re: Guys, the reason Marvel is failing...it's too dense

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Marvel died when Disney took over. They are trying to make their money back by putting out infinite movies. No matter if they are bad or good.

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Disney bought Marvel a year after Iron Man came out, so Disney was there throughout the every other aspect of the Infinity saga (which many believe was ridiculously good, especially for having so many entries).

Marvel had already been moving woke in their comics (America Chavez, Bobby Drake "coming out", etc) well before Disney bought them. Along with that, Marvel long ago stopped creating fun and interesting new characters, instead relying on keeping their characters in a somewhat static age period while constantly bombarding their lives with insane shite (the fricktardery of One More Day comes to mind).

The movies have done a little of that in that they have moved on from compelling characters with strengths and weaknesses to ones with the personality and depth of cardboard. What they've done is that they've moved from the stories being about the characters expressing their own struggles through combating external threats to the stories being about the characters just beating enemy x, y or z.

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Boys like comic book characters, girls dont. Make all your movies appeal to girls and you are gonna struggle

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interestingly, even THIS isnt entirely true (but i get the point you're making). girls actually liked the male-dominated early Marvel movies too, and they DONT like the female dominated recent shite. it's like the WNBA. women dont like it either, they want to watch men athletes performing just like other men do.

the entire "we're expanding to appeal to new, modern audiences" premise seems to be flawed from the outset - new, modern audiences ALREADY LIKED THE MARVEL UNIVERSE.

They can hem and haw and rationalize all they want. Marvel has failed because they mostly tell shitty stories about heroes no one cares about. They stuff these films with woke nonsense and then blame the audience for not accepting the programming. Stop making condescending lectures disguised as entertainment and maybe Disney starts making money again.

Totally agree on this. Agents of Shield was a perfect TV show for Marvel in the first couple of seasons. Allude to big things happening in the overall story, but not changing the direction of it. Just some light watching that doesn't have any impact on the movies and maybe helps give a little more time to side characters and fills in more about those characters. That obviously changed after the first couple of seasons.

Having TV shows be much watch for the overall story is way too much work for a comic book franchise. The movies were good at first because they were light and I could turn my mind off and enjoy it. I stopped watching once it became like studying for finals.

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This entire movement by Marvel comes from a single Facebook poll, which erroneously assumed that comic book readers consisted of nearly 50% female.

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There was a similar discussion on the gaming board about females in online games. A lot of games companies are going off statistics saying around 40% of gamers are females, but they lump all genres together.

Candy Crush and Words With Friends are nowhere near the same thing as CoD, WoW or BG3.

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you’ll watch garbage, just not woke garbage?

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Yes. I grew up watching professional wrestling.

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Obviously there are other significant issues, but the amount of integration is now insane.

You have to watch 7 Disney+ shows to get a seemingly unrelated movie to even make sense.

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And, here's the fun part...while making/expecting customers to consume all product in order to be able to consume NEXT product, they have the gall to tell people not to complain if they don't like it, because it's probably not made for them.

Its not too dense,its heroes that doesn't appeal to the masses. Add to the fact that it hit people over the head with "the message" and its death by a thousand cuts.

Before SJW and Normal people could enjoy an marvel movie due to how neutral it was, but they catered moer to the SJW side so the normies left.

Captain Marvel could have worked if they use Mar-Vell and then have him pass the mantle to Carol. The Marvels could ahve worked if their lead actress shut her trap. Remember bakc in the day an actor had to be charming? They go around making their rounds to promote their movie while being playful. PEople would have a good feeling about them and give em a chance, but when they are acting like straight up assholes or bitches, no one wants any of that.

During the heyday of the MCU throughout the 2010’s, I often avoided it BECAUSE I would have had to have seen the other movies to know what’s going on. Once I fell behind (somewhere between Avengers 1 and 2), I basically gave up for a few years because I didn’t have the time or ability to see every movie to catch up.

I caught up because in 2018, I had some free time after law school before the bar exam results came back, and due to streaming, I could watch all of the movies I had missed on demand. I literally took the time in 2018 and 2019 to get caught up before Endgame. I watched both guardians movies, thor ragnarok, both ant man films, winter soldier, avengers 2 and infinity war, civil war, spiderman homecoming, Dr. Strange, Black Panther, and even attempted to watch Iron Man 3 (I never did watch any of the Hulk movies or Cpt Marvel).

Since Infinity War, the quality has noticeably declined. I did enjoy a few of the tv series (Loki, WandaVision, and Hawkeye were great while Falcon & the Winter Soldier and Moon Knight were meh), but I only took the time to watch a few of the movies: Shang-Chi (started strong but finished very meh), both spider man movies (absolutely fantastic), multiverse of madness (kinda good, but not great), and Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (which was good).

I don’t have the same kind of free time I had in early 2019/late 2018 to just binge watch a bunch of movies so I can know what’s going on. I surely don’t have the patience to watch a bunch of BAD movies. I was willing to binge before Endgame because nearly every movie I tried was good, and a few of them (Winter Soldier, Ragnarok, spiderman, Guardians 1&2) were actually great. Since Endgame, I’m pleasantly surprised if the movie is even good.

I’m not starved enough for entertainment to just keep consuming a bad product over and over again.

Marvel has to learn that without struggles, victories mean nothing.

Anime doesn’t dominate the youth market in the United States because it’s completely novel and unformulaic. It does because it uses a different formula than western animation and entertainment has for the last 10 years at least.

Western animated series, especially those aimed at children, started out as violent cat & mouse cartoons, straight up toy commercials, adaptations of super hero comic books, or childish versions of family sitcoms. As political correctness took over, the violent cartoons were eliminated, and even the comic book superhero series’s had to be changed to something more akin to a sitcom about people with super powers in order to eliminate the violence. Essentially, animation in the west became all about sitcoms, either adult crass satirical sitcoms or childish tame sitcoms. Few overarching stories, very little real conflict or character growth, and almost zero danger.

Anime was completely different. Anime doesn’t have anything that resembles a sitcom like “Friends” or “The Big Bang Theory”. What it often has are protagonists struggling for people to recognize their talent constantly working hard to become the absolute best at something in order to win recognition and love. It features characters growing, changing, and in constant danger. It often depicts violence, while also having romance where characters win the affections of their crush based on their actions. Everything doesn’t just “reset” after each episode. Characters’ decisions impact one another. Even in “slice of life” anime, the closest thing they have to a sitcom, the characters are constantly evolving, growing, and experiencing real drama and struggle.

In trying to make content safe for children, the West took away all of the danger, and thus all of the character development and growth. As a result, the gen z and gen alpha almost completely abandoned Western animation and children shows because those shows cannot resonate with people. They’re just content.

Marvel has been making “just content” since Endgame. These feminist characters are not allowed to lose fights. They’re only held back by people who disrespect them or fear them. They’re never in any real danger because they never lose. As a result, they never struggle or grow. They’re never allowed to show any flaws. They have to be tougher and stronger and smarter and faster than every male character while never making a wrong decision. There’s literally nothing to identify with, no struggle to invest in.

I’m not a big Naruto fan, but I understand why many are. You start out with a kid who’s annoying, who no one likes. He has some talent, but no discipline to turn that talent into skill. At the beginning of the show, he’s just average relative to his peers. He learns from his hubris, he is constantly challenged over time. He loses…a lot, but learns from those to become better. He is constantly driven to improve, and does. Eventually, he accomplishes everything he wants, becoming the best, and earning the respect of his peers. He doesn’t get the girl he pined after all those years, but finds love in someone who is actually much more compatible for him. So many pro athletes are obsessed with this show because they see themselves in the character. They, too, were once talented undisciplined, immature, and craving of attention and respect. They then chose to earn it by being the absolute best they could be. It was Naruto’s flaws that made him relatable. It was his struggles that made people root for him.

Without struggle victories mean nothing.