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The recent release of the Avengers kicks off the summer blockbusters. It has already shattered the record for the best grossing second weekend ever. I was glorified sitting in the theatre, but when I was wasn’t sitting in catatonic awe a thought occurred to me. This was the future of film. Not because of the 3-D (which I opted out of seeing), but because conceptually Marvel films are moving into a new frontier. I couldn’t help compare this new futuristic film to two of the past years’ best film nominees, Hugo and the Artist.
I realize The Avenger is no Oscar nominee. I understand what a movie like The Avengers offers. It is more mental masturbation than cerebral calisthenics. But this is slowly changing. Movies that once relied on visual spectacle for their key source of entertainment are suddenly becoming a bit headier. How do I know this? Because I know where the Avengers series is leading.
My sophomore year of high school, my friend Mike and I and would take regular trips to the mall, spending an hour or two loitering the Borders Books. We’d plop down in a big chair with a stack full of comics, or graphic novels, beside us. We weren’t aggressively nerdy. We read just enough to keep our imaginations aflout: the Ultimate X-Men, The New X-Men, maybe an Ultimate Spider-Man, and then there was the Infinity Gauntlet. The Infinity Gauntlet is as divine as the title suggests. As far as Marvel comics go, it is the Holy Grail. It is a cosmic story entailing every known Marvel character battling a common evil. If there is a character that doesn’t show up in that series then he or she isn’t worth knowing. A movie of the Infinity Gauntlet would be epic, but, Mike and I would discuss, how could it ever be done? The amount of character and level of storylines, even the abstractness of galactic beings battling, how could any of this be portrayed on film?
Well, fast forward ten years later and Mike and I may have our answer with the Avengers. Even still, how does such a movie compare to two Oscar worthy films like Hugo and The Artist? It is all about time. These two films were favorites to win best film this last Oscar season, two films that had they been released separate years both would have likely won. What made the release of these two films concurrent were their linked themes fixed in the history of film. Both pay homage to the roots of filmmaking. Hugo, a film a went into believing it to be a fantasy-adventure, turns out to be more biopic of one of the greatest, least explored filmmakers ever. The Artist pays tribute not to an individual but to a genre, and in doing so shows that that genre, silent films, is still a credible lively form of filmmaking. These two films, both excellent, show just how far film has come, yet how great it’s always been (when done well).
The Avengers, on the other hand, doesn’t pay homage to filmmaking. Instead, it pays homage to comic books. In fact, what is arguably the greatest comic book series of all time, and in doing so it is a salute to where film is going. If Hugo and the Artist take us from past to present then the Avengers takes us from present to future. Never before could so much be going on in a movie without conceptually imploding, but writers Joss Whedon and Zak Penn broke new ground with an Avengers script that is humor, action packed, and contains six coheneret storylines. The movie is not just a visual spectacle, it is also genuinely entertaining. The concepts Mike and I once thought impossible to portray on film are beginning to bud, if not blossom. The sci-fi elements of the Avengers, Tony Starks’ Jarvis system, an Incredible Hulk finally worth watching, and gigantic flying space monsters, are all signs of an evolving film industry. After a few moments of credits Marvel gives us a quick look at Thanos and a sneak peek of things to come.
Now, you are likely at one end of the spectrum or another; you either know Thanos, Galactus, Lady Death, the Watcher, and the rest of the Marvel cast, or this sounds like the language of a hallucinatory conspiracist. I will spare the details, for those who know them and those who don’t, of the Infinity Gauntlet. Marvel comics are without a doubt the greatest comic book empire because they (mostly Stan Lee) created an entire universe, like a cross between Homer’s The Odyssey and Kubrik’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. It reaches a level of absurdity comic book nerds never imagined attaining film (at least not respectably), but rest assured comic book nerds, film has finally caught up to the high concepts of the Marvel universe. Let there be no doubt, the Avengers represents a new frontier in filmmaking and in hindsight what appears to just be a summer blockbuster (albeit a very high grossing blockbuster) may be a film as cultural significant as two championing films, Hugo and the Artist.
I realize The Avenger is no Oscar nominee. I understand what a movie like The Avengers offers. It is more mental masturbation than cerebral calisthenics. But this is slowly changing. Movies that once relied on visual spectacle for their key source of entertainment are suddenly becoming a bit headier. How do I know this? Because I know where the Avengers series is leading.
My sophomore year of high school, my friend Mike and I and would take regular trips to the mall, spending an hour or two loitering the Borders Books. We’d plop down in a big chair with a stack full of comics, or graphic novels, beside us. We weren’t aggressively nerdy. We read just enough to keep our imaginations aflout: the Ultimate X-Men, The New X-Men, maybe an Ultimate Spider-Man, and then there was the Infinity Gauntlet. The Infinity Gauntlet is as divine as the title suggests. As far as Marvel comics go, it is the Holy Grail. It is a cosmic story entailing every known Marvel character battling a common evil. If there is a character that doesn’t show up in that series then he or she isn’t worth knowing. A movie of the Infinity Gauntlet would be epic, but, Mike and I would discuss, how could it ever be done? The amount of character and level of storylines, even the abstractness of galactic beings battling, how could any of this be portrayed on film?
Well, fast forward ten years later and Mike and I may have our answer with the Avengers. Even still, how does such a movie compare to two Oscar worthy films like Hugo and The Artist? It is all about time. These two films were favorites to win best film this last Oscar season, two films that had they been released separate years both would have likely won. What made the release of these two films concurrent were their linked themes fixed in the history of film. Both pay homage to the roots of filmmaking. Hugo, a film a went into believing it to be a fantasy-adventure, turns out to be more biopic of one of the greatest, least explored filmmakers ever. The Artist pays tribute not to an individual but to a genre, and in doing so shows that that genre, silent films, is still a credible lively form of filmmaking. These two films, both excellent, show just how far film has come, yet how great it’s always been (when done well).
The Avengers, on the other hand, doesn’t pay homage to filmmaking. Instead, it pays homage to comic books. In fact, what is arguably the greatest comic book series of all time, and in doing so it is a salute to where film is going. If Hugo and the Artist take us from past to present then the Avengers takes us from present to future. Never before could so much be going on in a movie without conceptually imploding, but writers Joss Whedon and Zak Penn broke new ground with an Avengers script that is humor, action packed, and contains six coheneret storylines. The movie is not just a visual spectacle, it is also genuinely entertaining. The concepts Mike and I once thought impossible to portray on film are beginning to bud, if not blossom. The sci-fi elements of the Avengers, Tony Starks’ Jarvis system, an Incredible Hulk finally worth watching, and gigantic flying space monsters, are all signs of an evolving film industry. After a few moments of credits Marvel gives us a quick look at Thanos and a sneak peek of things to come.
Now, you are likely at one end of the spectrum or another; you either know Thanos, Galactus, Lady Death, the Watcher, and the rest of the Marvel cast, or this sounds like the language of a hallucinatory conspiracist. I will spare the details, for those who know them and those who don’t, of the Infinity Gauntlet. Marvel comics are without a doubt the greatest comic book empire because they (mostly Stan Lee) created an entire universe, like a cross between Homer’s The Odyssey and Kubrik’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. It reaches a level of absurdity comic book nerds never imagined attaining film (at least not respectably), but rest assured comic book nerds, film has finally caught up to the high concepts of the Marvel universe. Let there be no doubt, the Avengers represents a new frontier in filmmaking and in hindsight what appears to just be a summer blockbuster (albeit a very high grossing blockbuster) may be a film as cultural significant as two championing films, Hugo and the Artist.
