Comic Book Movies

[Spark Of Spirit]

Um yeah, it's impossible for Ragnarok to be worse than the first two Thor films.

Sure it can. It can be Iron Man 2.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Um yeah, it's impossible for Ragnarok to be worse than the first two Thor films.

Sure it can. It can be Iron Man 2.

It can be the Inhumans series premiere that inexplicably aired in theaters.

Speaking of disasters, I found a really good Twitter thread analyzing just why the DCEU failed and why they get such controversy compared to other superhero films.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Found an interesting video that attempts to place the entire MCU in chronological timeline order, including all of the shows and one-shots: https://youtu.be/y_tJffqZtFs

The list goes as far as Thor: Ragnarok, so The Punisher is not included here, though presumably it would go at the end of the list or somewhere close to it.

I personally couldn't care less about AOS or Inhumans, but it's still interesting to see a list that takes those shows into account as well in regard to the timeline.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I found out Chinese theaters used this as the poster for Justice League.

Speaking of, I watched the movie earlier today. And while it wasn't BvS bad, it was still trash. Almost none of the characters are handled well. Batman's still an idiot like he was in his last movie. Steppenwolf has no personality even compared to the worst MCU villains. But Barry. God, I hated Barry. I don't know if it was Snyder or Whedon, but they gave him awful quips like "my stomach is a black hole, a snack hole!" while contributing nothing to the rest of the team. Not even sure why they made him Barry since he acted more like Bart/Impulse instead. The plot reeks so much of the first Avengers movie that I think you could play clips of both movies together and they'd be mirrors. Plus, the Frankenstein-nature of the film means there's so much whiplash. Immediately after a grisly battle between Parademons and Amazons, there's a goofy newsclip of a housewife ranting about her husband fucking an alien. Some scenes even appear to be missing, like Cyborg spontaneously joining the team and Batman somehow calculating how to resurrect Clark without prior tests.

On the other hand, and even with all the bad CGI messing up his mouth, I think Henry Cavill finally found some footing in his Superman portrayal. He finally gets to act optimistic and friendly instead of bored and done with everything. And I guess the Chad Aquaman played by Khal Drogo was the least annoying of the new superhero recruits.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I like to nickname this movie as Justice League: Crisis of Infinite Identities.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

While I generally have mixed opinions on TCVH's videos, this one was pretty cathartic for me: https://youtu.be/PraUjsClgDM

It'd be a great response to that blatantly misinformed bit of SEW's video about what makes a hero feel real wherein he spends a good chunk of it down-talking western superheroes while making it incredibly obvious that he's never picked up an actual comic book in his life. I don't even think that he read Watchmen, given how he seems to miss the entire point of Dr. Manhattan's character. I actually do enjoy a lot of SEW's content, but seriously, that video was trash.

[Dr. Insomniac]

The video makes good points, but I don't really like that "The Dark Knight Returns was made to peel off Adam West's mark on Batman" argument. Since I'd argue that Batman comics had already drifted away from the 60s series via Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams, and that TDKR wasn't the only Batman comic responsible for the character's shift in tone.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I don't believe that he specifically made the point that TDKR was responsible for causing a shift in tone in the comics, but rather that it was responsible for inspiring the shift in tone in media adaptations of Batman.

Particularly, I like how he points out that Bruce from TDKR is not representative of the character as he normally is. Because so many people read that story first some people tend to mistake that for his character when the whole point of that story is to show how cynical and jaded he has become toward the rest of the world over time causing him to somewhat skew his morals (and even then he's far from a murdering psychopath like in Snyder's version of the character).

[Avaitor]

I decided to give Ragnarok another shot. Part of my distaste for the film came from a bad attitude that I had that day, which turned into a depressive episode that I'm still overcoming.

I admit, Waititi's humor still isn't 100% my favorite, and I particularly didn't care for his character. But I don't think Homecoming held onto the title of being my favorite solo MCU film for long. This has what I might have to consider the franchise's most exciting fight scenes and best score, as well as might be the prettiest film of theirs. The emotional weight that I felt was missing from Peter in Homecoming is present in the core characters, which not only gives Hulk and Banner some of his best stuff since the first Avengers, but makes me eagerly excited to see Valkyrie's return. Hela didn't leave as much of an impression as I was hoping for, but that's a problem with recent super hero movies in general, and to be fair, Cate Blanchett's acting has always rubbed me the wrong way.

Everything else more or less works for another strong addition to the MCU, with Phase 3 quickly shaping up to be the best Phase.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Somebody get this man a shield!

Now to officially start playing the game of predicting which characters Marvel might have the balls to kill off this time.

[Peanutbutter]

Trailer looks great, be nice if they have the Netflix heroes show up.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Honestly, while that idea used to excite me, it may actually be for the best to keep The Defenders out of it. The movie is already crowded enough as it is with the Guardians involved, and the difference in tone between the movies and the Netflix shows is just too different for them to really mesh well together. I mean on the one hand seeing The Punisher and Rocket Raccoon mow down a bunch of aliens together would be all kinds of stupidly awesome. But it also would be rather odd considering that one character is meant to be a serious representation of the horrors caused to troops by PTSD from their time spent at war, while the other is supposed to be a fun cartoon character to entertain kids and make their parents chuckle with a bit of hidden adult humor every now and then. Not exactly the kinds of messages you want to be mixing up for a casual moviegoing audience.

Perhaps a brief cameo from the Netflix characters would be a neat little nod to fans, though. But, that's really about as far as it should go, IMO.

[Dr. Insomniac]

[Dr. Insomniac]

So the odds of Disney/Marvel getting back the X-Men and Fantastic Four rights are growing.

[Daikun]

How do they forget Cameron's work on the first two Terminator movies and Aliens. 

Also, the fact that he apparently wants to make a Battle Angel Alita live-action movie makes him a-ok in my book (I haven't even read much of BAA, but I do know that it is a great series).

It's time...