In Discussion About Comic Book Films...

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Victim of The Night
*Yawn*

Oh, you were finished?
How “in vogue” you must be.
And since stating and sharing such “in vogue” opinions, please explain how Disney/Marvel isn’t capitalizing on them? Seems to me they’ve grabbed your cash quite well...
Wait, you just turned antagonistic over this? What is "in vogue" about my statement (not opinion)?
Actually ya know, with your sudden turn in attitude ("Seems they've grabbed your cash quite well") trying to put me down and act like you know something about me or you're somehow smarter and cleverer than me because they haven't taken yours, never mind, you're not trying to have a good faith discussion, so I won't either.



The trick is not minding
*Yawn*

Oh, you were finished?
How “in vogue” you must be.
And since stating and sharing such “in vogue” opinions, please explain how Disney/Marvel isn’t capitalizing on them? Seems to me they’ve grabbed your cash quite well...
Are you going to actually respond to his points or are you just going to blithely dismiss them in a rather condescending manner?

*yawn*

Seems you already have your opinion made up and aren’t interested in actually debating this.

To go along with this thread, I’d say it was absolutely a cash grab but that doesn’t mean they haven’t helped with diversity lately. Is it possibly disingenuous? Well, yeah. It is Hollywood after all. But what ever their motives are, let’s not overlook the fact that it has provided opportunities that weren’t represented quite as well previously.



Minority and female directors, a tentpole with an almost entirely Asian cast, launching their television brand with a major female character and a major Black character, and more to come. Marvel is using its tentpole give real opportunity and real inclusion to marginalized people on top of telling fun stories that millions and millions of people enjoy.
So no, I just don't see all this as "a cash grab" with no inherent value...
Going to quote this one more time because I have more to say and reiterate about it, but...

What happened to MLK's "Judgement by content of character, not skin, (or gender or sexual orientation)..."

So just because a person who directed a picture was female or wasn't white, or there is a film with an "all-'minority'" cast, heavy on "Womyn Power!" or LGTBQ, I the viewer am supposed to put all "content" aside, (or in the case of my cinematic interests, "form"), fall on my ass-backwards and say, "Blow me down!" Please.
__________________
Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?

-Stan Brakhage



Let's tread lightly around sensitive topics. Disagreement is fine, but I'd prefer people not be dismissive in the process.

Also, let's not let the race and gender aspect completely subsume the original thread topic. We have plenty of discussions on it already.



Wait, you just turned antagonistic over this? What is "in vogue" about my statement (not opinion)?
Actually ya know, with your sudden turn in attitude ("Seems they've grabbed your cash quite well") trying to put me down and act like you know something about me or you're somehow smarter and cleverer than me because they haven't taken yours, never mind, you're not trying to have a good faith discussion, so I won't either.
You're right, and so is Wyldsyde19 and I apologize. It was wrong what I said and how I worded things. You're both right.



I think we've reached the "kitten in a cape" stage of this thread
Just wanna say I full endorse "kitten in a cape image" being the improv equivalent of "stomp across the stage to indicate the scene is over."



Dog Star Man and I spoke privately and we're all good.
Thank you for mentioning this, really eases my heart. But this, (and other things I've done today), really got me concerned about not only how I treated you, but others I may have had contact with today. I've been swinging high, losing sleep, I'm hyper-sensitive and irritable... (and that's not an excuse for how I behaved). But its got me concerned enough that I'm reaching out to my caretakers (parents), doctors, and my prayer team. I think I'm going to cool it on here for awhile until I can get some help.



I meant the whole Burton-era aesthetic. I like both of his films a lot. He had a lot more freedom to flesh out his vision ('89 Batman now looks so obviously filmed on warehouse sets), but the penguin rockets? Still pretty dumb.




I remember Zack Snyder saying something like how he equated more violent comics as being more "mature", which is something a stunted adolescent would say. It aligns with the 'dark = deep' pretension. Alan Moore had a pretty good bit about the more negative trend after the mid-80s introduction of Watchmen and Miller's Dark Knight Returns. Let me see if I can find it...
Fair enough; Returns does go pretty over the top with its sensibilities at times, but that's part of the reason why I prefer it to '89 anyway. At any rate, Snyder's obviously a big, wannabe edgelord with his attitude, and that's not just from going by his movies, but from things like the old interview where he said that he didn't consider Batman Begins to be dark because Bruce Wayne didn't get sexually assaulted when he was in prison, which would've happened in Snyder's version of the film according to him; ugh...



Yes, they established their mega-brand and recently have used it to do what I said.
Black Widow is absolutely a flagship character, she is one of the original Avengers and by the end is the leader. Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel are the two most powerful overall characters in the MCU. One has had a solo movie and the other launched the MCU's television brand. Chloe Zhao has a major tentpole in the can. Coogler and Waititi are both working on their second films as we speak. The highest grossing solo film in the entire thing is Black Panther which didn't just have a Black director, it had a Black pretty much everything. Only the DP was white and as I understood that Coogler picked her. HER.
So, again, yes Marvel didn't just run into the world of making movies saying we're gonna champion all these things, but once they had established themselves as the tentpole of the entire industry, they really got their record on track.
I think you missed some of the points I was making.

Black Widow may be a flagship character now, but that's only because of the characterization and depth added to her retroactively. In the earlier movies, she was little more than a sexy plot device.

It's true that Captain Marvel is an incredibly powerful character, and that she had a solo movie. But what I was saying is that Marvel made 15 male solo films before they made one with a woman. Having a token female film out of that many male ones is barely diversity, and it's definitely not equality.

And as I mentioned before, there were quite a few television shows in the MCU before Wandavision. Scarlet Witch did not "launch the MCU's television brand."

You can find many individual examples of Marvel doing a diversity thing. I'm not denying any of that. What I'm saying is that if you look at all the movies (and tv shows) in the MCU overall, they haven't done a particularly good job of it. The diversity that they do is strategic, not realistic, which is why the "one of each" thing happens so much.

Marvel does not use their brand to promote diversity, they use diversity to promote their brand.



Victim of The Night
I think you missed some of the points I was making.

Black Widow may be a flagship character now, but that's only because of the characterization and depth added to her retroactively. In the earlier movies, she was little more than a sexy plot device.

It's true that Captain Marvel is an incredibly powerful character, and that she had a solo movie. But what I was saying is that Marvel made 15 male solo films before they made one with a woman. Having a token female film out of that many male ones is barely diversity, and it's definitely not equality.

And as I mentioned before, there were quite a few television shows in the MCU before Wandavision. Scarlet Witch did not "launch the MCU's television brand."

You can find many individual examples of Marvel doing a diversity thing. I'm not denying any of that. What I'm saying is that if you look at all the movies (and tv shows) in the MCU overall, they haven't done a particularly good job of it. The diversity that they do is strategic, not realistic, which is why the "one of each" thing happens so much.

Marvel does not use their brand to promote diversity, they use diversity to promote their brand.
Well, I think we have divergent views on this. I think that Marvel established their brand with their biggest names and titles who are all, traditionally, white men. Because they were not an established cinematic brand yet, at all. Once they became established, they became known as the brand, and believe me, I read this crap every day on the internet in comments sections, that are "trying to shove diversity down our throats!!!" Millions of fans think Marvel goes way too far with all of this as opposed to you who thinks Marvel is only doing it to cash in on the popularity of diversity right now. Of course, diversity is actually UN-popular with about half of this country, so that wouldn't really be a good strategy considering a significant portion of the other half would still see the movies. Black Panther was such a colossal risk and changes Hollywood outright and probably forever. They did not have to do it. Their movies were habitually landing on the highest-grossing of all time lists, pretty much every outing. They chose to use that platform in a way that is actually extremely unpopular with millions of fans. My god, the whining of incels and basement-dwellers and so many others over the de-sexifying and empowering of all the Marvel female characters is deafening. And NO ONE has ever taken the BP gamble, putting $200M in the hands of an essentially all-Black cast and crew to tell an all-Black story with all-Black themes. It is arguably the single boldest move for inclusion and diversity in the history of cinema. And it was a risk because a big part of the reason no one's ever done it is because the powers that be believed that it would never make money. Never make money. So a cash-grab it can NEVER be called. They put it all on the line for this. And they delivered.
Now who's the flagship of the MCU television? Wanda Maximoff. Who's the most powerful character in the MCU? Carol Danvers (played by the most reviled actress among incels). Who's No.2? Wanda again. Who was the actual leader of the Avengers in the final movies? Natasha Romanov. What do we got coming up? Shang-Chi, The Marvels, Wakanda Forever.
You're just not going to convince me that Marvel decided to do something that's immensely unpopular with millions of people, in fact is THE political battleground right now for half the country, because they thought it was going to make them more money. They were already making all the money. All of it. They basically could not make more than they were. And they risked it to include people who have historically been marginalized in Hollywood and possibly change the way Hollywood works forever.
Marvel = Heroes.



What exactly is this post about? All you're saying is "I don't like superhero films because they're successful and repetitive, look how my taste is superior" when it's a personal preference. Brands and franchises always existed, so in hire directors ain't a problem when it's enterteinment,






This is needed to give some perspective, those people sound and look happy. So were specialized critics who liked those two films. Spend your time doing stuff you like, lmao.

I love superhero films, and i love Scorsese/Cronenberg films too. I'd say Batman Begins voice is fine and the editing action too, so is the first Iron Man, they are enterteining and well made. Not sure why people criticize some of the best films in the genre here.



Look. I have already admitted I made this thread as I’ve been in mania and in a bit of an aggravated state, and some of the things I’ve been posting not only in this thread but others have been a reflection of that. And for that I’m sorry and have apologized for. I still don’t “like” these films, but I don’t know how much more I can apologize for this thread and other postings. Please don’t kick me while I’m down.



Yeah, worth a reminder that if someone says something controversial in the first post, worth skimming the thread to see if maybe they rephrased or clarified or even changed their mind a bit later. I know it's the Internet but people still do it sometimes.



I'm glad you posted those audience reactions, though. I'm not going to say being popular or engendering intense fandom is ipso fact proof that something is worthwhile...but it's hard to deny that something special happened here, even while lots of valid criticisms remain valid (and while long-term concerns about the impact of the MCU on cinema as a whole can be valid).

The more people like a thing, and the more genuine joy they show in it, the higher my threshold for dismissing it, personally. And in this case I don't have to, because I was pretty enthused with the best the MCU has to offer, too, even though the worst of it is pretty forgettable.



This is needed to give some perspective, those people sound and look happy. So were specialized critics who liked those two films. Spend your time doing stuff you like, lmao.

.

All that noise would have ruined the movie for me dont want to be a granpa and stand up in the movie theater lol but yeah



I'm normally with you on talking but I'm totally cool with people losing it over genuinely cool things, especially ones the filmmakers are expecting to garner a reaction, because they usually buffer the events and dialogue accordingly a bit. In those moments I think it's akin to people laughing at punchlines in a comedy.