What the hell did I just watch?
After 2 hours and 6 minutes of time spent watching Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, I was still processing what happened. Looking at my children excitedly running down the hall as we walked toward the exit, they didn’t seem to be as perplexed as I was. Ignorance is bliss. It wasn’t until we got in the car and were driving home that I had an epiphany. It started when I began talking to my partner about what she thought of the movie.
“I thought it was great. Except about 40 minutes of the movie they should have took out. It didn’t need to be there,” she says.
She was referring to confusing characters that cameoed in one of the alternate universes and the scenes that followed.
It appears that Marvel is experimenting with the concept of parallel universes using this unifying plot anchor in their films. The concept itself is not new. These types of stories always possess some tweak or twist to inter-dimensional travel. They typically outline the limitations in the beginning of the film that set the tone for what to expect. The problem with using this concept in films is that it takes the viewer on a visual acid trip. There are mind-bending scenes where they try to visually represent reality distortion and it can get pretty trippy. The directors take advantage of the fact that it doesn’t need to make sense because our thinking is limited to what’s possible in our universe. However, the idea does make cents.
The epiphany I had was that this multiverse concept will make billions for Marvel. I think this is a genius marketing move because it gives the power to create any story Marvel wants. It removes the shackles of separate heroes and gives them a silver lining to connect them all. The other aspect is that now characters can be interchanged from other universes. This really opens up reviving dead heroes, providing alternate stories and spin-offs, and transitioning roles or actors seamlessly. As I was driving, I couldn’t help but admire how smart this move was.
I believe humanity is on the cusp of expanding the collective conscious. By introducing new concepts into secular mediums using story, it provides a shared conceptual basis for our thinking moving forward. Marvel provides an excellent example of the power of a story combining truths in other stories. I guess I would call it a “superstory.” That’s some next level stuff. I’m all for expanding the limits of our imaginations. It only takes one human to truly believe and prove to everyone that some of these ideas really do exist and that you too, can be a hero.