WandaVision

[TemporalVileTerror]

*grumbles about being in a region which has been hit by the "12+ Star glitch"*

[The_Warpact]

Loving it!

Edited February 20, 2021 by The_Warpact

[Techwright]

  On 2/20/2021 at 2:24 AM, TemporalVileTerror said:

*grumbles about being in a region which has been hit by the "12+ Star glitch"*

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I am not familiar with that terminology, though I gather you either cannot watch it, or are having trouble watching it?

[TemporalVileTerror]

Due to the new service "Star" being introduced to Disney+, people in certain regions around the world have been locked out of  "Ages 12+" content on their accounts.  No official word from Disney yet as to the issue, leaving people in afflicted areas to speculate about whether they're going to need to pay premium fees to regain access to content they already previously had.  Users in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have reported the issue.

[TemporalVileTerror]

Well, my spouse gave in to Disney's ransom and paid the new premium price . . . that's another $9 a month for yet another streaming service . . . 

 

I miss the days when everything was just on Netflix.

[Techwright]

Heard an interesting (to me anyway) theory yesterday at the office watercooler...

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That "Ralph", the husband Agnes keeps referencing, is actually the big bad of WandaVision, and will be revealed to be manipulating Agatha, too.  I kind of like this.  It keeps with my struggling belief that Agatha is not the top tier villain of the series, and would jive with Paul Bettany's comments implying things to come in the show.

 

On the other hand, I rather like it when a show has a mystery character that's often referenced but never seen, like Maris Crane from "Frasier".  You can have a lot of fun with that.

 

  On 2/21/2021 at 3:19 PM, TemporalVileTerror said:

Well, my spouse gave in to Disney's ransom and paid the new premium price . . . that's another $9 a month for yet another streaming service . . . 

 

I miss the days when everything was just on Netflix.

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My coworkers and I were discussing the explosion of paid internet channel services just the other day.  We'd concluded that although it's a pain in the neck to deal with, the only good financial solution right now is to monthly hop: binge watch one service, cancel, jump to another service.  Rinse and repeat.

[Bill Z Bubba]

  On 2/24/2021 at 4:29 PM, Techwright said:

We'd concluded that although it's a pain in the neck to deal with, the only good financial solution right now is to monthly hop: binge watch one service, cancel, jump to another service.  Rinse and repeat.

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This is the way.

[TemporalVileTerror]

Yup.

We're keeping our Netflix, but spouse cancelled AmazonPrime to make room for the new Disney Star.  Eventually we'll cancel Disney when we've watched what we want to and possibly switch back to Prime for a while longer.

 

Still really skeezy business practices, though.

[Mr. Vee]

My dear, dear peers have all the streaming services and are happy to share with me.

[TemporalVileTerror]

So . . . 

That latest episode . . . 

All just flashback exposition, basically.  Not a helluva lot of forward movement for the plot there.  Sadly, given the nature of the series' format, I suppose they kind of wrote themselves in to a corner to force themselves to do such an info-dump episode.

[Mr. Vee]

Felt like an extended 'previously on'.

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Was hoping they'd get straight to her breakdown at finding out the kids aren't real and lead into other things but I guess we have to endure a season of her trying to get Vision's feels back. Or depending on what they do with Eternals maybe he'll be mind-controlled and take over the world first. Tough to be excited that they're mining the 40 years of mostly terrible before the Avengers actually got interesting.

 

[Techwright]

Episode 8:

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In a way, they did move the plot forward.  We discovered the "theft" of the Vision corpse was a lie, likely a fabrication of Hayward, and that the current Vision exists entirely from Wanda's breakdown. We also discovered in the tag that the original Vision has been reformed into White Vision.  For those of us who've not read the comics, it's now out there that there's not just magic (or future science as Stark would say), but that there's multiple kinds of magic, and they give off different colors.  Now casual viewers know that Wanda uses Chaos magic (red), which means Dr. Strange uses some sort of Order magic (orange), the Salem witches uses blue magic (another form of order magic?  I was unclear on that point), and Agatha uses purple, likely a blend of chaos and blue magic, as she admitted to studying forbidden arts. 

 

I found it an interesting episode.  Agatha was played to look the villain, but she was actually in discovery mode, and all sorts of teasers were there that she intends to help Wanda, though her discovery of Wanda being the Scarlet Witch might derail that.  She was clearly scared and using the kids to do the same thing a lesser animal does to frighten a more powerful one: take an aggressive look or posture that says you hold all the cards.  The revelation that "The Scarlet Witch" is not just a descriptive, but a being that others of power fear was surprising to me, but a little digging revealed why, and apparently it has to do with a certain named mountain and the secrets tied to a big baddie there, at least in the comics.

 

To me, the big surprise was: where was Monica during all this?  She was literally a short distance away at the end of episode 7.  I guess "Fietro" put up more of a resistance than I thought he'd be able to against Photon.

 

[Mr. Vee]

Hmm, i thought it was over but just had a googlestion saying 'the finale' is the longest episode. I'll withdraw my grousing temporarily with an option to reinstate. But really, who does 9 episodes?

[Glacier Peak]

I kinda thought Episode 8 was a filler. Not a lot of forward movement, mostly filling in plot holes and exposition. It was still worth the watch though. And I'm excited for the finale!

[twozerofoxtrot]

  On 2/21/2021 at 3:19 PM, TemporalVileTerror said:

I miss the days when everything was just on Netflix.

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When this was the case, I was in Korea where Netflix didn't have license to operate. So I ended up paying for a VPN.

Now I'm in Korea again, and though Netflix is available I now have the same problem with Disney+. Luckily NordVPN is very good and will automatically cycle IPs (or something?) until Disney+ relents and plays*.

 

Anyhow, all that to say basically the more things change, the more they stay the same. A good VPN is sometimes the necessary evil you need to get around regional restrictions. 

 

*Disney+ blocks known VPN-associated IPs

[SuperPlyx]

Just wanted to say thanx to you guys I kept watching and I am very glad I did. I really enjoyed it. Interesting to me the number of people who seemed to not care for the finale I thought it was great.

One thing that tickled me was through most of the final fight Wanda was wearing a hoodie, sweatpants and sneakers. I am easily amused 😛

[Bopper]

  On 3/6/2021 at 12:36 PM, SuperPlyx said:

Just wanted to say thanx to you guys I kept watching and I am very glad I did. I really enjoyed it. Interesting to me the number of people who seemed to not care for the finale I thought it was great.

One thing that tickled me was through most of the final fight Wanda was wearing a hoodie, sweatpants and sneakers. I am easily amused 😛

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I was really hoping there would be a reveal of a connection between the X-men universe and Avengers universe. When Pietro was "re-cast" as the X-men version, I was 95% sure they would do something with that. But they ended up just making him some dude named Ralph. That was the disappointing part for me. 

[Techwright]

Well, they ruined many of my ideas, but that's half the fun.

 

A few observations in wrap-up:

 

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1.  Wanda's odd last comment to the twins:  "Thank you for picking me to be your mom" or something like that.  Wait, what?  Didn't we just see the twins start to disintegrate when the Hex walls were coming down?  That seems a pretty sure proof the twins were her constructs.  But she says "pick".  Are the minds of the twins something else external to Wanda's power?

 

2. So Agatha was the villain, or perhaps the anti-hero, since, after all, she did force Wanda to really look at what she was doing.  It's her repeated final comments that grab my attention:  "You don't know what you're doing." or words to that effect.  So it seems there's something disastrous still in Wanda's future.  Look like Agatha surmised that Wanda had power but not skill and deemed it important to remove that power to prevent whatever disaster she foresaw happening. 

 

3.  Similar to #1, there's that kid's cry for help at the very end.  Is that a cry from another part of the multi-verse?

 

4.  Fantasy Vision couldn't take a few seconds to tell Wanda that White Vision now has a copy of his mind?  That would do a lot to ease Wanda's grief.  And for that matter, why did White Vision fly off when receiving the Vision identity.  Wouldn't Vision want to stay to help Wanda?

 

5.  Very odd that Darcy was literally in this conclusion for mere seconds, and that an excuse was made for her missing presence during the tag.  Did the actress fall sick or something and the part deeply trimmed?

 

[TemporalVileTerror]

My spouse's review of WandaVision:   "I didn't hate it."
Her way of saying "it has some obvious flaws, but it wasn't actively -bad,- and mostly enjoyable."

To me . . . it feels like the story was left hanging in preparation for . . . something else.  Given Marvel's track record, and what we discussed in that other thread here, I suspect some of those loose threads (such as @Techwright's list there) are going to be addressed in Multiverse of Madness and Loki.

[SuperPlyx]

Saw a great headline in my news feed this morning:

"‘WandaVision’ Failed to Deliver Things That Were Never Promised to Me"

[Troo]

WandaVision failed to deliver on hype. Good way to lower some expectations.

[Darmian]

And that Darkhold look is nawt like that seen elsewhere.

[Techwright]

  On 3/7/2021 at 2:46 PM, Troo said:

WandaVision failed to deliver on hype. Good way to lower some expectations.

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Well true, but to be fair, not all the hype was spun by Disney/Marvel, so they can't be fully blamed. 

 

And in addition WandaVision gave us:

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1. Photon.  We'd seen Monica as a kid, but now we see her as a fully realized hero, and I'm excited to see what they'll do with the character, especially since this is the first Marvel superhero of which I've no previous knowledge.   I'd love to see a standalone movie, or at least a duo like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

 

2. White Vision - the second Marvel character of which I've no previous knowledge.  With the return of his memories I'm interested to see if he's exactly the same, or if, like Gamora's reboot, there'll be significant differences to his personality.

 

3. The Twins - if the tag scene is any indication, we've not seen the end of them.

 

4. Agatha Harkness - neatly tucked away for future stories.

 

5. SWORD - Hayward may be history, but I suspect we'll see lots more of these guys.

 

6. More screen time with some of the beloved secondary characters:  Darcy and Jimmy Woo.  And in Woo's case, there was some significant character development.

 

There's probably more I've forgotten to mention, but that's still an impressive list moving the MCU forward.  So some hype is justified.  There's also one huge remaining plot hole:  WHERE WERE ALL THE REMAINING AVENGERS WHEN THIS HAPPENED??  You'd think they'd at least call in those who've worked with Wanda, like Hawkeye who motivated her in Avengers 2, to try to reach out to her.  Then again, if the Secovia Accords are still in play, that actually could be an answer, and one that reveals in future stories.  Secretary Ross may be blocking information to them, and in the case of Rhodey, actually having him arrested and on trial.

 

Edited March 7, 2021 by Techwright

[Darmian]

And Woo was was there to investigate a Witness Protection case.  So WHO was in Witness Protection in that town?

[Techwright]

  On 3/7/2021 at 3:11 PM, Darmian said:

And that Darkhold look is nawt like that seen elsewhere.

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True, but if you're thinking of anything within the MCU TV shows, Feige more or less cut the TV shows loose and had nothing further to do with them.  So essentially he made several of them alternate universes by that decision (though not formally stated as such).  There's also the (admittedly thin) possibility that the Darkhold appears as more than one copy in a single universe.