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Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase Three and BEYOOOOONND


Bazza

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I'd say if DC wants to hop on the bandwagon and try to attract the African-American audience, perhaps a decently-executed solo Cyborg film squeezed in somewhere among the eleventy-three prospective movies starring Harley Quinn's booty shorts might be a good idea. Ray Fisher's performance in Justice League was one of its highlights, and they'd have Joe Morton as the second lead, which puts such a film on firmer ground than the announced solo efforts for Aquadudebro or Speedy Aspergers.

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Wonder Woman only pulled in half of what Black Panther did. Being a good movie that "breaks ground" by tapping some previously untapped demographic is not enough to replicate the kind of success Marvel movies enjoy. There is this fallacy in Hollywood that you can identify the one thing that made a movie a huge hit and then use that to "replicate" its success. Continued belief in this fallacy will lead to more Justice Leagues in the future as studios like WB attempt to make their own version of something another studio did better because of a long list of critical factors which they disregard as irrelevant.

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14 minutes ago, zslane said:

Wonder Woman only pulled in half of what Black Panther did. Being a good movie that "breaks ground" by tapping some previously untapped demographic is not enough to replicate the kind of success Marvel movies enjoy. There is this fallacy in Hollywood that you can identify the one thing that made a movie a huge hit and then use that to "replicate" its success. Continued belief in this fallacy will lead to more Justice Leagues in the future as studios like WB attempt to make their own version of something another studio did better because of a long list of critical factors which they disregard as irrelevant.

 

I do agree with this. I can just imagine how much money Wonder Woman would have made, had it been a Marvel property. (It would fit right in, no problem, as it was showing within the confines of that movie itself.) If WW had the Marvel label, it had the general good will that comes with Marvel's track record, if it could ride the wave of "Yes! Another one!" instead of fighting the "Ugh, not another one..." attitude, if it was part of the best things Marvel does, which is allow movies to be their own thing and be able to flex from the formula... I think it would likely have done even better.

 

Man... now I want Marvel to retcon Wonder Woman into their MCU, and can't wait to see her "come out of retirement" to lead the Amazons against Thanos... sigh...

 

I also wonder if Marvel benefits from "FIRST!" because they were able to get their "meh" movies out, and work through how to do a connected universe... while the whole idea was still fresh. People still flocked to early movies, despite some less than stellar entries, because they were doing something new, and it was mostly working. DCEU comes along, and people are simply less inclined to tolerate mediocrity, let alone flat-out-bad, because it isn't new, and the audience doesn't need to go through the learning and development process again.

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Wonder Woman only pulled in half of what Black Panther did. Being a good movie that "breaks ground" by tapping some previously untapped demographic is not enough to replicate the kind of success Marvel movies enjoy.

 

Well the problem is Wonder Woman was put out by DC, who has a reputation for putting out lousy misery fasts.  The rep of the studio and their incompetence hurt Wonder Woman's sales considerably.  Plus, that was their first real effort at this marketing tactic, so it wasn't quite as effective.

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I agree, Matt. This first go-around for Black Panther (in his own movie) really has been lightning in a bottle, so to speak, and I wouldn't expect even Marvel to be able to replicate its success. As they say, you can only have a "first time experience" once. That's why WB is doomed in any attempt to replicate BP's success by fast-tracking a black superhero of their own in a solo film; that bubble of pent-up demand has been burst, and it is unlikely to ever inflate to that frenzied degree again.

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55 minutes ago, Bazza said:

That is what happens when you are a pioneer. You break new ground. Some would say it is an historic moment. 

 

;) 

 

Or you couid say it is just what normally happens when you have a good cast with a good script and director that had a familiarity with the source material while still understanding a movie isn't a comic.  Oh and not needlessly pandering.  Black Panther was a great movie because it was well made.  The Superman movies sucked because they didn't portray the Superman we knew.

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1 hour ago, zslane said:

I agree, Matt. This first go-around for Black Panther (in his own movie) really has been lightning in a bottle, so to speak, and I wouldn't expect even Marvel to be able to replicate its success. As they say, you can only have a "first time experience" once. That's why WB is doomed in any attempt to replicate BP's success by fast-tracking a black superhero of their own in a solo film; that bubble of pent-up demand has been burst, and it is unlikely to ever inflate to that frenzied degree again.

So, they obviously need a different type. So fast track a Lightray movie or a Batwoman (to characters who are gay). Then, being WB, get a writer and director who are clearly Neanderthals (sorry to insult Neanderthals) that believe being gay is wrong to do the movie so the main character can learn by the end of the movie to change their orientation.

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31 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

And from that excellent article...

"I would argue every single one of these movies loses its nerve when it comes to truly exploring these thematic questions, but that they’re even interested in asking those questions is a big step up from a lot of superhero cinema."

 

Which reflects my motivation as a GM and using Hero to create a "super world."  I may fail to really examine every possible nuance of what how supers might actually address real issues, but I will ask the questions.

 

"The very idea of a superhero, someone whose very being is just better than everybody else, carries certain fascistic overtones. After all, in a world with superpowered humans and other creatures, might literally could make right. The best superhero stories, consequently, are aware of this troubling undertone and either examine it or deconstruct it in interesting ways."

 

And this... so much this. I've basically found that the MCU is doing a much better job of telling the kind of superhero stories I want to experience, than the comics traditionally have.

 

edit: And this... "Perhaps that is inevitable. These are, after all, big-budget movies, created within the American studio system, designed to make as much money as possible. People don’t like to be told their way of life is unsustainable. But Marvel’s movies stand in for the United States in one other, deeply uncomfortable way: They’re interested in questioning themselves and what they stand for, but only to a certain point. Actually doing anything might mean having to change radically, might mean finally understanding all of the things broken inside the bright and shining city."

 

Because I don't logically expect Marvel movies to really tackle ramifications and change too deeply, but I do expect my games to try. Not always, and not always very well, but to definitely try examine what is broken, and how it might be changed, if not fixed.

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The very idea of a superhero, someone whose very being is just better than everybody else, carries certain fascistic overtones

 

Oh for crying out loud.  The idea of someone who is just better at things is... the heroic idea, which has been around since Hercules, and earlier. Its just a dream of someone who is so good they can deal with the injustice and evil in the world in a way we cannot but can dream about being (and play Champions to be!)

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Admittedly the legality of superheroes' actions is usually glossed over in the books.  The cops pick up a guy that Spidey has webbed up, but do they have any evidence to prosecute?  Peter Parker isn't going to show up to testify.  In fact there seems to be more evidence that Spider-Man has committed a crime here (kidnapping and/or assault).  What is Superman's immigration status?  Doesn't he violate customs laws anytime he flies over an international border?  What kind of visa is Wonder Woman on?  Is testimony compelled by the Lasso of Truth admissible in court?  What is the legality of involuntary mind reading?  Who is liable for all the damage in Man of Steel?  Et cetera.

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Some older news that hasn't been posted here yet. 

 

Thor's VFX Supervisor Really Wants To Use Beta Ray Bill, And We're So On Board

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2315722/thors-vfx-supervisor-really-wants-to-use-beta-ray-bill-and-were-so-on-board

Is James Gunn Giving Mark Hamill A Role In Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3?

A: No. Fan asked Gunn to find a role for Hamill who lives in his neighbourhood and the out of work actor and friendly neighbour exchanged contact info to discuss the upcoming film over coffee. 

 

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12 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Oh for crying out loud.  The idea of someone who is just better at things is... the heroic idea, which has been around since Hercules, and earlier. Its just a dream of someone who is so good they can deal with the injustice and evil in the world in a way we cannot but can dream about being (and play Champions to be!)

 

Fascism is obsessed with notions of rebirth, notions of victimhood and notions of superiority... all of which are found as underlying themes of supers. Comics are full of the righteous individual who is "reborn" after suffering some kind of tragedy, and becomes better than everyone else, using the power to operate outside the law as a self-appointed doer of good (and they get to define what good is.)  All of that simmers in the background of most supers, and what is referred to as the Iron Age is when that bubbled to the top, and the power fantasy of bad-ass, male aggression, but it has always been there. Just because an adolescent "dream of someone who is so good they can deal with the injustice and evil" isrelatively innocent and naïve in many cases, doesn't make it less similar to the populist concepts that give rise to fascism. 

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The very idea of a superhero, someone whose very being is just

better than everybody else, carries certain fascistic overtones.

 

I think I'd have used "possibilities" rather than "overtones."

 

12 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Oh for crying out loud.  The idea of someone who is just better at things is... the heroic idea, which has been around since Hercules, and earlier. Its just a dream of someone who is so good they can deal with the injustice and evil in the world in a way we cannot but can dream about being (and play Champions to be!)

 

There is a running pseudo-gag, sub-theme in my Champions game about the slippery slope the heroes find themselves on when using their powers / abilities to break the law for the "greater good."  For instance, Malarkey is often asked by his teammates to hack into traffic / security cameras or government / corporate computers for information to solve crimes, and Circe uses her mental powers, most notably Telepathy, on unwilling minds with general abandon.  Shadow Boxer uses his "Shadow Sight" to spy on places and Pops teleports them into private property without benefit of a warrant.  In their minds, stopping the bad guys absolves the heroes of all manner of crimes. 

 

Of seven superheroes, only two have actually registered with the government to have official sanction -- and one of them (Circe) did so only after creating a false identity to use for the sanction.

 

As GM, I'm probably just as guilty of creating the slippery slope, since I put the heroes into situations where they feel compelled to cross the line to save lives and stop the evildoers' plots. 

 

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Replying to LL's article:

#1 History is filled with supermen and superwomen. Eg Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Hypatia, St Aquinas, St Bonaventure, St Joan of Arc, Leo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Gandhi to name some, and none of them I'd consider remotely fascist. His point makes sense using super-people in a fictional sense, not a historical sense.

#2 "Spider-Man, famously, learns that with great power comes great responsibility, that just because you can use your power to do whatever you want, you probably shouldn’t, and the best stories about Wonder Woman are often about how she uses her powers to attempt to inspire humanity to be its best self."
Both are contained in the stories involving King Arthur / Matter of Britain. Eg: Who does the Grail serve? Giving is better than receiving, thus serving is better than receiving. 

#3 

"But beyond Loki, it’s a long cycle of crushing, bland figures with vague designs on world domination."

Look through the pages of history...they do! And we haven't even gone past the Roman civilisation; it alone could fill a whole book. The Roman Empire from Julius Ceasar onwards is just one military dictatorship after another. Flavius who was the founder of the second dynasty of Roman emperors was a commoner, so basically an example of what potentially could happen if The Vulture became Roman Emperor. Constantine The Great, another Roman with world domination in mind, and built Constantinople aka New Rome. Do I need to go on? Maybe I should be cheering for Marvel villains?

Also why the "third act" unlove by most reviewers? Did they not read about Rome's many civil wars? Caesar vs Pompey, Octavian vs Mark Antony, Constantine vs everyone else (3 of them). Roman history has many "third acts". The ending to Octavian vs Mark Antony involving Cleopatra is still talked about to this day. Maybe she needed CGI. (And yes I now want to* write a screenplay involving Roman history, but substitute superheroes in the roles. *if i could).

(Inspiration was a recent dock series on Channel 5 in the UK titled Eight Days That Made Rome. All the examples in the show involved warfare, either rebellion, civil war or imperial conquest. Except for Nero who was a different kind of Roman villain.)

 

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Mark Millar is not someone I'm particularly enamored of, but his comments here have an element of truth to them, IMO.

 

https://io9.gizmodo.com/mark-millar-has-an-interesting-about-theory-why-marvel-1823282223

 

The first part, about how DCs characters are about "their powers" and Marvel's are about "the character" really makes sense. One of the reasons Wonder Woman worked as a movie, is that it was about Diana, not "super strong, lasso of truthiness, god killer". She was extremely relatable to many movie-goers... the way the new Peter Parker or Steve Rogers or Natasha Romanov (as portrayed in the movies) really connect with the audience.

 

The more I think about it, the character they've chosen to portray in DC... the big 3, Aquadude, Flash, Cyborg... none of them ever really connected with me as a reader... Cyborg being the closest, and Flash only once it was Wally West (post-Crisis). Now, if they'd been forced (as Marvel was) to use B-list characters... maybe a Nightwing, Raven, Black Lightning (LOVE that show, currently), etc., then maybe they might have had better luck? I mean, even on their shows, Supergirl doesn't work at all if you pay the remotest critical attention to superpowers and how they are used on that show... but it is great to watch because Kara Danvers and her sister and Jimmy and Cat Grant and J'onn J'onzz are amazingly fun CHARACTERS to get to know and watch.

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1 hour ago, zslane said:

I think the creators of superhero comics, many of whom were Jewish immigrants, would be shocked to learn they were really indulging in fascist fantasy all that time. :think:

 

Indulging in adolescent power fantasies that lean toward simplistic solutions (a good right hook) for complex problems, actually. The problem is when these natural tendencies toward righteous fantasy begin to affect actual social and political stratagems we start to form fascist ideologies.

It is always interesting how people get resistant, dismissive and angry when something they love is shown to have a dark, complex, and not always positive side to it. Instead of resisting and dismissing these aspects, why not embrace this complexity and nuance instead of acting like it somehow doesn't exist? I shared those same adolescent power fantasies when younger, and can still feel the atavistic pleasure in them, but I love supers even more when the concept is used to wrestle with these deeper, more difficult challenges to what we think is right and good. Literature, comics and gaming are great vehicles for exploring these more complex aspects of life in a safe environment that is also a whole lot of fun.

 

I feel it is important to really reflect on why we feel the "satisfaction of a well placed fist in a threatening face" (if I remember my Tony Stark quotes correctly), or at least the comic/gaming simulation of such.

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