The Doctor Strange 2 trailer was solid if ephemeral (it's surprisingly low on Google Trends--that recent snapshot doesn't illustrate how far behind it hit versus other big IP); America Chavez was mostly hidden, which I suspect was due to most of her scenes being re-shot. Alarm bells were ringing for me when Wanda says how it doesn't seem fair that it's okay for Doctor Strange to break the rules, but not her. If this comment represents the view of the MCU, it's a failure to understand the criticism of WandaVision, where our heroine tortured hundreds of people for selfish reasons (she was sad) with no consequences or condemnation in the narrative (which does not compare at all to what Strange does in Spider-Man 3). I have a suspicion that the MCU is going to argue in the story that because the results of what Strange did are worse, he's worse than Wanda, whose torture was also unintentional. As reasoning goes this isn't very good, since Strange did what he did to save someone and faces resistance to do so, while Wanda's was purely selfish and is given approbation and forgiveness throughout (the hilarious Monica Rambeau faceplant). Let's hope I'm wrong and it's not as hamfisted as it appears (this is Phase Four however, and coherent story and character has largely been flushed down the toilet).
Beyond that, the trailer confirmed a couple of long-standing MCU rumours:
- The Savage Land (2019, May) - LotLB (via their original source) were the first to float the idea that I'm aware of (this scoop was involved with their fight with Murphy, cf; I'd speculated about it appearing a year earlier), which Sutton echoed months later--in both cases they said it would be used in the second X-Men film (Sutton claims we see the Savage Land in the trailer)--it's not exactly as predicted, since neither put it in Doctor Strange 2, but still of note; if we get Ka-Zar and Shanna, I expect at least one race swap and little to no comic accuracy in their portrayal (unless it's some modern iteration I'm unaware of, likely where Shanna has Ka-Zar's role), as that's been the Phase Four trend
- The Illuminati (2020, January) - Sutton correctly said the group would appear in the film; we also now know that Patrick Stewart was either: 1) lying to protect an NDA when he claimed he'd rejected Feige's offer to reappear as Professor X because Logan was such a good send-off of the character, or 2) subsequently changed his mind (I suspect the former, since with Picard he said 'no' until they paid him more and gave in to some demands to service his ego)
The major curiosity for Strange 2 is how much the cameos will boost interest (my prediction that Marvel would spoil cameos before release was confirmed by the trailer). Nostalgia is a powerful drug and if the film is at least average, that's enough to drag its box office towards what used to be the MCU norm. What I'm not expecting is a truly good film (ala the first Doctor Strange).
More Nielsen ratings:
Cobra Kai 1038 (#2, -52%)
Cheer 629
Witcher 624 (#8, -46%)
Stay Close 558
Boba Fett 467 (-12%)
Queer Eye 394
Emily in Paris 357
Archive 81 329
Ozark 324
Undercover 277
The crash for The Witcher continues (just 22% of the audience remains/returns), with none of the externals we saw after season one (strong book sales, increase in game popularity, etc); Netflix shows tend to burn out quickly, and its general arc is similar to Cobra Kai (albeit with a stronger opening and weaker second week). This won't hurt the approach to a third season, but the level of hype is going to suffer and I expect the prequel series to tank (I thought Ozark is a useful example--a show built from a fantastic first season with a poorly written second--but as it turns out, it's not). The lingering stench of Wheel of Time has finally fallen off the list, while the bumbling Vespa-fueled Star Wars effort continues to stumble (I have no idea what can save the brand at this point--presumably even more memberberries).
I haven't referenced Amazon's Lord of the Rings for quite some time, but since my optimistic post in August all the news for it has been bad and I've surrendered to the fact that it's going to be just as disappointing as the adaptations of The Witcher and The Wheel of Time (albeit with better visuals). Like those shows, it's being made for casuals and I have no idea if they will tune in or not (they did for Witcher, but not for Wheel of Time--early investment for bigger IPs might be the trend). All three of these fantasy shows were made by people with no prior experience or investment in the genre and it shows. I am enjoying the meme of people commenting on the teaser with a paraphrase of Tolkien's comment about evil's inability to create (via Frodo in Return of the King). Amazon has already made the Ghostbusters error of fighting with fans and once you go down that road you're just making it harder and harder to succeed.
Let's look at what possible reactions to the adaptation could mean (which, as I've said many times before, we will get multiple seasons of no matter how it's received--fantasy shows are so expensive to make they require multiple seasons):
- It's a smash hit - the trend of butchered adaptations will continue and we can expect another decade or so of terrible fantasy productions; none of this detracts from the source material or the Jackson films, but would likely mean the upcoming Warner Brothers anime will be similarly ridiculous
- It bombs - the best case scenario for adaptations in general--the IP was so expensive to acquire it will rattle Amazon Prime--that won't save the show and likely puts to bed any other Second Age adaptation for a long time (and such an adaptation would have to be different from Amazon's anyway); it could also signal more faithful fantasy adaptations throughout the industry
- Response is mixed - the most likely result and as such won't set a trend
What's funny is that all these recent fantasy shows were intended to achieve the success of Game of Thrones, but none have come remotely close to it (I'd compare Witcher season one to Stranger Things in terms of initial impact). In fact, they are so different from GoT I'm not sure how executives thought any of them would capture that market--the entertainment industry loves imitation, but this is the loosest sort. It makes me wonder if we'll see a souring of interest in adapting fantasy because of the cost.
Let's end on a positive note. As per usual the best things on a streaming service were made by someone else, and this is the case for The Legend of Vox Machina. The animated feature is based on the hit D&D show Critical Role (on Twitch and Youtube) and for someone casually aware of it I've enjoyed it thus far. The humour is what carries it, as the story has pacing issues, but I'm curious to see how it did with the normies and we don't have Nielsen numbers yet. It's far better than I expected, although that doesn't guarantee its second season will be good (we simply don't know--Critical Role has hired some uninspiring people to write their comics, ala Sam Maggs, and we can see modern tendencies creep in along the edges in the show itself).
This article was written by Peter Levi
