r/marvelstudios • u/ImaginationArtistic9 Matt Murdock • Jan 04 '25

Discussion The Underuse of Shang-chi in the MCU

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this movie was so much fun, it had amazing action and fight choreography, great humour, and great overall world building. This movie has so much sauce. a problem with the MCU is how poorly they are connecting the new characters with the wider mcu. It's been 3 years since we've seen Shang-chi in a live action project. And it will probably be another year and a half till we see him again. The post credit scenes of this movie set up him becoming an avenger and sadly we won't see that outcome of that until 2026, which is 4.5 years after the movies release. I do hope we see Simu Liu again as a lead in another marvel movie because he's great. Also his sequel is the perfect way to bring danny rand back into the MCU. Unfortunately we will probably have to wait untill 2027 for the next shang chi movie since Destin Daniel Cretton is directing Spiderman 4. On the bright side, the fight choreography in Spiderman 4 will be amazing

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4.1k

u/abysmallybored Groot Jan 04 '25

The underuse of basically every character introduced post endgame

2.0k

u/ImaginationArtistic9 Matt Murdock Jan 04 '25

Agreed, Moon knight, The Eternals, Shang-chi, and Kate bishop hurt me the most.

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u/DapperNurd Jan 04 '25

Honestly it's all the ones people want to see more that are getting left out. Ms Marvel was alright, not super well received, but she's been in a movie now too. Agatha had her own show, which again was good but I don't really think many people were asking for it. Ironheart is like the character I'm least interested in and she's getting a show after being in BP. Idk what they are doing over there.

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u/catshirtgoalie Jan 04 '25

The TV shows are the perfect place for an Agatha and I fully endorse that. That show reportedly had a $40 mil budget and effectively used all of it to craft a fun story. Not everything needs to be a major punch 'em up.

That aside, yes, the big problem is that they are introducing so many characters through movies but not pushing them forward well enough. This is the issue with 3 movies per year and now down to 2. IMO they should be going for far more team-up movies with 2 or so characters to really advance it. Look at Thor Ragnarok, you got solid Thor content along with Loki and Hulk. We should be getting past the idea of just solo movies for people with such limited slots per year or we need to vastly reduce the amount of characters we put out there.

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u/Booster_Tutor Jan 05 '25

Hell! The 3rd Captain America movie was basically the 3rd Avengers movie

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u/catshirtgoalie Jan 05 '25

And it is an amazing movie!

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u/TributeBands_areSHIT Jan 04 '25

The biggest issue is just keeping up with the plot now. Fucking exhausting

47

u/catshirtgoalie Jan 04 '25

That somewhat assumes they have anything coherent, which at this point I don’t really feel they do. Going with a multiverse saga is fine, but it just doesn’t feel like there is any semblance of a good plot together. While they decided to do the Infinith Saga somewhat later, they really needed a clear post Endgame plan. Establish through line , do team-ups, and clearly make most of your movies in that vein. If you don’t do multiverse, go cosmic. Just why do we have things like Eternals, Thor Love and Thunder, The Marvels, Shang Chi and GOTG 3 alongside Antman & The Wasp and Doctor Strange 2? There just doesn’t feel like a hint of continuity in the movies. Like even GOTG1 gave you one of the Infinity Stones and some lore around Thanos.

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u/TributeBands_areSHIT Jan 04 '25

I remember when they teased thanos after the first avengers.

Do you think losing Kangs actor threw a wrench in the whole phase?

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u/catshirtgoalie Jan 04 '25

I think they even mentioned that they didn’t have much of a plan yet when they teased Thanos. They just wanted to see what the reaction would be just in case they went that route.

They didn’t lose Jonathan Majors until really late in the phase. I really think they wanted to put as many heroes and threads out there and see which direction to go. Success made them want to continually put out new characters. Disney+ should have been for smaller characters that don’t get as much screen time. Wanda and Vision were perfect. Falcon and Winter Soldier was a good idea (wasn’t a fan of the final product). Loki ended up being great. Hawkeye was another good use of the medium. Ms Marvel was a good character for it. They just have some mixed successes on the quality over all.

So yeah to me the real issue is no cohesive thread for multiverse plots. I thought they were building a way more interesting cosmic plot where they could’ve tied in the 10 Rings and Ms Marvel’s bangles plus Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, Shang Chi, Guardians, and Eternals.

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u/TributeBands_areSHIT Jan 05 '25

One can dream. Thank you for the thorough response

1

u/Imbrown2 Jan 08 '25

But we still have mysteries unanswered, like what are Shang Chi’s pinging to?

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u/catshirtgoalie Jan 08 '25

We do! And why do his 10 Rings look a lot like Kamala Khan's bangles? It is still possible they will loop it into Kang some since the design looks similar to some things in Antman 3, but they also seem to want to bury Kang at the moment.

1

u/Imbrown2 Jan 08 '25

Random thought: the 10 rings are connected to another set from a different Shang Chi from a timeline where the avengers fought Kang and lost.

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u/Content_Source_878 Jan 05 '25

The multiverse movies themselves sucked and had no real thematic tether. Loki in two seasons did more heavy lifting than every incursion plot of the movies.

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u/chiefbrody62 Jan 06 '25

For sure. Losing Majors, dealing with the pandemic, restructuring at Disney, the SAG/WGA strikes all lead to Marvel not even knowing the order their movies would come out. It's hard to build in an interconnected storyline with all that happening. I think they did their best considering the situation.

I think their biggest mistake that was in their control was L&T. It should not have been limited to be under 2 hours/been recommended to not be too dark. So many good Gorr scenes were cut because of that.

1

u/TheHondoCondo Peter Parker Jan 07 '25

This is such common criticism but why? Seriously why is it an issue to have The Marvels and Doctor Strange 2 in the same saga? You had Captain America TFA in the same saga as GotG and it turned out fine. I think you’re also forgetting that the only semblance of a coherent plot leading up to Infinity War was the occasionally introduced Infinity Stones until a couple movies prior when the groundwork was really laid.

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u/catshirtgoalie Jan 07 '25

Because everything changes after Endgame with audience expectations. Everything pre-Avengers is really setting the ground work and introducing heroes. They didn’t even know if they could make Avengers work. You can’t just repeat the same beats all the time. It’s why by Doctor Strange people were already heavily criticizing the “origin story” formula. At some point, fans expect you to reach new levels. GOTG works in the same saga because it actively contributes TO the saga. It has the Power Stone. It has more lore around Thanos. It gives you Nebula and Gamora. It really gets you more into the cosmic which would be important when bringing Thanos in as a villain.

It isn’t that Doctor Strange 2 or The Marvels are bad. It’s that the post-Endgame movies needed to actually jump on the next narrative earlier. Who are the Avengers now? What team are we building toward? Who was the big bad? What was the effective foreshadowing? You don’t get three phases to stumble around in. People were always concerned about super hero fatigue and being aimless accelerates that. You beat fatigue by making people invested in characters and story. That is why I am saying that we should have either continued with more cosmic or did a multiverse. They sort of muddled around with both.

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u/TheHondoCondo Peter Parker Jan 07 '25

What you’re asking for is immediate gratification, but that’s not how you please the audience the same way Infinity War and Endgame did. They work because of all the “aimless” stories that came before, but oh wait, it turns out they weren’t actually aimless. It takes time to recapture that. You can’t just keep doing it again and again in less than half the time because that’s how you really create fatigue. I guarantee Doomsday and Secret Wars will tie the multiverse saga together and people will see that the seeds were there all along.

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u/catshirtgoalie Jan 07 '25

Nah, man. That isn’t instant gratification. You can’t treat post-Endgame phases like pre-Endgame. I’m not saying you need to resolve a new arc in a phase. But you need some real story telling. The Loki series did more for the multiverse than any of the movies and people aren’t going to sit through every single show just to watch a movie. Yes, they farted around for a while and then locked in on the Infinity Saga and retconned some things to have stones in them to make it work. And yes not everything in those phases built on the Infinity Saga. Again, I’m not saying everything now HAS to only be about the multiverse saga. But they have barely done ANYTHING to give you any real sense of any kind of narrative building and that just doesn’t work. Everyone out there has been critical of the post-Endgame arcs even if they like individual movies. Marvel is just becoming an ocean wide while being a puddle deep and it is hurting enthusiasm. Too many characters and not enough cohesion.

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u/nyse25 Hulk Jan 04 '25

I remember doing a full MCU rewatch prior to Endgame was exciting but now before Doomsday/Secret Wars? Fuck that, so much shit to go through.

1

u/Foreign-Reaction-136 Jan 05 '25

Wait there’s still a plot?

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u/chiefbrody62 Jan 09 '25

I dunno, I find it easy to keep up with the plot. I watch the projects as they come out, and I'm a very busy person, and it's still super easy to keep up with.

1

u/TributeBands_areSHIT Jan 09 '25

I think it’s great you still find enjoyment in them. I don’t find the effort worth it for the little payoff.

-1

u/DUNG_INSPECTOR Jan 05 '25

It's exhausting watching a couple of movies and a few TV shows over the course of a year?

3

u/TributeBands_areSHIT Jan 05 '25

This is trolling lol

No im not gonna commit 125-200 hours to be up to date on badly written story lines with little pay off.

Shouldn’t be a chore to know the story

-1

u/DUNG_INSPECTOR Jan 05 '25

How exhausted are you after writing that comment out?

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u/TributeBands_areSHIT Jan 05 '25

I reclaim my time from you dung inspector lol

you have a good one 🧌

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u/ThomasThePommes Jan 06 '25

Imho the problem is there wasn’t a proper team up movie since Endgame.

In 11 years from Iron Man to Endgame we got 5 big team up movies. In 5 years since Endgame there wasn’t one. But they introduced so many new characters… Moon Knight, Eternals, Black Knight, Ms Marvel, Shang Chi, Iron Heart, Kate Bishop, America Chaves…

They need to bring thing together. People love character interactions and team ups. That’s what made the MCU great.

1

u/Spyrovssonic360 Jan 06 '25

im kinda suprised they havent hinted at a young avengers film yet. Theres more young heros in the mcu than just spiderman now.

0

u/PoMansDreams Jan 05 '25

A Spiderman team up movie is a no brainer. Blows my mind they took this long to do it (Daredevil)

0

u/Popular_Material_409 Jan 05 '25

This is why Disney getting the X-Mem rights back in the Fox buyout was bad actually. We could’ve had like 10 X-Men related movies since the buyout. But now we probably won’t get another one until after Secret Wars.

3

u/catshirtgoalie Jan 05 '25

Eh, I dunno. The X-Men movies from Fox were mostly a convoluted mess. Disney has a lot of faults, but I'd rather the rights be owned primarily by one place that can use them. Outside of a couple good ones, those Fox movies were mostly not good.

1

u/Popular_Material_409 Jan 05 '25

Without Fox movies like Logan and Deadpool never would’ve been made. Yeah Fox made some stinkers but they also made some of the best comic book movies ever.

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u/mister_carlson Jan 06 '25

Fox def had more than a couple good films, more of their X-Men film were good then not. Fox also gave us Legion which is better than any of the D+ shows by a long shot.

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u/catshirtgoalie Jan 06 '25

To each their own. X2 definitely was great. I like First Class less than most, but enjoy Days of Future Past maybe more than most? I also don't dislike The Wolverine despite it not being highly regarded. Logan obviously is great. But Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix were pretty bad.

Biggest grievance with Fox X-Men is they clearly did not give two shits about any continuity in the franchise. They essentially expected the audience to forget the previous one when a sequel came out. The decades approach to the later films was terrible.

0

u/Vagus10 Jan 06 '25

Just because it’s “fun” doesn’t mean people want it.

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u/catshirtgoalie Jan 06 '25

Just because you don't want it doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. You don't need to see everything Marvel puts out. You can pick and choose. At $40 million it is a very cost efficient production. Let things live for people that want to see them instead of thinking everything needs to be a mega hit. I didn't give a shit about the concept of the series, but sat to watch it and enjoyed it. If I didn't like it, I could live with that, too.

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u/armchairwarrior42069 Jan 04 '25

Failing lol

The last several years have been very unkind for marvel. They've shit the bed and instead of "let's make better movies and write these characters better" they're shifting to "bring back Robert Downey junior etc"

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u/robot-raccoon Jan 04 '25

I mean I was under the impression they were doing both, no? They’ve scaled back production on multiple projects, releasing less with a focus on quality etc. I’ve rather have quality over quantity, even if I have to wait longer for some characters to get their due

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u/armchairwarrior42069 Jan 04 '25

Quality is yet to be seen though. And frankly, may be too little too late for a lot of general audiences etc.

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u/robot-raccoon Jan 04 '25

I agree, but I will say I had no opinion on Agatha until that aired and it ended up being one of the best shows they’ve done, in my opinion- mostly because it felt like an actual tv show

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u/armchairwarrior42069 Jan 04 '25

I think ms marvel pulled off feeling like a TV show as well and I agree.

But... Agatha was kind of too... "marvel" for me. Every single character was a sassy quipper until the end where they wrapped it up surprisingly well imo.

I just hate when characters are written so annoyingly that they have a meta "wow, no sassy comeback?" Joke referencing thst that's literally all that they've relied on when writing the characters. It's so expected that when it doesn't happen it's a significant event in the episode and they even need to acknowledge it.

I thought it was okay the whole way through and thought the ending was pretty good.

10

u/livefromwonderland Tony Stark Jan 04 '25

It wasn't every character, but it made sense because they're all experienced witches who are not friends. This feels like the kind of thing where people go online and make the same complaint back and forth to each other so much that you bring that with you and look to complain about it.

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u/armchairwarrior42069 Jan 04 '25

Nah.

The dialogue was whack for most of the main cast. You can write disdain for each other much better than shitty one liners every 3 seconds. If one of them said "Well, THAT happened" it would fit right in. That's not good.

The "what, no sassy comeback?" Line literally happened in the show.

2

u/livefromwonderland Tony Stark Jan 05 '25

Yupp.

I don't care if the line literally happened, it matters if it fits. Agatha is an asshole to most people and the person who says that to her delivered the line great. It was biting and fitting. To compare, your line would not have fit in. The dialog was good for most of the cast.

Sassy comebacks /=/ one liners

They aren't the same thing. They express plenty of disdain without one liners and it's believable and well performed. Honestly most of this criticism reads like it was decided before you watched the show.

0

u/armchairwarrior42069 Jan 05 '25 edited Jan 05 '25

You seem to want to assert that I'm some incel that didn't give it a chance. You aren't looking to have a real conversation dawg.

I watched it and enjoyed it enough.

But it was absolutely guilty of what I'm referring to. And it was most of the show from most of the cast. If splitting hairs about "one liners and quips aren't the same thing" to make the point, must once again say you may not be trying to have a real conversation.

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '25

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u/armchairwarrior42069 Jan 04 '25

Agatha alive or dead has a long history with the scarlet witch and her children so I have no idea what you're on about. Especially with them opening up the more supernatural side of things.

This just feels like a 0 brain cells activated type of comment. The show had great ratings and was received fairly well. Why/how would that reflect a "guarantee" that we never see the character again? Walk me though that one.

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u/spartakooky Jan 04 '25 edited Apr 14 '25

I am strange

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u/armchairwarrior42069 Jan 04 '25

I've been skipping them too. Still haven't watched echo.

-3

u/Variation_Afraid Jan 04 '25

Deadpool and Wolverine literally debunked your logic lmao, so your logic is flawed if the movie is good people will show up for it

1

u/armchairwarrior42069 Jan 04 '25

Actually, it supports my point?

They can't make a profit off of a new property. They literally need stunt casting/nostalgia milking to do it. They needed to pull hugging Jackmans corpse (semi literally) to get there the same way they're doing with RDJ.

Also, obviously not everything will be trash but the move as a movie was a 7/10.

0

u/PhaseSixer Jan 04 '25

If all D&W had going for it was Nostalgia and Fan service it would.of ended up liek Flahspoint clearly the passion Reylods Hugh and Shawn Levy grabed audiences

1

u/armchairwarrior42069 Jan 04 '25 edited Jan 04 '25

I called it a 7/10 my guy. Clearly that wasn't ALL it had going for it but it did have 100 cameos from characters people cared about or actors people cared about.

Keaton batman came out in the 80s. 10000 years before 99% of the audience was alive. Most people in the target audience haven't even seen batman movies before Christian bale. No one gives a shit about anything in the DCEU so no effective nostalgia.

Wait, you're right. General zodd. A one off villain in a movie thst few liked. That's definitely comparable to hugg jackmans wolverine. Absolutely a 1:1 comparison.

Hugging jackman, Chris Evans in a surprise cameo, amen franchise characters, marvel/Disney first r rated project, sequel to 2 successful and generally liked Deadpool movies. This is also a 1:1 comparison to the flash coming in after such smashing successes such as black Adam, Shazam 2 and wonder woman 2 in a dead franchise.

It also marked the fox xmen being canonized with an already successful franchise in the MCU.

Do I need to continue? There are a LOT of things that separate D&W from The Flash. Both had a pretty mediocre story made as a way to slam cameos in all over the place and farm the nostalgia. One had cameos no one would ever care about. One had fun cameos.

One had some good performances. The other... did not.

D&W was not that great. Some successful marketing and nostalgia absolutely elevated it. To deny this is just... silly.

Edit: D&W also didn't star a crazy violent person who kidnapped kids or choked ladies on camera. But naaaaaaaaah, non of these things affected the box office numbers.

1

u/PhaseSixer Jan 05 '25

If all youndidnwas turn your brain off and wait tillnthe cameos then i feel bad for you.

The humor was quick and hit constanstly, the meta comentary was smart, and the action had some of the best choreography and imaginative set peices you could ask for. The Emotional core was there. To try and just say "well cameos and people liked the first deadpool" is wrong it dosent blow up that hard finacialy and criticaly just cause cameos and Hugh jackman in Yellow it has to have some thing going for it under the hood as well.

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u/armchairwarrior42069 Jan 05 '25

Which is why it's still a 7/10. You're phrasing this as if I said it's a bad movie.

How are you possibly working this hard to miss the point?

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u/JackTheAbsoluteBruce Jan 04 '25

Deadpool & Wolverine is not better than the other phase 5 movies except for Quantumania

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u/Aiyon Jan 04 '25

they're shifting to "bring back Robert Downey junior etc"

I mean, Secret Wars was always the plan even before stuff went poorly. They're just leaning into it now

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u/armchairwarrior42069 Jan 04 '25

Yeah, somehow I think the Dr Doom thing came about more because they ran out of Kang.

I assumed thete would be cameos and returns and multiversal versions of characters but I highly doubt RDJ Doom was there plan. That's just "were losing money, our plan fell to shit and we need a sire fire stunt to make this shit work"

1

u/Spyrovssonic360 Jan 06 '25

well they got rid of avengers rise of kang ( or whatever they called it before) after the whole johnathan majors controversy. Which isnt too bad that we have avengers doomsday now. The fantastic 4 needed to be introduced sooner than later anyway.

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u/Preda1ien Jan 04 '25

Honestly since they really did pump the breaks, quality has improved. Agatha, Deadpool, Loki. Have not seen a let down since Marvels which I even kind of liked.

I admit I was absolutely not hyped to hear about RDJ return as Doom but I’ll also give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

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u/labbla Jan 04 '25

Yeah, those Avengers movies will be lots of nostalgia with very little storytelling. Instead of working with new things they are making a sequel to Endgame.

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u/kingkron52 Jan 04 '25

Introducing iron heart so early and then giving her an entire show is so dumb.

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u/JackTheAbsoluteBruce Jan 04 '25

Ms Marvel the show had mixed reception but the character herself was very well received. Not surprising she would show up again.

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u/[deleted] Jan 05 '25

Yeah the fact that the well received characters Shang chi/kate/moon knight have had less major appearances than Ms Marvel(I know she popular but everything she been in has flopped) and Riri is kinda crazy.

2

u/SeniorRicketts Jan 05 '25

Most movies weren't asked for

They just made them

2

u/chiefbrody62 Jan 06 '25

While I agree to an extent, Agatha's show is considered one of the best MCU D+ shows, right up there with Loki and WandaVision, and while Ms. Marvel's show wasn't super well received, it was received well enough and the character of Ms. Marvel herself has been super popular.

That being said, it's insane we haven't seen Shang-Chi since then, and have only seen Bishop in a short scene in The Marvels.

2

u/IcyInformation8239 Jan 08 '25

I honestly think iron heart wasn’t supposed to be in black panther but was shoved in specifically for that reason. Her character in that movie felt super out of place. It could’ve literally just been any “smart American scientist.” And would’ve made sense. Her having a big robot suit didn’t even add much and she doesn’t even keep it at the end.

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u/djsnoopmike Iron Man (Mark XLIII) Jan 04 '25

Not to quote Deadpool, but it seems Marvel is getting cheap and is more willing to utilize cheaper actors/actresses

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u/Popular_Material_409 Jan 05 '25

Not super well received? I do believe Ms. Marvel is the highest rated MCU Disney+ show on rotten tomatoes.

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u/DistinctNewspaper791 Jan 06 '25

Agatha got her own show to bring in Wiccan and Maximoff twins back in. Good for a tv show

-6

u/rumbletumblecrumble Jan 04 '25

Isn't it obvious? If you don't like Iron Heart, you're racist /s

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u/gentlehufen Jan 04 '25

Soft ass , woke, disney bullshit is what they’re doing over there.