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This is a Discussion Thread for Doctor Strange. It will contain Spoilers for the movie
I just saw the MCU Doctor Strange movie, and decided to create a thread for discussing it. Firstly, I will give my general thoughts on the movie, strictly as a movie:
Overall, I enjoyed it. The movie was well written and competently put together. It's well shot, well directed, the plot moves at a good pace, it's never dull and the production is solid. It's a Marvel movie, they know how to be at least decent.
Benedict Cumberbatch is a good lead as Doctor Stephen Strange, who himself is one of the more interesting Marvel protagonists. He is flawed, arrogant, selfish and along the way goes through a solid character arc, though by the end he isn't quite a hero. While he does devolve into the standard "Witty and Quippy" Marvel Protagonist a couple times, I really enjoyed him. Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One was also a highlight. I won't touch on the controversies surrounding the changes cause I frankly don't care for it, but what I did care about was how entertaining, interesting and charming her whole character was. Really felt she was ultimately underused, though.
The supporting cast was also decent. Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mordo, Benedict Wong as... Wong, and Rachel McAdams as the love interest Christine were all fine, with the former too fulfilling their roles well enough. However, Strange's romance with the Christine was incredibly formulaic. They start as bickering friends, they break apart, he feels remorse over it, tries to reconnect with her, plot brings them together again and by the end they are a couple, even though they have maybe 5 scenes together and their later interactions take place in about... A weekend in story?
Mads Mikkelsen as the villain Kaecillus was alright. MCU is known for having little to no decent antagonists in it's pictures, with the only exceptions I can think of being Loki, The Winter Soldier and Zemo, though all of them are more tragic anti-villains. Kaecillus himself has little visual presence in the movie, and isn't in it enough to develop antagonist with Strange, nor does he feel like a particularly threatening foe, despite all his dark magic powers, but he does the job alright. Certainly better than what became of The Mandarin in the MCU.
Speaking of magic, the movie shines in that department. I loved the look of all things mystical and cosmic in it, and enjoyed the explanations regarding the mechanics of spells. Drawing mystical energies from parallel dimensions and utilizing it to create "Programs" in this universe, which bend reality? It all works rather well, and at no point in the movie they attempt to handwave it as scientific. It has it's own rules and limitations, but it is entirely supernatural, which I like. No "The Norse Gods are actually aliens" here.
The world of the Sorcerers and their capabilities felt somewhat limited, however. I loved all about it, but I wanted to see more. Despite how hyped I was to see Strange's powers, no one really does much in it. There is Spatial Manipulation, Time Bending, Astral Projection, Energy Attacks... And that's about it. And while what we learn of magic, parallel dimensions, the multiverse and cosmic beings is interesting, I wanted to learn more. It was weird that in a movie about a scientist encountering a mystical world, the very real and known Norse Deities that exist were never once mentioned. I would have liked to see the Sorcerers' perspective on that.
The action setpieces were all well put, specially the Inception-like moment that you've seen in all the trailers. The movie uses it's gimmicks and ideas to provide beautiful scenes, with two of them excelling and making me wish the movie was more Cosmic-centric and less Earth-focused. The Climax was a highlight with how Strange won through his brain rather than raw power. Won't spoil it, but I was smiling all the way.
Overall, it was a solid flick.
Now, let's Versus Debate and talk Spoilers:
I just saw the MCU Doctor Strange movie, and decided to create a thread for discussing it. Firstly, I will give my general thoughts on the movie, strictly as a movie:
Overall, I enjoyed it. The movie was well written and competently put together. It's well shot, well directed, the plot moves at a good pace, it's never dull and the production is solid. It's a Marvel movie, they know how to be at least decent.
Benedict Cumberbatch is a good lead as Doctor Stephen Strange, who himself is one of the more interesting Marvel protagonists. He is flawed, arrogant, selfish and along the way goes through a solid character arc, though by the end he isn't quite a hero. While he does devolve into the standard "Witty and Quippy" Marvel Protagonist a couple times, I really enjoyed him. Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One was also a highlight. I won't touch on the controversies surrounding the changes cause I frankly don't care for it, but what I did care about was how entertaining, interesting and charming her whole character was. Really felt she was ultimately underused, though.
The supporting cast was also decent. Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mordo, Benedict Wong as... Wong, and Rachel McAdams as the love interest Christine were all fine, with the former too fulfilling their roles well enough. However, Strange's romance with the Christine was incredibly formulaic. They start as bickering friends, they break apart, he feels remorse over it, tries to reconnect with her, plot brings them together again and by the end they are a couple, even though they have maybe 5 scenes together and their later interactions take place in about... A weekend in story?
Mads Mikkelsen as the villain Kaecillus was alright. MCU is known for having little to no decent antagonists in it's pictures, with the only exceptions I can think of being Loki, The Winter Soldier and Zemo, though all of them are more tragic anti-villains. Kaecillus himself has little visual presence in the movie, and isn't in it enough to develop antagonist with Strange, nor does he feel like a particularly threatening foe, despite all his dark magic powers, but he does the job alright. Certainly better than what became of The Mandarin in the MCU.
Speaking of magic, the movie shines in that department. I loved the look of all things mystical and cosmic in it, and enjoyed the explanations regarding the mechanics of spells. Drawing mystical energies from parallel dimensions and utilizing it to create "Programs" in this universe, which bend reality? It all works rather well, and at no point in the movie they attempt to handwave it as scientific. It has it's own rules and limitations, but it is entirely supernatural, which I like. No "The Norse Gods are actually aliens" here.
The world of the Sorcerers and their capabilities felt somewhat limited, however. I loved all about it, but I wanted to see more. Despite how hyped I was to see Strange's powers, no one really does much in it. There is Spatial Manipulation, Time Bending, Astral Projection, Energy Attacks... And that's about it. And while what we learn of magic, parallel dimensions, the multiverse and cosmic beings is interesting, I wanted to learn more. It was weird that in a movie about a scientist encountering a mystical world, the very real and known Norse Deities that exist were never once mentioned. I would have liked to see the Sorcerers' perspective on that.
The action setpieces were all well put, specially the Inception-like moment that you've seen in all the trailers. The movie uses it's gimmicks and ideas to provide beautiful scenes, with two of them excelling and making me wish the movie was more Cosmic-centric and less Earth-focused. The Climax was a highlight with how Strange won through his brain rather than raw power. Won't spoil it, but I was smiling all the way.
Overall, it was a solid flick.
Now, let's Versus Debate and talk Spoilers:
- Firstly, a general rundown of the abilities Doctor Strange holds by the end of the movie: Energy Manipulation and Projection, capable of small energy waves and Energy weapons such as swords, shields and whips. Limited Spatial Manipulation. Astral Projection and the capability to affect and even kill souls. Flight with the Cloak of Levitation. Teleportation through Dimensional Gates. Impressive Time Manipulation with the Eye of Agamoto (More on that later)
- Secondly, all the impressive feats we see in the trailers? They all happen through the usage of the Mirror Dimension, a parallel world where a mage's powers are greatly increased. It's there that the City Level Spatial Manipulation happens. Underwhelming
- In the real world, the mages at best display Building level Manipulation. They don't appear particularly durable or faster than Peak Humans, either, with the Ancient One and Kaecillus being the only exception. If we accept feats from the Prequel Comic, we might end up with Multi-City Block level sorcerers with Subsonic Reaction speed.
- The Eye of Agamoto is incredibly powerful, capable of manipulating time in a variety of ways, like rewinding and fast-forwaring time indefinitely, stopping time, creating infinite time-loops which repeat events while giving the user memory of previous versions, time paradoxes, etc. The reason it is so powerful is explained in the Spoiler Section.
- Dormammu is in the movie through cameos. He is described as "A being of Infinite power", who draws power from mortals' fear of death across the multiverse. He exists beyond time in the Dark Dimension, a universe he apparently created / rules in which there is no past, present or future. His goal is to eventually consume all the multiverse into it, increasing his power. He invades physical universes and consumes entire worlds and more. It's left ambiguous if the Dark Dimension contains entire universes inside it, but I believe it does. In short, he is likely Low 2-C while in the Dark Dimension, Unknown outside of it.
- I disliked how The Ancient One died midway through the movie. She was a very interesting character that was sorta wasted.
- Speaking of The Ancient One, plot holes abound with her. If she is the strongest mage on the universe, possibly the multiverse, and holds an item that can rewind time infinitely, why does the movie have a plot? She could have easily stopped Kaecillus if she wanted. She is also revealed to have some level of Precognition, viewing into possible future timelines and knowing when she would die. So why couldn't she avoid the events of the movie?
- The Eye of Agamoto, by the way, is actually the Infinity Stone of Time, if you people hadn't figured out by now.
- The way the movie depicts the Multiverse was incredibly fascinating to me. It appears as a multi-colored kaleidoscope-like cosmic environment with nebulaes, whirlpools, mirror dimensions, worlds, etc. At one point they depict the whole thing as one cosmic cellular-structure, with each universe resembling a cell connected to others. Really cool visuals.
- There is a really random name-drop to The Living Tribunal in the movie. It comes out of nowhere and just left me with questions. I wonder if he will ever appear in a movie. Probably Infinity War Part 2.
- From the way the movie depicts the Multiverse, it seems that each universe is fundamentally different, rather than it being infinite versions of our universe. The Ancient One is said to be the only one across the multiverse, for example.
- Mordo turns to evil during the progression of the movie, being disillusioned to learn that many of The Ancient One's greater powers are drawn from Dormammu's Dark Dimension, like her immortality. While I understand that the character viewed her as a paragon and was completely obedient to her and followed every order and regulation to a t, I feel that it is short-sighted from his perspective. She used dark powers, yes, but she only ever did good deeds with them, being Earth's primary protector against cosmic forces for centuries.
- In the end of the movie, Doctor Strange saves the day by going into the Dark Dimension which is consuming Earth, and making a deal with Dormammu. Before meeting, he sets up a time-loop with the Eye of Agamoto, so that he and Dormammu are trapped in an endless loop where they meet, Strange is instantly obliterated, and then it repeats. Eventually (How long they remained like that is ambiguous, could be "years") Dormammu agrees to spare Earth and absorb his servants if Strange will break the loop. I found it a really creative solution.
- The Mid Credits scene is Strange and Thor talking about cosmic and otherwordly threats on Earth while the former drinks tea and the other a giant cup of beer. Thor explain that he and Loki are searching for the disappeared Odin, and Strange agrees to help. This makes me all the more excited for Thor: Ragnarok, which up until now I had no good hopes for.
- The End Credits is simply setting up Mordo as the sequel's villain.
