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re: What is the appeal of superhero movies at this point
Posted on 7/19/17 at 4:18 pm to monkeybutt
Posted on 7/19/17 at 4:18 pm to monkeybutt
quote:
Name me the last action movie franchise you saw that killed off the main hero.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
How bout the second GI Joe when they killed Channing Tatum like 5 minutes in?
That's all I got.
0
Posted on 7/19/17 at 4:22 pm to RoosterCogburn585
quote:Surprising we haven't seen this in other movie genres.
hero fights villain and almost inevitably wins
Posted on 7/19/17 at 4:24 pm to RoosterCogburn585
A. Most of those aren't action movies. You listed war movies and crime dramas.
B. Comicbook characters are franchises that have hundreds of stories that can be told. How do you tell those various stories if you kill Spiderman or Batman in the first or second film?
C. So no, I don't think any of your examples count. Especially 300. That's a story where you literally know everyone dies before you see the movie.
B. Comicbook characters are franchises that have hundreds of stories that can be told. How do you tell those various stories if you kill Spiderman or Batman in the first or second film?
C. So no, I don't think any of your examples count. Especially 300. That's a story where you literally know everyone dies before you see the movie.
Posted on 7/19/17 at 4:30 pm to monkeybutt
Exactly my point. If there are hundreds of stories that can be told, what is the draw of watching Spiderman fight venom and win versus fighting the hobgoblin and winning etc etc. It's just the same story with different characters imho. No real consequences to the plot or outcome
Posted on 7/19/17 at 4:33 pm to RoosterCogburn585
quote:
Exactly my point. If there are hundreds of stories that can be told, what is the draw of watching Spiderman fight venom and win versus fighting the hobgoblin and winning etc etc. It's just the same story with different characters imho. No real consequences to the plot or outcome
Have you ever seen any of these movies that you say you know the exact plot points of before seeing them? You think the hundreds of referenced stories are all literally the same story, just with a different name for the antagonist? That is a ridiculous stance to take.
Posted on 7/19/17 at 4:35 pm to RoosterCogburn585
quote:
Ok. Well what about the movie Arrival? I didn't really care for the movie, but at no point did I really say, oh, this is how it's gonna end. And yeah, maybe the fact that their is more time for a tv show means they can fit more in, but the fact is their are actually twists in the story. I feel like they would have been there regardless of whether the show was 2 hours or 20 hours. What was the last WTF moment in a superhero movie? A superhero movie where you were leaving the theater and were like, "I didn't see that coming"?
:ChannelingmyinnerJohnLithgowfromOrangeCounty:
One movie! In the history of cinema!!
No, but in all seriousness, that is why films like Arrival are incredible. That said, while we (I) couldn't have predicted the exact way the movie would end, the protagonist wins in the end. She overcomes the obstacle. At base, that's all storytelling. The protagonist either overcomes the obstacle or doesn't and either grows or fails to grow. But the kind of stories in which the character utterly fails to grow and doesn't overcome the obstacle are few and far between. And for good reason. There is no supporting action to the plot. They are difficult to tell.
As for the last time I was surprised by a superhero movie, the Civil War reveal of who killed Stark's parents was fantastic. The Spider-Man Homecoming reveal was great. There is no real winner in Civil War and Peter wins but loses in Homecoming.
Posted on 7/19/17 at 4:37 pm to RoosterCogburn585
What's the point of watching John Wick shoot unnamed henchman #150 vs unnamed henchman #124? What's the point of watching John McClane fight the bad guys in Die Hard 4 vs watching him fight the bad guys in Die Hard 2? What's the point of James Bond fighting bad guys in James Bond 11 and winning vs winning against the villain of JB 25?
Posted on 7/19/17 at 5:10 pm to RoosterCogburn585
quote:
Exactly my point. If there are hundreds of stories that can be told, what is the draw of watching Spiderman fight venom and win versus fighting the hobgoblin and winning etc etc.
But there aren't 100s of stories to be told. Presumably, within the framework of the dozens (at most) of stories to be told, the writer can inject something fresh and interesting. Spider-Man Homecoming was a nod to John Hughes, meta with respect to comic books, dealt with teen angst and love, dealt with difficult decisions that the protagonist knew once made would result in something he wouldn't want but was ultimately the right decision, etc. All of these things were explored in a fun and engaging way, which is why Spider-Man Homecoming was excellent. Not just for superhero movies, but as a movie in general.
You can break Arrival down in a similar fashion: the ultimate decision resulted in great pain for the protagonist but she knew it was for the best and so she made the decision anyway, the story deals with the power of language and the inability of humanity to connect with each other through the powerful barrier, with the loss of loved ones, with the stubbornness of mankind and its fear of the unknown. These have all been explored before (District 9 comes to mind), but Arrival is a movie that is far more intelligent than Spider-Man Homecoming and its audience isn't the summer blockbuster audience. It deals with incredibly heady topics, but ultimately it is an invasion story. It ends the way we would expect it to, just with that little dagger in there about loss.
SPH has a sense of loss, but it is not as impactful because the film isn't about that. It's a fun movie. Arrival is not. I would love for more Arrival type movies to be made, but there is space for superhero movies and Arrival movies.
I guess my point is that a predictable conclusion does not make a story bad in and of itself. If the journey to that predictable conclusion is great, and the good guy wins, then the story is great. So what if we knew the story would end with the cowboy riding off into the sunset having saved the village? Or the Jedi having conquered the evil empire and retiring to a quiet life? Or John McClain beating the bad guys, or John Wick getting his revenge or Harry Tasker saving his wife?
Posted on 7/19/17 at 6:22 pm to RoosterCogburn585
quote:
Well these aren't franchises, so maybe they dont count in your book but, Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator, Braveheart, The 300,Man on Fire, Scarface, the Departed, Arlington Road, etc to name a few.
Did you list a comic book movie as an argument AGAINST comic book movies? Cause 300 was a comic book movie.
Remember League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? Comic book movie. Sin City. Comic book movie. V for Vendetta. Comic book movie. Walking Dead. Comic book TV show.
This post was edited on 7/19/17 at 6:29 pm
Posted on 7/19/17 at 6:34 pm to LoveThatMoney
quote:
But there aren't 100s of stories to be told. Presumably, within the framework of the dozens (at most) of stories to be told, the writer can inject something fresh and interesting. Spider-Man Homecoming was a nod to John Hughes, meta with respect to comic books, dealt with teen angst and love, dealt with difficult decisions that the protagonist knew once made would result in something he wouldn't want but was ultimately the right decision, etc. All of these things were explored in a fun and engaging way, which is why Spider-Man Homecoming was excellent. Not just for superhero movies, but as a movie in general.
You can break Arrival down in a similar fashion: the ultimate decision resulted in great pain for the protagonist but she knew it was for the best and so she made the decision anyway, the story deals with the power of language and the inability of humanity to connect with each other through the powerful barrier, with the loss of loved ones, with the stubbornness of mankind and its fear of the unknown. These have all been explored before (District 9 comes to mind), but Arrival is a movie that is far more intelligent than Spider-Man Homecoming and its audience isn't the summer blockbuster audience. It deals with incredibly heady topics, but ultimately it is an invasion story. It ends the way we would expect it to, just with that little dagger in there about loss.
SPH has a sense of loss, but it is not as impactful because the film isn't about that. It's a fun movie. Arrival is not. I would love for more Arrival type movies to be made, but there is space for superhero movies and Arrival movies.
I guess my point is that a predictable conclusion does not make a story bad in and of itself. If the journey to that predictable conclusion is great, and the good guy wins, then the story is great. So what if we knew the story would end with the cowboy riding off into the sunset having saved the village? Or the Jedi having conquered the evil empire and retiring to a quiet life? Or John McClain beating the bad guys, or John Wick getting his revenge or Harry Tasker saving his wife?
Bravo sir. Bravo.
quote:
but there is space for superhero movies and Arrival movies.
And here is your key to this superhero film disdain. We have access to SO much now, movies, TV, graphic novels, books, Audible, youtube, twitch. So many means of storytelling. Pick your poison. Pick your obsession.
It's a bit self-centered to say - "There's too much of this one thing. What's the appeal anymore?"
Posted on 7/19/17 at 8:35 pm to KingSlayer
quote:To be fair, you can compare MARVEL to a series, because we're now deep into it- 3 Cap, 3 IM, 2 Thor, 2 Avengers, 2 GOTG, Dr Strange, Spidey, Antman... that's what, 15 movies, with Black Panther and Thor 3 on deck. That's over 30 hrs in, already.
quote:
On the other hand, one of the board favorites, Game of Thrones, can you honestly tell me how the series is going to end? One of my all time favorites was the Sopranos. Week to week you never knew what was going to happen.
Are you seriously trying to compare a movie with a 2 hour story with tv shows that have 60, 70, or 80 hours to tell their story?
But it does measure up (not necessarily to GOT, because people die in that left and right). Odin's MIA, Freya and Yondu are dead, Agent Coulson sorta is (if you don't watch AOS you don't know he's somehow back alive). These were recurring characters, though not leads. Quicksilver came and died.
And these guys are mega-powerful heroes, not the type of guys who casually get killed off, anyway. You can shoot Tony with a tank and it doesn't break the suit.
Hero doesn't always get the girl, either- Cap lost Peggy and then watched her die, Pepper seems to have left Tony, Thor and Jane seem separated again (and he doesn't get Sif). Banner won't stay with anyone he cares for. And nobody is getting Black Widow, despite her linking with a bunch of the guys.
Loki is intertwined in the stories too, and half the time he's the villain, the other half he's a hero (although always to meet his own needs).
Scarlet Witch and Bucky have flipped.
I could go on, but the point is that this is a fairly complex storyline developing, over the course of many hours worth of viewing.
Posted on 7/20/17 at 8:16 am to monkeybutt
quote:
B. Comicbook characters are franchises that have hundreds of stories that can be told. How do you tell those various stories if you kill Spiderman or Batman in the first or second film?
Wasn't Superman dead and buried at the end of one recently?
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