Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase Three and BEYOOOOONND

[Ternaugh]

1 hour ago, Bazza said:

*Note to self: When Timothy Dalton is cast in a Marvel Studios film/D+ series to consult Ternaugh to see if the MCU has jumped the shark* 

 

The Rocketeer is available on D+, so we're partway there.

[Bazza]

 

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

 

The key Bond tropes are womanizing, gadgets, glamor/tuxedos, exotic locations, and action.  The first two have to be strongly adjusted in 2021 (though Casino Royale went a long way towards flipping the womanizing trope).  Craig-Bond has been a little short in the high society area, though he does get to dress up at least once an episode.

Cheers. 

[Bazza]

1 hour ago, Ternaugh said:

 

The Rocketeer is available on D+, so we're partway there.

Doesn’t count. 1) No Marvel Studios involvement/production, 2) Dalton is inconsequential to the issues surrounding the production of that film. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

However in many ways, the tropes that make Bond, Bond are dated in today's culture (different norms). 

 

Were I to be in charge of Bond movies, I'd reboot them entirely and do them as retro pieces, set in the time period and culture Ian Fleming wrote them in.

[Ternaugh]

9 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Were I to be in charge of Bond movies, I'd reboot them entirely and do them as retro pieces, set in the time period and culture Ian Fleming wrote them in.

 

That would make product placement extremely difficult.

[IndianaJoe3]

9 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Were I to be in charge of Bond movies, I'd reboot them entirely and do them as retro pieces, set in the time period and culture Ian Fleming wrote them in.

 

26 minutes ago, Ternaugh said:

 

That would make product placement extremely difficult.

 

Vintage cars look better anyway.

[Greywind]

That was why they pulled the Aston-Martin out of storage for Skyfall.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

That was why they pulled the Aston-Martin out of storage for Skyfall.

 

Partly, yeah.  Partly it was that they recognized the previous Bond films had been such a departure from the series that they wanted to bring fans back with the old standards so he felt more like Bond than Jason Bourne

[slikmar]

Besides scripts, which were bad, the other problem Dalton had (and he, like Craig really played a lot closer to the personality of the books Bond), was that after Moore, there was a big hype over the potential casting of Brosnan, coming off a successful run on Remington Steele, being cast as Bond. Then, because of the hype, the RS showrunners decided to renew for another season blocking Pierce from actually playing Bond. I liked Brosnan as Bond and would love to have seen him start that run 8 years younger, like it appeared he would. On the other hand, the scripts were so bad that it may have been better for him to wait until Goldeneye.

[zslane]

13 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Were I to be in charge of Bond movies, I'd reboot them entirely and do them as retro pieces, set in the time period and culture Ian Fleming wrote them in.

 

I feel the same way about Batman. Were I to be in charge of Batman movies, I'd reboot them entirely and do them as retro pieces, set in the time period and culture Kane & Finger wrote them in.

[Spence]

16 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Were I to be in charge of Bond movies, I'd reboot them entirely and do them as retro pieces, set in the time period and culture Ian Fleming wrote them in.

 

4 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Partly, yeah.  Partly it was that they recognized the previous Bond films had been such a departure from the series that they wanted to bring fans back with the old standards so he felt more like Bond than Jason Bourne

 

2 hours ago, zslane said:

 

I feel the same way about Batman. Were I to be in charge of Batman movies, I'd reboot them entirely and do them as retro pieces, set in the time period and culture Kane & Finger wrote them in.

 

3 hours ago, slikmar said:

 I liked Brosnan as Bond and would love to have seen him start that run 8 years younger, like it appeared he would. On the other hand, the scripts were so bad that it may have been better for him to wait until Goldeneye.

 

100% agreement.  I have enjoyed movies set in the original period far more than any movie that was "modernized" in order for audiences to understand, because we all know the modern audience is extremely stupid and barely literate.  Everyone has to understand that the purpose of the modern movie is not entertainment, it is to push whatever agenda that the maker has decided they will uplift the mentally slow public from their pit of ignorance. 

 

I believe the MCU has entered a nose dive and will crater in the next year or so.  While people keep referring to the old successful movies, they are ignoring the last year or so.  They are also ignoring the MCU as a whole and how the emphasis has been totally redirected from entertainment and bringing the character to life to bludgeoning the peons with whatever, and maybe add some entertainment. 

 

Look at the MCU in the last few years.

 

Ant-Man and the Wasp 2018  - Ant-man relegated to bumbling sidekick
Captain Marvel 2019 - rewrote character into snide a$$ and then doubled down on vilifying half the potential audience with arrogance.
Avengers: Endgame 2019 - not much they could do at this late stage but were sure to add a "mens stupid, look! the women will handle it" image that did nothing for the story. Pure political agenda entry.
Spider-Man: Far From Home 2019 - Surprisingly avoided a jarring agenda insert.  You can find things if you feel the need and spend time, but the movie was just a movie overall. 

WandaVision 2021 - Completely deviates from the storyline at the end to avoid the toxic evil white man and then proudly proclaimed the reason.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 2021 - never ending drum beat of "white man bad"

 

The MCU was so great because it was entertainment.  Now that they have decided they have a higher calling and are moving forward to "reeducate" people it will fall off.  I went to see Captain Marvel because I had always thought the character was kick-ass based on the comics I had read.  Of course I stopped reading them in the early 90's so I was surprised at Captain Marvel being so wimpy gullible personality'wise they had written the character.  I was really confused as to what they were trying to accomplish character'wise right up until I watched interviews where she spoke.  There was a time where the studios understood that some people just shouldn't speak in public if you wanted to sell the product.  Actors are profession make believe people.  They make believe they are someone they are not.  Make-believe.  I never believed that Robert Downy Jr was a genius inventor.   Not one moment. 

 

Here is a dose of hard reality.  If you select a portion of the population and define them as genetically evil "just because" and then load that into your product.  The vast number of that portion of the population will not buy it as soon as they realize what you are doing.  2018 was the beginning and not only has the overall audience seen it, but they have had the change reinforced by the streaming shows.  Much like the Oscars cratering as they honored virtually unknown films and used 90% of the show to proselytize.   Hollywood has also begun to see it.  Sure, the floor hasn't fallen in completely, but they have been adding bricks instead of straws and it won't be long.  The MCU is on the cusp and we will see in the next year or so what they do.  I am really looking forward to Black Widow.  But at the same time I am dreading it.  I am hoping that it was mostly made before they decided that agenda was more important than entertainment, but we will see.

 

US comics are in dire straights and no matte3r how they spin it it is getting worse.  Earlier this month I saw that the US graphic novel sales (comics + any other graphic style) was 15 million for the period.  While Demon Slayer sold over 100 million alone in the same period.

 

Another article showed the Demon Slayer line selling 385 million books in the period (I think this was a quarter and I'd have to go find the article) as opposed to Batman's 88,000.  Batman!  My favorite comic character can only muster 88,000? 

 

But then comics have long abandoned being rip roaring action and adventure in favor of being agenda driven.  With many of the writer telling their fans to get stuffed if they don't like it.  Good way to say good bye to their dollars.  Of course I see the constant comic editorials by DC, Marvel and such claiming that things are great.  The other day I read an article claiming comic store were going gangbusters lately.  I dropped by my local comic shop, actually a comic, gaming, collectable shop and ask him how things were going.  His is the last comic shop in a hundred miles.  And they were right, he has been doing great.  But it wasn't any of the current comics.  Business is being driven by collectables, old comic issues and manga.  When I looked at the shelf (and he maintains a fairly substantial number of shelves with trades) I did notice that the older run prints were sparse.  I also noticed that a good half of the floor dedicated to books was now manga.   His section of current titles were far less populated.  I remember at least 10 or more copies per issue filling the shelves, now it is maybe 3 or 4.  And he is down to one "draw cabinet" rather than the three from last year.

 

Things have really changed and I hope the US comic industry will realize that twitter really does not represent people that actually buy things and get back to being an industry that is there to entertain.

 

/rant

 

 

 

 

 

[archer]

31 minutes ago, Spence said:

 

 

 

 

100% agreement.  I have enjoyed movies set in the original period far more than any movie that was "modernized" in order for audiences to understand, because we all know the modern audience is extremely stupid and barely literate.  Everyone has to understand that the purpose of the modern movie is not entertainment, it is to push whatever agenda that the maker has decided they will uplift the mentally slow public from their pit of ignorance. 

 

I believe the MCU has entered a nose dive and will crater in the next year or so.  While people keep referring to the old successful movies, they are ignoring the last year or so.  They are also ignoring the MCU as a whole and how the emphasis has been totally redirected from entertainment and bringing the character to life to bludgeoning the peons with whatever, and maybe add some entertainment. 

 

Look at the MCU in the last few years.

 

Ant-Man and the Wasp 2018  - Ant-man relegated to bumbling sidekick
Captain Marvel 2019 - rewrote character into snide a$$ and then doubled down on vilifying half the potential audience with arrogance.
Avengers: Endgame 2019 - not much they could do at this late stage but were sure to add a "mens stupid, look! the women will handle it" image that did nothing for the story. Pure political agenda entry.
Spider-Man: Far From Home 2019 - Surprisingly avoided a jarring agenda insert.  You can find things if you feel the need and spend time, but the movie was just a movie overall. 

WandaVision 2021 - Completely deviates from the storyline at the end to avoid the toxic evil white man and then proudly proclaimed the reason.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 2021 - never ending drum beat of "white man bad"

 

 

I haven't seen WandaVision or Falcon and the Winter Soldier to be able to comment on their message.

 

Carol Danvers as Ms. Marvel was developed to be a feminist icon and was portrayed at having a chip on her shoulder about gender issues more often than not. That's not the way I would have chosen to take the Captain Marvel character, but it's generally in line with the portrayal of the character in the comics.

 

Endgame importing the Captain Marvel character with her over-the-top power levels meant she was going to overshadow some of the lesser-powered characters, even if they'd toned down the (gender) chip on her shoulder aspects of her character.

 

As for Ant-Man and the Wasp, even in the Ant-Man movie, he was played for laughs. In his appearance in Civil War, he was played for laughs.

 

In Ant-Man and the Wasp, after having a few months experience with the suit then no experience with the suit for two years, he was paired up with the Wasp who had more than a decade of experience with the suit. 

 

Even if the Ant-Man character hadn't already been played for laughs in two other movies, the person with more experience in the suit SHOULD have been the person who was more competent in the suit.

 

The only reason Hank recruited Scott to be Ant-Man in the first place instead of letting Hope do it was that Hank was being over-protective of her.

 

(Personally if I were doing the Ant-Man and Wasp characters, I'd have done Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne. Let Hank be the obsessed genius and Janet be the wealthy, fashion-conscious, and somewhat ditzy heiress who financed his dreams. But I'd guess that Marvel didn't want to deal with "is this version of Hank going to turn into a wife-beater because the writers want to highlight domestic abuse and this is one of the few married couples we have" speculation.)

 

 

Personally, I highly dislike the negative "gender in your face" which you get in pop culture and advertising.

 

But I haven't seen it in Marvel movies except where it's been appropriate for one character's personality and in one appropriate situation.

[Bazza]

@Spence Arguably WandaVision could be considered to “market” transhumanism. Secondly, one of the few Phase 4 projects without an agenda (so far) is Dr Strange 2. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Comic Books have rarely been profitable for... um, a long time now.  They're a net loss for their owners kept only for plot and character ideas.  They come up with stuff that the movie makes and TV show guys use.

 

Its the marketing stuff, the figures and jammies and tee shirts, and so on that make money, not the comic books themselves.  Well, that and movies, tv etc but I'm referring strictly to Marvel and DC Comics, not the studios.

 

Quote

Personally if I were doing the Ant-Man and Wasp characters, I'd have done Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne. Let Hank be the obsessed genius and Janet be the wealthy, fashion-conscious, and somewhat ditzy heiress who financed his dreams.

 

Me too, but they specifically said they avoided that because of the wife beating thing.  What's hilarious, in a twisted way, about that was that it was the artist who misunderstood the script they were given.  Hank was only supposed to shove Janet, not belt her one.  But once the editors saw the page they thought "hey, this is interesting" and away things spiraled.

 

And they were right, it was interesting, but also kinda grim and did besmirch an otherwise interesting character.  I loved the interpretation they gave him in Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but that whole show was pretty much wall to wall quality and excellence.

[zslane]

The advice writers always get is "write what you know". A lot of what comes out of Hollywood seems decidedly narrow in (intellectual) scope and immature in perspective. I think that age old bit of advice succinctly explains why.

[Spence]

21 hours ago, archer said:

 

I haven't seen WandaVision or Falcon and the Winter Soldier to be able to comment on their message.

 

Carol Danvers as Ms. Marvel was developed to be a feminist icon and was portrayed at having a chip on her shoulder about gender issues more often than not. That's not the way I would have chosen to take the Captain Marvel character, but it's generally in line with the portrayal of the character in the comics.

 

 

--snip--

 

 

 

Personally, I highly dislike the negative "gender in your face" which you get in pop culture and advertising.

 

But I haven't seen it in Marvel movies except where it's been appropriate for one character's personality and in one appropriate situation.

 

Well, I can't speak to many of these, mostly because I stopped in the early 90's when IMO they all got creatively bankrupt and turned to rehashing old story lines instead of creating.  But that is another tale

 

I had to resort to wiki to reorganize my memories and it looks like I wasn't even thinking of Carol Danvers at all.  But Monica Rambeau (maybe???) who was the second Cap Marvel in the 80's before returning the mantel to Captain Marvel's son in the early 90's at about when I stopped reading.  

 

The biggest reason I disliked the BS in the latest Captain Marvel is that the idea of the Heroes Journey and their struggle to gain their powers was absent.  The female Heroes in the past all made the journey into power and gained the respect of their peers because they deserved it.   Pretty much all the new comic stuff (movies and books) I have seen so far that have female Heroes (specifically not including Black Widow, Sif or GotG) all beat the 2x4 to the head that they are the bestest of all because they are women and the only thing holding them down is "the evil mens". 

 

The Marvel movie didn't portray a powerful Heroine coming to her power, instead she was a oblivious dup that was being lead on and controlled by a con.  And not even a good con.  Finally after multiple massively obvious clues are dropped on her head, sometimes repeatedly, she notices "something isn't right".   Even after she is freed to pursue her own goals, she still conducts herself as an arrogant spoiled brat with power. 

 

As for Ant-man.  Yes, his part was to add humor.  But there is a sharp contrast in the appearances.  In the his other appearances (not Ant-man and the Wasp) he was portrayed as a guy who didn't know what he didn't know.  Not stupid but out of his depth who in spite of it always tried to do the right thing and never gave up.  The humor was more tasteful and more reminiscent of the Hulk/Thor interaction in Avengers.  You laughed, but not as much at him as the situation.  Ant-man and the Wasp just dropped the pretense and it became "man bad, ug".

 

Of course everyone has their take, but for the last 5 years Hollywood and their political action arm has made sure I've been buried under the never ending drum that I am genetically evil by birth.  And the MCU has made some sharp turns in that direction recently.  Black Widow was in the can before they jerked the wheel, so I hope it will still be good.  But I don't think they will be getting too much of my money in the next few years.  And we are already seeing the result of vilifying two of the larger demographics as evil, the caucasian and men as a whole. The comic industry went in hard and fast with many of the writers actually stating that they didn't want "people like that", ie White or Men, to buy their works.  Now the industry is hovering on bankruptcy and bumping prices to insane amounts per unit with sale plummeting.  When you look at the the sale figures they are touting as "good", once you realize that they are including manga in the total and the comic only numbers are dismal, you realize just how poor things are. 

 

Hollywood knows this, which is one of the reasons they recently have been publicly saying that there is not real connection between movies and the comics anymore.

The sad thing is that at the very same time they are embracing the very thing that killed the comic. 

 

I enjoyed reading Mark Millar's realization that Twitter doesn't actually represent more than microscopic portion of people and certainly not the people that pay money for anything.

Anyone that actually thinks Twitter is a good way to gauge public opinion has far worse personal issues than worrying about entertainment.  

 

I truly hope I am wrong, but I am pretty sure we are seeing the beginning of the end of the MCU as they shift from entertainment to activism.  It isn't too late if they just go back to bringing superheroes to the screen based on their original works.  To be safe they should just consider anything after 1995 as not existing.  But they won't, being the smartest people in America they will embrace their sacred truths and put them "evil mens" in their place. 

 

[Greywind]

Compare Danvers to Maverick in Top Gun. There's a lot of similarities in their arrogance and confidence. But it's okay for Maverick because he's a guy and not okay for Danvers?

[Old Man]

20 minutes ago, Greywind said:

Compare Danvers to Maverick in Top Gun. There's a lot of similarities in their arrogance and confidence. But it's okay for Maverick because he's a guy and not okay for Danvers?

 

I see this dynamic over and over, even in real life.  It comes up a lot in women's sports.  As just one example, people jumped all over Danica Patrick for being a cocky and self centered auto racer, even though you pretty much have to be cocky and self centered to even make it to the grid in auto racing.  And many of the people being critical were women.

 

To address another point, I don't see the MCU shifting to activism so much as shifting away from the egregious whitewashing that plagued early comics.  And it's not as though comics themselves haven't been activist since the seventies if not earlier.

 

 

[Spence]

23 minutes ago, Greywind said:

Compare Danvers to Maverick in Top Gun. There's a lot of similarities in their arrogance and confidence. But it's okay for Maverick because he's a guy and not okay for Danvers?

 

Not at all. 

 

Maverick was an a$$hat in the beginning and wasn't liked at all by pretty much everyone except the backseater.   He alienated pretty much everyone and even killed his best friend. That arrogant version of Maverick is not what a real combat pilot is.  There is a difference between "arrogant" and "aggressively confident".  In the movie Maverick was on the edge of losing his commission and being kicked out but was given a last chance at redemption.  Not because they CO wanted to, but because the situation forced him to.  It was a twist on the Hero's Journey.  In other words the Maverick you are citing was the "bad do not be like this jerk" version of the character before he understood his real purpose. 

 

Like many Hollywood types (as well as many civilians) their concept of the military is actually parody itself.  They applied their "not correct" concept of what a military pilot was to Carol Danvers.  The issue is her character was never shown the Hero's Journey and they completely misinterpreted the concept of "aggressive competence" with arrogance.  I have been around military aircrew my entire adult life and there is a vast difference between the Hollywood idea and reality. 

 

But back to Captain Marvel, I really can't say if the personality and character of the character Carol Danvers followed the comic closely or not, but they had her glomp on to every bad stereotype of a military pilot and then never even tried to have her become the Hero in the end. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Compare Danvers to Maverick in Top Gun. There's a lot of similarities in their arrogance and confidence.

 

Not really.  This comes up a lot online but its pretty inaccurate.  Captain Marvel is sneering at times, and humorless, never happy or showing any excitement in what she does.  Maverick was having a blast and brought you along with him, and never treated anyone with contempt.   A much closer equivalence would be Sigourney Weaver in Aliens 4, where she's super competent yet charismatic and likable.

 

It wasn't confidence that was the problem.  It was a humorless lack of charisma and likability.  It was a lack of any challenge and treating everyone and everything like they were dirt beneath her fingernails.  Except women, who she was generally nice to (other than the Skrull woman).

 

And honestly this pretense that women and men are utterly equivalent in action and mood is ludicrous.  What works well for a woman might not for a man, and vice versa.

 

*EDIT: and as Spence points out, Maverick undergoes a change, starting from arrogant and cocky to more disciplined and sober.  Captain Marysue doesn't change because she's "perfect" to start with.

[archer]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

  What works well for a woman might not for a man, and vice versa.

 

To me, it depends on what is meant by "works well".

 

In my personal opinion, men and women ought to be judged exactly the same. If a man behaves in some manner and that's accepted, a woman ought to be able to behave in exactly the same manner and her behavior be similarly accepted. And vice versa.

 

However, that isn't the world we live in.

 

It's not going to "work well" for a woman to behave as if she's a man in some situations and vice versa because the people around them will judge them harshly for that behavior (even though in my opinion they shouldn't).

 

I mean, the person who is doing the behavior can shrug off the opinions of others or pretend they don't care about the opinions of others. But it's still going to create extra effort for them because of the reaction of others. So in that sense, it isn't going to work well for them, it's just going to be work.

 

(And I'll freely admit that I sometimes struggle to live up to my ideal and have to check my initial reaction at times in order to stand back and be more objective.)

 

 

"It wasn't confidence that was the problem.  It was a humorless lack of charisma and likability.  It was a lack of any challenge and treating everyone and everything like they were dirt beneath her fingernails.  Except women, who she was generally nice to (other than the Skrull woman)."

 

I don't have a problem with the confidence or even the lack of charisma and likability (which is an odd choice for a lead movie character but there are people like that IRL who I've had to tolerate).

 

I've even dealt with a lot of people IRL who treated people like dirt.

 

I went at one point from a job with "a boss who hated everyone and who actively tried to make all his employees miserable" to "a Jewish boss who actively hated Christians who were religious and went out of his way to gleefully dump on them" to a job with "a black boss who openly admitted to me that she downgraded me on employee reviews because of my race and that she gave better grades to black employees because they were black and to female employees because they were female".

 

I had a lot less philosophical problem with the boss who was terrible to everyone than I did with the boss who hated religious Christians or the boss who actively discriminated based on race...even though at the time I was a religious Christian and that later I happened to be the race which was being actively discriminated against.

 

 

If a female Captain Marvel acted superior to everyone and treated everyone like they were dirt beneath her fingernails, that's far better in my opinion than her treating men one way then women another way. I don't find that behavior to be entertaining. (And I probably wouldn't find it entertaining even if I hadn't had long-term life experiences on the short end of the stick.)

[slikmar]

I thought, when they showed the flashbacks of Carol in movie she did seem to be enjoying herself and having fun, especially with her friend. Her time with the Kree was spent being beaten down and told to control her emotions, constantly, because they knew that she had this power and were afraid of it.

As for Maverick, saving everyone doing what everyone the whole time said he was best at, did not make him no longer a jerk. The fact we don't really see him after that point, iirc as has been awhile since I saw movie, does not show a change in him, other then the feeling of loss he had for his friend dying.

[Ranxerox]

3 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

It wasn't confidence that was the problem.  It was a humorless lack of charisma and likability.  It was a lack of any challenge and treating everyone and everything like they were dirt beneath her fingernails.  Except women, who she was generally nice to (other than the Skrull woman).

 

 

Charisma and likability are subjective.  I found her likable enough and a number of female movie critics whose reviews I read found her more likable and relatable than Wonder Woman.

 

As treating everyone except women like dirt, no.  The character that she forms the strongest bond with is Samuel Jackson's Nick Fury, who is very definitely male.  The people that she "treats like dirt" are those who try to push her around or take advantage of her.

[Ranxerox]

7 hours ago, Spence said:

But back to Captain Marvel, I really can't say if the personality and character of the character Carol Danvers followed the comic closely or not, but they had her glomp on to every bad stereotype of a military pilot and then never even tried to have her become the Hero in the end. 

 

Captain Marvel isn't trying to realistically portray military pilots; it is very deliberately evoking the action movies of nineties including and especially Top Gun.  

 

By the end of the movie, she has regrounded herself by renewing her connection to those closest to her, has claimed her full power, has seen through the lies told to her, overcome her hatred of Skrulls and has set out to rescue the Skrull species from extermination.   That sounds like a Hero to me.

[Greywind]