It's okay not to care or be invested in the franchise - it may seem overbearing or unappealing from the outside if you're looking at a 26-film franchise, but you're going to get laughed out of the room for thinking the MCU should stop.
This isn't me getting butthurt as a fan, but more of a desperate plea for journalists to take a step back before they write slow-office-day articles like this. How many times have we seen this article... but how many times has an MCU movie broken its own previous records and gained more and more fans?
I feel like a stuck record now, but the best way to look at the MCU is as a series (partly because it is); the Avengers movies are season finales, and with the Infinity Saga ending, it's time for the MCU to direct us toward the next big stories. From Iron-Man 1, to Endgame, the MCU had been an ever-growing smash hit, with the greatest cathartic ending in cinematic history. You can watch the whole Infinity Saga and check out there if you wish, but you're going to look a fool if you think they should stop after sticking their first landing.
Don't get me wrong, I would have been content if Endgame was the actual ending, and it's always a concern when a franchise/series is doing well, there must come a time when it either ends with dignity or doesn't stick the landing... but if Marvel Studios are continuing to make quality, justified, game-changing movies (which are clearly building up to something far crazier than Thanos and 6 stones), then why stop now? Do we suddenly have no faith in these clearly passionate directors/storytellers and producers that have delivered the most entertaining franchise in history yet? I'll hold my hand up honestly and confess myself: sometimes when they've announced more and more Disney+ shows, I initially think "Oh god, another one?!", but so far, they've all been great in their own ways, and my apprehension is always squashed. Because Marvel play the long game, we care about each and every character and their development, so when we reach larger ensemble movies, they're genuinely incredible to watch, due to revelations and each film before it being somewhat of a building block.
Without the 'simplistic' origins of the MCU, we wouldn't be able to have the crazy things we saw in Shang-Chi, Eternals, Loki and WandaVision for example. You don't have to like the movies or the shows... no one is asking you to watch them, but with dumb articles like this, you're turning a blind eye to millions of fans with justified passions.
Are we going to get articles like this whenever a Marvel movie doesn't perform as good as the previous one? We've got substanceless brain-candy movies like Sony's Venom 2 getting rated higher than Eternals, because Eternals delved outside of the main MCU formula and provided a great character driven sci-fi with 10 unfamiliar characters... whereas Venom 2 was a bad comic book movie but painted by numbers so got a higher score. If Eternals delivered the same generic story as Venom 2 had, would it have gotten a higher score? Subsequently, would we then not have dumb articles like this? Because right now it seems the writer is trying to capitalise on Eternals' mixed reception. If that's the case, I advise they check out the audience score, because it'll be the audience that are actually invested and care about these movies. The writer even confesses he really loved Shang-Chi, which is post Endgame, so what's his issue? It feels like they want the MCU to fail if anything.
Note: my Eternals review will be coming soon, and yes I did like it a hell of a lot. I've seen it twice now and it's just outside of my top 5 MCU movies. I'll be talking more about the mixed reception and critics' hypocrisies whenever they complain about a Marvel formula but then dissaprove of something for not feeling like a standard Marvel film.
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