TV/Movies Megathread

[The Larch]

There are more than a handful of criticisms, essays and articles blaming the MCU of being so bland, formulaic and soul-less as to leave very little behind them that is not linked to the business side of movie making.

I believe I first realized this when I read somebody complaining that their soundtracks were so generic that there is not a single iconic music piece in them, compare and contrast with the Batman and Superman themes, for instance.

[Josquius]

Golden Age Hollywood also had franchises and IP recycling up the wazoo: Tarzan, Charlie Chan, Thin Man, Dead End Kids, many more.  Pictures always involve a substantial up front investment and so the natural tendency is to fall back on safety: Established Stars + Formulaic scripts.  It has just evolved to exploit cross-media monetization.

I do think the exploitation has become over-intensive in a way that risks long term value; I thought the MCU would have been better advised to take a breather before plunging deep into another massive "cycle".  But few executives make successful careers by putting off corporate money making opportunities for the benefit of their successors.

I'm not sure id count super long serial series like tarzan as the same thing as franchise universes like marvel.
Examples of this did exist historically but it was far more limited in the scope of a bit of fan servicey cross over.

Marvel really has taken it all too far with the reliances on previous films and constant crossing over thats more than just a wink.


Also a issue for marvel is they've used up the a list. The super heroes left to them are... Not good. Excepting x men and fantastic 4 of course where there's other issues.
And their "horror" stuff is such a different genre as to be silly.

[The Larch]

Also a issue for marvel is they've used up the a list. The super heroes left to them are... Not good. Excepting x men and fantastic 4 of course where there's other issues.

They were able to turn a bunch of nobodies only the hard-core nerds knew about like the Guardians of the Galaxy into big stars. And when the MCU started out they were limited to their 2nd rank characters because their true stars, Spiderman and the X Men, were not available to them. How popular the original characters are is very secondary.

[celedhring]

Also a issue for marvel is they've used up the a list. The super heroes left to them are... Not good. Excepting x men and fantastic 4 of course where there's other issues.

They were able to turn a bunch of nobodies only the hard-core nerds knew about like the Guardians of the Galaxy into big stars. And when the MCU started out they were limited to their 2nd rank characters because their true stars, Spiderman and the X Men were not available to them. How popular the original characters are is very secondary.

Yeah they turned Iron Man (!!) in one of the most popular movie characters of the past 15 years. He was a C-lister at best.

I'm surprised there's nothing with the X-Men in their pipeline (besides Jackman being in the next Deadpool movie). That's something that could attract my interest.

[celedhring]

There are more than a handful of criticisms, essays and articles blaming the MCU of being so bland, formulaic and soul-less as to leave very little behind them that is not linked to the business side of movie making.

I believe I first realized this when I read somebody complaining that their soundtracks were so generic that there is not a single iconic music piece in them, compare and contrast with the Batman and Superman themes, for instance.

Yeah. I remember the Captain Marvel movie. This is a woman suffering from recurring nightmares that gets mental-probed and discovers her life is a lie, then is marooned on Earth without nobody to get help from. And of course, she starts wisecracking. It makes no sense for her character to do that, but it's the Marvel formula.

Regarding soundtracks... in general, yes, but The Avengers theme has become rather iconic. It's one of the few movie themes of the past decade that I can hum.

[Sheilbh]

That's another old man complaint - I think Zimmer's Inceptions soundtrack was great but is now the style for so many films. We need to get some actual themes back.

[Josquius]

Also a issue for marvel is they've used up the a list. The super heroes left to them are... Not good. Excepting x men and fantastic 4 of course where there's other issues.

They were able to turn a bunch of nobodies only the hard-core nerds knew about like the Guardians of the Galaxy into big stars. And when the MCU started out they were limited to their 2nd rank characters because their true stars, Spiderman and the X Men, were not available to them. How popular the original characters are is very secondary.

True, but I do think they chose their nobodies carefully there.
Yes they were going beyond the front liners and into the backup heroes but they chose ones that were interesting and would make good films.
With what they've got left...

[Jacob]

The culture is stuck. Has been for a while now it feels. Just endless IP recycling.

I reckon it's the inevitable results of our IP laws...

1) Strict IP ownership limits creative iteration.

2) Because IP is primarily a capitalist asset, it is being managed and monetized as such. Obviously shareholders expect strategies maximizing profit while minimizing risk. Endless IP recycling is the natural end-state in such a scenario.

[The Brain]

Copyright laws look the way they do because society doesn't think art is very important.

[Jacob]

Copyright laws look the way they do because society doesn't think art is very important.

More or less. Copyright laws reflect what society values about art.

[celedhring]

The culture is stuck. Has been for a while now it feels. Just endless IP recycling.

I reckon it's the inevitable results of our IP laws...

1) Strict IP ownership limits creative iteration.

2) Because IP is primarily a capitalist asset, it is being managed and monetized as such. Obviously shareholders expect strategies maximizing profit while minimizing risk. Endless IP recycling is the natural end-state in such a scenario.

I don't think 1) is true though. IP laws are not that strict. Yes, you can't write your own Batman comics, but you can take inspiration from them and iterate in the same concept of hero - there are several examples. What happens is that original creations have a much harder time reaching the marketplace because of 2)

In my opinion, the absurdly long expiration periods in the current IP laws make franchises much more valuable assets than they would be otherwise.

[Barrister]

The culture is stuck. Has been for a while now it feels. Just endless IP recycling.

I reckon it's the inevitable results of our IP laws...

1) Strict IP ownership limits creative iteration.

2) Because IP is primarily a capitalist asset, it is being managed and monetized as such. Obviously shareholders expect strategies maximizing profit while minimizing risk. Endless IP recycling is the natural end-state in such a scenario.

I don't agree.

For starters - what do you mean by "strict IP laws"?  I think you mean lengthy copyright, which is life of the author plus 70 years.

But what if you had a shorter period?  I mean if it was life +50 years LOTR would be hitting public domain this year (Tolkein died in 1973).

If LOTR was in the public domain - do you think we'd get less LOTR content, or more?  My guess is more.

I mean it's not like we have a shortage of works based on public domain IP such as Sherlock Holmes or Christmas Carol.

[viper37]

none of those desperate "I'm going to build my own franchise, with blackjack and hookers" attempts has actually succeeded.

Lord of the Rings is a commercial success.
John Wick has 4 movies and a future tv series I think, or another spin off movie coming.

None of those are fully franchised yet. Wick is just a successful movie series, Rings of Power is just a single season of a show with mixed - at best - word of mouth. They both still have a bit to go.

The only one is Star Trek, which has a bunch of TV shows going which I assume are successful since they keep making more of them. The only thing lacking is movies (but I believe rights are an issue here).

Lord of the Rings is 3 movies, + 3 movies for the Hobbit, + at least 2 seasons for Rings of Power.

John Wick is 4 movies + a tv series.  ST was called a franchise when there was a tv series and a couple of movies.

Star Trek has multiple movies over the years in different universes.

[celedhring]

If LOTR was in the public domain - do you think we'd get less LOTR content, or more?  My guess is more.

You're kinda getting that already since the media rights are split (Tolkien sold the movie rights in the 1960s, and from those spawned the Bakshi/Jackson movies and whatever Warned does now), and the Tolkien estate retained the TV rights, which they licensed to Amazon for RoP.

Still, I believe that with shorter expiration times you wouldn't get so much double-downing on franchises by multimedia corporations, since they couldn't fully control the IP.

[Josquius]

On expiring ips....
Anyone seen the apparently so terrible it's good whinnie the poo horror film?

Things seem to be getting really complex over the coming years with several popular characters becoming public domain but only in limited versions.