Franchises: A Controversial Conclusion

I disagree. Guardians of the Galaxy are the best of the MCU. Each one is just as great as the one before it. James Gunn knows what the f**k he's doing with that franchise.

I'd say the overwhelming majority of MCU titles are very underrated, it may have started out humbly enough but it got a lot better once Ike Pearlmutter was shown the door. And somehow most people never seem to appreciate the incredibly eclectic choices of directors for most of the more recent entries.

In terms of quality control of their respective franchises, I would rate them as follows:

1. Kevin Feige
2. Bob Zemeckis & Bob Gale
3. George Lucas

The Last Stand was a disappointment, for sure.
I would feel the same about The Rise Of Skywalker except that The Last Jedi was almost as bad and, to me, both are unwatchable films

Yikes.
I will respectfully disagree, vis a vis 1 and 3.
I think Lucas' Prequels are a stain on the legacy. Just not nearly as bad a stain as Disney's.
And I think that for Feige, he needs to quit immediately as I don't think I've ever seen a bigger drop-off in quality ever in any franchise as Marvel now from Marvel of about 2017. Starting with Ant-man and The Wasp it has been possibly the most precipitous drop I've ever encountered. From "Wow, how do they keep doing this?!" to "This is literally the worst crap I've ever seen."

We should agree to disagree, I couldn't possibly imagine a statement that is more at odds with auteur theory, and that is really saying something.

I agree that many of the franchises have only 1 or 2 good movies followed by some average or below average movies, but some franchises have mostly good or great movies. Maybe you're just watching the wrong movies.

Back to the Future was the first one that came to mind, but some of the animated franchises are very good.

Toy Story movies
Despicable Me and Minions movies
Lilo & Stitch movies
Shrek and Puss in Boots movies (I haven't seen the most recent movie from this series)
Hotel Transylvania movies (I haven't seen the most recent movie from this series)

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Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) is great.

@The Rodent

“The Xenomorph/Alien franchise: Not good, and never was.
Alien, a masterpiece.
Aliens, a masterpiece sequel.
Alien 3, a mixed bag that was filmed without a script. Some like it, but most don't.
Alien Resurrection, a terrible movie.
Since then, we've had Prometheus, Covenant, and Romulus.
5 bad movies, 2 good ones.
The Xenomorph/Alien franchise was never any good.”

I mostly agree with you. Alien is a sci-fi horror classic, and Aliens is one of the greatest sequels and sci-fi actioners ever. And despite its flaws, I’ve always liked Alien 3, especially the extended version. Alien: Resurrection was hideous. I disagree with you about Prometheus; I loved that movie. Alien: Covenant was a mediocre bore. Haven’t seen Romulus, though I haven’t heard anything good about it.

“The Terminator franchise: Not good, and never was.
Terminator, changed the game.
T2, a masterpiece of a sequel.
Since then, we've had T3, Salvation, Genesys, and Dark Fate.”

Agree with you 100%! As in the case of the Alien franchise, the first Terminator is a sci-fi horror classic, and the second Terminator is a sci-fi action classic. I’ve heard a lot of people defend Terminator 3, but I thought it was lousy. Salvation and Genysis were execrable. Haven’t seen Dark Fate, didn’t even know it was made, and don’t plan to endure it.

“The Jurassic franchise: Not good, and never was.
Jurassic Park, a masterpiece and game changer.
JP2: The Lost World, is a mixed bag. Some hate it, some love it.
Since then, we've had JP3, and 3 Jurassic World movies, and another one called Rebirth on the way.”

Again, mostly agree. I disagree with the consensus that the first Jurassic Park is a “great” blockbuster movie. IMO, it’s fun and certainly its visual effects were revolutionary, but the movie is merely good and highly overrated. To me, a great blockbuster movie would be something like Star Wars or Back to the Future, and JP is nowhere near as good as those. The Lost World sucked ass. I thought JP3 and Jurassic World were brainless fun. JW 2 and 3 sucked. Won’t see the next one.

“Predator, is the same.
1 great movie.
A decent sequel.
Predators, The Predator, and Prey, all leaving a bad taste in the mouths of fans.”

The first Predator is good but not great, certainly not on par with other sci-fi actioners from that era such as Total Recall, Robocop, and T2. Second predator was fun. Alien vs. Predator was horrible. Haven’t seen the others.

“LOTR:
Is going that way.
There's the masterful, and beautiful original trilogy... that has been marred by the Hobbit trilogy.
And a new movie in the works with Gandalf and Gollum as the main characters, Ian McKellen apparently returning as well.”

Agree 100%. Why are they making ANOTHER movie with these characters? If they’re going to milk the Middle-Earth teat, they should adapt Children or Hurin or something like that.

“The MCU.”

I’m one of a handful of people on this planet who never got in the MCU. Not saying they’re bad, just never found them particularly interesting.

“The Star Wars franchise:
Not good, and never was.
See... that original trilogy is classic.
But, Return Of The Jedi is considered weak when compared with the first two movies.
So, A New Hope is a game changer.
Empire Strikes Back, is a masterpiece.
Return Of The Jedi, is a hit and miss movie.
Then there's the prequel trilogy that has become more appreciated as time went on, but, let's face it, they're not good.
And now we have the sequel trilogy that undid everything the originals set up.
Plus, the two side movies in Solo and Rogue One being forgettable...

Disagree with you on some parts. Of course, the first two Star Wars movies are sci-fi masterpieces, but I think ROTJ is also a masterpiece and far better than people give it credit for. Though flawed, I thought TPM and ROTS were very good. And Rogue One was fantastic. The rest suck ass.


Mark

Wait. There is nothing more at odds with the auteur theory than claiming Kevin Feige has poor quality control?


That's almost studio plant level hyperbole.

Nobody has said that

Okay, whatever you say.

If you didn't say that (or didn't intend to), then the following requires clarification:

1 and 3 were Feige and Lucas, so either your claim was about him, or Lucas. I don't see a third interpretation.

NB: "I didn't mean that" and "I didn't say that" are not the same thing.

I think the MCU has had the highest quality control of any of the big-budget movie franchises, and that in turn is reflected (among other things) in the way more directors have been able to express their unique sensibilities in Marvel movies.... including some Oscar-winning writer/directors. And yes, being able to appreciate what each of these talented directors have brought to the franchise is very much in line with auteur theory.

That's fine (I don't fully agree, but we don't need to agree), but that means you are saying what was claimed.

It felt like a total distortion of what I was saying, but I'm not trying to argue semantics here.

I put the quotes side-by-side. They don't leave a lot of room for interpretation, so I don't think there's even a slight distortion, let alone a 'total' one. If there's some distinction I'm missing, please explain it.

I suspect the key word here is "felt," though.

As someone who has worked as a professional writer, yes, I do feel (like a lot of writers do) that taking my words and saying some different can make it feel different from what was originally meant.

Did I ever literally say "nothing [is] more at odds with the auteur theory than claiming Kevin Feige has poor quality control"? No, clearly that's not exactly what I said.

When you have been a professional writer, you can sometimes take issue with people trying to paraphrase what you said, whether it's for a caption or a headline, and it's not unusual for many writers to take that up with their editors.

If someone needed a clarification of what I'd said, I would have been more than happy to oblige.

My thoughts on auteurs - Marvel is a factory, one that curtails creative autonomy - you're not allowed an individual vision, as you have to serve a greater whole. I know some felt Taika Waititi was allowed his own voice, but aside from Korg, it was the same bloated, multiple storylines and characters crushed into a package. That wasn't Taika, that was Marvel product.

There have been a few who have been able to get past that, usually because they were on the fringes and not overly beholden to the main arc - James Gunn and the Guardians being the best example of that. But for the most part, auteurs? Not very.

And that doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed a lot of the movies - But Marvel/Disney are not fostering an auteurs vision, not at least in light of Ang Lee's Hulk (a Marvel/Universal production) slumping at the box office. You're not given the freedom to tell "your" story, "your" vision, with a beginning and end and no end-credit tie-in to the next tale.

My favorites of the past years have been outside the MU proper - Logan, and the first animated Spider-Verse flick. In Logan's case, it was tied to the Sony films, but it was still its own thing, kin to DCs old elseworlds comics - with links to cannon, but outside of it as well.

One does not need to be a professional writer to not want their meaning to be misunderstood. I don't know if this is being thrown in to establish some kind of linguistic authority, but I don't think it has any bearing.

They did not say something different. And if your position is merely that the "feel" was different, then you could have said that (and then elaborated on how word choice changed the "feel"), rather than say "Nobody has said that."

"That's not literally what I said" is not really a good argument that you never said something, because you can say the same thing many ways. In this case, you mentioned three people, someone said they disagreed with #1 and #3, and you responded that the disagreement was fundamentally at odds with auteur theory. Therefore, logically, you were saying that about either Feige or Lucas.

If you disagree, then again, you can look at the two quotes I put side-by-side and explain the logical distinction, please.

And as a professional writer, it should be well within your skillset to explain how a paraphrase has changed the meaning of what you said.

I mean, this is literally the first thing I asked for, and then I asked again, so I don't see how this makes much sense. If you would have been happy to do it, you would have done it. But I'll happily settle for just doing it now.

Preemptively, though: a completely new thing where you say what you meant (or want to convey now) will not really "clarify" anything. An actual clarification requires that you use or explain the things you said initially.

When it comes to auteurs and superhero films, I think there are few that would qualify.


Burton and Nolan's Batman's, for sure, even if I'm not a particularly big fan of either.


Snyder's Watchman? I might give it that, even if I think Snyder is shit.



I'm assuming Waititi's Ragnorok, even though I haven't seen it. And this would probably extend to his disaster of a sequel, since it sounds like he blew the whole thing up in his own particular style.


Donner's original Supermans? Maybe....but I think it's a stretch (FTR, I think these are probably the best ever straight forward comic book movies ever put on screen....so auteurism isn't always necessarily the most important factor)


I really like Mangold's "Logan"....but that dude is a meat and potatoes, nuts and bolts type director who specializes in getting the job done. Not actually putting a personal stamp on anything.


Basically, I don't think autueurism and big budget superhero movies happen that often, or maybe aren't supposed to happen that often. They are meant by design to appeal to the largest audience they can find, and the more a director is allowed to flex their own idiosyncrasies, their own ideas of what a film is supposed to do and who they are as a director, the more of that mass audience they are going to lose. And since most studio heads are innate cowards when it comes to creativity, that's something they aren't willing to do for the sake of 'personal expression'


Now there is no doubt I may have missed a whole bunch of the more special MCU movies because I checked the **** out a long time ago. But nothing I have read about any of them ,no matter what director was attached, has ever made me think they have suddenly allowed the people who are making these films to actually follow their artistic instincts. They are hired to make something studios think will give an audience exactly what they want (and, if we are being honest, they aren't even really that good at doing this very meagre task...they are just good at getting people into seats)