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[WandaVision] Yakety Yak! Open Spoilers!
SniperGuy
SniperGuyGamingRegistered User regular
SniperGuyGamingRegistered User regular
It's on Disney+!
Episode 1: Available Jan. 15
Episode 2: Available Jan. 15
Episode 3: Available Jan. 22
Episode 4: Available Jan. 29
Episode 5: Available Feb. 5
Episode 6: Available Feb. 12
Episode 7: Available Feb. 19
Episode 8: Available Feb. 26
Episode 9: Available March 5
First two eps are out now! Discuss! Open Spoilers For episodes that are already out! No leaks or upcoming episode spoilers!
SniperGuy on
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SO MUCH OMINOUS FORESHADOWING
S.W.O.R.D. logo! And beekeeper..AIM?
Lines like "the devil is in the details" "That's not the only place he is." come across as very foreshadowy to me. Or maybe red herring? But the LOKI trailer had a shot of a painting that looked like Mephisto so who knows!
"It's the star of the show!" Is Vision even real, or just an Illusion like his magician name? Because in the actual MCU, Thanos killed him dead, so how's he back?
AND WHO IS THE VOICE ON THE RADIO?! I thought it sounded like Chris Evans but my wife disagrees.
Also funniest line "Is that how mirrors work?" "Shut up, Bev."
She could have been trapped / tricked, but it feels like she has subconscious control.
I thought it was fine overall, but the idea isn't clever enough to support itself unless they really move things along now. Like, for much of it you're just watching bad sitcom writing with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge attitude. Which still leaves you just watching bad sitcom writing - intent doesn't really add quality here.
But maybe I'm just super over MCU stuff, so I dunno.
Point is that I think that at most 3 or 4 more TV sitcoms through the ages are upcoming.
Possibly?
But my first thought?
SWARM! The Nazi made of a swarm of bees. Especially considering the Strücker / HYDRA watch commercial in the same episode
The second episode was much more Bewitched of 1964, with the nods there being the opening credits again, the outfits, the talent show magicians, and even the transition to color.
First episode was the 60s. They straight up recreated the set from the Dick Van Dyke Show which shows a deep level of thought into sets. Color Bewitched would be taking us into the 70s. It is a very clever way to demonstrate how the show is evolving though. I really like how they are so intentional with everything they are using.
Wanda is very clearly in control, but I am not sure how conscious all the control is yet. The dinner scene from the first episode demonstrates this remarkably well. You have the boss and his wife start asking multilayered questions. Within their sitcom nightmare reality there were reasons to ask, but it also has reasons outside of it. They can just as easily be read as breaking through the reality bending powers going on to question their reality directly.
Notably when the boss starts choking it gets really weird. It literally silences him, and we see his wife begging for it to stop. It keeps going until Wanda looks at the camera and tells vision to stop it. She is also looking directly at where Vision is sitting, but it seems super intentional how they set it up. They are dropping little hints along the way that she is actively shaping the events around her.
The end credits seem to be having some fun with fan expectations as well. Right after they build a house it cuts to what I am pretty sure is supposed to be outlines of Wanda's and Vision's comic book headgear. Interestingly, to me at least, they also greatly resemble in design (but not color) the headgear of Polaris and Magneto. I am 99% certain this is me reading into it because I am primed for House of M references and actively looking for it. The other 1% of me is very giddy at the thought that it could be an easily overlooked reference.
Edit: I also find it interesting that they are hinting at her having an increasingly strong control over the universe. The first episode takes place over 2 locations. Their home, and Vision in the office. Even then they show Vision clearly able to poke at the edges of the bubble. The second episode had her going to more locations across town and culminated in the color transition. I hope they keep building on that in subtle ways.
AND a copy of Bewitched:
I have to agree that they did a good job of making certain parts, especially the boss choking, unnerving.
Can't wait for more episodes. Honestly, the long break from all things Marvel has made me excited for the new shows and movies again.
Only at first glance. There is a lot of little things that poke at the uncanniness of it all. Them not knowing the answers to the questions the boss and his wife have, the dubious reason she asks those questions, why the wife begs Wanda to stop choking her man, why Vision wants to know what the company is actually doing. There is a lot going on besides mimicking a sitcom. Vision turning of the episode with the remote and someone watching the show also using a remote.
And that's just the first episode.
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P-POWER Switch Palace 3838-0000-0122-9359
Raiding the Serpents Tomb 1A04-0000-0098-C11E
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See my profile here!
Like my ongoing beef with a lot of the MCU is that they take whatever makes the particular story distinct - Spiderman is just a high school kid! Captain America's in a 70s espionage thriller! - and by the third act inevitably just turn it the same CGI smashfest. So I'm totally down for a limited run, weird as hell little series like this.
Bettany is a great actor but vision was a boring as hell character, so it's great to see him finally get to play around and do stuff, I love that they actually committed to the 4:3 B&W for 2 full episodes, I love how they're playing around with the cinematography, although they do start cheating in ep 2, but even that feels like kind of a purposeful sign of the illusion slipping. I like how they have the "in-universe" special effects, like creating the ring or joining the beds together, versus stuff like Vision starting to fly, or the bits of color that sneak in.
9 episodes in total, the first 3 are 30 minutes, the rest will vary in length.
I absolutely came here to post this. I really wish there had been a Bettany Chaucer spin off tv series.
Also it goes without saying but Debra Jo Rupp really does just make anything better, doesn't she?
Vision as Al Bundy and Wanda as Peggy? Yes please.
Fuck, recreate the cheers bar. Satisfy my nostalgia show.
Ya she fits so easily brain was trying to remember what actual old black and white show she was in, but she's just that seamless
It's still mostly just fairly uninspired parody, and those moments aren't interesting enough to make up for the other 20 minutes of, 'yes, we get it, you're doing an American TV show satire'. So you're left watching the smarmy MCU version of 60 year old material.
It's clear that Wanda is in a combination of being mind controlled, and mind controlling - she's being manipulated, but is subconsciously playing along to lessen the pain. If all they have are eras of US sitcoms, it's a hard pass. They have to get more creative from ep 3.
Also they're gonna finally give Wanda a proper super suit, by the look of the title card! Neat.
Also is she immortal? Cause for 69 she looks amazing.
She looks shockingly similar to how she did during that 70s show
As someone who grew up in the Nick @ Nite era of Dick van Dyke, etc. I really appreciate the level of detail in the recreations and parodies. It started off as "oh, they are playing it comedy with "weird stuff" and by the end of the first episode is started getting kinda creepy (and with several moments in ep 2).
I get the feeling that all the "extras" are actually real people trapped in the illusion, but some of them are Sword monitors. unfortunately casting has kind of already spoiled who one of the people in there is.
The other side character that seemed to be less "part of it" was the girl in the second episode, Deloris or Deborah or whatever, the got put in the box at the end. The way she asked how she got put there felt more like she was testing their answer? Or I was just reading into it too much.
My current theory is that someone got ahold of Visions body post-Infinity War and is trying to "fix" it. Wanda is either trying to help but is kind of "lost" in Visions consciousness, or that it isn't actually Wanda, but an illusion that got put into Visions head when she put all her powers into destroying the mind stone. I know that part was "rewinded" but timey wimey whatever with the infinity stones, they may not fully ever reverse under the power of the time stone? I don't know.
With the SWORD symbols being so blatantly obvious (the beekeeper had a SWORD logo on his back afaik, not sure where the AIM idea came from? Unless that sword is actually AIM, but that doesn't really make sense?) I imagine that's who's trying to repair Vision. Not sure what the Hydra/Strucker references was, could be many things. Vision was built with a crazy amount of tech, some of which could have originated with Hydra; but it could also just be as simple as Wandas memories expressing themselves?
As far as the sitcom premise, I don't know. Just totally guessing, I think it might just be as simple as Wanda maybe watching those old shows a lot growing up? Or Vision watched them trying to be more human?
Either way, Wanda seems to be trapped, whether or not it's actually Wanda, or echo of her, I dunno. Neighbor girl seems intent on trying to get her to "fit in" to the premise of the given sitcom, so that feels intentional.
Though, even having said all of that, I'm fairly sure that Feige has said that this show is supposed to be kind of setting up the whole next phase of the MCU with all the multi/quantum/verse stuff, so I figure eventually that has to play in somewhere.
I agree though, that they've set up the premise of the classic TV shows, they need to actually get into the overall story. With only 9 episodes, potentially pretty short (these weren't even 30m, the first was closer to the classic 23m sitcom length), they won't be able to have a full episode of just homage with a minute or two of mysterious hints. Carry on with the sitcoms, fine; but with only 7 episodes left, they've got to start actually getting into it. Judging from the trailer, I assume this will happen, but it's hard to say.
Overall, I'm enjoying it. They did a good job of aping the sitcoms perfectly, but simultaneously making you perfectly aware that it isn't what it seems like. I'm trying to catch everything, because so much in MCU stuff means something; they rarely just throw things in there. Some of it I caught, some I couldn't figure out (their address being 2800, I assume, is related to something, but I just couldn't think of what it could be), but every time you almost forgot that you weren't just watching a classic sitcom, they'd throw something in to remind you that it isn't right. What's kind of funny is that given the premise of shows like I Dream of Genie and Bewitched, the idea of a magical wife married to a robot husband really isn't that wild for what might have been a show in the 60's. :rotate:
Definitely will be watching these as they air. They're on our family movie night, and the kids liked these two episodes pretty well, even if they didn't totally understand the references. If they stay relatively short, it's something we can watch before an actual movie.
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Thank you. I couldn't tell if that was my eyes fucking with me or there really were frames that would creep in color before that.
There were also little cracks in the sitcom facade each time, more modern sound mix and camera movements, subtle but added to the disconnect of those scenes.
It's not really like watching an old sitcom, it's more like an SCP Wiki page on a creepy unreal sitcom that plays out different every time you rewind the tape.
I'm actually impressed with two things. Just how dedicated they are to "classic TV sitcom" angle, and the fact they don't seem to mind letting this all unpack slowly. Obviously the setting of the "show" progresses with the arc of the story, but whose story is it? Wanda seems to able to steer it, but Vision definitely has input as well. And what does "progress" mean in the context of the story? So far it seems like the timeline progresses as they become more like themselves; they seem to kinda start with the 50s-style perfect couple thing as their archetype but are already some 15-20 years down the timeline by the end of the second episode, complete with appropriate attire and furniture. They're also much more themselves at this point, with Wanda drifting well away from 50s housewife.
It's a bit too much of a slow burn, I think, but at the same time it's interesting to see an MCU property that isn't just about heroes smashing things.
My big bet is that this is less a "simulation" than Wanda using her mind control juice to try and get Vision back, except the damage is so extensive that it's dragged both of them into Vision's mind as they piece him back together. When we see the lab stuff at the end of the episodes, that's the two being monitored by SWORD on the Skrull-built space station that Fury heads up.
All total conjecture at this point, but the show doesn't seem to have any problem keeping the details to itself.
The entire style of the camera shots was markedly different between episode one and two. Episode one were the wide shots of early TV where (IIRC) stuff was shot live because there wasn't a great way to record TV stuff. The second episode had like close ups and stuff that were more common after shows were shot to tape and you could do multiple takes and stuff.
Again, IIRC as I'm not a film buff or anything but I think that's meant to be an intentional thing.
The end of the first episode has the frame very clearly shifting from 4:3 to widescreen as well. They even hokey up Wanda's abilities in the first episode. When she floats stuff around, it looks entirely like it's old-school "floating" objects on strings, complete with that old-school bouncy wobble.
It would've been pretty easy for them to half-ass the sitcom stuff, but they really did their homework.