The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has been growing for years now. Everyone knows that most of its movies and shows are considered canon. Key events are interwoven with titles that require you to watch all the movies to understand certain references, which will take forever.
However, some movies are good as standalone. You can watch them without having to go through hours of Marvel movies and shows, and it goes both ways. If you decide to binge on the series of MCU events without missing important details, you can skip these movies.
1. 'Iron Man 3'
The movie is a good closure for the "Iron Man" trilogy, but when it comes to its connection with the entirety of the MCU story, it doesn't really affect the chronological events in all the Marvel movies that much, so you can skip it if you like.
The only connection you'll miss is (spoiler alert) the identity of the kid present at Tony Stark's funeral. His name is Harley, and he helped Stark throughout the movie. Also, you'll miss the awesome suits that Stark made out of paranoia, so maybe watch it at another time, which you can at streaming services like Disney Plus.
2. 'Thor: The Dark World'
One of the most important things about watching the movie is the fact that the Reality Stone was introduced here, but was also mentioned in the other movies that play important roles in the overall plot. Even Thor's battle against the Dark Elves wasn't mentioned again.
Although Jane Foster and Thor were brought back together, it has been rendered unimportant since they broke up off-screen anyway, as pointed out by Screen Rant. As for the villain, Malekith just wasn't impactful enough to even be mentioned after the movie.
3. 'Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2'
The movie may have had a good villain which is Ego the Living Planet, who is also Star-Lord's father, its plot doesn't go outside the film. It just shows that Peter Quill is a half-Celestial being and can be very powerful, but those powers died with Ego anyway.
Whatever important reference you feel like you'll miss, you'll know about it when Star-Lord and Nebula talk about it in "Avengers: Infinity War." It is a good movie though, so you can watch it separately when you're not busy going through hours upon hours of relevant MCU content.
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4. 'The Incredible Hulk'
The Hulk movie with Edward Norton is basically just a fun fact by now. It just shows how Hulk came to be and that's about the extent of its importance. The movie shows Norton's Hulk in a different, more violent image, which strays from the comedic Hulk we came to love.
Since there weren't any solo Hulk movies that were made where Mark Ruffalo played the titular character, he can be seen as a supporting character, as mentioned by Cinema Blend. Despite not having solo films, Ruffalo's Hulk still plays a vital role in the MCU.
5. 'Captain Marvel'
There's not much to learn in the movie aside from Captain Marvel's origin relating to the Tesseract, of course. But, you'll be able to understand the grand scheme of things even without that tidbit. She'll be introduced again in "Avengers: Endgame," and in a much better fashion.
Other than that, you'll just see how the one-eyed leader Nick Fury came up with the Avengers Initiative, as well as ruining Ronan's plans. If you're into origin stories, you're probably going to want to watch it, as well as "The Incredible Hulk."
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