Amph "You think you're the only superhero in the world?" - The Marvel Cinematic Universe

They have a title card and dialogue setting it 8 years after Avengers and 2 months after Civil War when it should be 4 years after Avengers (as the set-6-months-after Avengers Iron Man 3 locks Avengers into being 2012 via the stated 13 year span of time since the 1999 flashbacks).

Additionally, while the 8-year dialogue reference could be explained away, the age of certain characters (and an anchoring prop) makes it difficult to ignore the 8 year title card reference. You can't even try ignoring the 2 months reference (which set SMH a few years into the future) because Parker can't have aged that much since CW due to being a sophomore in high school.

The other stated dating references in the other films (Winter Soldier, etc) makes the only thing approaching a solution being expanding the timeframe between AOU and CW but even that alters the effect of Sokovia, the length of time Scarlet Witch has been an Avenger, etc- and would force us to either ignore AOS or believe that AOS S3 spans 3-4 years.

It's messy.

 

That would be a handwave bandaid in the short term but unless it's a plotpoint in the future, not a reliable solution long-term.

 

It's an out of universe explanation currently. If the films were to acknowledge that, yes, Strange messing with time altered the timing of all historical events from that point on or before, then that's fine. But without something like that, you have lost the internal consistency of the narrative of the cinematic universe.

It does- most notably in regards to AOS (as you can't stretch a single season out to span 4 years, especially without the cast aging [except for Ming-Na, who is immortal, obviously]) but even if just within the context of the films it means the Sokovia Accords took 4 years to pass (which changes how we the audience interpret it and the motivations behind it), that Scarlett Witch had more time as an Avenger in CW than Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow or Hawkeye did in AOU (contradicting the characterization of her being inexperienced/new) and that the only major thing that happened in the MCU for the 4 years between AOU and CW was Ant-Man.

It's a little different than Highlander, though, because there's already precedence for there being multiple continuities within that franchise (Highlander 2 is basically ignored, for instance). And things like the trade towers could be explained away as Highlander's fictional universe diverging from our own (like Star Trek's 1990's Augment War).

 

Magic.

 

Oh, i can still enjoy them as a standalone film or sub-series, but the loss of cohesion diminishes things now that you have to squint to make sense of certain things or cannot have one answer to a simple question like "How many years since Iron Man?".

It's not quite as bad as X-Men, but X-Men is a good example of how bad continuity can undermine an entire film series. When you can't use a lot of information from some films to speculate or analyze others, it's not much of a series.

 

Not once I have disliked an X-Men film for "bad continuity." It's something fun for fans to talk about, sure. It doesn't impact the quality of the films to the average movie-goer in any way.

Nobody has done anything on the level of Marvel undoing Phil Coulson's death. That was the single most important moment of the capstone film of "phase 1." Yet they've made it work, and built a great TV series around it without compromising the films. If that can be undone within the same universe, I think this timeline stuff is small potatoes.

 

Bringing Coulson back to life was done within continuity though- they didn't just ignore his death.

And you absolutely should dislike an X-men movie for bad continuity- X3 denied us a firebird because of that!