Capeshit

[hooplala]

What they did with Vanessa in part 2 was pretty unfortunate.

[altered]

Snip

So you should probably read Worm. It deals with quite literally all of your complaints, up to and including selling superpowers and random people having powers being a horrible thing. And the stupid costumes, even. And secret identities and seriously, I think it covers every single thing you mentioned.

https://parahumans.wordpress.com

It's not in comic or movie form, but it is a surprisingly "real" take on the genre. Also has some really good characters, and some excellent societal commentary as time goes on. First two arcs are slow, leaning into annoying, but it picks up pace fast enough and doesn't stop accelerating. By arc 8 the wheels come off and the rockets kick in, and you're only just about through the intro.

It's also fucking huge. I wouldn't blame you if you skipped it on size alone.

[Trivial]

I like superhero movies and I like sci fi and fantasy and general not real things.  I can't tell you why I like them though, just do.

[Al Qədic]

But the problem is, all of my hobbies are filled with people who get all sweaty when some obscure bubblegum character gets their own feature film. So I'm constantly having the same conversation "OH DID YOU SEE JESSICA JONES? I WATCHED THE WHOLE THING IN 9 MINUTES", "ah, no, missed that one." and then they say GOD DAMN over and over again while wiggling their eyebrows at me.

Then comes the evangelists... DID YOU WATCH UMBRELLA ACADEMY? no, it doesn't seem like my cup of tea. BUT YOU GOTTA CHECK IT OUT.  You know, I don't get into the superhero stuff that much. THIS IS DIFFERENT, IT'S REALLY CHARACTER DRIVEN. yeah but uhhhh so is the Full House reboot, have you seen that?

100% this. I have a friend who's fanatical about the MCU. I listen to her ramble in a chatroom and I think "Ok. But why do I care?" This is a woman who sees movies on a near constant basis, tries to get tickets day-one, and bemoans the loss of the Good Old Days™ while still singing the praises of Infinity War and Black Panther. Aside from her incessant "Did you see this? You should. Its good. Are you gonna see it?" nattery, she just exudes this...gluttony, for lack of a better word, about it all.

Sure, Infinity War is a neat idea. The thought of all these characters coming together is swell. Black Panther exists? Whee, more black superheroes (Static Shock is better anyway ). But again, I wonder, "why do I care?" Why do I want to see the Avengers team up with the Guardians of The Galaxy? I don't care about most of these characters, and the ones I care about, I don't really care about. Do I care because the stakes are so high? This is capeshit; no matter how many times Thanos snaps his big shiny glove, characters are just going to come back in another movie because multiverse shenanigans, or their own standalone films. Their deaths mean zilch.

The thing that really chafes my cloaca about capeshit, at least and especially where the MCU is involved, is the absolute glut of media we get.

The MCU had 2 films in '08, 1 film in '10, 2 films in '11, 1 film in '12, 2 films in '13 to '16, 3 films in '17 and '18, and at least 3 this year. That's 20+ movies in just over 10 years! And that's not counting any of the comics, short films, or TV shows (whose plots, of course, serve some importance to the overall story and character development and yadda yadda).

The DCEU had 1 film in '13, 2 films in '16 and '17,  and 1 in '18. That's 6 movies over 5 years. The MCU has almost 4x the movies in just double the time!

The DCEU might have had some flops in there (Suicide Squad, plus I just personally don't understand the logic of casting Jason Momoa as Aquaman), and the MCU movies range from okay to spectacular in quality and sales, but sweet Jesus tapdancing Christ I don't get how the fandom doesn't get utterly burned out on this shit.

Maybe that's an indicator of how much "better" Marvel is, and it's a move that's paid off for them, but I don't want to watch that many movies just to understand what the funny men in CGI capes are doing. Going back to my obsessive friend; you wonder why I complain about how many movies there are? Because screw you, that's why!


...that is all.

[The Johnny]

Well, theres the thing about squeezing the juice out of a brand till its dry too, which is a safe economic strategy. Its about zero risk economic profit. Why write someting new that can flop if you can remake Ghostbusters and make movies out of prestiged comics? Why in Star Wars not write episode VII as a remake of episode IV? Same reason why we need a 9th Chucky movie.

-Joh'Nyx, waiting for the remake of Critters

(P.S. at least the Emoji movies were trying to be original)

[Cain]

The modern entertainment industry seems predicated on selling people their childhood back to them in a somewhat more acceptable adult packaging.

Since I never really read comics as a kid, I'm not exactly excited about superhero films either (unless Taika Waititi directs another one). I was willing to give the Netflix stuff a fair shake, but only due to Daredevil and Jessica Jones actually being somewhat decent, which was entirely down to Vincent D'Onofrio and Krysten Ritter respectively (and boy did that bite me in the ass when I risked Iron Fist. There's seven hours I will never get back).

There could be an element of, uh, moral clarity with superhero films that may explain their appeal. Especially when other geeky genres are embracing a grimdark and deconstructionist approach to their tropes (looking at you, fantasy), having something that goes "these are the good guys, lets go" could have a certain amount of positivity.

[Eater of Clowns]

There was a comic store near my school called American Mythology and I've always thought it neatly captures the wide appeal of superhero stories. We don't believe in Superman like the Greeks used to believe in Heracles but can't you just picture some little kid thousands of years ago gushing about a monster with twelve heads that grew two more every time it was chopped off? You should be thankful that all we do is make movies about ours instead of making statues and building shrines.

I will say that for as ubiquitous as the movies have become recently, there is one small part of it all I like. Disney is giving some big time work to small and interesting directors right now. Taika Waititi, currently one of my favorites, went from directing a mockumentary about modern vampires living in New Zealand to directing a Thor movie. It wasn't bad, as far as superhero movies go, but it was successful enough that he could come off of that and do pretty much whatever he wanted creatively. So he's choosing to make a Hitler Youth camp comedy where he plays the protagonist's imaginary friend Hitler.

I'm a little interested to see what happens when the draw of these movies wanes. Are we going to start getting weird with it?

[Faust]

Taika Waititi is a brilliant comedy writer, the kiwi sense of humor. Thor Rangernok is enjoyable from start to finish, has very little substance, but it's a fun ride without much to think about after which is all marvel really do now. If he did another Thor I would definitely watch it.

Thor being thick as shit, and a power fantasy kind of works for his character as well, it almost gets a pass on the simplistic morality and character depth because he is a god, and gods don't need to justify their choices.

[Trivial]

Jessica Jones is good, but I wouldn't recommend it to most people because it's so damn depressing.  "Hey I have PTSD and my family is dead! Follow me on my wacky adventures!"
Also I don't want to discover one of my friends is the type that thinks the Purple Man is just misunderstood and is really a good romantic interest.   

Umbrella Academy was good for the anti superhero thing.  All but one of the kids who were superheros called it quits and you mostly stick with the story after.  Plus it has time traveling assassins who were just corporate drones.

Thor Ragnarok I'd recommend to anyone because it's fun.

I liked the Punisher series on Netflix, but the concept of the Punisher as a good guy just feeds the whole fascist police folks. 

[Cain]

thinks the Purple Man is just misunderstood and is really a good romantic interest.

[Trivial]

thinks the Purple Man is just misunderstood and is really a good romantic interest.

[hooplala]

I grew up reading comics but could more or less take or leave most of the movies. I see a fair amount of them, and often enjoy myself while I am there and then generally never think of them again. It's time will pass when they stop making money... on the other hand, we are currently in something of a renaissance for slow burn moody horror movies, which I am LOVING.

Back to comics for a second... I really wosh we could go back to a pre-Harley Quinn world. /rant

[Trivial]

Back to comics for a second... I really wosh we could go back to a pre-Harley Quinn world. /rant

Holy crap this.

[The Johnny]

Back to comics for a second... I really wosh we could go back to a pre-Harley Quinn world. /rant

Holy crap this.

Why? I loved her in the animated series, shes one of those ambivalent characters between good and evil that adds some depth.

But the Suicide Squad Harley i would def say something among the lines of:

[Trivial]

Back to comics for a second... I really wosh we could go back to a pre-Harley Quinn world. /rant

Holy crap this.

Why? I loved her in the animated series, shes one of those ambivalent characters between good and evil that adds some depth.

But the Suicide Squad Harley i would def say something among the lines of:

I liked her in the animated series, it's the aftermath of it though. 

It's like, ooh look ice cream, I like ice cream.  Then suddenly NINE TONS OF ICE CREAM BECAUSE YOU SAID YOU LIKED IT.