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.
