TV/Movies Megathread

[Josquius]

In other points. An interesting long read on Marvels failings.
Lots of bad coming for them at once.

https://variety.com/2023/film/features/marvel-jonathan-majors-problem-the-marvels-reshoots-kang-1235774940/#comment-6518060

[Darth Wagtaros]

I read that.  The Blade thing sounds like some outrage porn meant to trigger the "WOKEBAD!" crowd. But also stupid enough I can believe it was actually discussed.

Disney really oversaturated the market and rushed stuff out too quickly. Kang as a villain got his ass beat by Antman and Antman's mother in law. Not on the level of wiping out half the universe.

[Barrister]

In other points. An interesting long read on Marvels failings.
Lots of bad coming for them at once.

https://variety.com/2023/film/features/marvel-jonathan-majors-problem-the-marvels-reshoots-kang-1235774940/#comment-6518060

Going back to 2009 I really wasn't a marvel fan.  To the extent I read comic books at all it was DC stuff.  So I could care less about some "Iron man" movie.  But it was good.  So I would watch some of the movies as they came out.  Some were good, some weren't (looking at you Thor: Dark World).  But as they got ratcheted up into the Avengers movies, culminating in Endgame, I was fairly hooked.

I don't know though to what extent it was the fact that it's hard to keep upping the stakes from something like Endgame, or that the pandemic happened, but they kind of lost me.

I watched Wandavision and loved it.  I watched Loki and rally liked it.  But then came Captain America and Winter Soldier.  It was okay.  Then we got on to Harkeye - never finished watching it.  Same for Moon Knight.  And then frankly I never even bothered with Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Ms Marvel or Secret Invasion.  It was all just too much.

It was just all too much.

[Josquius]

I read that.  The Blade thing sounds like some outrage porn meant to trigger the "WOKEBAD!" crowd. But also stupid enough I can believe it was actually discussed.

Disney really oversaturated the market and rushed stuff out too quickly. Kang as a villain got his ass beat by Antman and Antman's mother in law. Not on the level of wiping out half the universe.

The woke bad stuff is funny as with it  you have the neckbeards chanting "go woke go broke" when pretty clearly it seems the opposite - "go broke go woke".
Got to try and bring in new audiences. And the free advertising from the incels works well..

What the Blade stuff really reminds me of is super hero movies before marvel.
The sort of thing the simpsons parodied in their radioactive man movie ep.
Take the barest basics from the comic and make a new movie out of it.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I read that.  The Blade thing sounds like some outrage porn meant to trigger the "WOKEBAD!" crowd. But also stupid enough I can believe it was actually discussed.

Disney really oversaturated the market and rushed stuff out too quickly. Kang as a villain got his ass beat by Antman and Antman's mother in law. Not on the level of wiping out half the universe.

The woke bad stuff is funny as with it  you have the neckbeards chanting "go woke go broke" when pretty clearly it seems the opposite - "go broke go woke".
Got to try and bring in new audiences. And the free advertising from the incels works well.

That is something that is often missed, especially in the comic book focused commentators. Comic books as an industry and a media form have been circling the drain for a long time. Were it not for the renaissance from the MCU they'd be even more on life support than the already are.  The labels NEED to appeal to new audiences.  Especially as the cost per issue goes up and up.

[Barrister]

That is something that is often missed, especially in the comic book focused commentators. Comic books as an industry and a media form have been circling the drain for a long time. Were it not for the renaissance from the MCU they'd be even more on life support than the already are.  The labels NEED to appeal to new audiences.  Especially as the cost per issue goes up and up.

I'm pretty sure that comic books themselves are entirely incidental to them as a giant IP source for movies and television.

[Sheilbh]

It was just all too much.

Yeah I know it's the standard comparison but it does feel like I suspect Westerns were and I think the quality control went a little out the window.

Plus - and I know this has happened with DC too with some exceptions - but if I am noticing shonky effects in movies that's a bad sign. I really don't really notice that very much (or plot holes ), but it has been very obvious in a few things. It feels like they got the upside of the studio system for a while but also the same negatives coming out as well.

[HVC]

The problem with DC was that Nolan was a poisoned chalice. People liked those films, which were dark and gritty, so that must be what people like. All DC movies must now be dark and gritty.Marvel almost went too much the other way where there has to a joke a minute.


I agree with BB that it's just too much, in so far as that the volume has lowered quality. If there were a lot and they were good then maybe it'd be different. Star Wars faces the same issue. If people like one they must like them all, right? Let's glut the market.

Although unlike him I liked moon knight.

[Grey Fox]

Imo, it wasn't too much has in quantity of different IPs. It was too much in that they were all TV shows. They should have been movies.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I think that's true and it can't all be similar weight contributing to some giant arc. Sometimes we just want disposable fluff

[Sophie Scholl]

Star Wars faces the same issue. If people like one they must like them all, right? Let's glut the market.

The one (slight) difference is that Star Wars is being spread across multiple media formats and target audiences. There is less of a "You must engage with every single thing that comes out or you'll be lost and miss things!" that the MCU has. Part of the enjoyment of those franchises when they were relatively new was that each movie was enjoyable by itself and didn't require watching prior or future films or shows to enjoy them. Then the Prequels, the MCU "Phases", and world building turned into an almost mandatory slog you have to engage with rather than a way to indulge in the universe in a bonus way for those interested. I feel like the connections can be a lot of fun when they're Easter Eggs, but when a viewer would be lost without them, it is too much. I know I gave up on the MCU for the most part due to falling behind and just not wanting to engage with the massive amount of film and tv content I would need to catch up on to make them properly "enjoyable". Especially since I honestly never was much of a Marvel fangirl outside of the X-Men.

DC definitely tried way too hard to be "different" initially by going grimdark and bringing in a guy like Snyder to run everything. Libertarian who seems to have only read, though not fully understood, Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns might not be the best guy to run things for a universe that functions best as a brighter and more hopeful one. Add in the pivot to JJ Abrams-ify the DCEU mid-Justice League development and it went from bad to worse as there was no longer and plan or coherent goal. The constant selling of DC/Warner Brothers hurt a lot, too. The comics, in my opinion, have been absolutely amazing for a while now and I'm looking forward to what Gunn can do as the new lead of the DCEU. It will certainly be a change in style, focus, and direction compared to the disasters that came before.

[Sheilbh]

I get there's lots of other stuff going on with Star Wars which I don't really know about like Clone Wars, but with the big new wave of Star Wars films and TV since the prequels it feels like there's been fairly quick diminishing returns. If that's happening with something as big and broadly popular as Star Wars, I feel like that should have been a warning sign , especially for Marvel as one division of Disney looking at another.

With DC I've no real idea. I've never been a big fan of Snyder (except for the owl film which is great I feel like it's a bit Antz v Bug's Life and there were two owl films out at the same time  ) so never really watched them. I like most of the recent Batman films. Having said all that I went to see Blue Beetle and really enoyed it - had no idea what it was going to be like/about but in part I think it was partly fun precisely because it didn't feel like part of some giant universe of IP (I'm sure it is from a comic book perspective).

[HVC]

The really exasperating part is there are great DC movies. But they're animated.


As for star wars, they might ve disconnected, but there are stinkers that appear to have just pushed out just like Marvel. They ruined mandalorian, bobba is unwatchable. Even kenobe was disappointing.

*edit* Snyder carried the tradition Nolan started. I don't blame him for doing what he was expected to do. Don't blame the junk yard dog for barking.

[Sophie Scholl]

For Snyder (I, too, liked his Owl move, Sheilbh!), my biggest issue is that he took everyone to a super dark and grim setting. Right down to the color palette of greys and sepia tones for everything. It can work with Batman more or less, but Superman? Heck no. The style and aesthetic decisions were on Snyder and they permeated the whole DCEU. I really disliked the weird hyper cgi/texture look he put on all of the characters and characters, too. Marvel is guilty of that as well. They took the, "make it look realistic" concept and then just... kept piling on that aesthetic till it looked awful and fake in the opposite direction from the smoothness of comics.

[HVC]

Insomnia back with a vengeance, rewatching DS9 to try to sleep. Like a Star Trek lullaby. Man it was a great show.