Little Interest in The Marvels (MCU disaster?)

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Baulderstone said:
I wish they had gotten Tatiana Maslany to play Crazy Jane in the Doom Patrol series. The actress they got was the weakest link in an otherwise great cast. And to be fair to her, it was a very challenging role, so it doesn't mean she can't act. She just wasn't up this particular challenge.
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Yeah, she'd be great in anything... I've not really seen any Doom Patrol, tbh. Did you see Orphan Black?
 
TristramEvans said:
I forgot there was a Doom Patrol series. Was it any good?
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I liked the first 2 seasons. The end of season 2 wrapped up most of the ongoing plot, and Timothy Dalton as The Chief left the show. He left a real hole in the show. Season three had its moments, but it felt listless compared to the other seasons. I watched the first episode of season 4 and I just wasn't interested anymore.

I'd still recommend the first 2 seasons.
Rob Necronomicon said:
Yeah, she'd be great in anything... I've not really seen any Doom Patrol, tbh. Did you see Orphan Black?
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Yes, that entirely my basis for thinking she would have made a great Crazy Jane.
 
David Johansen said:
She's really the only reason I want to see it. That said, I fully expect complete character assassination and mishandling because Marvel's gotten worse and worse about that.
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They didn't though. All of them have nice characterizations in the movie, though Ms. Marvel does steal every scene she's in.
 
TristramEvans said:
If they'd have done this Captain Marvel instead of Aryan Space Karen and her Diversity Sidekicks I would have been all over that...

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Monica and Kamala are definitely not "diversity sidekicks" in the movie. In fact, I felt they contributed more to the story than Carol did in places. It's definitely presented as more of a team up, even though Carol does try and boss them around a few times. But they're most definitely not sidekicks
 
The funny thing with Captain Marvel is that the movie version is actually pretty apt to the 70s Ms Marvel with identity confusion and lost memories being a major thing. I think they really screwed up because doing Mar Vell lets you do The Death of Captain Marvel. He goes from a fairly generic alien superhero to the guy who died of cancer and kissed death right on the lipless mouth. It also lets Carol grow into the role, taking it up as a legacy.

I don't suppose we get to see Adam Bashir in Marvels.
 
David Johansen said:
So, Monica's an intelligent, educated black woman without falling into the obnoxious stereotype? I didn't think Hollywood could even do that.
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Apparently someone can. She was just as good in WandaVision, and was the levelheaded one in that outing, and that carried over into this one.

David Johansen said:
The funny thing with Captain Marvel is that the movie version is actually pretty apt to the 70s Ms Marvel with identity confusion and lost memories being a major thing. I think they really screwed up because doing Mar Vell lets you do The Death of Captain Marvel. He goes from a fairly generic alien superhero to the guy who died of cancer and kissed death right on the lipless mouth. It also lets Carol grow into the role, taking it up as a legacy.

I don't suppose we get to see Adam Bashir in Marvels.
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Surely if you're talking about Hollywood not being able to write an intelligent, educated Black woman, you can see why that whole storyline, while it is one of my favorite and Mar Vell is one of my favorite characters, is problematic.

And do you mean Adam Brashear, i.e. Blue Marvel?
 
Rob Necronomicon said:
I thought the original Captain Marvel film was fine. I think they really messed up by not dropping a proper CM sequel, and adding in some other characters that no one really wanted to see basically watered it down to something else. Meh...

Re. She hulk. I never watched it because the trailer made it look ridiculous - like a silly comedy and I don't really like wacky stuff (but that's just me). However, the actress who plays She Hulk (T.M.) is amazing. I first saw her in Orphan Black and she did a damn fine job! But from the clips I saw this was not my bag at all.
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The meta-ness for She Hulk makes sense because of Byrne's cult run on the comic but from what little I saw the show looked unfunny with bad CGI.

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chuckdee said:
Apparently someone can. She was just as good in WandaVision, and was the levelheaded one in that outing, and that carried over into this one.


Surely if you're talking about Hollywood not being able to write an intelligent, educated Black woman, you can see why that whole storyline, while it is one of my favorite and Mar Vell is one of my favorite characters, is problematic.

And do you mean Adam Brashear, i.e. Blue Marvel?
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Brashear, Blue Marvel, yeah that's the guy. I'd be expecting him in a walk in,"hi I'm Adam" kind of think like they did with Dane Whitman in Eternals.

I don't think the Captain Marvel thing has to be problematic. Really, I think you can just largely skip Carol's identity issues and I don't think her taking on the name Captain Marvel has to be about a woman being tied to a man's identiy like one might with Batgirl or Supergirl as Carol would be stepping into the role because she's upto the job and undoubtedly qualified to fill the position and replace the man in the role. Though, the minute someone asks if a woman can do it you've crossed into problematic territory. Oh well, let's face it, there probably isn't a single Marvel story from the seventies that involves a woman that isn't problematic on at least one level.
 
One thing that I feel most of the newer Marvel stuff is lacking is any 'heart'. I look back at the original Captain America movie and it really was a compelling story and you were really rooting for cap. And we all felt something for him being such a true 'fish out of water'.
I miss those days and movies. :sad:
 
urbwar said:
Monica and Kamala are definitely not "diversity sidekicks" in the movie. In fact, I felt they contributed more to the story than Carol did in places. It's definitely presented as more of a team up, even though Carol does try and boss them around a few times. But they're most definitely not sidekicks
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Well, that's good if so, but I'm going by three things here : one) the way Disney has chosen to promote and advertise the film, two) resentment over the way Captain Marvel has overall been handled in the MCU in general #notmycaptainmarvel, and three, Monica Rambeau being introduced into the MCU as a second stringer in a TV show and not being allowed to carry her own film (she deserves at least as good as f-ing Antman)
 
As long as they don't make a Squirrel Girl Film. If there was ever a character that said "Dave, This ain't your Marvel Universe no more", that was it.
 
Rob Necronomicon said:
One thing that I feel most of the newer Marvel stuff is lacking is any 'heart'. I look back at the original Captain America movie and it really was a compelling story and you were really rooting for cap. And we all felt something for him being such a true 'fish out of water'.
I miss those days and movies. :sad:
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I haven't seen Captain Marvel, bit I did watch that fight scene they put up to promote it shortly before it's release. It was a competent enough scene, but I found it completely lacked urgency. Captain Marvel seemed bored and annoyed that she had to fight these faceless mooks, Ms. Marvel seemed like the fight was just good, clean, harmless fun, and Nick Fury looked like grandpa enjoying watching his kids play. It meant the scene was utterly lacking in suspense.

By contrast, I finally got around to watching John Wick for the Bedrock Podcast last week (although the episode where we review it isn't up yet). One thing that impressed me about Reeves' performance is that while he was playing an almost unbeatable badass, he projected a real feeling of effort. You could feel him straining at the limits of his capability. Even though I knew he was going to be around for John Wick 2, it created the feeling that he was always one misstep away from death. It created a feeling of suspense even though I logically knew he was going to be fine in the end. That's what was lacking from the scene in The Marvels.

I also feel the powers of the MCU heroes are getting too murkily defined. The Marvels all have these energy powers that do whatever the story needs them to do. It's like the nanotech that started with Iron Man and seems to have infected every character now they all have magic appearing and disappearing helmets. Even their origins are muddy. I watched Wandavision, where Monca Rambeau got her powers from walking through Wanda's magical force field. I don't expect superhero origins to be realistic in any way, but they need to make some kind of comic book sense. Ms. Marvel got her power from magic bracelets, but she also got them because she is a mutant, but she needs to use the bracelets to use them, except when she doesn't. The MCU is badly in need of a D.C. Fontana figure to come in and enforce a series bible on them.

There is also a real sameness to most of the costumes now. It's like most of the character have the same uniform, just with different colors. It really hit me when I was watching the trailer for season 2 of What If?. Without the live-action actors, I was struggling to identify some the characters by by their costumes. A superhero should have a clearly distinct costume, it nothing else.
 
Rob Necronomicon said:
One thing that I feel most of the newer Marvel stuff is lacking is any 'heart'. I look back at the original Captain America movie and it really was a compelling story and you were really rooting for cap. And we all felt something for him being such a true 'fish out of water'.
I miss those days and movies. :sad:
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That's because Captain America was directed by a talented director, Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer) who knows how to shape a film and create characters you care about.

They decided to not use him on the sequels because he was too independent and wanted more freedom to make decisions about the films he was nominally hired to direct.
 
David Johansen said:
I don't think the Captain Marvel thing has to be problematic. Really, I think you can just largely skip Carol's identity issues and I don't think her taking on the name Captain Marvel has to be about a woman being tied to a man's identiy like one might with Batgirl or Supergirl as Carol would be stepping into the role because she's upto the job and undoubtedly qualified to fill the position and replace the man in the role. Though, the minute someone asks if a woman can do it you've crossed into problematic territory. Oh well, let's face it, there probably isn't a single Marvel story from the seventies that involves a woman that isn't problematic on at least one level.
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She got her powers from him. That's the problem I'm talking about - her being dependent on a man for her powers, identity and everything. She needed to be able to stand alone- especially after the amount of time it took to even get a woman led comic movie.
 
Voros said:
That's because Captain America was directed by a talented director, Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer) who knows how to shape a film and create characters you care about.

They decided to not use him on the sequels because he was too independent and wanted more freedom to make decisions about the films he was nominally hired to direct.
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My only real disappointment with that movie is they were in a hurry to get to The Avengers, so they had to send Steve to the present day at the end of that movie. I would have loved another movie or two of him in WWII before they froze him.

Now I think about it, they didn't kill Steve Rogers off. They just sent him back in time. Surely Cap didn't just settle down and get an office job when he got back the '40s. If they want to back out of the creative cul-de-sac the MCU has turned into, they could bring back Johnston to give us some pulp adventures with Cap and Agent Carter. That would even bring back that romance element that has been lacking.

I don't believe Disney would ever do that, but it's a nice dream.
 
Voros said:
That's because Captain America was directed by a talented director, Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer) who knows how to shape a film and create characters you care about.

They decided to not use him on the sequels because he was too independent and wanted more freedom to make decisions about the films he was nominally hired to direct.
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Winter Soldier and Civil War felt that way IMO
As did Infinity War and Endgame

And for the deficiencies in Falcon and Winter Soldier, I felt Falcon struggling, personally.
 
Baulderstone said:
My only real disappointment with that movie is they were in a hurry to get to The Avengers, so they had to send Steve to the present day at the end of that movie. I would have loved another movie or two of him in WWII before they froze him.

Now I think about it, they didn't kill Steve Rogers off. They just sent him back in time. Surely Cap didn't just settle down and get an office job when he got back the '40s. If they want to back out of the creative cul-de-sac the MCU has turned into, they could bring back Johnston to give us some pulp adventures with Cap and Agent Carter. That would even bring back that romance element that has been lacking.

I don't believe Disney would ever do that, but it's a nice dream.
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I wrote a bit about that, and why it wouldn't/couldn't happen - I thought I'd put it somewhere public, but I guess not, so now I did.
write.as

Captain America: After the Endgame

#writing #MCU "It was harder than I'd thought." The other man was silent, letting his subject drift into the memories. He was very anxi...
write.as write.as
 
chuckdee said:
Winter Soldier and Civil War felt that way IMO
As did Infinity War and Endgame

And for the deficiencies in Falcon and Winter Soldier, I felt Falcon struggling, personally.
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Those four movies were done by the Russo brothers.
 
Endless Flight said:
Those four movies were done by the Russo brothers.
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I know. But what had been talked about was someone else. So I was saying that since Captain America, there have been good installments, in direct reply to this:

Voros said:
That's because Captain America was directed by a talented director, Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer) who knows how to shape a film and create characters you care about.
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chuckdee said:
I know. But what had been talked about was someone else. So I was saying that since Captain America, there have been good installments, in direct reply to this:
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Yeah, they were good. Really good. Infinity War is ridiculously good.
 
chuckdee said:
She got her powers from him. That's the problem I'm talking about - her being dependent on a man for her powers, identity and everything. She needed to be able to stand alone- especially after the amount of time it took to even get a woman led comic movie.
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Fair enough but really, is there anything about Ms Marvel from the seventies that isn't problematic? My first encounter with Carol Danvers was in an X-Men comic where her personality had overwhelmed Rogue's. She was confident and clear at a time when Rogue was muddled and confused. But yeah, certainly a character that can have some cleanup done.
 
David Johansen said:
Fair enough but really, is there anything about Ms Marvel from the seventies that isn't problematic? My first encounter with Carol Danvers was in an X-Men comic where her personality had overwhelmed Rogue's. She was confident and clear at a time when Rogue was muddled and confused. But yeah, certainly a character that can have some cleanup done.
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I just meant from an origin perspective. Separating her from Mar Vell was an easy fix, and then just start her as Captain Marvel.
 
I don’t think anyone has breached this particular angle, but I don’t think Brie Larson is well-liked, for whatever reasons those may be, by a large number of Marvel fans. The first movie made bank partially because people felt like they might miss something huge in the lead up to Endgame. This movie has none of that.
 
Endless Flight said:
I don’t think anyone has breached this particular angle, but I don’t think Brie Larson is well-liked, for whatever reasons those may be, by a large number of Marvel fans. The first movie made bank partially because people felt like they might miss something huge in the lead up to Endgame. This movie has none of that.
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There’s a lot of hostility toward her, yeah. I think it’s mostly undeserved. A large portion of it is from a toxic section of the fanbase, and should just be ignored.

After that, what’s left is how she behaved in the lead up to the film. She was really focused on “the message” of the film and of her character… and that sometimes was a bit grating. I don’t know if it was just her take or if that was what she was told to speak about by Disney marketing machine, but I can see how it may have been annoying at times.

But none of it justifies the online nerd rage that many have for her and for these movies.
 
hawkeyefan said:
There’s a lot of hostility toward her, yeah. I think it’s mostly undeserved. A large portion of it is from a toxic section of the fanbase, and should just be ignored.

After that, what’s left is how she behaved in the lead up to the film. She was really focused on “the message” of the film and of her character… and that sometimes was a bit grating. I don’t know if it was just her take or if that was what she was told to speak about by Disney marketing machine, but I can see how it may have been annoying at times.

But none of it justifies the online nerd rage that many have for her and for these movies.
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I’m a Star Wars fan, first and foremost, and no franchise has more nerd rage. If Brie Larson were treated like Kelly Marie Tran, she’d probably give up her role.
 
hawkeyefan said:
There’s a lot of hostility toward her, yeah. I think it’s mostly undeserved. A large portion of it is from a toxic section of the fanbase, and should just be ignored.

After that, what’s left is how she behaved in the lead up to the film. She was really focused on “the message” of the film and of her character… and that sometimes was a bit grating. I don’t know if it was just her take or if that was what she was told to speak about by Disney marketing machine, but I can see how it may have been annoying at times.

But none of it justifies the online nerd rage that many have for her and for these movies.
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She definitely made some missteps on the publicity tour but I agree there is a degree of that fan base that is unreasonable. They use terms like “woke” and complain about “diversity.”
 
Endless Flight said:
I’m a Star Wars fan, first and foremost, and no franchise has more nerd rage. If Brie Larson were treated like Kelly Marie Tran, she’d probably give up her role.
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Yeah, that poor girl got it rough.

sharps54 said:
She definitely made some missteps on the publicity tour but I agree there is a degree of that fan base that is unreasonable. They use terms like “woke” and complain about “diversity.”
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Yeah, I think she was told to play up how the character was meant to be a role model for little girls, so that would always come up in interviews. After decades of having the little girl market on lock down and struggling to get the little boy market, but then acquiring Marvel and Star Wars, Disney was a little too eager to see if the Marvel cash cow could bring the girls in similar numbers.

Maybe it was something she took upon herself, but it seemed very much to me like something coached.
 
There is no question that Larsen was coached. Everyone who works for Disney in recent years reads the exact same script during interviews.

Interestingly, the attendance for the film has been mainly male. The failure of the movie lies in being some corporate vision of what women want to see in a movie than not that many women want to see. Disney is so caught up in their idea what people should want to see that they have no idea what people actually want to see.
 
chuckdee said:
Winter Soldier and Civil War felt that way IMO
As did Infinity War and Endgame

And for the deficiencies in Falcon and Winter Soldier, I felt Falcon struggling, personally.
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IMO, I liked Winter Soldier but it lacks the distinct visual imagination and feel of the first film and declines into an extended, mediocre CGI finale that plagued the MCU films.

Infinity War and Endgame are okay spectacles but Brolin aside, workmanlike in most other aspects, sometimes sliding into bathos. Not a fan of Civil War, too bland and flatly shot for me.

Can't say that any of the Avenger films grabbed me like the first Captain America and Iron Man.
 
IMO, the last good MCU film was Thor Ragnarok. Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, and Karl Urban pushed it.
 
TristramEvans said:
Well, that's good if so, but I'm going by three things here : one) the way Disney has chosen to promote and advertise the film, two) resentment over the way Captain Marvel has overall been handled in the MCU in general #notmycaptainmarvel, and three, Monica Rambeau being introduced into the MCU as a second stringer in a TV show and not being allowed to carry her own film (she deserves at least as good as f-ing Antman)
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I agree with you on the first thing, but for a different reason. The early trailers were more comedy leaning, then the later ones were more serious looking. the film balances the two.

The second I'm so-so on. The original Mar-Vell was my guy, but I have no issues with the MCU making Carol their Captain Marvel. I look at the MCU as an extended "What If?", so I don't concern myself with most of the changes, except when they're really bad (like how they portrayed most of the Deviants in Eternals.

The third I also can agree with. I'm hoping they do something more with Monica after this film. I sadly doubt they're going to have her star in her own film, but I would be up for a D+ series with her as the central character. She definitely does deserve more.
 
Lunar Ronin said:
IMO, the last good MCU film was Thor Ragnarok. Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, and Karl Urban pushed it.
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I really liked that one. I did enjoy the Infinity Gauntlet films, and the Guardians sequels. And before jumping off the Marvel TV bandwagon, I thought Scarlet Witch and Loke were fun. It was the MCU Spider-man sequelss and Multiverse of Madness were I was like "OK, I'm not really enjoying these films so much anymore". Black Widow might have been fine as a C-tier Marvel film if not for the complete dud on translating one of the best villains in the comics. I think Black Widow deserved better.
 
Voros said:
IMO, I liked Winter Soldier but it lacks the distinct visual imagination and feel of the first film and declines into an extended, mediocre CGI finale that plagued the MCU films.
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I didn't think the finale pieces that mattered were CGI - the CGI was just the backdrop.

Steve vs Bucky and Nat & Nick vs Pierce were the two big ones to me. Oh and Sam vs Crossbones. The crashing helicarrier and the destruction was just a backdrop.
 
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