fed to fuck up with marvel

[madhair60]

the annoying thing is the individual films aren't really all that bad as mass-market cgi fests go, but my god has it got boring and homogenous. each to their own, I know, but i see people still getting excited about these movies that are basically all exactly the same, don't you get bored of it? also the TV stuff has been absolutely shit.

look i respect that they've pulled off something so beholden to comics stuff and made it so huge, this big crossover, it's very impressive. i rate most of the movies *** at worst (only a couple I really disliked and everyone liked em so pfft) but it's just so samey, they all look identical, they have the same jokes, just total rubs.

fed to fuck up with marvel.

[Sebastian Cobb]

This is going to end up a carbon copy of the Scorsese thread.

I find them pretty easy to ignore these days, just this beige dc/marvel red blue hue that fills billboards and trailers that my brain automatically knows to
disengage from. I think they've managed to occupy so much cultural space there's plenty of places that care about films that more-or-less ignore them entirely.

[bakabaka]

When the most exciting development in a franchise is changing the colour pallette (GotG), there's something very wrong with it.

[madhair60]

This is going to end up a carbon copy of the Scorsese thread.

it's hilarious how upset marvel kids got over that

[Sebastian Cobb]

When the most exciting development in a franchise is changing the colour pallette (GotG), there's something very wrong with it.

They're like the Stock Aitken and Waterman of films, every so often you do have to change the patches.

[madhair60]

i wonder if the relatively little buzz around Black Widow and the mass "ffs" at the ending of Loki signals a long-overdue backlash

[Spiteface]

the annoying thing is the individual films aren't really all that bad as mass-market cgi fests go, but my god has it got boring and homogenous. each to their own, I know, but i see people still getting excited about these movies that are basically all exactly the same, don't you get bored of it? also the TV stuff has been absolutely shit.

look i respect that they've pulled off something so beholden to comics stuff and made it so huge, this big crossover, it's very impressive. i rate most of the movies *** at worst (only a couple I really disliked and everyone liked em so pfft) but it's just so samey, they all look identical, they have the same jokes, just total rubs.

fed to fuck up with marvel.

The worst of it isn't just Marvel itself - it's the effect they've had on other films.

Now every studio wants to build a franchise or "universe" to the detriment of making films that might actually be decent.

Personally I'm waiting for the MCU to become so dense and impenetrable it turns off new fans, and they resort to the same shit that comics do. Big cosmic resets and that. They're already pulling multiverse shenanigans with forthcoming movies, so it's starting already.


I watch them, but Mickey can fuck off if he thinks I'm subscribing to Disney+ to watch Tom fucking Hiddleston ponce about.

[Sebastian Cobb]

i wonder if the relatively little buzz around Black Widow and the mass "ffs" at the ending of Loki signals a long-overdue backlash

I wondered if the relatively-mass appeal of things like Knives Out and Parasite might've done the same.

It might seem odd that I paired them together but I thought Knives Out was a good fun, not very serious film. Not exactly high art or anything but a breath of fresh air in amongst multiplexes full of po-faced mumble-spectre.

[Dr Rock]

i wonder if the relatively little buzz around Black Widow and the mass "ffs" at the ending of Loki signals a long-overdue backlash

No it doesn't. There will be no backlash. Sorry.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The worst of it isn't just Marvel itself - it's the effect they've had on other films.

Yep. It feels like while modern production has, in theory made things more egalitarian and been great for some genres like mumblecore that are made on a shoestring, it also seems to have shrunk mid-budget films to the point that they often look quite cheap now with quite limited sets and scenery. I Care A Lot despite being pretty good gave me the feel it was made quite quick and cheaply for instance, almost more of a TV series production value (although, yes, television dramas have become way more 'cinematic' so they're kind-of meeting in the middle I suppose).

When you compare them to budget films of the 90's shot on film, it feels like even 'shoestring' cinema had more backing to just make the things with often more varied sets/locations even if a lot of it was DIY. You look at some of them and it just feels like there's no chance anyone would take a punt on them today.

[Custard]

Yeah, the tide is finally starting to turn I think. Not much excitement for the new films, the telly stuff really hasn't been all that, and the massive stakes of Endgame makes anything now feel a bit small potatoes in comparison

I didn't even bother with Loki, and won't with Hawkeye either. Two of my least favourite characters for 6 hours each? Nah, cheers

[Mister Six]

EDIT: "While you were writing, five people said the same thing you want to say." Fuck it, post.

Yeah, I think the Covid break, especially coming after the end of the Thanos saga and coupled with the loss of Downey, Johannson, Evans and Boseman, has sapped a lot of the momentum out of the Marvel juggernaut. I still generally enjoy them and I'm quite interested to see what Sam Raimi does in Dr Strange 2, but it does feel like the tide is going out on that franchise.

Still, for me the problem is less the Marvel monster and more the effect it has had on cinema, with all these fucking studios shitting out "cinematic universes" as if the very concept, rather than the quality of the films themselves, is what draws in the punters - Warners with DCEU, Sony with its Spider-Man villains (and previously with its botched Andrew Garfield Spiderverse), Universal trying to revive its Universal Monsters brand with The Mummy, only doing such a shit job they immediately gave up.[nb]Which did at least leave an opening for the fantastic Invisible Man reinvention.[/nb]

But that's a problem of Hollywood being run by soulless husks with MBAs, for whom all art is "content" ultimately reducible to digits on a spreadsheet. I know the old studio system was a toxic grind, but at least the old execs actually liked movies and cared about art. Even after that you had the likes of Dino De Laurentiis knocking out loads of old hacky shite, but still fully backing Lynch's test-crowd-alienating cut of Blue Velvet. Preferable to some dead-behind-the-eyes drone whose idea of making a good movie is to buy up an IP, flay its skin and wrap it around a generic three-act structure, and bring in some ingénue with one or two low-budget films to their name who can be relied upon to fold the moment the producers want them to change something (with no risk of an in-built fan base kicking up a fuss a la Zack Snyder).

[sevendaughters]

i like the scene where someone briefs the unlikely posse on what they have to do and they're all so snarky and sassy

[Custard]

Plus the market is just completely oversaturated now. Not just the constant stream of films, but the many, many TV series. The Arrowverse lot, The Boys, Doom Patrol, all the new Marvel ones. There's literally not enough time to watch them all, let alone cherish or savour them

So when 20 more films and TV series are announced, you just start seeing it as a chore and end up not bothering.

Plus you kinda know at this point that you've seen it all already. The Black Widow film had literally zero surprises or great standout moments. Just by the numbers and hoping Scarlett/Black Widow alone is enough for people

[Sebastian Cobb]

Another example of the juggernaut affecting other cinema is how Emerald Fennell immediately got hoovered up by DC after the success of Promising Young Woman. Admittedly I haven't seen it but apparently it was quite interesting in places so it seems like snuffing out someone's future potential.

[checkoutgirl]

fed to fuck up with marvel.

The problem is there's so much of it. 25 odd films with only one or two of them being exceptional or having anything approaching originality in them and some praised way above their station like Black Panther which I thought was average but others raved about. And that's leaving out the TV shows, so many TV shows. Daredevil, Punisher, Jessica Jones, Defenders, Inhumans, Luke Cage, Agents of SHIELD and Iron Fist a few years ago and Now Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Loki and there are a couple of other more obscure ones.

It's just too much. I've watched Daredevil which was okayish, Punisher which was slightly better and only got to the first series of Luke Cage before getting bored with the Marvel TV show sausage machine. Now I might just watch one or two short reviews of Loki and think oh right, that's that then.

So yeah Marvel TV, no thanks. Still get sucked in to watching the new feature films though, that's less commitment.

[willbo]

coming after the end of the Thanos saga and coupled with the loss of Downey, Johannson, Evans and Boseman, has sapped a lot of the momentum out of the Marvel juggernaut. I still generally enjoy them and I'm quite interested to see what Sam Raimi does in Dr Strange 2, but it does feel like the tide is going out on that franchise.

surely that was always gonna happen though? I mean the original plan of seeing a big comic book universe happen on cinema screens for the first time and then come to an epic climax, was always gonna be a thrill that could only happen once. They would always have had to come up with a smaller, more offbeat phase 2.

[Dr Rock]

We've had this thread a few times, so if there were no more superhero films, what do you think would take their place? Chances are it would be the same mostly shitty buddy cop/dinosaurs/dinosaur cop blockbusters before them and still around now. The danger to the genre is if something better comes along, but I can't see any other genres nipping at their heels right now.

[chveik]

they're supposed to be big dumb action films and yet the action scenes are so boring and mediocrily directed. i wish their fans would understand that they're no snobbishness involved in saying they're garbage

[sevendaughters]

We've had this thread a few times, so if there were no more superhero films, what do you think would take their place? Chances are it would be the same mostly shitty buddy cop/dinosaurs/dinosaur cop blockbusters before them and still around now. The danger to the genre is if something better comes along, but I can't see any other genres nipping at their heels right now.

i will take my chances of the badness being diluted and dispersed across the cinesphere thanks, even if only to rid the world of the secondary market on Funko Pops

[wooders1978]

I think they should have wrapped it up for all the characters involved after End Game and gone with a new set of heroes and stories to get involved with rather than try and make the bit players a bit more interesting - a wanda and a loki are never going to garner as much interest as an Iron Man or a Thor - a reset and introduction of new heroes with meaningful backstories would be much more interesting

[Custard]

I think they should have wrapped it up for all the characters involved after End Game and gone with a new set of heroes and stories to get involved with rather than try and make the bit players a bit more interesting - a wanda and a loki are never going to garner as much interest as an Iron Man or a Thor - a reset and introduction of new heroes with meaningful backstories would be much more interesting

Yep, fully agree. Though they're replacing the big characters with inferior younger versions, who aren't catching on as well

I think a huge loss was poor Chadwick Boseman dying, too. As least his character felt fresh and a bit different, and he was likeable with a unique charisma. The rest are pretty dull, including Dr Strange, who is like a tenth rate Tony Stark

[checkoutgirl]

snuffing out someone's future potential

Good point. How many directors, actors and other "creatives" are wasting their time on the next Marvel homogeny when they could be doing something else?

When I read Stephen Dorff slagging off Scarlett Johansson recently for being in crap films I maybe shouldn't have been but I was on his side. She used to do interesting stuff but now seems to do a lot of jumping around and punching things. You could say the same of Liam Neeson I suppose.

Actor Stephen Dorff has criticised the Marvel superhero films and said he is "embarrassed" for Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson.

Dorff, whose movies include I Shot Andy Warhol, Blade and Cecil B Demented, suggested he would refuse to appear in one of Marvel's films.

The 47-year-old told The Independent: "I still hunt out the good s*** because I don't want to be in Black Widow. It looks like garbage to me. It looks like a bad video game. I'm embarrassed for those people. I'm embarrassed for Scarlett!

"I'm sure she got paid five, seven million bucks, but I'm embarrassed for her. I don't want to be in those movies. I really don't. I'll find that kid director that's gonna be the next Kubrick and I'll act for him instead."

Ironically Dorff was in Blade 20 years ago and I believe Blade is a Marvel property.

That's a giveaway actually, the fact that these characters are property, like the studio executives are nothing more that real estate agents, which is actually pretty true.

[bgmnts]

I was fed up with Marvel I think after Iron Man 2. I liked Guardian of the Galaxy though.

[Sebastian Cobb]

That's a giveaway actually, the fact that these characters are property, like the studio executives are nothing more that real estate agents, which is actually pretty true.

Anything that can be considered a 'franchise' is pretty much like that, and generally a bit creatively bankrupt (that shouldn't diminish earlier efforts in a series that are legitimately good though).

[Dr Rock]

Scarlett Johansson did two great movies in the last few years, Under The Skin and Jojo Rabbit.

[Custard]

Maybe Inhumans will get things going again. Or a decent Fantastic 4. Or The X-Men. Or Dr Doom. Least they're big names, who garner interest. Beyond that, I dunno what they can do. It's all been done

I kinda like to think this whole thing ended with Endgame. A nice clean jumping off point

[madhair60]

my understanding is that disney have essentially monopolised the multiplexes and force smaller cinemas to pay through the nose to show their films (because what are they gonna do, not show the new marvel??)

[Custard]

They left it way too late for the Black Widow film, too. She should have had her own small scale hard action film a decade ago, when she was massively popular and fresh. What was point of her film now? She's done. Felt like a bit of a slap in the face for Scarlett, after virtually everyone else got their own film over the years. Apart from Hawkeye, obvs

[madhair60]

plus her entire film was just setup for the Disney plus Hawkeye series that no cunt in their right mind would want to watch