It’s Marvel Cinematic Universe Week at SB Nation and across our team brands! We’re using the superior superhero franchise to guide our coverage for this week, as we pass the two-month mark without sports.
Here at Fear the Fin, I’m going to take on a very stupid mission: to watch every film in the MCU and document every reference made to sports throughout. I’m playing a little fast and loose with my definition of “sports reference,” but I’m going to try to avoid making the same jokes more than once in this series. You’ll see what I mean.
That’s 23 films, totaling 50 hours, by 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, May 10.
(I’m aware the week starts on Sunday, but the next theme week doesn’t start until Monday and I got a late start on this, okay? I’m cutting myself some slack to make this ridiculous thing a complete project.)
I’ll be watching in a chronological order (some films take place around the same time, so it doesn’t matter too much) that is dubbed the “spoiler” version, as post-credit scenes will contain spoilers for movies further along in the timeline, as opposed to release order.
I’ve set up a storystream to help you keep track of each post as they go up — which won’t be on any kind of set schedule, since I’m gonna be putting some weird hours into this thing in order to pull it off. No worries, though — that’s the whole point of having a centralized location. I’d suggest reading them in order, but hey, I’m not your mom.
Reminder that time stamps are approximate, not exact, and may vary based on streaming services.
This version of Peter Parker basically just got parkour powers from the spider, I think.
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Director: Jon Watts, Written by Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Jon Watts, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers
00:07:42: Peter Parker does a standing back-flip over his hotel room bed to get to the door.
00:10:21: Peter walks past a multi-use field at his school, looks like it’s for football and soccer at the moment.
00:11:21: A cheerleader has a locker near Peter, there’s a whole gaggle of ‘em over his shoulder.
00:16:43: Something about Peter Parker doing parkour set to Blitzkrieg Bop is like a frog sitting on a lily pad. Yeah man, that’s right where you’re supposed to be.
00:16:47: Peter rescues a potentially stolen bicycle.
00:17:14: “Okay, Spider-Man. Do a flip,” a stranger yells. And Peter does a standing back-flip.
00:26:42: The Captain America Fitness Challenge is being shown in Peter’s gym class. First up is sit-ups. I wonder if Tom Holland got tired of doing sit-ups recording this scene.
00:32:18: Peter runs through a golf shooting range at night.
00:34:40: Taking a shortcut through someone’s yard, Peter runs past two guys playing table tennis in a garage. He says, “Good game, have fun” in passing.
00:40:52: “I’m the Shocker, I shock people. What is this, pro wrestling?” says a guy nicknamed the Vulture.
00:43:49: We see the chess club through a window, with chess pieces lining the glass. Very high school. I feel like in this nerd school that might pass for sports, yeah?
00:48:24: Tony limited the functions of Peter’s suit with a “Training Wheels Protocol.”
00:50:18: The Academic Decathlon team goes for a swim in the hotel pool.
01:23:53: Ned asks Peter if he’s expelled and will have to go to a school where the principal allegedly carries a crossbow.
01:56:19: Mr. Harrington, the Academic Decathlon faculty advisor, uses the phrase “ahead of the game.” The history of that particular phrase is in gambling.
Previous: Captain America: Civil War | Up Next: Doctor Strange
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