La Ron S. Readus
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Is This the BEST Doctor Strange in the MCU? (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2021-09-06 20:01:01 +0000 UTCKevin Feige, I’ve come to bargain! ...For a better Doctor Strange movie, PLEASE let me have a better Doctor Strange movie!
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Readers, I'm just gonna go on and say it; “What If Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands” is the best Doctor Strange story in the MCU to date.
Not only was it a very moving and powerful story in its own right...
/But it also provides something INCREDIBLY important that the live action Phase 3 film severely lacked; Doctor Stephen Strange./
No, this isn’t me saying that the 2016 movie is...COMPLETE ass
But as a longtime fan of Doctor Strange -- and no offense to Scott Derrickson of course -- I felt that the film treated Stephen’s origin in how he became entangled in the mystic arts in a way that was halfway fleshed out.
And notice I don’t call him Sorcerer Supreme, because there is never a moment in the movie where he properly takes up the title after the Ancient One died...
/And the explanation of how the title works in the MCU is vague as fuck, boy!/
Meanwhile, when we take a look at the Doctor Strange from the timeline in which his origin is altered so that something else -- someONE else -- is lost instead of his hands...
We get so much about what makes his character work so well in general in that 30 minutes than we did in that almost 2 hour long movie, because it focuses on the right things
Now I know what you’re thinking:
But La’Ron, the movie DID focus on one of the right things. It’s the loss of his hands
A-HA! You would THINK that! But no, you’re wrong.
While the loss of his hands is always Stephen’s main call to action in his Hero’s Journey, it’s also the main thing that NEEDS to be eliminated from the equation in order for him to reach a true revelation about himself
Something he needs to learn and acknowledge about his past that has impacted his life so much to the point where it literally made him the cocky, arrogant and slightly nihilistic surgeon that he was before the car crash.
And while What If episode 4 is a bit more direct about it considering the story it’s trying to tell, it succeeds in where the 2016 movie fails when it comes to getting Doctor Strange right
/The only way Doctor Strange can TRULY be Doctor Strange is if he loses both his hands AND his heart. But he has to lose his heart FIRST./
Now, before I continue, I have to acknowledge that in order for me to properly explain myself, I’m going to be spoiling Episode 4 of Marvel Studios’ What If. So if you haven’t seen it yet and you wanna avoid spoilers, I suggest you go on Disney Plus to catch it before finishing this video. Cool? Cool.
So What If episode 4 takes Doctor Strange’s origin as we saw it in the live-action MCU movie and does a bit of adjusting.
/Instead of Stephen being motivated to practice magic because of the loss of his hands, he does so because of the loss of Christine, who in this universe decides to accompany him to the dinner that resulted in his car crash./
Her death in this universe-slash-timeline becomes a fixed point in it as a result. Meaning no matter what Strange could do to try and alter her fate for her to live, she will always die.
/And that’s because her death -- instead of losing his hands -- is the driving force behind THIS version of Strange practicing magic and stopping Mads Mikkelson’s character from allowing Dormammu access to the physical plane as seen in the 2016 live-action movie./
Its because of this change that we’ve actually seen -- in my opinion -- one of the best Doctor Strange stories produced by Marvel Studios that truly shows off the range of the character if certain things are amplified more than others.
To me, it was never the fact that Strange was “Magic Tony Stark” in regards to arrogance and pride that made me find him compelling. Sure, that was there, but it wasn’t what defined him to me.
“What If” episode 4 goes out of its way to show that it’s determination and growth -- both enlightened and radicalized.
/Because the episode shows us how far he’s willing to go -- how much he’s willing to sacrifice -- in order to get what he wants to where he turns into something malignant as a result, while at the same time showing that determination being shifted into something more healthy and selfless when he comes into his power./
That’s pretty much why despite the feel and tone of the episode being depressing for some, I absolutely fell in LOVE with the story of What If episode 4.
Because in my opinion, it highlights Strange’s determination and drive -- both pure and corrupted -- as the main source for everything that we see fuels his motivation in the first place.
It’s one of the things that when I saw the 2016 live-action movie, I felt that it had moments where it severely lacked getting that point across on screen in favor of the arrogance that’s always up front in the window display.
/Especially when he first wakes up post car crash, sees the result of the surgery done on his hands and says/ (I could’ve done better)
Now I know what you’re thinking:
But La’Ron, if you feel like that moment doesn’t properly reflect the journey Strange goes on to become a practitioner of the mystic arts, then why do you think the What If episode does a better job by killing off Christine?
Well that’s because -- in my opinion -- both Strange’s origin and backstory is always more compelling when his drive and determination is motivated by loss.
And not just the loss of the regular use of his hands, either. Yes, it’s his livelihood and it pushes him to find mystic means to possibly get them back.
But just like I explained in my analysis of the Iron Man Trilogy in A Proper Movie Trilogy, there’s always something deeper responsible for why that drive, determination, and -- in the instance of What If episode 4 -- desperation takes up the forms of his personality that we see before and immediately after his car crash.
And it's usually HUMAN loss; specifically the loss of a loved one.
I know this, because this episode isn’t the first time we’ve seen Stephen affected by said loss in a way that impacted his overall development. It’s actually a very important aspect of his backstory that never really made it to the MCU.
And that’s in the form of Donna Strange; Stephen’s little sister.
As you can imagine, considering I’m comparing this with the What If episode, Donna is pretty much Stephen’s Ben Parker.
Just like Christine’s death is what motivates him to practice the mystic arts in the What If timeline, Donna’s death is what motivates him to become a doctor in general.
In the comics, Donna got hurt in a skating accident. And his love and want to protect his sister inspired him to start studying medicine. Then, eight years later, Donna drowned while swimming thanks to a sudden cramp she got, and Stephen’s been beating himself up about not being able to save her ever since.
However, if you were to ask me, the BEST use of Donna’s death being Stephen’s motivation to be the character we know him as before his car crash is in the animated movie, Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme.
/She’s renamed April in the movie, and suffers from a brain tumor that gave her bad headaches and would eventually kill her./
All of the doctors Stephen took her to refused to operate, saying that there was a high chance it wouldn’t be successful and that they should just enjoy the time they have left with each other. And, as you’d imagine, Stephen wouldn’t let this stand.
So he figured if no one was going to operate on April, then HE was, and used that to be his driving force to become a surgeon. Imagine the amount of grief and anguish he suffered when April died afterward.
So by the time we meet Strange the accomplished surgeon, he has the trauma of him causing his sister’s death to himself, hiding it and letting it germinate over the years into not just the arrogant and cocky Stephen Strange common moviegoers know thanks to the 2016 live-action movie...
/But also into an Ebeneezer Scrooge-esque surgeon miser who only operates on individuals that’ll either give him national acclaim, or can pay out of pocket without the assistance of insurance./
It’s a more nuanced take on Strange’s development, in which losing his hands is the first step he has to take in a Christmas Carol-like path of self-evaluation and bettering himself that he wouldn’t have been able to take otherwise.
Donna-slash-April’s death and Stephen’s guilt he feels surrounding it is the inner revelation he has to come across and acknowledge in order for him to TRULY transform in his Hero’s Journey, and the loss of the use of his hands is the call to action he has to take in order for him to realize how the guilt allowed him to be the person he was beforehand.
And thanks to What If episode 4 replacing both Donna AND the loss of his hands with the death of Christine, we get to see a more compelling variant of Doctor Strange because of it
/Both light and dark./
Prime MCU Doctor Strange, however, doesn’t really do that.
/Yes, it plays on the nihilistic thoughts and tendencies he spews that IMPLIES something happened in his life to make him have this mindset when he first talks to the Ancient One./
And that’s because according to Scott Derrickson we WERE originally going to get a flashback to Donna’s death to act as that initial revelation; to make Stephen more compelling than the version we initially got.
But it was inevitably cut out of the movie because there wasn’t anywhere they could naturally put it, and it didn’t even make the deleted scenes reel of the home release.
And its because of that lack of buried loss that’s so pivotal to Strange’s motivations and mindset, the movie is forced to use the loss of his hands as the driving force first and foremost to the point that because of that aforementioned decision, everything else feels...empty.
Which is why this alternate timeline of Christine’s death being a fixed point in it being the driving force for Strange’s drive, determination and eventual desperation felt more like Doctor Strange to me than the one that’s ACTUALLY canonical in the sacred timeline.
The only time Stephen isn’t depicted as that interesting of a character, or a magic Tony Stark, or a Brother Voodoo stand-in, or WHATEVER, is when the motivation for the majority of his decisions is driven by the loss of someone he truly, deeply, loves and cares for.
Because he’s a personal fan of Strange, I’m absolutely sure that Sam Raimi knows this point as well and I hope we get a chance to see it in “Doctor Strange: In The Multiverse of Madness” to help fill in the gaps his live-action iteration has been desperately missing in my opinion.
/But until then, I at least have the animated movie and episode 4 of What If to help scratch my itch./
So with that being said Readers, your homework assignment for the day:
Write in the comment section below what you thought of What If episode 4 if you’ve seen it.
Or, if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, write in the comment section below what you think an MCU character was missing from their depiction in the comics that would’ve ultimately made their big screen versions better in your opinion.
Whichever question you decide to answer, I’d love to know your thoughts.
