Paid Members BomberPat Posted July 15, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted July 15, 2021 I've been completely burned out on Marvel for a long time - I hated Endgame for how much it just went full-bore into every worst trait of the Marvel franchise, long after they'd started to exhaust me. It was obviously a huge success, so who the fuck am I in the grand scheme of things, and I've been consistently wrong at predicting at what point the bubble will burst on superhero movies for a decade now, but it will happen at some point, and you think having moved away from most of the core characters and trying to establish a ton of "new" franchises will play a part in that. It's funny that you mention WWE, because one of the things that puts me off Marvel now is that I feel like a lot of fans are following it the same way they follow WWE. My girlfriend's in a Facebook group that have long involved feedback chats after every episode of a Marvel show. With Loki, and to a far greater extent with Wandavision, I saw people on there constantly trying to second guess what would happen next, and reading some hidden message into every line and every frame of every episode, which invariably ended up being "this will mean X because in the comics, character Y does whatever with concept Z" - they're not taking the information the story gives them and acting on that, they're inventing their own narrative based on prior knowledge (even though the MCU has fairly consistently taught viewers that it's an entirely separate beast to the comics, I think the bait-and-switch with The Mandarin was one of the smartest moves they made for that explicit purpose) and then jumping through hoops to justify how the TV show supports that. They then come away talking about how deep and nuanced and layered the show is, when actually the show gave them none of that, they just made it up. Similarly, my biggest problem with the plot of Endgame was that we're expected to really care about the death of Tony Stark at the end. Except Tony Stark was "dead" at the beginning of the film, has been "dead" at least once before, and has "given up being Iron Man" at least once before, and we've just watched an entire movie teaching us that in this universe death is ultimately reversible. There's no reason within the narrative why we should care that much about the death of Tony Stark, all things considered. Except it's an emotional moment not because it's the death of the character, but because the audience know that it's Robert Downey Jr's last contracted film in the franchise, and that the filmmakers know the audience know that. It's getting into WWE worked shoot booking tactics - the emotion comes from knowledge about the behind-the-scenes story, not the story you just spent three fucking hours (and countless other films beforehand) watching. Anyway, no interest in Black Widow. Might pop back into watching Marvel movies in general should anything specifically interesting come up. The TV series have been broadly fine; Wandavision was a decent concept until they more or less abandoned that in favour of more cookie-cutter Marvel storytelling, I found Falcon & Winter Soldier a boring waste of time, and Loki was mostly good but didn't feel like anything specifically tied to the Loki character, more an extended "what if Marvel did a Doctor Who serial?" exercise. If you'd told young me in the mid-90s that you'd basically be getting new Marvel comics TV shows and movies every year, and that they all tied into one another, and then told me that I'd find it all rather boring and tedious by now, I'd have probably laughed in your face, but there we are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB6937 Posted July 15, 2021 Share Posted July 15, 2021 16 minutes ago, BomberPat said: I've been consistently wrong at predicting at what point the bubble will burst on superhero movies for a decade now, but it will happen at some point, and you think having moved away from most of the core characters and trying to establish a ton of "new" franchises will play a part in that. They might not reach the heights of where they've been but I don't think the 'bubble' is bursting any time soon. Fact is they managed to make successes out of stuff like Guardians and Ant-Man etc because they've built up a lot of trust, and from a personal perspective I've actually really enjoyed the movies that I know very little about. I knew pretty much fuck all about GOTG but that was such a great cinematic experience. And the big hitters of the cinema haven't necessarily been the ones from the comics either. I didn't really give two shits about Iron Man as a comic when I was younger. Obviously the more they do, the more chances there are to fail. I think they're almost quite lucky that the pandemic happened because there will be people desperate for content regardless and that might actually work in their favour with stuff like Shang-Chi and Eternals .. maybe.. who knows until it happens! I get the WWE comparison though - there's always an element of brand loyalty at the top of the chain rather than what's happening on an individual basis. I don't think the 'too much content' thing that some believe is happening is really that big a deal unless it gets to the point where you absolutely HAVE to watch everything or it doesn't make sense. I don't mind little tie ins here and there and slight implications - if you miss WandaVision or Loki it should be easily explained away in the movies without having seen it, same with Falcon etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CavemanLynn Posted July 15, 2021 Share Posted July 15, 2021 34 minutes ago, BomberPat said: With Loki, and to a far greater extent with Wandavision, I saw people on there constantly trying to second guess what would happen next, and reading some hidden message into every line and every frame of every episode, which invariably ended up being "this will mean X because in the comics, character Y does whatever with concept Z" - they're not taking the information the story gives them and acting on that, they're inventing their own narrative based on prior knowledge (even though the MCU has fairly consistently taught viewers that it's an entirely separate beast to the comics, I think the bait-and-switch with The Mandarin was one of the smartest moves they made for that explicit purpose) and then jumping through hoops to justify how the TV show supports that. They then come away talking about how deep and nuanced and layered the show is, when actually the show gave them none of that, they just made it up. This is how the MCU IP has been built over the past ten years. Movies were already full of sequel-bait, but the post-credit scenes, coining of the phrase MCU, and the decades of pre-existing material came together and became the Marvel calling card - "Everything's connected." Sooner or later, they were going to have to move away from that model, but they haven't been able to manage it. It almost blew up in their face with WandaVision, when first Bettany dropped a clanger of a gag, then the show-runners themselves had to come out and warn audiences that the finale probably wasn't as good as the fan theories. For all the talk of how weird and subversive things were going to get, by Feige who is not only their chief producer but best salesman, Marvel's post-Endgame output had been totally pedestrian and nowhere near as adventurous as even the most sensible fan theories. At least WandaVision felt like it contained the characters we had already seen. Falcon & Winter Soldier and now Loki both smack of IPs shoehorned into spec scripts. Loki was totally mis-sold - instead of a time-skipping romp with one of their most popular anti-heroes through Marvel and world history, we have a fiercely linear talk-piece where the main character was crowbarred into a new personality by literally SHOWING HIM HIS MCU STORY ARC ON TV. They built the trailer on inconsequential stills and side-vignettes, relying exclusively on fan trust and goodwill. Having had the final episode spoiled (albeit offering nothing that surprised me), the current state of Marvel appears to be 6-hour-long adverts for something else. As much as Endgame was the best and worst of the MCU writ large, that was exactly what I wanted from it. After ten years of the same, it was time for a change, and Marvel has failed to do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted July 15, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted July 15, 2021 7 minutes ago, CavemanLynn said: At least WandaVision felt like it contained the characters we had already seen. Falcon & Winter Soldier and now Loki both smack of IPs shoehorned into spec scripts. Absolutely this! I complained after the first episode of Loki that I couldn't understand why this story needed Loki to tell it - nothing about it was predicated on him being the God of Mischief, or on any of his experience in previous Marvel movies, it could have been basically any character - and no one I was complaining to seemed to understand what I was trying to say. As it went on, it felt like it was a good Doctor Who series that had Marvel properties retrofitted into it. I enjoyed it, for the most part, but none of the premise really relied on it being Loki. There was a point in the last episode: Spoiler During the confrontation with (probably) Kang, Sylvie admonishes him for treating people like pawns and manipulating them. It took me completely out of the scene because, hang on, you're telling me Loki has a problem with that? Isn't that kind of his whole deal? Falcon & Winter Soldier I just gave no shits about. Completely unearned character relationships, a plodding story, lip service to dealing with "issues" without ever actually coming out and saying anything, and characters who changed personality on a dime, all fleshed out with sub-Whedon Marvel "banter". But the most telling thing was that it accomplished nothing - if you watched Endgame, you saw Falcon offered the shield, and if you skipped the entire series and just went to the next movie Falcon appears in, you wouldn't even know that there was a whole deal about his internal struggle. That convinced me that the TV series are never going to substantially impact on the movies, just offer additional content. Loki might be an exception, but that remains to be seen. Wandavision was a really fun concept, and the closest to doing something genuinely different and challenging, but it was basically one surface level mystery that people were convinced was going to lead to something more. They more or less abandon the gimmick halfway through, and by the last episode it's a big CGI flying fight with people throwing different coloured lasers at each other, because it's the only way Marvel know how to do a third act. And again, it didn't really feel like the finale resolved anything, taught us anything, or gave us any more information than we came in with. In terms of "the bubble", and the future of the MCU, ironically I think the greater risk coming out of the pandemic is that cinema chains collapse before the franchise does. Years ago I thought the risk of the genre burning out/bubble bursting could just as likely come from DC or a third party producing an exceptionally bad superhero movie or string of movies as Marvel over-saturation, because most people don't know the difference between Marvel and DC. But in recent years, Marvel have done such a good job of making "Marvel movie" a bigger selling point and bigger brand than "superhero movie". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted July 15, 2021 Awards Moderator Share Posted July 15, 2021 20 minutes ago, CavemanLynn said: Loki was totally mis-sold - instead of a time-skipping romp with one of their most popular anti-heroes through Marvel and world history, we have a fiercely linear talk-piece where the main character was crowbarred into a new personality by literally SHOWING HIM HIS MCU STORY ARC ON TV. They built the trailer on inconsequential stills and side-vignettes, relying exclusively on fan trust and goodwill. Having had the final episode spoiled (albeit offering nothing that surprised me), the current state of Marvel appears to be 6-hour-long adverts for something else. Definitely agree that it was mis-sold, or maybe I mis-expected what it was going to be. I'd prepared for 'anti-hero travels through history, pursued by Owen Wilson' and I don't think that's wholly why I found the series so disappointing (clunky scripting, ropey greenscreen and a badly miscast major new character didn't help) but I do think I'd have enjoyed it more if it had been what you said. Saying that, I did enjoy the final episode quite a lot. I admit this is at least partly because of reminded me of a Lost season finale brain-fryer, which for me is a good thing but may not be a sentiment shared by a lot of other people... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Danger Posted July 15, 2021 Share Posted July 15, 2021 I enjoyed Loki in the whole. I had my usual low expectations and I didn’t like that Loki who is meant to be at his Avengers 1 naughtiest basically becomes sound Loki after a quick montage but it was enjoyable enough. I did really like Jonathan Majors in the last episode, there’s a bit of Simon Phoenix in him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BigJag Posted September 18, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted September 18, 2021 (edited) On 7/7/2021 at 2:47 PM, Hannibal Scorch said: Then I just saw Black Widow. Really enjoyable spy caper. Like The Winter Soldier mixed with Mission Impossible. Scarlett Johansson was great as usual but Florance Pugh was a great addition and both Rachel Weisz and David Harbour were great in there turns. Plus we got Ray Winstone to boot. Some good humour at times and some great fight scenes. Wasn’t expecting much but really enjoyed it. There is an end credit scene as well. I've recently watched Black Widow and can echo the above points. Definitely enjoyed it more than I was expecting to. A fun film with impressive action. Edited September 18, 2021 by BigJag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WyattSheepMask Posted March 1, 2022 Share Posted March 1, 2022 For anyone interested, The Marvel shows that were on Netflix are heading to Disney+ in 2 weeks time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators neil Posted March 5, 2022 Moderators Share Posted March 5, 2022 I just saw a 30 second trailer for Morbius...I know nothing about it because I'm not a comic book dweeb, but christ it looks awful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members DEF Posted March 5, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted March 5, 2022 (edited) 35 minutes ago, neil said: I just saw a 30 second trailer for Morbius...I know nothing about it because I'm not a comic book dweeb, but christ it looks awful. I am a comic book dweeb and have always thought Morbius was proper shit. Spider-Man was cack when he was in it. Can't believe they have wasted money on it to be honest. It's not like even die hard comic nerds were clamouring for it. It looks about as bad as I expected to. The only upside is it could surprise me and be vaguely entertaining. I'd be shocked though. Edited March 5, 2022 by DEF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members chokeout Posted March 5, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted March 5, 2022 4 hours ago, neil said: I just saw a 30 second trailer for Morbius...I know nothing about it because I'm not a comic book dweeb, but christ it looks awful. Don't worry most comic book dweebs feel the same way. It's sonys latest attempt to make a franchise out of a bunch of shit, 2nd tier characters that they own because they got the rights to Spiderman. Literally no one was asking for this movie. If it helps he's a character most famous for being in the 90s Spiderman cartoon where, because it was on Fox and its censorship, he was a vampire that wasn't allowed to bite people and they weren't allowed to mention blood so he nicked plasma through his fingers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted March 5, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted March 5, 2022 3 hours ago, chokeout said: Don't worry most comic book dweebs feel the same way. It's sonys latest attempt to make a franchise out of a bunch of shit, 2nd tier characters that they own because they got the rights to Spiderman. Literally no one was asking for this movie. If it helps he's a character most famous for being in the 90s Spiderman cartoon where, because it was on Fox and its censorship, he was a vampire that wasn't allowed to bite people and they weren't allowed to mention blood so he nicked plasma through his fingers. I like the way they say from the studio that brought you Venom as if that’s a badge of honour. I feel I need to see it because it has Michael Keaton back and will no doubt set up a Sinister Six v Spider-Man film, but have no interest in this or Kraven. 2 crack characters from an excellent cartoon who aren’t exactly loved by comic book dweebs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members chokeout Posted March 5, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted March 5, 2022 They'll do something stupid with Keaton, just you wait. I have zero faith in Sony. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members DEF Posted March 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted March 6, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said: I like the way they say from the studio that brought you Venom as if that’s a badge of honour. I feel I need to see it because it has Michael Keaton back and will no doubt set up a Sinister Six v Spider-Man film, but have no interest in this or Kraven. 2 crack characters from an excellent cartoon who aren’t exactly loved by comic book dweebs. To be fair Kraven's Last Hunt is a superb book. At least with Kraven he has source material that supports the idea that he's worth adapting. Edited March 6, 2022 by DEF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members chokeout Posted March 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted March 6, 2022 10 hours ago, DEF said: To be fair Kraven's Last Hunt is a superb book. At least with Kraven he has source material that supports the idea that he's worth adapting. Kraven is a great character and Last Hunt is superb, but it kind of needs Spider-man, which we won't get, or at the most a cameo. Think how much more the character would be worth if they actually had him in a Spider-man film as a villain before they gave him his own film. Its arse backwards. Sony's (and every other studios) obsession with creating their own shared film universes always seems doomed to failure. Remember this is the studio that wanted to make an Aunt May origin film! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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