Magic is a topic that has been avoided in past movies by Marvel. Although the movies have dealt with unbelievable abilities possessed by human beings, they have always been reasoned as being the fault of science. Spider-Man, The Hulk, even Iron Man have all been results of scientific experiments.
Marvel has also dealt with extra terrestrial beings with scientific theories of physics, eg. Thor and Loki. But it has never delved into the mystical powers that may lie within earth itself. The idea of magic was first introduced and almost written-off in a single line in Thor and never really talked about again in other movies.That is, until Doctor Strange.But even in the new film, magic has a scientific basis.
Marvel Studio head Kevin Feige explains why this sudden change came about:
” I don’t know if it was written off in that single line in Thor. It was given another way of looking at it. There are a couple of lines in Thor basically saying that science and magic it gets to a point where what’s the difference. And I think we’re continuing that. The Ancient One encounters Strange – he’s a scientist, he’s learned Western Medicine; he believes very much in that. She starts using Eastern lingo in the way she’s describing the world to him. He immediately writes it off – Whether you’re looking at the ancient study of acupuncture pressure points or you’re looking an MRI – she’s trying to say we’re talking about the same things here. And if you’re not comfortable with the word spells, let’s use the word program. It’s all the same thing. And I think that’s true to a certain extent – I think for the audience and the way science is going. I’m not a scientist. I just read articles that are interesting and that capture my imagination, but I think there’s a reason why there’s so much faith placed in science.”
