 10 minutes i though we were gonna see that with an opening that felt a lot like the americans tv show and a grim opening sequence that i miss a lot in films... then she grew up and the radio mention at loud that she disobey the sokovia accords and im like "oh no this will be nothing but dump expostions everywhere isn't it?" and the movie ended up beeing the lame ass movie i was thinking when they drop the chronologically set up
@@motor4X4kombat it’s so bad man
The real problem isn’t that the act ones are bad, it’s that marvel writes first acts which don’t set up the rest of the movie effectively
Shang-Chi isn't perfect, and I have a hard time caring about the big CG battle at the end, but the structure makes sense to me. He's not just an unambitious loafer at the beginning, but someone who's tried to make a new start for himself after the suffering he endured before coming to the U.S. Over the course of the film, he learns to confront the consequences of his decision to leave, especially the abuse he left his sister to endure, while still maintaining his own identity and sense of self. I don't think it's a great film, but it got the family interactions right. For that reason, I think it's different from Black Widow and Captain Marvel.
@MelloWattz seeing it coming and caring are two different things. If it works in the comics, that's great, but does it work in the movie?
@MelloWattz *most* people who watch these movies don’t know the comics, mate.
JW's proposal to place all the flashbacks at the beginning including the man he kills doesn't affect the way you view his character at all. You mention how he is not just a broke loser but someone running from there past and having to face the consequences. Seeing why he left and how at the beginning doesn't change any of that. In fact it let's you in on the suffering he indoors much sooner making you care more about beforehand.
@MelloWattz How the hell can anyone see the dragon coming? It wasn’t even foreshadowed in the movie and came out left field and last minute for a CGI final battle.
I'd like to see a movie where the retired assassin ends up working as a valet. Everyone thinks he's not living up to his potential; he knows he's happiest exactly where it is.
You nailed the reason for my vague dissatisfaction with the recent crop of Marvel movies and specifically my great disappointment with Shang-Chi in particular. The entire comic series was about Shang hating his father for his hypocrisy, turning him into an assassin while espousing the values of the Tao and Zen. And the character arc was about Shang finally able to come to terms with the Tao within himself, a good man who is capable of evil.
I feel like black widow should have been about nat's training as shown in in the credits and then her meeting Hawkeye, her defection after he doesn't kill her and finally Budapest (A tense cat and mouse game with Nate and Hawkeye against an insurmountable force hunting them in the city instead of big CGI freefall sequence)
I think keeping Budapest as a joke has value. The whole movie is about the Black Widow training and then Natasha’s defection through the power of friendship with Hawkeye. Then the end/end credit scene is about the first mission with Widow/Hawkeye and they are complaining to Maria about it being a milk run, how they deserve something less boring, and that’s when we hear it’s in Budapest and then the movie ends.
But Black Widow is basically the MCU's way to establish Yelena or the other now released Black Widows as future Black Widows that can be introduced into the story as and when they like. The post-credits sequence already hinted at her appearance in Hawkeye and it was needed to solidify her new appearance as part of the MCU now.
@@darkdestiny9106 This shows the main problem that the MCU has to deal with. They always have to think ahead about setting up characters and plot points even if the movies might be better without that. Like, did we really need all that Thor: Dark World set up in Avengers: Age of Ultron? No. But T:DW needed that set up, so they sacrificed part of AoU for a future installment.
That Budapest movie was what I thought the Black Widow movie would be about before the trailers released. And I think I would have preferred to see that: Natasha and Clint meeting each other and Natasha becoming independent would have been awesome. But instead, they made plot-hole riddled sequel bait.
@@theshire9173 I actually don't think the Black Widow movie was terrible but it definitely leaves a lot of be desired. They needed a Black Widow replacement, so the movie is meant to do that, introduce a potential Black Widow-like character while letting us know Natasha's sacrifice in Endgame still held weight. I rather have this than to get the cheap way out of resurrecting Black Widow somehow
I legitimately wish we will be getting a new Taskmaster though, the one we got was terrible... like Deadpool in X-men Legends: Wolverine terrible
@@darkdestiny9106 I agree with you, but my point still stands. This wasn’t a Black Widow movie; this was a set up for her replacement and that’s why the movie feels unfinished and pointless in terms of building up Natasha’s character and actually makes it worse.
This movie actively ruins her sacrifice in Endgame. Originally, I got the sense that she sacrificed herself so Clint could come back to his family and the rest of her avengers family could live in a better world; it was really nice and powerful. Now, though, it seems like she didn’t care about her own family when she died without saying anything about them (because her family wasn’t revealed yet when this scene was shown). The Black Widow movie didn’t add anything meaningful to Natasha.
Im glad you called out the algorithmic pressure that has been guiding movie analysis channels to drift into taking endless, repetative potshots at popular properties like marvel and star wars. I like how this video is framed less like "the reason why shang chi was... underwhelming" and more like "hey i noticed this trend, lets take a closer look at it"
The YT algorithm has been like that for Movie Tuber discourse, at best, since 2016 lol
I was literally thinking "this is a lot like with Book of Boba Fett" and then you say the same at the end haha.
Both BoBF and Hawkeye hold back on a villain reveal that would've made waaaay more sense to develop the _whole_ time but they think (wrongly) that twist and reveals and cameos are all we want.
blame the hype culture ua-cam.com/video/EEOUJ5VfoK4/v-deo.html
8:30 I agree that Captain Marvel’s a media is a better reason to have it in flashbacks. But I think Shang’s assassin background IS meant to be a mystery until the bus fight scene. We’re meant to be as shocked as Katie that Shaun is an assasin
Thing is, we already knew that his father is a 1000 year old immortal who used to defeat entire armies single-handedly. We're not surprised that Shang-Chi knows how to fight.
Agreeing with the guy above. If that was supposed to be a reveal, then they shouldn't add all those flashbacks beforehand.
@@Republic_of_Tim Especially given that we've come to see a superhero movie with this guy's name in the title.
When you keep saying "Natalie" in Black Widow, do you mean... Natasha? lol
Anyway, another great analysis. Solid First Acts were ABSOLUTELY a strength of the MCU in the early days! And while I understand the desire to mix things up a bit, the storytelling does suffer when they don't do it right. As for the sudden rise in folks criticizing Marvel in general, I'm fine with it. When you're the dominant form of action blockbusters in the industry, and you're coasting so much that you're starting to get lazy, that kind of thing warrants a closer look. These films have an influence on young up and comers, after all. We want them to know what they're doing, and not make the same mistakes. Besides Marvel is so big and popular enough that if criticized, I think they'll be ok.
I know it's childish, but every time he said Nathalie in place of Natasha I cringed. Still, really good analysis of the movies.
Natasha Romanoff, Natalie Rushman, Natalia Romanova. Take your pick.
As Natasha, i am also go as Natali/Natalia. Feels more formal.
@@NaNaNatalii In English people won't pick up on the ending 'sha' as an endearment version of a name like in Russian. They wouldn't hear someone saying "Oh hey Misha" and put together that Misha's name is really Mikhail, for example.
@@theogoltzman5372 well, I just learned something!
Starting with the flashback would lead to a real tone problem - a dark opening into a light and quippy second act
I really *really* like the choice to not show Shang-Chi killing his target, because the reveal that he went through with it totally recontextualizes his character going into act three. You think you’ve got the guy all figured out but then it turns out he’s got a whole raw emotional nerve that’s been festering under the surface and suddenly the emotional closure of confronting his father means even more.
It’s an effect I really dig.
I can definitely see that effect ringing true, a way to get both would to have a cutaway before his choice is made with a frame of him turning away like he didn't go along with it, but we later learn that his turning away was him after he did the act in his shame.
Even if you agree with the fact that it should be placed in the third act they should still SHOW THE DAMN SCENE. That was a major turning point for the character and his life. Imagine if we got to the second act of Black Panther and we DON'T see king T'Chaka kill his brother in flashback and instead just get Forrest Whitaker telling us what happened.
@@galactic85 fair enough I guess. Really doesn’t bug me any, and I think cutting away from Simu Liu and Awkwafina’s performances in that scene would’ve been a huge mistake.
I agree and I think (maybe) they left it like that on purpose for the potential of a second movie storyline? Although, I don't think movies should be made with having sequels in mind - that's always been a gripe of mine, because a movie should be able to stand on its own merit - but still, maybe that's why they didn't show it.
@@fullmetal_pipsqueak I’ve personally never read it that way. A lot of people assume it’s some kind of sequel set up but I don’t see that being likely. It’s *possible,* sure, but the choice to not show it doesn’t play like that’s the motivation for me.
I feel like in Shang Chi we are following the POV of Katy knowing Shawn and learning more about him. We the audience and Katy only know so much about him and as Katy learns more about him the more we the audience learn.
OH NOOOOOOOO!!! I have two girlfriends, but very few people on YT are happy for my relationship success. They disl*ke all of the videos I make with my 2 girlfriends. Please be kind, dear om
in this case, she should be the protagonist. it would be more fitting.
Lots of movies have a normal person tag along to provide a relatable anchor for the audience (and the protagonist) and to juxtapose with the insanity of superheroes. And it certainly can be effective if we learn about the protagonist at the same time as them. That being said, most superhero origin films show us the protagonists perspective instead and this is usually much better at allowing the audience to empathize with them. I think most superhero movies try to have both, e.g. Spiderman with Peter's friend Ned.
1. If the movie is being told from Katy's POV that's a bad call. It makes Shang a secondary character in his own movie.
2. If the movie IS from Katy's POV then why does it begin with a while big flashback that, if i remember correctly, is Shang's mother narrating the story of how she met his father TO HIM?
@@galactic85 1) no it doesn’t. Is Jay Gatsby a “secondary character” in HIS movie because he’s not the viewer’s POV? Of course not, that’s dumb,
2) prologues taking place beyond a POV characters purview is nothing new. Lord of the Rings did it.
For me, The Eternals was the perfect example of this. The concepts and the plot twist (which was already done in captain marvel, for) landed utterly flat due to the excessive and never-ending exposition dumps and flashback storytelling that failed to even remotely create interest or connection with the characters. A linear storytelling progression would have been significantly better in that film. IMO.
Wasted opportunity for sure. They could have leaned harder into their "a lot of myths are based off these guys" gimmick and tell it a lot like a Greek God myth - from their creation to them serving their purpose, to their separation and then leading into their fallout - it would have been great
oh my god the flashbacks from that movie where endless as fuck.. i barelly give a shit about the present story everytime they cut to another flashback from history.
Took the words out of my mouth. In their attempt to balance the lore, the plot is so sparse it just becomes boring when the majority of the plot plays out like an rpg, an rpg with boring exposition dumps that could've been used elsewhere or didn't need to be there. The twist with icarus in particular should've just come with the big twist imo.
it has been said to death, but still though if only Eternals was a series instead i feel i would have really enjoyed it.....such a messy movie but the concept underneath is pretty cool....
Billy Wilder: "A problem in act three is really a problem in act one."
Just Write: "A first act problem is really a third act problem."
What you did there, I see it.
Hello Yoda.
They go hand in hand. If one act is poorly paced the rest of the movie suffers in pacing.
Of the movies shown, I've only seen Legend of the Ten Rings, and I'm not sure I would describe its problems as "first-act" problems so much as a "character-motivation" problem. You don't need to see the lead kill his mother's murderer to understand his character, but you are absolutely right that he is far too normal and well-adjusted for being a runaway child soldier assassin, that should have been reflected in the character (it actually reminded me a lot of Finn, the storm-trooper character from the newer Star Wars, it was the same sort of weird disconnect from the traumatic past).
And it wasn't just there. The father character veered repeatedly between "grieving father and lead in a family drama about his children trying to convince him to get therapy" and "mustache-twirling Fu Manchu", so much so I wasn't even sure he was supposed to be the villain until halfway through the film. And for all the film seems to have wanted to say that murder-is-bad and Shang-Chi is no longer an assassin, there was no place where he actually shows mercy to his enemies, and his attempts at talking his father down are so perfunctory it came across to me that he was actually really, really eager to kill his own dad. Just a lot of mixed signals, and not in the clever way. I'm not sure why the sister, or the girlfriend, or the actor were even there. I'm not sure who sent the letter that was the inciting incident or why. I'm not sure why Shaun didn't recognize his own father's men (not even his right-hand man, who would basically be his uncle, right?) or react to them in any way when they attacked him.
One thing I really noticed with that movie was that I kept thinking the movie was going to go one direction but then it kept trying to go another. It starts off in its first act looking like a "normal guy thrust into strangeness" story, but it's really about family drama. But the family only gets pulled together to have the drama by a James Bondian style macguffin plot that is then immediately forgotten about. And now suddenly there's a secret magic village and also Sauron was behind everything. Maybe this is related to the "not establishing things properly" problem this video is about, but it strikes me as a more fundamental problem than just telling the story in the improper order. The film didn't know where to focus itself, or who or what it was about. It wasn't sure if it was about a child soldier assassin who grew a conscience, or about an ABC relatable screw-loose with a secret family history, or what. And I think it could have done both, but that would have meant threading the needle, rather than just throwing the tropes all at the wall at once.
I'm going to disagree with the assertion that "at least we know how to feel by the end" for Shang-Chi. Yes, I could tell what heartstrings they were pulling at, what box formula they were going for, but it just felt forced. Mostly, I just wanted it to end already.
I think the comment on the film being plot-driven rather than character-driven is spot-on. The film was doing things because that was the way the set pieces and canned emotional beats had been laid out, rather than because it made any logical or emotional sense to do so. They treated character development the same as exposition.
My Chinese momma was wincing and covering her mouth by the time they were in the secret village. Said the film had a sense of "faux-insiderness" she found distasteful.
The whole wuxia bit at the beginning was fun. The bus scene was pretty baller.
It's Marvel's committment to "being fun at all cost" that railroad's a lot of the story telling here. Marvel does not trust its audience to be engage with serious topics like abuse, so it sidesteps these issues so the focus becomes the quipping and the fun, rather than the necessary storybeats that will make these characters' arcs work.
Well technically, if you listen to Finn in star wars, whenever he talks about his role with the first order, it's always ''ho I used to mop there'' ''Ho I know where the trash compactors are'' and things like that, they technically made their black a character a Janitor for the first order, turned comedic relief for the resistance which is already a big yikes from disney.
Even a small thing like him checking spaces for traps or hidden attackers would have been interesting
Some people suppress trauma. Thought that was pretty clearly what Shang-Chi was trying to do. He never talked about his past until his dad forced him to face it. People don’t have to appear sad to show their trauma.
Also the father was intended to veer between grieving man and evil villain. That was the whole arc. Grief can corrupt people.
The more of your comment I read the less it seems like you have issues with the movie and the more it seems like you weren’t paying attention. Especially considering that most people clearly don’t share your perspective considering the incredible reception the movie got.
@@mr.stuffdoer8483 It was not clear; it was explicitly stated through exposition.
"Grieving semi-retired villain" is one of the oldest cliches in the book, but - ironically - that wasn't conveyed, either.
Foreshadowing is required to prevent a plot twist alienating the audience.
I'd love to know what you thought of Encanto.
I agree that Disney doesn't remotely have the brand to tackle a story like Black Widow's properly.
Yet I feel that, with Encanto, they may have succeeded to address issues of realness, very much because: a.) they make it a musical -- so some of the pacing and detail that one would expect in a heavy story doesn't apply, and, b.) they show Abuela's trauma in a romanticized version in the beginning, that is recalled in a more serious way at the end...and so, they manage to soften the impact for children by preparing them for it first, and are then able to dramatize it a little more in the end -- just enough for adults to feel that the conclusion is somewhat satisfying.
Its kind of like how Ant Man keeps telling you that Scott Lang is a big jerk and a criminal but the character is just this super nice, likeable guy. there is a serious disconnect between the character and what the movie tells you about the character.
I don't think they ever tried to say he was a jerk just a criminal if anything the movie constantly showed him being a likeable guy
i think it’s that the movie is moreso going, he’s not like the other criminals ™. in that he is one, but like the Baskin Robbins guy said, He’s a COOL criminal 😎
I don't even think Ant-Man is trying to say that he's not like other criminals. Luis and the others are also cool, likable guys. Heck, even the prison fight in the opening was a fake out. If anything, the lesson of Ant-Man is that the parole system is incredibly harsh and unforgiving to otherwise normal people who are just trying to get by.
I don’t think Ant-Man *ever* tells you “Scott is a big jerk”. Literally all the information we’re given about him, even the reason he was in jail, lines up with him being a nice guy. All the movie shows is him getting the raw end of a deal.
@@Dalenthas that’s a really good take! surprised that hasn’t occurred to me lol
I think they are more concerned with getting audiences to like an unknown character moreso than caring about the plot, hence all the telling and not showing. It would be more accurate to say the MCU has a major flashback problem, I am not sure why so many of their recent movies engage in such heavy flashbacks.
But the way to get us to like unknown characters is to SHOW US THEIR STORY. We need to see WHY WE CARE ABOUT THEM.
@@galactic85 Oh I agree with you 100%
yeah, for example Eternals was basically a giant flashback
What I'm hearing are very deep ways of saying 'show, don't tell' repeated again and again. Excellent analysis, honestly.
Shang-Chi, in fact, felt to me like action-piece after action-piece with a small thread of intra-character drama. Which is good, but yeah coulda been better. Hell, we could have gotten a full movie about Shang-Chi's father! (Which my girlfriend thought of while watching the movie with her.) And then Shang-Chi himself becomes the hero in the sequel.
Captain Marvel, I personally think works as it is set-up. But, as you mentioned, that's part of the "Amnesia/Identity" angle...which is part of what makes Captain Marvel a damn good movie in my eyes. Giving Carol that struggle to overcome, which other heroes seem to lack.
Black Widow...kinda didn't watch it at all. Like, it should have been done at least a good few years earlier instead of shoehorned as it was into the MCU release schedule like an afterthought.
I think part of this is a change in the audience which has seen a lot of hero origin stories by now. They're playing to an experienced audience with expectations that either need to be met or subverted, and they also want a faster pacing. A version of the backstory will already be known, much of the world building is baked in, and if they don't experiment with the "formula" it will become "generic." *Essentially all their origin films are actually sequels.*
Hot take: I would have loved if the First Act showed all the flashbacks but then stopped before showing if Shang-Chi had killed the man - probably as a dream sequence so we can cut to Shaun waking up and living his dull life. Leave it as a mystery throughout until the bus fight so Awkwafina's character will question him about his past and tension can build between them as she starts to wonder how much she doesn't really know about him - that way there's more reason for her to be around most of the time. This also allows for them to resolve the conflict later on when he admits to the killing and lead-up as to why she decided to step up and help out too - and instead not be so awkward on her tagging along in the fight.
The "your friend is a murderer" bit would've made the movie a lot less dreary. Rationalizing your friend as a killer would've made the awkward sidekick character more than an awkward sidekick.
Small defence of Captain Marvel: every woman I know who saw that film didn’t need a detailed breakdown of the systemic sexism through which she persevered, we already know it well and the montage was enough to reignite the empathy we already naturally feel for her. Although that’s my anecdotal experiences
As a girl with "boyish" interests, captain Marvel's flashback made me flinch. Yeah, there were too many men, including my own grandpa to tell me you can't/shouldn't do that. People bash Captain Marvel but what she faces minus the fantastical elements, almost 95% women go through.
My mother hated that film. Turned it off halfway through.
The systemic sexism is not explored; it's just exposited as quickly as possible so we can get back to the cat that eats people. And I LIKED the cat that eats people.
Invoking other people's painful memories is no substitute for good writing.
Love this! Great content! Super thoughtful! Re: Shang Chi your argument is intellectually correct but I think this flicks approach is fresher for people who've seen a movie before and allows us to bond with the actors who will be carrying the story. Hooking us with the relationship between the two of them gives us a rooting interest in their journey. I'm super glad they didn't do the slow burn origin. Ironman and Captain America act ones also featured the actor would play the role for the rest of the movie, so not having to hang the drama on kid actors. And the reveal of echoes backstory came after we had met that character as a villain and then we got to flashback on their origin. Then you can project the adult character that we had come to know as echo on to that child actor. Adding a layer of complexity to the villain after we had met them. I think. I may be misremembering that.
I think you are hitting the nail on the head here, it's actually a problem I see more widely in currently Hollywood movies generally. Billy Wilder: "If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act".
For some reason in a lot of movies in the last few years, there seems to be a disregard for the first act, like they just wanna skip it to get to the action.
Awesome breakdown of this issue.
I'm becoming more clinical each time i see a big movie, cause it seems to be always that the priority is about the reletabilty of the character living in a big city. feels sometime that I'm watching a commercial rather than a movie.
i have become almost Foucauldian when watching these films. i am becoming aware of the power structures being reproduced in the simulation in front of me. i observe the narrative that is in front of me, and observe others emulating that narrative. when i left the brainwashing cult i was born into (Mormonism), i also became aware of the more cultish parts of our wider society, and have also endeavored to leave them. you are indeed watching many commercials when watching these movies, due to product placement and other such manipulative techniques. these movies make implicit what many would call explicit in foreign states. and many foreign states would do likewise with other subjects. ua-cam.com/video/TVwKjGbz60k/v-deo.html
@@ethanstump ehy nice video sometimes i like to question the reality, hopefully i do not get a meltdown going this rabbit hole, thank you for sharing me.
@@Jonok eh, i've had breakdowns before. it's okay to have them, as unpleasant as they are. the groundhog day's are just as bleak i have found. at least when questioning i might not have an answer, but i do have a question, as opposed to the blankness in my eyes when sequencing documents. then again, i sob in the shower regardless.
@@ethanstump i get that, but please consider to also get therapy if you feel too much down, internet people can only do so much.
It's really all propaganda huh
*RAMBLE INCOMING*
I’m thinking about why I actually feel like I’m MORE invested in this movie with its current structure than I feel I would be if the events were laid out chronologically, and I think it all has to do with Wenwu and how his and his son’s relationship is at the center of the movie.
The film is about how Shang-Chi has all these layers of resentment for his father that stops him from humanizing him and accepting his influence as both potentially negative *and* positive.
The audience is kept out of Shang-Chi’s literal headspace by not knowing the information he does, but the information we’re given, when we’re given it, puts us in his *emotional* space. He/we start the movie thinking of his dad as this unseen dark force to be avoided- someone who loves his mom, probably, but didn’t show that love to his son and is now treating him like an enemy.
Then as we peel back more and more layers through the flashbacks we see how much Shang-Chi’s view of his father is informed by fear, how it tore his and Xialing’s relationship apart, and we get a *sense* for how much it’s screwed Shang-Chi up as a person but not the full picture. It makes Wenwu seem even darker and more hate-able in preparation for us actually meeting the guy.
Once we do meet him, the flashback to he and his wife shows us how human he actually is, and it throws not just us but everyone at the table with him (especially Katy, our ostensible POV character) for a loop. Suddenly it’s not that everything we know about him was wrong, but that all that darkness comes from a really meaningful place of deep hurt and loss.
Then, finally, we get father and son reminiscing to the night of his mother’s death at the same time, and it *cracks* their whole dynamic wide open- they’re both not just grieving, they’re guilty. They both blame themselves *and each other* for her death and everything that’s gone wrong since in ways that are both totally understandable but not completely rational. Wenwu thinks he’s incapable of being a decent father or person without his wife and resents his kids for being a reminder of the man he doesn’t think he can inherently be anymore, a reminder of his own failure and self hatred, and Shang-Chi hates his father for not being there for him emotionally when he needed it, but also hates *himself* for having gone along with his father’s response for so long.
The hole that her death left in them is way more gaping than we’d been led to believe, and it heightens the emotional stakes in time for the climax in a way I think is really effective.
I know I’ve gone on for a lot here but Shang-Chi in particular is a movie I take issue with being dismissed as “simple, weightless fluff” when I feel like the thing you’re talking about here is what makes it’s character relations function as deep and compelling and nuanced.
None of this is conveyed through acting or dialogue. It's briefly exposited between second-rate fight scenes.
Trauma isn't visible. I think setting him up to appear as a normal guy after putting years of Tramatic events behind him is completely Normal. Everytime I open up to someone about what I went through, they're confused or shocked because they would have never guesses by how I am. There are two ways this happens. You don't let your hurt be the core of your personality or you pretend like it didn't happen. In his case it's the latter. When he chose not to go back, he also chose not to look back. Which is why it makes sense for the flashbacks to happen later. As he is forced to revisit a past he was trying to forget.
"Holding something back for a reveal later" was a problem discussed in context of John Carter of Mars some years ago.
Sage are you ok? We have not heard from you in a while
I thought Shang Chi still worked really well for me because it did take time to develop its characters and show them interacting, and it also showed a sense of wonder about the things that were happening in the world, which I think is so important in stories with a strong fantasy element. I agree that Captain Marvel would have been stronger if we had more investment in the life she had before she lost her memories. I thought your analysis of Black Widow was excellent. It starts so well, and yet it finished as one of my least favorite Marvel movies. Based on what they established at the beginning, I was expecting and hoping for a relatively grounded spy movie that focused on the relationship between Natasha and Yelena and them coming to terms with their unresolved trauma. We got some of that, but then it replaces that story with a series of plot points that they didn't do anything to invest us in, and you can almost see the pen marking off points on the checklist in certain scenes in the third act.
It didn't develop its' characters. It had a wall of exposition, some arbitrary fight scenes, and some filler interaction that didn't convey anything exposited.
You can't start a Marvel, not a Star wars video, with "Hello There".
Also, doesn't Shang-Chi use Flashback Structure, so the ACT 1 and set ups are a bit more split up? Where each flashback informs us immediately before we would need it, rather than getting a major front load we don't need?
So uncivilized
That sounds good in theory. In practice, however, it doesn't work like that. You see, the problem isn't just the structural arrangement. It's also that there are two first acts, one of which has an emotionally superior build-up than the other. Flashbacks usually work best when a character has some haunting backstory which serves as a mystery behind the character's reasoning/motivation. Now unless it's spiderman, a movie where the backstory is the first act itself, the backstory shouldn't be getting any setup.
The mystery behind their backstory should be created through dialogue or moments of character reveal throughout the second act (or maybe even through a few short, vague flashbacks of the event that haunts them.) All of this should inevitably culminate in a big reveal during the character's 'lowpoint.'
Now, of course, the flashback structure would be a bit different if the character has amnesia and his goal is to restore his memories or if these flashbacks are absolutely essential to advancing the main goal of the plot. The difference between flashbacks that only serve to deepen the character arc and flashbacks that advance the plot as a whole is that one can be removed without destroying the coherence of the story (even if it makes the story bad) while the other absolutely cannot.
@@notyourbusiness5530 I think that absolutely applies to Shang-Chi. The story and especially the characters of Shang-Chi and Wenwu just doesn’t function as well as it does without the flashbacks, and the bits of information we’re given, *when* we’re given them, serve to deepen and recontextualize the relationship in ways that the story benefits from right then.
@@ThePonderer I understand what you're saying, but what you're saying isn't contrary to what I'm saying. This story will always function better with these flashbacks than without. It's not because the story *needs* flashbacks. It's not because they structured their flashbacks well either, but rather because the content of the flashbacks is really good.
This is where I agree with Sage: The content of the flashbacks would've served as a better act one than what we got. The reason why these flashbacks deepen and recontextualize the story is only because of a missed opportunity. In other words, they unintentionally downplayed their first act and fixed their downplay with a better first act. It's just making up for an error that didn't have to exist in the first place.
Moving onto what I said about flashbacks... If you can remove a flashback, and the story is worse, that doesn't mean they used flashbacks well...or that flashbacks should've been used at all. Unless removing your flashbacks will make the entire plot a bunch of disconnected scenes, you can't really place them freely in the second act without consequences. Nor can you structure the flashback story like a first act (with a set-up, a disturbance, or a turning point) without either downplaying the original first act or needlessly dragging the story into a second inferior first act.
If your story's plot is still coherent without your flashbacks, as in the backstory isn't necessary to get your story from point a to point b, then the best place to put all of your flashbacks is at the 'low point' before the third act. Why is this the case? Because this is the period before a character's transformation, the endpoint of a character arc. In this way, it works as a past for a character to look back on to reconsider all their actions, meaning it works as a vehicle to drive character change. Or it gives us, the audience, a way to see a character as redeemable at their lowest point.
In other words, you should place flashbacks based on what reason you're using them for. For character arcs, flashbacks work best before moments of character transformation. For plots, they work best where they serve to answer the dramatic question of the story. I.e. 'Will this character learn about her past?' 'Did this character actually do something really terrible?' "Will they discover the truth behind their uncle's murder?' etc.
@@notyourbusiness5530You make it sound as though someone just said “let’s slap the flashbacks Willy nilly” while they were watching their own movie as some compensatory move, but the requirement of the placement is@@notyourbusiness5530.
I think you’re expressing an incredibly narrow view of how flashbacks can be used, suggesting it’s only one of two ways or else it’s done “improperly”, but the flashbacks in Shang-Chi are there to transform character’s perceptions OF one another and themselves, or the audiences understanding of those things, as those shifts in understanding would be their most impactful, which *informs* character arcs meaningfully even if the character’s transformational moments aren’t being directly set up for immediate payoff.
i find this so interesting because this analysis both validates my ongoing feeling that the problems in these movies come from the fact that it feels like both a structure problem, even an editing problem, when what i often saw was simply a backstory problem. not backstory as in seeing these characters as children, which we got enough of, but more as in, we need scenes of these characters bonding with other people to make those emotional connections stronger by act three. thats something the first marvel movies didnt need so much mostly because they were all origin stories, while lately marvel has been trying to tell other type of superhero introductions (like they learning about something about themselves, mostly). in that case, a lot of these movies could probably benefit a lot more from using less screentime on quippy dialogue scenes and more in scenes that make the emotional bonds stronger for the characters. this was something that i felt was especially strong with eternals, a movie with so many "main" characters that it was bound to happen, but that still tries very hard to do that and barely succeeds.
something to keep in mind too is this approach to each marvel movie as touching on the subject of "family" (since the avengers are like a family, which theyre really not theyre barely coworkers, but... ok, etc). in that sense, captain marvel would be immensely helped by more scenes with danvers and rambeau that are barely shown to us in flashback snippets, by adding that emotional core to the story and strengthening the bond between these two women who trusted each other so much and who have this important reunion later on. similarly, shang chi (a movie all about family) should definitely have made the bond between father and son stronger to make that final fight a lot more emotionally resonant: these two have barely any scenes in which they interact, and adding some actual meaty moment for tony leung to be vulnerable with his own son and lament the death of his wife would make it all the more fascinating to see just how brutal he has become, and the difference of the path shang chi chose. finally, more than dreykov, i totally feel like while black widow, another "family" themed movie, did a pretty great job establishing a dynamic between the black widow family post-red room, it missed a chance to show something fans have been curious about -to see natashas childhood training for the red room, which, again, we got snippets in this movies credit sequence and in age of ultron. whats more, having natashas core emotional fractured bond, beyond her fake-family-turned-real, to be dreykovs daughter, a fellow trainee of the red room and a surrogate sister before yelena came (someone who maybe reminds natasha of her), who is perhaps the lens through natasha sees dreykov at first (a stern and sometimes cruel but fair father figure who wants his daughters to succeed and be the best), only for natasha to later on have to kill her and show her loyalties lie with the red room and Only with the red room.... that is a no-brainer. dreykovs daughter, whos name is so easy to forget about as she is defined by her relationship with dreykov instead than as herself, could have been the center of the "russian doll" of fractured familial relationships natasha has. that would have been a lot more compelling than that rushed mask-reveal-pheromone-evil plan scene we actually got. that would have made all fights between natasha and taskmaster a lot more fraught. it really bothers me that it was so obvious how to make it actually work, and that they didnt use it at all.
Compulsory comment asking why you keep calling Natasha, “Natalie.”
Thank you!! I was wondering who would point this out 😆
Wait is there an actual reason?
@@alias374 She went by Natalie in Ironman 2 (undercover) and I think her comics birth name is Natalia, but I'm pretty sure she's always been Natasha in the MCU.
Six times. They even said it in at leas one of your clips. That you chose. Six. Times.
And agreed, the best time to invest in character development is in the first act. The second best time is it’s too late.
@@kimberlyterasaki4843 both things are true, -sha is a diminutive suffix in Russian, Natasha and Natalia/Natalie are the same name
This really spells out a problem I had with modern Marvel. I thought I just realized I preferred long form style of old Marvel TV, that may still be true but it's not just that.
Yea I've had the same feeling about the newer films and couldn't really place why I just couldn't gravitate with any of the characters as much as I did with the original avengers.
I know a lot of people enjoyed Shang Chi but I was left really disappointed by it especially when it entered the third act with the dumb soul suckers sidelining the Mandarin. Just seemed like they were building an interesting character driven finale only to through it away for more spectacle and usual cgi action. Same feelings with Black Widow where I was way more interested in Black widow program at the start but again plot focused storytelling was the only thing to come of it.
I hope Marvel sees this and also doesn't shy away from darker and more harder topics. I get that these are made for children as well but I'm sure there's a way to explore those ideas better. At the moment it feels half-baked and ultimately rushed over. The TV shows are doing a better job exploring characters. Im concerned Moon Knight might have the same problems with structuring considering his whole story is all out of wack and unreliable. Here's hoping they pull it off.
I genuinely think Black Widow's Opening sequence, and by extension Opening Credits, is some of the most moving work in that film. It sets up core themes of child trafficking while keeping it a PG film. It's harrowing.
I think the larger problem is that none of it is paid off later in that film. The opening credits alludes to ideas that won't be discussed in depth. And I think it would work better if those images in the credits came up again throughout the film, to draw parallel's between the ongoing narrative and the opening sequence. If anything, the opening sequence suffers from being too effective in creating a tone that isn't followed up on for the remainder of the film. But it's some of my favourite stuff in Black Widow, so I wouldn't want to change that.
I think in the case of Shang Chi, the flashbacks worked. It wouldn't have been a first act with all of that stuff in it, just a really long prologue, nobody likes one of those. But I think your overall point about Marvel these days is pretty much true.
To me, if Shang Chi had had the flashbacks as the first act, then the original first act would basically be a second first act because it's establishing the character again. I do agree that Shaun doesn't act as if he had a dark past and I really would have liked a few hints or breaking the facade to give us some foreshadowing (or at least hint at past trauma prior to us getting flashbacks), but it's more of a nitpick considering the tone they were going for and how there are other plot changes that take priority over him being a bit darker because of what he's running from. Still, if he's a professional assassin, I can see him being great at hiding emotional baggage, so really.
My favorite part of the movie was the first act because I like seeing people living their lives prior to all the super hero stuff. I don't care for big action scenes or CGI fights or whatever compared to the emotional moments that make me actually care. No Way Home was so amazing because it gave us characters we love getting to work through their emotional baggage, not because they had an amazing fight scene (not that I'm complaining about their fight scene; it's just we care more about the fight scene BECAUSE of all the emotional moments).
Anyway...I wish Marvel would actually listen and allow things to slow down and be emotional instead of jokes or action scenes. I did love how Hawkeye started with Kate Bishop's very long Avengers scene and that we got a lot of Echo as well.
I feel genuine joy whenever this channel uploads.
Time for my weekly replenishment of brain cells!
*Sees that the Black Widow movie is a part of this discussion* Welp, guess I'll have to put this video on pause and come back when I eventually watch the movie, whenever that is, because I don't want to be spoilt. Which is stupid because we basically **know** HOW the movie ends! Or at least, what happens to the main character AFTER.
Great first half of the video regardless! I never agree with criticism people have with the Shang Chi movie, but your arguments are compelling and well structured, same with the Captain Marvel one. It doesn't just feel like you hate the movie because of current trends, but you have actually genuine thoughts and critiques on the writing coupled along with helpful advice for future writers!
Thank you for sharing your perspective on Shang Chi! I personally would love to see a chronological cut of the film; it may hit even harder!
I do disagree about the emotional climax of the film being Shang Chi defeating his father though. I think the climax resolves the second, stronger theme you mentioned which was mastering his heritage.
He defeats his father by using his mother's training and his father ends up surrendering his power. Once that happens, we finally get to see Shang Chi utilize both his father and mother's power to save the day! I thought it was a beautiful representation of mastering one's own heritage/history/upbringing or whatever it is, especially accompanied with that tranquil music at the end. This finale felt very peaceful as opposed to a Ragnarok which was like an epic fun time.
The whole video I was thinking about a film that succeeds wildly as an origin story with a flashback-structure: The Bourne Identity.
I'm so glad you touched on the big reveal problem. Too many bad writers today are obsessed with the MYSTERY BOX structure. Not every movie needs it. Look at lord of the rings, in the first act we already know what the ring of power is and who made it and that frodo intends to destroy it. None of these info is articially held back for the BIG REVEAL. In the first act of back to the future we already know what the time machine is and who made it and how doc brown came up with it.
The mystery box is a huge problem with star trek discovery. We spend literally the entire season wondering what destroyed warp travel only to be disappointed in the BIG REVEAL that some kid caused it because he shouted too loud. That's another problem, when the BIG REVEAL is disappointing, it dampens the entire season because we spend so much time building the disappointing reveal.
Watching this, I realized I am simply a sucker for non-linear storytelling formats and want to defend them to the death because I'm a lot more interested in them than linear stories. I love slowly unfolding a character's past, especially when I can already relate to them in the present.
But not every character needs to have a past to unfold.
Non-linear storytelling are great! But it is bad for MCU though. It's hard to keep up with 20+ movies and tv shows on our minds so the best approach is to tell a simple yet well-executed linear story. In my case, I don't watch MCU films because they are celebral movies that change the art of cinema. I watch MCU films because I want to follow the journey of their cool characters throughout the end as I grow old. They only need to execute good origin stories like what they did to Tony, Cap, Thor, the Guardians, and the rest of the Avengers. And then pit them up with some great villains in crossover films that will make struggle as what the Joker did to Batman or as what Green Goblin & Doc Oc did to Spider-man. It may be repetitive but as long as they execute them properly, then I'm satisfied with what they got. The hero's journey has thousand faces for a reason.
@@jankyyard5610 Hero's journey is fine, but to be honest, it's just so rarely done with characters that appeal to me or are written in a way that I can relate to. I don't mind having unrelatable characters if they're a puzzle to solve, but most of the characters you mentioned just don't compel me. The only classic "hero's journey" I truly enjoyed was the first Captain America movie; I enjoyed Thor, but not for Thor's journey (I was much more interested in the Loki subplot, which is hardly classic hero's journey).
IDK if it's a gender thing or what, but the everyman in these hero's journey stories just doesn't appeal to me most of the time. Combine that with my allergy to teenage romance and, well...you eliminate most hero's journey and bildungsroman altogether. So I gravitate towards non-linear stories and people who are written as a mystery to unravel.
Great. Can we agree then that Captain Marvel's substitution of meaningless snippets of plot exposition for substantial nonlinear narrative sours people to a fine tradition of filmmaking?
@@jrshaul Hey man, I enjoyed Captain Marvel. It was a fun blockbuster and I found the "snippets of plot" to be pretty meaningful in-context. Please go to a different comment if you want to bash it.
For the people saying they don't mind non-chronological storytelling, the issue is that Marvel's non-chronological ordering is designed to speed through the story and subsequently put less effort into it. The test you need to put the film through is if it were in chronological order, would you think scenes were missing?
I think the reason why they didn't show Shang-Chi killing his target was probably for the sequel, wherein they can focus on that and flesh that out even more. Well, that's just my prediction, it is a shame they didn't show that considering they showed flashbacks to every other part of Shang-Chi's early life.
Agreed. As far as character arcs go, this film focuses more on his father, which is fitting because Tony Leung out-classes everyone else in the film. Shang-Chi's arc was primarily about being there for his sister and not running away from his family. I hope they flesh out his past more in future movies.
@@melanie62954 to be fair, Tony Leung is an international treasure and can out act most people so it’s not surprising, sad he won’t be in future film he was a treat to watch
Thank you for explaining to me why I didn’t connect with Shang Chi. I loved most of the main Marvel films, but the writing quality seems to have dropped off lately. Now perhaps you can explain why streaming services are so bad at writing stories.
Streaming services don’t write stories, writers write stories.
I am in a minority, but I feel like ALL of Marvel's movies are too damn long (about 40 minutes too long) and quite slow throughout, mostly because they have too many subplots and/or secondary villains. I long for the days of cohesive storytelling.
I agree, they have a lot of stories they feel required to connect to one another and they push characters from one movie to the next one because how else would we know it's the same universe? 🤦♀️
Hollywood has seemingly forgotten how to develop characters from the moment of introduction. We do not need to be shown Luke Skywalker's childhood. It is irrelevant. We are introduced to his character traits as he reacts to the events of the story. Same for Han Solo, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, Obi-Wan, and Darth Vader. Nobody gets flashbacks, nobody tells us about their traumatic upbringing. Luke GETS TOLD about how own family history, and we witness him learning those things. The film is not teaching us why we should care about Luke, it's allowing us to experience the drama of Luke hearing things he's always wanted to know.
Shang Chi never focuses on who he is during the events of the film and how the events of the film are changing him.
Luke didn't have a traumatic upbringing he had a "normal" childhood and the development of the character is about learning of his potential and about his father. Shang Chi can't focus on who he is because he doesn't know, he had a traumatic childhood, he knows his potential, he knows who his father is and what's expected of him... The movie is about him finding himself, using his potential and taking a stand.
It's annoying how homogenous the MCU is starting to feel, but I wouldn't even be that mad about it if they at least had better practices for their artists and so on.
The flashbacks in Shang-Chi aren't about Shaun. He changed from that person during his decade in America. Those flashbacks are introduced when we're introduced to the people they are meant to inform us about, i.e. his sister and father. Putting them in the first act actually removes them from their context. Even the prologue is only there as a means of showing us the ticking timebomb that his past will be. He doesn't know it yet, but we the audience need to know it so that we have tension while we're introduced to the mundane life of Shaun and learn to care for him as a character. We see his carefree existence but we know it's all going to be taken away, so we sympathise with him even as we want him to grow and become all he can be.
With Black Widow - I mean, maybe it's because I know a lot of SA and abuse survivors, but I didn't need to see Nat getting abused by Drakov to know exactly what was/had happened. The smell-tech was stupid, but also just... not being able to overcome your in-grained fear of your abuser also... makes an intuitive amount of sense to me. The real issue with Black Widow to me was that it came out after Nat had died: it made it a lot harder to get excited about her being able to be with her family knowing that her head is leaking out on the ground somewhere.
omg exactly!!!! seeing her actually being beaten, abused, starved and neutered would have been absolutely hideous to me. It would have been torture porn and i just know the wrong people would have loved it. I preferred to see only small pieces of it in the opening credits (which were my favorite part of the movie) because it actually seemed like nightmarish flashbacks an abuse survivor would have.
fantastic analysis as usual!
these movies have huge problems with exposition. All of them could have been great character-driven stories, but I guess they were too scared of doing it that way. Rather, they want to do action scenes and then mix in the character development through flashbacks. It creates action sequences with no emotional meaning :/
Ayo bro where u disappeared
In elementary school I was taught about what in English are called _fabula_ and _syuzhet,_ or "straight story" and "interweaved narrative", you might say. Basically, whether the plot is exposed in chronological order or using flashbacks.
I still remember what the teacher casually told us as a little informal tip: "Some stories, either real or not, are told better with _fabula_ (fable), others with _intreccio_ (syuzhet), and which one you use is not as important as how good you use it. Don't force one structure for a story that deserves the other, and viceversa."
Well... Either she was a great teacher or some screenwriters should go back to elementary school.
Thanks for putting this into words. I've found several of the Marvel movies to be bland and hadn't really quite put my finger on why. I knew it was investment in what was happening but couldn't place what parts were missing (mainly because I didn't really care to give it much thought). Ironically, these same three movies also are emotionally manipulative, particularly Black Widow, as they want to use the abuse themes without confronting the abuse.
The title threw me off because commonly people talk about Marvel's Act Three problem. Good video, enjoyed the insights
I think it Shang-chi works better out of chronological order. When we meet him, Shawn is a guy who has run away from who he was and is fully immersed in the new life he has created for himself with no desire to return. Like captain marvel he is a man who has forgotten (or lost) who he was and must reclaim his past to move towards his future. As the story progresses he is forced back into his old life and into acceptance of the role his heritage plays in his identity. So we see more and more of scenes of the past to inform us of who he really is. But these scenes are in the context of his present as he is learning to recontextualize his past to see his parents, his childhood, and his birthrights in a more mature way. I do agree we should’ve had the assassination scene as a flashback and some other things could’ve been cut but overall I think the slow reveal structure fits the movie quite well.
I haven't watched BoBF, but all of these issues certainly crop up in most of Disney's Star Wars endeavors so far--I kept having flashbacks to Rogue One as you were describing the issues with Black Widow. And I didn't even bother finishing The Mandalorian, these problems were so bad.
One could argue that the first act of Iron Man is the reason the MCU exists and is so successful today. Captain America's equally good first act solidified it. Watching both those movies years later really shows how the second half of them isn't actually that great. I've seen Iron Man probably ~5 times and I barely remember any details after the suit building montage. Captain America is a bit better but the first act is by far the best part of the film. That 2 second clip of the grenade scene still brings an emotional response.
Some of what you mention is my "anime" problem. The tendency to show the backstory, often piece by piece at a time the creator feels it is most relevant to the story, and while sometimes it succesfully amplifies the emotional impact of moments, a lot of the time it breaks pacing for me. To be fair, when the format goes on for years, with weeks between episodes and months if not years between seasons, its a big ask from the audience to remember everything (though they could just show some flashes of what happened as a reminder). I'm far less lenient when it comes to Marvel movies, because they don't really use these flashbacks to any effect, and I wouldn't be surprised if this approach came after realizing the story isn't really good, trying to make it more interesting with the out of order approach. Also, they did it better in the past with on average shorter runtimes.
How’s that BLACK WIDOW pheromones defense supposed to protect him from snipers? Or a Widow with a bad cold?
"Stop being asshole" - Kevin Feige (probably)
I think keeping the alluding to the death of the man responsible is a good move. Throughout the film you think that he chicken out, when faced with killing the man who killed his mother, he couldn't go through and left out of fear of his father. but in reality, he wasn't afraid of the man, or his father, he was afraid of himself, and the guilt he felt.
I wholeheartedly agree of having the first act be a "growing up montage, but i think having it cut to a grown Shang-Chi after he leaves the complex is more compelling, what happened between those 10? years, what ahs changed, not only with him but the world he experiences.
but that's just my two cents
When watching Shang-Chi I thought the man Shawn was sent to kill would end up being Awkwafina's grandpa, and that the guilt of his death through possibly her witnessing it or something is what caused him to break his promise with his sister and stay in America. It seemed too coincidental that he was sent to kill a man and he was hanging out with a family with a conspicuously absent grandfather. But alas, that was probably too bold for a Marvel movie.
wow that's actually a really great observation. it would have made for a great twist smh. would have brought some juicy character conflict and drama too and tied awkwafina better to the main plot rather than just being shaun's designated love interest/side kick
@@ishika5619 Right? Would have been much better for her character and reason to be there. It seemed they were building to it by doing the flashback method and they kept hiding away the murdering scene which seemed to be Shawn's big "hero" moment when he made a choice to be a better person even though at the moment he failed he would be better afterward. I was really bummed when that didn't come to pass as I was pretty sure of it most of the movie until of course it just didn't happen.
@@Tyranidus7 exactly, that scene whether as a flashback or told chronologically would have been Shang Chi's origin "moment" and it bewilders me why it wasn't included. Someone else mentioned that it was probably because they're saving it for a sequel, but still--that's not the kind of thing you skimp on in a hero's origin movie!
@@ishika5619 That also really wouldn't work in a sequel, a sequel by definition should be a new event or new challenge, to return to that moment would be very confusing story telling wise. Granted, given Disney's recent choices in Book of Boba Fett I probably should set a very low bar in terms of "storytelling prowess" from the house of mouse. Infinity War set my expectations too high lol
They did actually do that in Falcon and the Winter Solider with Bucky hanging around the old man out of guilt for the Winter Soldier killing his son
Writers! The first impression of your characters matter! Keep in mind how your plot influences decisions and dont worry about constraints, give yourself the room to shape the story or script, more details from you, gives the audience more to explore when its fleshed out by the end. Grow with your stories and when the big moment comes its much easier to get people invested because of the characters involved and not the action itself, its a puzzle for every story so have fun
Personally, I liked how they hid and slowly introduced parts of his past. My problem with your proposed rearrangement of Act 1 is that it's standard and what's always done. That's basically what Batman Begins did, and it's what you would do to set him up to be some tragic, tortured hero. The character shown is someone who's just trying to run away from all of the darkness in his past after realizing that vengeanceand murder are hollow. He's not supposed to be Batman.
Based on the character and story told, I think it was a good choice to make him seem like just a normal guy who isn't living up to his potential at first, before showing his back story later.
This movie isn't about the tragic death of his mother and how that made him become vengeance incarnate. It's about how his family is broken and him deciding to stop hiding from his issues and to find a place and role where he truly belongs. Making Act 1 about his life as a kid would have really taken away from that story.
And, like, you wouldn’t get to see the star of the movie for 40 minutes, which Marvel isn’t going to let happen.
I totally agree with your central points in this video, but I'd like to suggest an act 1 structure for Shang-Chi that's different from both the one Marvel gives us and the one you propose:
We open with no prologue, instead playing out scenes 1, 2, 3, and 4 in their current order. The audience gets to know Shaun and his current life and relationships, establishes the themes he's grappling with... and then once we feel like we've gotten to know this nice, average guy, the movie throws Katy AND the audience for a loop with his sudden extreme skills during the bus fight. I feel like a large part of the impact of that scene is that we haven't seen Shaun do anything like it before that point. Katy doesn't even think he can fight! But suddenly he dives into this intense, acrobatic combat against secret ninjas and a guy with a sword hand!
Immediately following that fight, Katy demands an explaination from Shaun, her best friend who it turns out she doesn't actually know all that well. NOW the movie cuts into the chronological flashback sequence you described, from Shaun's parents meeting up through the mission to avenge his mother's death. This recontextualizes what we already learned about his strained relationship with his heritage and his desire to live an unassuming life. It also cements the sources of guilt and familial trauma that Shaun is going to have to address as he then makes the decision in scene 5 to seek out his sister.
I think the later scene where Shaun talks to Katy about that mission and how it haunted him is really good, and an altered version of that could still be kept if the movie were restructured this way. It would serve as a good pause from the action and plot before act 3, and further flesh out the lasting impact of that moment on Shaun's life. And then the eventual resolution would be even more cathartic to the characters and the audience...
Just a thought ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
12:15 I'm always taken aback by how bad the greenscreen in this part of the movie is.
You articulated very well the problems I've had with these newer MCU films, I've always had problems with MCU's third acts but now that the first act is starting to be ignored I'm truly losing my interest in their films.
The ' I killed somone' as something for him to feel bad about when I see him throwing ppl of skyscrapers and almost certainly killing ppl in the last fight
There's a difference between self defense and a flat out murder though. The ninjas were trying to kill him, after all.
Great analysis. You especially sold your point at the end when you contrasted with the early marvel movies
The 3rd act of Black Widow is the most hilariously dumb writing in the MCU so far 😂
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS! I've come out of so many marvel films with "What a crap first act" lately and I felt like I was going insane seeing them be so well received.
On the other hand, Spider-Man's act 1 origin story was 6 movies long.
But yeah I think this is a fair criticism. It feels like they're trying to jump to the action stuff faster because they don't want to make a superhero movie where the superhero doesn't get to superhero until the second half or even third act.
I think the last _true_ origin story they did - as in, not a character introduced in another movie, and not told through flashbacks - was Doctor Strange, and I remember there being a lot of criticism at the time for being just another generic superhero origin story.
It feels like they took the "people are really tired of seeing Uncle Ben and the Waynes die" complaint to the extreme, and could maybe reel it back and find a better middle ground.
Another great video!
One thing I was really waiting for was a reference to Eternals, which I think suffers really badly to not being chronological.
If you had issues with Shang-Chi and Black Widow, I would love to know what you thought about the pacing and plot of No Way Home 😅
@RRG What're you talking about? That movie was better than God
This is a good point on building investment, but it seems to get lost in a (seemingly unintended) apparent argument for chronicity which is weak.
Also, when the best fight scene (bus fight) is the first one and it goes down hill from there fast, it just leaves you feeling empty and disappointed.
Marvel needs to drop the trope of having some giant epic battle against CG monsters at the end. They are just boring and usually boil down to a single emotional moment padded with graphics and distractions. Just ugh.
It's a few things:
-Power creep. We've had Thanos wipe out half the population of the Earth and invade with a giant army of aliens.
-Morality. Some bad-faith people will complain about killing a bunch of human villains, but we have no attachment to CG monsters.
-China. These movies seem to follow Chinese narrative movie structures, which tend to have less of a focused singular plot line with a big climax and instead have lots of mini-climaxes to keep thr action coming. Seeing how until recently one of Disney's big strategies was getting their movies to China (note the Avengers use Huawei phones), they have a bunch of mandated action scenes but still need to make things ramp up.
I like big CGI monster fight finales. Shut up nerd.
For me I can tell a lot about a movie about when I fall asleep on it. For instance during the act 2 part of Tomorrow War I fell asleep during the character parts of it but woke up during the volcano scene, so while I wasn't sure how we got to the final incident, nothing felt out of place. Upon rewatching what I missed, outside of plot elements I didn't feel like I missed much since the story was made so cohesively.
For Shang Chi I fell asleep shortly after the Sister fightclub scene, woke up during them entering the forest, feel asleep, then woke up during the father/son fight. Each time I woke up there was no rational throughline from where I dropped off to where I picked up. I didn't go back and watch this movie because I didn't care for the story, watching this video made it clear why. I absolutely would have bought into this movie if it was about an assassin redeeming himself. I wasn't even aware of that as a plot element until now.
The story being told out of order like this is intentional. Katie is our POV character for a lot of the movie. Outside of trailers we wouldn't know that Shang is able to do all these crazy things. If we just sat down with no former knowledge him being a martial artist to that level would be a shock. That's the point. We aren't shown things in chronological order because Katie wasn't there for them and for the first act at least we are seeing things as she would see them. We aren't shown Shang killing his target because the event isn't what we're focusing on. We're focusing on how it is hurting him now. The performance of the actors in that scene is the point. It's not another basic action scene with an emotional ending. It's an emotional scene with a fantastic performance and shows a severe trauma.
There are multiple ways to tell this same story. The way you've proposed is to tell things in order from Shang's POV. You may have preferred that, but this was a genuine choice in style to tell the story this way. Many other films and books have done this as well to create a mystery and slowly unravel the story as it goes.
One thing I felt about this movie is that despite being called Shang Chi it didn't really even feel like it was about him. He felt like a side character in his own movie.
this guy explains it so well. he should have a youtube channel, i'd be surely subscribed
Thanks for giving me a lesson on first acts, this was super interesting/helpful.
I do think it's a shame Marvel is leaving out origins more but Shang Chi was bad one to use as an example, the out of order flashbacks I actually thought worked really well because they tended to correspond with the scenes in the film and its not a new thing movies have done that before. I do agree that it would've been better to have seen Shang kill that guy but the rest I kind of prefer in the film
i agree with your analysis, i do think maybe because marvel expects that there will be a lot of younger people seeing the movie and maybe the murder scene with shang would be a little much. Not to say that they couldn't find some elegant solution to convey that scene without it being in your face violent they might have thought a scene like that would leave that uneasy violent feeling towards shang, which i'm sure to the younger audience they don't really want that to be a strong visual in their minds at that point in the film and having the talk about it instead towards the end was how they were able to appease and convey without going too dark. If they didn't have to think about catering to a younger audience i def would've liked to see act 1 go down the way you described.
Hmm, not really on board with this.
With Shang-Chi, by showing everything and chronologically you get out at the end a very standard fare brooding hero wrestling with his dark side, which Shang-Chi basically doesnt have. Thats why it wasnt a major focus of the story in and of itself. He did one dark act that you can easily sympathise with, but as much as it fundamentally altered the course of his life, it didnt fundamentally change him, and thats kind of the point of the film: That hes more his mother (and father after he met his mother) than he is his father of old.
I.e. The story as told is a level of abstraction away from the Just Write idea of presenting a standard fare gritty hero, on the verge of being as bad as the villains they face. Shang-Chi isnt worried about that, hes not Dare Devil, Batman or indeed his morally ambiguous father*, hes worried that he could become like Dare Devil, Batman or his morally ambiguous father, and doesnt want that responsibility.
The idea that Disney wont show bad things also seems like a pretty baseless assumption. Wenwu is shown unmercifully murdering a guy in front of a very young Shang-Chi. They wont show you his head being caved in, but they are clearly capable of showing death. It just wasnt the right choice to show Shang-Chi murdering someone, thats an entirely different character presentation to what they were aiming for.
I do agree that the ending of Black Widow was a mess, but Im a bit baffled by focusing on Dreykov which was, if anything, the highlight. He is just so gross, he has a greasy aura to him that triggers visceral disgust with the man, it was a tense and disturbing meeting. Bigger issues with the ending are that it pushed everything aside to have the big CG spectacle, and the family relationships were wrapped up ridiculously rapidly seemingly to make space for the showy finish.
I think Captain Marvel is probably where this critique applies most, but as pointed out, you are talking about quite heavy changes to it to make it happen.
*Unless youve interpreted his father to have been unambiguously evil until a single turning point in his life, but I dont think that works very well given whats shown, or speaks well of Li.
I don't quite agree with you about Captain Marvel's climactic emotional montage at the end (these scenes are all showing a similar moment, so you don't need to have seen them before for them to have resonance), but I think you make good points about character building in the later marvel movies in general.
Also Thor 1 was good and nobody can convince me I don't like it.
Thank you!!!!!!! Thor is a great movie; not perfect, but it's still good! Also Marvel's first villain that was sympathetic and shows how he became a villain
I think you're very harsh on the concept of the MCU. Looking down on something great because it's popular is just as bad as liking something bad because it's obscure.
I got into the MCU three years ago almost when my toddler son, who got me into superheroes, was battling an ultimately fatal brain tumor. I get how it's fashionable to look down on the MCU, but it's a mistake. Nothing helped all of us through a hard time (besides each other) than the MCU. Our children and me and my wife all fell in love with it.
I think because we literally didn't see one movie in the MCU until starting at the beginning a month after Endgame came out is that we don't take the MCU for granted.
It's sad when film-aspirant UA-camrs who are striving to learn filmmaking think it's more profitable to critique something great than to learn from it. Especially smart ones like you.
It's like explaining how the White Album could be better if it weren't as weird. You notice all the ways it differs from screenwriting 101 dogma, and think they just don't get first semester ideas, not that they're actually subverting ideas.
Shang Chi hid the truth of his assassination from his best friend by lying to her face, something he would never otherwise do. That's the drama. And cutting out Slattery? And a second later you say it's too plot driven? How can character moments take up too much time but it's plot driven?
Shang Chi lying about his shameful weakness rather than stabbing someone IS the drama. You honestly think the impact is the physical act of stabbing a guy, not that it poisoned his life? A child was programmed to kill, avenging his mother's murder, which he witnessed. And it tore him apart and made him drop out of his life like a hole opened in the universe and he slipped through. And you say "Without seeing the stabbing, where's the drama?"
Open your heart a little, let the little bit of snooty drain out. Nothing prevents artistic growth more than being a student who holds success in disdain.
Our family resonated more with "What is grief but love persevering" in our loss of our beautiful child than anything in our family grief groups or any other work that touches on grief since our tragic loss. Wouldn't you rather learn to provide meaning and hope to crushed souls than feel superior to a franchise because it's popular?
I've heard plenty of dudes tell me why the Beatles are overrated: none of them ever became successful musicians and they're all at least kind of jerks if not outright D-bags.
I only go on so long because I respect you and I sincerely hope that the negative valence of this doesn't turn you away from my meaning. You are entitled and encouraged to have whatever view you want.
Oh god Natasha seeming shocked she couldn't hurt him was the POINT of that, not being stupid and not setting it up.
Plus her name isn't Natalie.
Sorry, video is playing as I write.
Black Widow's script is most reasonable to critique.
*"Reconnecting with your roots/cultural heritage"* is certainly different than "Running from your past", but for the first kind of story I would just want to suggest watching the movie *The Farewell* in addition to these movies that are being discussed.
WHat I loved about SC was that it didn't have the story in order. It made it more interesting and not boring.
Great video, I think one thing I would add about the Black Widow movie: are they really going to devote more time to not having Scarlet Johansen in frame? They devoted a lot of energy into Robert Downey with Iron Man for the same reason. When you pay that much for people like these, you don't hide them. I'd be deeply surprised if that never came up during the production.
It's a real shame too, Marvel really had an opportunity to do something "different" here and squandered it.
It's kinda hard to make audiences care about Black Widow at this point because we already know her story ends by getting thrown off the Cliff of Misogyny. Ideally, they could've explored her backstory before Endgame came out, but they opted to introduce Captain Marvel instead, which is my biggest gripe with THAT film; we wasted time setting up a character that doesn't contribute much to Endgame versus a character we spent YEARS with that we didn't know much about.
Shang Chi is inspired by kung fu action films. I think changing from plot focused to character focused would be westernising the story too much. I like it as it is.
Character focused stories are not a western idea. Hollywood sells out plot driven stories. What is your comment? lol
@@BriantWebster don’t worry, when I say western idea I don’t mean that you don’t find it in the east, but that it was first popularised through Aristotelean Theatre (western).
Eastern art like the Journey to the west, Bruce Lee Films, and others don’t depend on the character focused lens expected in current western media. In these eastern stories, the structure of facing one action setpiece to the next is more natural because less of society was focused on an individualist mindset. Each character just fulfilled their role and that’s it.
@@shonenacademia thanks for taking the time to clarify your thoughts. I get more of what you meant.
@@BriantWebster glad we got along 😅 sometimes I don’t say things as clearly as I should
Completely agree with your concept on Shang Chi