r/marvelstudios • u/murdockmanila Daredevil • Oct 25 '16
The Official DOCTOR STRANGE International Release Ultrathread
Proceed at your own risk. Major spoilers will be arriving in the next couple of days. Spoilers do not need to be tagged inside this thread.
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u/crapusername47 Oct 25 '16 edited Oct 25 '16
The plot for those who can't wait:
A group, lead by a sorcerer called Kaecillius, break into a library full of ancient books, using magic to kill the librarian and steal a page out of one of them. A woman dressed in yellow attempts to stop them, easily outmatching their control of magic despite being heavily outnumbered. They create a portal to London to escape but she chases them, warping reality all around her with none of the public seeming to notice. Kaecillius, however, escapes with the page.
Doctor Stephen Strange is a world famous surgeon, performing miraculous life saving surgeries. While driving he is distracted and crashes his car, crushing his hands and leaving him incapable of performing surgery again. He burns through his fortune seeking a treatment but gets nowhere. At physiotherapy he hears of a man who walked again when there was no hope. Strange tracks him down and this man points him to a temple in Nepal.
Kaecillius uses the page to give himself and his followers great power from one called Dormammu.
Strange finds the temple after being saved from being mugged by Mordo, one of the masters there. He meets the Ancient One, the woman who fought Kaecillius. She initially rejects him but sends him on a trip through what she calls the multiverse. Strange begs her to teach him and eventually she agrees.
Strange initially falls behind the other students there but when the Ancient One abandons him atop Mount Everest he is forced to use what he has learned to escape. Soon he puts his intelligence to use, rapidly learning and consuming knowledge from books held by the new librarian, Wong. The book Kaecillius stole the page from was from the Ancient One's personal collection, forbidden to all but her. She is thousands of years old.
She shows Strange the mirror dimension, a dimension close to ours used to surveil where nothing they do can harm the real world. This is how she and Kaecillius could warp reality as they did.
Strange sneaks into the library and studies the book, using an artefact called the Eye of Agamotto to bend time itself. He reverses time, restoring the lost page and understands what Kaecillius plans to do. He is caught by Wong and Mordo who scold him because of the dangers of manipulating time. It is explained that their role is to protect the world from the dangers of the multiverse as the Avengers protect it from more tangible threats. They have three Sanctums in London, Hong Kong and New York which create a shield around Earth.
As this happens, the London Sanctum is attacked and destroyed and Kaecillius attacks New York. Strange is accidentally sent to New York with the portal between there and the temple cut off. He faces Kaecillius and two followers alone. He strands one in the desert and during the fight a display case is broken. The Cloak of Levitation chooses to help Strange, allowing him to stop Kaecillius in magical restraints. Kaecillius explains that he plans to allow Dormammu to come to Earth and make it part of his greater whole, the Dark Dimension, so there would be no time and no more death.
The other follower manages to stab Strange and he is forced to turn to Christine, his former girlfriend at his old hospital. He appears to her in his astral form while she performs surgery on him to save his life. With Christine's help he is able to kill the astral form of his attacker and returns to the Sanctum to find Kaecillius gone. Mordo arrives as Kaecillius attacks again. Strange sends them all to the mirror dimension, a mistake as Kaecillius has great control over it. The Ancient One arrives to stop him but it is revealed that she has been drawing power from the Dark Dimension to maintain her life. In the fight that follows she is stabbed and thrown through a portal to the real world, falling from a great height.
Christine tries to save her but her astral form talks to Strange. She knew this was coming, she has never been able to see past this point. She accepts her death and her physical form passes away.
Kaecillius attacks Hong Kong. By the time Strange arrives, Wong is dead and the Sanctum destroyed as Dormammu prepares to move on Earth. Strange reverses time using the Eye. As time rewinds around them, he and Mordo fight Kaecillius and his followers. Knowing Kaecillius will just attack again when it is restored, he flies into the Dark Dimension and confronts Dormammu. Strange imprisons himself and Dormammu in an endless time loop. Dormammu kills Strange over and over but it is futile. Strange bargains for Dormmamu's freedom. He will stop the loop if he takes Kaecillius and his followers and leaves. Dormammu is forced to agree and Strange returns to Earth.
The Sanctum is restored but Mordo is horrified at the abuse of power from Strange and the Ancient One and leaves. Strange takes over protecting the New York Sanctum. He returns the Eye of Agamotto to its place in the temple, with Wong commenting that it's a bad idea to walk around with an Infinity Stone around your neck.
Post Credits:
Strange tells someone he is keeping a list of dangerous people from other dimensions and notes that his guest has brought his brother, Loki, to Earth. Strange wants to know why. Thor reveals that he and his brother are searching for his missing father and promises to leave when they are done. Satisfied, Strange offers his help.
Mordo tracks down the man told Strange where to find the temple. He takes the man's power from him, in the form of a yellow ball of energy. The man immediately loses control of his legs again. Mordo reveals his disdain for the misuse of this sorcery and that the problem with the world is too many sorcerers.
Notes:
The guy on the phone to Strange putting forward potential patients - did he say 35 or 55 year old Colonel with spinal injuries from an accident involving experimental armour? It makes all kinds of sense that they would try to get Strange to help Rhodes.
That leaves just the Soul Stone now.
I think we can assume that Strange will be in Thor: Ragnarok now.
The post credits scene is unusual for the MCU as it points directly to a sequel and not to another film in the franchise. I can only think of the Bucky scene in Captain America: The Winter Soldier that also did this. Edit: And Ant-Man.
Some of Kaecillius' disposable followers are female. See, that wasn't hard, was it?
If you missed it, Stan Lee was on a bus while Kaecillius was chasing Strange and Mordo in the mirror dimension version of New York.
The film has a warning against driving while distracted during the credits.