Thought this might generate some discussion, as some of the examples in this vid are greatly disliked by fans.
I disagree on certain examples, but agree in broad principle that there is an art when dealing with characters like Superman and his many contemporaries. I think for example that Richard Donner's Superman is a great way of handling it, Man of Steel had some good ideas but Zack Snyder's attachment to Objectivism harms any attempt at Superman in my opinion. I mean I love the genre for the most part, but I'll never object to someone looking at something good and saying 'Be better'.
I think there is universal ove for Donner’s Superman; but it wasn’t a one size fits all solution. It sure didn’t work for a Superman Returns. I’ve liked Man of Steel. I appreciate the grounded tone that Snyder introduced. With exceptions. The world we occupy now is a far cry from the world that Donner’s young Clark occupied.
Seems like an interesting video, I'll watch it when I get the chance. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the superhero genre (although I always preferred more grounded Star Wars/Star Trek style sci-fi, as a personal preference). My main problem with superhero movies is just that they're really overexposed at this point, and starting to feel repetitive. The formula is starting to become more obvious, and characters are starting to retread the same superpowers and archetypes. And Marvel is starting to feel too serialized, with way too much required viewing. I think that's going to come back to bite them later down the road, because it's going to get harder and harder to attract newcomers if you have to watch hundreds of hours of movies and shows to understand what's going on in the newest superhero popcorn outing.
The problem with superhero movies is the never ending online discourse and analysis for clicks. They’re pumped up to be something deeper and more meaningful than what they are, only to be torn down and dissected again for the sake of discussion. People become more aware of the formula and the tropes because they’re watching video after video talking about them in detail. The shared universe plays into that by providing mostly superficial links between various properties which people then fixate on and inflate to make it seem like it’s all some complex web of plot threads and story details for This Very Important Thing, when the reality is that Black Panther 2 won’t be an incomprehensible mess just because you didn’t watch The Eternals and Werewolf by Night. It’s mostly just fun additional fluff that adds to the experience if you’ve seen it rather than detract from it if you haven’t. If you need to watch a video to find out why a piece of media you watched is bad, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. If it was then you’d already know what was wrong with it and you wouldn’t need someone else to explain it to you or other people.
Invincible characters that derail any sense of risk and drama predate the comercial rise of super hero movies in the media as if you look at the action hero movies that preceeded the super hero's you get lots of Invincible alpha males in vests who take out legions of heavily armed and trained underlings with nothing more than plot armour and crap one-liners to aid them. Provided they stick to the kryptonite rule of giving their hero at least some weaknesses this isn't too much of a problem for me. It seems like nowadays there is more imagination and thought put in to what their hero's weakness is as if they are physically invincible perhaps their weakness needs to be moral, spiritual, emotional or maybe they are badly trained, clumsy or have no discipline. I personally find it annoying when they are not consistent with it like when you have characters like cyclops who have a specific power of a lazer beam but then they seem to miraculously survive things that would likely kill most people or their physical strength seems unrealistic at times. Stories featuring superpowers are mostly about wish fulfilment and people like to see stories where the main character is considered heroic so they are too universal to be sabotaged completely by a bit of clumsy plot armour and lazy writing around invincibility. One of the greatest strengths that has helped prevent the super hero fatigue from setting in is that it isn't really a genre of cinema in the traditional sense as the makers of the fiction are free to use whatever genre or style of cinema they want to. They can make them a crime drama, Science fiction, Horror, psychedelic cinema, space opera, teen drama fantasy, political conspiracy drama, steam punk or weave in whatever less mainstream cultural references they see fit like for example black panther or Ms. marvel. They can be aimed at any deomorgraphic as they mostly tend to aimed at a teenage audience but there is a large group of nostalgic middle aged followers of most franchises and they can also be made for more adult audiences like the boys.
That's definitely been Marvel's major success point, and the secret sauce behind some of their biggest accolades, is that their best films don't forget to be about something. The superpowered fisticuffs are just the window dressing. It's about the people and what they stand for, and how they fit into the world around them. The superpowers let them raise the stakes and the spectacle, but their best films don't forget to tell a story. The Winter Soldier could've easily been retooled into a classic 80s/90s spy thriller with none of the Marvel universe trappings, for instance. But the audience's attachment to the characters and the world made it so much more impactful. That's where DC and Sony have gotten it so wrong, is that they've let Marvel evolve the superhero genre, and they've been left behind. That's why the Venom movies, and Black Adam got the criticism "feels like a movie from fifteen years ago", because they're playing with old toys. There's no plot to them outside of "beat up the bad guy". They're pure cinematic junk food. They're entertaining in the moment, but they have no lasting flavour. The X-Men movies tried, but they were so inconsistent, between different directors, the attempt to juggle a massive cast of underdeveloped, uncharismatic "nobodies" (I mean, the characters should be big deals, but very few have the screen presence to actually carry the films), and by the end of it, that stupid timeline gimmick that utterly defied all logic, that in the end, they just collapsed under their own weight.
Definitely always interested in more viewing material even if I end up disagreeing with it. Honestly I think a major thing about superhero movies at the moment is that western capeshit just kinda sucks in general because it's often written by miserable millenials / zoomers who don't understand the concept of characters with aspiration because they're so devoid of anything resembling passion themselves. They think heroic characters are 'boring' or 'unrealistic' and relate more to the bad guys, have no appreciation or respect for the craft and work that came before... It's no wonder the western comics industry is in such a shambles, the idiots at Disney proudly state they hire people to work on the MCU that have no experience with or actively dislike the source material. People gave Martin Scorsese such shit for his comments about Marvel films 'not being cinema' when he's fucking right. The frustrating part is it could be better, but the general audience has more or less bought into a model that values quantity over quality every time. When you reward sludge with financial success and accolades that's all you're gonna get.
That's a wildly reductive and inaccurate take, especially as Marvel practically resurrected the dated and increasingly irrelevant fossil of Captain America, boy scout mannerisms and all, and made him not only relevant, but a major, fan-favourite centerpiece of their cinematic universe for just over a decade, with both him and Iron Man shaping the course of their cinematic universe. The MCU is almost nothing but aspirational, with the core challenge of each of the heroes centered around being the best version of themselves. As rough as MCU Phase 4 has been, that's precisely why, is because the original Avengers team left such big shoes to fill that the younger heroes are having a much harder time living up to that example. In the DC camp, though, Zach Snyder completely fucked it up with his vision for Superman, and they floundered and let the whole thing collapse atop that faulty pillar. Superman is supposed to be inspirational, and he was instantly turned into a pariah. He peppered Man of Steel so full of messianic overtones, but as a result of his Objectivist leanings, apparently had no idea what it actually means to be a messiah.
Every main movie character is invincible though. If they weren't, they wouldn't be the main character. Nevertheless, you don't go into a super hero movie and expect the main character to not be such. 1. You do know that most of the comic writers right now are Gen Xers, right? 2. The MCU has been nothing but happy go lucky super heroes that fit the traditional bill. Have you watched Ms Marvel? That show does exactly what you are saying you are clamoring for. Same with She-Hulk.
This. Anyone really watch a Schwarzenegger movie and believe he’s really in danger at any point? Ditto a movie with the Rock. And the Fast and Furious cast should be dead many many times over. Spoilers for a 20 year old movie but part of why the twist in Sixth Sense works is because it’s Bruce Willis, an actor audiences are trained to see as outright invincible. This right here. The secret sauce for Marvel is that most of their movies aren’t superhero movies. They’re almost all pulling from some other genre of movie.
A superhero movie can be anything honestly. The first Black Panther was a race drama, the Guardians and Ant-Man movies have been goofy pulp space comedies, the Russo Cap films were political thrillers, Infinity War was a space opera, Shang-Chi was a martial arts family drama, the MCU Spider-Man films were a slow burn coming of age high school comedy at first. The Dark Knight was a crime drama, Wonder Woman was a war movie, Superman I and II were arguably the progenitor of the superhero movie. MCU movies that generally don’t do much new have generally been the ones that got hit with the criticism and that’s when the outcry of superhero fatigue strikes. Captain Marvel, Age of Ultron, Iron Man 3. And even then, out of those three only Iron Man 3 felt like it was trying to be a superhero movie. The definition of superhero movie also requires clarification. I think out of the entire MCU, Avengers felt the most like what I consider a superhero movie. It was mostly bright, fun, and rousing with the heroes saving the day from a good villain. That’s generally what I feel like is a classic superhero movie so to speak. And even then, not much since Christopher Reeve’s era really hit that quota. The X-Men movies were darker and more grounded, the Burton Batman era was dark and pulpy, Iron Man 1 and 2 were about the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist anti-hero, and the Dark Knight films were again crime dramas. Afterwards, Age of Ultron felt like it was trying to be a bigger Avengers with too much bloat. Any movie can star a superhero, but not every movie starring a superhero is a superhero movie. I don’t blindly worship the MCU but I also think Scorcese, Cameron, etc do feel annoyed by how the MCU is usually a guaranteed success that will be remembered over their films. Nobody talks about the Irishman, and there are plenty of movies these days that star Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie smoking, drinking and living it up that I rolled my eyes seeing a trailer for Babylon (which is not Scorsese but it looked just another Oscar bait movie). I can completely understand the concern that smaller movies aren’t getting love when the MCU can be rewarded for crap just because of brand loyalty. But let’s not act like Cameron and Scorsese are somehow the emperors of cinema, like how some claim the MCU is. They also make these comments because they know it will get a lot of buzz and they’ll use that buzz for their movies’ sake. Oh well.
