Why MCU Writing Sucks Now | Scene Comparison

Riri is the perfect example of a stupid writers understanding of what a smart person would be like.

Riri's comic origin was actually much worse than it is shown here. Her teacher was encouraging her that she could be anything that she wanted. However, Riri is a professional victim and demanded that her teacher tells her that she can't do something so it would motivate her to prove the teacher wrong. The teacher then just randomly says that she can't be Ironman and thus, Riri made her own Ironman suit. Edit for correction: Someone below pointed out that the teacher actually just said she couldn't be Tony Stark, not Ironman. Also, she didn't build her own armor, she stole it (she did make her own arc reactor). That just makes it worse. Think about it, out of all the things Tony has done, Riri focuses purely on a suit of armor with tons of deadly weapons. That's like saying if you want to be like Steve Rogers, you must have the SS serum and the shield to be like him, instead of focusing on how he stands up for the little guy, how he is unshakable in his morals, and how he lays down his life to help other.

Bruce Banner's character was at its peak in The Avengers. The way he handled Natasha Romanoff on first meeting her, and building the beginning of a friendship with Tony Stark, was just a joy to watch.

I love how Riri literally killed a couple of cops during her escape from the warehouse and faces absolutely no repercussions for it. Brilliant writing.

One thing that bothers me about the current MCU is that they tell don't show. You can see this with characters who are supposed to be intelligent. Tony Stark is constantly shown doing technical things. Riri is just claiming to be smart. It's annoying.

With the Hulk scene, it completely doesn't work as she is not telling him what to do, not wearing something up to her neck to hide her sexuality, and he's not acting like a blundering fool constantly trying to be a stupid male character. Totally unrealistic.

Apologists will say “you’re not meant to over analyze these scenes” but not only does this awesome breakdown show just the total lack of writing capacity, but I would be totally fine if this was a 30 min CW episode. Much less time, much less money, writers will do what they have to. But this is a hundreds of millions of dollar production! How the hell did they manage to fill a room with writers who so fundamentally don’t understand writing basics?

Friendly reminder that in the comics, Riri Williams basically gaslit her teacher into saying that she'll never succeed, even though the teacher was already supportive of her endeavors. At least they skipped that part in the movie.

Also, can I just say how insane it is that they portrayed MIT as having a white dude-bro jock type who has to cheat to get through classes? In order to create a scene and use stereotypes to play strawman to their agument (white males are lazy/dumb and abuse black people's/women's work), they portrayed the top science and technology school in the U.S., possibly the world, as the kind of place where a lazy jock pays others to do his work. This might have flown if the scene was Ohio State, but MIT??? They clearly have NO IDEA what kind of people go to MIT. They are all STEM geeks to the nth degree. MIT famously has tragically high suicide/depression/drop out rates because the standards and competition are so high. These people go to incredibly difficult classes, all with lab work. MIT DOES NOT HAVE DUDE-BRO JOCKS!!!

I'm a black woman who got a STEM PhD almost 20 years ago. My professors and advisors saw I did good work and treated me accordingly. I think there are jerks out there who prejudge people based on things like race or sex, but it's not the 50s anymore. So I find those kind of beat you over the head with the racist professor scenes off putting.

My favorite introduction for an MCU character was Falcon. We got to know him as Steve did, and in the end he felt like our friend as much as he was Steve's. I wasnt even sure if he was going to don the wings at all, but that didn't matter, because he was not only a truly likeable, interesting guy, but also helped us understand Steve and Natasha more. Those character moments weren't there to broadcast why Sam was above average or sooooo interesting, they were there to serve the character and the story. They elevated a D-tier character I never cared too much about in the comics to one of my favorite characters in the MCU. On your left.

The best part of Bruce's introduction scene is how much it contrasts with Natasha's competence in her own introduction earlier in the film by putting her in a situation that she was not equipped for. We see her coerce people with power or advantage by presenting herself as vulnerable and letting them flaunt their ego. Bruce is very different from everything she's probably had to deal with up til this point, because unlike virtually every mark she's had that would call for a spy he demonstratively has no ego for her to stroke and none of the traditional vulnerabilities she would use for leverage. Instead, he's in perpetual survival mode: he is always studying his surroundings, he volunteers nothing more than what is necessary, and most importantly: he is never disarmed and always advantaged should a confrontation occur even when isolated. She is a fish out of water in this scene, which is an effective revelation after her introduction (and prior appearance in Iron Man 2) places her chief character trait as being in control or taking control of any situation she is directly involved in, and its only when Bruce de-escalates after scaring her that she visibly recognizes this. The actors did an incredible job selling their character traits with this scene better than any origin story ever could, and the scene achieves all of these things without diminishing the value of either character. Good scenes are built with a transformation in mind: a development that alters the state of something within the story.

6:39, when Sheldon in the Big Bang Theory calls MIT a “trade school” the show isn’t trying to emphasize Sheldon’s intelligence but his arrogance and contempt for others.

One of the biggest things that bothers me is why Riri has to exist at all in the MCU when Shuri is the exact same character as Resident Black Girl Engineer Genius. It would have made better sense to bring back Harley Keener from Iron Man 3. He was at Tony's funeral, implying that he had a relationship with Tony after said movie, and has already showed a love of engineering as well then too as he helped Tony with his ruined suit. Build on that! Have him mourn the loss of his mentor and grow into his legacy as Ironwill or Ironclad or some other cool persona.

I also want to point out that 2012 Avengers doesn't even have the best dialogue compared to other MCU movies yet it is still miles ahead from what we are getting nowadays

Riri's origins in the comics came from her pure narcissism of wanting to prove she can do anything. Her teacher flat out told her she can do anything if she can set her mind to it, but Riri insisted that her teacher needs to talk down to her and deny her big "Dream" to inflate her ego. She has no character arc, no growth, no challenges, she's just perfect from the get-go. I don't understand why Disney really thought this character would be a great addition to the MCU.

I love what you said about how "being overpowered doesn’t immediately make a character a Mary Sue". There are plenty of characters who are immensely powerful in their respective universes, Ben 10, Satoru Gojo in Jujutsu Kaisen, Superman and Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach just to name a few. But the difference between these characters and someone like Riri, Captain Marvel and others, is that their is an internal struggle each character must overcome. A Mary Sue/Gary Stue, lacks an internal struggle, because the writers believe they don't need them, that the characters they have created are so amazing, loveable and perfect, that the audience doesn’t need to see them struggle. You see how Ben needs to become the leader Max knew he could become, when the latter supposedly sacrificed himself. You see how Gojo's burden of being the strongest Sourcerer has on his mentality. You see how much Clark must limit himself to inspire others and you see how much Ichigo burdens himself with protecting as many people as he can, even before he had any powers. Riri and Carol's struggles are simply making others recognise just how great they already think they are, Riri is a brat who has trates that are normally seen as negative, she's a bully, self-centred and cocky, but these are meant to he good things because she's a black girl doing them instead of a bully trope character from a late 80s highschool movie. And just as an example of a female character who, whilst powerful is not a Mary Sue, in case someone thinks I'm being sexist for only discussing male characters. Raven from the Teen Titans animated series is the most powerful member of her team, but she's also the most introverted. Raven secludes herself in her books, spells and meditation, she's afraid to get close to others, her internal struggle is learning that its ok to be different, because her friends love her regardless and know that despite her heritage, she is more than Trigon's daughter. A characters lack of struggles and universal ass bending love for them is what makes them a Mary Sue, not just that they are incredibly poweful, by the standards of their respective universe

4:30 There's also foreshadowing in Natasha and Banner, as later in the movie her fear of Bruce is justified when he transforms into the Hulk in front of her and tries to kill her. It retroactively makes you appreciate why she was scared at the start of the movie. Also, Banner's statement about not being a good idea to shoot him ties into his revelation later that he tried to kill himself. That's how he knows a bullet won't kill him.

If the Riri scene drives you up the wall then you actually need to read her origin story in Marvel comics. Its completely accurate and will make you add more grey hair to your head.

About the "Young gifted and Black" line... I have mentioned, more than once how the MCU's American Civil Rights timeline and society has been altered from phase 1 and 2 (in particular Captain America 1 and Agent Carter. They had an integrated US Army in WWII and there was a papered black physics proffesor in 1950. Bucky and Steve, sons of Irish imigrants born around 1910, have no issues or discomfort around black people, at all. Yet, now, it's become "current day America"... how?