Fanboys Anonymous

I, like many others, am convinced the game plan for the Marvel Cinematic Universe is to have a reset coming to the full scope of the franchise with the upcoming Avengers: Secret Wars film.

This post will act as sort of a combination of Predicting the Plot, fan theories, fan fiction, a pitch and an editorial all wrapped in one.

My prediction, as well as what I would probably do in this scenario, is that we'll see Avengers: The Kang Dynasty wreck everything with incursions similar to how Avengers: Infinity War ended with the downer snap. Kang will win, irreparably sending the multiverse out of whack. Our heroes will not know what to do. This is way above their pay grade, as the Thanos incident was the most catastrophic thing that has ever happened, and this is even worse.

Whether Secret Wars is split in two movies or not—and I think it will be—we'll see either film #1 or at least the first good portion of the solo film as Battleworld. The Beyonder version of Kang will be the manipulator, playing around with different versions of our heroes. We'll see cameos from people like Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man, maybe Ben Affleck's Daredevil and most predominantly, the X-Men actors we've seen before. Probably a mix of the older and younger crew, since I doubt they'd want to single out just one or the other. But if they have to pick, they'll pick the James Marsden side of it, rather than the Tye Sheridan.

The MCU can get a whole film out of Avengers: Secret Wars - Battleworld as its own crazy film. Then, Avengers: Secret Wars - Part 2 (whatever they'd call it; maybe Brave New World or Time Runs Out or something) will focus on as many heroes as possible from across the multiverse coming together to stop The Beyonder Kang and restore some sort of balance.

How they do that, I don't know. We've already had some characters play their big hero moments. Doctor Strange orchestrated the 1 in 14,000,605 plan, Scott Lang spark the time travel, Thor chop off Thanos's head, Natasha Romanoff sacrifice herself for the Soul Stone, Hulk snap to bring people back, and Tony Stark snap to destroy Thanos and his army. I don't think they're going to make this all come out to be that Monica Rambeau or Peter Parker or any one person in particular is going to be the one to save the day. Not even Wanda Maximoff, but I'm sure she'll help.

For now, let's just say Steve Rogers hasn't been confirmed as passing away because the game plan is to have him—the man out of time who went back into the past in a branched timeline to restore the Infinity Stones, and could easily have a story where he's Nomad going through time and all, and was The First Avenger—is the one to save the day.

Somehow, in some fashion, the heroes win, but it comes at a cost. The multiverse is forever changed. There is no way of restoring it exactly the way it was. But in some ways, that's okay. This is the natural order of things, to be reset once in a while, and in doing so, they'll make room for all new stories to be told and blah blah blah.

Here's where we get to the fun fan fiction part. This is how I would showcase that:

Whatever contraption they use to pull this off to hit the reset button, the lever gets pulled or the button gets pushed, etc. Then, we watch as the characters all get distorted, as if they're being erased by a pencil, almost. We should also see at least the most important gods as characters by now. The Living Tribunal is a must, along with Eternity, Infinity, Death/Oblivion/Entropy (I don't know why they are 3 separate things) and so on. We don't need to see Lord Chaos and Master Order, for instance.

Everything goes to black.

Silence.

Now, there are 3 different ideas I have of what you can do following this. All 3 work in my mind, and it would be a matter of preference and what you can do legally.

Idea #1 - The Simplest Option

While the screen is black, Stan Lee's voice says EXCELSIOR. And then BOOM. A new Big Bang happens on screen, swirling different universes around as we see The First Firmament and some cosmic entities and abstracts all being created, along with galaxies, planets, civilizations and so forth until it flashes to the absolute finale (found below).

Idea #2 - The More Complicated, but Still Relatively Easy Option

The black screen slowly but surely fades something into view: a bar. There is a bartender there, glowing in blue. Wiping down the counter, the bartender addresses the camera, breaking the fourth wall, directly talking to the viewer.

This character, aka The Fulcrum is played by Kevin Feige and is representing The One Above All—the true omnipotent god of Marvel. He thanks everyone for their love and support of the MCU over the nearly 20 years this series has gone on. And while this is indeed the end of an era, and these actors are not going to be playing these parts anymore (mostly, I'd assume), that doesn't mean Marvel has run out of stories to tell.

He won't reveal exactly what is coming up next, but it will be...well...marvelous. Stay tuned.

Maybe he snaps his fingers or something, but he does something to indicate the start of a rebirth. We see the same idea of the Big Bang and everything restarting, leading to the absolute finale.

Idea #3 - The Nearly Impossible Option, But My Favorite Idea

The black screen fades into the bar scene. This time, the blue bartender isn't just played by Kevin Feige. Instead, he's a composite. We see a blue glowing figure that can transform between a CGI model of Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and of course, Feige. Maybe we can throw in Steve Ditko, John Romita and the other major contributors to these characters over the years, but that's likely pushing it, as would probably even Louis D'Esposito, but he should get some credit for all his work, too. He's never mentioned.

The point would be that this character, The Fulcrum, would be revealed as the embodiment of the creators of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It isn't just Kevin Feige, but his collaboration with the writers and producers and all that have come before him and worked alongside him and so on.

But he would reveal (in his speech that I mentioned above) that he is merely a portion of The One Above All and not the entirety. I've always liked Jack Kirby being depicted as an aspect of TOAA where he redraws The Thing and Reed Richards with his pencil to fix them up and such. But you see, the true absolute pinnacle zenith indisputable overlord of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in full, is not just the creators, but also the fans. You, watching, are part of The One Above All. It is through this connection between story creators and the ones watching the stories that we have this sandbox to play around in. And by no means is that going to end just because this chapter is coming to a close.

Same deal as the other speech, in a lot of ways. The future of the MCU is about to begin. Stan Lee's version of this says EXCELSIOR and snaps. We get the Big Bang and lead into the absolute finale.

The Absolute Finale and the Start of a New Chapter

All of these ideas all lead to the same place, pretty much. We've watched the multiverse reestablish itself, and we can see that there are variants all over the place, new rules are being written, and we're shown some very specific, but still vague, details about this new version of what we're getting going forward.

By that, I mean we see that the X-Men and mutants have been a part of this universe the entire time. Likely, we're in the present day, which means Captain America has already been unfrozen and we know he's had some history with Wolverine and whatnot. Maybe The Avengers is already established, depending on how far they want to reset things. If they've already cast people for future movies, we can see them show up in some fashion, but if not, we can just see some shadowy figures that we can definitely recognize, like that there is definitely a Hulk, a Thor, etc.

Depending on how you want to proceed going forward dictates which characters can show up and how, but I think no matter what, you need to show New York City. That has always been the heart of the Marvel Universe. It is where a good portion of the heroes reside, where Avengers Tower is, and so on.

In my ideal scenario, Tom Holland is still going to be Peter Parker going forward, Spider-Man will be integral to the MCU and not involved in Sony anymore, etc. That's probably unlikely, but let's just play with that for now. You can play into this in any number of ways.

Ideally, Peter Parker is on the street in New York. He looks at a Daily Bugle paper that has a piece about J. Jonah Jameson calling Spider-Man a menace. Peter sighs. "Oh man. What am I gonna do?"

A bystander next to him puts his hand on Peter's shoulder. There is no spidey sense, of course. The camera pans and it is The Fulcrum, in Stan Lee form (again, I'm convinced they have the CGI to pull this off and the ability to do it legally). He says "Face front, true believer." He smiles and walks away.

The camera pans up and into the sky. The universe is familiar, but anew, with endless possibilities, and we're just getting started.

Cut to black for the title card of Avengers: Secret Wars. But you have to end with the words THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE CONTINUES.

I toyed with the idea of having everything with the whole Fulcrum character be a mid-credit or post-credit scene to allude to how much fun we've had with those, but I think it is too important for people to see this as part of the actual movie's resolution.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know if there is a post-credit scene I can think of that would end the movie on a better note. But I'm certainly down to try thinking of one.

My first idea would be to tease the next big bad already if we're sticking to the phases concept and they have that planned out. Who that could be, I have no idea, as once you've done this multiversal reset, you can't get any bigger. Maybe it could just be some views of some of the characters going forward, like some generic teases of X-Men, new versions of Captain America and Iron Man, etc. Maybe they could get away with having it end with Franklin Richards, since I've always viewed him as the sort of heir-apparent to the Marvel Universe in many ways. Maybe it can just end with someone saying "Avengers, assemble" or maybe you just don't have one this time around.

This acts as a true, definitive end to many of those stories, combines everything together from all the films we've ever seen, and allows Disney the option to continue with characters, actors, and stories in any way they please.

What do you think? Do you have any other ideas or suggestions? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!

Welcome to another edition of Predicting the Plot wherein I try my best to guess how an upcoming movie is going to play out from start to finish with as many details as I can possibly give, based entirely on the previews and lead-up material I've seen.

I might be dead wrong. I may get some things right. In any way, I encourage you to give your predictions just the same in the comments below.

For this edition, I'll be taking focusing on my theory of what we're in store for with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

NOTE #1: It's important to state that this is not what I would do for the film, but what I think they've done in making the movie. I likely would have gone with some entirely different plot points, if not a wholly different film in general.

NOTE #2: I have stayed away from any spoilers. I won't be reading any comments, either, until after I've seen the movie.

The movie opens with Shuri as an ambassador for Wakanda currently in America, looking into Riri Williams (Ironheart) who is part of some scholarship program or whatever. This outreach idea that the first film ended with has been one of Shuri's primary focuses in the past few years (minus The Blip and everything surrounding that.)

Then, there is an attack on Wakanda from Atlantis. T'challa is killed in the battle. Shuri must return home to mourn and weigh in on the kingdom's status.

Mourning is simultaneously happening as they are deliberating what to do with this conflict and the lack of a Black Panther and king. Shuri is thrust into the role, despite not being capable of juggling either of them at the same time. I think it's a bit of a stretch for us to just assume Shuri's become a fantastic warrior and her whole character of "the smart one" has changed since we last saw her. She can be the queen of Wakanda, but I don't think her character can juggle that responsibility, being the smart one AND being the fighter in the costume. That's absurd.

Maybe there's a change to how things are done. Instead of one person taking on this responsibility, there can be a sort of committee. Okoye is the leader of the military force. M'Baku can don the Black Panther armor as its superhero protector representative. Nakia can be one of the governing leaders.

I struggle to think of how they might introduce someone like Kevin Cole as a new Black Panther, for instance, or how they can age up a child of T'challa to take on that role or anything of that sort, but maybe I'm missing some part of the plot that makes this all make sense.

Anyway, the Atlantis attack has Everett Ross talking about the feud between the kingdoms. Someone needs to settle this conflict.

This whole war has been orchestrated by Attuma. Namor has been falling for his influence this whole time and is a villain who sees the error of his ways and eventually sides with Wakanda to fight Attuma, ending the movie as an antihero, in a sense.

Adjustment Note: About 10 minutes after publishing, I did think of something that may put a wrinkle on this. M'Baku  wasn't a worshiper of Bast. Maybe he can't necessarily become Black Panther. Instead, maybe he is the king of Wakanda, and they really are going to just go with Shuri as Black Panther. While that's a stretch that she somehow becomes a fighter, it at least keeps the BP name within the family, and since Riri Williams is being introduced, she'll be a replacement of the "super intelligent young black girl" role that Shuri was filling. I'm starting to think this is actually what they'll do, rather than my suggestion above.

THE ORIGINAL IDEA:

What I assume we were originally going to get is similar in some respects, but also quite different in others.

The movie would have been largely about the differences between how T'challa rules Wakanda as its fighter/protector and king, versus Namor doing the same for Atlantis. I still think Attuma would have been the main villain they would team up to fight, and I still think it would be Wakanda vs. Atlantis for the most part.

Shuri probably would have only ever really dealt with Riri Williams and not had as much focus on her.

M'Baku and Okoye would just be on the warrior side of things in the fight against Atlantis.

The movie likely still would have ended with a truce between Wakanda and Atlantis, wherein we'd find out that Doctor Doom was orchestrating even Attuma as the bigger villain behind the plot, trying to get reserves of Vibranium and whatever Atlantis has to offer.

Until we get some teaser or trailer that can show us more, that's what I'm working with. When that happens, maybe I'll update this post with some new theories and a Take 2 prediction.

That's what I'm expecting to happen, but what do you think?
Give your predictions and thoughts on my guesses in the comments below!

The Marvel Cinematic Universe and the acting community as a whole lost William Hurt this week at the age of 71.

Within this geek culture living space, immediately, I saw the reaction of "What are they going to do about General Ross in the MCU? Is there still going to be a Thunderbolts without William Hurt? Will they recast?"

I am far from a Hulk specialist or an authority on comics, so take what I say with a grain of salt as someone who is more on the "above average, but not an expert" level, but here are my general thoughts of what I think should and will happen with the future of the MCU in regards to General Thunderbolt Ross.

Recast or Retire?

Whenever there is a situation like this, one question is always whether or not they should just recast the part. I'm of the opinion that there is no definitive yes/no that applies to all scenarios, and you have to take each one in a case-by-case basis.

If the actor is still around, I think it's almost a guarantee you should just recast. For instance, Edward Norton's replacement with Mark Ruffalo for Bruce Banner. If the actor has passed away, it's a little trickier.

It may be controversial, but I've always been an advocate of recasting T'challa for Black Panther, rather than trying to figure out a way around that. Then again, I'm not the type of person who should be passing judgment, for a multitude of reasons.

But in this scenario, I don't think Thunderbolt Ross should be recast. That's because it's much easier to retire the character than it is to change Black Panther and undo that character development.

With Ross, while he's integral to maintaining continuity in the MCU, I think his character has had enough growth and can be replaced with other similar parts.

How Do You Move On?

We don't know yet what capacity Ross figured into She-Hulk or any other projects going forward. Only Marvel knows that right now. So without knowing that information and having the benefit of hindsight, we can only speculate.

My prediction is that he was going to be in She-Hulk, but only as a minor character to be an overseer of the Hulk lineage in general. He has history with all parties and would be invested in the potential of a "new Hulk" being created.

I do not think he was going to be Red Hulk. We'll address that in a bit.

If this wasn't already the plan, I think part of the story for She-Hulk should be that people are experimenting on Banner's DNA and still not learning the lessons that attempting to recreate the Super Soldier serum is going to end in disaster. While something will happen to Jennifer Walters that will result in her getting a blood transfusion or whatever the case that triggers her transformation, plenty other people won't be as lucky.

Here's what I would do, and what I think (in some form) and what I hope Marvel is doing.

General Ross is an overseer of these projects on behalf of the government, but he's not directly-directly involved. As in, he's not in the same position he was in The Incredible Hulk, but he still has an investment, as the government will always want to have some sort of weapon like this in their control. His attempt was Blonsky, and we'll see Abomination. We might even see The Leader as a consultant. Hopefully, Rick Jones is there (and maybe even a primary love interest?) but that's deviating from the focus here of Ross.

His replacement as the true overseer of this project should be General John Ryker, who can be conducting experiments on a number of poor souls. Someone in the project should be Dr. Geoffrey Crawford (Ravage). Two unfortunate volunteers for the trials who end up failed monsters are Dennis Sykes and Private Benjamin "Benny" Tibbets, aka Flux.

But the ultimate goal is to get us to...

Red Hulk

Thunderbolt Ross doesn't need to be Red Hulk. I know he was in the comics, but he doesn't need to be in the MCU. Some elements of the MCU are just flat out different, for better or worse. I'm personally much more of a fan of Ultron being a Tony Stark invention than anything related to Hank Pym, and I hated the fake Mandarin twist, for examples of both scenarios.

Red Hulk can be a number of other people instead of Ross, but I think our best candidates are two-fold: General Robert L. Maverick and Glenn Talbot.

I'd lean more toward Maverick. He actually does go by Red Hulk in the comics and he's a new character that hasn't been brought into the mix. As a general, he can be "trusted" to undergo the procedure to become Red Hulk and work with the government, so that makes sense.

Talbot is an option, but he's a little trickier. We've seen him before in the Ang Lee film and in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which hasn't been canonized, but might be. I don't think it will, for the record. I think they'll write that off as being a variant universe where there could be crossovers and some of the same continuity might have happened, but the bulk of it isn't, so that the MCU proper isn't beholden to aspects of the show. We've seen a different Darkhold already, we'll see a different Ghost Rider and so on, but if they ever want to incorporate FitzSimmons to get the audience to pop, they can.

Talbot can work well if he's also tied to Walters in some fashion. He tends to work well as a character who can be a romantic rival of sorts, and since Bruce and Jennifer obviously are related and won't be having that kind of dynamic, Talbot could be more so a romantic interest for her who turns bad.

If not just because Maverick actually was Red Hulk in the comics, though, I'd go for him.

The Thunderbolts

Finally, at the end of this, we should end up with a Thunderbolts team and show or movie. But how does that happen without Thunderbolt Ross?

Simple. The team is named in honor of him, with him having started the project.

Think of it like S.H.I.E.L.D. being partially named in honor of Steve Rogers and the Captain America shield. It can be said that Ross was responsible for creating this division that would lead into this team, so they've decided to name them The Thunderbolts in his name after he's passed away.

Valentina Allegra de Fontaine should be the leader of this unit. She's already established as filling a similar role, the audience knows her, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a big name actress who can help draw attention to the show or film. She already has a history with John Walker, who should definitely be on the team, and it's the easiest transition possible.

RIP William Hurt

What do you think will happen with this character? What are your favorite moments from William Hurt's career in and out of the MCU? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!

Welcome to another edition of Predicting the Plot wherein I try my best to guess how an upcoming movie is going to play out from start to finish with as many details as I can possibly give, based entirely on the previews and lead-up material I've seen.

I might be dead wrong. I may get some things right. In any way, I encourage you to give your predictions just the same in the comments below.

For this edition, I'll be taking a red pill and spelling out my fan theory of what we're in store for with The Matrix Resurrections

NOTE #1: It's important to state that this is not what I would do for the film, but what I think they've done in making the movie. I likely would have gone with some entirely different plot points, if not a wholly different film in general.

NOTE #2: I have stayed away from any spoilers. I won't be reading any comments, either, until after I've seen the movie.

The movie opens with Thomas Anderson living a normal life in what is fashioned to be 2021. Of course, while everything seems normal, that's not the reality. We've seen this song and dance before. He starts questioning the world around him, particularly as he has visions/dreams of the previous movies and senses a longing for Trinity.

His therapist writes this off as nonsense. I'm actually wondering if Anderson will be portrayed as a filmmaker or video game designer who created an IP called The Matrix and that's why we have that guy who looks like a Hollywood agent saying "going back to where it all started; back to The Matrix" like he's going to revisit the idea for a sequel. The therapist could even specify he thinks Anderson is wrapped up in his own creation and imagining that it exists for real, but clearly, that's just a delusion.

Then, Anderson's reached out to by Morpheus and we go back to the whole world-breaking "this is the true reality behind the scenes" stuff. Anderson has some time where he doesn't remember everything, but he remembers bits and pieces, so we can explain things to the audience but not have to go through it all. Back-tracking, but the speedy process.

This version of Morpheus looks different, though. I'm not sure how they'll write that idea into there, but I'm thinking it'll be that this is a reboot of the system and he's been cloned or something like that. That would maybe explain how Trinity is alive, too, but this is all just speculation.

I think Jessica Henwick's character, Bugs, is the new version of The One. I expect her to be the key to everything—not just the overall new hero that the torch is being passed to, but the entire reason why they made this film. The Wachowskis will have this as a reflection of themselves.

I'm hoping there isn't just some "peace didn't last and now we're back to the war against the machines again" nonsense like they did with the sequel trilogy of Star Wars. That defeats the whole purpose of the previous films. Instead, I'd rather it be a new faction causing some problems or a new glitch or something.

By the end, I'm expecting Neo to sacrifice himself and either be turned into code and/or merged with Bugs. That way, Keanu Reeves doesn't need to return, but there's an option for it if they want to explore that, and the real figurehead hero will be Bugs.

That's what I'm expecting to happen, but what do you think?
Give your predictions and thoughts on my guesses in the comments below!

Welcome to another edition of Predicting the Plot wherein I try my best to guess how an upcoming movie is going to play out from start to finish with as many details as I can possibly give, based entirely on the previews and lead-up material I've seen.

I might be dead wrong. I may get some things right. In any way, I encourage you to give your predictions just the same in the comments below.

For this edition, I'll be tackling my fan theory of what we're in store for with the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: No Way Home

NOTE #1: It's important to state that this is not what I would do for the film, but what I think they've done in making the movie. I likely would have gone with some entirely different plot points, if not a wholly different film in general. Then again, my Spider-Man films wouldn't have had a character named Michelle Jones being called MJ and a version of Flash Thompson who is even more of a geek than Peter, so they've already well deviated from that.

NOTE #2: I have stayed away from any spoilers. I won't be reading any comments, either, until after I've seen the movie.

The movie opens with Peter Parker's identity being revealed from the end of the previous film. He rushes around New York, not knowing what to do. Eventually, he gets a phone call from Aunt May that police have shown up and he has to be home right away.

This may lead to his arrest and/or being taken in to the police station. If I were making the movie, I'd make sure there were some cameos of Jean DeWolff and such, but I'm not expecting that. What I AM expecting, though, is for Peter to have Matt Murdock as his defense attorney.

I think we'll get time jumps. This won't take place over one bad weekend or something. It'll be weeks, if not months.

Peter will be on some sort of probation or trial with the pending investigation that Murdock will be looking into the case for.

Over the course of several weeks or so, Peter will try to adjust to the world knowing his identity, but that will result in some problems. He'll most likely not be Spider-Man anymore, as he's trying to say that he's not the webslinger and any activity will be too suspicious. Maybe people will even start to question that that's obvious he IS Spider-Man, then, because Spider-Man hasn't been seen since the outing.

Issues will arise. J. Jonah Jameson spearheads the verbal attacks and propaganda. Peter will get increasingly more frustrated, if not scared for everyone else's lives. Maybe someone throws a brick through his home or something along those lines. Aunt May could be accosted or even targeted for a mugging or something to prove the severity of people in his life now being in danger.

Peter goes to talk to Doctor Strange. They have that discussion about the spell to make it so everyone forgets. Peter gets nervous that MJ and Ned will forget and has hesitations, which botch the spell.

That's when the multiverse starts leaking. Variants of the other villains bleed into this universe.

It seems like the explanation they're going with is that they all are supposed to die from Spider-Man's hand in their universes, but this has plucked them from that part of their timelines. That seems strange, but whatever.

Doctor Strange realizes this is going on and informs Peter of it. Strange wants to imprison them. Peter's good heart gets the better of him and he falls victim to some boo hoo, probably from Doc Ock, where he thinks it's inhumane to imprison them. They should be sent back to their universes.

That's when Peter steals the box that Doctor Strange is seen fighting with him over in the trailers. They have their mind warp action sequence. Peter accidentally makes things even worse.

Most of the rest of the film is spent trying to round them up. In the process, Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man and Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man also come through portals to help fight them off.

They impart some wisdom, possibly repeating Uncle Ben's trademark line. If any of them dies, I think it's Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man in a self-sacrifice moment.

The "do it" line that Peter says in the trailer, seemingly to Doctor Strange, is something I'm torn on. Either it's what I'm fearing, which is that Strange can only send Peter to another dimension and there's no way home back into the MCU, meaning Sony just does their own Spider-Man movies again and he's no longer in the MCU, or what I'm hoping is the case, which is that Strange says the only way he can stop some sort of cataclysm is to somewhat merge the universes together. That way, we get Venom at the end of this and it means there's more interconnectivity.

My ideal scenario is that Sony gets taken out of the Spider-Man business entirely, but that's not happening. Maybe there's a third option, though. Maybe it's something like Doctor Strange can only seal the portals if he indeed makes everyone forget Peter's identity like the beginning spell was trying to do, meaning MJ has to forget again and such.

I can't imagine this movie ends with Peter's identity still being public. I don't think Aunt May will die. Happy Hogan might, but I'm not banking on May, MJ or Ned getting killed off.

I don't think there will be any surprise reveals that Mysterio is still alive and concocted this whole thing. Maybe, just maybe, there's a Kingpin reference if they have that all planned out with Hawkeye and Daredevil.

As mentioned, the post-credit will involve Venom, but there may also be something about Morbius to try to spark some interest in people seeing that movie. There may also be something about Multiverse of Madness.

That's what I'm expecting to happen, but what do you think?
Give your predictions and thoughts on my guesses in the comments below!

Welcome to another edition of Predicting the Plot wherein I try my best to guess how an upcoming movie is going to play out from start to finish with as many details as I can possibly give, based entirely on the previews and lead-up material I've seen.

I might be dead wrong. I may get some things right. In any way, I encourage you to give your predictions just the same in the comments below.

For this edition, I'll be tackling my fan theory of what we're in store for with the third true installment in the Ghostbusters franchise, Ghostbusters: Afterlife

NOTE: It's important to state that this is not what I would do for the film, but what I think they've done in making the movie. I likely would have gone with some entirely different plot points, if not a wholly different film in general. — In fact, if you want to know my pitch for Ghostbusters III from the very first post published on this website, click here for that story.

This movie doesn't strike me as the type that will start with something too big like an action sequence to "make sure the audience is sold from the start." Instead, I think we're diving right into the family dynamics to establish the new characters, as that will be important. It's their journey we're following and we don't know them.

Who are they? Well, based on the trailers, it seems Egon had a kid at some point before the first film with someone he was estranged enough from that she never factored into the two movies. I say this because Carrie Coon is 40 years old (born in 1981) and if she were to have been born after Ghostbusters II, that's an 8 year difference at least. For her to be 32 and for Finn Wolfhard to be 18, she'd have to be pregnant at 14, which isn't a plot point I'd imagine they'd want to get into.

Sooooo let's just say they write it off as either he had a kid he didn't know about until later on, or that they never mentioned his daughter in the other movies because he was divorced. The plot won't focus much on this at all. It'll be pushed aside as just "he had a kid in some fashion, so let's move on." I don't think it'll be a situation where her mother is Janine as I haven't seen any of these characters referred to as having the surname Melnitz. Nor Spengler, for that matter. But let's brush past the potential deadbeat dad aspect and move on.

Egon's daughter, Callie, grew up largely without his presence in her life. She had a son (Trevor, Finn Wolfhard) and a daughter (Phoebe, McKenna Grace). As they say in the trailers, they're broke at the start of the story and they have to move into this old farmhouse that was left to them by Egon, who dies at the start of the movie or just prior to it and has gifted this to them in his will. Maybe the will acts as a driving force of the plot in other ways, like hinting at the secrets he was looking into and such. Maybe it's just a means for them to go there in particular.

Trevoris a troubled, but good kid. He's one of those "I need to rebel because I'm angry about my parents, but I'll watch out for my little sister and I'm actually responsible" types of adolescents who we can recognize as a handful at the start of the movie without not being able to root for him later on. Phoebe fits into the socially awkward genius trope. Clearly, she takes after her grandfather, who collects spores, molds and fungus. Moving to a new school and all has its own challenges. Finn's all "this town suuuuucks" and Phoebe's only able to connect with maybe the kid called Podcast and her teacher, Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd).

Callie and Mr. Grooberson have the "romantic" subplot. IE, if anyone is going to shack up in the movie, it's either those two, or Trevor gets a girlfriend (Lucky), but it's probably not a huge focal point. They'll just be the Keymaster and Gatekeeper to Gozer.

Toward the start of the movie, when they are looking at the new house, someone unknowingly sets off a chain of events that will lead to the ghost outbreak. Throughout the film, an abandoned mine shaft (Shandor Mining Co) is the source of all this ghostly activity. It was created by Ivo Shandor as another place to summon ghosts and worship Gozer. Egon moved there to study it and try to make sure nothing ever happened like the incident in 1984 ever again.

The original Ghostbusters had seen split up and figured there was nothing else going on. As Mr. Grooberson says in the trailer, there hasn't been a ghost sighting in 30 years. What do you do as exterminators of a pest that doesn't have any clientele? The second film shows them down on their luck already not being popular enough for stupid birthday parties and the like, so they couldn't possibly have kept the business going for another 30 years even after the Statue of Liberty incident. Nobody's popularity is indefinite.

I'm assuming/hoping Dana and Peter settled down. I'd love for "Oscar Venkman" to be confirmed in some fashion and maybe show up in the sequel to this, if there is one (and I assume if it's perceived well, there will be a follow-up). Ray seems to have a shop of some kind and seems bitter, so maybe he's just sole old tech junkie nutjob type who babbles nonsense to most people. Winston's an average Joe, so he just did average Joe things.

After Trevor restores the Ecto-1, they get the equipment up and running, and Phoebe works with Mr. Grooberson on deciphering what's going on with the earthquakes in town. they start trying to bring down the ghosts like Muncher. That is, until the dogs come out to play.

Then, basically, we get the end of Ghostbusters I once more. Gozer is back, has the Keymaster/Grooberson and Gatekeeper/Callie as minions, and it's up to our rag tag group of heroes to save the day. I don't think we're going to see the original team suit up to fight with them, but if we're lucky, that happens. If that does happen, I think they all die in the process to save the kids.

At the end, all is well. Gozer's done forever and we have our new team (Trevor, Phoebe, Lucky, Podcast, maybe some others, with Callie and Mr. Grooberson supervising them as, you know, adults) in case anything happens in the future, which is implied to be a possibility after we see Muncher interacting with Slimer to pop the audience.

That's what I'm expecting to happen, but what do you think?
Give your predictions and thoughts on my guesses in the comments below!

Welcome to another edition of Predicting the Plot wherein I try my best to guess how an upcoming movie is going to play out from start to finish with as many details as I can possibly give, based entirely on the previews and lead-up material I've seen.

I might be dead wrong. I may get some things right. In any way, I encourage you to give your predictions just the same in the comments below.

For this edition, I'll be tackling my fan theory of what we're in store for with the latest James Bond film, No Time to Die.

NOTE: It's important to state that this is not what I would do for the film, but what I think they've done in making the movie. I likely would have gone with some entirely different plot points, if not a wholly different film in general.

To my despair, I don't think this movie starts with a traditional gun barrel. For the fourth out of five films, I think they're going to talk themselves out of it by saying James Bond's retired and there's no logical means of showing the gun barrel without being deceptive, blah blah blah. I really hope we don't see Lashana Lynch's Nomi in the gun barrel just because she's 007 now.

Our opening sequence will probably be just of the villains doing something dastardly. They kill some scientists or whatever. Then, Nomi is there to look into it and she manages to get some sort of clue that will help drive the plot, but she's unsuccessful in stopping the villains from executing part of their plan.

Cue titles and main theme.

Let's check up on where Bond is. He's with Madeleine Swann in Jamaica. They've settled down five years or so ago after Spectre and they're madly in love, but possibly, Bond is a little bored. He misses the life of being a 00 agent, but he knows what he's doing now is safer. There's some sort of hint that there's something else going on in their lives, but we're not told what. This will be massively important later.

Based on the clues, MI6 finds out that the person behind all this madness is Safin, and that he has ties to SPECTRE. Since nobody knows that organization as well as Bond, they reach out to him to try to get his thoughts on helping out. He's hesitant, back-and-forth about it, until Madeleine hears that it has to do with Safin. She reacts stunned and basically tells James that he needs to do this because if Safin is involved, it can't be good. Mysteriously, we don't know why she's all upset, and she refuses to say why. This drives a wedge between the two that will get deeper as the film goes on.

The bulk of the film is trying to figure out more information on Safin's plan, which will eventually be revealed as some sort of biological warfare. Plot elements along the way that are interwoven with that are:

• Madeleine helped Safin study the rare plants or procedures or whatever that led to him being able to create this biological weapon. That's what she's ashamed of. Bond is upset with her and how she could do something so bad, even though she didn't really know at the time what she was doing.
• Safin's project started as an operation under SPECTRE. Ernst Stavro Blofeld knows this and that's why Bond has to speak to him in Hannibal Lecter mode to get information. Blofeld's probably barely in the movie.
• Bond continually butts heads with Nomi because she's his replacement and he doesn't respect her yet. In typical fashion, being afraid of writing a compelling character that has nuance, she'll fall victim to the trope of "utterly perfect and annoyingly snarky at the main character to prove that she's a super strong independent woman who is better at him at everything he's ever done, follows the rules just like M wants, has a great relationship with Q and Moneypenny and Tanner, and they're all just super fond of her because she's not as insufferable as Bond." The audience will be basically told to like her, but if anyone comes out of the movie thinking she was a Mary Sue, they'll be called sexist and/or racist, instead of just preferring when characters have depth and aren't perfect.
• Paloma is just an agent who Felix Leiter knows and recommends because Bond and company need to check stuff out in the area she's his best contact for. She's probably in a handful of scenes and I'd imagine she might be killed as the sacrificial lamb for one part of this, or she helps them with something and then promptly tells them this isn't her mission and they leave and don't see her for the rest of the film.
• No idea about Logan Ash. I don't trust that he's not a villain, though. If he's framed as a hero, he'll be a double agent. It's not going to be Nomi.
  

Throughout the bulk of the story, they're going to realize that Safin's plan is to release this biological weapon to thin out the population and pull a Karl Stromberg / Hugo Drax style "save the world by getting rid of humans except for the chosen ones I've handpicked" setup. That's why Bond says in the trailer that if they don't do whatever dangerous mission it is, there will be no one left to save.

Why is Bond so adamantly trying to save the world, other than because he's a good guy and a hero? Because he has a secret that we've been alluding to the whole film that we still haven't revealed yet.

At the end of the movie, Nomi is incapacitated. She's not killed, but she's put out of commission, maybe by means of an injury, maybe she's tasked with guarding something or doing another objective, but she's not doing the main "kill Safin and directly stop the madman" part of the mission. She's working with Q and them, I guess. I don't know. The point is, this isn't Nomi's win, as Bond is the main character and he still should be the main hero, too.

Madeleine may very well die. These films in the Craig era love the tragedy angle. There's a solid chance Bond himself dies, too, or instead of Madeleine. However, as much as I think there's going to be a push to kill off Bond so Nomi can be 007 going forward and they'll try to make at least one movie focused entirely on her, if not just as an experiment where they act like it's a "buffer" before recasting a new James Bond, but to make it seem like they're appealing to the woke audience and undoing all the sexism of the series, blah blah, I do ultimately think they'll be smart enough not to actually kill off James Bond.

What I do think, however, is that we're getting a reveal that Bond has gone back into retirement in Jamaica because of that mysterious secret that they've teased the whole film. And here's where the big twist comes in.

Whether Madeleine is alive or not, Bond has chosen to go back into retirement because of the real Bond girl in the film—not Madeleine, not Paloma, not Nomi, not Moneypenny...but HIS DAUGHTER.

That's right. I'm predicting an Iron Man mixed with Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother scenario here. They'll make it so how in Skyfall, the main "Bond girl" was essentially M and the love was more of a mother/son relationship, while this one is more of a father/daughter love and she's the girl he ends up with at the finale, just playing with her and her toys or something. Rather than killing off the character or having him go into a retirement for a romantic love interest, wherein we know he wouldn't be comfortable just being a normal guy, he's found the emotional depth to be a father and that's the responsible thing to do, to keep her out of the life of the spy game and all.

That's what I'm expecting to happen, but what do you think?
Give your predictions and thoughts on my guesses in the comments below!

In Captain America: The First Avenger, we were introduced to the Tesseract. Eventually, as the series progressed, this was fleshed out more to be clarified as the Space Stone that made up the Infinity Gauntlet.

At least as far as Avengers: Endgame is concerned, the Marvel Cinematic Universe no longer truly has the Tesseract in play after Thanos "used the stones to destroy the stones" and reduced them all to atoms.

With that in mind, as well as how the Tesseract was utilized as the Space Stone, that means we've yet to truly get the Cosmic Cube in all its glory in the MCU. It's clear Marvel decided to somewhat merge the concepts and simplify things while representing the Cosmic Cube in some fashion. Red Skull and Thanos went after the Tesseract, just as they often do in the comics with the Cosmic Cube. It's just a lot simpler to tell people that it's one of many and move that plot thread along, rather than give them an entirely different MacGuffin and then sidestep to the Infinity Stones and treat them like a bigger deal.

But not having had the Cosmic Cube in the MCU means we're missing out on a chance to do some other stories. The Space Stone doesn't grant wishes like the Cosmic Cube does. Plus, there's no tie-in with the Beyonders or anything else that can be tapped into.

So what should happen to bring the Cosmic Cube into the MCU at some point in the series' future? I think there are a few things that have to be addressed: its creation, how to keep it a fresh idea, who wields it, which characters interact with it and so on.

The MCU cannot just randomly toss out the next all-powerful item and move on as if the Infinity Stones are yesterday's news without feeling like it's rehashing a similar formula. The Cosmic Cube has to come about through different means and not seem like an ancient thing the universe is built upon.

Luckily, there's a precedent in the comics that the Cosmic Cube can be artificially created and by many different civilizations. That opens tons of doors and options for how this can come about.

Here are just a few potential ways I think they could bring about the creation of a Cosmic Cube, if not multiple by picking a variety of these:

• The Beyonders - Even if it isn't spoken of at first, there could be an eventual reveal that the energies contained in these are coming from the dimension the Beyonders dwell. That could bring them in as one of the biggest threats to the universe.
• A.I.M. and M.O.D.O.K. - Let's assume the benefactor from Ant-Man 3 plays into all this. They can say that the Cosmic Cube has something to do with Pym Particles and the Quantum Realm. Advanced Idea Mechanics has been associated with the Cosmic Cube in the past, so that's a good tie-in.
  
• S.H.I.E.L.D. - Project Pegasus was studying the Tesseract. Maybe they tried to create their own version of it and that's why this is a cube as well?
• Skrulls and Kree - These two societies are old enough that they could have come across any of the necessary materials to create something like this. Skrulls have been involved with the Cosmic Cube in the comics, too, and with the amount of focus on the Tesseract from the MCU in Captain Marvel, there are more than enough connections.
  
• High Evolutionary - Between everything going on with Adam Warlock and the High Evolutionary, I would be easily sold on wishes created from this kind of device being how The Sovereign can create their race and such.
  
• Fantastic Four - The Negative Zone could be part of this (but I doubt it) and they could even tie this into being related to Franklin Richards. What if the Cosmic Cube has his reality warping powers, in a sense, wherein it works into his future self and Kang the Conqueror and all those story elements woven together? The Cosmic Cube could be one of the main things Reed Richards studies over the course of several films.
  
• Doctor Strange - Since this is wish based, you can easily sell me on the idea that it ties into the Multiverse of Madness as another magical trinket that Doctor Strange studies.
  

Of course, all of this depends on what Marvel has in store for the next phases of the MCU. For all we know, the goal is to focus on Galactus as the sole cosmic force out there and something like this would take too much attention away from him.

Ideally, I'd love to see The Beyonder brought in, Battle World and Secret Wars to take place, some older characters like Steve Rogers and Tony Stark come into the fold with cameos based on wishes and for this idea to be fully realized, rather than just forgotten about as merged with the Space Stone. But what do you have in mind? What would you like to see the MCU do with the Cosmic Cube?

This is a random topic that I've wanted to get around to since Avengers: Infinity War came out, but it still remains open for discussion: since Thor was given a hammer/axe combo that was dubbed Stormbreaker, what hammer should Beta Ray Bill use if he ever appears for the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

The way I see it, they have three options, with some variables within them.

Beta Ray Bill pictured with Stormbreaker, which looks nothing like the one in the MCU, of course.

Option 1 - Stormbreaker

The MCU is no stranger to changing comics continuity. Sometimes, it's for the better (in my opinion) with things like Tony Stark being the one to create Ultron. Other times, it's a mistake, like their first attempt at The Mandarin.

Some people are adamant that Beta Ray Bill still gets Stormbreaker, even though it wouldn't make a lot of sense for Thor to go back to "the little one" in Mjolnir for multiple reasons—not the least of which is that it was supposedly restored back to its original timeline by Captain America at the conclusion of Endgame.

But maybe Bill gets a version of Stormbreaker from another universe/dimension. It seems that's where a lot of these other movies are heading with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Wandavision, so what if that's their excuse?

Maybe he doesn't even have a name for his weapon and they play Bill off as goofy in a sense like they like to make most of their characters. After he hears that Thor calls his weapon that name, he likes the name and adopts it for himself, despite Thor protesting that he can't do that, as that's his axe's name.

Or maybe Thor ends up with another weapon and passes Stormbreaker onto Bill. I don't think that's the best option, but it could theoretically happen.

Option 2 - Jarnbjorn

Just as they took the name Stormbreaker and applied it to a different weapon, why not do the same with another?

Jarnbjorn is an axe Thor wields from time to time. It's purely an axe, though, without the hammer side.

Of course, that's just in the comics. But in the comics, Ghost isn't the daughter of Egghead and an Ant-Man villain, nor was Ego the Living Planet the father of Star-Lord. Things change.

The likelihood that they'll ever spend time having Chris Hemsworth as Thor wielding just a pure axe like Jarnbjorn is so low that they could get away with using that name for Beta Ray Bill's weapon and only the die-hard fans would notice. Casuals certainly wouldn't have an idea who Bill is to begin with, let alone the discrepancies about the weaponry. Hell, most people can't even pronounce Mjolnir and just call it "Thor's hammer" anyway.

Option 3 - Thunderstrike

One thing I'm disappointed in with the MCU is that they never utilized the Donald Blake pseudonym. In the first film, he could have easily used that moniker while he was walking around Earth and trying to be a normal person, but they tossed it aside as a different gag with Jane Foster's ex who is seemingly still out there somewhere.

Eric Masterson isn't going to be a thing, either. It's just not going to happen. So let's have Thor use that name as his pseudonym on Earth when he's trying to be a little inconspicuous.

Then, that frees up Thunderstrike to be used. Since it won't have to be a superhero name and it was both that and Masterson's weapon, how about giving that to Bill? For that matter, he could even use the mace instead of the hammer/axe combo to help differentiate it from Thor's Stormbreaker.

What would you like to see happen with Beta Ray Bill and his weapon, whatever its called, in the future of the MCU? Keep the discussion going in the comments section below!

Welcome to another edition of Predicting the Plot wherein I try my best to guess how an upcoming movie is going to play out from start to finish with as many details as I can possibly give, based entirely on the previews and lead-up material I've seen.

I might be dead wrong. I may get some things right. In any way, I encourage you to give your predictions just the same in the comments below.

For this edition, I'll be tackling my fan theory of what we're in store for with the latest Star Wars film, The Rise of Skywalker.

The movie starts with a shot of space. I'm kidding, of course it does. That's no prediction.

At the beginning of the movie, it's established that some time has finally passed by, unlike The Last Jedi. I still don't understand why they chose to structure these movies like they did...but I won't rant too much in this post. I'll at least try not to.

I'm assuming we start with an attack. That way, we can see Kylo Ren brooding and being pissy while slicing his way through the galaxy and establish whatever version of Death Star they plan on making the "big threat" of this movie. It seems like it's Star Destroyers that have the abilities of the Death Star. Real original.

Maybe we cut to Rey feeling that through The Force, or maybe we just go straight to Rey. In any fashion, we see that she's grown even more powerful, if you could imagine that. They've skipped over her training, just like how she could skip over everything to reach the point she was at in The Force Awakens, since she's not a real character, but just a shell of an idea. Sorry, I'm ranting again.

Basically, she started at level 90 in Pokemon and over the course of the last film and this one, she's been given 10 more Rare Candies and is now at the top of her game. She's still having visions and psychic connections to Kylo Ren and she's one of the only people in the Rebel Alliance Resistance who is worth a damn in the fight against the Empire First Order.

The others are our plucky crew from before: Finn, Rose, Poe, maybe a few other characters that you'll never remember the name of. (Side note: it's true. You can tell me who IG-88 is, but I bet you can't tell me anyone in Maz Kanata's cantina other than the lead characters, right? Hell, you might not even remember Rose's sister's name. I sure as hell don't. I don't even remember Benicio Del Toro's character's name. Do you?)

Leia is sick. Maybe she dies right here, or maybe they wait until later for an emotional punch.

General Hux wants to overthrow Kylo Ren, but he can't, because he's a wimp. Ren is probably going through some sort of psychic connection of his own, drawing him toward what will later be revealed as the ruins of the Death Star from Endor. Palpatine is that voice in his head manipulating him.

Rey starts getting the same ideas going on about trying to reach this nexus point, while Poe and Finn and company are focused a little more on the battle with the First Order so they have something to do. Hopefully, they'll all stick together for most of the movie this time and not split up. It's nice if characters interact with each other.

Kylo Ren comes in contact with Palpatine. He's alive. Whaaaaat. If we're lucky, they'll say he was behind Snoke from the start and that he was just a pawn so that his death is a tad more forgivable in retrospect (even though we all know that's just cover-up). Maybe we're even lucky enough to get a justification of why Ben Solo is evil by having Palpatine be the one warping him so that he wasn't in control of his actions, instead of him being a moody dickhead emo.

The Resistance is given some knowledge about all this from an unknown source. They try to track down the same information and deal with some people along the way to get there. Kerri Russell's character is one of them. Lando and his daughter is another.

Maybe this is when they need to hook C-3PO up to the device that, rumor has it, wipes his memory. RIP Threepio, but these legacy characters need to go.

There's an attack on the heroes. Maybe this is when Chewbacca bites the bullet.

Blah blah blah. They do the whole heist thing in a way where they're looking for a way to find Palpatine. It turns out their contact within the First Order is Hux. He's killed for being a traitor.

Eventually, they reach that point and there's a big space battle at the same time as Kylo, Rey and Palpatine are in a throne room. It's just Return of the Jedi again. It turns out Rey is Palpatine's clone or daughter or granddaughter or some kind of lineage like that. She's related to Palpatine and he wants her and Kylo to unify for the Dark Side.

They fight. Kylo struggles with some feelings of the Light, maybe some visions, too. They all wax poetic about the inevitability of power corrupting people, having the will not to succumb to it, etc. He starts to suck life out of the two of them.

Knowing the way these films are going, they'll kill Ben. After all, Rey's the one they want to be the hero and he stands in her way. I wouldn't be shocked at all if he's just punked out, but maybe he comes back in the finale.

The space battle has its struggles, but the heroes win, by the way.

The finale is that Rey summons a bunch of our favorite heroes from the past via The Force. It's Luke, Anakin, Obi-Wan, Leia, Yoda, Qui-Gon and, again, if we're lucky, Ben Solo. The combined efforts of all them essentially praying is what "brings balance to The Force" like a sort of exorcism.

At the end, Rey chooses to go by the name Rey Skywalker, and/or the new name for Jedi is that they're called Skywalkers. Big celebration. The end.

Welcome to another edition of Predicting the Plot wherein I try my best to guess how an upcoming movie is going to play out from start to finish with as many details as I can possibly give, based entirely on the previews and lead-up material I've seen.

I might be dead wrong. I may get some things right. In any way, I encourage you to give your predictions just the same in the comments below.

For this edition, I'll be tackling one of the many sequels to my favorite movie of all time (Terminator 2: Judgment Day), which is the upcoming Terminator: Dark Fate.

Oh boy...you're not going to like this one, and neither am I...

The movie starts with either the typical recap of the Skynet future or we jump right into T2.

A terminator (Carl) kills John Connor. Mabye they show that he was a senator like in the other ending (the GOOD ending of this franchise). Maybe he's a junkie loser like in Rise of the Machines. More likely, though, knowing that there's a little kid in this film for reference, it'll probably be the young John from right after T2.

The point is, they're totally going to kill off John because this entire movie is going to be about beating you over the head with this concept of female empowerment and a "changing of the guard" like The Force Awakens / The Last Jedi where everything is a copycat of what it was before, but this time, they make the original character that was the savior a waste of space because they want to bring in a new character as the real savior.

Sarah spends the rest of her life not knowing what to do. John's dead. No Judgment Day. She has no purpose, other than hunting down terminators. Maybe Carl is the one that killed John and he has no purpose, either, and they see eye to eye like that. It'll be stupid, but this movie is going to be stupid, so I'm not counting anything out.

We're introduced to Dani Ramos. She's either a spitfire and TOTES TOUGH and can handle herself and has no real progression throughout the film because they're too afraid of making her appear weak, or she's a carbon copy of the Sarah Connor treatment in that she's the one at first who is screaming and needs protection until she bucks up.

She has a brother. Who cares?

She's attacked by Gabriel Luna's character. Surprise, he's a terminator. What the fuck is a terminator? Well, to explain that, here's the new modified cyborg woman Grace to explain the new future and how things have changed.

They "only postponed" Judgment Day, like before, and changed the details. Now, it's not Skynet, it's something else. With John dead, Dani is the new savior. Skynet 2.0 is SO MUCH WORSE YOU GUYS because they tell us it is.

Note: This is when everyone should realize that they just want to reskin the previous thing and say that their idea is even better, exactly like Star Wars has.

What is fundamentally the difference between John and the new protagonist? She's new, younger and a Latina woman. What's different between Skynet 2.0 and Skynet? Nothing, just like how The First Order is 100% the Empire. What's the difference between Grace and Arnold's T2 terminator? At its core, nothing, because both are just "robot thing that protects the hero". But Grace is a woman, so there's a sisterhood going on with her, Dani and Sarah. I wouldn't even be surprised if they say something about how in the future, they don't need men. At least they do have one difference in that one is an enhanced human and the other is an android, but that alone is like saying we should make a whole movie around remaking Terminator 3 and keep all the details the same except this time, Kate Brewster can be a human doctor instead of a vet. WHOLE DIFFERENT MOVIE GUYS, SERIOUSLY...

Anyway, back on track.

So they fight and fight and fight. Arnold's terminator sacrifices himself I guess, or Sarah does. Or both. Probably Arnold, because that way, they don't kill off one of the female characters and they can keep Sarah for another film if they're able to do another one. It's easier to kill Arnold because they can always have another and bring him back if they want, but they've killed Sarah multiple times before, too, and whatever. She's the one that makes the most sense as far as having it hit the audience harder, so let's predict that she's bites the bullet.

They kill the Gabriel Luna.

Ominous thing about how the future isn't certain but with the new savior of humanity now all tough and determined, she'll be ready to fight.

MAYBE if they want to backtrack on this, they tease something about John Connor still possibly being alive so that they can have a sequel where he's taking on Sarah's spot as the guide to help them out and possibly die. That's if they didn't do something blatant like have Carl take a shotgun and blow his head off.

Terminator theme plays in the credits, if we're lucky. Maybe not anywhere else in the movie.

Everyone watching goes "ugh...well, it wasn't as bad as that Genisys title or T3, but it still sucks compared to T1 and T2" and we continue the cycle of bad Terminator films and I die a little more inside, and if you complain about it, you're clearly only hating it because you obviously hate women—not that you could ever be opposed to the idea of taking a movie and going against its whole purpose to copy and paste it purely for the sake of unoriginality and trying to appeal to "woke culture" stuff and mask your negative reviews with a shield of #feminism.

There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. It's a shame this franchise was perfect and chose to take a dark fate of bad sequels to ruin it and make the ratio more bad films than good ones.

I'll say it right now: if this movie is nothing but a thinly-veiled excuse to say "the future is female" and literally serves no purpose but to replace John Connor with Dani Ramos because she happens to be Latina, I don't think I'll even bother doing a Reviewpoint.

Welcome to another edition of Predicting the Plot wherein I try my best to guess how an upcoming movie is going to play out from start to finish with as many details as I can possibly give, based entirely on the previews and lead-up material I've seen.

I might be dead wrong. I may get some things right. In any way, I encourage you to give your predictions just the same in the comments below.

For this edition, I'll be tackling my fan theory of what Todd Phillips is bringing us with the upcoming movie Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix as the iconic Clown Prince of Crime...maybe.

It's important to note that I haven't seen The King of Comedy, which I feel this will take some inspiration from. I have seen Taxi Driver, though, many many moons ago.

So let's start with the synopsis we've been given:

Failed comedian Arthur Fleck encounters violent thugs while wandering the streets of Gotham City dressed as a clown. Disregarded by society, Fleck begins a slow dissent into madness as he transforms into the criminal mastermind known as the Joker.

The movie starts with Arthur as a boy. His mom Penny (Frances Conroy) and dad are weird, at best. They could be the argumentative type and his dad could be abusive. Or, perhaps they even skip that and show that he and his mom are alone because his dad left them. Remember this idea and keep in mind the concept of a stepfather.

Penny has ticks or is psychotic or schizophrenic or something that we can attribute to her genetics passing on a predisposition to Arthur that he's going to have to grow up with, and we can already tell that as a boy, he has his social problems and such. This could be when he first manifests his Pseudobulbar affect (ie, how he laughs uncontrollably at random times when stressed).

Arthur is fixated on comedians. That calms him down. One of them is his idol, Murray Franklin (Robert DeNiro).

Arthur wants to be a stand-up comic, but he sucks at it. He tries to go on stage, but gets heckled and possibly even abused in some fashion. We know at some point, he's dressed as a clown, spinning a sign and gets picked on and beaten up, so this seems to be a run of the mill type thing. He's a loser, and that's going to weigh on him.

Over the years, Penny got so bad that she had to be transferred to Arkham Asylum, and/or Arthur has to receive check-ups. I don't see a doctor on the cast list, so I don't think Arthur is seeing a physician for a bunch of times in the movie, but we do see "Arkham State Hospital Clerk" played by Brian Tyree Henry. He's a name, so that must mean he's in at least a handful of scenes and is probably the go-to person to talk to when Arthur visits his mom.

Somewhere along the way, Arthur starts flirting with Sophie Dumond (Zazie Beetz) even if she's not flirting back. Whether it's mutual and he screws it up or it's one-sided and she eventually has to tell him she's not interested, the point is that his love life goals will be shattered toward the breaking point.

Meanwhile, Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen)—who, in this version, instead of being a humanitarian and younger, is an older Donald Trump type playboy asshole politician—is running for office and is all the talk. Arthur gets the idea in his mind that Wayne is his father. He even meets up with Young Bruce Wayne (Dante Pereira-Olson) and that's where we have that scene of the two at the gate of Wayne Manor. Arthur thinks Bruce is his younger brother.

He isn't. Thomas Wayne isn't his father. His mother just made that up to either give him a false sense of value, or she's so deluded that she believed it herself, but it isn't true. None of this is true. Arthur is just a failure and a mistake.

So he snaps. He becomes The Joker and gets on television and kills everyone. This incites revolution and everyone maybe even kills Thomas Wayne, if Arthur hasn't already done that. The end.

If there's anything after that, if we're lucky, it would be really cool for them to show someone in a Batman costume and Joker being arrested or something. Then, there's some sort of tease that none of this was real and he tosses out the line about how if he'd like to have a past, he'd like for it to be multiple choice, and the whole thing is basically bullshit because The Joker doesn't have an origin story and it wouldn't make any sense for him to be 30+ years older than Batman, nor for Bruce to have a father who is 63 around the time Thomas and Martha are killed as they're normally around 30-40 range...50 max.

Either the whole movie is meaningless, or it ends with him becoming The Joker in a metaphorical sense and not obviously actually the character that fights Batman, as there isn't a Batman, and it's just a film about the interesting villain without having to frame it in the context of what makes Joker who he is, similar to how if someone wrote a movie about Edward Nygma being into riddles and becoming a criminal that the GCPD try to stop, but can't, and there's no Batman. Or, if there was a movie about Doomsday destroying the world without a Superman (ie, any monster movie that has ever existed that ends in gloom).

The latest and last of the X-Men films, according to promotional material, which conveniently ignores the whole New Mutants thing that should totally just go to Hulu and not attempt a theatrical run, will be Dark Phoenix, which premieres tomorrow.

I'll be having my Reviewpoint for it as soon as I can after watching it tomorrow night, but by all accounts, it seems like this is going to be a train wreck, and not just in the finale.

I've been wanting to pump out more content here for Fanboys Anonymous, and I figured now is the best time to debut one of the new segments I've been working on, dubbed Predicting the Plot.

How this works is pretty simple: I'll be taking an upcoming film and giving my fan theories on how I think the movie will go down, from start to finish, with as many details as I possibly can give, based entirely on the previews that I've seen and my predictions. I might be dead wrong, but I might get a lot of things correct, and I encourage you all to give your predictions just the same in the comments below.

So without further ado, let's kick things off by trying to figure out what is going to happen in Dark Phoenix.

The movie starts with Professor Xavier giving a monologue about human evolution and mutation, possibly tying it in with the celestial aspect of things. I'm expecting something like "Since the dawn of time, humans have looked to the stars for knowledge of the gods" along with an ominous message foreshadowing how Jean Grey is totally going to be possessed by this godly force of nature. Cut to the opening credits of the bitchin' X-Men theme that is the second best one out there, as the '90s animated theme is still the top dog.

This transitions to either everyone at the X-Mansion receiving word of the mission to save the astronauts, or possibly the problem with the astronauts themselves. The point is, some astronauts get messed up in space and the X-Men step in to help. Maybe there's a scene beforehand or in-between this that deals with the public perception of them as superheroes that explains why they would go on this mission (either to help convince people they're here to help, or because people already like them and they actively reach out to ask for help).

One way or another, within the first 20 minutes of the movie, the X-Men are in space and saving the astronauts. A solar flare puts everyone in danger and Jean absorbs it. Everyone's confused about what happened and how she was able to survive that.

She gets checked out by Hank McCoy and they find out that she's okay, but her power levels are spiking. They're off the charts! Whatever happened up there magnified her mutant abilities and she's in danger of going out of control. But nah, she's cool, she's Jean and she's our family. No need to worry.

Let's spend some time with Magneto on Genosha. He's got a sanctuary for mutants going on. Hopefully, this isn't a total repeat of the last film and we don't just see a bunch of these mutants get killed as a motivator for him to rejoin the action, but I think that will happen later.

Jean starts acting weird and everyone begins to notice and get skeptical about her losing control, as she starts talking to Jessica Chastain, who is this manifestation of the Phoenix Force in her mind that they can't see. Maybe Charles can see it. Maybe he can't connect with her because she's blocking him out.

By the 1/4 mark of the movie or so, Jean is back in her childhood home. That's where we see that she's causing a ruckus and the X-Men step in to try to stop her. POOF! Mystique is killed! Oh no!

Jean runs off and has that scene where she's crying in the alley, asking "Why did you make me do that? She was my friend." Chastain's character keeps feeding her b.s. about how the X-Men fear her power and so on.

Mourning for Mystique. Some are just sad, while some are angry and want to kill Jean in retaliation. Beast is one of the people who is against Jean. Scott is, naturally, on the side of "no, she's still Jean and she can be redeemed, because this wasn't her fault." If Magneto isn't already brought back into the mix yet, this is where he comes in, recruited by Beast and whoever else (Storm?) feels like they need Magneto's help to take her down.

We basically kill time for a while until the end battle. I'd be really surprised if there are any extra elements to this plot, like if Omega Red stops by to say hello, or if Mr. Sinister is part of this. I know that they've already tried to set up Essex, but I feel like that thread will just be ignored.

There must be some sort of grand scheme of Chastain's character. Maybe she just wants to destroy the entirety of Earth. Maybe she has no fight in this whole human/mutant thing. Maybe this ties into the Shi'ar Empire, but I doubt it. (Side note: remember when people thought she would be a Skrull?) Anyway, whatever her plan is, she's using Jean as a conduit and playing puppet-master to control her into doing her bidding.

There needs to be some sort of mooks for the X-Men to fight. I'm assuming an invading species of aliens that Chastain's character controls.

For the life of me, I don't know how this movie went from having an ending that took place in space to something that's now a train derailment. That seems like such a big departure. But I assume whatever the impetus for that is, the end result stays the same, in that Jean sacrifices herself to take out the alien threat (namely Chastain's character) and the movie ends with everyone mourning her and honoring her in some fashion.

If they're particularly ambitious, they'll do something like have Jean's consciousness enter the body of someone named Madelyne Pryor, similar to what they did with Xavier in The Last Stand, and/or they'll tease the Shi'ar Empire and the M'Kraan Crystal.

Avengers: Endgame was advertised in both title and marketing as the culmination of many different stories for our beloved characters, and for all we know coming out of that movie, it seems to actually have delivered on that promise.

Several heroes and even some villains met their demise or were written out of the franchise with an ending of sorts, and while that may just be a wrap, I'm not entirely convinced of this.

In fact, there are some character we know for sure will be returning in some fashion, due to the pipeline of future projects in the works.

So how will those characters return and what are the options for how the Marvel Cinematic Universe could potentially bring back all of the characters who have been written off?

Here are my theories on where we go, now that they're gone.

Vision

This is the easiest one. Shuri finishes working on repairing his brain like she was trying to do during Infinity War.

That's it. He's a computer. All you need is a new motherboard, a new hard drive, and whatever other parts are necessary to run his operating system, and then you just transfer the old files and you're good.

Maybe Scarlet Witch's connection to the Mind Stone and her powers can help be the jumper cables which are the missing element to the formula, and that's where WandaVision (hate that title) can pick up from.

Natasha Romanoff

Everyone has gone on record multiple times in saying that there is no way to bring Black Widow back. She's gone for good. Forever. Finito. The end. That's it.

I call bullshit on that.

If they returned the stones to the time they got them, does that not mean that Natasha's soul is lingering in something of a limbo status, kind of like what happened in some fashion with Gamora? (More on her later)

If you say she died so they could have Hulk do the snap, then who died for Tony Stark's snap? He didn't, as he died from the wounds of that action, not that he traded his soul. We're missing something there.

If you say that she died so they could take the stone, then when Captain America put it back on Vormir...somehow...that reverses the process, as it needed to be put back in exactly the same time that they took it, or else they've changed the past and created a different timeline, and if they've done that, then the entire purpose of the scene with The Ancient One was moot because they failed.

So how do they bring Natasha back? Well, I don't think it will happen in the Black Widow movie, as that will likely be a prequel, but if they ever decide to, they can just have her be un-snapped and living as an amnesiac.

Think of it somewhat like Bucky. She'll have faint glimpses of her past life, but no real memory of who or what she is, because she's gone through a reboot process of sorts and she's not quite all there yet.

Then, someone comes along to bonk her in the head or do some sort of magic and fix her, and voila.

But that brings me to...

Gamora

She's in a very similar position to Black Widow, but not quite. Nobody is replacing the stone to when Thanos took it. He took it, he used it, that's not being reversed.

But we have Gamora in the Soul World speaking to Thanos and asking him "Did you do it?" and "What did it cost?"—two things which denote consciousness, in some form.

We also have the 2014 Gamora, which makes absolutely no sense to me, but I'm almost giving up trying to wrap my mind around any of that continuity and mathematical balancing act that likely has no real answers.

So here's what I'm thinking. Adam Warlock was teased at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and it's doubtful they did that with no intention to follow through with him.

In the comics, Warlock is incredibly tied to the Soul Gem, and I think a variation of that is in store for Vol. 3 as a means to explain how he was "created" by Ayesha.

The Sovereign are surrounded by gold in every way, as well as literally being gold. Even the anulax batteries (I mean, harbulary batteries) are gold and super powerful.

What if the method in which The Sovereign are able to harness this insane power for the batteries, as well as create perfect beings, is to tap into the Soul World and access the energies of the Infinity Stones by proxy?

If so, Adam Warlock's connection to that could grant him the power to do a merging of the minds between Gamora's 2014 self and the consciousness that was thrown off the cliff by Thanos.

That way, the Gamora who is alive and well is not the same physical being that was killed by Thanos, but she's got the same memories and ends Vol. 3 remembering her love for Star-Lord and the rest of her family, as well as the events of Endgame.

Tony Stark

If you're looking for a means to bring Robert Downey Jr. back into the fold in any capacity, he can be the voice in the suit for Peter Parker's next costume, or a guiding JARVIS artificial intelligence that Morgan Stark can interact with.

Eventually, if they want to do Ironheart and make it Morgan instead of Riri Williams, then he can easily voice the essence of Tony Stark without having to worry about his age or being in shape or anything like that.

But if you're talking about how to bring Iron Man back as an actual person by undoing his death, I think you need to get wacky with the timeline again in some fashion with a character who has the ability to heal Tony and bring him back to life.

I don't think that's happening, though. I think the AI route is the one and only way they'll use him, save for maybe something like watching "old footage" of something and having Downey do a cameo in that fashion, but the character would still be dead.

Steve Rogers as Captain America

Technically, Steve Rogers isn't dead, he's just old and retired, having passed the mantle of Captain America to Sam Wilson.

All it takes to change that is to have someone de-age Steve, and all it takes for that is someone with the power or technology to de-age someone.

The super soldier serum inside him has kept him alive this long, and there's no telling how that would interact with some other kind of serum or someone's powers tapping into that and rejuvenating his cells or something.

Again, I don't think this will happen, but it's much easier to do that than to mess with the timeline some more, since he's still alive right now.

Heimdall, Loki and the Asgardians

They're not coming back, most likely, but if they did, I think it would be through some passage through Hel and/or Valhalla, winning their souls back, like has happened in the comics in the past.

The Villains

Thanos, Ebony Maw and company aren't coming back. There's no reason for them to. Thanos is the only one worth bringing back and his story is finished with no real possible other things to do.

This includes 2014 Nebula. She's dead. We don't need her. We have the heroic Nebula.

The Snap's Collateral Damage

It hasn't really been addressed how just because half the universe was wiped out from the snap itself doesn't mean those were the only deaths.

If the pilot of an airplane was snapped away, it's likely the whole airline crashed and everyone on board died. Plenty of people got into car accidents because of that. Parents died and left their infant children with nobody to take care of them. Doctors disappeared, making it harder to help cure the ill. People killed themselves because of losing their family members and friends.

Those people won't be brought up, most likely, because it's just too sad to keep mentioning for the rest of the MCU's existence and it's a hard concept to fully wrap your mind around when you're in a movie that will ultimately still boil down to superheroes punching villains.


For now, those are my thoughts on the possible ways to bring back the dead or "dead" characters, but my mind could change at any point with future films or new information.

How do you think the MCU would bring these people back? What other ideas do you have?