A Tale of Two Multiverses Recently two films released both dealing with
Multiverses as their main core, these being Everything Everywhere All at Once and Doctor
Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.
There’s been a lot of talk about how one is superior to the other in the ways it uses
the multiverses, Activia legend Jamee Lee Curtis even going on an Instagram spree to
bring up this comparison.
But I don’t necessarily think comparing these in terms of quality is very interesting,
rather I want to look at some of the similarities and key differences these two projects offer
with the use of the multiverse.
Before getting fully into things, warning there are inherent spoilers for talking about
these two projects, oh also a lot of other MCU, Flashpoint Paradox, and Rick and Morty,
which is a sentence that has somehow removed the deodorant from my body, anyway these projects
are kinda hard to skirt around in a comparison piece.
The similarities are pretty easy with the two main pieces, these both deal with the
multiverse but divert in how they approach getting those different timelines.
Everything Everywhere has characters do crazy things in order to gain knowledge of alternate
versions of themselves, with the possibility of tapping into memories of other versions
of said person.
Multiverse of Madness, however, is multiverse jumping through the character of America Chavez,
bouncing into these different universes we get glimpses of differing Steven Strange’s.
Now what’s interesting is both of these protagonists are middle aged and somewhat
unsatisfied with where they are in life, seeing different versions of themselves, they both
have a love interest that also has different versions going through this conflict with
them, female villains, and both oddly have brief imagery opening your third eye.
Now before getting into their key differences in how these films talk about the multiverse,
I want to talk about how these films use the Multiverse as a device and structure.
As much as people want to use the criticism of certain multiverse films feeling like “plot
devices” I think it’s important to note that all films need a device in which drives
the plot.
Obviously good films don’t make you notice the strings that are puppeteering your entertainment
but they exist nonetheless.
With both Multiverse of Madness and Everything Everywhere, the inciting incident in the plot
is driven by the introduction of the multiverse, America Chavez comes into the world of our
Earth’s Steven Strange and Strange has to protect her from the evils that want to get
her powers, and with Evelyn the main plot doesn’t get revealed until her other universe
husband introduces the idea of the multiverse and the threat of Jobu Tupaki.
As opposed to a film like Flashpoint Paradox, where the inciting incident is him going back
in time to save his mother, thus creating a newer timeline jumping and needing to get
back to his own world.
In Everything Everywhere the characters are given this mcguffin that lets them jump into
different realities to gain abilities, whereas in Doctor Strange we’re given a character
as a macguffin, and when I say macguffin there’s no negative implication it’s just again
something that drives the movie.
But it does seem a little bit of a missed opportunity to not give America Chavez more
to do besides one pivotal scene; she's mostly treated as something that needs to be protected
or obtained by the main characters of the film.
The difference is Evelyn is a constant in our universe and stays in that same universe
for a majority of the film, while with Doctor Strange he is largely gone from his universe
for the duration of the film.
This was interesting to me because for Evelyn essentially everything is culminating in her
universe, whereas Dr. Strange is the centerpoint traveling through the universe with no one
else universe hopping, this compared to something like the height of Multiverse films The Jimmy
Timmy Power Hour where the two universes with dual protagonists intermingle with one another
is an interesting contrast that I might have liked to have seen in either of these movies.
The differences are where it gets interesting with these two in what each of the films are
trying to say.
Let’s start with the Multiverse of Madness.
Right off the bat, Multiverse of Madness is ingrained in an MCU world that has already
partially brought up alternate realities, looking at Loki and No Way Home specifically,
both of which meet the themes that are present in Multiverse of Madness.
In all of these works we are given the idea that although there are different variations
of oneself they still fall under the same deterministic view of that character.
In Multiverse of Madness we’re met with this group “The Illuminati” who have done
extensive research on multiple different timelines and have found “The biggest threat to the
multiverse is Dr. Strange” showing that in every timeline the most erratic person
is him.
This was fascinating to me because at first I thought this was MoM’s view of the multiverse,
but once I started thinking back on the universe so far this is maintained in all of the MCU.
In Loki Owen Wilson mentions to Loki that throughout the entire multiverses of possibilities
the most deviant of all beings is always going to be a Loki, in No Way Home all the three
Spider-Men recant the toils of being a hero the city desperately needs and for each of
them it is all a burden they bear of being Spider-Man.
Granted with Spider-Man there are only three data points to go on, that are all roughly
based on different versions of the same character of Peter Parker and it may have been created
off the critical success of an animated movie, but that’s a point for another time.
Loki and Doctor Strange BOTH definitively say that these two characters have a predetermined
life no matter what[a], compared to something like Flashpoint Paradox where all the characters
are very different from their other alternate selves, Loki and Dr. Strange exist to disrupt
the many universes.
Which I thought it was an interesting coincidence that these two fairly recent projects have
two of the exact same themes, but then I realized these two started from the same mind, screenwriter
and producer Michael Waldron.
He has produced and/or written for both these series, the upcoming Kevin Feige Star Wars
project, Community, and even the Game Grumps Youtube series “Good Game” that I only
know about because Afterthoughts has a great video on one poorly written scene in the show,
but the biggest thing to point out here is he started as an intern for Adult Swim working
for a little show you might have heard of Rick and Morty.
*pickle rick clip* Now this would seem pretty inaquous off first
glance, Rick and Morty is a very popular show and of course a ton of the talent is going
to go and work on other stuff, but it is kinda hard to overlook the fact Rick & Morty also
has a deterministic view of characters in it’s show.
In multiple episodes of the series they go to Ricklantis, where a bunch of Rick Sanchez’s
from other universes come and hang out, in all of these universes Rick is a nihilistic
mean person who always has his grandson doing whatever menial work they need for him.
This is the same determinism we see for our two characters Loki and Strange, which granted
probably still have a lot of story to be told, but both currently are deterministic characters.
The interesting part is the message in the finale act of Dr. Strange because personally
I’m not sure if it’s trying to say anything about Strange’s determinism.
There are two key scenes in the final act, the first when Strange see’s another version
of himself in what we’ll call the dark universe, Evil Strange asks him “how do I know you’re
not an imposter” to which our Strange replies about this story of how he lost his sister
when he was a boy then Evil Strange nods his head confirming a similar thing likely happened
to him.
Now I will preface this could be chalked up to just being an evil villain and lying to
catch Strange while he isn’t ready, but I think it’s much more interesting to examine
what it would mean if this wasn’t the case.
In this scenario this small nugget offers us the suggestion that every Steven Strange
deals with tragedy in order to become who they are.
This would seem to double down with the Illuminati’s assertion that there is some degree of determinism
with the character of Dr. Strange.
The last and more important point happens in the final battle when it would seem that
Strange ignores what is best for the universe by keeping America Chavez alive, this is an
interesting parallel because in No Way Home Strange kinda trivializes Peter Parker’s
small wants at the end specifically because “it’s for the greater good” and granted
a human life is different stakes, but it still seems like neat comparison between the two
films, this is also coupled with this scene with an alternate Rachel McAdams who also
all view him as “needing to hold the knife” almost emphasizing this determinism, there
are only two versions but of the two they kinda treat this relationship as something
that can never work out, but theoretically in “letting go of control” and letting
America Chavez takes the reigns he is going against this determinism that Rachel McAdams
views of his character, so that might go against this deterministic view.
However, there is a view that in keeping the multiverse jumping powers in the hands of
a child it could definitely cause some conflict in the multiverse, thus proving the Illuminati
correct.
Which I think kinda muddies the message of all these Steven Stranges.
But enough about Doctor Strange, let’s talk about Wanda.
There’s an interesting bit of lore dropped at the start of this movie that “we see
our other lives in our dreams” which many have pointed out that would have some interesting
implications into previous Nightmares from Tony Stark, but looking at this from Scarlett
which if we trust her word every night she goes to bed she dreams of being with her kids
only to wake up to the nightmare of her reality.
I don’t want to nitpick here, so viewing this at face value would seem to confirm that
in every universe Scarlet Witch is a loving mother to two boys that I guess all sing about
ice cream like two Victorian children.
I bring this up because this would seem to also align with the deterministic message
of this movie, except our one Wanda doesn’t have kids.
And in doing so this film kinda created a reverse protagonist that we see in Evelyn,
a chosen one that breaks the typical confines for what this character should be in all the
universes except she’s the villain of this story instead disrupting the “order” of
the universe.
Switching gears we move to Everything Everywhere All At Once.
There’s a lot of stuff to discuss, but again let’s only focus on the message of the multiverse.
Because we were talking about determinism there are two characters that might fit this
description, one brief hint at that with Waymond wanting to be with his wife in multiple universes.
Which the film isn’t really saying, it’s more to send the message in the finale.
But the bigger one is Joy, who has a nihilistic view of every universe that she has been able
to jump into, leading to her seeing the infinite multiverse as a whole lot of nothing.
And if you want to hear about some fun ol nhilism maybe I’ll finally release the full
Everything Everywhere All At Once video on my patreon next month.
But I don’t know if I’d count this as determinism though as it’s a view of each
of the universes not individual characters.
I only bring this up because Everything Everywhere seems like a polar opposite of the messaging
in Multiverse of Madness, instead having an indeterministic view of the characters in
this film.
We’re given this character of Evelyn and as mentioned she’s not the most happy with
where her life is at, almost falling for this view her other universe daughter Joy has of
nihilism in the multiverse, but instead by the end it rejects this ideal.
And each of these universes we see with Evelyn that all have their own positives and negatives
seem to all differ in how they play out, there’s one where she’s a cook, a movie star, even
a rock.
Personally, I don’t think this film is saying one of these is superior to others, instead
of there being a throughline of each Evelyn all of them seem very different in their timelines,
the only determined thing is there will be perseverance in order to reach a greater point
of happiness.
This is scene in this montage mostly focusing on Evelyn with hot dog hands falling in love
with her Tax Collector where she mentions we figured out how to excel with our feet
in the face of hot dog hands.
Evelyn is this really unique character in this film that we typically see the chosen
one trope played by a teenage white boy, but on top of this difference instead of the typical
“power of within” it’s only through her optimism she learns through her other
lives that she’s able to overcome the fear of hopelessness.
This is especially interesting because of the changing circumstances that one of the
Directors Daniel Kwan had while making this film, which if you want to hear more about
I’ll discuss in that video I mentioned.
Conclusion?
I don’t think either of these are a wrong approach to the multiverse series, but it’s
intriguing that two very opposing forces (small budget vs big budget films) have polar opposite
views on multiple universe theory, Multiverse of Madness pitches this idea of us being predetermined
for the role we play in the universe and trying to break those confines that are laid out
for characters, which feels like something that as mentioned has been building in this
phase of the series for some kind of statement, then you have Everything Everywhere which
says “sure you could be a movie star in another life, but you also could be a literal
rock” and yet there’s still fulfillment in all of those iterations of ourselves.
To say this is because of the confines of how the art was made would be pretty misguided,
I mean who knows maybe there is a universe where a 3 million movie is deterministic and
big studio film indeterministic.
But what’s interesting is both of these ideas came from two people that are both definitive
millennials, both of these writers are in their mid thirties and it’s interesting
because both of them seem to be having very similar discussions that are inherently tied
to typical millennial problems.
With the growth in wealth disparity and the rise of comparing yourself with the growing
presence of social media, it’s easy to cling yourself to this deterministic thought.
I’m curious how this keeps playing out with the rise of so many people in this age demographic
finally getting to share their voice and if this determinism debate continues in more
films to come.