People only feel this way because Disney's Marvel themselves screwed it up. There are currently 4 different versions of their multiverse, with all 4 versions having their own concepts and rules as to how it works:
-What If
-Doctor Strange MoM
-Spiderman NWH
-Loki
A part of me wants to count Quantumania because technically it exists outside of time and space and it made the whole situation/storyline with Kang so shaky that Loki S2 has to now pick up that slack.
Regardless, this level of rule/concept confusion is unprecedented in a brand that was built on displaying synergy amongst all of their movies and TV. It's very clear that whatever lore-team they had during phase 1, 2, and mostly 3, has been stretched way too thin to care about making everything cohesive and connect properly. I can't recall the last time there's been a subtle(not obvious) callback to a previous movie or show, for example the exchange of critical dialogue between Cap and Iron Man in Endgame. The lore team should have been absolutely vital during this phase so that a simple little animated movie about Miles Morales doesn't do a better job than a billion dollar franchise.
I hadn't thought about it until you mentioned it, but it's definitely not the same. I don't know if it's because it's all gotten so big and disconnected, or because people care less about the declining MCU, or because the novelty of the crossover has worn off entirely, but those crossovers and cameos just don't really matter any more.
Phase 4 was so underwhelming I didn't even know it ended. What was the climactic moment of Phase 4 that you could point to and say "That's where it was all going"? Phase 4 for all intents and purposes
is still going. Yes, late Phase 2/early Phase 3 looks a bit wonky on paper, but at least there were some Avengers movies round about the end and you knew where it was going. From what I can see online, not even Phase 5 is going anywhere. That's 14 movies without going anywhere. 14 movies into Phase 1-2 you'd had the build up and payoff of 2 Avengers movies and Civil War, which was Avengers 3 in all but name.
MCU peaked in quality, now it trades quality (relative terms, Scorsese) for empty quantity. Deadpool 3, Blade, Fantastic Four, and X-Men are the only things I'm interested in going forward because they're the opportunity to do something fresh. Despite what I said above, I don't even care about Avengers future movies any more because there's not a team of people to care about. Spider-Man aside, the current heroes are one of the following:
•B-team lesser replacement promoted only to fill a vacuum left by a loved character's departure
•Comedy character
•Previously strong character emasculated down to comedy tier
•A failed push by management
•Doctor Strange, who doesn't so much get plot buffs as he gets plot nerfs
Maybe Scarlet Witch returns and gets a face turn, she's actually formiddable.
At least when it's all gone downhill I can pretend they did Deadpool Kills the MCU.
I'm more interested in whatever they do with Daredevil than most of the coming movies.
