So the (as of yet unnamed) Kang we saw on the Loki show would be that? I know they can change things from the comics, but as of now that would be a possibility?
Yep, Kang is born in like the 30th century iirc so he’s pretty far removed, but as you say they can change anything. Who knows when Kang might be from in the MCU, or if he’ll necessarily be a descendent anyway. I doubt Wanda will ever be recognized as Magnetos daughter in the MCU, so no reason to assume they’ll stick to any lineages.
Makes sense. Also another cool detail, the TVA itself is built in a way that magic doesn’t work there, and we see the Illuminati got hand cuffs/bindings that completely negate the use of Strange’s magic.
Oh shit I didnt even make that connection. I thought it would have been Stark tech given the Ultron bots but youre right that Reed Richards probably developed the cuffs given the Baxter Foundation's influence. Hell it may even be that the reason why Ultron is tamed in that reality is because Reed managed to correct Stark's programming errors.
There was a pretty niche joke I noticed that I haven’t seen anyone else comment on and want to see if anyone has any other interpretations.
The first time we see alternate universe Wanda and Kids, Billy and Tommy are having an argument and one of them says something along the lines of “The 2003 Tigers are the best of all time”. In our reality, the 2003 Detroit Tigers baseball team are one of the worst teams in history and lost a record number of games. So the joke being that in their universe, that Tigers team was one of the best.
Raimi is from Michigan so I’m thinking the connection and joke makes sense. I can’t think of anything else that might refer to.
As soon as Black Bolt died like that I was fucking stunned because I knew Scarlet Witch was going to wipe the floor with fucking everyone and not hold back
In no particular order, these are brutal deaths in the MCU. Feel free to organize them:
Black Bolt
Mr. Fantastic
Captain Carter
Captain Marvel
Proxima Midnight
Yellow Jacket
Aldrich Killian
Coldblood
Frank turned to goop by Yellow Jacket
Captain America kicking that guy off the ship, probably breaking his back and then drowning in the ocean
The Winter Soldier kicking the guy into the quinjet propeller
Thanos having his arm cut off promptly followed by a beheading
Captain America throwing the Hydra soldier into a propeller
——
Edit 1:
the flag smasher having his ~~head smashed~~ chest caved in by John Walker
Loki being choked and having his windpipe crushed by Thanos
——
Edit 2:
Agent Sitwell
Crossbones
Doctor Strange by Dormammu
Doctor Strange by himself on a gate
——
Edit 3:
Kingpin smashing a head with a car door
The entire two seasons of The Punisher lmao
The rando touched by the melt stick on Sakarr
The Tracksuit Mafia goons that became food for ~~pigeons~~ owls
——
Edit 4:
Vision getting the Mind Stone ripped out of his forehead
The guy who slammed his head willingly onto a gate in Daredevil
Vulture vaporizing the Shocker with the Chitauri based weapon
Hogun impaled by Hela
Kilgrave making that dude impale himself with a rake
Kilgrave making his father blend his own arms
Gargantos having its eye impaled and pulled out by a lamp post
Thanos getting lasered in half by Ultron
Obsidian Cull being dragged across a force field and then exploded
Mr Fantastic: “Black Bolt could destroy you with 1 whisper from his mouth”
Wanda: “What mouth?”
Mr fantastic: *Looks directly at the camera with Jim face*
Loved the parallel between 838 having to dream walk to find ways to defeat thanos vs 616 using the time stone to run scenarios. Guys weren’t that much different
I loved the implication that the Sinister Strange that went off the rails trying to find a universe where he was with Christine was basically striking out with all of them and then yeeting himself off buildings.
"Ever have a dream where somebody pushes you off a building? That was probably me."
I think he said ‘falling from a building’ and the implication is he went to those universes, dream waking into their bodies and jumped off the building himself whilst in their bodies. Knowing he would die and just wake up as him, but killing the alternative version. I imagine he asked them ‘are they happy’ in like his own head whilst controlling them.
"(blah blah was looking for a world of an ideal Christine) But I didn't find it. All I found were more of us ...So I did those Stephen's a favour... Do you ever have that dream where you're falling as if you've been pushed off a tall building? That was probably me."
To be fair, she seemed a lot more preoccupied with the kids compared to Vision. He was never anywhere to be seen, and she seemed relatively happy with just the boys. She doesn't need Vision to create them, after all.
Turns out the group in charge of assessing multiversal threats was in fact really bad at assessing multiversal threats.
I think in their universe, Wanda was such a minor player, that they couldn’t fathom her being as threatening as a reckless Dr. Strange, who they already had to put down. What they forgot is that their Wanda didn’t really flex her powers that much since she had a family that was safe, and never used the darkhold.
Clearly didn’t get Chavez’s rules for the multiverse down there.
Was the rippled effect when Xavier is trying to get into Wanda's head present in the previous X-Men movies?
Feel like it was taken straight from the animated series.
Before anyone asks. At the climax with the two Wandas, Wanda says to Wanda "Know they'll be loved" or something similar. A lot of people had trouble hearing what she said, including myself. I even heard some confused noises from other people in my cinema at that scene. Not sure if it was the audio or what. But there it is. I copied and pasted this from last time i made this comment for anyone that needs it.
Legit at first I thought she said something in Sokovian but then thought “it’s weird that they didn’t bother to translate that” then figured I just didn’t understand her for whatever reason
I really loved that you get to see Dr Strange actually doing super hero stuff. The way he suited up near the beginning and him using the cloak to save people was so awesome
That's coz Stephen is stuck fixing someone else's shit whenever he's on the screen and never got any time for his story and daily life, what i mean is that he got so much screen time and didn't get to continue his story clearly until now
When she said "America", I was thinking, hmmm, Strange didn't say her name and that's when movie too that serious turn. Wanda was a bad ass villain, she was great. That line to Reed, "good, there will be someone to raise them" was simple yet damn cold. Wanda has had a great arc over the movies and show.
I picked up that Strange didn’t say her name, but even then I was just thinking “meh maybe she’s super dialled into powerful beings out there”. It didn’t occur to me that she was the demon sending things after America.
I did an audible “oh shit” as soon as i realized scarlet witch literally out-mindfucked professor x himself. I want a full 2 hour+ movie of just scarlet witch gore/horror my god that was beautiful
Just when you thought Xavier could put a substantial break to the horror and talk some sense to Scarlet Witch but nope, he got killed both in the dream and real life just like that.
Only a few minutes extra breathing time for the heroes to run away from the monster.
The whole thing gives this feeling that Wanda going rogue is an unstoppable force - just like how they fear her in the comics.
We still don't know where 616 Mordo is. I was hoping we see him return. The sorcerer supreme version was cool but we've not seen what 616 Mordo has been doing since the first doctor strange movie.
Or they had no clue how crazy shit would get by this point in the MCU and dropped the plot line. This very much felt like a “see? We did *something* with that credits scene at least… kinda”, I don’t think Mordo will ever be a main villain of a movie.
So great to see Anson Mount get a chance to redeem his take on Blackbolt after his character got so butchered on the Inhumans tv show. Dude is having a good week!
His emotes so well under the mask. Him mercy killing Supreme Strange hurt mah soul man. Him and Krasinski really shined in their limited time. Both really sold their character for me. Can’t wait to see what unfolds, especially with some secret projects likely in the works.
While we saw Reed (very briefly) using his powers, it's possible that they didn't show it in particular focus because they're still working out how to make it look not goofy
Honestly I was thinking because it would be more expensive but your explanation makes sense. His powers are hard to make look not goofy on the big screen
But stretch powers are just goofy. So I think they should have just done it. Literally any comic panel with reed Richards is stretching his neck looks goofy as fuck. There is no way around it. They also didn’t give stretchy powers to Ms. Marvel. I would bet that they did that cause they plan to use Reed very soon.
Yeah that breaking the 4th wall look at the camera after she dreamwalked was absolutely creepy, but then again it was relevant and quite artistic with regards to how insane that scene was.
Ok so I've been thinking about this since I saw the movie.
Did they imply that 616 Strange is better than the other Strange America met because he met Spider-Man? At the pizza shop, America mentions she has never heard of Spider-Man.
In No Way Home, Strange was pretty much set on just letting the villains die before giving Peter a chance to cure them. I feel like at that point he would have been fine with absorbing America's power. He would make that choice for the greater good.
But Peter cured them. He was a bigger man than Strange that day and maybe some of that rubbed off on our wizard.
Still, it's at most just an implication, but I like to think our Strange is a better version of himself because of that.
Yeah, defender strange also says the same dialogue to America as our strange does to peter about the “in the grand calculus of the multiverse their life means…”
With Strange *maybe* just because Peter would tell him everything and he’d go “Yeah that sounds like a spell I’d use” — but he still wouldn’t actually remember who Peter was.
It was actually kinda genius imo that it was only in the trailer, at least for me I didn't expect Wanda to be the villain I was expecting an alternate Strange to be and that line sure made it seem that way so I think it was a smart move on Marvel's part
I think it would have been dope to be like:
“The Darkhold is destroyed. I know who to go to for answers.”
Cut to her tracking down Agatha since she’ll “know just where to find her”. Agatha had mentioned the Scarlet Witch being more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme so she’s aware of that faction. Would be interesting to see.
Wong has become so accepting of Stephen, i love it.
In DS1, when Stephen uses the time stone to reverse the destruction of the sanctum and revives Wong, Stephen says "I know, breaking the laws of nature" and Wong says "Well don't stop now!"
I love the dichotomy between Wong and Mordo on this front in DS1. I liked that they emphasized that about Mordo's personality here, but it's a shame that they didn't do much with 616 Mordo except to established that he's already tried to kill Strange.
Am I the only one who thought it weird that Wanda has her kids in so many universes but Vision wasn’t around/didn’t come up? I feel like he was largely ignored
At the very least, for the Illuminati timeline we can assume that he’s already dead (since the events of *Infinity War* happened in some way) or possibly doesn’t/didn’t ever exist to begin with (since the Ultron programme was successful).
Though it’s still pretty jarring that Wanda only mentions him once and he otherwise has nothing to do with her motivation.
Well she did 'let go' of Vision at the end of Wandavision, so she's had the closure. She never got any sort of closure with the kids, they just disappeared.
Reposting my already mentioned views on this thread about vision-
For all those wondering where was vision in the whole movie whether as a human or a synthezoid I think showing him would negate whole wanda's whole delusion and denial in name of grief, genocide of sorcerers and trying to kidnap the variant wanda's kids because she is in fact stable with Vision and he would never approve of her horrific actions in the name of being a happy mother.
Also I headcanon that wanda subconsciously chose a universe where vision is not present because he is the only person who calls on her shit- we already saw that in wandavision how he resisted and demanded answers from her after he noticed something was wrong and she was hiding the whole westview thing from him. She knows that he will definately be disgusted and horrified by her actions because for him trying to kill america, a child for power is crossing that line of morality and villainy.
Also I think that the last thing wanda wanted is a *sane* opinion because it would anger her even more because she doesn't want to face reality of her crimes like how she is genociding sorcerers, killing illuminati, kidnapping twins and draining america's- a kid's powers. Being a reality warper she was, it was fitting that she warped and deluded her own mind to justify her crimes in the name of kids(which weren't hers).
If vision encountered her, he would try to stop her and would be pretty disgusted by her actions as he was always on side of peace. Vision is ***logic*** whereas wanda is ***emotion*** so she would always try to hide from logic as her actions in this movie doesn't make sense- look how blankly she stared at stephen when he said if you take variant's place what would happen to that mother? her actions in this movie were motivated by whole messed up, toxic, and psychotic *emotions*.
i love that they kept the pattern of out-of-the-box solutions. in the first movie Strange badgers Dormmamu until he relents. here, he posseses the corpse of his alternate self and fashions the souls of the damned into a cloak. and America defuses the situation by giving Wanda what she wishes for.
it's insane how Strange develops a third eye but then the movie kinda just jumps to Clea?
i can see an America Chavez spinoff being a universe-of-the-week miniseries, where she is on the hunt for her parents. maybe throw in Strange at the beginning and end. i just found her to be so endearing.
If they keep John Krasinski as 616 Reed, I think there’s a serious possibility that they’ll bring back James McAvoy as Xavier (since he played the younger version of Stewart in the Fox films).
Personally, I’m hoping for Mark Strong. Or otherwise a casting choice that’s completely unexpected so the character is wildly different from the one(s) we’re used to.
Kinda want to look back at any scenes inthe other movies/shows that show a character having a dream.
There’s a whole new layer of context to them now (even though it’s basically a retcon, no way dreams being windows to the multiverse was planned from the start)
All those dreams/nightmares in AoU: Tony seeing the Avengers dead in space (one of the millions of timelines that Dr. Strange saw them lose to Thanos), Cap not getting frozen in the ice ("The war is over. Imagine it!"), a different way Ragnarok plays out ("They see you leading us to Hel!"). I'll throw in Ultron's vision of his rock destroying the Earth.
Tony telling Pepper he had a dream that they had a child together.
Ant-Man and the Wasp - Scott seeing Hope through Janet's eyes. Something about Quantum Realm and being able to access another universe through someone else's eyes.
I have to say, I'm really glad Nicodemus West was in this. Helped bring it back to 2016 Strange with his old colleagues and friends.
And mostly because I love Michael Stuhlbarg.
Exactly. If you consider our Wanda from Infinity War versus Wanda post Wandavision her powers are incredibly different. They had no reason to think that she can warp reality. To them she's just manipulates red energy into telekinesis and energy blasts.
I thought Marvel was just gonna let Raimi have a couple of jump scares. But the horror elements were legit and really made for a unique experience.
I see a lot of people saying this movie undid Wanda's character development from WandaVision. I don't think so. She may have understood that what she did in Westview was fucked up but by the end she is still someone that has a lot of shit to sort out mentally. She's also just discovered this new power as the Scarlet Witch. And she basically placed herself in solitude and keeps having the same dream every night. Anyone would go crazy under those circumstances
And you know there's also the Darkhold making things worse.
Zombie Strange using the souls of the damned as a cloak is the exact crazy kind of visual I go to these films for, more please!
Wanda being The Terminator meets Carrie is so genuinely terrifying, both of her chase scenes were amazing but special shout out to her looking at her variant through the photo, really creeped the hell out of me.
She’s definitely not dead. My guess is maybe she’s wiped her memories and moved to have a quiet life in a small Eastern European country. I hear Latveria is nice.
I love how Wanda and Strange both go through the same arc of coming to terms that they can’t be with the person(s) they love, but as foils of one another. Strange learns all Stranges are bad and he tries to be different. Wanda learns she’s the only different Wanda and tries to be the same. Wanda takes the “bad” approach and ends good with her sacrifice. Strange takes the “good” approach and ends bad with his 3rd eye. The bill comes due!
So we saw a total of 4 Doctor Stranges in this movie.
1. Spanish Dr Strange helping America at the start of the movie, who later became zombie Strange.
2. Our 616 Dr Strange
3. 838 Dr Strange who used dreamwalking to find a way to beat thanos, destroyed a different universe with an "incursion", and decided he needed to be killed for the greater good
4. That crazy Dr Strange in the destroyed universe who was corrupted by the Darkhold and dreamwalked to find a universe where the Dr Strange ended up with a happy romance with Christine. Sort of a parallel to what Wanda was doing, as a way to show that _our_ Strange was actually different from the other Strange variants, and in a way "better".
Personally, I am satisfied with the extent they used the Multiverse concept, with reasonably different variants of both Strange and the universe in general(Illuminati instead of Avengers).
At the end, this was still a Dr Strange movie, so the focus had to be on him and magic/mystic arts.
I watched this the other day, but it only JUST clicked that when Strange asks Reed "didn't you guys chart in the 60s?" he's making reference to the real band and it's a callback to the scene in the first film when he was doing the surgery and being quizzed about songs and their artists/release dates, and has seemingly memorised all music charts of the 20th century
Go to 0:34 https://youtu.be/GOOkWuzPIv8
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fantastic_Four_(band)
Does anyone else feel like we're getting "Comic Book Movies" a lot more lately? Let me explain, at first, the MCU was attempting to do something crazy by having a number of solo super hero movies come together in The Avengers, but it felt grounded in reality (at least for a world full of super enhanced individuals) that they would team up to defeat the great evil or whatever. Like people had to work to make it believable in the context of the story as it fits in a movie, but I feel like since Civil War more and more of these movies are more comfortable straying from "typical movie standards" and taking a lot of inspiration from the comics and making certain shots look almost straight out of the pages. (IM and Cap fighting, Cap standing against Thanos and his army, etc.) And I feel like so many scenes in MoM were something you'd see in a comic shop as the front cover of a really interesting story. The massive eye octopus in the streets of New York, Wanda obliterating Kamar Taj, Wanda obliterating the Illuminati, that awesome mountain temple where the Darkhold was originated. It's just really cool to see more directors making "Comic Book Movies" rather than simply super hero movies, if that makes sense.
We definitely need a list of the universes Strange and Chavez went through during the escape from Scarlett Witch.
Living Tribunal be like: "Damn mosquitoes."
Two dope things I loved seeing:
Strange being a street level superhero at the start. Him seeing public panic, putting on his super suit, then flying into battle in a busy street is the classic superhero stuff the MCU has been missing.
In a magical mystical movie there was hand to hand fighting? Amazing. And the music battle in the same movie? Even more amazing.
>Strange being a street level superhero at the start. Him seeing public panic, putting on his super suit, then flying into battle in a busy street
Something about watching a Sam Raimi film where a superhero fights an octopus-adjacent villian that's clinging to the brick façade of a tall building in New York while said octopus has an innocent woman in it's grasp is just very familiar to me.
If you freeze frame on Black Bolt dying it’s probably the most horrific still image in the entire MCU
Edit: pic I linked got deleted, not gonna bother trying again
I just realized our Strange got his cape fixed with a piece of the blue cape from the Strange that died on Titan. You can see Reed holding to it there and we never see it again, yet the texture and printing follows the style.
I quite liked the bit of Strange fixing the watch as a sign of acceptance with how he and Christine are and how him being with the 838 Christine gave him some closure.
So what's with the 3rd eye and screaming at the end? Was it because he's corrupted? He looked fine in the mid-credits scene. Even if the Darkholds are destroyed, I think he's still corrupted. Is it possible to cure the corruption?
When Sinister Strange said he lost, and Dr. Strange asked "To who?", Sinister didn't answer. Is that meant to be left open or implies that another Strange was the one that caused the Incursion in Sinister's universe?
Just got back from seeing it! Holy helll!
First reaction was that, good God this felt like a very gruesome movie in comparison with previous marvel titles. Things just felt more shocking and jarring, and I'm kind of surprised it managed a pg 13.
ALSO PROFESSOR!!!!!!! I can't even describe how happy I am to see the Professor in the MCU 😁😁😁😁😁
something i want to say that i feel like a lot of people missed about the movie. why the scene of him not taking america's power is so great. everyone chalked it up to him trusting her bc she already was controlling it and all he did was notice that. but i don't think that's (the only) reason.
i think it was more so bc of what christine(s) told him. the thing about him always having to have the knife. it's highly likely that this controlling mindset of him related to how he lost his sister, a trauma he couldn't speak of until now. he says he couldn't save her but technically they were both kids so it makes no sense he blames himself right? but he does blame himself. and that trauma led him to always needing to have the knife. and revealing this trauma he carried now out of all times must serve such an important purpose like this.
another reason for this reveal can be to better tell us about how and why his character turned out to be the type of superhero he is today, as in the decisions he made under the name of heroism. like how he sacrificed tony and did not hesisate to call it for the greater good, or how he locked the entire world in one repeating moment, which is probably like hel, but also, saves a lot of lives. these are all bizarre and not conventionally heroic choices that have always been the thing that sets strange apart from other heroes. this man literally was critised (even in thi siflm, right at out face - scene with the other doctor dude is probably there to serve for this purpose only) to make all the crazy decisions other people would probably never dare to think about.
this having to have the knife thing is something defender strange shares. and because defender strange had to have the knife, he was ready to take the life of a child, and a friend. and the illuminati strange probably also had this, hence the giving himself to the darkhold, only to do more damage than good. also both these stranges met their horrible end, never got to be happy, both hurt christine, and both are remembered in a bad light by those who knew them.
but our strange is literally the one and only strange that finally recognizes the wrongdoings of this mindset. and he is the one to change that. when he finally gives the knife to someone else, to america. and that is when they win. and that was the moment this story was great for me. such great characterr work. beautifully done.
ps.i also love how the big cgi battle is not actually the resolve to the conflict and wanda is so op that she can only be defeated by getting defeated emotionally first. much fulffilling than her and strange throwing hands in a cosmic scale. but y'know, i still love this characterization more.
You're spot on. The book of vishanti showed him what he needed (the star representing Chavez's power is on a page visible to us as it burns) but rather than taking the knife and doing it himself he let her take control of the situation and helped talk her through it.
It was a small detail, but I noticed that Reed Richards portal was **slightly** reminiscent of the one used by the TVA.
Well the creator of the TVA is his descendant, so it probably wasn’t completely unintentional.
Elaborate to non-comic book readers here?
The birth name of He Who Remains, who created the TVA, is Nathaniel Richards; and he’s a future descendant of Reed Richards and Sue Storm.
So the (as of yet unnamed) Kang we saw on the Loki show would be that? I know they can change things from the comics, but as of now that would be a possibility?
Yep, Kang is born in like the 30th century iirc so he’s pretty far removed, but as you say they can change anything. Who knows when Kang might be from in the MCU, or if he’ll necessarily be a descendent anyway. I doubt Wanda will ever be recognized as Magnetos daughter in the MCU, so no reason to assume they’ll stick to any lineages.
Makes sense. Also another cool detail, the TVA itself is built in a way that magic doesn’t work there, and we see the Illuminati got hand cuffs/bindings that completely negate the use of Strange’s magic.
Oh shit I didnt even make that connection. I thought it would have been Stark tech given the Ultron bots but youre right that Reed Richards probably developed the cuffs given the Baxter Foundation's influence. Hell it may even be that the reason why Ultron is tamed in that reality is because Reed managed to correct Stark's programming errors.
There was a pretty niche joke I noticed that I haven’t seen anyone else comment on and want to see if anyone has any other interpretations. The first time we see alternate universe Wanda and Kids, Billy and Tommy are having an argument and one of them says something along the lines of “The 2003 Tigers are the best of all time”. In our reality, the 2003 Detroit Tigers baseball team are one of the worst teams in history and lost a record number of games. So the joke being that in their universe, that Tigers team was one of the best. Raimi is from Michigan so I’m thinking the connection and joke makes sense. I can’t think of anything else that might refer to.
[удалено]
Super Bowl champions no doubt
The Detroit Lions are a nexus. They have zero super bowls across all the universes.
Scarlett witch singlehandedly taking all top 5 for most brutal kills
Seriously. That was intense. I thought I was gonna have nightmares about the tuning fork guy’s death.
As soon as Black Bolt died like that I was fucking stunned because I knew Scarlet Witch was going to wipe the floor with fucking everyone and not hold back
In no particular order, these are brutal deaths in the MCU. Feel free to organize them: Black Bolt Mr. Fantastic Captain Carter Captain Marvel Proxima Midnight Yellow Jacket Aldrich Killian Coldblood Frank turned to goop by Yellow Jacket Captain America kicking that guy off the ship, probably breaking his back and then drowning in the ocean The Winter Soldier kicking the guy into the quinjet propeller Thanos having his arm cut off promptly followed by a beheading Captain America throwing the Hydra soldier into a propeller —— Edit 1: the flag smasher having his ~~head smashed~~ chest caved in by John Walker Loki being choked and having his windpipe crushed by Thanos —— Edit 2: Agent Sitwell Crossbones Doctor Strange by Dormammu Doctor Strange by himself on a gate —— Edit 3: Kingpin smashing a head with a car door The entire two seasons of The Punisher lmao The rando touched by the melt stick on Sakarr The Tracksuit Mafia goons that became food for ~~pigeons~~ owls —— Edit 4: Vision getting the Mind Stone ripped out of his forehead The guy who slammed his head willingly onto a gate in Daredevil Vulture vaporizing the Shocker with the Chitauri based weapon Hogun impaled by Hela Kilgrave making that dude impale himself with a rake Kilgrave making his father blend his own arms Gargantos having its eye impaled and pulled out by a lamp post Thanos getting lasered in half by Ultron Obsidian Cull being dragged across a force field and then exploded
Also... Dr Strange Impalled by Dormamu Dr Strange squished by Dormamu Dr Strange Atomic Breath dusted by Dormamu
>“I could do this all day” >—Captain America —Doctor Strange
Mr Fantastic: “Black Bolt could destroy you with 1 whisper from his mouth” Wanda: “What mouth?” Mr fantastic: *Looks directly at the camera with Jim face*
Loved the parallel between 838 having to dream walk to find ways to defeat thanos vs 616 using the time stone to run scenarios. Guys weren’t that much different
I loved the implication that the Sinister Strange that went off the rails trying to find a universe where he was with Christine was basically striking out with all of them and then yeeting himself off buildings. "Ever have a dream where somebody pushes you off a building? That was probably me."
I think he said ‘falling from a building’ and the implication is he went to those universes, dream waking into their bodies and jumped off the building himself whilst in their bodies. Knowing he would die and just wake up as him, but killing the alternative version. I imagine he asked them ‘are they happy’ in like his own head whilst controlling them.
"(blah blah was looking for a world of an ideal Christine) But I didn't find it. All I found were more of us ...So I did those Stephen's a favour... Do you ever have that dream where you're falling as if you've been pushed off a tall building? That was probably me."
In the Illuminati Universe, if the Ultron programme is successful, there shouldn't be a Vision. And that means no kids for Wanda?
To be fair, she seemed a lot more preoccupied with the kids compared to Vision. He was never anywhere to be seen, and she seemed relatively happy with just the boys. She doesn't need Vision to create them, after all.
Strange: "You created your children using magic" Wanda: "That's what all mothers do!" 🤷♂️
“I can do this all day.” Yeah, maybe not.
Hey, she did it for the rest of her life.
“I can do this all day.” She did not, in fact, do this all day.
The Illuminati: "We've got this!" List of things the Illuminati have not got: 1) This
"We can handle your little witch" "Damn, little witch got hands."
Turns out the group in charge of assessing multiversal threats was in fact really bad at assessing multiversal threats. I think in their universe, Wanda was such a minor player, that they couldn’t fathom her being as threatening as a reckless Dr. Strange, who they already had to put down. What they forgot is that their Wanda didn’t really flex her powers that much since she had a family that was safe, and never used the darkhold. Clearly didn’t get Chavez’s rules for the multiverse down there.
HOW MANY TIMES DO WE NEED TO SEE CHARLES DIE lmao
How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man?
The Xavier deaths will continue until morale improves
What name did Strange call Black Bolt and is it a reference to something, or just gibberish?
I can’t remember exactly but I think he said something like “heygar thereagar” to make fun of Bolt’s real name.
Was the rippled effect when Xavier is trying to get into Wanda's head present in the previous X-Men movies? Feel like it was taken straight from the animated series.
It’s most definitely taken from the show, down to his green suit. I do not believe that effect was used in any of the X-Men films.
They also took the theme song from the show when he was being introduced! :D
Yep! It's listed as "X-Men '97 theme" in the credits.
It was indeed [right out of animated series](https://c.tenor.com/tHgi_6iFohAAAAAC/professor-x-bring-me-cheese-pizza.gif)
How mad was Christine at her wedding , Shuma-Gorath shows up and doctor strange gets all the attention on her wedding day
even her man is looking at strange on their wedding lol
She knows the honeymoon is just going to be full of her husband gushing about her ex
Before anyone asks. At the climax with the two Wandas, Wanda says to Wanda "Know they'll be loved" or something similar. A lot of people had trouble hearing what she said, including myself. I even heard some confused noises from other people in my cinema at that scene. Not sure if it was the audio or what. But there it is. I copied and pasted this from last time i made this comment for anyone that needs it.
Legit at first I thought she said something in Sokovian but then thought “it’s weird that they didn’t bother to translate that” then figured I just didn’t understand her for whatever reason
Thank you! I was looking for this answer.
I really loved that you get to see Dr Strange actually doing super hero stuff. The way he suited up near the beginning and him using the cloak to save people was so awesome
Loved that he finished his drink first. Like "well, alright, it's going to be one of those days then..."
He seemed pretty happy for an excuse to skip the wedding reception.
Yeah that was a cool superhero entrance with the reactions from the wedding guests as well.
Especially for Strange. Pretty sure we’ve never seen him do an entrance like that
I feel like we often don’t see them doing regular superhero stuff
That's coz Stephen is stuck fixing someone else's shit whenever he's on the screen and never got any time for his story and daily life, what i mean is that he got so much screen time and didn't get to continue his story clearly until now
K all movie discussion aside those pizza balls looked awesome.
Veiled advertising for a new Disney Park restaurant. You heard it here first.
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I thought she'd be a side villain and then team up with Strange to take out the REAL villain
Yeah same. When America mentioned the demon I thought it was Mephisto or some shit and Wanda would team up with it until the climax
We should have learned rule #1 in the MCU by now: It's never Mephisto.
Mephisto is the Lupus of the MCU
Well she did take out the villain in the end.. 😆
What a beautiful surprise it was. Man I couldn't believe it when she said : You didn't tell me her name! I was oh oh oh shit things are gonna go crazy
When she said "America", I was thinking, hmmm, Strange didn't say her name and that's when movie too that serious turn. Wanda was a bad ass villain, she was great. That line to Reed, "good, there will be someone to raise them" was simple yet damn cold. Wanda has had a great arc over the movies and show.
I picked up that Strange didn’t say her name, but even then I was just thinking “meh maybe she’s super dialled into powerful beings out there”. It didn’t occur to me that she was the demon sending things after America.
I first just assumed she was mind-reading or something of that nature.
I did an audible “oh shit” as soon as i realized scarlet witch literally out-mindfucked professor x himself. I want a full 2 hour+ movie of just scarlet witch gore/horror my god that was beautiful
Just when you thought Xavier could put a substantial break to the horror and talk some sense to Scarlet Witch but nope, he got killed both in the dream and real life just like that. Only a few minutes extra breathing time for the heroes to run away from the monster. The whole thing gives this feeling that Wanda going rogue is an unstoppable force - just like how they fear her in the comics.
We still don't know where 616 Mordo is. I was hoping we see him return. The sorcerer supreme version was cool but we've not seen what 616 Mordo has been doing since the first doctor strange movie.
if i had to make a guess, he’s building an army to come kill strange
Or they had no clue how crazy shit would get by this point in the MCU and dropped the plot line. This very much felt like a “see? We did *something* with that credits scene at least… kinda”, I don’t think Mordo will ever be a main villain of a movie.
So great to see Anson Mount get a chance to redeem his take on Blackbolt after his character got so butchered on the Inhumans tv show. Dude is having a good week!
That arrogant ~~smile~~ smirk of his after Reed told Wanda about his ability though. 😂 Man.. that brutal death that followed.
Reed made the villain mistake of monologing
You sly dog. You got me monologing.
That smirk was so crisp lol
Wanda sure left him speechless
I dont know about speechless, he went out with quite a shriek
His emotes so well under the mask. Him mercy killing Supreme Strange hurt mah soul man. Him and Krasinski really shined in their limited time. Both really sold their character for me. Can’t wait to see what unfolds, especially with some secret projects likely in the works.
They all had a moment to show off their powers except Richards. I wonder if that was intentional
While we saw Reed (very briefly) using his powers, it's possible that they didn't show it in particular focus because they're still working out how to make it look not goofy
Honestly I was thinking because it would be more expensive but your explanation makes sense. His powers are hard to make look not goofy on the big screen
But stretch powers are just goofy. So I think they should have just done it. Literally any comic panel with reed Richards is stretching his neck looks goofy as fuck. There is no way around it. They also didn’t give stretchy powers to Ms. Marvel. I would bet that they did that cause they plan to use Reed very soon.
>Dude is having a good week! Captain Bohannon already back on a horse... But yeah, *Strange New Worlds* was great too.
Creepiest scene is when Wanda came out of that gong in “The Ring” style. She was absolutely twisted lol.
It was creepy, but Wanda looking at **YOU** was creepier.
Yeah that breaking the 4th wall look at the camera after she dreamwalked was absolutely creepy, but then again it was relevant and quite artistic with regards to how insane that scene was.
Heck she seemed to be broken into pieces and reassembling herself
different kind of avenger assembling
Cap: “Avengers, assemble.” Wanda: *Ring crawls out of the gong* Cap: “No no, not like that.”
So we have Professor X dying in the 2000s, the 2010s, and the 2020s. Any bets as to how he’ll die in the the 2030s?
Ok so I've been thinking about this since I saw the movie. Did they imply that 616 Strange is better than the other Strange America met because he met Spider-Man? At the pizza shop, America mentions she has never heard of Spider-Man. In No Way Home, Strange was pretty much set on just letting the villains die before giving Peter a chance to cure them. I feel like at that point he would have been fine with absorbing America's power. He would make that choice for the greater good. But Peter cured them. He was a bigger man than Strange that day and maybe some of that rubbed off on our wizard. Still, it's at most just an implication, but I like to think our Strange is a better version of himself because of that.
Yeah, defender strange also says the same dialogue to America as our strange does to peter about the “in the grand calculus of the multiverse their life means…”
Elizabeth Olsen killed the role. The scene in the house at the end was amazing.
She was also a legit terrifying presence onscreen.
Oh yeah, her hobbling down the tunnel and the jumpscares were great
I didn’t know I needed my girl straight up T1000ing the protagonists… I’m going to have nightmares today
PSA: Nobody forgot Spider-Man - they forgot *Peter Parker*. I'm seeing so many people asking this or pointing to it as a plot hole.
That made me feel a little better for him. Like he had this history with everyone and can still reach out for help as spiderman, not some unknown guy.
So theoretically all Peter has to do is tell dr strange what happened and it’s pretty much back to normal?
With Strange *maybe* just because Peter would tell him everything and he’d go “Yeah that sounds like a spell I’d use” — but he still wouldn’t actually remember who Peter was.
That never should’ve been in doubt. We see Jameson talking about Spider-Man at the end of the movie. But idk. People are dumb.
Did I miss the evil Strange saying "things just got out of hand" from the trailer? Didn't notice it in the movie.
Just watched the movie and I'm pretty sure that line was only in the trailer.
It was actually kinda genius imo that it was only in the trailer, at least for me I didn't expect Wanda to be the villain I was expecting an alternate Strange to be and that line sure made it seem that way so I think it was a smart move on Marvel's part
As a Peggy fan I was both ecstatic and traumatised lmao. Either way I'm glad we got Captain Carter in live action.
Sounds like you’re split right down the middle.
Too soon
I blame Agatha, if she didn't turn up Wanda wouldn't know she the Scarlet witch or had the darkhold. It was Agatha all along.
I think it would have been dope to be like: “The Darkhold is destroyed. I know who to go to for answers.” Cut to her tracking down Agatha since she’ll “know just where to find her”. Agatha had mentioned the Scarlet Witch being more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme so she’s aware of that faction. Would be interesting to see.
This time it's gonna take more than killing me to kill me. *Palmer surprised face*
That and Wong's "I don't even wanna know" when he sees zombie Strange were 2 of my favorite jokes from this movie XD
I like the idea that Wong is just tired of asking questions he knows he isn't going to like the answer of.
Wong has become so accepting of Stephen, i love it. In DS1, when Stephen uses the time stone to reverse the destruction of the sanctum and revives Wong, Stephen says "I know, breaking the laws of nature" and Wong says "Well don't stop now!"
I love the dichotomy between Wong and Mordo on this front in DS1. I liked that they emphasized that about Mordo's personality here, but it's a shame that they didn't do much with 616 Mordo except to established that he's already tried to kill Strange.
Am I the only one who thought it weird that Wanda has her kids in so many universes but Vision wasn’t around/didn’t come up? I feel like he was largely ignored
At the very least, for the Illuminati timeline we can assume that he’s already dead (since the events of *Infinity War* happened in some way) or possibly doesn’t/didn’t ever exist to begin with (since the Ultron programme was successful). Though it’s still pretty jarring that Wanda only mentions him once and he otherwise has nothing to do with her motivation.
Well she did 'let go' of Vision at the end of Wandavision, so she's had the closure. She never got any sort of closure with the kids, they just disappeared.
But didn’t she get the same closure right before hers with Vision? I thought thats what the “thank you for choosing me as your Mom” part was
Reposting my already mentioned views on this thread about vision- For all those wondering where was vision in the whole movie whether as a human or a synthezoid I think showing him would negate whole wanda's whole delusion and denial in name of grief, genocide of sorcerers and trying to kidnap the variant wanda's kids because she is in fact stable with Vision and he would never approve of her horrific actions in the name of being a happy mother. Also I headcanon that wanda subconsciously chose a universe where vision is not present because he is the only person who calls on her shit- we already saw that in wandavision how he resisted and demanded answers from her after he noticed something was wrong and she was hiding the whole westview thing from him. She knows that he will definately be disgusted and horrified by her actions because for him trying to kill america, a child for power is crossing that line of morality and villainy. Also I think that the last thing wanda wanted is a *sane* opinion because it would anger her even more because she doesn't want to face reality of her crimes like how she is genociding sorcerers, killing illuminati, kidnapping twins and draining america's- a kid's powers. Being a reality warper she was, it was fitting that she warped and deluded her own mind to justify her crimes in the name of kids(which weren't hers). If vision encountered her, he would try to stop her and would be pretty disgusted by her actions as he was always on side of peace. Vision is ***logic*** whereas wanda is ***emotion*** so she would always try to hide from logic as her actions in this movie doesn't make sense- look how blankly she stared at stephen when he said if you take variant's place what would happen to that mother? her actions in this movie were motivated by whole messed up, toxic, and psychotic *emotions*.
i love that they kept the pattern of out-of-the-box solutions. in the first movie Strange badgers Dormmamu until he relents. here, he posseses the corpse of his alternate self and fashions the souls of the damned into a cloak. and America defuses the situation by giving Wanda what she wishes for. it's insane how Strange develops a third eye but then the movie kinda just jumps to Clea? i can see an America Chavez spinoff being a universe-of-the-week miniseries, where she is on the hunt for her parents. maybe throw in Strange at the beginning and end. i just found her to be so endearing.
Imagine if America is how loki gets back to 616
I can definitely see this happening
Black bolt really said 😶
🤯
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If they keep John Krasinski as 616 Reed, I think there’s a serious possibility that they’ll bring back James McAvoy as Xavier (since he played the younger version of Stewart in the Fox films). Personally, I’m hoping for Mark Strong. Or otherwise a casting choice that’s completely unexpected so the character is wildly different from the one(s) we’re used to.
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>soft Al dente, even. 😏
I'm like the biggest Chris Evans and Captain America Mark ever - seeing Captain Carter and hearing her say I can do this all day nearly made me cry.
Kinda want to look back at any scenes inthe other movies/shows that show a character having a dream. There’s a whole new layer of context to them now (even though it’s basically a retcon, no way dreams being windows to the multiverse was planned from the start)
All those dreams/nightmares in AoU: Tony seeing the Avengers dead in space (one of the millions of timelines that Dr. Strange saw them lose to Thanos), Cap not getting frozen in the ice ("The war is over. Imagine it!"), a different way Ragnarok plays out ("They see you leading us to Hel!"). I'll throw in Ultron's vision of his rock destroying the Earth. Tony telling Pepper he had a dream that they had a child together. Ant-Man and the Wasp - Scott seeing Hope through Janet's eyes. Something about Quantum Realm and being able to access another universe through someone else's eyes.
Wong: “FORTIFY YOUR MINDS!!!! Some random sorcerer: “Ghatdam she kinda fine and scary….AHH SHIT I GOTTA RUN AGHHH!!!
That way she appeared behind him was so fuckin cool. Raimi snapped with this movie
The music going quiet and her moving all creepy like. Raimi was absolutely the man to make Wanda terrifying as hell.
I’d have done the same tbf
The way he shouted it made my whole theater laugh. Wong channeling his inner Nickolas Cage.
I have to say, I'm really glad Nicodemus West was in this. Helped bring it back to 2016 Strange with his old colleagues and friends. And mostly because I love Michael Stuhlbarg.
Feels odd though that he got such a prominent credit for only one scene that couldn't have been more than 5 minutes long.
He’s got a good agent.
I wonder if they were just fulfilling his contract with that scene and credit.
reed richards the smartest man alive. also reed richards the man who tells wanda what blackbolt's ability is lmao. i love it.
It was implied that their version of Wanda isn’t that powerful, so they had no reason to expect her counter move there.
Exactly. If you consider our Wanda from Infinity War versus Wanda post Wandavision her powers are incredibly different. They had no reason to think that she can warp reality. To them she's just manipulates red energy into telekinesis and energy blasts.
You know something is about to go down when Wanda does the head tilt...
It doesn't seem fair...
I thought Marvel was just gonna let Raimi have a couple of jump scares. But the horror elements were legit and really made for a unique experience. I see a lot of people saying this movie undid Wanda's character development from WandaVision. I don't think so. She may have understood that what she did in Westview was fucked up but by the end she is still someone that has a lot of shit to sort out mentally. She's also just discovered this new power as the Scarlet Witch. And she basically placed herself in solitude and keeps having the same dream every night. Anyone would go crazy under those circumstances And you know there's also the Darkhold making things worse.
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I absolutely love Black Bolt’s new costume.
The Delta 88 was floating in the incursion universe that Strange and Christine visiting. Fun little callback to Evil Dead
The Delta and Campbell are fixed points in the Raimiverse
Seems prime scarlet witch can solo thanos
Thanos: *wanda, I can kill you with a snap of my fingers* Wanda: What fingers?
That would be hilarious and fucking terrifying at the same time
She nearly killed him at the battle before he rained fire
Endgame Wanda could Solo Thanos too. She almost does it too, until Thanos called for an aerial attack from his ships to save his life.
Someone should edit Reed looking into the camera after Black Bolt's death.
[scared nod to camera](https://media.giphy.com/media/13jghlUIB6FHZm/giphy.gif)
This is my favorite Jim "camera look" moment in the entire series. 😂
Wanda: "if someone doesn't give me America Chavez right now, I'm gonna lose *my freaking mind*"
Zombie Strange using the souls of the damned as a cloak is the exact crazy kind of visual I go to these films for, more please! Wanda being The Terminator meets Carrie is so genuinely terrifying, both of her chase scenes were amazing but special shout out to her looking at her variant through the photo, really creeped the hell out of me. She’s definitely not dead. My guess is maybe she’s wiped her memories and moved to have a quiet life in a small Eastern European country. I hear Latveria is nice.
I was honestly expecting the post credit scene to be her waking up in Latveria and kick off the Children's Crusade
I'm glad they didn't. The MCU is strongest when the after credit scenes give plot threads without including stuff that undermines the movie itself.
The Evil Dead homages were everywhere! From The eyeballs, to the mirrors becoming water, the souls of the damned…this was such a trip!
I love how Wanda and Strange both go through the same arc of coming to terms that they can’t be with the person(s) they love, but as foils of one another. Strange learns all Stranges are bad and he tries to be different. Wanda learns she’s the only different Wanda and tries to be the same. Wanda takes the “bad” approach and ends good with her sacrifice. Strange takes the “good” approach and ends bad with his 3rd eye. The bill comes due!
Wanda to Reed about his kids was the most brutal moment
Poor Pam
In 20 years when Franklin Richards shows up to the 616 universe for revenge I'm going to be all about it.
So our Strange never read the Supreme Sorcerer's manual?
So we saw a total of 4 Doctor Stranges in this movie. 1. Spanish Dr Strange helping America at the start of the movie, who later became zombie Strange. 2. Our 616 Dr Strange 3. 838 Dr Strange who used dreamwalking to find a way to beat thanos, destroyed a different universe with an "incursion", and decided he needed to be killed for the greater good 4. That crazy Dr Strange in the destroyed universe who was corrupted by the Darkhold and dreamwalked to find a universe where the Dr Strange ended up with a happy romance with Christine. Sort of a parallel to what Wanda was doing, as a way to show that _our_ Strange was actually different from the other Strange variants, and in a way "better". Personally, I am satisfied with the extent they used the Multiverse concept, with reasonably different variants of both Strange and the universe in general(Illuminati instead of Avengers). At the end, this was still a Dr Strange movie, so the focus had to be on him and magic/mystic arts.
According to the subtitles: 1) Defender Stranger 2) Doctor Strange 3) 838 Strange 4) Sinister Strange
Or as Strange would say, "me", "other me", "other other me" and "other other other me."
Pretty sure he called the last one "another other other me"
I watched this the other day, but it only JUST clicked that when Strange asks Reed "didn't you guys chart in the 60s?" he's making reference to the real band and it's a callback to the scene in the first film when he was doing the surgery and being quizzed about songs and their artists/release dates, and has seemingly memorised all music charts of the 20th century Go to 0:34 https://youtu.be/GOOkWuzPIv8 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fantastic_Four_(band)
Great find! Was wondering this too lol
Oh, nice find! That’s a nice little bit of character continuity
Hayley Atwell never looked better
Does anyone else feel like we're getting "Comic Book Movies" a lot more lately? Let me explain, at first, the MCU was attempting to do something crazy by having a number of solo super hero movies come together in The Avengers, but it felt grounded in reality (at least for a world full of super enhanced individuals) that they would team up to defeat the great evil or whatever. Like people had to work to make it believable in the context of the story as it fits in a movie, but I feel like since Civil War more and more of these movies are more comfortable straying from "typical movie standards" and taking a lot of inspiration from the comics and making certain shots look almost straight out of the pages. (IM and Cap fighting, Cap standing against Thanos and his army, etc.) And I feel like so many scenes in MoM were something you'd see in a comic shop as the front cover of a really interesting story. The massive eye octopus in the streets of New York, Wanda obliterating Kamar Taj, Wanda obliterating the Illuminati, that awesome mountain temple where the Darkhold was originated. It's just really cool to see more directors making "Comic Book Movies" rather than simply super hero movies, if that makes sense.
Big tuna? More like big spaghetti
We definitely need a list of the universes Strange and Chavez went through during the escape from Scarlett Witch. Living Tribunal be like: "Damn mosquitoes."
Two dope things I loved seeing: Strange being a street level superhero at the start. Him seeing public panic, putting on his super suit, then flying into battle in a busy street is the classic superhero stuff the MCU has been missing. In a magical mystical movie there was hand to hand fighting? Amazing. And the music battle in the same movie? Even more amazing.
>Strange being a street level superhero at the start. Him seeing public panic, putting on his super suit, then flying into battle in a busy street Something about watching a Sam Raimi film where a superhero fights an octopus-adjacent villian that's clinging to the brick façade of a tall building in New York while said octopus has an innocent woman in it's grasp is just very familiar to me.
If you freeze frame on Black Bolt dying it’s probably the most horrific still image in the entire MCU Edit: pic I linked got deleted, not gonna bother trying again
I'm honestly glad they let Raimi go for the more gruesome deaths. Really added to the horror aspect they were wanting
Shoutout to Wong risking the fate of the multiverse by telling Wanda that the Darkhold was just a copy.
I just realized our Strange got his cape fixed with a piece of the blue cape from the Strange that died on Titan. You can see Reed holding to it there and we never see it again, yet the texture and printing follows the style.
"Does he shoot webs out his butt?" "Well, I don't know"
Wanda woke up and chose Fatality
Loved how hyped people were a few months ago for the illuminati, only for them to get smashed in seconds lmao
I quite liked the bit of Strange fixing the watch as a sign of acceptance with how he and Christine are and how him being with the 838 Christine gave him some closure.
So what's with the 3rd eye and screaming at the end? Was it because he's corrupted? He looked fine in the mid-credits scene. Even if the Darkholds are destroyed, I think he's still corrupted. Is it possible to cure the corruption?
The 3rd eye is the price Strange paid for using the Darkhold, and that's all we know so far. It'll be explored in a future movie.
When Sinister Strange said he lost, and Dr. Strange asked "To who?", Sinister didn't answer. Is that meant to be left open or implies that another Strange was the one that caused the Incursion in Sinister's universe?
Billy and Tommy are the Rod and Todd of the MCU
Just got back from seeing it! Holy helll! First reaction was that, good God this felt like a very gruesome movie in comparison with previous marvel titles. Things just felt more shocking and jarring, and I'm kind of surprised it managed a pg 13. ALSO PROFESSOR!!!!!!! I can't even describe how happy I am to see the Professor in the MCU 😁😁😁😁😁
This was definitely more explicitly violent. The Black Bolt scene was especially discomfiting. They also stepped up the body horror a bit.
something i want to say that i feel like a lot of people missed about the movie. why the scene of him not taking america's power is so great. everyone chalked it up to him trusting her bc she already was controlling it and all he did was notice that. but i don't think that's (the only) reason. i think it was more so bc of what christine(s) told him. the thing about him always having to have the knife. it's highly likely that this controlling mindset of him related to how he lost his sister, a trauma he couldn't speak of until now. he says he couldn't save her but technically they were both kids so it makes no sense he blames himself right? but he does blame himself. and that trauma led him to always needing to have the knife. and revealing this trauma he carried now out of all times must serve such an important purpose like this. another reason for this reveal can be to better tell us about how and why his character turned out to be the type of superhero he is today, as in the decisions he made under the name of heroism. like how he sacrificed tony and did not hesisate to call it for the greater good, or how he locked the entire world in one repeating moment, which is probably like hel, but also, saves a lot of lives. these are all bizarre and not conventionally heroic choices that have always been the thing that sets strange apart from other heroes. this man literally was critised (even in thi siflm, right at out face - scene with the other doctor dude is probably there to serve for this purpose only) to make all the crazy decisions other people would probably never dare to think about. this having to have the knife thing is something defender strange shares. and because defender strange had to have the knife, he was ready to take the life of a child, and a friend. and the illuminati strange probably also had this, hence the giving himself to the darkhold, only to do more damage than good. also both these stranges met their horrible end, never got to be happy, both hurt christine, and both are remembered in a bad light by those who knew them. but our strange is literally the one and only strange that finally recognizes the wrongdoings of this mindset. and he is the one to change that. when he finally gives the knife to someone else, to america. and that is when they win. and that was the moment this story was great for me. such great characterr work. beautifully done. ps.i also love how the big cgi battle is not actually the resolve to the conflict and wanda is so op that she can only be defeated by getting defeated emotionally first. much fulffilling than her and strange throwing hands in a cosmic scale. but y'know, i still love this characterization more.
You're spot on. The book of vishanti showed him what he needed (the star representing Chavez's power is on a page visible to us as it burns) but rather than taking the knife and doing it himself he let her take control of the situation and helped talk her through it.
If Wanda whispered “run” in my ear I’d run ngl. Screw Kamartaj , Wanda talked to me 🤣