Rolling Marvel Cinematic Universe thread (+ a poll: Classic or Dud?)

I think in the comic plot of the upcoming marvel movie, the civil war, things get started by hulk killing 20+ people in a fight in vegas. wouldnt be surprised if hulk gets into some trouble at the end of the nu movie

it's true that the majority of Marvel/DC superhero comics do not concern themselves with the impact of superhero antics on non-superheroes (there are exceptions). And both companies' long-established business practices of alternately sustaining and then violently disrupting continuity also contribute to this feeling of nothing being at stake - don't worry, if anyone dies they'll just be resurrected or reincarnated or flown in from an alternate universe etc. This does carry over into the movies imo.

well not the way continuity is handled (at least, not yet) but the feeling that nothing is really at stake and so who cares

damage control and gotham central movies will happen eventually, don't doubt... gotham already is a television series with no batman
people love their meta

and they need to go to hell for that.

Unbreakable was a good film!

yes, obv there were a ton of bilge, no-budget, unimaginative westerns, but there were also a couple hundred that can stand up to serious analysis and evaluation.

The very FACT that these Marvel movies and their ilk all cost a few hundred million and are presold to a global audience weighs against them having the qualities that make for interesting cinema. Like I said, they're this year's model of smartphone. They can't afford to stray.

yes, obv there were a ton of bilge, no-budget, unimaginative westerns, but there were also a couple hundred that can stand up to serious analysis and evaluation.

― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius),

I agree with this, but I think the hit/miss ratio is about the same for superheroes as for westerns. There have been thousands of westerns, right? -- if we go back to The Great Train Robbery.

The very FACT that these Marvel movies and their ilk all cost a few hundred million and are presold to a global audience weighs against them having the qualities that make for interesting cinema

totally agree w this - and they differ from westerns in this way (which were cheap to make afaict) and were not really "presold" in any meaningful way

Morbz likes Unbreakable! whaaat!?
(I love that movie btw, fuck the haters)

agree that superhero movies in general costing more money and gunning to be AAA blockbusters almost every time does limit their scope.
also that there were 100 being made each year with lower budgets there would be more interesting stuff - like say, the first 80% of Chronicle

it'll be interesting to see if marvel's netflix shows, which seem to be focusing more on street-level superheroics, will encourage them to explore different angles in the movies in the future or whether the big screen will be kept exclusively for megabudget spectacle

for the record i LOVED Superman 2, aged five

it'll be interesting to see if marvel's netflix shows, which seem to be focusing more on street-level superheroics, will encourage them to explore different angles in the movies in the future or whether the big screen will be kept exclusively for megabudget spectacle

Agent Carter was actually quite good and different from the movies it was spun off (focusing more on character interaction, police work, gender roles in the 1940s, etc), but it wasn't really a "superhero story" in any meaningful way, it had only one supporting character who could be labeled as a "supervillain", and no supeheroes at all. Similarly, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has become a pretty thrilling series by ditching a lot of the superhero tropes and embracing the paranoid spy thriller vibe seeded by Winter Soldier. The effect and implications of superpowered beings on the world is still a major part of the show, but the plot is driven more by the paranoia/spy themes, which I think works nicely.

And of course a lot of diversity comes from Marvel and DC comics themselves: you have books like Superman or Spider-Man that still focus on straightforward superheroics, but also books like Gotham Central or Guardians of the Galaxy, which still take place in the shared superhero universe, but the genre is something else (police procedural and space opera, respectively), I was glad that the GotG movie openly embraced the vibe of the Abnett/Lanning comics and didn't even try to be a superhero story instead of a space opera: it had way more in common with Fifth Element than with Spider-Man or Captain America. So I think the way superhero movies could/should diversify is by adapting all these lesser known comics that work in different genres, and GotG proved you can do that successfully, so hopefully the studios will take the hint.

and didn't even try to be a superhero story instead of a space opera

There weren't any capes, but this is the smallest difference imaginable compared with, say, Gotham Central.

SPIDER-MAN GETS ANIMATED AND DATED
WITH PHIL LORD & CHRISTOPHER MILLER AND SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT

LAS VEGAS, Nev., April 22, 2015 – On July 20, 2018, Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, the directors of The Lego Movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and 21 and 22 Jump Street, are taking Spider-Man back to his graphic roots with the first-of-its-kind animated Spider-Man feature, it was announced today at CinemaCon by Tom Rothman, chairman of the Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group. The film will exist independently of the projects in the live-action Spider-Man universe, all of which are continuing.

Lord & Miller are masterminding the project, writing the treatment and producing the film.

As previously announced, Spider-Man will next appear in a live-action Marvel film from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe (MCU). Sony Pictures will thereafter release the next installment of its $4 billion Spider-Man franchise, on July 28, 2017, a live-action film being produced by Kevin Feige at Marvel and Amy Pascal, who oversaw the franchise launch for the studio 13 years ago. The animated film from Lord & Miller, dated July 20, 2018, has Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, and Pascal also serving as producers.

four different big-screen interpretations of spider-man in 16 years seems like a record that will be hard to top

cloudy with a chance of meatballs is a straight-up masterpiece tho so i guess i'lll give them the benefit fo the doubt for now

Sony Pictures will thereafter release the next installment of its $4 billion Spider-Man franchise, on July 28, 2017

What does this mean? Are they still going to have part 3 of the shitty reboot with Andrew Garfield? I thought that had been put out of its misery.

rebooting again, iirc

Has anyone made a movie about how Spider-man got his powers yet?

Still the best Spider-Man movie:

http://media.giphy.com/media/7isbcNAx367qU/giphy.gif

xp So that'll be 5 in 16 years?

i think the spidey in the 2017 live-action movie will be making his debut in an mcu movie, so still 'just' four in 16 years

Huh, that strikes me as something that would require a million lawyers - but I suppose both sides might have a half-million to spare.

iirc the leaked sony emails suggested the studio hadn't got a clue what to do next with the spidey licence and were willing to work more closely with marvel to something out

to work something out

They need to treat him more like James Bond, just do a new, unrelated adventure every couple of years and stop giving a shit about continuity.

but how will we know his origin?!?

so if dc and marvel get their wish, we'll have two batman and two spider-man franchises in theaters for the 2020s

can't wait for http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/cd/SupermanvsSpider-Man1976.jpg/250px-SupermanvsSpider-Man1976.jpg

i'm curious just what marvel has planned after AVENGERS GUARDIANS COSMIC KABOOM TIME but if they get to there without fucking up it doesn't matter if the next movie is ANT-MAN VS DOCTOR STRANGE: WORLD DESTRUCTION they've won hollywood

they'll reboot, we'll get all-new origin stories and they'll start the slog to COSMIC KABOOM TIME all over again

assuming X-MEN: APOCALYPSE does well, there will even be precedent for launching your reboot inside the previous ensemble's last dance

while there's slight precedents like Bond (which really doesn't come up enough when people write about hollywood churning out globally minded bombast) i feel like marvel's actually heading towards an unprecedented place in hollywood where the quality level has been consistent, the cast hasn't changed, and people are just starting to experience fatigue

obv the hope is that for every 40+ who says "fuck it, i'm out" a new 10+ says "this shit is AMAZING!" and also buys the toys

xxp Well, that launched entirely separately, in fairness - more like Star Trek Generations in a baton-handing exercise.

only patrick stewart wasn't playing captain kirk

Saw AoU earlier.

No spoilers but it seems incredibly novel to have a film open in the UK before it does Stateside. It's obviously much better these days but we used to have to wait months before we got to see films over here.

You cld spoil whether or not you liked it tho?

Enjoyable film without reaching the highs of the first one, much darker and probably not so family friendly but still lots of fun moments. Would like to see the extended version though as a couple of scenes lacked explanation and there was lots of foreshadowing upcoming movies.

Oh and there's only one post credit scene so you won't need to stay til the very end.

Thanks

No spoilers but it seems incredibly novel to have a film open in the UK before it does Stateside.

marvel movies have opened a week earlier in the uk than the us for at least a couple of years now

And in Addis Abeba

new policy seems to be that the int'l release is a week or two before US dates, not sure why that policy but have gotten many films here before friends back in US have had a chance to see 'em. Problem is, most of the films are not ones I have an interest in seeing

Looks like the extended version is happening then. Will be interesting to see what they cut out although I assume it will definitely include [redacted].

the theatrical version feels pretty rushed, which is quite an achievement at 141 minutes. an extended cut might actually make it a good bit more coherent.

It seemed overly schematic - now we punch, now we feel, meet back in 20 minutes for some punching.

don't forget the shoehorned-in setups for a couple of the next solo movies

Except for Ant-Man of course (which given Hank Pym's role in the comics seemed slightly odd).

so I watched Captain America: Winter Soldier over the weekend and... man these movies just aren't for me. Felt misled by all the "70s political thriller" talk around this one, when really the only similarity is some government conspiracy window-dressing. Otherwise it hits all the standard action movie beats - the initial fight scene, the setup of the central conflict, the initial defeat, the turnabout, the car chase etc etc. It was foolish of me to expect some kind of talky, low-key homage to "3 Days of the Condor" cuz duh why would Marvel ever allow that to happen when there are generic black-suited clad soldier thugs to be tossed around and CGI things to blow up and pithy one-liners to be delivered. The only sequence that piqued my interest was reel-to-reel Toby Jones booting up and of course that was just a throwaway bit. Again had the feeling that nothing was at stake. Of course nobody is actually going to die, and of course there is a total lack of normal/average people (even as background) to give any sense that the threat of Hydra has any real weight to it beyond providing a conflict for our heroes to resolve. These all stem from my basic disinterest in how "action" movies became codified since the early 80s with Schwarzennegger/Gibson/Stallone/Willis - I'm just bored by the tropes, the motions, the staging, the fight scenes, the explosions, pretty much everything about them. It's been noted here before but these are essentially standard action movies with fancier costumes and as such that doesn't leave much for me to enjoy.

anyway having come to this realization I have to say Dud overall.

okay so the new one's pretty good. story is meh, but it's just enough to hang some great scenes and set pieces on. some good zingers, some good character moments. some great cheadle scene heists. all the cgi has real heft to it, which is saying something.

this ultron is a different ultron than the one you might know from the funnybooks. spader makes him work. the vision is believable, which is saying something, and he gets one solid scene.

all in all, extraordinarily well-crafted and utterly forgettable. on to ant-man and panther i guess.

all the cgi has real heft to it

Counterpoint: Starting off with a massively fake-looking Thor in the first fight really threw me. The rest was pretty good though.

The nose- and lip-less Ultron, and some of his swagger, reminded me of Bill Nighy's Davey Jones.