Not being aware of them, the loss of some of those original tropes and themes (especially in regards to Mordo) obviously didn't bother me much, but I can see how they added to the concepts as a whole and I can agree that their removal should be offset.

The cultural sensitivity aspect on this film was always going to be a hot-button topic. Personally, I think they handled it decently, but then I was never part of the injured parties in those regards. Still, I like that they maintained the trope of traveling to the Far East for mystical enlightenment even as they made it a global practice (I felt like it was missing a comment about Strange traveling around the world when the same group had an office in Manhattan.). As such, I though making the ancient one a Celtic woman deftly avoided the whole "magical minority helps the white man become the true hero", but I see that many are still writing editorials about "whitewashing" anyway.




It's the one area where I thought that the sole focus on Strange hurt things... that rift between sorcerers who wanted to use magics to make all death needless and a thing of the past and those who had strong beliefs about not interfering with the natural order of things needed some more exploration, especially to really drive home Mordo's feeling of betrayal in regards to the Ancient One.

Hopefully, if a sequel does focus on Mordo, it'll get more showing there.




I hadn't considered that possibility, but that would make for an interesting twist on things.




I had been thinking about that myself. I saw someone claim that the director denied that it was Rhodey they were referencing, which seems downright silly (people speculated it could have been one of Justin Hammer's test pilots), but maybe they did think it boxed them in too much? Either way, Avengers Tower is quite clearly part of the skyline early in the film, so it's not like they could go back much before Cap 2 anyway.

For me, the best solution to this is a bit of time manipulation... say Hydra has pictures of Doctor Strange showing up at some point in the past where Stephen Strange clearly couldn't have been if he was normal. Be it during the Infinity War or some other future adventure, drop Strange back to the past and they've got this covered... and luckily, a certain artifact makes this easily a possibility.