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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
It is not correct that Marvel isn't inventive. Here is a list of unexpected decisions Marvel made - unexpected because most studios are satisfied to run a brand into the ground until it stops making money.
1. Working towards the Avengers in the first place. 2. Following up The First Avenger, which was an adventure flick, with a totally different Genre in The Winter Soldier, thus pretty much inventing the whole genre mix approach everyone is using now. 3. Throwing in Got G, a completely unknown property. 4. Following up the ten-pole movie Age of Ultron with a somewhat quaint movie like Ant-man. 5. Moving from having each hero only in his own franchise and in The Avengers to allowing them to turn up in other franchises (Ironman in Spider-man: Homecoming, The Hulk in Thor Ragnarok)
And in case nobody has noticed yes, they have started to establish villains which are still around for potential future instalments. I am ready to bet that Vulture and Zemo have a future in the MCU.
So, no, I am not particularly worried about what happens to the MCU after Infinity war. At worst they will have to get used to making 800 million instead of billion dollar movies, but I am sure that they can survive this.
Regarding Fox: Fox was pretty smart to move into the r-rated area, thus avoiding the direct competition with Marvel.
Tell that to the vast majority of the internet.
There is nothing wrong with pointing out flaws (for example, I am very ready to discuss the various script problems in Doctor Strange), but I certainly don't have to agree with what others perceive as a flaw, especially not if I have a good argument against the notion that the MCU is fated to fade away because it is supposedly not inventive enough, when in fact it has already reinvented itself multiple times. The MCU is hardly like the Disney Renaissance during which every single movie followed the same basic structure until everyone got sick of it. It is very aware that it needs to shake things up a little bit which is why it has subverted the notion of a "beam in the sky world ending event" pretty much through the whole of Phase 3, while other studios are STILL doing this kind of nonsense.
Also, the claim that those movies feel "samey" is an entirely subjective statement. To me, they don't feel the same at all, other than that they are all to a degree action movies. But that is such a broad label that it is practically useless.
I mean there is a reason why everyone has his own top ten lists when it comes to those movies. Because the different movies and franchises are resonating with different kind of people.
It being subjective doesn't make it an invalid criticism because many artistic complaints are fundamentally subjective. There is a pretty good argument to be made for how many of the films blend together with similar humor, emotional wavelength and plot beats and how that can get stale especially if you're not necessarily into that style in the first place. You can disagree with it if you want, but it's not like me or the people in this thread are the first to point it out.
edited 25th Nov '17 6:11:07 PM by Draghinazzo
Swanpride, because other people have already said what I was going to but better, I should probably add that, as someone who is also a staunch fan of a lot of the MCU's films on their own merits, I do think you get a bit too defensive of it and dismissive of even constructive criticism at times, doubled down by the fact that you show the opposite attitude towards rival franchises and become unusually skeptical towards them, simply because they're in opposition to the MCU. It comes off as a bit like an Undesired Champion.
We're just saying that if the MCU is what a lot of people can recognize as "good", then it can get even better if it branches out in more ways than it currently does despite being able to afford to do so. The mean may be high, but the standard deviation of variation is relatively low relative to what companies like Fox are doing with the X-Men, so while there's no 4s or lower the MCU also can't really seem to get any 9s or 10s despite having 15+ movies under its belt.
And that while the movies are consistently successful in the utilitarian sense there's a lot of people hovering around the edge of the MCU "demographic" who are shy of being satisfied, whereas the MCU may benefit from having two separate films, one which does overtly cater to them and finally bring them into the MCU fandom and one which absolutely does not and they'll stay clear away from, for better franchise coverage.
edited 25th Nov '17 6:40:28 PM by AlleyOop
It's not as if I unilaterally dislike the films either. I saw Spiderman Homecoming recently and had a good time. I easily consider it the second-best spider-man film after spider-man 2 (although in part that's because it's easy to do better than the ASM movies, which were horrible) and I think Tom Holland is probably the best Spider-man to date. I'm also planning on seeing Ragnarok when it comes out on home video.
But I'm sympathetic to the people who aren't into the films or at least weren't for a while, because there was a period where I just lost interest. If Winter Soldier wasn't as good as it was I probably wouldn't have cared about the movies anymore.
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I am only dismissive of statements which make broad judgements about the MCU, because I feel in general that the MCU is too complex and to versatile to make sweeping statements about it. When it comes to the merits of specific movies, I readily discuss them and their respective flaws. Hell, I have been so far the most critical voice in the Thor Ragnarok discussion, at least regarding this specific movie (I naturally got "defensive" when the threat was hijacked by yet another broader MCU discussion about the merits of Superheroes), and I have been the only one who really laid into The Punisher for its thematic shortcoming. I was also one of the few who wasn't over the moon about Spider-man: Homecoming.
Yes, I don't like the X-men Franchise Fox did and really, really want the Fantastic 4 rights to be back at Marvel (but then, who doesn't?), but I am also a defender of The Amazing Spider-man, which happens to be a movie by a rival company.
And that I don't like the DCEU has nothing to do with it being the product of a rival company and everything with me disliking everything the DCEU stands for. Claiming that I am dismissive of everything non-Marvel is ignoring that I have stated on multiple occasions that DC has a way better animated output than Marvel currently has, or that I actually recommended Arrow when it first aired while being initially dismissive of Agents of Shield (something which has turned around because the way the shows eventually developed). You also won't see me speaking up for Inhumans anytime soon.
And I won't excuse myself for my opinions, especially not if I argue the point based on specific examples.
And there is nothing wrong with that. Not everyone likes the same things.
edited 25th Nov '17 7:48:22 PM by Swanpride
My point was hardly that the MCU was bad, because if it was I would be an idiot to still watch it, but that it lacked tonal and thematic variety. And that it left open the possibility for either the audiences to grow bored of a same-y formula that hasn't fundamentally changed in ten years (all the bullet points mentioned were MCU innovations that have been part of the project since day One - having heroes appearing in other character's movies, creating stories that progressively tend towards ensemble movies, giving a chance to lesser known franchises - I mean, that's the whole point of the MCU since it started after it had sold its three most popular brands) or another genre to (re)appear that lowers the interest in superheroes or makes them somehow obsolete.
And there are a million possible reasons for audiences to evolve, like political ones. I wouldn't dare to predict what four years of Trump will do to America's society as a whole, and in three years time, some movies that were massively popular two or three years ago might have become tone-deaf to the extreme.
And if the MCU's current tone stops ringing true to the audiences, then Captain America aside, there is no real small part of the Universe Marvel can rely on to go in a different direction. You just have to look at the evolution of action heroes in the 80's and 90's to realize that audiences can go from making an actor/genre an almost guaranteed success, to asking for something slightly different, to having the genre as a whole almost discredited.
Also, I mentioned Space Operas because the newly founded Star Wars franchise had two movies which were two gigantic hits and already felt very much different - you had a classical "hero(ine)'s journey" movie, and you had a heist movie. And neither felt like Avatar did ten years ago. So there is a possibility for the genre to become the US Box-Office's new central point, making the audiences expect something from their blockbusters that superhero movies aren't able to give them.
edited 26th Nov '17 5:13:13 AM by Julep
I didn't refute the idea that the MCU is bad, I said that you can't make broad statements about it because it is so versatile. Even if you just ignore the TV shows (which, btw, is kind of cheating because they ARE part of the MCU), there are a lot of differences between the various franchises and even movies within those franchises. Different themes, different styles, different scale, different genres. And, even more important, Marvel has become bolder when it comes to this. They were really hesitant at first - god knows I ranted more than enough about them feeling the need to tie every single property prior Got G back to earth - but so far it paid off for them.
The only actual danger I currently see is that the MCU could become too self-referential. That was one problem with Thor: Ragnarok, they subverted everything to a point that it became predictable and unfunny. But then, next up is Black Panther and Infinity war, and those movies both seem to go for some serious drama.
On a different note, the first 18 minutes of the upcoming season of Ao S has dropped. Wow...just...wow.....you wouldn't know that they got their budget cut.
Well if you manage to find diversity in it, good for you. But between Ant-Man, Iron Man, Dr Strange, Thor, Spider-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy, I was never hit by the feeling that I was watching fundamentally different movies that caused me to live through significantly different experiences.
When I go see a MCU movie I expect to see a brightly-colored movie with conversational humor, a character-driven plot centered around a snarky white guy, with very solid action scenes, where a hero overcomes some kind of personal issue (lack of trust in others or lack of confidence, usually) in order to face the (usually vaguely defined by one or two of the seven deadly sins) threat of the week - but where the hero will never be actually proven wrong, it's by being his awesome self that he'll solve the problem - where the rhythm smoothly moves from act to act without a Wham moment that totally subverts my expectations except maybe for the "actually there is a Bigger Bad" moment which doesn't really matter because neither the previous nor the next villain are particularly endearing, and where I know modern social issues won't be touched with a ten-foot pole, or will be evoked but quickly dismissed so as not to alienate any viewer.
So far, The Winter Soldier aside, every single MCU movie I saw rather faithfully fit the bill, with more or less quality or success.
edited 26th Nov '17 6:52:20 AM by Julep
I mean, Everett Ross is going to be there, so....
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Leaked Infinity War clips! Get 'em while they're hot!
edited 26th Nov '17 12:53:24 PM by comicwriter
Ooh, got chills from that. Thanos is much scarier as a Soft-Spoken Sadist, and good choice to do Nothing Is Scarier for most of his Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique. Who was his victim though, the Collector?
edited 26th Nov '17 12:59:57 PM by Hodor2
I think Thanos not appearing on camera is a result of the effects not being complete rather than a deliberate usage of Nothing Is Scarier. Note Mantis' incomplete antennae at 0:33.

...It was apparently a Guillermo del Toro-directed Doctor Strange movie, with a Neil Gaiman script.
I don't even care if it's about Doctor Strange anymore, I want to see that movie. Seriously, start filing those serial numbers off.
...Except, reading further, it sounds like it was more of "Wouldn't this be cool, Neil?" "Yes, Guillermo, yes it would" situation that got blown out of proportion in the rumour stage.
edited 25th Nov '17 4:09:48 PM by Unsung