Disney+ Marvel's What If? (1 Viewer)

[TonyD]

Yes but there was more of the wheels come flying off.
There was sometimes a second story in the back of the book that was more of a happy ending so to speak.

I was really expecting someone to end up sacrificing themselves on this due to that happening often on the original run.

 

[Museum Pieces]

I remember buying the first issue of this when it hit the stands back in 1977 (and still have the floppies). I thought the first episode was a lot of fun. I felt the same excitement and wonder reading the comic back in the day that I did watching this episode. Love to see the new universe of Marvel get the same What If? treatment the old one got on pulp. I never dreamed growing up I would be treated to a franchise of such breadth that could make me happy through my forties and into my fifties. And it just keeps coming.

And my favorite all time issue....

 

[Jake Lipson]

I just watched the Captain Carter episode following a rewatch of The First Avenger movie this afternoon.

I thought this episode was okay, but I was unmoved. Part of the problem with revisiting a two hour movie in a half hour format is that there's not enough time, and that certainly was the case here. It assumes that we care about this scenario because we care about Steve and Peggy's characters from the film. We know how this goes and we know the emotional beats from the film that they are passing by in order to cram the episode into roughly 1/4 of the time. But the lack of that means I wasn't really invested in this version of the characters. I also hope that there are episodes in the future that don't hew so closely to the structure of a single movie. For a show that can go anywhere and do anything, they really didn't shift that much here. It feels like the show will get more interesting if they make bolder choices about what to change and the direction that goes in so that there is not an exact 1-to-1 comparison between an episode and a given film.

It was great to have Haley Atwell doing Peggy's voice, but I absolutely felt the lack of Chris Evans in the role of Steve.

This episode was a C for me, but I'll keep watching. Going to a different scenario next week will be fun, but having to set that up and resolve it in the course of half an hour might be a challenge for the show going forward. We'll see.

 

[Jake Lipson]

The second episode is up now. I can say without spoilers because it was shown in the trailers and talked about quite a bit pre-release that this is the T'Challa as Star Lord episode. Actually, I think that's also part of the episode title.

They are clearly riffing on a couple of centerpiece sequences from the first Guardians of the Galaxy here. However, the presence of T'Challa and lack of presence of the traditional Guardians characters ends up being a much more significant change than last week.

The reason I was kind of meh on the first episode is because switching Peggy and Steve still bound them to the general structure of The First Avenger film. Here, even though we remember the locations from the film, the story being told here felt like it was a different experience. So much is changed by T'Challa being here that I really wasn't sure what was going to happen next, which made this a lot more fun. T'Challa and Peter are not from the same franchise, and the fun of it is seeing how T'Challa interacts with a totally different environment than we are used to seeing him in.

It should not come as a surprise to anyone that Boseman inhabits this version of T'Challa as throughly as he did the original one. It is so great to hear him in this role again. Fortunately, he recorded four episodes in total, so we still have three more to go after this one. I am not prepared for how I am going to feel after watching the fourth of them.

The introductory scene with The Watcher's opening monologue is the same as last week except that the credits include the names of actors from this week. You might want to see if you can fast forward through it. We knew already that Chadwick Boseman and Michael Rooker were in this episode, but there are also some returning characters voiced by their original actors who I wish I had not known were going to appear this week. There is even one in particular which the episode plays as a surprise moment when they show up, but I knew they were going to be there because I saw the person's name in the opening credits. It's a very notable name, too. So I think the rest of you might enjoy the episode more if you don't see the opening credits.

I think that's about as much as I can say without spoilers.

 

[TonyD]

I think this was a much more interesting episode then the first one.

It was fun and changed things from the prime-verse enough to be much more intriguing.

Also there is at least one cameo that I did not see listed in the opening credits.

Didn’t care for the voice actor who was doing Drax, sounded like Seth Rogen.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Also there is at least one cameo that I did not see listed in the opening credits.

The ones I would have liked to be surprised by were

Spoiler

Josh Brolin as Thanos and especially Kurt Russell as Ego, given how he entered the episode as something of a surprise.

Didn’t care for the voice actor who was doing Drax

I agree with that. It is wonderful that so many actors from the MCU films are reprising their roles in this, but that makes it extra noticeable when they do have to use a soundalike. Dave Bautista was very much missed.

 

[Sam Favate]

I enjoyed this one a lot. I agree Bautista was missed, but I was impressed with all the movie talent they had on hand for this one.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Given that the episode ended with a tease for "a story at another time," I wonder if we're actually going to see that story in a future episode or not.

Spoiler

I think they were implying that without ever having met the other Guardians characters, Peter is more susceptible to Ego's plan and Ego would successfully be able to use Peter to help him destroy the world in this timeline. It would be kind of interesting to see what a life on Earth would have been like for Peter because he never got taken by Yondu. Another question is why Ego needed Yondu to get him In the first place because this episode clearly shows that Ego was able to find him on Earth in this timeline.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

why Ego needed Yondu to get him In the first place

So the movie could happen!

 

[Museum Pieces]

I'm not going to watch the opening credits anymore. I loved this episode but would have loved it a lot more if I had been surprised by some of the heavy hitters.

Love this series so far!

 

[Edwin-S]

Episode 2 didn't do much for me, except make me cringe at the premise of the Ravagers being Robin Hoods. The best part was theT-challa/Starlord interaction with Howard the Duck. It was the only part where the dialog felt like how real people talk.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I would like to reiterate my advice from last week. I fast forwarded through the opening credits for this week's episode again and was glad I did. There are characters whose appearances are treated as surprises within the episode's narrative, but you'd know they appear if you see the actor's name in the opening credits. It seems like this would be an ideal series to not have opening credits for that reason, but they do. So it falls on us fans to manually skip that to avoid spoilers.

The series continues to get better at riffing on certain elements of movies we've seen before without being tied down to playing out the overarching scenario in an overly familiar fashion. I'll leave it there until more people have seen episode 3.

 

[TonyD]

Really liked episode three.

Turned out to be a pretty decent murder mystery that needed solving.

Also I watch on the Atv and there is a little skip credits pop up.
Does this not pop up on other devices?

 

[Jake Lipson]

Does this not pop up on other devices?

I watch via my Roku. I've seen that on other Disney+ shows but not on this one. Odd.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Interesting in light of the very public spat between Scarlett Johansson and Disney that not only did she not voice Black Widow in this episode, but they didn't even use her likeness. Instead, it was a generic redhead as Natasha.

RDJ and Brie Larson didn't voice their characters, either, but at least the animated versions looked like them.

Really liked episode three.

Turned out to be a pretty decent murder mystery that needed solving.

It was definitely the best standalone story of the three, with a solid beginning middle and end. I just wish this show had a bigger scope. When they change something, we only see the initial ripples rather than the tidal waves they become.

I watch via my Roku. I've seen that on other Disney+ shows but not on this one. Odd.

It was there on my Roku Ultra, as "Skip Intro".

 

[Jake Lipson]

Interesting in light of the very public spat between Scarlett Johansson and Disney that not only did she not voice Black Widow in this episode, but they didn't even use her likeness. Instead, it was a generic redhead as Natasha.

I think that is a total coincidence because work on this episode would have been done ages ago. I found it more interesting that Johansson did voice Ka in The Jungle Book for Disney, as well as Samantha in Her. This proves she is clearly not opposed to VoiceOver work, but either didn't want to or couldn't come to a deal to voice her longest-running character.

I think it is great that so many cast members from the MCU have come back for this series. However, that has the unintentional effect of drawing specific attention to when a soundalike has to be used instead.

RDJ and Brie Larson didn't voice their characters, either, but at least the animated versions looked like them.

Given the limited use of them in this episode, I was really surprised neither of them wanted to collect an easy check. I mean, Carol says four words! She could have recorded that in less time than It takes to read this post. Presumably, future episodes will use the characters in more substantial ways and I guess they didn't want to do that.

I just wish this show had a bigger scope. When they change something, we only see the initial ripples rather than the tidal waves they become.

I agree. I would like to see "sequel" episodes to both last week (involving whaat happens to Peter in that universe) and this week (to see what happens next in this universe with the remaining characters at the end.) In future seasons, perhaps they could take two or three episodes to play out one scenario as a multi-parter instead of feeling the need to switch every single episode.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I think that is a total coincidence because work on this episode would have been done ages ago.

That's why I'm wondering if the issues between Disney and Johansson go back further, with the lawsuit simply being the first time the dispute went public.

In other words, I don't think she skipped this series because of her lawsuit over Black Widow. But the decision not to participate in this series might have sprung from ongoing dissatisfaction with her compensation that would ultimately lead to the lawsuit.

However, that has the unintentional effect of drawing specific attention to when a soundalike has to be used instead.

I thought Josh Keaton did a really solid Evans impression as skinny Steve. Fred Tatasciore and Mick Wingert weren't as good as Drax and Tony Stark, respectively, but they weren't so far off as to be distracting. Given that we haven't seen Betty Ross since the Ed Norton movie, I didn't really care if she was a perfect replication of Liv Tyler's performance -- as far as I'm concerned, any characters from The Incredible Hulk that haven't appeared in subsequent MCU movies are subject to recasting like the title character.

But Scarlett Johansson has such a distinctive voice that even a talented voice actress like Lake Bell can't capture all of the nuances.

 

[NeilO]

I agree. I would like to see "sequel" episodes to both last week (involving whaat happens to Peter in that universe) and this week (to see what happens next in this universe with the remaining characters at the end.) In future seasons, perhaps they could take two or three episodes to play out one scenario as a multi-parter instead of feeling the need to switch every single episode.

We have 9 episodes this season. I've no idea what is in the remaining 6 (and haven't looked to try to figure it out). Those two episodes are begging for sequels.

I really do hope we see at least some glimpses of these in other Phase 4 multi-verse stories.

I am hoping that once we have seen all 9 (if not sooner) we have a good feel for just how this series may impact the rest of Phase 4.

Regarding watching the opening credits, this time I just let it play out and did not look up until I felt it was safe to do so.

As far as the mystery - as soon as we heard the critical word when the analysis was done on the first murder, I would guess most of us knew who the culprit had to be. We just didn't know why and how they were going to prove it.

Just noticed that on the Wikipedia page for the show that it says "A second nine-episode season is expected to premiere as early as 2022." Maybe the sequels we be included in that run?

 

[TonyD]

I think that while the second show was really good I don’t remember what the main idea or plot was.

I wouldn’t mind seeing What If T’Challa was able to talk Thanos out of Genocide and then take it from there.

 

[Sam Favate]

I enjoyed episode 3. It reminded me of the old What If series from the 70s, and I wonder if the germ of the idea for this one came from here: