Fillion was in all three Guardians movies, albeit in tiny roles.

Ghost Protocol is the top for me. It's top to bottom great and as the list says, finalized the template for the rest of the series. Literally the only thing slightly holding it back is the fact that it was clearly trying to set up Renner to take over the franchise and then Cruise decided he wanted to keep doing it.

This is so clearly the darkest timeline.

I think that people overvalue the idea of writing everything out ahead of time in a long series. Most series in any format, whether movies, TV, or books, don’t write everything out ahead of release. Often there’s a general idea of where the story should go (sometimes very general), and sometimes that changes as the…

Not necessarily. Lots of stuff that gets into movies isn’t in the script that they’re working off when production begins. Indeed, sometimes scripts are heavily rewritten with input from the director as the production goes on. It’s entirely possible that the Dial script just mentions Teddy pickpocketing while his mark…

Much obliged. Thanks for your well-considered thoughts! 

I don’t consider the relationship between Hulk and Widow to be a diversion. They’re relationship arcs over the course of the movie. Whether it entirely works or not is a different issue, but exploring the growing or changing interpersonal dynamics between two characters isn’t a diversion and should be a bigger part of…

I think that it depends on the reference. Mentioning Stephen Strange in Winter Soldier probably wasn’t intended to set up a Doctor Strange movie, both because the reference in context doesn’t actually make much sense and also because the Doctor Strange movie wasn’t in the works yet at the time. In Endgame they…

Interesting. Everything that I’ve seen makes it seem like work on Season 2 is stopping, but I hope that that’s not true.

I think that they started as winks and Easter Eggs. The Stephen Strange one in Winter Soldier was likely just supposed to be an Easter Egg, especially because when we look at the context now it doesn’t really make sense. But I feel like what used to be Easter Eggs is now set up.

The link about Janeway being a hardass should really say that she’s a murderer, but I otherwise agree.

Unless I’ve missed something, I’m pretty sure that they’re not finishing Season 2 unless it gets picked up by another outlet, right?

Eh, I disagree. Other than the Thor subplot, which really had no place in the movie, it’s pretty good overall. Not the best Marvel movie certainly, but in the middle of the pack, along with the first two Ant-Mans.

I mentioned this in my reply to KingCanute, but I think the question is how much we consider the references that they make to “ruin” the movie. I wouldn’t say that the normal references that they put in destroy all enjoyment of the films or that they spend huge amounts of runtime on building the next movie, but like…

I think the issue is likely what we mean by derailing. The article makes the assertion that living as we do in this ever unfolding Marvel megaverse has made the franchise-building moves that they make stick out like sore thumbs that are distracting even if they don’t take up large chunks of the movie. The example that…

Sure, franchises have been a thing for a long time, but there’s a pretty big difference between releasing several Star Trek movies over a couple decades and releasing three movies a year for a couple decades. Older franchises also didn’t rely on having the movies and stories interconnected as a way of building a…

Eh, I disagree. The single biggest reason that Age of Ultron has a (mostly undeserved, I think) bad reputation is because it spends time on things that don’t really matter to the movie itself but are important for setting up things to come in the MCU. 

Obviously the status quo in comics is always changing/resetting, so this storyline was going to end sooner or later. Still, I’ll be sad to see this era of X-Men end. Krakoa is such a good and potent idea that it’s been cool to see the story play out. And while obviously the last several years haven’t been what you’d…

The problem that I’ve always had with The Walking Dead is that there has to be some kind of goal in the distance to work towards that resolves the primary problem in a story. It’s horror, so maybe what actually ends up happening is that they fail and everyone dies. That’s been used in zombie movies tons of times, and…

A very excellent point, and now I'm mad that I didn't mention them either.