OT: Movies are basically flipbooks for adults (The Newly Annual Non-Pens Media Thraed)

[Ogrezilla]

I think as a viewer you can only suspend disbelief to a certain point and that limit is different for everyone.

It also depends on whether or not the film is entertaining enough to look past the plot holes, bad science, etc.

I’m not big on comic books, never read them as a kid and only got into Batman from the original show and the Tim Burton films. Even the recent comic book films I liked I also felt like I didn’t need to see them a second time. The last two I even tried to watch were Ant Man and Doctor Strange and in both cases I got to the half way point and realized I had completely zoned out and hadn’t retained a single detail, or felt any emotion, and turned them off.

I really don’t like the Avengers films... it’s way way way too many characters and a lot of them have powers/abilities so weak in comparison to others that their presence is completely pointless. You have literal Gods and giants with super strength and near-indestructibility and then there’s a lady that’s like pretty good at hand-to-hand combat, and a guy that’s almost as effective with arrows as any person would be with a belt-fed minigun.

to be fair, those are basically the sidekicks. They are still good characters, and the action almost always dictates that more than one thing needs to be done at a time. The big guys deal with the main threat while the weaker characters deal with crowd control. But then outside of fight scenes they are still important characters. At no point do they act like Hawkeye or Black Widow are anywhere near the level of Iron Man or The Hulk in a fight.

No problem with someone not liking the movies though. Comic book stuff isn't for everyone.

 

[Brandinho]

I feel like suspension of disbelief is inextricably linked to enjoyment. If you're enjoying a movie, you won't stop to think about all of the dumb things that it gets wrong. Some might argue it's the opposite, that you can only enjoy things once you've suspended your disbelief, but I don't agree. At least for me, suspension of disbelief is never a conscious action. I'm not sitting there thinking, "hey, that's an illogical plot point, I don't know if I can enjoy the creative art direction or brilliant acting now". If the quality is there, it's incredibly easy to overlook the illogical things characters do. Take the horror genre, for example. There has never been a realistic horror movie. The overwhelming majority of horror movies require illogical, poorly thought out action after illogical, poorly thought out action just to create tension. Even universally praised horror movies are full of that kind of crap because it's a conceit of a genre that has to find a way to make unreal situations seem real. The good ones find ways to keep your mind focused on other things - tension or terror or even subverting your disbelief by presenting a world that necessarily doesn't conform to your expectations in a way that you even need to suspend disbelief. The bad ones don't.

In a sense, these Marvel movies are very similar to your average Blumhouse horror movie. They're orders of magnitude more expensive, but the idea is the same - they're churning out formulaic blockbusters that they know will be financially successful. Nobody thinks they're making high art, they just understand where the market is. The key difference is that the Blumhouse movies are easy to see for exactly what they are because they don't have $500 million budgets and A list casts.

Anyway, the point I'm making is that I don't really think an inability to suspend disbelief is the key here, at least not vis a vis the movie's individual characteristics. I don't see how it's any harder to suspend disbelief for Ant-man, a silly movie that is ostensibly based in science but gets everything wrong, than it is for Thor, a silly movie that is ostensibly based in Norse mythology but also gets everything wrong. The ability to suspend disbelief, in my mind at least, is inextricably linked to the general quality of the work. We're much more willing to suspend disbelief for things that we think are good and we've already started forming that judgement before we're even consciously thinking about specific logical inconsistencies.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Thor, a silly movie that is ostensibly based in Norse mythology but also gets everything wrong.

not to be a pedant, but I would like to point out that in the Marvel universe Norse mythology is based on Asgard, and it's Norse mythology that got everything wrong That is to say, they liked the characters but never intended for Thor to be accurate to the mythology, so they wrote it in a way that let them change whatever the hell they wanted

But yes, I agree with your point completely.

 

[Brandinho]

just to be a turd, I would like to point out that in the Marvel universe Norse mythology is based on Asgard, and it's Norse mythology that got everything wrong That is to say, they liked the characters but never intended for Thor to be accurate to the mythology, so they wrote a way that let them change whatever the hell they wanted

I knew it. Stupid Norse racists white-washing Heimdallr.

 

[Ogrezilla]

My biggest complaint about a lot of these movies is that they make the stakes way too high way too often. That goes for all sorts of action movies, not just comic book movies. You don't need to be saving the world every time. Logan is probably the best comic book movie in years, and the bulk of the movie is about saving 1 kid.

 

[Jacob]

My biggest complaint about a lot of these movies is that they make the stakes way too high way too often. That goes for all sorts of action movies, not just comic book movies. You don't need to be saving the world every time. Logan is probably the best comic book movie in years, and the bulk of the movie is about saving 1 kid.

Different genre but Star Trek IV is one of the best in the series and it’s just about saving whales.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

I 100% understand what you are saying. I just don't care about it in a superhero movie or dumb blockbuster type action movie.

I know, which is why I don't get why you keep quoting me lol. It's a personal preference thing for both of us and we both agree, but we're arguing we agree about what we have personal preferences about. Or at least it appears that way, lol.

My biggest complaint about a lot of these movies is that they make the stakes way too high way too often. That goes for all sorts of action movies, not just comic book movies. You don't need to be saving the world every time. Logan is probably the best comic book movie in years, and the bulk of the movie is about saving 1 kid.

I loved Logan because of that, because it was a "there were consequences that were not easily fixed" to the incident that led them to where they were in that time line. It makes the rest of the X-Men movies, thankfully, unwatchable because that is how that whole franchise should have ended.

I absolutely hate the whole build up of a villain or talk about consequences and then you're let down for the most part.

As someone that is the king of untimely jokes, I am not a fan of them when you seriously do not need one at all, untimely or not.

 

[Brandinho]

My biggest complaint about a lot of these movies is that they make the stakes way too high way too often. That goes for all sorts of action movies, not just comic book movies. You don't need to be saving the world every time. Logan is probably the best comic book movie in years, and the bulk of the movie is about saving 1 kid.

That also affects villains in a negative way. You can't keep beating a bigger bad. Eventually, you've created a scenario where the heroes are invincible and there are no stakes anymore or you have to come up with an absurd villain who exists solely because you needed someone worse than the previous worst dude ever to avert the first situation. This guy eats planets? Oh yeah, well this guy eats galaxies. Just wait until you see the guy who eats time itself!

The only setting where I've seen that used somewhat effectively is Warhammer 40k, but that's kind of cheating when the fundamental underpinning of the world is that everyone is freakishly overpowered and nobody will ever win, they'll just rape and murder even more spectacularly.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

I knew it. Stupid Norse racists white-washing Heimdallr.

You'd think, in Hollywood, that with over a billion asian and indian folks would mean you saw more of that ethnicity in those movies, but you never did. For these comics to be all about feeling inclusive to everyone, it really isn't these days.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

That also affects villains in a negative way. You can't keep beating a bigger bad. Eventually, you've created a scenario where the heroes are invincible and there are no stakes anymore or you have to come up with an absurd villain who exists solely because you needed someone worse than the previous worst dude ever to avert the first situation. This guy eats planets? Oh yeah, well this guy eats galaxies. Just wait until you see the guy who eats time itself!

The only setting where I've seen that used somewhat effectively is Warhammer 40k, but that's kind of cheating when the fundamental underpinning of the world is that everyone is freakishly overpowered and nobody will ever win, they'll just rape and murder even more spectacularly.

Look at the Infinity war stuff, they erased half of the heroes, but you know it's lame because they'll be back, one of the most powerful weapons on earth is not powerful enough for whatever weak scapegoat they use to reverse it all.

I just hate terribly written villains or even villains that are well known that are easily beaten. It's just not a satisfying ending to any movie or show for me. I'd love to read a comic book or watch a movie where the bad guy is the one you root for.

Well, Joker comes out later this year, so maybe we will.

 

[Brandinho]

You'd think, in Hollywood, that with over a billion asian and indian folks would mean you saw more of that ethnicity in those movies, but you never did. For these comics to be all about feeling inclusive to everyone, it really isn't these days.

Here's what drives me up the wall about inclusivity in Hollywood: people talk about wanting authentic black heroes, but nobody ever wants to actually design an authentic black hero. They just want to take characters who are canonically white and change that. I'm so sick of hearing about how Idris Elba would be the perfect James Bond. No, he wouldn't. He'd be an awful James Bond. He might be a great _insert secret agent character written with him in mind_, but nobody ever seems to ask for that. It feels like a situation where you just end up insulting everybody out of laziness.

 

[Brandinho]

Look at the Infinity war stuff, they erased half of the heroes, but you know it's lame because they'll be back, one of the most powerful weapons on earth is not powerful enough for whatever weak scapegoat they use to reverse it all.

I just hate terribly written villains or even villains that are well known that are easily beaten. It's just not a satisfying ending to any movie or show for me. I'd love to read a comic book or watch a movie where the bad guy is the one you root for.

Well, Joker comes out later this year, so maybe we will.

I completely understand what you're saying. We haven't really had any memorable villains in popular movies for a long time. I'm trying to think of some examples, actually, but I'm drawing blanks.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Here's what drives me up the wall about inclusivity in Hollywood: people talk about wanting authentic black heroes, but nobody ever wants to actually design an authentic black hero. They just want to take characters who are canonically white and change that. I'm so sick of hearing about how Idris Elba would be the perfect James Bond. No, he wouldn't. He'd be an awful James Bond. He might be a great _insert secret agent character written with him in mind_, but nobody ever seems to ask for that. It feels like a situation where you just end up insulting everybody out of laziness.

I...want to hug you in a "Bro, finally someone gets me" type of moment.

This is exactly my biggest issue with Hollywood trying to push their narrative of more female characters and more "ethnic" characters. I want originality. There is absolutely no need to make a female version of a male character, make a f***ing female character from scratch and cast it with a female, no one is saying not to. But now Hollywood is actively ignoring male character driven anything's to keep pushing this female everything agenda, then every asian/white character is changed to a black character, why?

No, we don't need a transgender James Bond, no we don't need a black one.
Make a new character that is transgender in the James Bond world, make another agent that is black, in the James Bond world - What's that? You can have all 3 without f***ing up an iconic character? Oh shit, Hollywood...is that possible?

Also, while I like representation, especially since I am half, I like seeing more mixed ethnicity characters with mix ethnicity actors portraying them, because that is also what the world is, there are tons of people that are trying to identify with both sides, one thing I hate about Jordan Peele sometimes, is that, he ignores the fact that he's half white. I was raised to be 100% aware of both sides of my ethnicity, to not feel like I should feel closer to being black than I do for the half of my dna that isn't.

 

[LOGiK]

That also affects villains in a negative way. You can't keep beating a bigger bad. Eventually, you've created a scenario where the heroes are invincible and there are no stakes anymore or you have to come up with an absurd villain who exists solely because you needed someone worse than the previous worst dude ever to avert the first situation. This guy eats planets? Oh yeah, well this guy eats galaxies. Just wait until you see the guy who eats time itself!

The only setting where I've seen that used somewhat effectively is Warhammer 40k, but that's kind of cheating when the fundamental underpinning of the world is that everyone is freakishly overpowered and nobody will ever win, they'll just rape and murder even more spectacularly.

The whole 'good guys vs bad guys' thing is utter nonsense. Even being brainwashed into it as an 80's kid and again with these comic book movies. There really is no good and bad per se. Someone might be greedy, don't make them bad. Anyway, what does these self righteous never-do-wrong hero people do all day anyway? Nothing 'bad'? So stupid. Nobody ever goes into a war saying, men, we are the bad guys.
There are evil rotten psycho people don't get me wrong. But even so, everything in life is mostly if not all grey area, than good and bad. It just doesn't suit narrative to push the human herd into that direction.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

I completely understand what you're saying. We haven't really had any memorable villains in popular movies for a long time. I'm trying to think of some examples, actually, but I'm drawing blanks.

The only one I can think of is Heath Ledger as Joker.

I am trying to think of more...

 

[Ogrezilla]

I loved Logan because of that, because it was a "there were consequences that were not easily fixed" to the incident that led them to where they were in that time line. It makes the rest of the X-Men movies, thankfully, unwatchable because that is how that whole franchise should have ended.

Eh. X2, First Class, and Days of Future Past are all good movies. Not as good as Logan, but good. The original was fine, it just really doesn't hold up. The Wolverine is okay but the end sucks. X3, Apocalypse, and Wolverine Origins are all just awful though. I don't know how anyone thought making Phoenix a subplot was a good idea

I absolutely hate the whole build up of a villain or talk about consequences and then you're let down for the most part.

I think in terms of the big picture Marvel has done a pretty good job with consequences so far. Not much in terms of death, but they have had a very steady development of the world. I kind of view most of it so far as development of Tony and Steve. I just hate when people think death is the only possible consequence. The only times I've really been disappointed with a lack of consequences is from Iron Man 3. Honestly it's like they just ignored that movie as soon as they finished it. I just kind of pretend it didn't happen because that's what the movies did.

As someone that is the king of untimely jokes, I am not a fan of them when you seriously do not need one at all, untimely or not.

Yep, they work for some characters and in some scenes, but sometimes you just need to let things stay serious or cool or whatever the scene is trying to do.

 

[Ogrezilla]

That also affects villains in a negative way. You can't keep beating a bigger bad. Eventually, you've created a scenario where the heroes are invincible and there are no stakes anymore or you have to come up with an absurd villain who exists solely because you needed someone worse than the previous worst dude ever to avert the first situation. This guy eats planets? Oh yeah, well this guy eats galaxies. Just wait until you see the guy who eats time itself!

The only setting where I've seen that used somewhat effectively is Warhammer 40k, but that's kind of cheating when the fundamental underpinning of the world is that everyone is freakishly overpowered and nobody will ever win, they'll just rape and murder even more spectacularly.

yeah they feel the need to one up what they've done before. It's really not necessary.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Look at the Infinity war stuff, they erased half of the heroes, but you know it's lame because they'll be back, one of the most powerful weapons on earth is not powerful enough for whatever weak scapegoat they use to reverse it all.

I just hate terribly written villains or even villains that are well known that are easily beaten. It's just not a satisfying ending to any movie or show for me. I'd love to read a comic book or watch a movie where the bad guy is the one you root for.

Well, Joker comes out later this year, so maybe we will.

I don't see why that's such a problem. Obviously they'll be back, but it's going to have an impact on the characters and the world.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Eh. X2, First Class, and Days of Future Past are all good movies. Not as good as Logan, but good. The original was fine, it just really doesn't hold up. The Wolverine is okay but the end sucks. X3, Apocalypse, and Wolverine Origins are all just awful though. I don't know how anyone thought making Phoenix a subplot was a good idea

I think in terms of the big picture Marvel has done a pretty good job with consequences so far. Not much in terms of death, but they have had a very steady development of the world. I kind of view most of it so far as development of Tony and Steve. I just hate when people think death is the only possible consequence. The only times I've really been disappointed with a lack of consequences is from Iron Man 3. Honestly it's like they just ignored that movie as soon as they finished it. I just kind of pretend it didn't happen because that's what the movies did.

Yep, they work for some characters and in some scenes, but sometimes you just need to let things stay serious or cool or whatever the scene is trying to do.

Infinity War touches on Iron Man 3, when Pepper points at his chest and he still wears "something" where the arc reactor in his chest used to be and that he suddenly didn't have an entire garage of suits anymore.

But yeah, the consequences was the Wachovia Accord, but even that...like "hey guys, you better turn yourselves in or else..........we'll just yell about it and do nothing!" You had Baron Zemo try to break them apart by some teen drama type of shenanigans.

Destroy a city? Just sort of mention you're fixing it, let the tv shows talk more about it than you do in movies, let the tv shows actually deal with that hate towards the heroes, not the movies. It goes for DC as well btw, yeah Superman destroying a city and his power and what not being why Batman is like yo, we gonna fight bro...but most of the problems with people not killing off characters is the Superman vs Doomsday, is only that boy scout f***er stayed dead when that comic was released in the early 90's...that single resurrection ruined so much about comics.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Here's what drives me up the wall about inclusivity in Hollywood: people talk about wanting authentic black heroes, but nobody ever wants to actually design an authentic black hero. They just want to take characters who are canonically white and change that. I'm so sick of hearing about how Idris Elba would be the perfect James Bond. No, he wouldn't. He'd be an awful James Bond. He might be a great _insert secret agent character written with him in mind_, but nobody ever seems to ask for that. It feels like a situation where you just end up insulting everybody out of laziness.

yeah I hate that too. I don't have a problem with Idris Elba playing someone like Heimdall because it really doesn't matter what race he is, but I don't really see how going out of your way to change the race of a character is better than making a new character most of the time. Same with things like Oceans 8 or the new Ghostbusters. Just make new movies with those same casts and basic characters. I remember people wanting Netflix/Marvel to cast an asian guy to play Iron Fist. At that point you aren't making Iron Fist. Being an outsider in both worlds is kind of the point.

 

[Ogrezilla]

The whole 'good guys vs bad guys' thing is utter nonsense. Even being brainwashed into it as an 80's kid and again with these comic book movies. There really is no good and bad per se. Someone might be greedy, don't make them bad. Anyway, what does these self righteous never-do-wrong hero people do all day anyway? Nothing 'bad'? So stupid. Nobody ever goes into a war saying, men, we are the bad guys.
There are evil rotten psycho people don't get me wrong. But even so, everything in life is mostly if not all grey area, than good and bad. It just doesn't suit narrative to push the human herd into that direction.

to be fair the Marvel movies are aware of this. It's pretty much the plot of Civil War. Captain America's whole basic character arc over all of these movies has been him realizing that the world isn't black and white. More movies could do a better job of it, but it's not something that is completely being ignored either.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Infinity War touches on Iron Man 3, when Pepper points at his chest and he still wears "something" where the arc reactor in his chest used to be and that he suddenly didn't have an entire garage of suits anymore.

But yeah, the consequences was the Wachovia Accord, but even that...like "hey guys, you better turn yourselves in or else..........we'll just yell about it and do nothing!" You had Baron Zemo try to break them apart by some teen drama type of shenanigans.

But he had the whole garage of suits in Ultron immediately following Iron Man 3. And the Accords came from Ultron, not IM3.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

I don't see why that's such a problem. Obviously they'll be back, but it's going to have an impact on the characters and the world.

I think the over saturation issue is with a lot of the Marvel characters, I think we've all just seen so much of them and seen them all go about as far as we'd like them to go or can stomach, with their character arc's. I mean, how much more do you want to see these guys before they all just go the way of Stark/Thor/Starlord and all turn into sarcastic wise asses.

Into The Spider-Verse is probably the best written thing Marvel has done in over a decade. A movie with Spider-Ham.

At this point, the only "world" I want to see explored more is the one in John Wick. I am actually pretty pumped about the tv show and whatever other sequels they come up with, as long as they keep doing it the proper way they are doing it - with actual work put into a good script.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

to be fair the Marvel movies are aware of this. It's pretty much the plot of Civil War. Captain America's whole basic character arc over all of these movies has been him realizing that the world isn't black and white. More movies could do a better job of it, but it's not something that is completely being ignored either.

I agree, I think the Captain America series of movies they've made have done a better job of making very good comic book movies over the other ones they've released.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Destroy a city? Just sort of mention you're fixing it, let the tv shows talk more about it than you do in movies, let the tv shows actually deal with that hate towards the heroes, not the movies. It goes for DC as well btw, yeah Superman destroying a city and his power and what not being why Batman is like yo, we gonna fight bro...but most of the problems with people not killing off characters is the Superman vs Doomsday, is only that boy scout ****er stayed dead when that comic was released in the early 90's...that single resurrection ruined so much about comics.

My real problem there was that they even had Doomsday in that movie to begin with. Let Batman vs Superman stand on it's own. And I don't think having the whole "Bucky killed my mom" was great for Civil War either. They should have been fighting over their actual beliefs at the end, not that. I still liked the movie, but I didn't like that bit of reasoning for the fight. Better to just pretend that Tony felt obligated to bring in Bucky.