slikmar

I think that what the Marvel films, and others, are doing is really pretty good in terms of developing an ongoing narrative.
 
Each movie manages to be its own thing. You get a complete story in each one. You don't need to watch other movies to get it.
 
BUT watching the other movies in the franchise certainly adds a great deal to the story of any one movie. And any one movie is adding something to the main arc. And the arc is building. In fact, in the next couple of years we should see the culmination of this first big arc as the  Avengers and Guardians go up against Thanos. So there is pay off for this commitment to the franchise. This is important.
 
It's classic dramatic build up. There are mini-arcs within the main arc. But the main arc keeps building. Mini-arcs are good. As my editing tutor liked to say: "It's all about squeeze and release. Squeeze and release." He was talking about dramatic tension. Build it up. Let it go. But don't let it all go. Each cycle should leave the audience a little more breathless.
 
What Marvel is doing that is different to the (old) Bond franchise is building. Building is the main difference between something like Game of Thrones and Gilligan's Island. In Game of Thrones each new episode adds something. Sometimes (about once per season in fact) it throws in a complete game changer. In Gilligan's Island nothing that happens in one episode has any effect on anything that happens in another.
 
Which is more dramatically satisfying? Clearly Game of Thrones. This is because the greater the commitment of the viewer, the greater the cathartic pay-off in the end. Each squeeze and release gets the viewer a little more committed to the narrative.
 
Important note: there needs to be an end. A non-ending arc leads to bored viewers. Look at X-Files. It built. And built. And built. And built. And about the middle of season 4  people switched off in droves. I know I did. Yes, eventually X-files closed its arc. But it was an afterthought. Done in a different medium. I never cared enough to go back and find out what happened.
 
Another great example of what not to do with an arc comes from Battlestar Galactica. I'm sure you can guess where I'm going with this. The arc ended, yes. But the ending itself was a total ass-pull. Any promises from the show runner about "we know how this is going to end" were clearly bullshit. The ending needs to be known, if not from the very start (clearly that's the preference) then from pretty early in the piece. It needs to be known early because you need to start setting it up early in the piece. If you don't people will call "ass-pull" even if it's not.
 
The other thing (beside supporting story arcs) the connected narratives of the MCU (and others!) does: it allows for character development. Character development parallels narrative development. Arcs. Squeeze release. Ultimate pay-off. The difference is it's about the personal story of any one character. And it is this potential that allows the writers to give us flawed characters, or just deeper characters.
 
Luke Cage does feel shitty about the whole getting involved thing. That's because when he was involved (as a cop, in his back story) he got burned. Real bad. More involvement will bring notice. Notice will bring jail time. So he is reluctant to get involved again.  But he does. He undergoes a personal journey and comes out better for it. (Also, Bobby Fish has the documents that prove he was framed. He won't be away long.) The hero refusing the call to action is one of the classic building blocks of narrative, by the way.
 
Another example: Captain America gets to question his country. And he finds it lacking. That's why he shuts down SHIELD, thereby making America a better place than he found it. Yes, could have been done in one movie. But multiple movies helped that character arc build. We know the character better, we understand his motives better.
 
Dramatic tension. It's all about dramatic tension. Now I'm not saying you can't build dramatic tension in one movie. Of course you can. Casablanca About 80 minutes long. The "will they/won't they" is palpable throughout the movie. And one of the best endings in cinema history.
 
But if done well a shared narrative universe can add so much. So much richness. Just having deep back stories or in-universe events that can be alluded to gives the audience so much more.

From the way it was depicted the fight between the two Supers looked extremely close -- like victory would go to whichever of them landed a critical hit first. That happened to be Kara.
 
On the relative experience of the two of them, I think it depends on their history in this world. If Superman is more along the lines of the classic version, he would have had little to no formal fight training, just picking things up as he goes along. Supergirl hasn't been at this game nearly as long, but she's had the benefit of intensive training by experienced professionals like Alex in hand-to-hand, and J'onn in the use of super powers.
 
But I have to say, it goes to the credit of this version of Superman that he acknowledged her beating him without rancor or ego. Just as he asserted that her giving up her love for the greater good was something he himself might not be capable of. That degree of both humility and security has been missing from most interpretations of Superman recently, and I find it refreshing.

I really wish they would have GR show up in Defenders. Would tie the universes together more, he fits their level of power and would actually work as a Defender, I think. Either that or do a team up of him and Punisher, then you could have a really dark series.

I liked The Incredible Hulk quite a bit. I don't know why people are so blah about it. It was a great spin on The Fugitive. Ed Norton was a lot like the Ultimates version of Banner, and we know that the MCU borrows heavily from the Ultimates continuity, so I saw a lot of good parallels there. Don't get me wrong, I think Ruffalo does a bang up job as Banner, but I would also have been perfectly fine with Norton continuing to play Banner in the MCU.
 
I also loved Cap: First Avenger. I also understand it was just an origin story movie, and it did that admirably. The ultimate goal was to get him into the modern world in preparation for the Avengers, and I don't have a problem with that agenda. IMO, it did not interfere with the telling of his origin story one bit. I didn't get the sense of rushed pacing that everyone is referring to. Not sure why, but I just didn't.

For the most part, Marvel Studios has been making pizza... when it's good, it's very good. And even when it's not that great, it's edible 

 

I liked Thor 2 for the humor and banter between Thor and Loki quite a bit, and a certain Queen's part was...well, hats off to her.

 

I really enjoyed Iron Man 3. One of the few 'hey let's insert a kid' times in movies that improved it... and House Party was fun to watch. Not crazy about their take on the Mandarin, but I didn't hate the twist either.

 

Didn't like Iron Man 2, but in this case it was Justin Hammer that had me going 'blah' (Which makes me a hypocrite about the Mandarin I suppose) . But even it had some cool moments. It wasn't bad, and had good moments, it just didn't compare to IM1.

 

I've adored each and every Captain America Movie Marvel/Disney has done so far. Even if the Civil War one was largely Avengers 2.5 it still gave Cap a lot of limelight. I know many people who were blah about Captain America: First Avenger and I'm like... "Are you crazy? it was awesome!" but different strokes.

 

 

Naturally, there was a lot I liked about Iron Fist, which has some going "But it's terrible" and I'm like "It's edible with some really nice topping now and then" 

There's a lot I've enjoyed about this season but lord its warts just got huge as it got closer to the end
 
Loved Vibe suiting up more.
I'm actually good with Caitlyn's Killer Frost arc
Hey, Barry and Iris are finally together... oh thank goodness.
Wally and Jesse were sweet
 
that said...
Please , no more speedster foes.
Please, tone down the Barry angst a notch. I really miss when he was having more fun.
Say it with me now: Time Travel is nice in small doses... but when you're OD ing every episode, it's time to check into rehab
Try to bring back the Rogues as those lovable blue collar villains who can keep Barry Busy.

I don't really see any similarities between Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, aside from super strength. Each of their shows were completely different from each other. Kilgrave was nothing like Cottonmouth or Diamondback. The noir detective genre is nothing like the Harlem Renaissance blacksploitation genre. Jessica is a hard-drinking hot mess who cares for only two people in the world. Luke Cage is a man of honor and hero to his community. They couldn't be more different.

Yep.
 
The Internet:
 
"Oh my god. why does Hollywood keep doing the same thing over and over again... do they not have any original ideas anymore or the guts to change things up?"
 
Also the Internet:
 
"I can't believe they changed something.  You can't just change things in a series - those things are why people loved it in the first place.  They have no respect for their fanbase."

And lots of chemistry with Cat. There's a reason the internet is awash in Kara/Cat and Kara/Lena fanfic.
 
On another topic, I really enjoyed Kara getting blown up in the whistleblower's car...only to rise slowly into the air from the flaming wreckage and then land, her clothing on fire and partially burned away, but completely unhurt and very annoyed. It's about time they remembered that she's SUPERGIRL. This is about the level of trouble most villains should give her. They can harm other people, whom she must try to protect; they can mislead, misdirect, feint toward goal A while really going for goal B, but most of them shouldn't be able to hurt her at all.
 
The Luke Cage Netflix show did this better than Supergirl does, and he's nowhere near as powerful as she is. But word got around that Luke Cage is bulletproof and superstrong. So what happens when he shows up at a crime scene? Most of the bad guys just run away. They *know* they can't hurt him. Shooting at him only makes him angry ("I'm about tired of buying new clothes.") and is pointless, so they flee. Or surrender. I'd like to see more of that on Supergirl. Not always. There can be bad guys (and gals) who can challenge her sometimes, but most bad guys? No.

Well, as others have said, it's not really a "hero's" job that they're being sent out to do. In a lot of ways it's a concept very much from the Iron Age of comics -- people far from the traditional heroic ideal, doing dirty jobs in a more ruthless manner than most heroes will condone.
 
What was more interesting to me than that, was that these natural antagonists for the heroes were being forced to be protagonists against their will. The series explored a dimension of these characters we don't normally get to see. How do people like these interact with each other? How do they respond in these extraordinary circumstances? What goes on in their minds and hearts beyond simplistic "villainy?" What does doing good in spite of themselves do to their self-image, their perception of their role in the world? At their best, the Suicide Squad stories are a thought-provoking deconstruction of the whole concept of the comic-book supervillain.

To me, it's simple: the DC team just hasn't been up to the task of making a good movie. It probably doesn't help that they have to spend time establishing characters that are unfamiliar to the audience, but even when they haven't had to do that they've still failed.
 
Hopefully the team on Wonder Woman or one of the other upcoming films will finally be able to get it right. But so far...

I always read it as Tony being to arrogant and thinking he is smarter then everyone else (which may be true in some ways). He uses this combined with the PTSD from dieing  to make global decisions that effect his friend/teammates. This was the primary problem he had in Avengers 2 and Civil War. He doesn't listen to warnings (I think a result of said PTSD and his arrogance). Banner tried to warn him about using an AI they hadn't tested. Cap and some of the others tried to warn him about giving the power of the members of the Avengers to a political group, even if it is the UN. None of this penetrated to him.

Funny thing is how much most writers have treated the X-Men as being in their own universe, really.

Exactly. I think Tony's character progression in the MCU has been fantastic to watch. He always tries to do the right thing, but as Natasha points out he just can't put his ego aside long enough to seriously consider others' points of view.
 
There was an old FF comics where Reed asks Ben if Ben thinks he (Reed) is arrogant. Ben's reply is something like: No, but you're the most certain guy I've ever met. You're really smart, you think a problem through carefully and consider all the angles, but once you decide on an answer the possibility that you might be wrong never enters your mind. And you're right often enough that you can usually get away with that, but on the occasions when you are wrong it completely blindsides you, even if it's obvious to everyone else.
 
That's MCU Stark in a nutshell.

Didn't Tony also sacrifice himself to close the wormhole in the final act of The Avengers? Didn't he stop selling weapons to the world once he realized how they were being used to hurt innocent people? Didn't he start an educational foundation for those interested in pursuing science and engineering? Didn't he become obsessed with building any technology he could think of to protect the Earth from future alien invasions?
 
Is it possible we're unfairly discounting the things he's done in the interests of others?

Reminds me of the original Simonson run on Thor that had the original Secret Wars. He did a total, iirc, of 3 panels, 1st showing Thor and the others entering a gate, 2nd showing the empty gate with a caption saying something like "something momentous happened", the third showing them returning. He then ignored it and resumed his ragnarok storyline.

Reminds me of the original Simonson run on Thor that had the original Secret Wars. He did a total, iirc, of 3 panels, 1st showing Thor and the others entering a gate, 2nd showing the empty gate with a caption saying something like "something momentous happened", the third showing them returning. He then ignored it and resumed his ragnarok storyline.

Speaking for myself, I get tired of the Big-Ass Crossover Events (BACE) in the comics because they're constantly interrupting the storyline of the standalone comics I read. A book is trying to run its own arc, but then every 6-12 months that story is at best temporarily shelved for several issues while they instead tell a piece of someone else's story for a few issues. Or for books that are not so lucky, the arc they were working on gets completely shitcanned due to changes made in the BACE, because the BACE trumps everything else.
 
I remember trying to follow the Slott/David She-Hulk series in the 2000s, and every 6ish issues was a completely different series, for reasons only explained in the BACEs. One minute she's a practicing attorney; next issue she has quit law and is with SHIELD full-time; then she's back to law for five minutes only to get disbarred and now she's a bounty hunter? It just got ridiculous.
 
It would be one thing if the BACEs were well-written and worth reading in their own right, but most of them are overblown, overstuffed, all-spectacle-no-character turds IMO.
 
By contrast: the fact that today's MCU movie ties in to one I saw 6 months ago is continuity, not disruption.

Yes, but given that no one in film had ever done anything like it before, I think it's fair to give Marvel props for it.
 
I think you're giving them too little credit IMO. I don't think they had everything plotted out when they made the first Iron Man movie. But having Fury name-drop the Avengers in the post-credits scene, and then having Stark name-drop them in the Hulk post-credits scene, was a pretty clear tip they were hoping to go that direction.
 
I almost feel like the way DC keeps announcing all these movies they have planned is mostly about trying to generate "buzz" to get people to go see their current films. "See, we're building this cool, inter-related universe! You need to see all the movies, even if they suck, because without them you won't be able to appreciate the later ones! Trust us! Don't be left out!"

I hate when I'm at the store, and I think I'm buying organic vegetables, but when I get home, they're just regular donuts.

"You despise me, don't you?"
 
"If I gave you any thought I probably would."

This debate reminds me of when the stunt men complained about Bruce Lee as never using more then 3 punches/kicks against them in his choreography. When the higher ups tried to make him make fights last longer, he said if he couldn't beat the underlings quickly, why would he be a challenge to the big boss.