Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was an entertaining watch. I don't think it'll be one of the more memorable MCU movies for me in the long run, but it wasn't bad by any means. I have a handful of thoughts that are neither serious positives or negatives:

- It is more reliant than most MCU movies on what-has-come-before. In this case, not just the first Doctor Strange movie or the Avengers movies, but also WandaVision. If you haven't seen that series, I imagine a lot less understanding and interest in a main motivator of the story.

- Strange has a pretty good foil in the story who is rather blatant about being such, but lacks the self-awareness to see the differences (naturally).

- I liked the "go on red" bit even if it was a little direct. And the Illuminati appearances were pretty good as well.

- I can understand what is meant by articles saying the movie sets up a possible Secret Wars arc, but such things are talking about the 2015 Secret Wars' multiversal incursions, not the 1980's Secret Wars.

- While it isn't a horror movie, it definitely has more horror elements than I'm accustomed to seeing in an MCU movie. Sam Raimi's influence is front and center there. I kind of wonder what the movie would be like if it leaned into that more and actually risked an R rating.

- First credit scene hints at the character's future adventures. The second one is a slightly-cute call-back to earlier in the movie, but pretty unimportant.

-

The movie also got me thinking about multiverses, naturally.

The concept has creeped (or potentially flooded) into pop culture in recent years to the point I don't think it's a foreign idea outside strict sci-fi circles. I mean, Sliders did it decades ago, but MCU movies and series have made it more mainstream and Rick and Morty is pretty popular.

People still have trouble with the concept of infinite universes, though.

If there are infinite alternate universes, but you only exist in 1 out of every billion, how many alternate you's are there? Well... still an infinite number. That seems to be the scary, hard-to-grasp part of it. Even Rick, who constantly goes on about the vastness of the infinite leading inconsequence of individuals, makes comments about only being able to find/move to a compatible universe a few times. But no, if they're truly infinite, the opportunities are there.

Now, in fairness, maybe the MCU multiverse isn't infinite. The Loki series sort of implies it isn't (or wasn't), so maybe there aren't all possibilities there. Some settings, however, claim infinity without seeming to understand what that entails.

That's part of the issue I ran into with Lords of Gossamer and Shadow. If you can literally go walk a staircase to a door for any of infinite possible universes, almost nothing has actual consequence. Any die roll or decision in one world has a different outcome in another, and you can traverse between them. I'm a little too existentialist to find enjoyment in that, I guess.

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