Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase Three and BEYOOOOONND

[Starlord]

1 hour ago, zslane said:

The Lone Ranger is definitely a character that pre-figures the masked superhero. However, that doesn't make superhero movies equivalent to Westerns. Be careful of tripping into logical fallacies.

 

Obviously.  I was just taking the opportunity to mention Lone Ranger as a precursor to modern masked superheroes.  Like Zorro and Scarlet Pimpernel from the swashbuckling genre - also popular at one point.  Be careful of tripping into assumptions.  

[Ternaugh]

Interesting article about the changing fortunes of the Western genre.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/07/how-the-western-was-lost-and-why-it-matters/278057/

[Ranxerox]

2 hours ago, Bazza said:

 

Nope. Billy's life is a tragedy. And short. All up he killed 4 people not 22 and was blamed for many things other more ruthless outlaws did. 

 

Have a read of this.

https://www.billythekidoutlawgang.com/blank

 

Wikipedia credits (or discredits) him with killing 8 people.  However, whether the number is 4 or 8, it is worth remembering that many, many, many people have extremely hard lives and face abject poverty and still get through without killing anyone.

 

I have no doubt that Billy had a hard and sad life, but that is true of most murders.  That doesn't erase their crimes and make them decent people.  I wouldn't cast him into the deep pit, but I refuse to romanticize murders.  To do so is an insult to the truly decent people who muddle through hard lives without leaving widows and orphans in there wake.

[Christopher R Taylor]

The movie Young Guns and its sequel actually did a pretty decent job depicting Billy, for all its Hollywoodisms it was pretty historically accurate.

 

But yeah

 

Quote

The superhero genre is in many ways the mythology of America. As the classical heroes embodied the beliefs and values of their cultures, superheroes embody what Americans have traditionally held to be right: truth, justice, and the rule of law; the responsibility of the strong to protect the weak, not exploit them; all people being fundamentally equal and deserving of respect, even if a few are gifted far beyond the many.

 

That's the way I see it too.  People looking too literally at it rather than conceptually and shared themes might miss this.

[Old Man]

There have been successful recent westerns, so I don't think the genre is dead or dying.  Django Unchained, Hateful 8, True Grit, and 3:10 to Yuma were all profitable and excellent.  However, I do think that it's pretty limited settingwise, which in turn limits what you can do with the scripts; you can bend the definition to include Westworld and Firefly, but that's like conceding that you can just do more with SF/Fantasy than you can do with a western.  Furthermore, studios today are looking for blockbusters; there's very little room in the release schedule for period films of any sort.

[Bazza]

2 hours ago, Ranxerox said:

 

Wikipedia credits (or discredits) him with killing 8 people.  However, whether the number is 4 or 8, it is worth remembering that many, many, many people have extremely hard lives and face abject poverty and still get through without killing anyone.

 

I have no doubt that Billy had a hard and sad life, but that is true of most murders.  That doesn't erase their crimes and make them decent people.  I wouldn't cast him into the deep pit, but I refuse to romanticize murders.  To do so is an insult to the truly decent people who muddle through hard lives without leaving widows and orphans in there wake.

 

Fair enough. A web page I read hosted by Billy The Kid Outlaw Gang -- a group of ordinary people who for 30 years aim to preserve the historical record relating to Billy & his era -- listed some facts about him: what I remember is that Billy was a soprano, and of the 4 people he is known to be involved in killing, 1 was in self defence, l others he was part of a group firing at point blank range during the Lincoln County War (LCW). The shooting of Bob was cold, but then both had a bit of a history, and Billy was escaping from prison. 

 

Billy like many others who joined Tunstall tried to go straighter it was honest work, and IIRC, Billy learned to read & write during this time. The shooting of Tunstall is the circumstance that forced Billy and his friends to stick together through the LCW. The Tunstall-MCSween side were the losers, and nearly all the Regulators were pardoned, Billy being the exception. That led him to a life of outlawry, as he wasn't welcomed by society. 

 

His friends are on record of saying he was a good, decent and fair person. 

 

No one is excusing what Billy has done, nor the crimes he committed. The Billy of history is very different to the popular perception of William H Bonney. 

[Pattern Ghost]

6 hours ago, Ranxerox said:

without leaving widows and orphans in there wake

 

Modern word processors can take care of this for you. If only Billy had Microsoft Word . . .

 

Speaking of Cousin Billy, turns out I'm related to him.

 

That actually explains a few things. ?

[Bazza]

Marvel news:

 

 

 

[pinecone]

On 7/25/2018 at 4:41 PM, Old Man said:

I'm dying for a TV show about the normal-human staff that works at Avengers headquarters.  I want to see the lawyer who cleans up all the legal issues caused by the heroes' constant trespassing and property damage.  I want to see the security guard who stands no realistic chance of protecting the place from supervillains.  I want to see the facilities guy say "you want me to build what?" and then retreat to his filthy basement office, shaking his head.  AoS and Powerless got close, but still couldn't quite focus on the frictions between the lives of supers and normals.  Is this a lame idea?  What do you guys think?

Wasn't "Powers" kinda like this? Superhero stories told from the "ordinary" point of view...? I may have the name wrong...

[pinecone]

On 7/26/2018 at 10:42 AM, Cassandra said:

Update:  In order to fit in with ABC's current line up, Agents of SHIELD will now be a game show.

Dang! I was going to spread a rumor that Agents was going to do some "Naked and afraid" episodes to drum up viewers.......

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

There have been successful recent westerns, so I don't think the genre is dead or dying.

 

No genre truly dies, and no one is arguing that there will come a time when no superhero films are made at all.  But Westerns used to dominate popular culture and entertainment: books, magazines, television, radio plays, movies.  Now its an occasional film or TV show every few years.  There will come a time when comic book pieces are the same way, some day.  It took decades for westerns to burn out, though, and the comic book thing is considerably fresher as a concept.

[zslane]

I think the costumed superhero genre will fade away once Hollywood ceases to find fresh ways to tell those stories. I think Deadpool and Logan are good examples of how you can pull the genre in lots of different directions to keep it from getting too stale and losing cultural momentum. But I agree that as soon as creators get tired of making the effort, the public will get tired of the same old pabulum and will turn their backs on it, just as they did with Westerns. To my mind this has less to do with any inherent limitations in the (superhero) genre or the public's appetite for it, and more to do with Hollywood's limited ability to sustain innovative storytelling over a really long period, regardless of genre. As I said before, the real enemy is weak storytelling, not "oversaturation" of a genre.

[Cassandra]

2 hours ago, pinecone said:

Wasn't "Powers" kinda like this? Superhero stories told from the "ordinary" point of view...? I may have the name wrong...

 

Powerless?

[Cassandra]

1 hour ago, zslane said:

I think the costumed superhero genre will fade away once Hollywood ceases to find fresh ways to tell those stories. I think Deadpool and Logan are good examples of how you can pull the genre in lots of different directions to keep it from getting too stale and losing cultural momentum. But I agree that as soon as creators get tired of making the effort, the public will get tired of the same old pabulum and will turn their backs on it, just as they did with Westerns. To my mind this has less to do with any inherent limitations in the (superhero) genre or the public's appetite for it, and more to do with Hollywood's limited ability to sustain innovative storytelling over a really long period, regardless of genre. As I said before, the real enemy is weak storytelling, not "oversaturation" of a genre.

 

I think they were saying that after Batman and Robin.

[Starlord]

Project:  Pegasus sounds like an excellent way to have normals interacting with supers in a tv series.  Well, since Agents of Shield blew their chance.

 

Also, this should be more like a short Netflix series and not stretched out into 20+ episode crap.

[Hugh Neilson]

2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

the comic book thing is considerably fresher as a concept.

 

1 hour ago, zslane said:

I think the costumed superhero genre 

 

As a point of order, I suggest comic books and movies are each a medium.  Westerns and costumed superheroes are genres which, over the years, both of these, and many other, media (prose, TV) have presented.

[Bazza]

Agree with Hugh about the distinction, but it is a common synonym that comics books = superheroes.

 

For instance by example pulp magazines supported many genres: hard boiled detective, western, sci-fi, weird fiction, fantasy, horror, etc. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

As a point of order, I suggest comic books and movies are each a medium.

 

Clearly, but since this is a discussion of movies as a media, in context the inference is pretty obvious.

[zslane]

Superhero storytelling in comic books comes with its own set of tropes, many of which are ignored when translated to other media, so in a way the medium also embodies a genre stylization. For instance, in comic books the villain almost always gets defeated while remaining alive to return as a thorn in the heroes' sides in the future, whereas at least half of the villains in the MCU are killed off as befits the MCU's "action movie" orientation. Just because both movies and comic books feature superheroes doesn't mean the two capture the same feel, and it could be therefore argued that they don't necessarily work within the same genre.

[pinecone]

7 hours ago, Cassandra said:

 

Powerless?

Could be, I have memory "issues" these days...I do firmly beleive that Kurt Busiec wrote some or all of them...?

[Bazza]

As one contributor to this thread seems to think Marvel should slavishly stick to the comic book genre, and I'm sure he/she has mentioned the lack of secret identities as a trope of the genre the MCU lacks. Here is your explanation. 

 

One ad libbed line in the first 'Iron Man' changed everything for Marvel

https://mashable.com/2018/07/22/iron-man-robert-downey-jr-ad-lib/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link

[Christopher R Taylor]

While it was a great line and it worked in the movie, it was a depressing precedent for Marvel Cinema who then decided that pretty much NOBODY has a secret identity despite the clear drawbacks to the entire planet knowing who you are.

[Hugh Neilson]

19 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Clearly, but since this is a discussion of movies as a media, in context the inference is pretty obvious.

 

It occurred to me due to the comment on "westerns" versus "comic books".  Two Gun Kid, Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt, (the original) Ghost Rider (now we have a crossover of westerns and masked crimefighters)  - MCU could have had 20 movies series of Westerns if they mined their archives.  The Lone Ranger alone has been on radio, TV, movies, books and comic books.

 

Comic books do humour, war, crime, horror, mystery,  westerns, science fiction, fantasy - pretty much every genre I can think of (porn, for that matter).

[Lord Liaden]

Regarding secret identities in the MCU, I think you have look at the heroes Marvel ended up using in their Phase One properties. Tony Stark is a billionaire with a head full of vital technological and defense secrets, his face recognized around the world. He could hardly have a bigger target on his back because he wears a metal suit. Steve Rogers was a soldier deliberately made into a high-profile symbol of America, and presumed dead for nearly seventy years. It wouldn't make sense for his true identity not to be a matter of public record. Thor is a prince and a god. He's used to being a public figure, and has no incentive to try to blend into society -- with his appearance and personality, that might not even be possible. The Hulk's alter ego has been widely recognized in the comics for decades. It's part of Bruce Banner's tragedy that he was often targeted by those who hunt the Hulk.

 

Black Widow and Hawkeye (in his Ultimates-inspired MCU form) are professional government operatives. They're well known in certain circles, and only assume other identities as needed for covert missions. T'challa is king of his country, and its champion as the Black Panther (a fact not known outside of MCU Wakanda before the events of the Civil War movie). Scarlet Witch and Vision have never hidden their real identities in the comics.

 

Spider-Man in the MCU retains a secret identity, as does Daredevil in its television analogue. It makes sense for them to do so; they live relatively ordinary civilian lives, and have loved ones they lack the resources to continuously protect if targeted by their enemies. OTOH Luke Cage had a past he tried to hide, but after adopting his new name never hid it or his face.

 

But even characters with secret identities in the MCU don't guard them as jealously as their comic-book counterparts used to do. To me that's a good thing. Many of those SID characters came across as paranoid, hiding who they are from family, friends, even fellow heroes they worked with for years. Being a superhero is stressful enough, without being unable to talk about those stresses with anyone else.

[Hugh Neilson]

18 hours ago, zslane said:

Superhero storytelling in comic books comes with its own set of tropes, many of which are ignored when translated to other media, so in a way the medium also embodies a genre stylization. For instance, in comic books the villain almost always gets defeated while remaining alive to return as a thorn in the heroes' sides in the future, whereas at least half of the villains in the MCU are killed off as befits the MCU's "action movie" orientation. Just because both movies and comic books feature superheroes doesn't mean the two capture the same feel, and it could be therefore argued that they don't necessarily work within the same genre.

 

True, but most media changes require some adaptation for the genre.  The Joker is one of the first recurring comic book villains - he was saved from death only by last-minute editorial fiat.  Why?  Because the editor realized that, because the medium will require new stories every  month or two, recurring bad guys were a really good idea to allow writers to avoid coming up with a new villain for every new story.

 

When a new movie will only be made every two or three years, do we need a recurring villain?  How many movies could be made if we put 2 or 3 existing Marvel, or DC, villains in each one, with no need to ever create a new one?