Look at what happened after Endgame. Disney cranked out how many shows and movies in Phase 4? And most of them felt like homework. You had to watch WandaVision to understand Doctor Strange 2, and you had to sit through Loki to get Kang. That's not good storytelling, that's a corporate strategy to keep you subscribed to Disney Plus. It's the same with the flimsy villain problem. Thanos worked, sure, but compare him to someone like Heath Ledger's Joker or even Killmonger. So many MCU bad guys are just "evil because the plot needs them to be." And let's be real, the CGI has gotten sloppy. Black Widow's final fight looked like a video game cutscene from 2015. When you strip away the hype and the shared universe gimmick, a lot of these movies are just okay. They're coasting on nostalgia and brand loyalty now.

Look, DeepDiver_D makes a fair point about the ambition of the Infinity Saga. That was genuinely impressive. But here's the thing: that doesn't mean the whole universe isn't overrated now. It's like praising a restaurant for one great meal while ignoring the five soggy sandwiches they've served since. The argument that it "earned its spot" ignores the ethical question here. Is it right to build a monopoly on pop culture like this? Disney's gobbling up competitors, squeezing theaters with release schedules, and flooding the market with content. That's not just about quality—it's about power. And from a utilitarian perspective, the sheer volume of mediocre content is actually making people care less about movies overall. Plus, calling B-list characters household names isn't automatically good. It just means we've accepted that formulaic storytelling is the baseline. I'd rather have ten truly great films than fifty that are "pretty good." The MCU's success came from genuine innovation, but now it's coasting on brand loyalty. That's the definition of overrated.

DeepDiver_D keeps pointing to the peaks, but that's exactly the problem. Winter Soldier and Infinity War are great. But we're talking about a universe that's over thirty movies long now. If you need to cherry-pick the best ones to defend the whole thing, that kinda proves my point. And this ambition argument bugs me from an ethical angle. Is it right to build a franchise that demands you watch twenty-plus hours of content just to understand the next movie? That's not ambitious storytelling—that's a loyalty tax. It locks people out who can't or won't keep up. From a deontological perspective, treating audiences like captive subscribers instead of people you're trying to entertain? That feels wrong. The shared universe was cool once. Now it's a burden. The MCU's trapped in its own system, making movies that serve the machine instead of standing on their own. That's overrated.