zslane

The TV shows aren't as big of a financial risk (as blockbuster movies), and the first three all lean more heavily into the currency of being known and accepted franchises than they do into their wokeness. Throwing in a bit of diversity here and there costs them nothing. However, you can expect the budget of a show like Ms. Marvel to be smaller than the others because of the higher risk it entails. And if it doesn't pull its weight in terms of bringing in subscribers to Disney+, don't expect to see a second season. Subscriber numbers are far more important to Feige's corporate overlords than how many brownie points a show scores with SJWs. Black Panther and Captain Marvel were risks, roughly on par with giving Guardians of the Galaxy a try, and they went into production despite their wokeness, not because of it. They were expected to deliver on other more important strategic goals (i.e., as final pieces of the Phase 3/Infinity War puzzle and, in the case of Capt. Marvel, as setup for Secret Invasion). Had Black Panther not done as well as it did at the box office, we wouldn't be talking about its sequel today since its most important function had already been served by the time of Endgame. Disney is willing to play the PR game of appealing to the social agenda of the moment, but only so long as it doesn't interfere with their larger financial considerations.

Spider-Woman is indeed part of Sony's Spider-Man IP. Recent rumors indicate Olivia Wilde is developing a Spider-Woman movie for Sony. Marvel's diversity campaign is only a little more than half-hearted, IMO. I think SJWs would be shocked (and probably appalled) by what they'd hear if they attended production meetings between Marvel and Disney execs.

No, but there is one overriding reason why they won't.

I look forward to the MCU movie where nearly the entire cast and crew are native Americans and Inuit.

Kang is fine and all, but I won't be satisfied until they give us Galactus--properly depicted--as the big bad.

Physicists can speculate about multiple universes and collapsing wave functions all they want. What they won't be talking about is people physically travelling back and forth between multiple universes in the manner found in literature and movies.

Feige wants to beat WB/DC to the multiverse punch, hoping to make the Flashpoint movie look like a lame attempt at copying Marvel's success, yet again.

I have a 400-page hardcover compilation of all the old MSH books which shows how a kinda simple game can crumble under the weight of its supplemental rules. Moreover, I found the game burdened with quite a bit of cumbersome chrome, turning what was indeed "kinda simple" (in the Basic version of the rules) into something as complex and obtuse as AD&D.

I'm willing to bet that had it been someone like Charlize Theron or Angelina Jolie in the role, that stare-down with Thor would have been received more favorably by nay-sayers. Brie Larson, for all her acting talent, just doesn't project the fierce attitude and raw charisma necessary to sell that scene, at least not to a large portion of the male audience. Most of the time Marvel gets it right when casting women to play "badass" characters (Black Widow, Peggy Carter, Okoye, Valkyrie, Hela), but sometimes they miss the mark, and when they do, the criticism (and disappointment) is understandable.

I am currently watching the 24-episode continuation, The New Batman Adventures, but only because it features Batgirl as a main character. She is my favorite DC character, and I'll watch anything with her in it. Unfortunately, most of what I hated about B:TAS continues to afflict TNBA as well, but I (try to) overlook the flaws because of Batgirl.

You are quite right. Unfortunately, the fact that there is an in-movie explanation/justification for Carol's dour personality isn't going to do much to make the haters not hate her anymore. I think part of the problem here is that we spend so much of the movie's running time with Vers, the cold, ruthless Kree super-soldier, that we regard her, and not the hero she eventually becomes, as the movie's protagonist. For many, Vers is all they remember, and the fault for that probably lies in a combination of things: the screenplay, Larson's public behavior, and a general weariness for contemporary gender politics, to name just a few.

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.

I finally made my way through Batman: The Animated Series. Despite the high praise this cartoon routinely receives, it just was not for me. I say that as a middle-aged adult who never watched it during its original run. I was already in my late 20s when it aired and I had no interest in it. So I carry no nostalgic feelings towards it. I can only view it through the lens of an adult who has very high standards for storytelling that no kid's cartoon could possibly meet. But rather than go through the long list of things that drove me nuts about the show, I will just list the things I give it an A+ grade for: Stellar voice cast. Exceptional music score. Excellent character designs. Wonderful Retro-Decco aesthetic that reminds us of the time period Batman truly belongs to. Batman regarded by the police as an ally (Bullock notwithstanding).

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.

You'll notice that not a single one of the other so-called Spider-verse movies feature Spider-Man. Tom Holland doesn't want to be in Sony's Spider-verse; he feels his home is the MCU. That means Sony will likely have to move forward with a different Spider-Man if they want that character to be part of some kind of shared cinematic universe. My vote is that they establish a live-action Miles Morales and continue their Spider-verse with him. Tom Holland can continue to be the MCU's Spider-Man and everybody wins.

In America, people go to see the John Wick movies mostly for the gun play and the expertly done action set pieces (in terms of camera work and overall inventiveness). John Wick has established itself as a franchise that is all about interesting locations, baroque world-building, and increasing Wick's kill count from the previous movie. Martial arts are a very small part of the John Wick formula, and not the main reason it has succeeded. In contrast, I believe Shang Chi will live or die on its martial arts choreography because of who the character is. I agree with Christopher that it will be difficult for Shang Chi to show us anything we haven't already seen in dozens of martial arts movies. And from what I see in the trailer (so far), I'm not expecting any lavish stylistic direction ala John Wick, so I fail to see what there is to be too optimistic about.

I agree. I'm not saying that Black Widow isn't striving to be exactly the movie it should be. I'm only saying that, being a "super spy" movie (not my favorite genre), it is going to have to be at least as good as Winter Soldier to satisfy/impress me. I don't recall saying that.

The trailers for all the recent MCU movies have left me less than excited as well, for the most part. Black Widow looks potentially very entertaining, but it looks to me more like a Bond movie on steroids than a "superhero" movie. Shang Chi doesn't excite me at all, mostly because the cast does nothing for me, and what (little) we've seen of the fight choreography doesn't even look up to the standards of Into the Badlands. As for Eternals, well, all I can say is that the first teaser/trailer was very weak in terms of exciting visuals or conveying any sense of the story, so it was pretty much a waste of some editor's time, IMO. But I'm hoping the movie will surprise me, like the first GotG movie did.

I suspect that the results of these various studies are reflections of the fact that most of us grew up reading hardcopy texts. It should come as no surprise that our brains became optimized for extracting and retaining information from that format. However, current (and future) generations who spend most of their time consuming information from a screen will most likely have brains optimized for that, rather than for hardcopy. It's like how I can type fastest, using all my fingers, on a full-size mechanical keyboard, and not very well at all just using my thumbs on the tiny virtual keyboard of my smartphone, whereas for kids today it's the other way around.

I think it is sweet that you care about this, but I think you worry too much.

Interesting! I didn't know that existed. I do respect the effort that went into the FASERIP clone book; it is rather well done, IMO. However, they didn't have to go out of their way to rename everything since the only protectable IP elements in MSH were the Marvel characters.

Out of curiosity, what is an example of a "FASERIP clone"? The only game I've ever encountered that uses the "FASERIP" system is the Marvel Super-Heroes RPG, which basically makes "FASERIP" and "MSH" synonymous, with "MSH" having the virtue of being faster (and easier) to type.

Are you guys misspelling it FACERIP on purpose?

Well, almost. I suspect they were going for a Heaven Can Wait scenario, but in that movie Joe Pendleton was only given the bodies of men who were about to die (with their souls leaving for their final destinations) to choose from, eliminating the awkward moral dilemma presented in WW84. I feel that Shazam! had an analogous problem in that it was very clearly trying to riff of of Big, but that movie was like a modern fairy tale, whereas Shazam! wanted to be a superhero movie, and the two story styles just didn't mix right, IMO. I feel that screenwriters need to stop cribbing from past movies, especially if they don't understand (or don't care about) what made those movies work, and work harder to come up with fresh new ideas instead.

Trying to make sense of time travel plots is a waste of time. They never hold up to scrutiny, and most of them don't even hold up to casual consideration, which is why I hate them.