Kyle:
Guys this
one kind of hurts me, because I have been a voice crying out in the wilderness
against the general rising tide of “ugh, I am soo sick of comic book
movies” that has permeated reviews everywhere. A comic book is just a fucking medium
to tell a story, that gets adapted into a different medium. No one ever says
“uggghh I am so sick of movies based on books.”
That said, I
am worried that the very specific house style of Marvel Studios is starting to
peak. I watched Guardians of the Galaxy 2 the other night and I had so
looked forward to that movie, as the first is still one of my all-time
favorites, and man was it just an overly forced rehash of the second, saved
only slightly by a pretty decent climax and Kurt Russell.
The sad
thing is I wouldn’t even say any Marvel movie I have ever watched is
objectively bad (although I could be convinced that Age of Ultron sucked
if I could remember any of it), but there comes a point when factory-produced
B+ movies that never really take risks just become noise. Thoughts?
Oh and maybe
we should also touch on JJ Abrams getting Episode IX because I am very split on
how I feel about this.
Erik:
They've
kinda backed themselves into the most comfortable corner possible. When you're pumping
out 3-4 movies a year and they're all "good," that becomes your new
baseline. All their movies are thoroughly acceptable, at the absolute worst, so
unless something is the Winter Soldier it gets a resounding shrug from me.
Great work, Marvel, you did what you've been doing every 3 months since I was
in high school.
Kyle:
Oh I agree
they’re still in a good spot. They’re going to make all of the money for the
foreseeable future, and so it’s hard to ask what is ultimately a business to
mix things up, but man am I hoping Infinity War takes some chances and shakes
things up in a big way, even if, like, killing off Tony or Steve would really
be because Downey and Evans are about done, and not because they actually want
to take huge story risks. Guardians just kind of shook me as a guy who defended
even Ant-Man and Dr. Strange for being more unique than people give them credit
for. I did not expect to come out of a movie that had fucking Ego the Living
Planet as the villain going “meh, that was nothing I haven’t really seen
before.”
Travis:
I didn’t
like Guardians 1, so hearing this means I’m not watching Guardians 2, but as to
the larger issue of every other movie being a comic book movie, I’m not sure I
care specifically? To elaborate, what I mean is that I don’t care about any
superhero movie because I know I won’t have a shortage of them anytime soon.
There are no stakes. This is also, humorously, an issue with American comics in
general, though for a different reason. Back with X2 and Spider-Man 2 it really
seemed like those movies could go away, so maybe this is the last adventure
with these characters I’ll get to see. Now there’s just no way. Most likely
DoFP was the last great one we’ll see, because it provided actual closure to a
series of things we won’t get again (technically Logan is the end for those
movies, but that movie… look, that’s another discussion entirely).
As far as
Abrams is concerned, he was a good choice to do a shiny reboot that was
competently made that set the table for all the future SW movies, but I don’t
have any faith in him making a movie that exceeds his usual fare. He’s proven
pretty comprehensively that his ceiling is a 3 star movie that you don’t hate
but don’t ever need to see again.
Kyle:
I just can
never shake the memory of Star Trek Into
Darkness. Star Trek 2009 was a
fun movie full of likeable characters that had a tolerable level of plot
contrivances, easter eggs, and fan service that you put up with knowing that
the goal was to end the movie with a re-introduced crew blasting off for new
adventures. Then the sequel did the exact thing the first movie did. It
retroactively ruined its predecessor. I
have some fear that this is where IX will go, but I comfort myself with the
knowledge that A) JJ is above all else a Star Wars fan, and he really cares
about this story in a way he never cared about Trek and B) the Lucasfilm Story
Group is undefeated so far in battling the worst impulses of directors and
ensuring a good, continuous story throughout all forms of media, so they should
hopefully keep JJ on track. The key here is if Rian Johnson turns The Last Jedi into something that takes
us in a new enough direction that turning IX into a rehash of Return of the
Jedi is not possible.
Also,
Travis, to speak to your point about how “knowing the series can actually end”
makes comic book movies better—this is weirdly enough why I am so happy that
the DC Extended Universe appears to have failed and that after JL their plan is
entirely self-contained movie franchises and even stand-alone, one-shot
Elseworlds type stories. Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman is no longer needed to
service a larger franchise, so Patty Jenkins is as free to tell a
self-contained story that might even end in the character’s death as
Christopher Nolan was. Despite everything WB is doing seemingly being a massive
clusterfuck, we’ve got the potential there for some good, independent films
about DC characters. James Wan being handed a blank slate and a blank check for
Aquaman definitely intrigues me more than an Infinity War movie that’s still
just going to set up another decade of sequels.
Travis:
Right, at
this point the Marvel movies are basically just the comics, and what has always
frustrated me about American comics is how impermanent they are. Artists and
authors change, stories change, old stories are either canon or not depending
on… well, anything, really. You get 40 issues of one guy, then another guy
steps up and everything is different. Dead people come back, new people die,
they come back later. The universe is always threatened, but you know it won’t
end with the universe going away (unless a brand new one is going to pop up
next month). To Erik’s point, it’s the security Marvel feels right now that has
removed the punch from their movies. Back when I was a kid this waa all I
could have asked for, and now I’m getting my just desserts.
And yeah,
there are very clear through-lines in all of JJ’s work. He makes the one movie,
and it’s a horrible fit for a part 3 in a trilogy.
Erik:
I did
appreciate Guardians containing the novel twist that at the end the hero learns
all of the villain's powers in like 45 seconds and uses them to kick his ass.
It was a delightful inversion of their standard.
Kyle:
Travis your
argument against American comics is a fair one, but that’s pretty much why I
follow creators and not titles. Scott Snyder’s Batman has always been its own
self-contained story. The second he left the main Batman title, so did I (even
though I hear Tom King is really good). I will give DC credit—as much as the
constant reboots have been annoying, you have pretty much been able to pick up
any DC title since 2011 and as long as you can get the back issues written by
that specific author, you should have all you need to follow the story. Any
time I have tried to pick up a Marvel Comic in the last 15 years I have been
incredibly overwhelmed by the depth of what I do not know, so I’m not sure if
they’ve really ever moved on from 90s Era YOU MUST BUY X-FORCE 37 IN ORDER TO
UNDERSTAND SPIDER-MAN 299 stuff.
Amusingly,
WB may have stumbled on the movie universe most like DC Comics. A Wonder Woman
and Aquaman who ostensibly live in the same world and yet never interact any of
the times in which you think “hey maybe one of them should be here to help the
other right now”, and then sometimes will appear together in a potential
Justice League sequel that is never mentioned again by either of them.
Travis:
I liked the
Snyder run on Batman a ton, but I’ve never really been an author follower with
comics, and that really just sent me right back to reading more manga. I’ve
heard good things about the King stuff as well, but a lot of the things I heard
are a dramatic departure from Snyder’s Batman. In one way it’s great, because
there’s a Batman for everyone, but in other ways it’s terrible because Batman
can basically have any personality and history you want, it just depends on
who’s running the show. Superheroes end up being like James Bond, where you
really can’t tell if you should tune in or not from story to story.
To tie that
back into the movies, it’s just this pervasive feeling that nothing that
happens will be the end, or some kind of permanent anything. If Tony Stark dies
it’s just so RDJ can get a massive payday in 5 years by showing back up after
uh… the Phalanx wrecks shit.
Kyle:
We should
probably end this before I get into why it’s great that different creators can
have different takes on a character ( so long as certain constants are there,
like NOT BEING A MURDERING PSYCHOPATH, ZACK), but yeah I understand that
frustration.
And yeah,
the biggest example of the “nothing is permanent” feeling to the Marvel movies
is how Iron Man 3 wrapped up so much of Tony’s battle throughout the entire
trilogy to become a guy who doesn’t need the Iron Man suit, and then literally
the next time we see him he’s in full armor, fighting with the Avengers, he’s
apparently broken up with Pepper, and we get absolutely no explanation of what
even dragged him back into the fray.
That’s all
I’ve got for now. I just really hope Infinity War and Black Panther set the stage for some dramatic
changes in that universe or even I might have finally reached the saturation
point with them. Also, lord, let Thor: Ragnarok be everything I hope it will
be.
Travis:
Basically,
these movies, and Iron Man 3 is a great example of this, really do feel like
they’re just filling out a schedule now.
Erik:
Iron Man 2
ends with Tony realizing he needs to be more responsible. In Iron Man 3, he
gives his home address to a mass murderer and then enlists a child to help him
fight a one-man war against international terrorism using weapons he made at
Home Depot. That movie ends with him giving up being Iron Man. Then Ultron
begins with him back in the suit, and he learns that he shouldn't mess with
powers he doesn't understand... until he does the exact same thing 45 minutes
later and it works perfectly and Vision saves the day. That movie ends with him
leaving the Avengers, and apparently breaking up with Pepper. Then at the end
of Civil War he's back at the compound, and by the time of Homecoming he is not
only back to leading the Avengers, he's also back with Pepper.
All of these
changes might be okay if they actually explain why they occur. But at this
point, Tony Stark is just in whatever emotional situation makes the plot of the
current film work.
Travis:
I feel like
we should frame that explanation somewhere as the greatest example of why it’s
hard to care about Marvel movies right now.
Kyle:
Wow and a
great place to end this is also that I forgot Spider-Man: Homecoming happened.
Erik:
Hahahaha.
That might be their greatest crime yet. It's one of if not the best origin
story they've made, and it happened so far into the Quality Overload that I
don't even think about it unless I'm talking about Michael Keaton.
Kyle:
And by bringing
up Keaton we come full circle, since he made Batman ’89, the spiritual forefather
of all comic book movies (this is a reach but I’m done talking now).
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