People like to level that complaint squarely at the MCU, but that's a Hollywood problem in general. American movie audiences in particular have been conditioned to prefer unambiguous happy endings, or at least endings where the hero stands in uncontested victory by the end. Complex, nuanced villains stand in the way of that, because if you make their story and arguments too compelling, then you risk the audience siding with them instead.

MCU got a helluva lot better with that in its third phase, with characters like Zemo (as he stood in Civil War. Can't speak for Falcon and Winter Soldier yet), Adrian Toomes, Erik Killmonger, and especially Thanos.

Dr. Strange's Kaecillius was a bit of an odd duck in that regard, because he carried with him all the flatness of the Phase 1 villains, but he was backed by the righteousness of the later ones. Whatever, it seemed like he was just meant to be an appetizer before the more traditional rivalry with Mordo emerged.

But you never hear the same complaint (at least, at the same volume) leveled at the DCEU, where despite all those films' plays at being grimdark, had its heroes more often than not face almost literal cartoon characters in their final acts. At least the MCU built believable rivalries, if not well-rounded characters, in its early days. Batman v Superman completely borked any of the hallmark rivalry between Superman and Luthor that colours all their modern interactions. But then maybe people are just letting those films off easy due to their myriad of other problems besides.

 

Sooooo... still no news huh.
Hopefully we hear some more details in the near future.

 

I don't know if that's true. You are kind of describing the ending of The Dark Knight, which came out during MCU phase 1. And you can absolutely create villains that are compelling and threatening without siding with them. A simple google search of movie villains will prove that.

 

Probably gonna be awhile. There are 4 MCU movies out this year, they'll focus on them primarily.

 

It depends on how heady you want your film to be. For a crowd-pleasing action romp, like in Bond, Mission Impossible, and most superhero flicks? Then the villain is probably going to die to create a sense of finality. And for that to happen, the villain needs to feel like he deserves to die.

There'll be exceptions, like Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2. But you can't keep playing that card either, or else it starts feeling trite.

If you're going for more of a thinker, then maybe your villain gets to be a bit more rounded, and may even survive the experience. But those types of movies tend not to make the big bucks.

 

The Dark Knight had no shortage of success. I don't think this is about what people are conditioned to prefer. I think it's more about film makers or studios not wanting to take chances.

 

I'm talking averages and norms here, not the exceptions.

Within the scope of the traditional Hollywood blockbuster, it's indisputable that the vast majority fall into the "hero fights the villain, villain dies, hero gets the girl" framework. And the early-stage MCU films were definitely in the vein of trying to recapture that crowd-pleasing, pulpy 80s action movie sort of feel.

Not every villain can be a Heath Ledger//Joker or a Hannibal Lecter. or a Doc Ock. The novelty and fascination wears off if you oversaturate.

 

I agree that's the Hollywood blockbuster formula now, but I don't think it's because that's all people want to see. I think that's a formula that Hollywood picked up on and decided to keep doing because they are more interested in profit then telling interesting stories.

 

It's not like the two are mutually exclusive. Hollywood latched onto the formula because that's what saw the most consistent returns. People continue watching them, and Hollywood continues making them.

But then what happens is that the comic book movies start to dominate, and audience tastes begin to shift. Modern comics have fostered more complex villainy, because that helps to promote the type of serialized storytelling that nets repeat buyers. That type of storytelling eventually crossed over into the film side of things.

MCU phase 1 was made for generalized audiences, and played to the level as expected for that demographic. Once they proved to be a viable market and that people were wholly invested in the stories and characters rather than just craving another generic action romp, then they started to play with more nuanced antagonists.

 

Totally agree. The only "MCU" efforts that somewhat consistently had good villains were the Netflix shows. Which had problems sure but they did have some excellent antagonists.

 

It also goes to the tone of characters involved. Take the Red Skull; he’s not nuanced or particularly deep compared to the Joker, Loki, Zemo or Zod. At all. But he’s the bad guy in a WWII two fisted pulp adventure tale. He’s a super Nazi who exists only to bombastically orate about how much better his new world order will be and kill failing underlings. And in this role (despite Weaving not liking it much) he delivers admirably and I remember him with great fondness as a character.

 

Some crew-related news from Reddit:

Costume designer Ruth E. Carter, who won an Oscar for her work on the first film, is not returning due to schedule conflicts. The costumes will be done for this film by Nigerian Mobolaji Dawodu (who worked on the Disney biodrama Queen of Katwe).

 

I hope ludwig göransson is back to score the second film

 

It's worth pointing out that neither Joker or Loki were nuanced at all prior to becoming so in movies. So that's no excuse. They could have made Red Skull nuanced, like Nolan and Ledger made Joker, or the MCU made Loki.

I mean, even in the greatest Thor comics ever published prior to the MCU, Loki was a one-note irredeemable mustache-twirler. That he's anything more in comics now is 100% owed to the Marvel Studios movies. So if it can be done with him, it can be done with almost any villain.

 

Incorrect



And incorrect

 

Oh yeah, I forgot about that Loki comic. I stand corrected.

On the other hand, if you want to use Killing Joke as an example of depth or nuance, we're going to have to agree to disagree.

 

Whether you like Killing Joke or not is irrelevant. It establishes Joker as more than a “mustache twirling villain.” Where as Batman ‘89 only establishes him as a mustaches twirling villain.

Beyond that both Miller and Moore ushered in era of practically every subsequent Batman writer to take a swing at adding more depth to Joker and his relationship to Batman. Whatever “depth” Nolan brought to Batman has far more to do with Heath Ledger’s performance than the writing.

As far as Loki goes it’s not entirely different as the success of the character lies almost entirely with Tom Hiddleston, but there is more writing there than with Nolan’s Joker. But you had more depth of character in the comics prior to the movies just off the top of my head Lady and Kid Loki all established prior to the Hiddleston incarnation.

The comics were ahead of movies in both cases. It’s not really a matter of opinion.

 

What the fuck does any of this have to do with Black Panther 2

 

Good question read the comments. Or don’t.

 

Are we talking about within the confines of the movie universe or are we talking about in general?

because I agree that in the confines of the movie universe Red Skull was not a very nuanced character. But within the 616 comic book universe he had quite an in-depth backstory about an abusive father who tried to kill him as a baby because his birth caused his mother to die in childbirth and he was found by the Nazis and raised by Hitler who twisted him into the monster he became, etc, etc