Superhero ( & sci-fi / other relevant) films

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Cuenca 'ammer
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Re: Superhero ( & sci-fi / other relevant) films

Post by Cuenca 'ammer »

read that yesterday. not a "fan boy" of the Marvel series, in fact have tried a few (Capt. America is my favourite so far), Iron Man, decent. Thor. Nope. Dr. Strange in whatever version he was in prior to his own show. Nope. Wonder Woman. Not at all. the tv off shoots. not at all. now all of these might NOT be Marvel, I honestly don't quite know the difference but for me they all kind of fall into the same catergory.

the one with Sophie Turner was worth binning before release.

and as Wolf says, keep milking the cow...........

not sure I've seen a Batman, Superman (except the original many many years back) or a Spiderman one except when they apear in the other shows.
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Re: Superhero ( & sci-fi / other relevant) films

Post by Kludgehammer »

Maybe the world is getting tired of superheroes - doesn't seem like it, but it could happen - happened to Wwesterns, for example, that were dominant for a while then couldn't give them away until Sergio Leone & Clint Eastwood reinvented them.

I don't think so though - not yet; and I don't think it's Marvel exhaustion, it's just got to the point where it's not about being novel any more, so rather than being "OMG they're managed to make an Iron Man suit", the focus is (rightly) on the quality of the individual films/series, and most of the recent ones have been wanting one way or another.

I think there are a couple of endemic problems:
1. Pacing - The TV series take too long to set up the premise, they scrabble around in the middle with crappy antagonosts, then rush the ending and fail to land it properly. Wandavision was a bit of an exception, IMHO - the slow start yes, but the rest held up pretty well for me; Hawkeye is fairly widely agreed to work all the way through; Falcon/WS has the problem, Moon Knight has the problem, Ms Marvel has it in spades, though redeemed a bit in the ending; Loki was all set up and very little delivery; What If was several shitty episodes before an OK ending - a lot of people will have given up before they every got there. The pacing on Eternals was disastrous - the movie does virtually nothing for about 2½ hours then wraps up a stupid ending in a few minutes.

2. Overuse of humour. There is a MCU trope which is big drama offset by widecracks. That works for Spider-Man and RDJ's version of Iron Man. It worked for Thor in Ragnorok. It worked for GotG1. But there seems to be a tendency to just push that side of it further and further, which is having a really negative impact on the films - GotG2 had that problem, and Doofus Thor of Love and Thunder has it in abundance. It's not just that there's too much, but there too much that isn't particularly funny (or in Thor 4's case, isn't funny at all). Mix this one up with the pacing, and you get the criminal underuse of Gorr in the Thor film, in favour of unfunny schtick with Korg and the hammers.

3. Crap Antagonists. I mentioned this in passing in the pacing one, but this has been a problem for a number of the films (right from the start, to be honest, not just phase 4), but right across the board in Phase 4 - Falcon/WS, Ms Marvel, Black Widow, Eternals, Shang Chi partly, Loki, Eternals.

4. Lack of internal consistency. It's hard to get invested in character's predicaments when they can just pull new powers out of their butts whenever they need them (Loki, Thor, and veering away from Marvel: Wonder Woman)

5. I've mentioned this one in an earlier message, but lack of belief in the stakes. You know the hero is going to win at the end, and until something comes along to subvert that, that takes away from the dramatic tension. Spider-Man: No Way Home subverted it a bit, and Wandavision a lot, but it needs to be more risky for the main characters.

I've been pretty critical of most of the output since Endgame, because most of it has had one or more of these problems. But I don't think this is necessarily a "Marvel problem" - I think it's a writing/directing problem, possibly exacerbated by trying to put out so much product. I'd still rather watch virtually all of phase 4 than anything DCEU's ever put out.
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Re: Superhero ( & sci-fi / other relevant) films

Post by fjthegrey »

Too much CGI and too grandiose a threat are still clearly the issues.

Admittedly I haven't watched any of the TV shows or any of the recent films but it was an issue with basically every one of these films.

Anything that involves saving a universe, planet, world, country, civilization, race, galaxy is just inherently dull and unrelatable in most instances.

Scale it all back, create stories around characters with limited powers. The Mandalorian is the blueprint for what people really want in my opinion.
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Re: Superhero ( & sci-fi / other relevant) films

Post by Kludgehammer »

Scaled back applies to Wandavision, Hawkeye, Falcon/WS, Ms Marvel, Moon Knight, Shang Chi, Black Widow, and to some extent Spider-Man:NWH. Take your point about the films though - they do seem to be amping everythhing up, and the sight of various Celestials and statues of Abstract Entities in the latest Thor was probably a sign of much more to come.
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Re: Superhero ( & sci-fi / other relevant) films

Post by Kludgehammer »

FWIW, there's a pretty massive easter egg/revelation for the future of the MCU in the last scene of Ms Marvel, and a lead in to the the Marvels film in the post-credit scene (which is, in itself possibly another big easter egg)

@WCPete - did you/your daughter watch any more of the series? It was weird content - felt all over the place to me. Eps 1, 2 and 6 were all fairly Lizzie McGuire/Hannah Montana-with-powers kind of teenagery stuff, then the middle section went totally off the rails with a truly abysmal set of antagonists, and the ending with the rogue DODC agent didn't really make any sense at all but was back to the same sort of style as the first couple of episiodes.
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Post by WCpete »

We're 3 episodes behind. We watch it as a family and haven't been all together for the past 3 weeks. That and my daughter and wife have been binging Stranger Things. We'll probably catch up tomorrow. From what you're saying, I shouldn't be holding my breath. No matter though, my daughter likes it and she's the target audience.
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Post by Kludgehammer »

The middle episodes are kind of interesting, in that they're a bit of travelogue and cultural history, but to my mind the pacing is all over the place.
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Post by hammers92 »

I thought Ms Marvel was deliberately aimed towards a younger audience which I’m perfectly ok with.

Will be interesting how they take on Deadpool. Really hope they don’t make it 12A friendly.
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Post by WCpete »

Watched the final 3 episodes. My daughter loved them. That should please Disney. Curious how Marvel will handle the rewriting of how time travel works in this show versus the Endgame and Loki versions. That aside, I'd have been fine not seeing this series just as I was fine seeing it.
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Post by bristolhammerfc »

I liked it. It was refreshing to see someone struggling to understand the combination of culture, puberty and justice, who wasn't some pretty boy or barbie.
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Post by wolf359 »

Watched Thor Love and Thunder at the cinema with the 12 year old. We both loved it, we laughed and now she's fully into G'n'R with is a great bonus. Silly, meaningless fun without some of the over seriousness of recent Marvel outings. Recommended if you don't take it too seriously (and like G'n'R)
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Re: Superhero ( & sci-fi / other relevant) films

Post by Greatest Hits Vol1 »

Finished Ms Marvel last night. I really enjoyed it. Definitely liked the few notes of the X Men theme they snuck in.
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Post by simonirons »

Caught Thor last night, fell asleep at about the 40 minute mark. - not a slight on the film, I have a 5 week old baby at home!

Come round for the final 10 mins, my friend said he couldn’t work out if he just watched a great fun film of a pile of cack..
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Post by Kludgehammer »

Trailer for Shazam 2 is out. I absolutely hated the first one, and this one looks even more stupid

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Post by Kludgehammer »

New Black Adam trailer

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Re: Superhero ( & sci-fi / other relevant) films

Post by Kludgehammer »

Two new Avengers films announced for MCU phase 5, which is a bit of a surprise as the general rune reading was that there wasn't going to be even one.

Avengers: Kang Dynasty in May '25 and Avengers: Secret Wars in Nov '25. Yes, that's two Avengers film in 6 months
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Post by Kludgehammer »

New, longer, trailer for She-Hulk out, including a tiny cameo from Daredevil in his new super-suit, right at the end

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Re: Superhero ( & sci-fi / other relevant) films

Post by Kludgehammer »

The whole line-up for phase 5 and 6 have been announced,

Remaining in Phase 4
  • She-Hulk (TV)
  • Black Panther 2 - Wakanda Forever
Phase 4/5/6 are collectively (and somewhat retroactively) now known as the Multiverse Saga (which should thrill everyone who hates the multiverse idea)

This lot is phase 5 (mostly stuff that's already been announced):
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania (Feb'23)
  • Secret Invasion (TV, Spring 23)
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (summer '23)
  • Echo (TV, summer '23)
  • The Marvels (28 Jul 23)
  • Loki Season 2 (TV, autumer '23))
  • Blade (3 Nov 23)
  • Ironheart (TV, autumer 23)
  • Agatha: Coven of Chaos (TV, revised name, winter '23)
  • Captain America: New World Order (3 May '24)
  • Daredevil: Born Again (TV, 18 episodes, spring 24)
  • Thunderbolts(26 Jul '24)
Phase 6 definite so far:
  • Fantastic Four (8 Nov '24)
  • Avengers: Kang Dynasty(2 May '25)
  • Avengers: Secret Wars (7 Nov '25)
Not yet announced, but believed to be in phase 6 Shang Chi 2, Deadpool 3, X-Men; TV series for Armo(u)r Wars, Nova, Wonder Man, Wakanda
Last edited by Kludgehammer on Mon Dec 19, 2022 12:44 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Superhero ( & sci-fi / other relevant) films

Post by last.caress »

Kludgehammer wrote: Sun Jul 24, 2022 12:33 pm Avengers: Kang Dynasty
Image
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