You’ve made it quite clear that the superhero genre is “not your thing”, but I think you give it too much credit for killing the industry. Film–in the artistic, more pretentious sense–has never suffered or gone away, just look at Focus Features and A24’s slates over the last twenty years, among countless others. They are not competitors with the big popcorn flicks, and superhero movies aren’t choking them out. Theaters were and are dying because studios take all of the revenue from ticket sales, leaving the venues to try anything and everything to stay afloat: insanely overpriced concessions, ad time/space, some of them even have arcades and bars. None of that is due to the superhero genre, which if anything, brought more people into the building than ever before.
Where Marvel got smart was in exploiting the already varied nature of comic book stories–some are war movies, some are spy thrillers, some are comedies, some are space operas. And the genre itself is just another version of myth-telling. We could have a dozen movies about the Trojan war, or we could have Thanos. Weaving an overarching narrative across the films is no different than any other serialized film property from the dawn of cinema. Star Lord instead of Buck Rodgers. It’s not anything exceptionally different in that regard.
Oversaturation and repetition has always dominated American entertainment media. For awhile it was disaster films. Then you couldn’t (still can’t) swing a dead cat without hitting another police procedural drama. Over and over again, Hollywood goes back to the well. Marvel has defined–carved out–a particular zone, and within that they’re actually trying some fairly complex things, asking more out of the audience than anything Michael Bay ever produced. I respect that.
I know this is probably old news and cold comfort, but at least DC dominates in the animated game. Marvel hasn’t had anything that could come close to Batman the Animated Series, and those old Fleischer Superman animated shorts are absolute masterpieces. Teen Titans kicks ass in its own way too. I’ve always dreamt of a world where superhero-movie-sized budgets were poured into hand-drawn animation - to match the source material - so that they could produce films on the filmic/seriousness scale of Ghibli. DC perhaps hasn’t quite cracked live action (outside of the Dark Knight series), but to me, they’ve gotten it right where it counts.
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au contraire, the moment it was clear that the secret government agency was run by an unapologetic psychopath.
That the US goals were destabilization of a South American country no matter what the consequences
That the guy called “Peace Maker” was ready willing and able to kill children,
And that the whole thing was the US’s doing due to a combination of fecklessness AND malice.
I knew that this was the best super hero movie ever made.
Even The Boys pulled their punches in the end,
but not this movie,
Bloodsport looked right at Harley Quinn and told her,
we’re keeping this a secret to save our OWN asses; not a lie was told.
She’s tremendously good at face acting. My favorite scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was where she’s just driving along listening to the radio while making a 1960s face, it’s hilarious.
No, I’m not claiming it’s killing the industry, only that it’s having a major - and quite serious, impact. This is what I hear, over and over again, from actors, from directors - all the mid-budget movies, the rom-coms, the smaller action movies, the thrillers, the movies that made actors into stars - simply aren’t being made in any real quantity these days. Because of the financial dynamics of superhero movies. Which are, indeed, bringing people into theaters - but right now, they’re basically the only thing left that is.
I struggle to find anything of interest in the quote marvel cinematic universe unquote.
OK, Thor: Ragnarok… But that was an outlier.
No. As above, you didnt need any previous knowledge to have seen Thor:Rag (in fact, its recommended you dont since the first 2 were so terrible).
And in general, if its a good movie, you never have to have seen the previous episodes to enjoy the movie itself. Empire Strikes Back, Godfather II, etc. Even, Jean de Florette Deuxieme Partie. Good movies stand on their own.
The first Valentine’s Day, I chose to watch Slither because I’d had a bad breakup and it made me feel better; after that, it was just a fun thing to do (and hellooooo, Nathan Fillion.) It made sense at the time.
I got through most of it, but I turned it off at the rape scene. Someday I’ll give it a rewatch, but it’s low on my list at the moment.
Yes, Teen Titans is fantastic. I just watched a few hours again last night with my 8 year old. We were looking for an episode and my 8 year old said, “I think we’ve watched them all.”
I’ve been burnt out on the superhero genre for a long time. I’ve also reached my limit with zombie, vampire, and torture porn movies like the “Saw” series as well.
I didn’t love the Suicide Squad (I thought it was too long) but I easily liked it more than at least 1/3 of the Marvel movies.
People are so in love with loving Marvel and hating DC that I am convinced that you could take any DC movie and tell people it was a Marvel film and they would love it.
Sorry you didn’t like it. I think the big downside to the film is the length of the movie, but otherwise I found it fun as hell. It was hilarious in how it kept poking at the ‘Murika eff yeah!’ thing that such movies have. Also, they really let Viola Davis be the Amanda Waller we deserved: pure evil. I think the film had alot of heart between Polka-dot Man and Ratcatcher 2. Plus, Gunn was let loose on the style of shooting in the film, he didn’t just stick with one color grade throughout the film which made it a treat to watch.
If you’ve not seen it yet, Shazam! is worth a look.
As for me, I enjoyed The Suicide Squad. Just so happens I watched Suicide Squad (the 2016 movie) for the first time just this week too, and yeeeeah, that was a train-wreck.
