zslane

I finished watching Arcane: League of Legends yesterday. Now, I have never played the game, have never had any interest in the game (not a MOBA fan), and have no intentions of ever playing the game, but I must say that this series is phenomenal. The story is absolutely gripping, the characters are brilliantly realized and voice-acted, the soundtrack is stellar, and the animation is breathtaking. Everything about this series is of the highest caliber in my opinion. The events of the episodes stuck with me long after I watched it. Simply incredible. A second season has been ordered by Netflix, but since it took something like six years to get this first season completed (though at least one year of that was due to COVID-related delays, I believe), I expect to be waiting a good long while for the second season. But maybe that's okay: I wouldn't want them to cut any corners on this. It now has a reputation of the highest order to live up to, and I'd rather wait for as long as it takes for a second season that it just as good as the first, than get a rushed follow-up that is a pale shadow of its predecessor.

That's a pretty fair point. Unfortunately during Infinity War, Quill didn't have his demi-Celestial powers anymore, and he wasn't in a movie directed by a guy who saw every dramatic scene as an opportunity for comedy, so maybe it wasn't such a great idea to bring Quill along on that particular mission.

The Mandarin's ten rings in the comics were probably deemed too similar to the Infinity Stones in that each one had a particular power and they were worn on the hand(s). I'm not surprised that Feige simplified them into artifacts that just let the user channel energy in arbitrary ways. This choice also makes them feel like artifacts from wuxia fantasy cinema, which fits parts of the movie's aesthetic. On the whole, I think they did a decent job of throwing Fu Manchu, Mandarin, Shang-Chi, Fin Fang Foom, and the ten rings from the comics into the adaptation blender and producing a tasty martial arts smoothie palatable to the general MCU fanbase.

While, on the other hand, some people making superhero movies at other studios became way too infatuated with Alan Moore and his deconstructionist/subversive proclivities. We got guys like Ennis who hates anything resembling traditional heroics, and guys like Snyder who thinks everyone is as jaded and tired of classic superhero storytelling as he is. Thankfully, the success of the MCU serves as a strong argument against their nihilistic points of view.

Okay, let's do a little math. Adjusted for inflation, 1.5 million copies (per month) of a comic book with a cover price of ten cents, meant an annual gross revenue of $36M (in 2021 dollars). That doesn't even come close to the billions that individual MCU movies frequently made for Marvel Studios. And while Batman and Superman may have had incredibly wide reach, Marvel never had a comic book title that approached that kind of revenue. Maybe the X-Men titles came close in the 1980s and 1990s, but even so, no other form of media can compete with movies for total revenue potential.

It has to be endlessly embarrassing to WB/DC brass that Marvel can turn a sentient tree--who can only say three words--into a household name, while they in turn can't even keep Clark Kent as Superman beyond three movies. Say what you will about the dubiousness of Marvel's insistence on a consistent look and feel to their movies, they have done a remarkable job of introducing a vast array of colorful characters over the course of ten years, drawing deeply from their comic book roster. Their willingness to try out new characters, even when there's a real chance they won't succeed wildly, shows the difference in creative commitment between Marvel and DC. I'd rather see a studio try something like The Eternals, and achieve less than towering success with it, than see them tediously reboot Iron Man with a new actor and new setting every few years.

Sure, the art of making a good (superhero) movie that strikes a chord with the masses is a strange alchemy that few in Hollywood have mastered. Kevin Feige seems to really get it, and even if not every MCU movie is as successful and highly regarded as Cap: Winter Soldier, Black Panther, or Infinity War/Endgame, his batting average is still unmatched. What DC fails to understand is that without a Kevin Feige of their own, they'll never achieve the same kind of success. But finding producers like him is hard because they are incredibly rare and frequently under-appreciated. Disney's greatest achievement since putting Iger in charge was giving Feige more or less free reign over Marvel Studios. The closest DC ever came to this was imagining Zakk Snyder as their Feige equivalent, but without ever really entrusting him with the DCEU franchise.

I suspect the main reason superhero movies get any kind of begrudging respect from self-appointed cultural taste-makers is that they make billions of dollars and have become beloved entertainment to the masses. Superhero comic books never did that. After all, there was never an Avengers comic book "event" storyline that earned (nearly) five billion dollars for Marvel. So while some people might publicly dismiss them from their ivory towers, you can usually hear them grumbling in private envy over the money they make. If guys like Scorsese and Scott didn't have any skin in the game then I would probably be more sympathetic to their point of view. But while they can say that superhero movies aren't their cup of tea, they can't credibly deny the fact that these movie have had a huge impact on our culture, and have provided many, many hours of much needed entertainment for people. Moreover, they've pumped much needed energy (and money) into the movie business; basically a massively high tide that has raised a lot of boats these last (roughly) 20 years.

That's exactly how I read that scene. I found the movie to be pretty fun and entertaining. However, I have to say that I didn't particularly care for the two leads. Simu Liu simply didn't radiate the kind of charisma I expected from a character (originally, and forever in my heart) meant to be a Bruce Lee analog. Also, I'm not an Akwafina fan so the Katy character pretty much just annoyed me. I did like the sister character, and it is always awesome to see Michelle Yeoh on screen. Also, I was disappointed that they didn't develop the henchman with the cool mask more; he/she was probably the most intriguing villain in the whole movie (for me, anyway). The big battle at the end was kinda fun, though it felt a bit rushed narratively. Overall, the fight scenes were a fun mixture of wuxia fantasy and classic Jackie Chan set pieces. I'm not sure how I feel about Shang-Chi turned into something more akin to a Mortal Kombat character than an idealized paragon of pure kung fu mastery. But I guess that's why the movie was titled Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and not the more traditional Shang-Chi Master of Kung-Fu.

Pandering to a country like China is a futile and, ultimately, doomed business strategy. I wonder how long it will take Hollywood to realize this.

Only if rejecting one's essential core is established in the beginning of the movie/story as an elementary source of dramatic conflict for the character. And it won't appear as change (i.e., character development) unless the audience is let in on that rejection right up front, because it won't be apparent that it was the events of the story that produced said change.

Do they? It doesn't quite sound like they do, at least not from how I'm hearing the movie described. Without change there is no "arc" (the arc metaphor represents a trajectory of change in the character due to the events of the story; the arc is not the story itself). If there is no obvious change for viewers to observe and be moved by, then the characters don't really have an arc; they have no meaningful development (in a conventional dramatic sense). I think screenwriters these days lack a strong grasp of character development, and try to be too subtle and nuanced with their characters. They mistake "naturalistic" portrayals with character development. Developing a character is not the process of slowly revealing a character's beliefs, traumas, and driving forces. It is the process of changing those beliefs and driving forces as a consequence of the drama they get caught up in. In Star Wars (ANH), Han Solo has a character arc. Obi-Wan Kenobi does not. Luke Skywalker has a character arc. Princess Leia does not. Darth Vader does not get a character arc until RotJ.

Out of curiosity, and without giving away any spoilers, which characters in Eternals went through substantial changes (of character) over the course of the movie?

Does its third act throw away all its plot and character development in favor of a mindless VFX-heavy final battle? Were you at all bothered by the notion presented by the movie that all of early humanity's achievements were thanks to the Eternals, rather than the result of humanity's own ingenuity? I know of at least one reviewer who was critical of these two things.

Indeed. And yet they are fun enough to watch that the movies do well at the box office. Being obviously connected to the larger MCU tapestry does not seem to be a necessary component for success. On the "connectivity" front, it should be sufficient for Celestials to be a part of The Eternals storyline. If that movie fails to connect with audiences, I don't think it will be because of its lack of interaction with other MCU characters.

I think we are largely agreeing. To most viewers, the Eternals appear to be as connected to the rest of the MCU as the Guardians of the Galaxy did when their first movie came out (which is to day, not very). "Fitting in" isn't that big of an issue. It is the fun factor, along with the elements you mention that really matters.

The Eternals could be said to be the Marvel version of DC's New Gods, but they have been part of Marvel's 616 continuity since 1976. However they came to be in the Marvel universe is pretty irrelevant; they are every bit as much a part of the Marvel universe as any other cosmic entities such as the Titans or Galactus.

Eternals has Celestials in it, which are elemental forces in the MCU, ergo Eternals is unambiguously an MCU movie. I get that it doesn't hew to the MCU formula like an Avengers movie does, but Guardians of the Galaxy stepped away from the usual formula (by featuring an entire team of C-level unknowns who did not get their own movies first before the team-up movie, and by making no mention of other MCU characters) and it was a big success. I think if Eternals flops it won't be because it is different from a typical MCU movie, but because it fails to pack enough fun surprises to generate that "you gotta see it" hype.

It's a shame Marvel has been dragging their feet for so long on another Deadpool movie; it could have fit nicely into the vacated Feb 2022 slot.

I haven't seen a really good DC movie since Wonder Woman. The new Batman movie will do very well financially, that much I am sure, but I remain unconvinced that it will turn out to be a good movie on par with Wonder Woman. And by "good" I mean good story, good pacing, consistent tone, characters that make sense and have an arc, etc. The visuals look pretty amazing, but Zack Snyder has demonstrated repeatedly that stunning visuals alone do not make for a good movie.

From what I understand, the (MCU) Eternals were forbidden by the Celestials from interfering in humanity's affairs unless Deviants were involved. Of course, posing as gods during humanity's earliest days strikes me as a flagrant violation of that mandate, but maybe that mandate was handed down centuries after interacting with early humans.

How do we know this (the bolded part)?

This latest What If? episode made little to no sense in many areas. The premise had potential, but the specifics were moronic. There are a great many other possibilities, which I have to believe you are aware of or are capable of imagining. We should never allow notions of propriety or limited taste to constrain what art may be or where it may go.

The younger generation isn't interested in paying for much of anything. Pirated content is the norm for them. How long will the streaming subscription model last if the "younger generation" refuses to pay for it? And since nobody can stand advertising, how does television in any form remain financially viable in the future?

They should. Those are called royalties. The author is being paid a portion of the sales of a physical object (or digital representation in the era of the Kindle). But royalty contracts and copyrights are not the same thing. Copyright is intended to make sure that others can not use a work they didn't create without consent from the creator. It is about control, not (just) money. In any event, once a work goes into the public domain, who is going to pay for it anymore? It won't really be selling anymore so there is no revenue to be excluded from. Of course, an enterprising writer could find ways to continue selling their works even after having passed into the public domain, and they would not need exclusive control over it to do so. But I feel the control over it should (more quickly) pass into the common culture so that it can be transformed and re-utilized in new ways without hindrance, giving it renewed and continued life within that culture.