The Big Picture: Done With Dark

[LasseZ]

As much as I think that this grittiness thing has been slightly overdone on the Batman, I don't feel that trying to make Superheroes a little darker or trying to interpret their character in new directions and discussing new themes through the lense of an old comic book character such as the Batman is really such a bad thing. It's actually not that badly done in most recent superhero movies and I don't think that this new, darker style has taken the characters into a direction which makes them less enjoyable for a younger audience!

If you think about it, a lot of the recent movies about superheroes weren't actually THAT gritty or dark at all! Especially the Hulk, Spiderman or Iron Man movies, which were really fun to watch for both adults and youngsters, who don't (and don't have to) care about or understand the "deeper, (sometimes) ironic, intellectual points about it" to enjoy these movies. If they DO understand or care about these undertones that just enhances the experience for them.

I would have thought that you would be quite fond of this new direction superheroes have taken in the movies! After all, as you said, they make people who were probably pretty biased against the subject realize that "comics aren't just for kids anymore," thus gaining a larger audience for them and increasing their fan-base.

But maybe you are just bothered by your fascination with comics, which has apparently (and sadly enough) earned you a lot of bullying and alienation in your youth, suddenly moving into the focus of a main-stream audience, leaving you as just another fan, instead of a rather unique, but alienated expert on the subject (as was "indicated," happened to your knowledge of horror movies after the first Scream movie in your Scre4m review...)
Just some thoughts from my point of view.

EDIT: I just want to add that I don't think superheroes are supposed to be part of any intellectual discourse or anything. They are fantasies to escape to from time to time and don't have to be extraordinarily intelligent or "mature!"

 

[Moffman]

Good points BoB and well backed up with some well chosen films. The only super hero film the "dark and grity" has reeeaaaally worked on for me was the Dark Knight. I think it's because, let's face it, having your parents killed is pretty horrible/ dark and gritty. So Batman's able to stay in this Dark place because he came from such a dark place.
That's why I accept it any way

 

[rddj623]

Couldn't agree with you more Bob. And don't get me wrong I like Frank Miller and Todd McFarlane, as well as those gritty Punisher Max comics. I truly dig all that stuff. But that shouldn't be all encompassing of a genre, or time period. Variety is the spice of life, and every now and again I'd rather read Scott Pilgrim which is just plain fun, or Chew which is a sort of melding of stoic sarcastic hero with his gritty surrounding.

Let's get over grit being the be all and end all. I'm really excited for a space viking with a magic hammer!

 

[Tempest13]

Your NEVER too old to see the appeal of a Space Viking and his magic Hammer!

Or too young! As much as I love me some grimdark "mmmmmmmm" I also love simple experiences that appeal to all ages.

 

[TheRocketeer]

Or, in an acorn, Penance wasn't a better character than Speedball; he was exactly as silly and one-dimensional, but in the opposite direction.

To be honest, that may be a bit unfair to Speedball.

 

[tkioz]

What's wrong with Thor coming out in Australia first? 90% of movies come out in the US or Europe first, it's very very rare that Australia gets a major release first, until the last few years we were often forced to wait weeks or months before they came out here at all... so yeah... leave off, we're getting some love for a change.

 

[Pregnant Orc]

Aw crap, seriously? What did they look at the previous movies and say "Wow these were really good, but I think what would be even better is if audiences spent the entire thing watching pre-spidey Pete get the shit kicked out of him while making goo-goo eyes at MJ"?

It took me a few seconds before I got the last part. Never having been to fond of spidey my mind conjured up images of a different MJ, making it a bit weird.

 

[dkyros]

Its the being surrounded by darkness that makes people like my little pony.
Bob is surrounded by darkness.
Therefore...

Just a theory.

 

[PrinceofPersia]

Definately something to think about Bob. And I have to agree I am getting tired of all this grim and gritty = mature as well. I'm also tried of the zombie apocalypse, I much prefer the werewolf apocalypse.

 

[illiterate]

Agreed 100%.

My son and I have this trade paperback of a voltron comic which was made recently. There's nothing really kid unfriendly in the language or storyline, but the writer seemed to feel obliged to throw in a ton of cuss-words that really don't belong in the material. Generally I edit them out when I'm reading it, but I worry because he can read it too now.

 

[matrix3509]

Its kind of funny but Spawn was the reason I got into comic in the first place. I was a fucked up kid and I liked the dark tone, the violence and the T&A that came from 90's era comics. Now I can't stand 90% of 90's era comics most of all the the slop the Todd McFarlane farted out when building his empire of easily broken toys and grim and gritty comics.

Thats the thing though...you got into Spawn when you were just a kid, Spawn and all of its copycats were (allegedly) for grown-ups. Every single one of those comics were ostensibly markets to the mature audience, but the only group those comics appealed to were kids.

Comics of the 90s couldn't have missed their audience harder if they tried.

 

[GiantRaven]

Superhero comic books suck if you're a grown up. Period. Altogether. Regardless of whether they're gritty or not. If you're in your twenties or thirties you have no business reading about superpowered men in tights punching each other, no matter how the subject matter is treated.

Some of us do, but some of us are immature twats that need to grow up and get laid.

The rest of you, the ones with lives, jobs, girlfriends and who knows, maybe children, you're doing two terrible things.

a) Throwing your life away. There's much more interesting stuff out there you can read. Some of it is even in comic book form.

b) Screwing comic books up for everybody. The kids like their Spider-man, so let them have it until they grow up past it. And other creators would prefer to not be writing Spider-man, so maybe go buy their stuff and let's try to make comic books into a vaguely legitimate art form again beyond the half a dozen hippie idiots who can't draw or write doing autobiographical black and white fare because somebody read Maus once and thought it was a pretty good idea.

Eugh. Really? I can only presume you are trolling to the highest degree. To make just one comment, comic book fans are throwing their life away by reading and experiencing something that they personally enjoy? Are people not allowed to enjoy things you don't like? Along with that, the act of liking comic books does not forgo the act of liking other mediums of entertainment.

 

[92Sierra]

Thank you, Bob. This needed to be said.

 

[Professor Poopants]

Sandman was largely written in the 90s, targeted towards a grownup audience, and it was pretty good. It was a reboot and a vast improvement on the original. So there it is, all day, what it do?

Seriously, if you kids haven't read Sandman, you should.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandman_%28Vertigo%29

 

[Necromancer1991]

Hey hey hey, why are you going after Todd McFarlane, if anyone flooded the 90s with crappy comics it was Image Comics (Yes I'm aware that McFarlane worked for them, but he didn't put out garbage [Relatively speaking that is, I'm personally a fan of Spawn] like his fellow "writers" from Image), especially Rob Liefeld, if you even google his name the first thing to pop up in "The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings". Overall you make a good point on the "Gritty Remakes" thing, they gave us this gem after all...

Spoiler

P.s. Sorry if I'm like the 2nd or third guy to make this jreference

 

[Fortesque]

I was sceptical about Thor... But it was actually pretty Bad-Assed.

I saw it the day it came out.

(And yes, Suck to you America. Australia got it first!! Although thats probebly due to Hemsworth playing the main role.)

 

[notimeforlulz]

I live in Australia and I haven't seen Thor yet, but that's mostly because with the exception of the crappy front rows seats, the tickets are practically sold out. As to your point: the film is rated M over here, meaning 13 and up, so the equivalent of being rated teen. So yeah, maybe aimed at teens. But think about it from a business standpoint, they really really want 'The Avengers' to reap some f**king green, and having one of the set up films not being an adults' movie, good way to double your audience for the 'big picture'.

 

[mac88]

I totally agree with Bob on this one. I have a 7 year old son and I really enjoy the moments that we can both enjoy together. I am looking forward to taking him to see Thor.

 

[Tarkand]

I can't agree with Bob on this one.

In my opinion, while not every reboot needs to be 'gritty', that doesn't mean making a gritty reboot is a bad idea. The fact that many reboots are gritty doesn't change that at all. And of course, it has to fit the source material - if they ever make a live action Strawberry Shortcake movie, it shouldn't be 'gritted up'. But in some franchise's case, it really is the only way to go.

Batman is probably the best example.

Even if you look into the comic, Batman simply isn't a very cheerful figure at his core. He's a kid who saw his parents murdered in cold blood. He represent vengeance and justice. He's a vigilante. He uses fear and many underhanded tactics that are usually privy to bad guys, to get results. Heck, if you go far back enough, Batman even used guns in those early comic books.

Characters like Robin have been introduced to make Batman more likeable and more 'humane', both from a marketing and characterization point of view. No matter how many zany adventures he's been through and how many Saturday morning cartoon he shows up in, nothing will change the fact that Batman is a guy's who's extremely traumatic childhood has driven him to dress up in a costume and beat criminal up.

Now you take Batman to the movies, and you have the so far awesome 'Nolan-verse' movies, which are pretty much has dark and gritty as it gets. But here's the thing - if you look at the first cycle of movies...

The first two had Micheal Keaton and Tim Burton. And while I personally don't think they aged very well, those movies were dark. Gotham city was spooky, creepy, gothic. The bad guys were violent and evil. Batman was one of the first PG-13 movie I saw and it gave me nightmare , and I know I'm not the only one. Devito's penguin in the second one was horrific as well. You can say what you want about those movies, but they weren't exactly kid movies - even thought they were about a character marketed to kids.

And then come the Batman Forever. The silliness is cranked up to 11, and so are the colors. Robin is introduced. The bad guys are much more 'colorful' (Gone is the sleeky purple of the joker or the black & white of the penguin and catwoman... instead we get practically glow in the dark Riddlers and one of the worse looking Two Face ever) and are more crazy funny than crazy scary.

And then there's Batman & Robins, which goes even more over the top in both color, zaniness and wackiness... and at this point, the bad guys aren't scary anymore. More importantly, Batman isn't scary anymore. He stops being this man filled with pathos who's pain and hurt have turned him into a vigilante and becomes a bored millionaire dressed in a costume.

I know there's more wrong with the last 2 movies than just the tones and the theme... but it's a huge part of it. When my younger self walked out of Batman Forever, my first reaction was 'Where did the grittyness go?' - it is in my opinion a huge part of why those movies are now looked at with disdain. Yet... if we go with your arguments here Bob, those movies should have in fact been better or at least, in a better direction than the rather gothic Batman and Batman Return.

To go full circle with Thor... yes, he's a magic space viking with a hammer. But even the Marvel comic draws pretty heavily on the 'real world' Norse mythology - which are not a happy place. Odin is the gallow god after all. None of the norse gods are nice guys and most of them have plenty of angst and drama in their background. While a Thor movies doesn't need to be gritty to be good since the source material isn't very gritty at all to begin with(And I'm looking forward to seeing it!) - there's definitely room for somebody to think it could be gritty since not everyone is familiar with Thor the Marvel character (whose is a rather obscure hero compared to Superman or Spider-man), while I would think quite a few more people have at least a passing idea who Thor the Norse god of Thunder and War is.

If the movie were about the 'real world' Norse gods coming to 2011 Earth instead of the comic book norse gods, it certainly would be a lot grittier and meaner after all. I mean Thor is the god of war (among other things) of a people that was known for martial prowess, sailing, raiding, pillaging and raping (I know that's not all they did, I'm just talking about reputation here). Geez... could it be a gritty and violent movie? What do you think? And not every critic (or movie goer) is a comic book fan or not all that much about the Thor character in the first place. So no, it doesn't come as a surprise that people are surprised that the movie is kid friendly.