Comic Book Movies

[Mustang]

My sister just told me about it. R.I.P Chadwick. Wakanda forever. 2020 sucks man.

[Avaitor]

This is a real travesty. He was a highly talented and charismatic actor, and it seemed like he had the world ahead of him. The world is a better place for the life he brought into T'Challa, and the hope his turn brought to millions of aspiring fans.

And it's also disappointing to hear that the New Mutants couldn't even get Bob McLeod's name right. I was kind of interested in the movie at first, but it sounds like one last failed experiment from Fox's X-universe. Which is an unfortunate, but honestly pretty excepted, way to end a franchise. Deadpool notwithstanding.

[Peanutbutter]

Prayers out to Chadwick's family. Cancer blows.

[Foggle]

The news about Chadwick Boseman is absolutely devastating. I couldn't believe it was true when I read it. RIP to a true king.

[Dr. Insomniac]

New Mutants was pretty forgettable, all things considered. The only character who really stood out was Magik, and that's just because she was a bitch to all the other characters. In trying to move past the typical superhero film, it instead goes straight into 90s teen horror. Wouldn't have batted an eye if a young Skeet Ulrich or Sarah Michelle Gellar appeared. But all that does is remind me why the 90s teen horror genre died out.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So if not for the buyout, was Mr. Sinister meant to be the X-Men movies' answer to Thanos? Because at least 3 different movies referenced something called the "Essex Corporation" being in charge of the hospital in New Mutants and the orphanage in Deadpool 2, and they were also the guys who collected Logan's blood in the post-credits scene for Apocalypse. Pretty sure New Mutants implied they were in charge of the villains in Logan too. But that also sounds weird to use 4 whole movies to foreshadow Mr. Sinister of all villains. It's not like Kinberg had long-term plans for Apocalypse or the Phoenix, so why Sinister?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I imagine they didn't really have any longterm plan but seeded in that Easter Egg to guage if it drummed up any hype among the more hardcore fans. If it went over well and they weren't bought out by Disney then it may have indeed resulted in Mr. Sinister being the next big bad of the franchise.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Looking at all the projects that were either in development or at least thrown around before Fox was sold, they had to have some overarching plan for what they wanted to do. If only because I know Fox execs and their accountants looking at the box office would've loved to have their own version of the "everybody fights Thanos" scene in Endgame but with X-characters instead. They would've loved to have a scene in their climactic X-Men movie where the X-Men, X-Force, the New Mutants, a time-traveling Deadpool who brought Cable and Laura, Alpha Flight, a resurrected Logan because they dumped a ton of money at Hugh Jackman's house, and every other X-team they adapted all team up to fight Mr. Sinister or some other overarching villain who's been foreshadowed for the last dozen movies. All while a CGI Stan Lee appears.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

In that case they would've been better off saving Apocalypse as their Thanos rather than wasting him (and Oscar Isaac) in a one-off role.

[Dr. Insomniac]

No one's ever really gone.

[Daikun]

Wonder Woman 1984 will arrive on HBO Max the same day as its theatrical release with no additional cost.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Diana raping a guy in the new Wonder Woman movie was... a choice. Not a good choice at all, but it's a choice.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Having Steve Trevor come back in the body of some random guy who actually existed and presumably had his own life going on is such a strange choice in general. This is especially the case considering that the wishes were being granted by a magic stone that could magically conjure just about anything else into existence from thin air and re-write reality. One has to wonder why it couldn't just do the same for Steve Trevor.

I don't even really hate this movie on the whole. It could mostly pass for a cheesy standard hero flick from the early 2000's which I have an admitted soft spot for. But some of the writing decisions are just baffling. I'm also a bit underwhelmed with how they handled Maxwell Lord considering how much more more nuanced of a character he is in comics like JLI.

You see, this is exactly why this hype for DC movies taking the reigns from the MCU needs to calm the fucj down. I get that everyone hates Disney for understandable reasons, but MCU movies have mostly been successful on consistent quality from actual filmmakers who, contrary to popular belief, aren't soulless robots and actually do give a shit about making a good product most of the time. Marvel deserves it's fair share of criticism, but at this point it feels like more people do it as part of a current fad than as legitimate criticism with thought put behind it.

With DC branching out more it leads to more variety for sure, but that doesn't automatically make everything they turn out good, and to this day they still have far more duds than gems. And on that note, the notion that all Marvel movies are the same kind of needs to die, IMO.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, I don't know what they were doing with Max. He was obviously based off of a certain politician, which would have made this movie very odd if the election swung a different way, but then they suddenly give up on that in the final act just to make him sympathetic. Obviously, Diana can't do to Maxwell what she does to him in the comics without clashing with whatever tone the movie was going for, but I don't know. It's like when the first film revealed that Ares wasn't around and all the horrors of war were thanks to humanity making horrible decisions, but then Ares shows up anyway so they can have a big action scene. And this movie has tons of moments like that where they do one thing, but then backtrack on that and do another. Like when Diana out of nowhere reveals she can cast spells to turn things invisible just so her Invisible Jet can show up in the movie, but then she can fly on her own anyway, so that whole scene was pointless. Or all the buildup on her Kingdom Come suit that she only uses for a couple scenes. It's such a messy movie.

Anyway, I assume they'll bring back Pedro Pascal to do a JLI or a Checkmate show on HBO Max, because all these DC movies apparently need companion shows.

[Daikun]

WW84 did better than expected at the box office, even with the pandemic.

WW3 has been greenlit.