Hideo Kojima’s warning is Marvel’s last shot at saving the franchise — don’t fumble it now
Dear Marvel: If Hideo Kojima, the master of confusing stories, thinks your story is too confusing, then you’re definitely in trouble.
Kojima was seemingly not impressed with the recent Marvel Cinematic Universe offering, Captain America: Brave New World. He wrote on X yesterday, “I watched ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ in IMAX. I vaguely remember Sam receiving the shield in Endgame,’ but when did he officially become Cap? Is it because I haven’t seen ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier?’ And what’s this about the Avengers being reorganized? I’m also getting it mixed up with the ‘Thunderbolts’ trailer.”
If you’re starting to think MCU movies could use a “previously on,” you’re absolutely right. The fact of the matter is, you need to watch so much in order to understand the latest movies, including Disney+ shows that require buying a subscription for, and audiences are really turned off by that. Kojima didn’t see The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, so he won’t recognize Joaquin Torres or Isaiah Bradley, who were both introduced in that show. But Brave New World acts if we should know them.
The other trouble is that Brave New World serves as a sequel of sorts to The Incredible Hulk… which was released fifteen years ago. Even those who really like the MCU have long since forgotten Samuel Sterns or Betty Ross. Alright, so Betty popped up briefly in What If…? but seriously, how many people watched that?
This isn’t to say MCU newcomers/casual fans won’t get anything at all out of Brave New World, but they’ll likely be as confused as Kojima was about the finer details of the universe and where it’s going. (It doesn’t help that the upcoming Thunderbolts* and Brave New World seem to be similar thematically as well, I’m sure Kojima’s not the only one confusing the two.) However, if you’re looking for a reason why negative reviews keep pouring in, you need to look no further in my opinion. No, Trumpers, it’s not because Captain America is Black now – it’s because the MCU is starting to collapse under its own weight.
The Marvels is another movie that suffered from this, and it’s a shame, because it was a great showcase for all three of its leading ladies. But in order to understand it, you had to have watched Captain Marvel, WandaVision, and Ms Marvel. Oh, and it would have helped to have watched Hawkeye, Thor: Ragnarok, and the original X-Men trilogy in order to understand who the cameos were. That’s, quite frankly, ridiculous. (Hideo Kojima did post on his X account that he’d seen The Marvels, but neglected to write a single thing either for or against if, which came off as rather damning.)
In the comments beneath Kojima’s Brave New World post, someone quoted James Gunn, who said in 2023, “Every story should be enjoyed and worth partaking in, in an of itself, without its attachment to an outside world. If it feels like homework, screw it. ‘Shared universes’ should add fun to the individual stories, not the other way around.” Trouble is, even the James Gunn Marvel movies suffer from being in a shared universe. Guardians of the Galaxy doesn’t function properly as a trilogy because in the middle of it, Gamora dies “offscreen” (i.e. in Infinity War.)
I personally have always thought Infinity War was the beginning of the end for the MCU. For such a long time after that, you had to have seen the previous movies to understand what was going on. Such was the power of Thanos’s Snap. But now you have to see the shows, too. And the worrying thing is, more and more of the movies are coming out looking like they’re just adverts for Disney+. Disney can advertise all it wants, but the reality is that Marvel is only going to keep viewers coming back for more if it can start telling stories people care about again ⏤ whether or not they’re active Disney+ subscribers.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
