- cross-posted to:
- moviesandtv@lemm.ee
- cross-posted to:
- moviesandtv@lemm.ee
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Marvel fatigue, superhero saturation and the death of cinema.
No, no, and maybe yes.
There is no Marvel fatigue. There is no superhero saturation. What there is, is simply trash. Make a shit superhero movie and the movie will just be shit. It has nothing to do with there being superheroes.
Hollywood doesn’t get it. People don’t seem to get it either. But these phases are just repeating itself. It used to be cowboys. It used to be cops. Then pirates. It used to be sword and sandals.
Cowboy movies are fun. So are pirate movies and superhero movies. If they’re made well!
The moment some execs look at a bunch of numbers and think “Oh, people will pay money to see X”, THAT is when things go wrong. No, people pay to see good movies. And Marvel used to be hype when they made good movies.
Youre mostly right but personally there is definitely superhero fatigue. I used to watch most marvel movies but nowadays the formula is sort of played out.
For me it isn’t superhero fatigue as much as “oh, I’ve seen the same story a dozen times now” and “I don’t even know this superhero, why does he need a Netflix show?” fatigue. The writers seem to run out of ideas and just milk the same formula again and again.
And at the same time you get something like the new animated Spiderman movies which are a dope, super fresh new take that is oozing creativity out of every frame.
they also do some of the shenanigans that made people annoyed back in my comic book days. My brother saw the iron man movies but not the avengers. So he was lost at what was going on with stark in the movie after the avengers. So because he had not seen another movie it made that one bad for him.
Not to mention every tv show thus far has basically been 10 episodes of padding, and 1 or 2 important plot points for future experiences. I won’t watch Echo, but I’ll look at the wiki afterwards to see what I missed. I watched episode 1 of Loki s2 and I’m considering doing the same now that the finale has aired. They’re all unimportant drivel, coasting off the brand name.
I actually really really enjoyed Loki, easily the strongest thing marvel has released recently.
You couldn’t have explained it better, there is still Super Heroes stuff worth it, I like The Boys and Invincible for example.
And The Marvels wasn’t that bad honestly, I liked it more than most recent marvel products lol.
so dumb there’s literally great superhero and marvel movies coming out lol
Like what?
the two animated Spider-Man films, the newest Spider-Man film, guardians 3, the most recent Batman movie.
Like lol what??
Phase 4 being as long as the entire infinity saga turned the MCU from from a pleasure to a chore for me. The same is true for a lot of people I know.
that’s fine but superhero movies are still probably one of the strongest movie genres that get people to the theater
All good choices, you got me
I mean, a massive chunk of it is that I had no idea it was coming out, likely due to the actor’s strike preventing all sorts of advertising.
Yeah, now all the studios will have is remaking all the movies from 20 years ago.
The strike…
I’m guessing the fact that no one could even talk about the movie until like 5 minutes ago didn’t help. I had no idea it was even coming out until a couple of days ago because the SAG strike kept everyone from doing press.
It’s almost like people are getting sick of the constant Marvel drip feed of content that’s been going on for years now.
I remember when they had a big long-arc that was spread intelligently across all of the movies that built up to Endgame. I think they’ve forgotten this.
Phase 4 lost the plot. It’s like they didn’t know what to do after Endgame.
For the plot going forward, you have to see:
Wandavision (Disney+, Blu Ray this month)
Loki Season 1 (Disney+, fresh on Blu Ray)
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness
Ant-Man: Quantumania
Loki Season 2 (just finished)I think you’ve put your finger on it. The shows didn’t exist prior to Endgame. Now, they’re doing the same nonsense as 90s/early 2000s Marvel where if you wanted to understand everyone in large events (which happened all the time) you really needed to read a bunch of different series.
But, watching a ten episode show is a time committment and there are so many actually worthwhile shows that one can watch…
I think the biggest problem is they keep hamfisting action and comedy where it’s completely unnecessary. If something is worth watching people will find the time.
But they keep making the same mistakes on most of their stuff, like Wandavision was pretty good up until they decided they needed a big fight scene for the climax. Quantimania, Falcon & WS, Captain Marvel were milquetoast. Then you’ve got Thor L&T and Secret Invasion which were handled badly. It was weird to get Sam Raimi back for a one-off but not branching into the supernatural side of Marvel.
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I enjoyed Loki, the overall story was interesting. Season 1 felt better paced, season 2 dragged in some places then rushed other scenes. It’s definitely not like most of the other Marvel stuff so it’s not going to appeal to movie goers, the same can be somewhat said about Wandavision.
Haven’t seen a lot of recap channels, but Movies in Minutes does a decent recap of Wandavision and Loki if you’re only interested in the stuff relevant to upcoming movies and/or events.
I’d recommend watching a recap of Secret Invasion, imo that was poorly done and I feel sorry for Emilia Clarke and Cobie Smulders. Feels like a waste of good talent and plot what they did with Secret Invasion. Secret Invasion could have been a huge reveal and great interweaving throughout movies and shows in phase 2. But the whole story got turned into a generic spy thriller with no depth.
Jonathan Majors has really screwed up any plans they had for the current arc.
It didn’t help you need to watch hours of TV shows and X previous movies to have a superhero movie make sense.
That’s my point, you have to turn a hobby into a chore so that you can keep up.
It’s the same reason popular game franchises have also failed. 343i messed up the Halo franchise when they started putting plot critical events and information in side media like novels and comic books. The moment you cater to the hardcore fans who have no other interests, you alienate the more common fans that enjoy it but don’t make it their entire personality.
So now if you play Halo 5 you might be confused at what happened to the Didact, you know he survived Halo 4 but where is he? Oh. Right. He got killed in a comic book. Onto the next villain! Cortana took over the AI’s? Holy shit, this is going to fill up the whole next game! Just kidding, that conflict happened off screen and now you’re fighting the banished.
Marvel is doing this with their TV shows.
I think the first captain marvel was horrible. I think that plays a huge part.
I thought the 1st Captain Marvel was pretty fun. I don’t have much of an interest in seeing this though.
That NIN shirt was enough for me to be into it
For what it’s worth, I think this one is more fun than the first one. Or most recent Marvel movies except for Guardians of the Galaxy 3. And I haven’t even seen Miss Marvel.
I struggle to think of a less likeable main character that wasn’t some sort of anti-hero. It takes talent to be that smug and condescending for an entire movie.
How did Captain Marvel struck you as smug in comparison to the truckload of arrogant and full-of-themselves characters in the Marvel universe? Thor, Drax, or Iron Man who is basically a narcissist.
They’re supposed to be like that though, especially Tony Stark, it’s part of their character arc. With Captain Marvel, it feels like she was supposed to be likeable, but it didn’t work out.
I try to understand what exactly made her seem “smug” to you. Especially when compared to other Marvel heroes.
I cant speak for this in particular (I gave up watching marvel halfway through endgame), but its very different if a character comes across as smug and all the other characters are saying “God isnt he smug but we need him” and having a character that comes across as smug but all the other characters love them.
You not liking the first movie means other people didn’t go? Who are you to have such an enormous effect on the cinema going audience…
Wow. That is a silly thing to be pedantic about.
I do not think that word means what you think k it means.
I think the inference to take from their comment is that by extension others probably didn’t like it either, and so there is less excitement for a sequel to a movie that wasn’t as well received.
Right, they’re inferring that their opinion was universal. There was a lot of controversy @urrounding the movie, but it had little to do with the quality and a lot to do with peoples inability to remove personal biases from their viewing experience.
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Ah, a Reddit comment :)
Yours, more so ;)
There was a new Marvel movie?
Of course, it’s a day in y.
They havent remade the spiderman origin in a few weeks… time for 5 more of those to get in the pipline
Same I only found out when my pirate site placed it there. I’m waiting for hd tho it’s still in cam
After seeing Dr. Strange and not understanding the entire movie engine because I don’t have Disney+ I stopped watching MCU movies. I’d love to go see this movie now that I know it’s out but why spend time and money watching actors in front of a green screen doing things I don’t understand because I didn’t watch multiple TV shows?
I want to see it, been looking forward to it, and will when it comes out for home viewing. But if already basically stopped going to theaters before the pandemic except for the biggest films, and the pandemic killed off the last interest I had in any of the disgusting expensive theaters near my home.
And now they’re raising prices for all the services… so we’ll see if when it gets to home viewing it it’s affordable enough to watch or not.
I mean, it also opened during an ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike that severely hampered promotion of the movie. So there is that.
I took the family to see it and we all loved it. I thought it was great personally.
The SAG-AFTRA strike ended literally the day before it was released. Talk about irony.
Watched it. It is a pretty OK. Typical forgettable marvel movie. There is a villain and heroes do something, and the day is saved. That is all I expect from these movies t.b.h. Mild entertainment.
I don’t understand the hatred received for it though. Most of them either seem to be on either their expectations not being met or they are tired of these superhero movies.
Well if it didn’t meet your expectations, don’t keep it so high for these movies. And if you don’t like superhero movies, don’t watch them. Solved.
Well if it didn’t meet your expectations, don’t keep it so high for these movies.
I’ve been seeing this sentiment a lot and it’s such a shitty take.
Basically you’re saying, “If a movie isn’t liked, it’s the fault of the viewer.” since the only option it leaves is, “Continue lowering your expectations until you’re happy with whatever you end up getting.”
I mean, if you keep watching these movies, and you keep getting disappointed by them, it is your fault. You’re still giving them money to make a movie you basically know you’re not going to like, based on recent data. Either stop watching, lower your expectations, or just always be disappointed.
Do you think they make movies without caring if it would be good ? All those people, all that money invested and they don’t care for returns. Obviously not. They want returns and they try to make a good movie.
In the case of Marvel movies people keep their expectations so high that even decent movies like The Marvels is shit to them. That’s definitely the fault of the high expectations.
Again, I’m not saying it is the best movie. But it definitely doesn’t deserve the hatred it is getting.
obviously not
On the other hand, do you think every movie is made with love and attention to detail or do you think some are shoved out there because they think people are dumb enough to just hand money over? Obviously not, in my opinion—many movies are phoned in. Many sequels, and evidence suggests all known “cinematic universes” tell a ramshackle and uninspired story in hopes that viewers of the original material are attached enough to the characters that they come back for more, instead of trying a new story with new characters.
Nobody is obliged to appreciate a movie simply for existing. It wasn’t a gift.
No it’s more like “I don’t need it to be a goddamn Oscar winner to enjoy it”. It’s not blaming the viewer, it’s just saying that it still has good reasons to exist and if you have higher standards, off you go instead of just shitting on it in its entirety
Idk. It’s a little bit of both right? I mean if you go see Pride and Prejudice because you want to see some epic fight scenes, you’re going to be disappointed.
Nah that seems like more of a strawman or moving the goalposts than anything remotely reflective of the actual situation.
Nobody is criticizing this movie because they went into it expecting an oscar-bait period romantic drama. Nobody.
Literally every single person knew what the movie was supposed to be: a superhero movie. An action/adventure movie with excitement, a few mild scares, some laughs, explosions, fights, etc. Sure, within the genre there can be “light-hearted, mostly comedy romp” and “dark, gritty, shades of grey” tones of film within it, but zero people are walking into this one expecting Pride and Prejudice, and it’s silly at best to suggest otherwise.
So when we’re talking about expectations, we’re not talking about the overall genre or tone expectations, we’re talking about expectations as to how well executed, well acted, well written, and well thought out the various elements were.
So yeah, when people say they found it disappointing, not being up to their expectations, they mean as a superhero movie. Further, given the steady diet they’ve been fed of the same, they mean, specifically, "up to the expectation set by many, many other similar films in the genre, in the same umbrella IP, from the same studio, released in the same broad time period.
It really doesn’t get a whole lot more apples-to-apples than expectations for a Disney/Marvel superhero movie in the 2020s.
So no, sorry, I can’t buy the angle that “if the film didn’t meet your expectations, it’s your unreasonable expectations that are to blame because you didn’t know what kind of movie it was supposed to be”.
Further, even if that were the case, that wouldn’t be so much lowering expectations as changing them. So when we see people specifically use the word “lower”, it suggests that’s not what they’re thinking at all.
For me it’s the way Captain Marvel was shoehorned into the MCU without any real development, and existed as what was basically a walking plot hole. Marvel movies have never been perfect but their whole thing was building characters into it over years. By Infinity War we’d been watching these characters for years and we wanted to watch the end of their stories. Then they just plopped Captain Marvel down into the series at the last second, had the existing legacy characters tell us the audience how to feel about her because the writers knew we wouldn’t care organically, made her disappear in Infinity war and most of endgame because they didn’t actually have anything for her to do except be a deus ex machine at the end of Endgame.
It also doesn’t help that Brie Larson just phones it in any time she’s on screen.
I agree that of the three lead roles I felt only Miss Marvel (Iman Vellani) seems to be the most developed character. And her portrayal alone is one of the positives of the movie too.
But as a movie it is still enjoyable like any other Marvel movie. It is a light hearted fun movie.
The level of hatred it received even before it got released is so cringy. They seen to just borrow someone else’s opinion and spew it elsewhere.
There are all the anti-women wackos out there but more than hate, I think there are a lot of us that just aren’t interested. And it’s not because we don’t want to watch a movie with female leads, it’s because the characters are just half baked. I have regularly heard from people that they only saw it for Ms Marvel, and then you had to have watched the show. Lots of people don’t want to engage with all the shows.
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You have to think of the general public and their patience for subpar serialized moviegoing experiences. Marvel hasn’t had a standout movie since Endgame and the final movie of the Spiderman Home series. The last one I saw in theaters was Doctor Strange 2, but that was only because it was the “ending” for Wandavision. The last four movies since then have not been great, and Captain Marvel doesn’t exactly get crowds excited. I’m not even going to bother because I’ve learned from the Marvel movie experience that is so serialized and there are so many references that I’ll probably need to slog through the ones I missed to fully enjoy it without being confused. I have mild interest but not enough to change the position I’m in.
The MCU Golden Age is over. We’ll have to get past Phase 5 and see where we end up, because Phase 4 only had a few enjoyable films, and Phase 5 so far has been pretty bad.
They keep trying to push Kamala Kahn, but I never found her to be a very compelling character. Even less so now that they changed her powers. I watch almost all the marvel stuff but I couldn’t make it through that mini-series, and I’m not very interested in this movie either.
Maybe it was because I thought the examination of the American Muslim community was interesting and not something I’d really seen before, but I enjoyed it. It wasn’t the best show ever, but it was interesting. The examination of The Partition was also interesting.
As someone who comes from a Canadian Muslim family, that’s probably the thing that made me stop watching the show. It was just so over the top in terms of Muslim culture that it just seemed off. The way Islam was brought in to pretty much every discussion, no one actually talks or acts like that, at least no moderates. It’s no different from people of Christian backgrounds who I am sure aren’t talking about being Christian 24/7. It just felt like pandering.
Yeah the cultural exploration was probably the most interesting aspect of it, otherwise she just seems like a palette swapped Jubilee. They leaned pretty heavily into that. Honestly, I wish they’d just created a different Pakistani superhero to explore this, it might have been more interesting. Other countries should have superheroes too, right?
If I recall correctly, her original shape-shifting powers led to some interesting character development in the comics, which fit in with her thematically wrestling with her identity. That all got discarded when she got the power to summon purple glowing rock things instead, leaving behind the most interesting part of the character to me.
Also I recall there were a lot of “hello fellow kids!” cringeworthy attempts at appealing to zoomers in the miniseries.
Ms. Marvel is up there in terms of my favorite D+ series and what you mentioned had a lot to do with it. The end of the season felt extra corny and like some generic Netflix production but overall it was really fun.
Mostly because of her, I would like to check out The Marvels in theaters but I just don’t think we’ll have time and, realistically, it’s going to be streamable in, what, a couple of months? That’s probably the bigger issue - there aren’t really movies I’m so excited to see that I can’t wait that long.
And quite out of left field when it comes to a Marvel property.
Yeah, I felt like it was more about the American Muslim/Pakistani experience than it was about superheroing, which is why it probably wasn’t popular with some people like the person above. But I was fine with that because I was learning things about a culture I wasn’t very familiar with. But thinking on it, it’s kind of a departure from other Marvel stuff. A lot less action and mayhem.
Agree to disagree. I find the Kamala Kahn character to be an effervescent relief to a series that’s taking itself way too seriously or trying too hard for slap stick. Does that make this particular movie great? No. The movie itself is a pretty flimsy plot. The main trope of the movie is someone makes a mistake, the group comes together to resolve the mistake, and develop themselves during that resolution. So with that said, it’s not really good at delivering that, it’s not Trolls bad (the original one which the plot sucks, the music is quite good) but yeah there was a lot of room for lots of character development that was just not included in what was delivered. To me the movie pulled its punches on what it could have delivered.
But in these kinds of tropes you see classic character stereotype traits, in this case Kamala Kahn plays the lighthearted comedic foil and does so quite well through the movie. Needless to say the Captain Marvel character is our person who brings the conflict to be resolved and towards the end you are left with a pretty unsatisfying result. Like the issue is indeed resolved, but it’s about as exciting as how I might feel when I’ve completed my taxes. Hooray, I got that done. Maria Rambeau is our power character consistently pushing the accelerator for the characters to resolve the matter. And she’s pretty good at it, but there was absolutely more opportunity for her to flesh that out that they kept sacking her personal past to keep that in check. Which at some point one might go, yeah we get it, she’s troubled and doesn’t want to talk about it. There’s a degree of too much “I’m the aloof character in this movie”. I will say the final fight scene is actually good for the level of just skirting the level of frenetic and follow-ability. I’ve gotten to a point where I just tune out superhero fights when it just becomes a lightshow and camera pandemonium (ala the most recent Ant Man movie).
Like I said, it’s not a horrible movie. I went to the 10am showing of it on Friday (with one other friend) and that was $40 and that’s where I would say “Do NOT go see this movie for $40”. But I really enjoy the Kamala Kahn character and the level of energy the actress brings to the character. It reminds me a bit of how bubbly my twenty-two year old niece is sometimes and that serves as a nice refresher given the backdrop of generally everything else. So, I will acquiescence, there’s a likely bias on my part for the character.
Again, absolutely not disagreeing with your position on the character. I think Marvel (and this touches just every so slightly on the superhero saturation) has gotten so big that not every character is going to be widely welcomed by everyone. I think there’s a point that the Marvel Superhero movies get so numerous that you have to start considering sub-genres for the movies. And perhaps Marvel should pull back a bit on the distribution (it’s their ship ultimately to sail and sink if need be). But I really enjoyed the Kamala Kahn character in the same way that I enjoyed the Katy character from the Shang-Chi movie. I good comedic foil is like pepper, you need just enough to flavor the food and not too much to over power the food and both of those characters have carried that role quite well thus far. But like anything, Disney has every chance to run that straight into the ground.
So just my two cents.
I saw it today and I thought that it was fun.
I thought that it was way better than the latest Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy films which a really didn’t like.
Genre fatigue. Too formulaic now as well.
Interesting to see the general negative impressions contrasted with the other column here saying how great it is.
I’m still deciding whether to see it in theaters - I’m a huge fan of the Marvel universe and still want more superhero movies. Iman Vellani does a great job with an excellent character, and I loved how the story connected with her culture. Fantastic. However Captain Marvel was pretty much a non-entity and we had no idea who Monica Rambeau will be yet - I hope the movie gave some much needed character development
What I don’t really like is people telling me I shouldn’t let myself be swayed by critics and should watch it and make up my own mind.
That’s stupid. I’m reading the reviews to decide if I wanna watch it or not. I don’t wanna spend my money and a couple hours of my life to decide if it was worth it if some people whose judgement I’ve trusted in the past tell me it’s gonna be trash.
The “don’t listen to the critics” argument sounds a lot like what I’ve heard for many IMHO terrible DC movies.
Don’t get swayed specifically by critics. I swear most critics in the film and video game industry have the weirdest takes ever, while they should represent an average joe. There have been many movies which have been obliterated by critics, which have been quite popular and fun, as well as many awful movies, which have been praised by critics.
I am also a huge Marvel fan and I saw it Thursday night in a packed theater. My opinion is that all the pieces of one of the best Marvel movies are there, and just weren’t put together properly. The leads have great chemistry, Iman Vellani is brilliant as always, the main plot point makes for unique and interesting fight scenes, and they let it get goofy in just the right ways (princesses and kittens, that’s all I’m saying.)
But the overall pacing of the entire movie is SO bad. It feels so rushed. None of the fun or poignant things that are legitimately good are allowed to hang around on screen long enough to sink in. There are important plot points that move so fast they leave you wondering what just happened. Which is so disappointing. I was really excited that this might be the one that finally got Marvel out of their pandemic-induced production problems. Instead it’s just another Marvel movie that I’ll only see once.
I felt the same same way. It felt like all of these important parts of the plotline were skipped or got 1 line explanations. A lot of the emotional parts got about 5 to 10 seconds of screen time before moving on to the next part.
Spoiler
Can someone explain how a giant intelligence kept the air and water on a planet from floating away and made sure the sun kept burning?
Yeah that whole thing was glossed over. I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler, but it was the civil war that happened after the Supreme Intelligence was destroyed that decimated the environment. But no explanation how or why that led to the star being too dim. And the thing that was set up as the next big battle at the end of CM1 (destroying the Supreme Intelligence) happened off screen between the movies. It was just so frustrating
Theatres are dead. The experience just isn’t as good as home and the prices are disgusting now just like the theatres themselves.
Until I can spend many thousands of dollars on a home theater room it will be an inferior experience to going out. I don’t need to pause to make snacks, or put captions on, or whatever. I’m happy to pay fifteen dollars for the occasional ticket and then fifteen more for eight cents worth of soda and popcorn loaded with salt and butter-flavored-oil because I know theaters don’t see a pock of the ticket money.
I want a comfy recliner, a giant screen, outrageous sound volume, and two hours of uninterrupted movie. The places I usually go to are clean, I’ve never had a problem with rude patrons (the occasional restless child at family movies, sure), and I feel like I get good entertainment for the money. It’s not a weekly thing, maybe monthly.
My local theater is packed almost every night of the week. There were flocks of entire families with kids dressed up in costumes to see both Mario and Barbie. I traveled an hour to see Oppenheimer in proper IMAX and there wasn’t an empty seat in the house. Theaters definitely are not dead.
I have to agree, I hated Avatar 2 (liked the first one) and the theater experience made it 100 times worse. I went with an old friend that I havent seen in years, and a young guy in line behind us kept asking us if we were gay… like literally 20 times, he was completely obsessed with it to the point of harassment. I will NEVER go to a theater again, ever.
If you are a big marvel fan then go see it. It is not a great MCU film but it is also not bad. You will get some good laughs and fight scenes and get some mild emotional moments. I enjoyed it in theaters, but recognize that it is not as good as say GOTG3 or Spiderman NWH.
My best friend is a total mark for Marvel and didn’t even know that a new one was out.
Really? I’ve been seeing advertising for this all over the place.
I mean, i have been seeing the same damn trailer for it before every movie i’ve seen in theaters for months, and I still didnt realize it was coming out now.
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I have a rule. You get 3 movies of a thing and then I stop paying attention. Marvel, star wars, fast and furious, I don’t care, 3 of the “same” story and I’m out.
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I saw the movie a few days ago and while I didn’t think it was bad, I’ll admit the script is a mess. Some parts are a little hard to follow or poorly explained. Someone either got a bit lazy with the writing or did a poor job cutting it all together.
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It feels like an editing issue. The film was fast paced and a lot of scenes just ask you to assume that they make sense. In truth they probably do, but they need a little bit of explanation.
Let’s talk Flerkins for example. Early in the film Goose eats some bad guys, teleports to Kamala’s living room, then spits them out. No one really comments on it. No one found it weird. We just defeat the bad guys and move on.
Next Goose spits up some science equipment. We learn that they’ve been missing for a while. They look fine but no one mentions that they still work, or we’re otherwise still preserved.
Finally we have the musical Memory scene. Ignore for a moment the eggs that hatched. Ignoring for a moment it happens when they’ve run out escape pods. We have “kittens”, we’ve established that Flerkins can eat people and they can hold what they’ve eaten for a while. So while the solution makes sense, and on paper they’ve earned the moment, it takes a moment to really put it all together. As a result it feels rushed and instead of just enjoying the scene you’re left wondering if it makes sense.
We’re only talking about cutting a few minutes here and a few minutes there, but it adds up.
