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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
I always hate it when people claim that Marvel doesn't take risks, because Marvel took so many risks to even got where it is now. First financially. In order to get the money to start its own studio, Marvel had to put the movie rights to every single character they still owned at this time as safety. And then the Ironman rights reverted back and, realizing the Ironman would be kind of a perfect start due to him not having an adaptation before (like Cap and Hulk had) while being not quite as goody as Thor, they had to come up with additional money to cover that movie, because he wasn't part of the original deal. So in order to get the universe of the ground, they had to put everything on the line. They are now better off with Disney as their parent company, but this could have ended very differently.
Then in terms of the characters they pick. Let's be honest here, every single other studio would have put itself on the back after the Avengers and then continued to make movies about the same set of characters. But not Marvel. They did Guardians of the Galaxy instead. Ant-man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, other studios wouldn't even touch properties like this, and if they did, it would be some kind of low budget production.
Then in terms of the people they choose. RDJ, Joss Whedon, The Russo Brothers, Chris Pratt, how often have we sit here and said "this guy? Oh...okaaaaay........." only to be blown away by what we got?
And finally the story they tell. Making Thor a Shakespearian Drama and The First Avengers a commentary on war propaganda. Even doing the Avengers, when everyone else was not expecting it to work to have so many characters in one movie. Ironman 3 might be controversial, but it is also a very ballsy movie in more than one regard. The Winter Soldier ended up reshaping the MCU while commenting on a very current topic. Age of Ultron is a very flawed movie, but it is also one which has a lot to say. And Civil war goes more or less against everything we are used to in terms of superhero movies (or TV shows for that matter). The heroes at no point really fight the villain, they keep fighting each other. The big battle doesn't happen at the end of the movie, but in the middle while the last one is a very personal man-to-man-to-man battle. And all this while the movie examines some of the trappings of the genre itself.
I think that it is just ignorant to claim that Marvel takes no risks, because the MCU is one big risk. They were the first to do what other studios thought impossible to work, and they have continued to come up with new ideas to keep their universe fresh.
Let's also remember that Marvel had also just become solvent again after they declared bankruptcy in the '90s. It was because of the bankruptcy that they had to sell off the rights to their most popular characters...but then as soon as they became solvent again, they decided that instead of partnering with an existing studio (which would have been much easier and cheaper), that instead, they would create their own movie studio.
Think about that: a comic book company just out of bankruptcy created their own movie studio. And had a massive hit with their first movie.
I don't see any other studio doing something as mind-bending as Doctor Strange currently. I don't see any other studio doing a big block-buster movie in which nearly the whole cast and most of the people behind the scenes are Po C. I don't see anyone else preparing a movie with an insane number of characters in it. I don't see any other studio putting a comic event on screen which will impact multiple movies and TV shows. I don't see any other studios working on a second Star Wars.
edited 25th Oct '16 2:03:35 AM by Swanpride
Maybe not all of them come from the same company, but lots of smaller studios have done each of them and succeeded. What you're describing sounds like an Overly Narrow Superlative, of course Marvel Studios is going to look good that way. And I get you love Marvel Studios, I enjoy their films too, but that doesn't make them exceptional or flawless.
That doesn't mean you gotta go the other way and be a bitter contrarian who tears into them harder because they're so successful, but you definitely don't have to whiteknight them either.
I will say that the MCU doesn't really take much risks narratively — Civil War is the first MCU film in a while to avoid that whole "third act invasion" trope, although Ant-Man did parody it for a bit. No, the risks the MCU takes are always in terms of character, choosing one character over another or going with a lesser known character over a more well known character.
Take the DCEU for example: DC has pretty much always relied on the fact that Superman and Batman are super well known. So even the movies that don't feature Batman as a main character still, somehow, feature him, like Suicide Squad. This isn't bad — connecting the films together narratively makes the universe actually seem like a universe, putting Batman as the DCEU's Nick Fury is a good idea, considering Ben Affleck's charisma — but it also falls back on "Everyone knows Batman and Batman is super popular." It would be like if the MCU included Tony Stark in every single movie after Iron Man — and, to be fair, he did make an appearance in Incredible Hulk, but that was the only other appearance outside of his own movies until The Avengers. The rest of the connections were made by Nick Fury and Agent Coulson.
edited 25th Oct '16 2:38:46 AM by alliterator
I hate to bring the DCEU movies into it because discussions like this have already shut down two threats....but let's examine Superhero movies in general: How many are there which don't follow the basic plot of hero gets (or has) power, rescues girlfriend and defeats the villain (to which he has some personal relationship) in some big third act? The MCU movies are at least unusual in that they tend to skip the "rescues girlfriend" part or at least subvert it somehow.
The Dark Knight sidesteps this basic plot by not rescuing the girlfriend and having the hero kind of loose in the third act. Ironman does it by having the girl-friend rescuing the hero in the third act. The First Avenger does it by having the hero symbolically dying in the third act (it is not permanent, but for Peggy it could have been). Ant-man does it by having the final act in the bedroom of a child. Got G does it by having a villain who couldn't care less for what the heroes does and who doesn't even really sees them as a threat. And The Winter Soldier and Civil War both run in circles around this very basic formula (which is part of the reason why they are a class of its own).
Well, and then there are the X-men movies, but they have their very specific X-men plot they repeat in every single X-men movie (honestly, how often will Professor X and Magneto work together just so that Magneto can betray him in the end).
But otherwise what people call the "Marvel formula" is actually the basic action movie plot which has been used for decades and Marvel actually tries to shake it up more than others do.
Being formulaic doesn't stop a film from realising its tone, characters and conflict well.
And I get the feeling Marvel is more about experimenting with their sequels than their first movies at this point, because if your introduction to a character is solid, you can take risks with their sequels and still have a core audience, but if you mess up the first entry, then that entire franchise doesn't happen.
That's what most people are talking about when they say Marvel movies are "safe". About the most ambitious film they've done in that regard is Winter Soldier, which was brave enough to partly invalidate Steve's sacrifice (adding another layer of tragedy to his character) and cast the entirety of SHIELD in a very dark light.
Civil War is also fairly ambitious in a manner because it has a rather bleak end as far as superhero films go. Stark and Steve hate each other, the accords are passed, our heroes are now fugitives.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Steven dosent hate Tony and is uncertein how much Tony feel about him consider the note and phone and consider he rescute everyone in the Raff dosent really make things that bleak
"). Ant-man does it by having the final act in the bedroom of a child. Got G does it by having a villain who couldn't care less for what the heroes does and who doesn't even really sees them as a threat"
that dosent change much, is still the typical "good fight with joke in the middle of it and the hero winning being cleaver"
"Age of Ultron is a very flawed movie, but it is also one which has a lot to say."
yeah, and that is "whedon, you copy your own movie!"
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"The riskless thing is like I said, a side effect of the fact that Marvel simply puts so many films out a year. For any studio, when you put out a dozen or so movies in the same genre, they are inevitably going to seem similar to one another, and this is more pronounced by the fact that so many of the movies are origin stories, which by definition tend to follow very similar arcs usually.
Though funny enough, Indiewire gave Strange a fairly positive review and argued that this late in the game, bitching about origin stories in superhero movies is akin to bitching about foreign movies having subtitles.
Another criticism of course (that I think Helen Mirren of all people also supported) is that the Contractual Immortality nature of the franchise means that it's very hard to give stakes to anything happening, though that's an argument I have more mixed feelings on.
edited 25th Oct '16 8:03:25 AM by comicwriter
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One other thing I think Civil War did well is it subverted the team movie third act that you often see in Marvel movies (and team based superhero flicks as a whole). The biggest set piece comes much earlier in the movie and the final battle is a more personal conflict between a small number of characters, not unlike The Empire Strikes Back.
Without seeing the movie, I would argue against it...mainly because Tony has a forced epiphany and once he is out of the cave, he can more or less do what he wants. Doctor Strange on the other hand first looses everything and then goes searching for answers. That isn't the same kind of story at all.
I'm okay with origin stories still being done. These are characters that don't quite have the same public awareness as Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man.
Plus, Dr Strange, Iron Man and Cap's origin stories play a huge part in their characterization.
I'd be okay without seeing Black Panther's origin because his origin is that he was born the heir to a kingdom. Spider-Man Homecoming will skip the origin or touch on it very briefly because hey we've seen Spidey's origin twice already in the movies.
Its situational, basically.
edited 25th Oct '16 8:22:37 AM by Bocaj
Forever liveblogging the Avengers![]()
is still another "somewhat cocky person have to learn the error of his way" they used in Iron man, Thor, somewhat in Antman and now Dcotor strange, it get annoying after a while
But as
said, is situational, people want to see the origin story of Black panther, including me
edited 25th Oct '16 8:30:00 AM by unknowing
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
I say they should do a flashback to a previous Black Panther. Most likely the one who helped defend Wakanda during the scramble for Africa.
Maybe set up the timeline so he becomes the Black Panther on the same day as (and perhaps specifically because of) the battle that pernamently ended any colonization plans for Wakanda. That way the flashback could walk the viewer through what it means for someone to be the Black Panther and what sets Wakanda apart from the rest of the world.
I admit I want someone to used T´challa action in civil war agianst him, I mean he act very foolish in that movie(including chaising someone else in another country), someone could see that and said "he is not fit to rule....maybe Im...."
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

Mjolnir belongs with its true love: the coat hook.