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I love the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I know to some of you that makes me sound like a schmuck, queueing up and paying over the odds to watch a CGI good guy fight a CGI bad guy before the CGI good guy wins. I get that there are much wider stories in cinema, but like the popcorn fun of the MCU. And a large part of that enjoyment comes from the 'U' - from knowing that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Yelenaꦚ will go from Black Widow to Hawkeye, that Shang-Chi will meet Captain Marvel, that Doctor Strange, fresh from helping Spider-Man, is about to team up with Scarlet Witch. The stories are good, but knowing that they will link up together makes them great. It's not for everyone though, and it's not for Squid Game.
And the MCU knows how to make a payoff stick, too. Avengers Endgame was more than the sum of its parts, and those parts were the highest grossing movies of the preceding decade. The MCU is great at what it does - but that doesn't mean everybody needs to copy it. Most obviously, the DCEU tried to copy it, but failed miserably. Justice League, while there were behind the scenes issues with Snyder and Whedon, ultimately came too early. Ben Affleck will leave the role of Batman without a single🌳 solo film to his💟 name. There was no effort put into establishing the wider world - it was just a leap to Avengers. Black Widow and Hawkeye were without solo films, but Widow had a major arc in ꦕIron Man 2, and Hawkeye had at least appeared in Thor, even if he could have done with more f꧂oundation. Hulk, Thor, and Captain America had each had a film by the time Avengers hit, and Iron Man had two.
The MCU launched itself from Avengers into a wider world of comic book cinema, while Justice League sprained its ankle and went back to the drawing board. It's not just in this obvious 'solo film, solo film, team up' sense that brands are trying to have their own MCU though. Star Wars, well before Marvel figured out the formula, has stretched itself far and wide. There were novels, video games, comic books, ൲I mean... you name it and there was a Star Wars version of it. These days though, Star Wars is doing things differently💫, and it feels like an obvious riff on the MCU.
Rogue One and Solo, the two major Star Wars movies to not be Episodes, are prequels that focus on the existing world. 16🎉8澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Mandalorian was basically a Boba Fett sꦏhow to cash in on his popularity, then they 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:went and made a Boba Fett show anyway. The Bad Batch is a new version of The Clone Wars, while Ashoka and Obi-Wan are both getting their own series too. Fallen Order feels like th🎀e only fresh Star Wars thing in a decade. While the Star Wars universe used to expand far and wide, it now seems fixated on the very narrow stories told in the main episodes. It's a plan with diminishing returns.
We don't yet know what Squid Game will do. It has been renewed for a second season, which... fine. It seems like it told a pretty coherent and complete story, but then it also ended with a clear opportunity for a second season. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:I think it could be left alone, but then I feel the same way about Netflix's earlier hit, The Queen's Gambit, but I would not complain if Anya Tayl꧂or-Joy picked up her rooks for a season two in the future.
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The problem is Squid Game is not just getting a season two. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos says this is the start of the "Squid Game Universe". What the fuck is the Squid Game Universe? It's not even like we can tell the stories of the other characters - they're all dead. That's the point of the show. Prequels are always an option, but... why? We know how and why they end up in the Squid Game, we know what fate befalls them. I'm sorry, do they have something in their lives more interesting on the time they went on the game show that murdered them? Maybe they'll do a mini series about the guy who slaps people at the train station. Maybe we'll get an episode from the squid's point of view.
I don't begrudge Squid Game's creator, who tried to make the show for a decade and then made nothing in profit besides a standard advance from his global mega hit. But I do think it goes against Squid Game's ideals that capitalism is rotten to turn it into a universe. It already has cuddly toys and Funko Pops, and sure, even selling the story to Netflix is participating in capitalism, but there's a difference between the regular capitalism in making a TV show and the greed-knows-no-bounds capitalism of spinning that stark and tragic tale of exploitation and helplessness into a megabucks universe. Give me a Queen's Gambit Universe or give me death.