Using Scope Both Retroactively And Preparatively: How To Prepare Audiences For Bigger Sequels, How that’s Changed With The Cinematic Universe, And What This Means For the Future of Marvel

Blockbuster sequels will tend to use set pieces, images or dialogue from their predecessor as a means of both re-establishing prior themes and a promise that the sequel will have a larger scope. What’s interesting is that while studios have always been sequel hopeful for their blockbusters, these formal ideas were previously always retroactive, with the filmmakers looking back on the predecessor as they’re making the sequel and finding a way to incorporate these familiar images and moments.

But this has changed with the advent of the cinematic universe. With as many as eight films being planned at a time, studios can now establish an image, set piece, line of dialogue or some other formal idea in an early film in preparation; the thought of how it can be expanded upon in a sequel is left in the back of our head.

Basically, in the pre-cinematic universe era, the sequel would ask “remember how awesome that was?” But in the cinematic universe era, the predecessor can now ask “see how awesome this is?”

Both questions are followed by:

“Wait until you see how awesome it gets.”

To explore this, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be the focus. For the retroactive usage, The Avengers and its sequel Age of Ultron will be looked at, whereas the preparative usage will be explored by way of Captain America: Civil War and both Avengers: Infinity War and the untitled fourth Avengers film.

The first Avengers film is about the title characters starting out with a rough foundation and ultimately coming together to take on a greater threat. Their rough foundation is established in a shot that occurs about halfway through the film, in which the group is arguing with each other, this being influenced by Loki’s scepter. The shot will be linked below.

In the above shot, there are different arguments going on between different characters. The camera flows through these arguments in an unsettling manner, tilting slightly to compliment this sense of unease, of all this being wrong. As this shot eerily moves through the different arguments, we never see the characters in the same composition until the final one to signify that there is no overall unity amongst what is happening. An argument between two characters will flow into an argument between different characters, but none of them are arguing about the same thing. Example; Thor’s dialogue with Fury leads to a response from Natasha, which leads to a separate argument between her and Banner. Just because Thor and Fury’s argument starts the one between Natasha and Banner doesn’t mean that Thor is a part of that argument. Thor doesn’t even look at Natasha. They’re all segregated.

They are shown in one composition together, and it is the final one in the shot. That the final composition of this shot is upside down is obviously there to be an appropriate culmination of the segregation of the prior pan; the only unity here is in that none of them get along with each other. There is no unifying conversation, no unifying goal, no unifying trust or friendship amongst any of them.

The surreal camera movements, segregation through these surreal camera movements, and upside down nature of the final composition is all here to establish that none of this is as it should be. This is supposed to be a group of heroes with complimentary strengths, not people with different motives arguing amongst each other.

During the climax of the film, after they decide to stop using their differences to segregate and use them to instead unite, the inverse of this shot occurs when the Avengers come together. (the shot ends at 2:32)

Instead of surreal camera movements that move unpredictably through different arguments, the camera circles around our heroes with certainty and precision, with a clear purpose of giving each hero their own composition, their own moment. Instead of different arguments that never culminate, the characters are all looking at a common enemy. And instead of an upside down closing composition of them all together to establish that they are segregated, we get a strongly framed, right-side up closing composition of them all together, at long last united.

This is the establishment of the climax. Now that they’re all together, they’re all ready to take on a threat that only this group of heroes can take on. There’s also something to be said about them all having their backs to each other and looking at different Chitauri. Just as they’re not looking at the exact same singular enemy, neither do they all have the exact same strengths, but their different strengths all compliment each other. This is important because we later get a busy long shot a little later in the film (it’s :40 seconds long and concludes at that very time in the below clip)

The Avengers are not shown all together in a single composition during this entire shot, but this is different from the unnerving shot that was previously cited to imply segregation. They are, once again, all fighting the same enemy and the respective character moments flow together and are complimentary. Black Widow’s composition flows nicely into Iron Man flying, Iron Man flies down to fight with Cap, he flies up again to flow into a composition of Hawkeye, whose arrow takes us to a composition of Thor and Hulk fighting together. We never see them all together in one single composition, but rather than implying motive segregation, this only reinforces their unity as they all have a common foe. Even if they’re not all in the same composition, they work together tremendously.

This is the foundation that Age of Ultron is built off of, and it is a foundation that is re-established in the opening sequence.

In this opening, we get another long shot of the Avengers working together, their respective character moments flowing together effectively. Towards the end of the shot we get a slow-motion composition of them all together, again implying unity (that composition arrives at about :49 seconds in the above clip). Not only this, but the shot being (relatively) replicated is when the scope of the first film is at is highest, its most “awesome.” So within Age of Ultron’s shot both the scope and foundation of the characters of the first film are re-established; it opens on something “awesome” and familiar to plant us in our seats and leaves us wondering where the sequel could go.

So, we have an example of the retroactive usage of scope and images to prepare us for the film we are watching. But now that sequels are being announced as certain movies are being filmed, what might filmmakers do as they are prepping both a film and its follow-up? Appropriately, we find this again in the MCU; this time it is found in relation to a foundation established in Captain America: Civil War and built upon in Avengers: Infinity War and the currently untitled fourth Avengers film.

Captain America: Civil War was the first movie to use new digital 2D IMAX cameras, which was used for the 15 minute airport fight sequence. IMAX cameras are typically associated with “select sequences”; you save the best cameras for the “most epic” or dramatically important scenes (which tend to go hand in hand with blockbusters), and the airport fight sequence is the largest action scene in the film.

That being said, it is not the most important fight scene dramatically. That would be the final fight, in which Iron Man takes on Cap and Bucky upon finding out Bucky (against his will, of course) killed Iron Man’s parents. This itself is an important action sequence, so why weren’t the IMAX cameras utilized for this scene? Or for any of the other big action scenes, for that matter?

The answer is found in how the airport fight sequence relates to the next two Avengers films, which shared the same directors as Civil War. The airport fight sequence is the only sequence to utilize every hero that is present in Civil War, which isn’t just a sizable roster; it featured the most heroes yet seen on screen together in the MCU.

The idea behind utilizing the cameras for this scene is ultimately to establish the nature of the entirety of Avengers: Infinity War/4. Kevin Feige has said as much;

“In Civil War we had a sequence that took place in an airport, and that really became a test scene for us for a couple of reasons. The first was, we never had that many characters interacting with each other before in one sequence. It was also a test for those IMAX cameras. To say, ‘can we utilize the sheer enormity of the frame’. And the answer quickly was yes.”

Essentially, the use of IMAX cameras in that one Civil War sequence knowingly establishes for the audience what the entirety of Infinity War/4 are going to be. If Civil War only needed IMAX cameras for one scene, that Infinity War/4 will utilize them for their entire runtimes establishes them as, essentially, a feature-length “select scene” (not dissimilar to how Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part II was compared to being a feature length third act. It should be noted that neither of these comparisons are, to my estimation, negative). This is interesting because it shows that Marvel is taking advantage of the audience knowledge of upcoming films in the way studios would take advantage of our knowledge of prior films. Even if we don’t realize it, I believe these retroactive and preparative means of scope and storytelling still register to us and are worthy of note.

There are those that will look at this cynically. Marvel’s penchant for serialized storytelling and sequel setup is essentially being embraced by what I wrote about Civil War and its respective Avengers follow-ups, which I admit. I will simply respond to that by saying I am in no way trying to force people to like these movies or for them to love the nature of setting up other movies.

If anything, my best hope here for anyone that doesn’t care for the MCU who was kind enough to take the time to read this just got a little something out of this. If you took the time to read this despite having those issues, then I hope you got a little something out of it and apologize if you didn’t.

I’m not going to pretend that these movies aren’t financially motivated. Disney did not invest somewhere between $300-$400 million into Infinity War alone out of charity. They invested that much because they knew they’d get their money back and then some, and they want us coming back fom more. But I think these financial motivations establish artistic parameters that can be analyzed artistically. Papa John’s may sell pizza for money, but that doesn’t change the fact that their pizza still has ingredients and a manner in which these ingredients are brought together that we can (in the case of Papa John’s, negatively) look at from a cooking perspective.

But I’m not going to end this piece with a plea for people to respect the MCU artistically. These movies have their fans and their detractors and I’m fine with that.

I’m instead going to end this with food for thought regarding where this emphasis on expanding scope will go.

I think it won’t necessarily lead to constantly making movies bigger and bigger and bigger but instead will emphasize on allowing filmmakers to tell their own stories within the parameters provided. If that requires an epic, so be it. If that requires a small story, so be that! After years and years of promising bigger and delivering bigger, Disney and Marvel should know that this universe requires a diversity and elasticity to keep the brand as a whole alive. Now that we’ve had these films get as epic as they can ultimately get for the time being, the MCU will officially be ingrained in our culture that will allow even the “smaller” material like Spider-Man Homecoming (or even the Netflix shows) to have a place and audience without needing to build up to an Avengers film.

Essentially, the MCU has become so expanded that it can do whatever it wants without its previous structure centered around building up to “the next big movie”.

I can’t find a source on this but I believe I read somewhere that Marvel will forgo the “phase” system (where the films essentially functioned like episodes of television and the Avengers film would be a season finale). I believe this is the right way to go. These films are so ingrained in our culture that they can live freely amongst themselves and have massive events when necessary and not out of obligation. No longer will each film exist to set up the next Avengers crossover but exist on its own merits.

And I’ll be there for all of them.