Emma Stone in Talks to Play Cruella de Vil in Live-Action Origin Story Movie

[Cicada 5]

I feel like this mass serialization of IPs is going to bust before long. It's getting kind of ridiculous. We have Marvel putting out a couple movies a year in their massive interconnected universe. We will have yearly Star Wars movies, with origin stories for every character. We're now getting origin stories and remakes of classic Disney properties. And for a non Disney owned property, we have DC trying to make their own interconnected universe, which I'm pretty sure is going to absolutely blow up in their face given the apparent quality that I've seen so far. All of this with sequels planned years in advance of even the first movie coming out.

I'm pretty sure people are already starting to get tired of Superhero movies, and when that bubble bursts it will take a huge amount of money with it. I actually hopes that happens, because something big like that would need to happen to change this endless reboot/spinoff/sequel/origin story business model

People were saying the superhero movie bubble will burst as far back as the first Iron Man film. Eight years later and it looks like that is as far from the case.

 

[IOwnTheSpire]

I'd actually like to see one made for Jafar. Dude's got a story to tell.

That would be interesting. Maybe get Oscar Isaac.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

People were saying the superhero movie bubble will burst as far back as the first Iron Man film. Eight years later and it looks like that is as far from the case.

Sure, there might be a number of people who said that preemptively, but it will go out of fashion at some point. Avengers: Age of Ultron made less than the first one (Not by a huge amount, but being a sequel Age of Ultron should have made a fair bit more), and the market is steadily becoming more and more saturated with superhero movies.

This is just speculation on my part, but I suspect that once we get a big name title that absolutely tanks, the audience will start getting disillusioned with them. At this point, they've been at worst mediocre and a little bland. Wouldn't be surprised if the DC universe will be the ones to spark that off

 

[Spider RedNight]

There is a book called Pyramid Scheme, you can read it free at the Baen Free Library, in which it takes the idea of myths being somewhat true and applies it in interesting ways. Case in point what it does with Medea, in the original story she is 'blessed' through the machinations of Hera to love Jason. Ignoring the fridge horror of such a concept, it then runs with the idea that she was an accomplished sorceress and has her faking the death of not only Glauce but her children as well. The thing you have to keep in mind is that the legend surrounding Medea was told by Hellenes with Medea being that damn foreign woman. Thus, the 'truth' of the matter may be something very different.

In Sleeping Beauty vs Maleficent you see the same dichotomy. Sleeping Beauty can be thought of as a bedtime story told several generations later by residents of the kingdom, with Maleficent being the 'truth' of the matter. You can't pull such a switch with Cruella de Vil because the central conceit of the legend is that she wants to skin a shitload of dalmatian puppies, which are sapient in that universe, to make a coat. There is no possible sympathy, outside of Anita conspiring with dalmatians to kill Cruella's family.

Maleficent isn't the 'truth of the matter'. That movie's fanfiction to someone who thought they were a Maleficent lover and they ruined her original Disney character while making every other character from the same movie into idiots to make her look better. Not to mention there's this suspension that you have to put that leans into "empowerment" territory by saying "well she was wronged but she's INCREDIBLY POWERFUL so she can exact whatever revenge she wants" which, in turn, ruins the belief.

Just like Pyramid Head (who's a symbol of punishment and sexual frustration) is ALSO actually the protector of a young girl! Except... that's not how it works. You can't just retcon something in and expect everyone to just go along with it when they've already had a pre-existing image from some fifty years earlier (or even before that from the fairy tale) and then say "no see it's believable because instead of going to kill the guy that was directly responsible for my pain, I'll just take it out on his... family members instead wait what am I trying to defend?"

So going by your logic NOW, what if the truth of the matter isn't that she ACTUALLY wants to kill puppies? What if it's all some elaborate show and that she's actually just trying to protect them and she knew her stupid assistants wouldn't actually succeed? And she was the mastermind behind the whole thing because she stored them all in one place so the dogs could find them and blah blah blah then they'd all end up with Roger and Anita and bullshit bullshit because you're saying "the original Disney Sleeping Beauty was this and that and the new one makes it believable" then you're turning around and saying "no this isn't the least bit possible because of this fact from the original 101 Dalmatians" when we're just... glossing over the facts from the other Sleeping Beauty, like, I dunno... ALL THE OTHER CHARACTERS? And subsequently how they were also ruined to fit Maleficent's image better?

Also should probably mention that the dogs weren't human-level sentient in the live-action movies so that argument doesn't really hold any water. No more sentient than a days-old baby that someone decides to curse, anyway.

Also, uh... *looks at list* Jafar DIDN'T flirt with a 16-year-old girl, the Horned King was gonna use his skeleton army to abolish crime in the land, Ursula used to be the prettiest and purest 'til King Triton did something bad and now she's upset and secretly loves Ariel like her own daughter, and Madame Mim and Merlin used to be lovers until, you guessed it, Merlin did something evil ('cuz he's actually the villain in this story WHAT A TWIST) and she became jaded.

So go ahead, Disney! Make ALL the reboots of Disney villains because of the Pyramid Scheme! That means it's okay to ruin beloved characters from your classic works to make villains look better!

Or they could not. And spend their time at least TRYING to come up with something completely original. C'mon Disney, why can't you be more like Disney Pixar? Just create your own stuff! Or at least re-teach your animators to do 2D because we all know you HAVE enough money for that.

..... What was the original argument? Ah, well, I'm bored now. You win the argument, Ravenshrike. Congratulations, here's a sticker that said "my opponent got bored"~

 

[Cicada 5]

It's stupid that they try to retcon all this stuff in like "oh no Maleficent was actually a fairy and she fell in love and blah blah blah" - I don't CARE. There was no "hidden relationship" between herself and Aurora, there was no "I'm actually good and the fairies are idiots who would've accidentally killed her" crap.

Except it worked for Maleficent in that the motivations were entirely believable. Powerful person betrayed and mutilated by the one they love becomes bitter and closed off and does what she can to ruin the happiness of the one who caused her pain. Even then, she does not kill or hurt anyone(which remains true to the original disney movie). Attempting to do the same thing to Cruella is just... silly. There is no believable path from good person to kill all puppies(who in universe have the same level of sentience as humans) to redemption.

It's not "entirely believable" when you consider the ORIGINAL Disney Movie in which the Fairies were kindly, King Stefan wasn't a horrible monster who would totally be the type to virtually rape someone else and Maleficent's original intentions were to curse the child because she got snubbed at a party.

It's ridiculous that they try to turn her from "The Mistress of ALL EVIL" into "misunderstood fairy with a hidden heart of gold" - but then, it doesn't work in anyone's favour when they spend their first Disney appearance reveling in being powerful, dangerous and formidable then they spend another movie saying "oh see this isn't how it is at all and by the way Stefan is a terrible human being and those fairies are shitty at everything because we're trying to make this one character who was the villain look good by comparison." If they wanted to make a movie about how Maleficent was jaded, they should've introduced, like, a separate character instead of warping all the existing characters to make her look good by comparison - it starts to edge into the other thread's "Mary Sue" discussion when we think about it like that.

And they're making a SECOND ONE. Because at the end of the first one, Maleficent DOESN'T turn into a motherfucking awesome dragon and get into an epic battle with Philip! Yayyyyyy ruining original (in the sense that there's already Disney movies about said material) Disney movies like Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland!

Maybe I wouldn't be so bitter if I didn't like the original Disney's Sleeping Beauty. Yeah, Aurora's boring and whiny but hey, she spends 2/3 of the movie out of commission. The Fairies are likable (and competent), Philip does all the princely things, King Stefan and King Hubert have a pointless scene where they hang out, and Maleficent is EVIL and she LOVES being EVIL. Then the Wicked ripoff comes along then tries to tell everyone that that's not it at all and that Maleficent (whose name was the same throughout for... some reason) is actually good, she's just been hurt and that justifies her cursing a days-old child because "do unto others" as in "when Stefan does it it's terrible but when Maleficent intends to, it's okay".

Also she didn't turn into a dragon. That just pisses me off. ALSO also when she pitches a fit in the original after finding out her minions were incompetent, I'm pretty sure she DID hurt a handful of them - you don't throw magic and lightning around like that, flinging people across the room and expect none of them to be hurt.

Given that they're weird Goblin/orc/pig things, and that as a general rule those beings in fantasy are much tougher than normal humans, I suspect they got hurt much less than you think. Not to mention when I say it fits, I mean taking the original story as somewhat true with major events, what they do with those events is believable.


There is a book called Pyramid Scheme, you can read it free at the Baen Free Library, in which it takes the idea of myths being somewhat true and applies it in interesting ways. Case in point what it does with Medea, in the original story she is 'blessed' through the machinations of Hera to love Jason. Ignoring the fridge horror of such a concept, it then runs with the idea that she was an accomplished sorceress and has her faking the death of not only Glauce but her children as well. The thing you have to keep in mind is that the legend surrounding Medea was told by Hellenes with Medea being that damn foreign woman. Thus, the 'truth' of the matter may be something very different.

In Sleeping Beauty vs Maleficent you see the same dichotomy. Sleeping Beauty can be thought of as a bedtime story told several generations later by residents of the kingdom, with Maleficent being the 'truth' of the matter. You can't pull such a switch with Cruella de Vil because the central conceit of the legend is that she wants to skin a shitload of dalmatian puppies, which are sapient in that universe, to make a coat. There is no possible sympathy, outside of Anita conspiring with dalmatians to kill Cruella's family.

Could you perhaps give me the author of this book called the Pyramid Scheme please?