How to fix Marvel? *confused face*

[Parasondox]

Evening to you all dear Escapist lot,

Shall we have some fun. Okay I want to make it clear that I know Marvel Studios are way ahead of the game and I like their work. This is just a bit of fun with NO FLAME WARS. Thanks to Screen Junkies, I saw this recent video and I actually like this point about how Marvel needs to fix a few things up before everyone loses interest and Nick Mundy has some point that, well, everyone has already been saying.


He has a point that the villains just aren't memorable and just there to fill a plot. Loki is the only one with any real weight to him but he can't always carry the villain sword for Marvel's CU. Yes I know it's a wild fanboy dream to have Galactus messing the whole universe up and X-Men, Avengers and eveeeeeeeeryone... you know, once Marvel Studios gets the rights back, working together in a 3-4 hour (maybe 9) action movie, If Lord of the Rings can do it then why not Marvel?

What would your fan ideas be? and do you agree with the video?

ADDED EXTRA: Screw you fact you ruined Galactus. A cloud? F*** THAT!!

Let's have fun here people and not take it too seriously.

CAPTCHA: "rain tonight" - it rains every night here, stop rubbing it in.

 

[King Aragorn]

A 9 hour film is sheer impossibility. LotR movies are based on a 1531 page book split into 3. The movie can't be 9 hours at one go.
Also, even Loki isn't really all that good of a villain. If you really noticed he's sort of pathetic, he gets his ass kicked left and right and never is that intimidating but Tom just has certain charisma around him.

 

[Zontar]

What I think the MCU needs is more villains behind the villains. Like a mastermind using one movie villains to further their own goals between Avenger movies and then getting into the fight when the team forms up.

On a side note, sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who actually likes Iron Man 3's twist. Could just be from hardcore fans actually remembering the Mandarin, but still...

 

[TekMoney]

Wow. That was a fantastically irritating video.

How exactly are they supposed to get the rights back? Spider-Man 3 made 890 million dollars at the box office. Sony thinks they can reach that amount again. So Marvel would have to pay in theory more than that. They just can't pay a billion dollars for that character's rights back, they just can't do it. And then they'd have to buy back all their other characters too.

 

[Raikas]

I just posted something similar in a DC-related thread, but I'm pretty anti-crossover when it comes to the comics, and the thought of having the movies and shows turn into one big crossover event just bores me.

Sure, Avengers was fun, but I have zero interest in seeming anyone try to recreate that over and over again. I actually thing the fact that the rights to different characters are in different hands is a good thing, because I don't particularly want to see some Avengers + X-men + god knows what else mega-event. I'd rather see them do interesting things with the individual characters (or teams) and let them develop on their own.

 

[Tom_green_day]

As I put in the comments to the video 10 minutes before finding this thread, they need to find someone who can write dialogue who isn't a thirteen year-old child. It's so goddamn annoying. Fire Joss Whedon (is that how you spell it?) too, as an added bonus. And maybe some variation in films between the characters. They're all the same film but if you changed the nouns.

 

[Caostotale]

Nerd idealism has its purposes, but this struck me as somewhat lunatic in its complete brushing-aside of economic reality. Seeing how the wider film business functions, shouldn't the extremely vocal minority of die-hard comic book fans be happy that their interests, as attempted by Marvel Studios' recent output, is possibly about as good as a realistic person could expect things to get, if not better? Need we invoke the Star Wars prequels, Star Trek reboots, recent Sherlock Holmes treatments, or countless other examples as proof that the Avengers-related movies are considerable outliers to the general trend these sorts of properties usually follow?

The way I see it, the loss of Spiderman, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, Galactus, and others are a quite acceptable price to pay if they continue to shoot for the same baseline of quality that the newer films have represented. I want to believe that they have limitless stores of interesting characters that haven't yet been used and that, over time, they could stand to finally introduce new characters to replace somewhat-obsolete go-tos like Thor. With that in mind, I'd sooner wish them to greenlight a frigging Darkhawk film than watch the studio put itself at destructive risk by dumping cash and time into some Faustian deal to get Wolverine or Human Torch back into one of the films.

 

[Parasondox]

Also also also... er... Marvel Studios? If you do get all the rights back, can we get a Planet Hulk or World War Hulk movie with the Illuminati involved at some point?

Nope?

Sorry to waste your time. *walks away*

 

[Ratty]

I'll agree that they really need to work on establishing more villains. But they seem to realize this if putting the name of the villain in the subtitle to the next Avengers movie is any indication.

Once they bring in Doctor Strange then Dormammu, Shuma-Gorath and Nightmare are gonna be available for them to. And they should all be awesome.

 

[Tono Makt]

Hrm.

He has a point that the villains just aren't memorable and just there to fill a plot. Loki is the only one with any real weight to him but he can't always carry the villain sword for Marvel's CU. Yes I know it's a wild fanboy dream to have Galactus messing the whole universe up and X-Men, Avengers and eveeeeeeeeryone... you know, once Marvel Studios gets the rights back, working together in a 3-4 hour (maybe 9) action movie, If Lord of the Rings can do it then why not Marvel?

Except... the Marvel movies haven't really been about the villain. Marvel comics haven't really been about the villain. That's more DC as DC creates Archetypes far more than it creates Characters. With Marvel, we're asked to invest more in who the character is, to be concerned with what it's like for Peter Parker to try to fight crime at night while still going to high school in the day. For how the relationship between Reed Richards and Susan Storm is. For how Bruce Banner fights to keep the Hulk from destroying everything. These relationships are often more important than who the Marvel villain of the day is.

DC, on the other hand, is much more based on the conflict between Good and Evil, between Hero and Villain. Because of that you need to have strong, well defined Villains to combat the strong, well defined Heroes. Not "Characters" - Heroes and Villains. They need to be characterized as Heroes and Villains to set up the conflict between them. (incidentally I think this is one of the reasons why Man of Steel failed while Batman Begins succeeded; BB spent the first half of the movie creating the Batman Archetype and defining its relationship to all of the main antagonists. MoS did a terrible job of building up the Superman Archetype while defining the main conflict as between Zod and Jor-El, not Kal-El Lots of failure in that movie.)

So no, I don't think Marvel needs better villains.

Captcha: wash whites separately

Heh... a fitting metaphor for my argument.

 

[King Aragorn]

I must disagree. While admittedly overarching themes and ideas are often centerpiece of many pieces of DC comic books, movies and the like, as they use the character as a proxy for bigger conflicts like Chaos vs Law, there is still heavy emphasis on characterization. Instead of it being about Peter Parker getting to high school, it's about Bruce Wayne trying to avoid falling into the deep end of being the entity being Batman over Bruce Wayne. Instead of Bruce Banner trying to suppress his inner demons it's about Superman trying to juggle all his life's acts, the reporter, lover and knight in shining armor. Unless I misunderstood you.

 

[sXeth]

Also, other then Iron Man, we've only seen the "origin story" outings for the Marvel cast. Which really should be focused around the character being introduced. The second wave should in theory begin to establish something more of a rogue's gallery as long as they aren't killing them off constantly.

Iron Man's rogue gallery is kind of horribly cheesy, and heavily loaded with stereotypical Cold War Russia/China bad guys, which may explain why they haven't done a lot with it. Also RDJ is the veteran, and probably their strongest actor, so they've had him run with more dramatic tones.

 

[King Aragorn]

If you really want to ''fix'' Marvel then make The Avengers, The Avengers and not Iron Man and friends. Iron-Man practically ran the entire thing just because everyone is all over RDJ and hell, he was being paid almost 5 times as other crew members.

 

[Parasondox]

If you really want to ''fix'' Marvel then make The Avengers, The Avengers and not Iron Man and friends. Iron-Man practically ran the entire thing just because everyone is all over RDJ and hell, he was being paid almost 5 times as other crew members.

Thank you!! No really, thank you cause I agree. I like the Avengers I really do, but every time I watch it I see it more as Iron Man and friends as if he was the team leader all of a sudden and there for got the most screen time. Some say it's because Robert Downey Jr. puts butts in the seats and draws a crowd but still.

"Oh look it's Iron Man that gets to put the bomb through the portal"
"You know Thor is just right there right? I mean, he can just put it through very easily"
"But Tony needs to learn about team work and taking risk for he fellow heroes"
"Sigh... Okay fine"

 

[Tono Makt]

I must disagree. While admittedly overarching themes and ideas are often centerpiece of many pieces of DC comic books, movies and the like, as they use the character as a proxy for bigger conflicts like Chaos vs Law, there is still heavy emphasis on characterization. Instead of it being about Peter Parker getting to high school, it's about Bruce Wayne trying to avoid falling into the deep end of being the entity being Batman over Bruce Wayne. Instead of Bruce Banner trying to suppress his inner demons it's about Superman trying to juggle all his life's acts, the reporter, lover and knight in shining armor. Unless I misunderstood you.

I think you're being a bit more forgiving of the characterization in DC than I am. Of course, I'm looking more at the movies than the comics, and DC has had more misses than hits with the movies (Green Lantern, Superman Returns/Man of Steel) and some of their older "hits" do not do much in the way of characterization (Batman, Batman Returns) but are superb in the creation of the Archetypes (Batman, Joker, Penguin, Catwoman).

I'm not saying that DC doesn't emphasize characterization but that their emphasis is on the Conflict between Archetypes first and foremost. As we're talking about Movies, who don't have 32+ pages a month to allow for characterization, the movies have to distill the essence of the comics into a 2-3 hour format. For Marvel, the characterization of the characters comes to the forefront because that's what Marvel focuses on. For DC, the Archetype comes to the forefront because that's what DC focuses on.

Bruce Wayne isn't as important as Batman and Clark Kent isn't as important as Superman, for example. That isn't to say that Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent aren't important - they are - but not to the same degree that Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner are compared to Captain America and the Hulk. Marvel focuses on making characters who are relatable to their readers, to make characters who their readers can see aspects of themselves. Geeky kids can see themselves in Peter Parker and Reed Richards. Kids who don't think they're smart and are surrounded by smart kids can see themselves in Johnny Storm. Most Marvel characters have things like that in them, to make them more Human. You read the comics because you want to see Peter Parker overcome something. You feel a bit of empathy with Peter, or Reed, or Scott Summers, or Ben Grimm, etc.

DC creates Archetypes that their readers want to be, want to aspire to. Readers may not be able to see themselves in Batman or Bruce Wayne, but they would love to be the Dark Knight. They can't fly or freeze things by blowing on them, but wouldn't it be awesome to be Superman? Readers might not see any aspect of themselves in Hal Jordan or Jon Steward or Kyle Rayner or Guy Gardner, but can you imagine having the power to create anything you want, limited only by your imagination? To be part of an interstellar group of Heroes, going out to save the Universe? You read the books and you want to be that Hero, you want to Be that person punching Darkseid into oblivion, to be that guy who saves the city but stays in the shadows.

Neither is a better approach (though I tend to enjoy Marvel more than DC as I've always had a soft spot for the X-Men, and nothing in DC hit me the same way that the X-Men did) but it does mean that Marvel Movies and DC Movies aren't going to be directly comparable even though they're both Comic Book Movies. That's where the idea of "Better Villains" isn't directly applicable to Marvel movies.

 

[Tono Makt]

If you really want to ''fix'' Marvel then make The Avengers, The Avengers and not Iron Man and friends. Iron-Man practically ran the entire thing just because everyone is all over RDJ and hell, he was being paid almost 5 times as other crew members.

Thank you!! No really, thank you cause I agree. I like the Avengers I really do, but every time I watch it I see it more as Iron Man and friends as if he was the team leader all of a sudden and there for got the most screen time. Some say it's because Robert Downey Jr. puts butts in the seats and draws a crowd but still.

"Oh look it's Iron Man that gets to put the bomb through the portal"
"You know Thor is just right there right? I mean, he can just put it through very easily"
"But Tony needs to learn about team work and taking risk for he fellow heroes"
"Sigh... Okay fine"

Agreed here too. I was quite disappointed at how Thor and Captain America were handled in The Avengers. Neither were characters I had any particular love for before their first movies, but after watching Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, I actually came to really like the characters in this movie universe. So seeing them so woefully wasted in the Avengers was extremely disappointing.

 

[Reed Spacer]

If it was me, I'd handle Marvel characters the Tim Burton way.
Get these over the top characters, and instead of trying to make them realistic, go for a full fairytale atmosphere. Establish that these superheroes exist because the world of that movie is not the real world.

And after you've done that, use those superheroes to tell a fairy tale that dwelves into parts of human consciousness... and makes you curious to see what will happen next.

I really don't think my approach would be popular these days, and more importantly, Hollywood wouldn't want to risk with it.

Yeah, but then it'd likely have a Danny Elfman soundtrack.

And then I'd have to kill someone.

 

[King Aragorn]

Uggh Tim Burton and his comic book movies....so many times I see people rally behind it because ''it's true to the comics'' or whatever when even he admits the movie was more of a pop culture phenomenon than a good movie. They were just so cheesy and fantastically hammy, and while I enjoyed it for that there is no way i'd prefer something like that over the Nolan trilogy which properly grounded those character in a realistic settings while respecting the source material and utilizing it to it's potential. Those heavy psychological themes were just worked way better in the Nolan trilogy than they were into Burton's movies, especially the second one which was a full out Burton film with the Batman brand to sell the thing.

 

[DrOswald]

If you really want to ''fix'' Marvel then make The Avengers, The Avengers and not Iron Man and friends. Iron-Man practically ran the entire thing just because everyone is all over RDJ and hell, he was being paid almost 5 times as other crew members.

Thank you!! No really, thank you cause I agree. I like the Avengers I really do, but every time I watch it I see it more as Iron Man and friends as if he was the team leader all of a sudden and there for got the most screen time. Some say it's because Robert Downey Jr. puts butts in the seats and draws a crowd but still.

"Oh look it's Iron Man that gets to put the bomb through the portal"
"You know Thor is just right there right? I mean, he can just put it through very easily"
"But Tony needs to learn about team work and taking risk for he fellow heroes"
"Sigh... Okay fine"

Agreed here too. I was quite disappointed at how Thor and Captain America were handled in The Avengers. Neither were characters I had any particular love for before their first movies, but after watching Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, I actually came to really like the characters in this movie universe. So seeing them so woefully wasted in the Avengers was extremely disappointing.

Did you know that Captain America actually gets more screen time than Iron Man in The Avengers? By about 30 seconds. But it doesn't feel like that because RDJ as Tony is such a powerful presence that you forget about everyone else.

In any case, I think the decision to focus on Iron Man's development was the correct decision. None of the other characters had an arc that could be usefully examined or developed in the confines of a super hero team up story that was also significant enough to thematically base a movie around.

Captain America in particular is an important one - we have only seen half of his origin story. Captain America: The First Avenger was how he got super powers and getting to know Mr Rogers. The second half of his origin story, how he came to be a modern hero, will define the character. And it has to come before anything else significant can be done with the character. Would you really have wanted that all important character arc competing for screen time with Iron Man punching Thor?

Edit: In fact, much of the cut content from The Avengers was stuff about Rogers adapting to the modern world. This was cut for several reasons, but chief among them was that it do anything useful with the character and those ideas would be better saved for later when it would fit thematically.