10 Ways That The Marvel Cinematic Universe Has Ruined Cinema

5. It's All About What's Next...

As a result of the "serial-like" nature of movies in the MCU canon, each and every installment seems to pride itself more on what's next than what you're actually watching. And as a result, this "to be continued..." aspect that MCU flicks cling to so desperately has spread to movies outside of its own cinematic canon, and into blockbusters of all types: everything from Fast and Furious to Transformers seem to take a delight in "foreshadowing" sequels... Because these days, movies pretty much serve as feature-length advertisements for the next movie in the series. The MCU didn't "invent" this approach, exactly, but it did make it wholly popular today. Now and again a shock ending is fine, of course... but to end every single blockbuster on the same note... well, it gets a little tiresome. There's something inherently wrong (and when you really get into it, something actually rather uncomfortable) about movies that are designed with sequels already in mind (unless they're based on a trilogy of books or something and they've been carefully plotted as such). The focus should be on the now, not on the later.