As much as it pains me to admit, Marvel movies aren’t good anymore. They just aren’t what they used to be, and admitting it feels like I’ve betrayed a lifelong friend. This is coming from someone whose life used to consist of these movies. Whether it was diving headfirst into the deep lore that was the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) or embellishing my bedroom walls with various film posters, Marvel movies were my Roman Empire.
After the phenomenon that was Avengers: Endgame, Marvel Studios was at an all-time high. The film was an ideal portrayal of the MCU’s brand, including everything from a collection of jokes that kept audiences jubilant to tormenting moments that maimed your soul. The one detail Marvel had locked in was its ability to elicit emotion from its viewers. They spent over a decade building up to this monumental moment, where everything and everyone comes together for one final battle. Marvel enticed fans to invest in their lives of these fictitious characters, only to tear them away as if they were nothing. (Yes, I am still salty about Natasha Romanoff’s death).
The Marvel Cinematic Universe did something no other franchise had ever done before: They delivered a historic film with groundbreaking moments while tying up all loose ends in a chaotic, yet kind of perfect sense. But in the wake of post-endgame hysteria, everything drastically changed. Perhaps it was the global pandemic that sent everyone into a new state of mind, or, in more believable terms, Marvel’s impenetrable streak simply wore off.
The first major conundrum ensued with the introduction of phases four and five of the MCU back in 2019. These phases included the never-done-before Disney+ miniseries, which would become additions to the storylines of the most beloved characters. Wandavision started them off strong, but as the releases began to spiral out one after another in such a short period, quality declined — the direct result of the underpayment of the visual effects artists who work for Marvel Studios.
In an article posted to ScreenRant earlier this year, it’s being reported that Marvel Studios pays its VFX (visual effects) artists twenty percent less than their competing production companies. These employees are working up to 16-hour shifts. They are skipping lunches and break times in order to get their accomplishments done in such short increments.
“It was ‘live at work,’” Mark Patch, a VFX artist who worked on Wandavision, shared with Rolling Stone, “[f]rom the second we woke up in the morning until midnight.”
Even after addressing the ongoing issues in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, reports were later released by Vulture on how appalling the mistreatment of their workers had gotten. By the way, on the topic of She-Hulk — great idea, terrible execution. Not even bringing up the storyline, the effects look like something a college kid could have made up in their semester-long CGI course.
One of the major causes of Marvel’s downfall is how carried away they got in releasing new projects. With the Infinity Saga, it took over a decade to get through 22 films, from 2008 to 2019. In the past five years since the Multiverse Saga began, Marvel has released up to 20 projects, with over two dozen in the works by the end of this decade. They are over-saturating a franchise that doesn’t require over-saturation. There is no time to reminisce over the newest film because, before audiences blink, another gets released. There is no time to process or adapt to new characters, to gain the ability to connect with them on an emotional basis.
Marvel projects lack heart. There’s nothing special about them anymore. They are just dull. Sure, there are a few good laughs every once in a while, but it’s never going to be like it was before.
